Four Footnotes & A Century

I write, You (sometimes) read. Are we (both) better off?

Writing Streak

If you’d challenged me 11 months ago to write 100 blog posts, I would have politely declined & walked away. Why would I do that? What would I have to say?

The more I write, the more I realize that writing is mostly curatorial — it’s about reading, reflecting & listening rather than creating.

Good writers borrow, great writers steal.

T S Eliot

Eliot was not, of course, encouraging plagiarism. His main point was to challenge the naive idealisation of the creative process: in arts, as much as in science, each new thinker & writer builds on the work of those who have come before.

I start each day staring at an empty page (screen actually). Writing something, even writing something well, teaches you really nothing about how to write the next thing. You’re always starting over. This is what I love about writing.

David Perell coined the term personal monopoly to describe our unique intersection of skills, interests, and personality traits — when we write we create useful digital real estate — or at least this is a delusion I harbor.

Most new ideas & inventions are pretty bland on their own. But when you mix several of them together, you can get magic. Plastic is great. Electronics are neat. Metal is special. But mix them together in the right way & you get an iPhone, which is pure magic. It’s ideas combining, joining & merging that create the modern world.

Morgan Housel

That’s how I see this blog. I don’t have original thoughts. If you look closely, I’m combining ideas (which I like) from other people — all the time.

People I don’t know reach out with ideas, information, or to simply express gratitude. Connections are made, friendships begin, doors open. Putting myself out there increases the chances of serendipity.

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Act II, Scene 1 — Own Company

I met Tom Fishburne last year, literally days after I started blogging — I asked him how he made the leap from a Marketing career (after a Harvard MBA) to drawing cartoons fulltime. He showed me what he had drawn in the week after he left his salaried job to focus on Marketoonist. Seemed like a divine omen to me as I was preparing to make the leap to become a rookie writer.

There is a point on a runway during takeoff that a plane reaches V1 speed. Once it passes V1 it has reached the point of no return. The point where the take off cannot be aborted. The plane has to take off. Or crash.

We wait for the right time without ever knowing how to define ‘right’. The simple truth is that there is never a right time. The stars don’t all suddenly line up in one neat little row to show us the way. On the other hand, there is never a wrong time either.

It’s called a leap of faith for a reason. It’s a risk. And the outcome is far from certain. And that is why we tend to put off these life-changing decisions.

So maybe the answer is to create our own false V1 markers on the runway.

Set it. Stick to it. And then say ‘what the hell’ & jump.

It’s easy to imagine that sudden leaps are how we make an impact. This is blog post #100 (give or take). When did the leap happen? It wasn’t an external leap. The first blog posts were read by fewer than a dozen people. It was an internal one. The decision to be a writer. And then redeciding, each week, not to stop.

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How Many Words Must …

Illustration: Zoe Si, New Yorker cartoonist

Here’s the pitch I made (to myself) & the first readers of this blog: As a newly minted (semi-)retiree, I'll be under-employed & will have to share the extra hours with my (nervous) wife. I know I’m not the kind of person readers see as a typical writer. I didn’t study Literature nor did I do Writing classes. OTOH I don't wait for people to tell me what to do; I go wherever my curiosity takes me. I get things done; I love breaking new ground - or more pertinently - staring at a blank screen. I have an (un-)proven track record - of turning caffeine input into written output. Finally, I am only 58 but I have the wisdom of a 59-year old. Won’t you give me a chance? 

The pitch appears to have worked or maybe Lady Luck decided to smile on me — a few hundred readers read the blog now — it’s unusual for a meandering weekly blog to have a ~60% open rate (the average for weekly blogs is 17%) so I deeply appreciate how you’ve ritualized your bi-weekly dose of jabberwocky.

Who can say if the thoughts you have in your mind as you read these words are the same thoughts I had in my mind as I typed them? We are different, you & I, and the qualia of our consciousnesses are as divergent as two stars at the ends of the universe.
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And yet, whatever has been lost in translation in the long journey of my thoughts through the maze of civilization to your mind, I think you do understand me. Our minds managed to touch, if but briefly & imperfectly.
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Does the thought not make the universe seem just a bit kinder, a bit brighter, a bit warmer and more human?
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We live for such miracles.
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Ken Liu, The Paper Menagerie

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Fan Mail

Some of you occasionally encourage me to write an easy to read novel & while I appreciate your confidence in my abilities; I can only read, write & fly kites at the moment. A Light Novel —  Chaz Hutton did a nice cover illustration for me & other wannabe writers. Maybe someday in the distant future.

If you like my writing, please spread the word to one other reader who might enjoy reading my blog. If you don’t, here are alternate reading suggestions.¹

Now, what is it about footnotes?²

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Favourite Five

If you feel nostalgic or joined the party late, here are the posts I enjoyed writing the most:

The Habits of White Rabbits

Culture Eats Muffins for Breakfast

Oranges, Opera Houses & Oh.... White Rabbits

Money, Money, Money....

Cloudy with a chance of cupcakes

1. If you want to read other newsletters, here's One Newsletter I Always Make Time to Read from Inbox Collective. OTOH, what I really want is a list along the lines of One Newsletter I'm Glad I No Longer Read.

2. Did you know that the use of footnotes goes back over 2000 years? When Zenodotus, the first head of the library of Alexandria, was collating Homer’s poems he wanted to draw attention to the lines that had been added, deleted or otherwise meddled with by others. He used a short dash called an obelus, from the Greek word for roasting spit. The modern obelus looks even more like a spit, or indeed a dagger (†), which is how it is commonly known. We have another Alexandrian librarian, Aristophanes, to thank for the main star of the footnote family, the asterisk (*), which shares its etymological origins with asteroids & astronomy. The asterisk & obelus are still the primary symbols used for footnotes today. They even inspired the names of a certain comic series about a small Gaul and his rotund friend.