After coming across that “writers against AI” image, I decided to put it into my micro.blog newsletter’s footer. Then, inevitably, I wondered “is that presumptuous to consider myself a writer?”
I quickly concluded, “Who cares? You’re being tiresome.” That’s the proper response and I am satisfied with it.
Later, though, I came across this line from Caspar David Friedrich quoted in The Romantic Revolution:
bring to the light of day what you have seen in the darkness, so that it can work on others, from the outside inwards
I always hated it when people told me not to take myself so seriously. Hated it. I’ve always been a painfully sincere person who wants to do the right thing. I heard that advice as suggesting that I was ridiculous for taking life seriously. And, to be fair, some people did mean that.
But now, as fifty approaches, maybe I begin to understand. Over the past ten years I can see more clearly the ways I pose and cope—and how others do the same.
In Radiance of the Ordinary, Tara Couture opens the chapter “The Dance” with a truly cozy (there’s that word again) description of an early winter morning on their farm. Waking up, starting a fire, reading on the couch, standing barefoot in the grass to greet the sun. She continues:
It’s all lovely, yes? It’s as lovely as we’ve crafted it to be. And as much as I’d like to leave us there, cozied up by the hearth, I cannot.
One of our senators is talking about a new national crisis: Americans being killed by illegal immigrant drivers. Dang straight! I’m surrounded by red-blooded American drivers who can do that job just fine, thank you very much.
Hooray! It’s woodland crocus time! Always the first thing to pop up in our yard.
I’ve found myself referring to the notes and bibliography of Finding Lights in a Dark Age even more than usual. One entry in the bibliography that grabbed my attention today: Ramp Hollow: The Ordeal of Appalachia by Steven Stoll.
I was reminded today of Alan Jacobs’ review of the final Harry Potter book. Calling the series “the greatest penny dreadful ever written” was just spot-on; I’ve thought of that several times over the years. It also reminds me that I’ve been reading Jacobs for something over twenty years!
