Lately I’ve been wanting to write a newsletter and realizing that, for the most part, I don’t feel like I have much to say.
I sometimes wonder if it’s depression, but I’m not sure it is. My life is pretty good. I have a great wife, the best cat, and fantastic friends. I’m secure. I get to write for a living, in a world where that feels like a miracle.
So I don’t think I’m depressed, exactly. I just think I’m not sure what my contribution to the conversation is supposed to be right now. It feels like the only way to get attention, at this point in history, is to say dumb shit and harvest the outrage. I’m not built for that, so I’m mostly not talking.
It’s been a few months since I sent out a newsletter, and I barely post on social media anymore. I guess I just don’t see the point. Where once I’d share links, these days I just send them directly to a few friends and talk about them privately. It feels more personal, and I’m less likely to be interrupted.
Plus, what do you even say to the world right now? Every day the news is a cavalcade of the dumbest, cruelest shit you’ve ever imagined being presented as though it’s normal, followed by a predictable cycle. The stages:
- The president says something stupid, cruel, and/or evil.
- His party, afraid to ever contradict him, repeats the thing he said.
- The media somewhat calls out this new stupidity in the most milquetoast language imaginable.
- The right accuses the media of being biased and uses the attention that generates to repeat the thing several times.
- Everyone gets bored until the cycle repeats with some other stupid thing.
This whole thing happens every couple days, and sometimes even faster. It doesn’t seem like there’s any beneficial way to engage with all of that. Reacting to the ridiculous thing feels like taking the bait, giving the people who say awful things the attention they don’t deserve. Ignoring it doesn’t feel much better, though, because they just keep on saying it anyway, which over time makes the horrible thing feel normal.
I can’t find anything to hold onto in this ecosystem, is what I’m saying, and I guess I’ve kind of dropped out for a bit to maintain my sanity. I’m still writing for work, though, focusing on promoting small, useful bits of software made by independent producers. It feels useful in a way that commentary just doesn’t right now.
It all leaves me wondering how to best use this space, though, which I’ve traditionally used for commentary. What kinds of subjects would you like to hear me talk about? And what’s a productive way to engage with the world right now? That’s what I’m going to be thinking about going into the new year, and I hope we can think about it together. Keep in touch.
Stuff I wrote lately
- wBlock Is the Best Way to Block Ads on Safari Lifehacker Mac, iPhone, iPad—there’s no reason to see ads ever again.
- Missing Launchpad in MacOS 26? Here’s How to Bring It Back WIRED Not a feature I used, granted, but a lot of people were sad to see it go.
- Your Friend Asked You a Question. Don’t Copy and Paste an Answer From a Chatbot WIRED Thoughts on remaining human.
- 4 common cat myths, debunked PopSci Always nice to have an excuse to write about cats.
Stuff you should check out
- You Have Invested Billions in Generative AI A “game” where you pretend to be a very smart person who invested billions in a technology that is for sure not a bubble.
- Rubio stages font coup: Times New Roman ousts Calibri Humeryra Pamuk/Reuters The State Department switched to a worse font to make…a point? About political correctness? Or something? Very stupid but pretty funny.
- AI can steal crypto now Matt Levine/Bloomberg All I can say is “let them fight”.
Mira went missing during a party; multiple people searched for her for quite a while and couldn’t find her. This is her casually walking downstairs a little bit later. “Hey guys!”
5 responses to “What’s worth saying right now?”
@JustinPotBlog I know how you feel. It often feels like saying anything is just adding one more drop to the endless river of media pouring at us and over us every day.
It’s hard to know how to be productive in this context!
@JustinPotBlog I agree. Maybe it's time to reflect and ponder. It's winter here, so drawing back and starting the seedlings is a good thing to do.
This is an extremely wise way to put it. I’ve been thinking about doing a series where I talk with people who are doing good work in this environment, and that might be a way to reflect while still sharing worthwhile thoughts.
Hi! I’ve been finding a lot of value in people’s reflections on their days, or what they’re finding genuine joy in outside of the news/ political cycle. It seems really flat & valueless at first, but what people are thinking about, what problems they’re solving, what they’ve been reading & doing & how they feel about that, often ends up being pretty interesting — if only because we’re all weirder than we think we are, yet there are commonalities to how we navigate our weird selves. I also think that there is real resistance in insisting on the daily specificities of our lives, weird or common or not. Forget the politics — the minutiae of our lives are being commodified at breakneck pace, and we are encouraged to conceive of and live them in flattened, easily-marketed labels/ hashtags/ keeping up with the viral Joneses. Sharing what works or doesn’t for you, or what piques your interest (political or not), or what you’re making for whatever grand or tiny motivation, or interesting/ intriguing interactions: That’s the stuff of real life, and it’s interesting (it helps that you’re a skilled writer). But it’s fine to *wait* until you have something you want to say, too. You don’t have to commit to a publishing schedule, unless that makes you feel better in yourself.