Starting Over is Hard
Weekly Newsletter #1
Dear Friends,
A few days ago, and again about 24 hours ago, and again - just now, I have made the decision to take a step back from political stuff and concentrate more on creative stuff. For now, this mainly consists of me logging out of my political Twitter account indefinitely and starting a new one for poetry type stuff which has been liberating, challenging and discouraging.
As I follow poets and poetry lovers, I find myself thinking, “I don’t belong here”, and “I’m not a real poet” and, “I have no idea WTF I’m doing”. But when all those doubts inevitably lead me to ask myself, “Is this really what I want to be doing right now?” The answer is yes.
Yes, to the poetry at least. Yes, to writing it and sharing it as well as reading more of it and learning how to write it better because that’s all I can control.
What I can’t control is how many followers I get on my new Twitter account or what other people will think of my poetry or how many paid subscribers I will get here. I can only hope that by following what I value I will somehow provide something that others value too.
Values are a subject I find myself coming back to a lot in both my personal and political journeys. How much are we able to choose our values and how much might they be dictated to us by our systems and the need to survive within them?
Another aspect of values I have been thinking about is what kind of boundaries do we need to put around the things we value, both with ourselves and with others, in order to protect them. This is part of what led to my decision to add a paid subscription tier to this account. If I’m going to put additional time, effort, resources and portions of my vulnerable soul into this endeavor without it resulting in burn out and resentment, I feel that I need to restrict access to that and ensure that it is valued in return.
With that in mind, the rest of this newsletter will be restricted to paid subscribers but I have enabled a 7 day free trial feature so that you all may read it and decide if it is something you might value enough to upgrade your subscription at a future date. Please know that I value your support as a reader no matter what level you subscribe at.
(Content below explores the topic of what my poems mean, answers a reader question and I share a speech by a legendary poet that has inspired me recently).