If you’ve been following along, I’ve been writing about how these last few days and/or weeks (hard to tell time in the age of COVID) have been a challenge in terms of focus and writing. Yesterday and this morning, that trend continues, and I’m still in a list making mode of sorts.
Site Revamp
I’ve made no secret about some of my discomfort with this site. It’s a love/hate type of thing. Practicing writing was and is a necessary outlet for me. I still need to get better at it (specifically editing), but I feel I’ve found my style and voice. I’ve shared a lot. Whether or not it was necessary is debatable, but it felt like I needed to get more comfortable with being publicly vulnerable (it’s easy to do in a relationship, a little harder to do when a future relationship or job could be on the line simply because someone googled you). For me it was also about building authenticity. I’m not done that journey, but I think I’m almost ready to shift gears a bit. I’ve been considering making a significant overhaul to the site – taking down some of the personal stories and grievances or at the very least re-framing them in a way that speaks to a broader concept. It’s a lot of work, and I have a few other things I’m working on (like finding a job, etc.). I guess all I can say is stay tuned. I know myself well enough to say that this is aspirational and may never get done.
Connecting Dots
The other day, the New York Times published a piece on Cameo – a gig economy type of site for celebrities. You can have Chuck Norris deliver a personal video message for $300. For a while now, I’ve felt like our economy is broken. The gig economy shows that people are tired of working for large corporations and speaks to our very strong desire to have agency over our life and our time. Yesterday I mentioned an article that suggests a possible shift in our view of productivity. There’s a lot of economic literature out there on the concept of a base living wage (essentially ensuring everyone gets at least $x as a living expense). On the side, I read about things like B corporations – companies that legally bind themselves to sustainable business practices (fair wages, environmental policies). I believe there is a better and kinder way to do business. As the personal brand revolution continues to take shape, I’m seeing an increased need to sort through all of the noise. For many many years, we’ve been going through cycles of disruptions followed by the noise of a crowded market. As I took a look at how to get freelance writing gigs, I was disappointed by how crowded (and cheap) the market was. People offering content marketing for as little as $5. This is not how we are going to improve wages…. it almost guarantees a race to the bottom. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about these concepts – specifically how they tie back to the work I care about which is helping nonprofits. I don’t have a solution yet, but I’m kicking around some ideas that combine curation with personal branding with nonprofit fundraising… another thought experiment that probably won’t go anywhere (mostly because I need to find a way to make my own life sustainable).
Sharing: Three Revelations
As I walked along the river and once again marveled at the sky and then walked through downtown Memphis, I thought about how I would love to show my ex-fiancee around. I’ve been reading a collection of memoir/essays on poetry and that’s another thing I’d love to share with her. This is not a lament that I can’t do those things, but more of an observation on what, for me, is one of the more exciting aspects of a relationship – the ability and desire to share your world. I took two long walks yesterday, and this was a prominent and recurring theme in my thinking. In the back of my mind was Stephen Dunn’s statement “The true lover wants to give everything away. This is why a writer should never be expected to be a true lover. The writer, shortly after great love, uses.” I’m trying to reconcile those competing notions in my own head. I’ve found a level of solace in writing, but I think I fall closer to the true lover side of things – I want to give everything away, always.
This brought me to three mini revelations. The first was that sharing seems to take the form of internal and external. Internal is those deep thoughts and admissions about how we see ourselves, the gradual revelations about who we are. The external are the things that we enjoy – music, food, favorite spot to watch the sunset.
The second revelation was that, to some degree, here in Memphis, I have fewer things to bring to the table. I’m still learning the city, and chances are anyone I meet here would be in a better position to share with me than I would be to share with them. Most residents seem aware that the sunsets by the river can be pretty amazing, or that a soul burger at Ernestine & Hazels is an experience. In various dating profiles I’ve written “let’s have competitions in generosity.” I think this is what I mean when I say that. Let’s show each other our worlds and then continue that exploration together. I get a bit of a high from giving it all away. This can be overwhelming for the other person. This can make it hard for the other person to keep up. This can put things out of balance. This can come off as narcissistic – as though I’m only interested in “my things.” I’m not, I do want to meet each other with equal force (especially in terms of sharing).
The third revelation was that as much as I loved my ex-fiancee, she was not on the same level when it came to sharing (either internally or externally). To be fair, we were only together 10 months, which is not nearly enough time to fully share… but I was probably a fire hose compared to half opened tap at the kitchen sink. One of the last arguments we got in to was over a hike that she did with my friend (I had to work and couldn’t go). I was bummed because it was one of my favorite hikes and I had wanted to be the one to show it to her. The few times I tried, either something came up or it wasn’t the right time or one of us wasn’t in the mood for a hike. I don’t know if she had similar things that she was dying to show me. As we explored Philly together, I was a little surprised that she had been there a year and didn’t have more to share or show to me. The restaurants that became our restaurants were places that neither of us had spent much time in. I loved discovering new things together, but I don’t have a good sense of who she was in that city for the year before she met me. All of that said, when we went to San Diego, I saw a lot of who she was, and I loved it. When I think about the things that made me care the most about her, it was her acceptance of what I shared, and the things she chose to share. What stands out most are those moments when I saw her in her element: quietly shopping in the grocery store, popping in and out of boutiques in an eclectic neighborhood, showing me around San Diego, reading quietly on the sofa or the beach, sometimes even just watching her work or get excited about a project (though I only remember her getting excited about one work project, and once being happy because an idea of hers made it to the next round).
A more disciplined writer would take each of those subheadings and either tie the whole thing together or break them up in to three different blog posts…. hence the feeling of needing a site revamp. For now, I’ll have to live with just getting the ideas down and hoping that I have the mental fortitude to return to them in some meaningful way.