A Weeknote Instead of an Essay
WN.01 \\ 04.29-05.05.24 \\ Because how is it already May.
Well, friends.
Plans, mice, men: you know the drill.
Writing anything in-depth or exploratory for this issue just didn’t want to happen. I thought about blowing through the schedule completely, but earlier this week, I encountered Giles Turnbull’s concept of weeknotes, through Dan Catt’s YouTube channel.1 I like this idea, of at least sharing how the process of living and making goes for a specific individual. Hopefully, when you get specific, you can also become more resonant.
So I thought I’d like to share a more personal? behind-the-scenes? rough-around-the-edges? look at the jive talk happenin’ inside my head.2 If this provides insight, help, laughter, or connection in some way, let me know, and maybe I can see my way to making this a regular feature.
In no particular order, here’s the haps.
Last summer I listened to a series of lectures on the life of King David from the Hebrew scriptures. Having grown up in evangelical circles, pastors loooove to talk about the figure of David in glowing terms: as a leader, a lover, a warrior, whatever. And you know something? When you actually read the text, the man is (as one lecturer put it) a fuckin’3 mob boss. I can’t get this story out of my head. Thinking on ways to write about it.
I have, in the last four years, experienced an ongoing series of non-fatal ailments that, nonetheless, cause chronic pain in my body. Learning to live around ever-evolving varieties of pain has been…formative. The past month in one saga related to my big toenails (which I had removed in February 2023) has nearly become the final straw. The nails have regrown about three-quarters of the way, and that last quarter is just giving expensive and painful. C’est la vie, but honestly. Throw a girl a break.
I’ve always instinctively known this about myself, but in recent years, it’s become explicit and it’s own thing: I’m a very visual thinker.4 I’m becoming known among friends for my charts, diagrams, and infographics—sometimes incredibly complex, info-dense visuals that I shove in front of them with mad-eyed fervor: “Does this make sense?!”5 Eventually, yes, it does. I really love creating these charts as part of my thinking process, especially in the beginning of a large project, because they help clarify or discover relationships between ideas. It also helps me think about how we move through a given concept or story: as in, the path we might physically take, if these things had tangibility in the manifest world.
I share the above to say that I’ve spent a lot of time with some new diagrams lately, related to role models and formation. I’m trying to figure out the story of late modernity, the hollowing out of third spaces, the loss of purpose and significance that so many of us feel, and the ways in which I am called to meet the world’s deep hunger.6 So, deep breath… I am working toward a book. (This is terrifying to put in black and white.) I haven’t figure out yet if I would find it helpful to post regular updates about progress on this project, or if it would just paralyze me, so. 👋🏼👋🏼
Along these lines of thinking and creating processes, I’ve gotten out of the habit of managing large writing projects. Especially as I’m one of those who tends to percolate for infinite eons before suddenly binge-writing everything in a fit of insight at the most unexpected moments. When you’re writing a school paper, the parameters of the project are pretty clear (even if you do make unexpected detours and discoveries, there’s only so many roads the instructor allows for traveling). But when you’re working on a project that (as of yet) doesn’t have any external deadlines or expectations, it feels a bit like trying to catch hold of slime.7 I tend toward physical knowledge management tools and techniques,8 but the limitations of space compel me to also find digital tools. I’m currently testing ButterDocs, and I’m cautiously optimistic that it may just work. If you have any suggestions for these kinds of processes, pass them along!
So that’s a weeknote. How’s your week gone?
Shalom,
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Please do not ask how I find these things on the internet. It is a baffling and wondrous mystery to me. Accept the bounty of the universe.
I added the cussing, but if the lecturer could have, he probably would have.
Do not try to give me verbal directions to a new place. Either write a step-by-step list (with visual cues to look for), or even better, give me the list while I’m a passenger with you en route.
“The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” ―Frederick Buechner,Wishful Thinking: A Seeker's ABC“
Like, Ryan Holiday’s Index Card System sounds kinda old-school great, but I don’t have a table or wall big enough to hold these things.