I couldn't write very often in 2020. I had to confront the self-help myth I believed: we need to pursue productivity at all costs, and optimise ourselves at every turn. In doing do, I learned that writing less is better for me.
Without Twitter or Instagram, and a newsfeed blocker on Facebook, it can be hard to connect with what’s topical, so I was delighted to hear that David had started a Substack. David’s work lights up my inbox because he and I share a particular interest. In his greater quest to understand human motivations, David seriously scrutinises conspiracy theories.
What's it going to be? A choice that happened or a choice that you made?
"Revolution is not a one-time event." - Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches
It’s like we’re swimming laps in a pool. We need something to push off when we get to the end, so we can propel ourselves back through the water. The tiles at the end are hard and uncompromising, but they’re exactly what we need because they help us move forward faster. If a pool edge were made of sand or clay or smoke, we wouldn’t have a pool to swim in, let alone an edge to propel off. For me, the hard, uncompromising nature of Anglicanism functioned as the end of my lane in 2016.
But before you click on that link, answer me this. Do you need to read another article, or do you need to start the work of anti-racism?
It’s OK if there was only so much you could handle, and you said so. Because that’s called a boundary, and you drew it in arguably the most boundary-less time in your life, which takes courage.
Anne is as fiercely determined as Christopher in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. She’s as kind as The Queen in A Bug’s Life. She’s as funny as Mark Watney in The Martian, if not funnier. She’s as humble as Samwise in The Lord of the Rings.
