No.92 Write until you're drained + New ZK Course!
No. 92 • 1/20/2023
Please excuse last week's missed email. Was both A. covered in mud and B. getting engaged! Yup. Both at the same time.
Registration for Building a Zettelkasten for Writing (Cohort 3) is LIVE
So stoked for cohort three of this 4-week online class. This time around I'm going all in on writing as the primary focus. In addition to the core course, I will be dropping as much intel on how I get things done in the writing department as is possible. If you're down with note, note-taking, and wanting to turn all that shiz into writing, hit me up or sign up below:
Two heavy motivators for my writing
I've noticed that my impulse to write about a subject, and write about it at length, over time, seems to be motivated by two primary impulses:
- Exhaust a topic
- Have an idea picked up by other people
The first reason was illuminated for me by a friend who was given some wisdom by the late, experimental poet, Akilah Oliver. Don't worry about writing (or drawing, painting, creating, etc) reams of similarly styled pieces covering similar subjects. Artists often need to drain the cistern, exhaust the well of inspiration before they can move on. So, if you feel as if you've been working on the same subject for years, just remember: write it out of you until you've got nothing more to say. For those of you familiar with my writing, you've seen me do this with both spirits/folk catholicism and zettelkasten/PKM.
The second reason I spend so much time on one subject over the course of years is because, somewhere in the depths of my psyche, I'm waiting for someone else to take up the mantel. Once I feel an idea or concept has been fully integrated and others have grabbed the torch, only then will I take a step back and move on. So, if you're tired of me writing about "the self" or "folgezettel" just start doing it better than me.
I'm against the term "antilibrary"
I'm not into the term "antilibrary," which has recently gained traction in the PKM scene.
According to Lebanese-American essayist, and those who have taken up the good cause, an antilibrary is a library of books that you haven't read as opposed to a library containing only books you have read (?).
Here's the thing a library is simply a collection of books. Read or unread.
According to Oxford Languages, the word "library" refers to "a building or room containing collections of books, periodicals, and sometimes films and recorded music for people to read, borrow, or refer to." Nowhere in this definition (or any other) does "library" connote "books that have already been read." Even the phrase "private library"—as in "Bob has a pretty sweet private library"—doesn't suggest only books that have been previously consumed. A library is simply a collection of books.
Let's not over-complicate it.
Don't @ teachers about the cost of their online courses
Teaching is one of the most important forms of labor a person can do. Teachers are as close as we get to "living saints" in this non-mystical dystopia.
Online teachers who run their own courses work hundreds of unpaid hours ideating, developing, and physically creating course content. And, those who run their own online school do so without the luxury of institutional backing. Their workload is, at least, tripled, becoming full-time marketers, enrollment coordinators, and a one-person, fully functioning admin dept. This level of personal involvement should be compensated, and robustly so.
Get ready for 24 months of Republicans on the mic
The Reps are gonna come haaawwwwwwwd for the Dems these next two years. Reps need to both reclaim their (numeric minority) status and redirect the narrative away from the Trump stain. No idea how Dems are gonna deflect and redirect, but I assume they'll lean into abortion, and then submerge that in a sea of loosely defied statements on "freedom." Reps are in a position (it seems) to hammer home "ground floor" issues (like money, etc). Dems can only run with "Reps love Trump" and hope that works. I hope it does too.
Barnes and Noble comin' in hawt
Barnes and Noble is booming right now. Why? Cuz humanity:
"The turnaround has delivered remarkable results. Barnes & Noble opened 16 new bookstores in 2022, and now will double that pace of openings in 2023. In a year of collapsing digital platforms, this 136-year-old purveyor of print media is enjoying boom times."
The surge is due largely in part to James Daunt, the new CEO of the company who has been busy stripping the store of its lowest common denominator approach to selling books, and putting the power in the hands of employee interests.
"He asked employees in the outlets to take every book off the shelf, and re-evaluate whether it should stay. Every section of the store needed to be refreshed and made appealing."
You know how great it is when you walk into a local bookstore with cool staff and all the books on the table are cool and there's no way you could ever read so many cool books so you buy three and put them in your "antilibrary?" That's what B&N is looking to feel like.
AI as PA vs AI as just more capitalism
There are two things I'm excited about with regards to AI and LLMs:
- I'm psyched to see what a creative arts world will look (but mostly feel) like when writers function more as prompters and facilitators (a la large-scale, high-concept visual artists who give instructions but don't actually build their own works)
- I'm interested to see how creators will validate their ego—how reputation and credibility will be valued—when artists take a step back behind the scenes. We're already seeing the way
The first sounds like a dream come true for someone like me who has outlined and roughed out far more writing projects than I could ever complete (without being a recluse with no social or intimacy life), and who could really use a personal assistant to see these things come to life.
The second sounds like artist-as-CEO, which is exactly where we've been heading full bore once social media got in the mix, and which will no doubt ramp up with capitalist-inspired AI programs.
If interested, Zeneca does a really great job of showing exactly how an AI-assisted creative world might look. Too many examples to list here, so check the link:
Tech is friction
Tech is friction. It fabricates an always-out-of-reach goal that is supposedly what we've always wanted (it isn't), invents the means by which to achieve said goal, comes up short (see moving goal post above), calls this coming up short "in the future we'll finally be able to...," and tries again. All the while, people who have ensconced themselves within the tech-o-sphere by becoming fully dependent on its infrastructure are constantly having to accommodate glitches, breakdowns, outages, and "we haven't gotten there yet."
"Someday we'll be better off" is a poor metric for progress. Thich Nhat Hanh told us this so many years ago.
Rando Pone
And, that's that! See ya next week.
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