Writing is hard

Like. Really hard. (Letter#1)

Writing *well* is even harder.

This past week, I listened to an interview with Seth Godin on the Knowledge Project. It was timely listen for me, and it is well worth a listen but a quote, in particular, stood out to me:

One of the biggest obstacles to long-term success is an unwillingness to look like an idiot in the short term.

All the other juicy nuggets from the interview aside, this hit close to home. I've been wanting to start this newsletter for a long time, it is one of many 'side-projects I've been thinking about.

I haven't because, well, I've been kind of scared to— scared to look like an idiot. It's not the only reason but it has been a major factor.

So here I am, writing this newsletter, to tell you that I'm probably going to look like an idiot. At least for a while. My grammar and style will be kind of sucky too. And I will likely not be as consistent about it as I’d like to be either.

But, maybe you already knew that. At the time of this writing, I'm pretty sure I can count the number of subscribers to this newsletter on one hand— and also name each one of you. I do appreciate though, that you care enough to support me in this endeavor.

I have two fundamental goals in mind with this project. The first is to sharpen my thinking and become a more rigorous thinker. It’s about refining thoughts and ideas bopping around in my head, about philosophy, ethics, civics— and other stuff, too. Writing is an excellent way to do that, and exposing your writing to the marketplace of ideas is an excellent way to test them.

Second, this project is about having interesting conversations with all of you— you can reply to any newsletter and It’ll go straight to my inbox. I can’t promise I will always respond, but I will always read them and genuinely appreciate your thoughtfulness. I want to hear from you. And, If things go well, over the long term perhaps we can even build something together.

There will be more of these. A lot of it will probably not be very good. Some of it will be.

Here is to looking like an idiot.