§ This marks my first full year of writing these weeknotes. I expected them to be a catalyst for introspection, and they have been. It is great to have a dedicated space to catalog the things I did, learned, noticed, and felt each week.
What I didn’t expect, and where I think they actually deliver the most value, is as a bulwark against the acceleration of time as I get older. Thinking back two years ago, for example, I couldn’t possibly pick out particular events from each week of the year—the past is all a big blurry jumble with just a handful of well-defined signposts. Over time I suspect I will get even more value out of these notes for exactly this reason. What, specifically, do you remember from, say, August 2012?
§ “Fall cleaning” has always felt more urgent and necessary than “spring cleaning” ever has. Now is the time to get the house comfortable to hunker down in for the winter. Come spring, all of my energy will be directed outside, sprouting seeds and preparing the gardens for summer.
§ I’ve recently come to appreciate the importance of letting creative ideas marinate for a while. Whenever I have even an abstract notion for a new project I’ll immediately explore it just enough to lodge it in my memory. Usually all that is required is making a page for it in my sketchbook. Other times I’ll make a rough prototype and shove it in a corner somewhere. All that’s important is that the idea has a firm hold somewhere in the back of my mind.
Later—sometimes years later—the idea will spontaneously re-emerge better than ever. During the intervening time my mind had been developing the idea for me in the background, working out the kinks and making connections to everything else I’d experienced along the way.
§ Overhead projectors continue to be one of the most interesting pieces of technology that are all too often overlooked. Like, come on, when was the last time you saw a liquid light show?
§ My fiancée didn’t know that I had the photic sneeze reflex until it came up as a minor plot point in this week’s episode of A Murder at the End of the World. The most reliable trigger, for me, is walking out of a movie theater into bright daylight. I guess it has just been ages since we’ve seen a movie in theaters, let alone one midday.
§ The new Squid Game reality show was, frankly, not particularly good. Nevertheless, it is remarkable how quickly I became invested in the contestants.
