Josh Thompson     about     blog     projects

Back in the saddle (of writing)

Article Table of Contents

Background #

It’s been a hell of a year. I’ve got about 10,000 things I’ve wanted to write about, and have not gotten around to any of them. Here’s my various top-level reasons for not writing:

  • what I want to write about feels too complicated to express easily/coherently
  • I feel like I’d have too do too much context-setting to get to what I really wanna write about
  • I’m too sad/depressed/numb to care about writing
  • when feeling sad/depressed/numb, it feels deeply wrong to draw attention to oneself
  • feels like anything I’d write would need a million footnotes, asterisks, and qualifying statements to say anything interesting/true enough

Incidentally, however, writing is deeply cathartic for me. Also, this is my website. I can say whatever I want.

So, here’s my reasons for why I am going to start writing:

  • I owe no one anything, so if I want to write a piece that assumes background knowledge about, say, the history of how zoning was ‘invented’ in the USA, I can write it. If it’s too spicy of a take, and someone takes issue with it, well, welcome to the internet,
  • I desperately need to get some projects i’m working on out of my head and on paper
  • I’m juggling big projects and small projects. writing always clarifies my thinking and next steps.

What is coming next #

Big projects, and small. A podcast (maybe), backyard outdoor movie nights, home-made pizza, friends and family, work, training hard for climbing, enabling others to get more of what they want, making things beautiful. Being odd, and reveling in it.

Reading, repair, rest, capacity-building. Riding my vespa around Denver, and soon, a motorcycle around the continent.

Nudging systems.