Startin' Over in Another Place (#90)
Entropy - the degree of disorder in a system - increases over time. That’s physics, baby. But it doesn’t make change easier. Or, (re)invention of Campfire Notebook.
2023 sure was something, wasn’t it?
For me, and perhaps for you, too, it was a year sown with good fortune and love, yet punctuated with exclamations of loss that tint the glasses through which I view the previous 365 days - enough so that, if there was a theme to be made for the year 2023, it was “painful yet necessary change”: saying goodbye to people and pets and places, not because I wanted those things to change, but because they were ultimately the (healthier) choices to be made. Because that’s entropy, baby, and I needed to lean into it, or let it bowl me over.
And at the risk of being seen as hyperbolic, it’s also a choice that I think applies to this newsletter.1
Now two years old, Campfire Notebook began as an appendage of the day job I held at the time. I wouldn’t comment on any specific project, but it was a space to broaden thoughts on work-relevant topics, vis-à-vis sharing science and engaging people in research. Those early pieces were more instructional, and the newsletter hosted that work for a few months, when I then shifted to more/less the current format - 70+ posts since that deviation. That outlier that became the new distribution of data.
And now, I feel it’s time to create a new (but correlated) dataset.
To be clear, I don’t regret any of the pieces I’ve shared on here (although, like any of us, I’m sure I could look back with a editorial lens to find ways to improve them). What I’ve noticed, though, is that there would be times I’d post more creative works, feel more joy/pride in posting them, but also feel a slight unease that these “outliers” were too many standard deviations outside the base formula of Campfire Notebook (science, art, and the overlapping circles between them) that made folks sign up to read it each week.
I held back because that’s not what you signed up for, and I didn’t want to disappoint.
But along that theme of “painful yet necessary change” is that the current formulation no longer serves me, and my intent and burgeoning creativity as a writer. Looking ahead to 2024, I want to hone this craft more; I want to share more poetry and essays that are infused with a humanist celebration of science and/or art. I want it to feel less like a report or an article. I want what I write to engage you emotionally, such that you still think about what I’ve written long after closing the browser. That you see a bird or a flower and think back to a line of my poetry that may have stuck with you. I want to submit and publish these kinds of works in other spaces, too, including print.
All lofty goals, to be sure, but one needs goals to move forward2 - and the space in which to work towards them.
I haven’t determined any schedule for topics or format just yet - I wasn’t done with 2023, nor it with me - but I think that’s okay. I’m making more room around the campfire, and now let creativity guide what fills those spaces, be it visual or written.
Will 2024 be absent loss, difficult decisions, sadness? Of course not. Waves always are beating on the shores. A few will burst over a rock and leave you soggy and bruised. But the new year is a new day; “I’m startin’ over, an’ I'm doin' my best.”3
Why am I commenting on the inner makings of the sausage at all? I was unsure whether I’d just make changes, or whether I’d comment first, then change. Ultimately, I thought, “Well, I like reading about others’ processes when it comes to writing, so maybe someone would find this helpful.”
And to state them publicly, so that it becomes something that I can hold myself to account.
Talking Heads are still firmly lodged in my mind. No apologies - that song slaps.
If I may venture an opinion, it’s that the more personal our writing is, the more it will be distinguished from the “content” that can be created by AIs or by writers who are too hesitant to take a position or reveal themselves. I came for your science and art, but I learn more from your poetry and exploration. As long as the “personal exploration” stuff doesn’t become self-serving or narcissistic (two traits I’ve NEVER see in you), I find it really compelling. [Note that these are a combination of my thoughts about your stuff and about blogs/stacks/whatever-the-hell-these-are in general.]
Looking forward to seeing how you adapt and change how it suits you in 2024. We're dynamic beings, it is only natural that we ebb and flow in our writing and creativity.