In Which Carole Tells Me to Blog
New adventures in logging.
When I was a young poet in the early and mid-aughts, trying to understand the literary community, I read a lot of blogs.
That’s the form poets used before tweeting, before they showed their work on Instagram. I never blogged, but reading them made me feel like I was part of an internet geography.
In lieu of blogging, I wrote emails to friends. I wrote a lot of emails to friends across my 20s and 30s, despite the recent article about Gen Z trying to rid the world of email. (I agree with Cal Newport’s assertion that we need a better tool for workplaces, but in friendship I think email remains a magical container, and certainly closer to letter writing than texts can ever be.)
If you and I are lucky, this space will resemble emails to friends, especially regarding
the questions I’m wading through
the parallels in different forms of community
wonder, or creative and organizational processes and how linked they can be
reading and listening and moving the mind in new shapes and directions
inspiration derived from productive failure.
Carole Lévy—the coach I met years ago when a mutual friend introduced us—implored me to try blogging, which I will henceforth refer to as logging. Across my life, I’ve kept a few kinds of logs to note the passing of time, and I will consider this another. It’s also a place to write the beginnings of a book about this work.
However avoidant many of us can be of gray areas, I’m learning that being a poet has prepared me to be relatively comfortable sitting with uncertainties.
There is no single map for developing trust, or building community, or writing a book, or making a new friend, or loving, or pre-grieving, or for poets who want to do something other than teach for their livelihoods. It all depends on who we are, where we begin, and the elements available for us to work with and against. So I’m going to try showing my work a bit as to how I got here and where I’m going, on this log.
Over recent months, I’ve been inspired to write in response to:
This unfortunate attempt to lead during a pandemic, plus publicized conversations at Apple, Basecamp, and any organization navigating the magnetic force between change and fear
Several podcasts, including these two interviews that Ezra Klein held about the mechanics of some work days and how we have conversations, and this one between Elissa Epel and Dacher Keltner about stress, resiliency, and awe.
In addition to this bouquet of links, I’ve started a Resources page to show thanks to people who have shared their gorgeous modes and models of thinking, all of which have influenced the building of this practice. Please read their work and buy their books.
In an ideal world, this log might begin to approximate a conversation. Soon, I’ll be setting up a zoom practice for conversations in the form of a Culture Forms Conference—if you want to hear about such things, sign up for the mailing list.
In the meantime, welcome to the Culture Forms Log. I’m glad you’re here.