The Cowardice of Waiting

It’s taken a lot of futzing and fumbling, but I’ve managed to wrangle both of my beloved, long neglected works on to Substack, with a great sense of optimism about what it all portends. There was work to be done. I exported every post out of Wordpress. I had to upload them all over again. I had to find new images for every single post on Wristwatches and Radios, but mercifully stuck to the Spartan minimalism of an image free experience on Two Thieves. 

Then, there’s been the (unnecessary) ordeal of my custom domains. One worked just fine, whilst the other was trapped in some sort of dysfunctional, technological purgatory where DNS records feared to tread. Apparently it didn’t point to anything, but the fine bots and bleeps over at Hostgator assured me everything was just fine. It wasn’t. I’ve switched to Squarespace and it’s been smooth, easy sailing, with a clean interface that makes it all so much easier. So hey, I have my custom domains. But I’ve not yet been writing all that much. You don’t understand, I had to tweak my wordmarks and logos to give them a little something more, something clean and elegant. Something new. 

Gear culture and addiction in the guitar space can bear a similar burden. You’re always searching, always waiting for the right pedal, the best signal chain, the greatest tone, before you allow yourself to sit down and play the instrument. You need to set up your switcher, or midi controller, and program your presets, or find the right audio interface, the right reverb, the overdrive that captures your perfect sense of grittiness, and texture. So much keeps you from the art itself, and you can find countless Reddit posts and Youtube videos about people sacrificing every creative impulse in the hedonistic and materialistic pursuit of the next thing, drunk on the thrill of ‘the chase.’ It’s the same drug, just in a different form. 

I’ve been enjoying Notes. Other people’s notes. With some kind of scrupulous trepidation, that is. I’ve long abandoned Twitter, Facebook and their ilk, trying to maintain a cognitive clarity that has been largely safeguarded, by avoiding the random, frenetic barrage of other people’s ideas, outbursts, observations, and life experiences - so often fickle, banal, glib. The freedom that came from not having to constantly try to think of something clever and funny to share also came as a great relief. But Substack notes have been, for the most part, coherent, articulate, provocative, occasionally inspiring. They keep pointing me to new writers and pieces that I actually, quite enjoy.  

So here I am, waiting for the right moment to post a note, to point to the works that have been in motion for some years now. My writing is haphazard, sporadic, usually at the whims of family life, fatigue and if I’m honest with myself, the sloth and inertia of my own creative agency, at the whims of and vagaries of a given emotional state on any given day. I’m not good at shrugging off the dross of the day and getting the work done. I love writing. Truly. It grants a wondrous sense of calm and clarity that reminds me of Mr Gruffyd’s definition of prayer in How Green Was My Valley: “Good, clean, direct thinking.” 

As much as I adore the film, I find his definition of prayer to be more than a little bereft of an intimate exchange with God, but his advice around cognitive acuity is sound: 

Think well what you're saying.

Make your thoughts into things that are solid,

and in that way

your prayer will have strength.

And that strength will become

a part of you, body, mind and spirit.

So here I am, on occasion, making my thoughts into things that are solid. And then I’m going to stop procrastinating and post a note, instead of allowing the fear of falling, failing, not having the right post up to enchant the possible reader - to stop me from reaching out to these fine people. To you, dear reader.

At Wristwatches and Radios, I write about fatherhood; fidelity; culture and creativity. Two Thieves is more of an eclectic mix of observations on life, Catholicism, discipline, music, guitar, literature and film. For what it’s worth, I’m glad to make your acquaintance. I hope you stick around. I hope I do too.