Hi friend,
It’s been three weeks since I last sent once of these newsletters, which means I really ought to Venmo my friend Kelsey $150.
Around September 2023, I started sending these weekly, largely because of the influence of Kelsey’s “system” where you ask a friend to use financial pressure plus social pressure to hold you accountable to the goals that, theoretically, you yourself want to accomplish. If I don’t send one of my weekly newsletters and I didn’t plan ahead for that, I owe my friend $50. This system has worked beautifully and for about two years I’ve missed almost no weeks of blogs and certainly not three weeks in a row.
I can’t blame my current lull in sending on the ennui I mentioned a few weeks ago. I’m actually feeling pretty great (as great as one can with the news being *waves hands* the way it is) and have had a lot of really nice things happening that I’m grateful for. I’ve enjoyed working more closely with my friend Larry on some astrology projects and Kate came to stay with me for a little over a week. I’ve been somewhere between hitting a stride at the day job and enjoying a healthy distance from it, Philly is being all the things that I love about Philly, and my family is doing well. It’s all you can ask for, really.
What it comes down to is that I felt pretty happy about my last blog and in that excitement I let my routines slip. I fell a little behind and wasn’t happy enough with the next blog to send it, so I decided I’d rather wait a week and get it “good enough”. Then it didn’t get good enough. And then another week passed and I didn’t even put all that much effort in to make it better. And now we’re here.
What exactly is the point of this email? I feel better when I’m reading widely and when I’m squeezing little bits of mess out of my brain to be reworked into thoughts. Even though I have been feeling good and have specifically been feeling pretty pleased with the social aspects of my life, I’ve missed this exercise. I didn’t want to just send an email that amounted to: “well… here you go.” but maybe that’s all I’m trying to say. Here you go! I’m still here lol — I can promise that we’re back at it going forward, because I actually do have that one blog just about ready for next week. The reason I instead decided to send this sort of navel-gazey meandering thing is because I’m gonna shift up the structure of things going forward.
You might call this a return to form, or at least a settling into the form that’s kind of standard for newsletters these days. Hopefully my version of it will feel like… my version of it…
Each Sunday I’m going to send a shorter email that is framed around some kind of “topic”—this is vague, but because I’m thinking we might do “family” one week and “flightless birds” another and “love” another. Not sure what to call that approach.
These posts will be something like a devotional (maybe, idk, I have never actually used one…) or something like a weekly study group—some fodder for reflection. Selfishly, I want the constraints that come with this as a way to focus my reading and research a little bit. Hopefully less selfishly, I think it could start some fun discussions between us and at least recreate some of the community that comes from a Bible study without the moral haranguing that usually also comes with it.
The Sunday emails will go to paying subscribers, though I’m going to turn “Paid” on for everyone for two months while I smooth out this shift. If you’ve already paid, this’ll just act as some comp months and anything you’ve paid for will continue when the comp period ends. The weekly (Wednesday-ish) emails will continue, though hopefully those will also evolve through some experimentation over the year.
All that to say: thank you for being here, and thank you for coming along for the ride, especially as it’s had some fits and starts lately. I’ve learned a lot writing here and have a lot of gratitude for you.
Stay well,
Fred
Always a lot of credit goes to the people who have been my teachers, both directly and through their freely shared knowledge, and so many books.