slow thinking
An old director of mine once categorized himself as a slow-thinker: someone who does their best when they’ve had the time and space to think through their thoughts and ideas.
that’s me.
I’ve always enjoyed writing and documenting. The act of organizing thoughts, concepts, and ideas is appealing to someone who has trouble keeping up in real-time. Anyone who’s worked with me can attest that I do my best work before and after a meeting — when I’m able to write, write, write. I may not say much in the moment, but I’m well-prepared and ready to remember.
In my experience, people have a hard time remembering.
writing as memory
Writing and photographing is, more than anything, a good way for me to memorialize a moment in time when days, weeks, months, and years go by. I still read my old newsletter entries; my Letterboxd reviews; my college blog and travel photologues and my work confluence documents, which I refined over and over again until every thought spread like butter. I rewatch the videos I made when I was 15, playing TF2 on a community server with fifty people I would never meet in real life.
When I’m deep in the forest, I like to look back and find the markings I left behind.
self-publishing
I taught a workshop last year about the idea of self-publishing — of “making public.” Initially referring to physical materials and literal “posts” or bulletin boards, the act of posting and publishing was co-opted by technology to refer to creating digital content, to make a text or image public on some larger feed like Instagram or Twitter.
In traditional media, we were limited by physical materials, in limited quantities, that were passed along through distributors. Now you can publish anything, anywhere, at any time on the internet and have a link to share immediately.
With so many voices, our relationship to a published work, to a single post, starts to lose its value in relation to everything around it. The platforms start to curate, and we as “creators” start to second-guess ourselves.
What is worth sharing, in the eye of the system? Will people like my post, will they interact with it, will they see it? Will it be shared by the algorithm? Will my friends be online to see what I've posted? Who am I posting for?
this year
This year, I guess, is the return of the blog. Specifically, year of the blog. I appreciate our arrival back at the small internet, or the dark forest as some like to call it. A harkening back to the days of plastering a poster up on the community bulletin board.
We’re making posts, but we’re doing it together, and holding ourselves accountable with grace and generosity. We’re posting with care and commitment, as Paul would say.
So far, I’ve found that I’ve had more thoughts to share than less, which is a good problem to have. Let’s continue that trend.