The above image was made with stable diffusion using the prompt 'abstract painting of blue people sitting around a campfire.'
France is on fire. 30 people were shot at a party in Baltimore. Air travel this past week was dicey. None of these things have anything to do with me. I've given them little thought, preferring instead to focus on writing.
Today I sent out the first installment of my new Substack newsletter. Titled Context Basics, the piece considers assumptions, freedom, the control regime, and the power of stories. These are all ideas that I've blogged about extensively. I just put them together and highlighted some of their most important aspects.
Writing in this new format, I've been thinking about all of the great Substacks I've read and worrying that my work isn't good enough. Having written professionally for many years, this worry is unexpected. Normally I write confidently, even when I'm wrong. But for some reason with this project, I'm feeling a little intimidated by what I'm trying to do.
Part of it might be that I don't take myself seriously enough. I had the opposite problem when I was younger and that definitely negatively impacted my writing. I've long since established a more neutral voice. More neutral and more tentative. If the last few years have taught me anything, it's that I'm often mistaken. This is good for writing in general, but bad for confidence.
The stuff I plan to write about in my newsletter is a big deal and I'm not an authority on any of it. I'm just media literate and opinionated. My perspective has a place in public discourse, but it's been pretty fringe until recently. Now, for a variety of reasons, that fringe has become far more popular.
People like Whitney Webb, Jimmy Dore, and RFK jr are legitimizing public conversations that challenge the status quo. These and other celebrities are creating the cultural space for better alternative media to emerge. The alternative media blogsphere where I operate is somewhere in this space.
Getting honest, I'm pretty sure my work will hold up to scrutiny and go over alright. The thing I'm getting hung up on is that this newsletter project feels unusually important. Maybe it's because I'm trying to boil years of work down to its most relevant essence. It turns out that's not super easy.
I keep intending to make article outlines but I hate making outlines. I'd rather haphazardly grab at all of the ideas floating around in my head, cobbling what I can into passable narrative. I have a good sense of my next step, and a vague sense of the step after that. Hopefully that's enough.
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