What drew me to entertaining the notion of authoring a Substack Newsletter ? Who do I think I to do something like this? Who would read me? How could this writing be a small part of my desire to roam in the realms of ideas with others?
The realms of radical activist writing rightly require my attention and enrich my life. The realms where aspiring universe conquerors, wall funders, moat diggers, and border patrollers exercise ideas that seem impervious to any reasoned contradictions to their certainty frighten me. Might vesting some time in writing a Newsletter provide me an opportunity to think, to articulate, to find places for action?
These potentially debilitating questions evoked reflection on the contribution to my life of the many writers, famous or ordinary, whose words have inspired or frightened me, who have changed my view of the world in some way, and in that way, influenced me and my place in the world. Their writings have assured me that I am not alone in the fluctuations of peace and anxiety, of hope and despair, of commitment to and retreat from any engagement with the world of the past, present, or future. Their writings have provoked me to thought and actions. Their writings have evoked in me an orientation to enquiry where writing, reading, thinking, and action are part of the weaving of meaning in everyday life. Writing and reading in my experience are a form of action.
For a sense of the requirement to stay engaged in a world that might be, I thank my grandchildren who will necessarily live the future we are creating, and in their turn, be the creators of the world for themselves and their offspring. I hope they will find writers, composers, activists, and lovers of inquiry to enrich their lives as reading and writing has enriched mine.
I appreciate this opportunity as a place for me to explore the contradictions I notice in my own world of sense-making of the sometimes seemingly sense-less.
What might epitomize my intention in developing this Newsletter? Let me weave in a little Leonard Cohen
The future is no excuse for an abdication of your own personal responsibilities towards yourself and your job and your love. “Ring the bells that still can ring”: they’re few and far between but you can find them.[i]
To which I would add a piece of wisdom from Collette
Look for a long time at what pleases you, and longer still at what pains you.[ii]
With this much settled in my mind as permission to give this Newsletter writing a go, it was a chance reading of a national newspaper that provided my first example of what I might write about in the future: “Faster Food with a Kiwi Connection”[iii], an interview with Craig Herbison[iv] CEO of Plexure. His determination to grow the number of customers that consume McDonalds may be a technical triumph. His success is another hook into the populations already under siege from corporate impact on human and planetary wellbeing. Of course, my newsletters may not always tackle such weighty issues – but here it was – a perfect example ‘under my nose’. It evoked and now explains the first phrase of the title of this Newsletter. This title came to me in an idle moment while on retreat from the world to recover from the last few weeks of my Mum’s life, days of distress and trauma that might have/should have been otherwise – itself a story I may explore when calmed grief and harnessed anger might enrich a systemic consideration.
So, the focus of my future Newsletters must be generated from something that finds itself ‘under my nose’ in some way. Fortunately for me, that serendipitous approach has been the essence of my training as an economic and organization theorist. It was born from the precarious start to my academic career through years of study as a single parent with minimal income and no research budget. It has come full circle as an outcome of my dispatch from my university employment, again now with no research budget and on a fixed income.
Having taken the resolve to give this writing a go, I imagine crafting a Newsletter, perhaps each week, that tackles something that bothers me, delights, me, frightens or inspires me – and ‘see what comes’. Taking my inspiration from a little diversionary TV, I will limit each letter to “800 Words”.[v]
I will tell the story of Plexure’s in my next Newsletter, in part to explain the second part of my Newsletter Title: [Satisfying Stories.
ENDNOTES:
[i]https://qz.com/835076/leonard-cohens-anthem-the-story-of-the-line-there-is-a-crack-in-everything-thats-how-the-light-gets-in/
[ii] From “About the Author” in Claudine at School by Collette (1917) London: Vintage.
[iii] “Want NZ tech with that? Local software company serves up overseas sales for McDonalds. Weekend Herald Business, Sept 7, 2019. p.C3
[iv]https://nz.linkedin.com/in/craigherbison[v]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/800_Words