I am beginning to feel more like a ‘writer’. Sitting down with my macbook to write the day’s words, or settling in at the computer at home feel more like something I do rather than something I want to do or think about doing.
My use of the keyboard isn’t a lot better, but it does feel a little bit better and more comfortable. I think I am also gaining some sense of how little each word matters on its own and how much they matter as they come together.
There’s also something to be said for having to spend some time structuring my thoughts and ideas. There are lots of sources of new information, it’s constant. From other people and the things they have seen and want to share with me to the things I think about or read, or see on social media myself.
I don’t want to cut myself off from these things entirely, but I really do need to allow myself the space to think and to process and to reflect on what is next. Weirdly, the most intense extrospection must involve some time without new information. I am not a computer or some fabulous AI which can manage many new sources simultaneously. I am a human being, I absorb information, discard most of it and try to find useful patterns in what remains.
I am therefore easily overwhelmed by input, which can often be for inputs sake.
Social media, I think, leverages this, showing you a huge amount of vaguely interesting material which you discard almost immediately. Moving quickly on to the next vaguely interesting thing. When do people actually make the recipes they see people raving about, or travel to the places the see people talking about.
They clearly do, but the majority are content to enjoy the second-hand experience. And why not?
Talking to C this morning he let me know another person in the organisation remains very unhappy about my engagement with the LFB and feels there remains something incorrect or improper about my work there. I am also unhappy, as I think I did a great job and have not had my work properly recognised.
There’s always the niggling concern that some aspect of my performance was materially below parr. And certainly when I think about my work I can nearly always see ways it could be better and more engaging and effective. I am, after all, a person and very much a work in progress.
I am going to email C and J at about the same time. C, in an effort to clear the air and J to ask whether the air is clear in the first place. There’s little value in putting myself through the effort of applying and interviewing for a job I think I could do very well if he (or C) will actively oppose or kill my opportunity of landing it.
All of this requires some conscious thought and decision making. One example of this is where I feel I need to revisit my effort around Chinese. This writing stuff is beginning to stick in a way my Chinese study has not after more than a couple of years of work. I have learned a lot, but I could be learning a lot more. Time to change that habit too.