Looking for inspiration
I've come clean here about not being fully on board with Thanksgiving, but I do love the end of the year holidays.
I appreciate the imperative I feel, as a parent, to work to access holiday joy and make ordinary things celebratory. On New Years I love an excuse to eat something fancy, reflect on the year that has passed and hold some dreams for the one to come. This year, like all years, has contained both suffering and joy across the world and in our lives. We move forward hoping for better.
Thank you for reading this work and being part of it this year. For almost all of this past year, I've been battling some serious burnout. I feel my energy returning and am increasingly excited about the work we can do together next year. More on that in a minute. But first, I would love some specific recommendations from you.
Who is a writer on media and technology you love to read? This can be contemporary or historical. If there's a particular piece that comes to mind please share it, but if not, that's fine, too. The more thought-provoking the better!
What book did you read this year that you most enjoyed? Not the one you thought was best but have reservations about—but the book you loved reading and then kept thinking about. I want to hear your favorites.
Goals for next year
This will be my last post of the year. When we see each other here in January, the landing page here will be cleaned up, the design upgraded a bit, and the posts organized into thematic groups and by date. I'll also be putting together some summary posts for the most useful and transferable frameworks, like the essential functions of news.
I've spent a lot of time going backward this year, searching for weak spots in the foundation under my own work and contemporary news. My goals for next year are to be more forward-looking. No less questioning or reflective, but in a more generative frame of mind.
The two things I'm most interested to take on are definitions of the public interest and why attempts at activating empathy can fall short in news and reporting. Do these topics spark your interest? Not really? What news and information topics are you most thinking about instead?
January will mark my first time in front of a classroom. I'm excited to share my teaching materials and what I'm learning from my students with you all starting next month. When I started this writing project I was nervous to be learning in public. I've come around on it completely. The more supportive, generative and healthy learning environments we can crate the better.
Last goal for next year, to come up with a better name for this newsletter? Any ideas? Suggest a winner and I'll credit you and send you a gift.
Stay safe, stay heathy and take care of yourself and somebody else this holiday. I look forward to reconnecting in the new year. Thank you for this one.
What I'm reading
This is more a how and less a what. It's the season for resolutions, however, so I'm sharing a reading practice that has become a favorite of mine this year. One thing I tried a few times this year was starting a daily writing practice. Nothing stuck. I'm terrible at journaling-insecure and undisciplined. Inspired by a practice called florilegia; and the example of Vanessa Zoltan, who has read both Harry Potter and Jane Eyre as sacred texts, I tried turning my love 0f reading into a daily writing practice. It's worked.
Each weekday I read a few pages of a beloved book, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami. I pull out a few lines and write them in a notebook. Sometimes I add my thoughts. Sometimes I write about my morning run. Sometimes I add nothing at all. When I finish the book I plan to go back and read through all the lines I've chosen, and see what those have to tell me before I move on to another book. This practice is both familiar and novel, and only takes about as long as drinking my first cup of coffee. I've read this Murakami book at least six times. But reading it this way, so slowly and carefully, is an entirelydifferent experience.