Why Write?
“I write because I don’t know what I think until I read what I say.”
– Flannery O’Connor
Light rain and 43 out there. It's finally feeling like the gloomy late autumn I used to live in north Georgia, first in elementary school and then when I returned and lived in Athens thirty years ago. My favorite time of year.
The forecasters say we've already reached our high for the day, and can expect frozen mix and then maybe some snow tonight. A late arrival for the one thing that comes to mind when outsiders think of western New York.
The news today was mostly good--the most encouraging piece came from Thomas Edsall, the old, cranky Washington opinion writer for the New York Times. Edsall's essay cites plenty of data suggesting this blue wave may be a long term trend in a country where the youngest third of us is minority white, while the oldest, whitest demographic keeps getting smaller through attrition. And those younger, more diverse voters don't care much about transgenderism or religion or low, low taxes.
As the title suggests, the essay also notes the self-immolation of MAGA as DJT picks a straight-up racist and fascist as his chief of staff, while pedophile enabler Jim Jordan is about to be the House Minority Leader. Doubling down on the themes that most voters find despicable is a great way to destroy a political party. I heartily encourage them in their efforts.
This morning I read a little comedic essay in Medium about the unpleasantness of working in one's 60s. The writing itself was solidly okay; no life changing insights there. But what struck me was the platform for the writer, a place called Medium.
I've read essays there before, on everything from foreign policy to why AA is a cult where almost no one actually gets sober. Me being me, the internal conversation quickly led to the question of why didn't I try writing there?
This page gets maybe a dozen looks a day---I have to admit I quit regularly checking a while ago, but just went back and scrolled through the last few posts. It's a fair bet that writing on Medium would result in a lot more views.
But is that really the point? I started this because we'd been cooped up on the farm for nearly six months during the pandemic, and I missed human contact (but less than I thought I would). It seemed like we were living through an extraordinary time, both as a species and in our personal lives at Wyldswood, and I wanted truly to "chronicle" the experience. I never made any effort to market this project, or reposted the link on Facebook so my friends there could find it. In some ways I figured it was just as well they didn't know how harshly I'd judged them at times, or just how messed up my thinking could be. Because it's been there for all to see, and maybe best that only a dozen or so actually saw it.
My biggest gripe with this page is that there's no way to download and preserve all these posts, something I should've researched before it got this far. In its present form, this is a logbook that exists only so long as I keep paying for the subscription to keep it alive.
Even with that, this has been a good way to engage in a little mental stretching before taking the field for the day. Most of what I'm paid to do is think and write, and this regular morning free-form provides a way to test those circuits before I put them to vocational use in a brief or a pleading. And I enjoy doing it, mostly, even when it starts feeling like a chore. And at this age, if you can find an activity you enjoy that can't be taken away when some body part fails, it's something to treasure.
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