[Seth Says] Ready, Set, Godot!
Wait for it...
Although if you're waiting for actionable advice, go do something.
INDEPENDENT THOUGHT
Confession time: Thought Leadership is a style of writing I enjoy doing for clients, but do enough of for clients that I cannot really enjoy doing it for myself. (at least not unpaid, and as I said to a friend previously, I can't afford me.)
This makes it difficult for me to motivate myself towards the kinds of posts/emails/etc. that fill LinkedIn and coach/guru posts on Facebook, which focus on what I like to call "the 3 Ealths": Health, Wealth, and RelationshipsSoYouDon'tHaveToBeByYoursealth. (I never said my naming schemes were good.)(They're Grrrrrrreat.)
Because studies show that actionable advice on these topics is what people are most likely to want to consume, this is the type of content that everyone is producing, and places where there is a ceaseless onslaught of that type of content (e.g. anywhere lots of Influencers congregate online) can become exhausting. So while I do truly love finding the best ways to explain other people's messages and ideas on the clock, on my own time I do very little Thought Leadership.
I was going to say I might prefer Thought Followship, but I think that's just another word for a cult. So: Independent thought, trying to navigate the space between.
Wait for it...
THE SPACE BETWEEN
A friend recently posted an article he had come across about the fuzzy distinction between facts and opinions, suggesting that perhaps the distinction has become sufficiently fuzzy that we would be better served to focus on the distinction between normative and descriptive claims (read: how it oughtta be vs. how it do be)(do be do be do). It's an idea that I'm quite sympathetic to, in no small part because trying to find a shared view of "reality" these days to which facts may be tethered can be surprisingly difficult.
It also got me thinking about how I approach columns (how ionic). Not all of them; some of them are just pedestrian slice of life silliness. But with the more political ones, I'm oft trying to navigate that space between -- frequently not actively making an argument for how things ought to be, but describing things as they are in such a way that I might hope the reader could come to a minimum normative conclusion along the lines of "Perhaps the way things are is not the way things oughtta be"
Okay, I think this frog is dead now.
Wait for it...
CRUNCHY RAW UNBONED REAL DEAD FROG
(I guess arguably it's also sausage being made! Mmmmm, frog sausage, now with 74% more mixed metaphors!)
Anyway, all of this leads into my latest column, which is about the current situation in Gaza. Because everything seems so hopeless, somehow the idea of Waiting For Godot got into my head. So I wrote up a modern version of it, and not to brag, but Debbie said, "It definitely gave me the same sense of bleak despair that Beckett does," which is sort of like a recommendation if you squint hard enough.
("And futility, write down that I said futility!" --I am reporting this dutifully)(duty duty do)
This is one of those high-concept columns that I am especially proud of even though it's potentially a bit too esoteric. But really, what am I if not a bit too esoteric? ("A Bit Too Esoteric" would also be a fine alternate name for this newsletter.)
Wait for it...
WAIT FOR IT
And here it is:
Waiting For Ceasefire - a tragicomedy in one act
I suspect that at least some of you will quite appreciate this one.
This concludes our broadcast day. We thank you for flying this newsletter, rated by experts as "still safer to fly on than a Boeing airplane", we'll be back in two weeks with another column, and we have too much fun referring to ourselves in the plural.
The Royal Wheeeeeeeeeeee,
Seth