I’m currently on day 2 of trying to be more prolific on purpose, making at least 1 tiktok, 1 youtube vid, 1 substack note and 1 wordvomit, ideally all within about 2 hours. both days i actually made more than 1 tiktok. my goal isn’t just to increase volume and frequency of output, though i’m curious to experience what that would be like for at least 30 days or so, maybe 100, maybe a year. I think I’m going to learn some mundane-but-important things about how I manage my time and energy.
but beyond that I think my actual goal is to improve what I’m internally describing as “circulation”, analogized from the human circulatory system– the heart and blood and lungs and oxygen and hormones and waste and so on. so i have a body of work, i sometimes think of it as a junkyard, sometimes i think of it as a city. and i would say that the… systems of transportation in the city are pretty lacking. i’m not linking enough within my stuff, or some parts i link so much that it’s functionally the same as not linking enough. i’m not signposting enough. the navigation in my body of work is less good than i would like.
i’ve said elsewhere that… if you care deeply about positioning, it may shift your positions. similarly, if you care deeply about accessibility, it may shift your… structure? if you care about security, sometimes the answer to “how do we secure this venue” is “we don’t, we pick another venue”. and similarly, making a body of work more accessible can mean restructuring the body…
i realize the phrase “more accessible” has a bunch of connotations that i’m not particularly vibing with. i should find some different words… making it more resonant? making it more cozy in some respects. making it more alive. improving its circulation. more like a stream than a swamp, more like a playground than a fortress. i’m curious now to understand things like, how do… towns become cities? what changes? I asked grok… birmingham was once a small market town in the medieval period and grew into a major city fueled by the inustrial revolution. houston’s growth was propelled by oil, detroit’s by automotive manufacturing. as the population grows, they require more complex urban planning and services… more extensive infrastructure like roads and sewage systems water supply and electricity…birmingham had a simple local govt managed by a court leet, then in 1838 was granted a charter of incorporation, leading to establishment of birmingham town council, then city council, and that council’s responsibilities expanded… houston similarly had a simple town council, adopted a city charter…what is a charter? it’s a formal document from a sovereign power or govt that defines the rights, privileges, responsibilities of an organization, town, city… in medieval eurpope, charters issued by monarchs, giving them self-governance, developing urban centers… colonial charters… (eg verginia)… Henry II gave Birmingham a charter in 1166, giving it the right to hold a market… the local land owner Peter de Bermingham got the right to hold a weekly market, including the authority to levy tolls… Henry did this to encourage economic growth, pacify local elites, strengthen royal authority…
all of this is me doing some reading, asking grok “how cities grow… birmingham… charter… history… henry… literacy… economics…”
it seems to me like i have to dig into some economics, some jane jacobs maybe, ideas about specialization and trade. for a city the concerns are things like agriculture, the population… controlling tolls and markets, law enforcement…
i think the core question i might want to be exploring here is something like, what is the economy in a body of work? i don’t have to worry about feeding anybody other than myself and my family… what is a city really?! a bunch of people? jobs? that feels too… ‘atomized’, like describing food as a bunch of atoms. there are larger entities to consider. a city is… a collection of industries, identities, stories.
so the question i think i need to articulate and attempt to answer is, what are the collection of stories in my body of work? and i do feel something of a relief just articulating that, actually. i got 300 words left. what are the stories in 1000wordvomits? at some point i was trying to fix my procrastination issues, trying to figure out my voice, trying to give myself good advice, trying to follow that advice, and describing in as much detail as I could how I struggled and failed, and how I succeeded. that feels like a major story, maybe THE major story of 1000wordvomits. another story in there is simply one of cultivating voice. sanding down the rough edges in my style. then there’s things like… me writing status updates on my birthdays. 25: “what do I really wana do? I’d like to watch a good movie. I’d like to do a lot of writing.” That sort of thing. I used to use the analogy of jailbreaking. my language used to be harsher. searching under streetlights.
the older version of myself was kinda hung up on helping people who were like myself who didn’t believe in themselves. but now i’m like… it makes more sense for me to focus on the people who are like myself who DO believe in themselves. that feels like an important detail.
“I’ve actually always been writing about how I ought to be more disciplined” – clearly something wasn’t quite working out? I did make progress. I do think I’m generally more disciplined than I was then. Well now I have a child so I have “no choice” but to respond to the child (wake up, feed him, clean him, etc etc).
“My top priority is improving my own thinking.” “More power” “raise my voltage”. “What can I do to increase my personal power?” Write more… about what?? Whatever details make you come alive. Navigate by feeling. Assemble the stories.
a city is a collection of stories.