Happy New Year 2024
A little housekeeping and a general plan for publishing on Carefree Sketches henceforth.
Photo by BoliviaIntelligente on Unsplash
Closing Accounts
The turn of a year is a fascinating concept.
It’s one day done and another day begun. Your body does not know any difference. However, it does not understand the concept of time beyond day and night, seasonal changes, and natural aging. If we press the idea further, all our valuable conventions fall apart. So, even though I used to think that we make too much of New Year’s Day, I now realize that we humans constantly need to re-enchant ourselves and will use any opportunity.
So, Happy New Year, my dears, and may you take in as much excitement as the season offers.
In time-honored fashion, let’s look at the past and lay footpaths for the future.
In 2023, I did too many different things at once on too many fronts. That spread me thin, but it also threw out several paths for me worth exploring. By doing these things, I found that these different projects share a link as they deal with related ideas. Maybe there was no need to place them on various platforms.
So, I put them all in one place to solve a logistic inefficiency, reducing housekeeping (a task I would rather do very little of). It is a good way to build momentum if you crowd all your efforts into a single space. It is good for visibility, too. Besides, variety is good and antifragile.
New Ledger Entry
So, this year, I will put all my creative projects under one roof, each in its category, on this account. Generally, my output will come under these categories:
ESSAYS AND STORIES
I will continue the general trend of this newsletter/blog, but now I will get into the meat of ideas I’ve always wanted to explore rather than skirt them. I will also publish more of my fiction pieces here.
Beyond these general groupings are two focused projects I began work on last year and published on other platforms. As part of the consolidation efforts, I’ll bring them over here.
THE INGARIE FILES
Imagine a country like mine that splits into different countries in a not-too-distant future. Imagine the narrative possibilities in a Scheharazade-like tale. Looking from inside out, outside in. Speculating on the future of tech, economics in a dynamic society, changes in culture, artistic developments, and the interplay of these. THE INGARIE FILES is a series of loosely connected stories, vignettes, travelogue entries, essays, news reports, magazine articles, academic papers, and white papers that stitch a world in a patchwork narrative. The project is a jigsaw puzzle where all the tiles are complete stories, and the more tiles attached, the more the puzzle changes and becomes richer. I set out to cover a period from 2038-2070 across various sub-locales in Ingarie, the country whose breakup establishes the story.
RASHE PERAQIM
The Torah’s first chapters (Genesis Chapters 1-11) set forth the stable enduring themes of human society as a frame for its more focused narrative: the story of Israel. From these, we can see the interplay between our biological drives and psychological makeup. Social coordination is a lively exchange between political organization (man-man interactions) and economic imperatives (man-thing interactions). These and more ideas are sketched subtly, woven tightly together, and delivered directly impactfully. On the flip side, the quirky and delicate presentation of Genesis means that its messages can slip by a coarse and casual reader or a caustic and critical reader. It needs to be approached with a certain romance to yield its secrets. And what can I say? I am a romantic.
Footnote
Generally, I will be writing irresponsibly. Because there are assumptions responsible writing makes that have lost validity for the new age, great walls that serve their function no longer must be overrun. Even putting it like this puts on airs and assumes a mighty and determined will at work. But it is only a natural thing. The creepers and the vines thick on the walls and the trees that grow through the cracks in the tiles do not care about the venerable old and abandoned temple complex. Forests grow back to fill the space from which they were driven when man carved out sacred places. It is time for the wild to swell once again and run rife. It is a similar irresponsibility that drives me.
Welcome aboard.