Signing off 👋 (Across the Sundering Seas 2020 #26)
Hello, readers,
This is the final issue of Across the Sundering Seas—a mostly-weekly-up-till-now newsletter about the things I’ve been reading and thinking about.
So let’s cut to the chase: I’m wrapping up the newsletter (at least for now) because, as much as I enjoy writing it, I’m exhausted and having this on my list of things to do is proving to be more of a burden than a joy. Sometimes, it’s worth pressing on anyway. Sometimes, it’s worth cutting things instead. After considering it for a bit, I’ve decided to put this in the cut pile, so that I can focus on some other things.
At the top of that list of other things is my family. We’ve had a rough 2020, and those of you who’ve followed my writing know this isn’t our first challenging year recently. This year, my wife’s bout with COVID in March not only hit us with the kind of toll you’d expect; it also hit us in a few ways we didn’t expect. In particular, our kids are clearly still dealing with repercussions from their experience of my wife’s sickness in some really profound ways.
Stack that on top of my desire to someday actually ship the app I’m working on, the mental and temporal demands of my other ongoing intellectual project, the generally increased busyness that comes with having kids who have their own activities, the fact that I’m remembering how much I love music—playing it and composing it both—and even the very studies that I have been commenting on in this space… it’s enough without feeling the need to spend anywhere between one and five hours every week writing this newsletter. Doubly so because I have found that it’s coming down a tradeoff between this newsletter and those essays I keep saying I want to write.
At least for now, then, it’s time for me to sign off and focus more on those other things. My writing in this mode will live at my website, and I’ll shortly migrate all of the content to live somewhere on that site (possibly on a subdomain).
Thank you all, in earnest, for reading along with me the last 18 months, and even more for responding. Your comments, questions, and proddings-to-think-harder have made this a better newsletter and made me a better thinking. You’re always welcome to send me a note at hello@chriskrycho.com!