ayjay
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Uncertainty

Uncertainty

May 31, 2022

Hello friends!

Recently I initiated a series of posts on my blog that I’m calling “Normie Wisdom.” This took some discipline on my part — the overcoming of an inner struggle.

What do I mean by that? Simply this: At almost any earlier point in my career I would have turned that into an essay. Indeed, as I started drafting the piece I had a very strong feeling that the idea wanted to be an essay — but did it? Or was that merely the gravitational pull of decades-long habit?

I sat back and thought about this problem for a while. I realized that if I decided to write this as an essay I knew exactly how it would develop — the essential direction it would take. I knew what I would have to put in and what I would have to take out.

I also — let me be honest about this — had a pretty good idea who would pay for it and how much.

But if I turn it into a blog series, I don’t know where it will take me. I know some of the ingredients, but not all. I don’t know how long it will be, in the end, or how many posts it will take me to get there. I don’t know what side shoots, as it were, it will throw off. I don’t know whether (to continue the botanical metaphor) it will produce seeds that can grow into wholly new plants.

And I don’t know whether, in the end, I’ll be able to get paid for it at even a minimum-wage level. Probably not; I don’t have many supporters, though those of you who have supported me are both financially generous and warm in your commendations and gratitude. (That warmth is worth more than money, in the sense that it keeps me going on dark days when money has no effect.)

But — I reflected — it’s time for me to commit to the bit. I have said for a long time that I love the exploratory open-endedness of blogging, and that I think it’s good for my mind, especially at my age, when so many people are settling into highly predictable mental routines. I need to apportion my energies accordingly.

So a series it will be. To uncertainty and beyond!

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