Something happened today that led me to finally write this reflection on my ‘one word‘ for 2023, I accidentally marked all my posts in Inoreader as read. This in itself might not seem like much, but for so long my RSS feeds have been the dots that have seemingly helped me make sense. I have worked tirelessly over the years to collate my list. Yet, lately, something has not quite seemed the same. Althought I had seemingly given up keeping on top of my feed, I was still going through every now and then to flick left and right. However, after clearing my lists, that is no more.
It feels like so many have spoken about quitting Twitter of late and moving to Mastodon. That is fine. However, I think there has been a bigger change in the social media space for me beyond the purchase of Twitter by Elon Musk. Although with a focus on RSS I may not be constricted by the usual templated restrictions associated with social media, I have come to feel that my habit of staying on top of my feeds has come to serve as its own sort of restriction.
For nearly seven years I have maintained my Read Write Respond newsletter. This involved reviewing all ‘my dots‘ across the month to identify the key points. This served as a regular point of reflection. Although there have been changes in that time, such as including quotes, a focused section, extending the summaries, writing a monthly update, over the time I feel that the dots and habit itself have somehow come to take more precedence than the greater purpose that they were meant to serve. I was intrigued by a comment that Ian O’Byrne wrote about his newsletter:
Each week I write a love letter to the Internet. You can subscribe here. Spoiler alert!!! It’s not all good.
Considering the Post-COVID Classroom | Dr. Ian O’Byrne
I had long described my newsletter as:
My newsletter of ideas and information associated with all things education, mined and curated for me and shared with you.
I just wondered if this really mattered anymore? A few years ago I wrote a piece on ‘becoming informed’:
I would argue then it is a constant state of becoming more informed. In an ever changing world, with goals forever moving, it is a case where we can never quite be fully informed.
Secret, Safe and Informed: A Reflection on Facebook, Cambridge Analytica and the Collection of Data | Aaron Davis
Although I still agree with this, I wonder if the real challenge is learning to live in a world where you do not and cannot know everything? I feel that my newsletter had become my means of trying to control the present, rather than admitting that it is ok to not know that latest update regarding artificial intelligence or whatever it maybe. This is not to say that artificial intelligence is not important, but that maybe in trying to stay informed about everything, you never really know anything.
So to return to the beginning of this piece, for a few years now, I have been choosing one word as a focus for the year. As the new year comes and I am not sure what the new word will be, I always feel there is something that stands out. This year, the word that stood out was ‘vulnerability’. This was solidified while reading Nick Cave’s Faith Hope and Carnage. I was struck by Cave’s discussion of vulnerability and the willingness to being open to failure:
It’s not so much the creative impulse itself that is so compelling, but rather doing something that feels challenging and vulnerable and new, whether that is ceramics or a different-sounding record or The Red Hand Files, the In Conversation events, Cave Things, this book, whatever. There is a risk involved that generates a feeling of creative terror, a vertiginous feeling that has the ability to make you feel more alive, as if you are hotwired into the job in hand, where you create, right there, on the edge of disaster. You become vulnerable because you allow yourself to be open to failure, to condemnation, to criticism, but that, as I think the Stoics said, is what gives you creative character. And that feeling of jeopardy can be very seductive.
Faith, Hope and Carnage | Nick Cave | Page 224
I think that over time I have become wedded to the present, rather than opening myself up to going deeper into various ideas. Therefore, some of the ways that I envisage being more vulnerable include:
- Putting my newsletter on hiatus.
- Write for myself and when I can, rather than feeling I have to.
- Reviewing the dots and feeds that I consume, accepting that sometimes it is ok to miss out.
- Read more books and get deeper into ideas, a return to responding.
As always, please let me know if you have any further suggestions.
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