I tend to miss out on consistency because I feel I need to birth a Deep Piece before I hit send. This is in direct conflict with my insistence—which is, in practice, an aspiration—that iterating often on ideas and conversations makes them richer, and that sharing is generous (except when I do it, says my head).
For those who also want to grow community through writing, this piece by Salman Ansari of Quick Brown Fox is what got me to show up at the keyboard and got this in your inbox. Like Salman, I want each of you to take up more room in my mental, creative and thinking space—amongst a sea of siren-like metrics, that’s the one my most aligned self resonates with.
Why? —> Why Not?
Related: generosity comes from defaulting to engagement (note: this doesn’t mean always saying yes, but rather leaning in when you already have!). My most recent growth schtick is, when I’m feeling super resistant to something a deeper part of me really does want to do, to ask not “why should I do this now,” but “why not?” Why not write a few words?
This became especially clear reflecting on my writing practice: there’s nothing I’ve written or published, even, this year that I’ve regretted making. The anguish and self-bashing comes when I don’t write: there are plenty of times I very much regret not writing. Lest you think that means “write everything you have in mind!”—my new frame is “write something I have in mind to write.” Also note: it’s not that I regret not writing specific pieces—I know to play the long game there. It’s each instance where I’ve chosen not-writing, how that unfolds through time rather than topic, that knocks me down.
How to do academic conferences: Engage!
I’m prepping for two short conference presentations next week, one on the humanist side of the scientist Johannes Kepler as evidenced in his private letters, the other introducing classicists to a Latin novel well-known and -loved in the spoken Latin world and, my polls say, rarely known by people who are focused on classical Latin.
Enter imposter syndrome. I know what I hate at conferences—people with their heads stuck in a sheaf of papers reading their completely scripted talk. Yawn. Painful, I’m gonna tip the seat over (when we’re in person) gaping yawn. (And note: yes, there are people who do prepared talks fabulously and it does let you pack more depth into fewer minutes when there’s no rambling at all. These people definitely look up from their papers, though).
And yet… I feel especially junior in the amateur and not-to-be-taken-seriously sense when I break from this and go with illustrated slides, even accompanied by detailed notes for myself and a handout. I’m not doing the thing! I’m doing it wrong! They’re judging my wet ears!
So to the conference presenters among you: not why do it different and better, but why not? Engage your audience. Trust your knowledge. Yes, prepare. But prepare to connect. They’ll sit up, and (at minimum) internally thank you.
I’ll report back on how well I take my own exhortations.
Belmont-Feeling, This Time with Pictures
Last week I wrote about looking out at the hi-rise apartments across the lake,
I am reminded of looking across the lake in Prospect Park at night and seeing the hi-rise apartment buildings with their checkerboard of lighted windows near Grand Army Plaza. Of how much that image says Belmont to me, and how much that tugs at in me even though I was never a patient there. Something about fortresses, lakeside homes, and places apart that still loom.
I had never captured that view on camera, so I went to the lake a few days ago with the Belmont-fortress specifically in mind. Here it is through the thicket:
The shot above feels like more than one view to me, actually. On the one hand, the tangle of brush and sapling is to be gotten through to get to the free, open air of the icy lake. On the other hand, I’m glad it’s there, placing entrance into “Belmont” that much further out of reach.
A catalogue of gratitudes, after Ross Gay
My gratitude practice is rarely written, as of about 6 months ago. I find I go deeper and feel it wash over my body when I just speak it out loud into the room. But once in a while, I catch the mood. So.
I am grateful for…
Light
Water
Being here
How much it’s no big deal, full stop (not “, really”)
My sometimes-weekly newsletter
The joy I found under the suck a few seconds after sitting down… how close at hand it is without me knowing.
Stretching
Writing it down
Shaking it off
Things that only make sense to me
Play, swing, rhythm and flow
Seeing that I can show up to work consistently… when it’s with a client synchronous. And being okay with that current state of affairs.
My day no longer feeling structured around food
Things I write that surprise me unpleasantly
The power of writing a claim to make it so
March
Short thank yous
How much I’m not sharing - thus, just how much there is
Skimming over the Homeric Catalog of Ships
Poetic inventories
Writers who make (an) art of lists (and not contracts or listicles)
The calm here
Enigmatic phrases
Polysemy
Mentors
Getting back to music listening
Quiet
Times when I don’t wear my noise canceling headphones and it’s fine, and I feel the air over my ears
Soviet sci-fi
Afro-futurist spec fic
How little most of it matters
How much I care
How much there is
Things there aren’t in my life
Winking and rolling (with it)
The ictus of “Duh, joy transfers!” when I’m up in my cavernous head about whether my pandemic growth will hold when there’s rush-hour cortisol again
Shorts
That math assures me there are truly and logically different shades of infinity
That overstuffed catalogues gesture at this
Housekeeping
This newsletter will now be going out on Fridays—sticking too rigidly to an old plan in new semester conditions was preventing it from going out at all.
In proximum!
I’m glad you’re here.
Get in touch! And forward this to like-minded folks! I love the conversations I’ve had with so many of you through these dispatches. Just reply to this email, leave a comment on Substack, or DM me on Twitter @jacobusbanks.