Persistence and Payoff

When I hosted the first social studio in 2023, it was quite an experiment with few expectations. Toward the end, as moment built up, that changed. I wanted to deliver big.

Of course, I did. I’m a conscious capitalist, a proponent of the circular economy. I believe in progress for a purpose. Also, I was dearly wanting to move on from a recent prickly past. Haste, I have very few professional days left to waste!

Also, it was the end of a big deal.

I planned a 10-week online social studio, hosted it, and succeeded by my own hand and measure.

I experimented and failed at everything there was to do, at first. Then, much of it became rote and routine in a newly formed way.

No longer do I fear the weekly missive, for example. Lately, I like to write on my phone from a nearby park. After a short walk to sort my thoughts and find the story, I sit and touch tap my minor truths. Duck quacks are great applause.

The first ten essays I wrote in September 2023 were an excruciating cosmic childbirth tended by dueling doulas. Do it, or don’t. Now, writing each week is like feeding kittens.

Also, the social studio is excellent for quiet, parallel play. After a little chatter and a conversation, dense trust fills the air space on mute, even thousands of miles away.

I connected with past colleagues and met new ones. We deeply discussed familiar notions in creative practice, revealing more and more from the roots of ancient, common wisdom.

I completed last year (did I?)

I am creating the year ahead (am I not?)

It’s not so simple.

The book ahead of me delves into a past long before I existed, and only a faint version of that past at best. AI is revealing new historical evidence about my genealogy and DNA, alongside its unintended consequences.

Digging up the dead is forbidden in most cultures, and for good reason. Some leave us out on a windy mountainside to let vultures pick the bones. We endlessly wrestle with competing tomes.

The same creative tension lives in all the professions, including medicine and mental health. Long dead brain surgeons are buried with their ice picks. Ketamine dreams are revealed decades on. Closed cases openly weep for what’s inside.

Luckily, one lobotomized woman lives just below my ribcage on the left. Lacework from tiny papercuts, effects of a life swallowing knives. But somehow still alive in me and beating my blood to get out.

I know the book will release her, but it’s not fit for public just yet. One insight from the social studio–we still have to contend with the lonely unknowns. No amount of friendship or fostering (or an effing robot) will entirely alleviate the internal ache of being humane. That’s the work of writing and a patient readership.

When brutality is unearthed, swaddle it like a stillbirth and give it a proper goodbye. The book ahead of me is a quiet way to say goodnight to a granny I never knew and to reclaim the family between us over time.

Until the end of the year, I’ll take some time to write and publish here. Then new social studios will begin. Connect with me directly in the usual ways, especially if there’s no one else to call. For comfort, I will read you the terrifying stickies on my wall.