a subcreator's field notes, 7 - Time for a Change
A couple of quotes have been knocking around in my mind; incidentally, I think both are from Jesuits, but that has no practical bearing on their content.
The first, from Balthasar Gracian: "A prudent silence is the sacred vessel of wisdom."
And the second, from Raimon Panikkar: "Anything that is not the fruit of our experience is dead conceptualism. Philosophical thinking is not an algebra of concepts."
The context for the first is an admonition, in the collected sayings of Gracian, to keep quiet about what one is working on. That is the opposite of the original idea behind this newsletter, but it's apposite to where, I think, I'm going with it next.
Turiya is developing, behind the scenes. (What scenes?) But I can no more share that process than I can share a half-finished sculpture. That is, I want to think and talk about it, but I also cannot think and talk about it, if I'm doing so too explicitly. This newsletter was supposed to provide energy for my fiction writing, but instead it's straining it in some strange way. I can't exactly pin it down.
I don't want to stop writing. But the shape of this thing is going to change.
For one, I've been influenced in more ways than one by some writers on Substack whose work I admire — Paul Kingsnorth's The Abbey of Misrule, especially his series of essays on "The Tale of the Machine", and Luke Burgis, author of Wanting and the newsletter Anti-Mimetic. Both are writing deep essays that engage at length with the rot at the heart of the modern world, and do so from an intimate locus of personal experience.
Which I suppose brings us around to Panikkar's quote, and my idea for the newsletter moving forward, which boils down to a few operational notes.
The first is, I'm going to try switching over to Substack.
Second, I'm going to start offering a subscription option, but nothing is going behind a paywall just yet. It's mostly an exercise in valuing my creative writing, a prospect that still fills me with discomfort.
Third, I'm going to experiment with publishing longer pieces, less often. Right now the plan is to publish on a monthly basis, but I may not have a set schedule — rather than hastily writing something because it's been a week, I would like to create room for more thoughtful work to emerge organically.
The name of this might change, too, to reflect whatever change occurs in its nature.
△AR