A Change of Direction

I mean, what was I thinking?

When I began this Substack, I thought of it as a way of writing a memoir-in-posts—as you can see in the posts I’ve posted so far. I find myself interesting—that is when I am not boring myself silly or feeling like a clueless loser.

But Substack isn’t a memoir platform. It isn’t even a literary platform.

It’s a newsletter platform.

Me, and Samuel Beckett, rethinking my Substack

What had I been thinking? The point of a Substack is to bring you news you can use.

And the news I want to bring you is that you can kind of detoxify life-mistakes, and even failures (if the mistakes and failures are not too awful or lethal) by examining them with self-compassion, interest, and humor. Especially humor.

You can even do that, I believe, if you are right in the middle of a big mistake right now.

My job in these posts, beloved subscribers and casual readers, is to help you become a little less afraid of life-mistakes by writing and thinking about how interesting they can be.

Here’s My New Idea

So sure, I want to share with you my errors, missteps, bumblings, and droppings of the ball—and I’ve got plenty to share—but I I’m going to put them in the context of a conversation instead of a memoir: a conversation with you, with myself, with some living experts and some not-living but still “alive” philosophers and saints and other spiritual giants.

I’ll be hoping to hear from you on this Substack thing’s many means of communication—posts and comments and notes and all, which I am just getting the hang of.

For now, let’s get started with some good quotes about embracing error, or, as I want to call it, “mistake favoritism.”

Truth emerges more readily from error than from confusion.

--Francis Bacon

Be bold. If you're going to make an error, make a doozy, and don't be afraid to hit the ball.
--Billie Jean King

Knowledge rests not upon truth alone, but upon error also.
--Carl Jung

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.
--George Bernard Shaw

Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.
--Oscar Wilde