Splash No. 234 - This Over That 2023
This Over That 2023
Trend forecasting is hot right now, so I’ve been seeing a lot of “what things are in and what things are out for 2023.” I rarely relate to the macrotrends that are shared in those articles, maybe because they’re generally focused on New York-centric media folks. Instead, I’m thinking about the high-level themes that I uncovered this year that I’d like to orient myself towards.
Seasonality over Continuity
In the past year, I’ve more strongly leaned into the fleeting nature of my interests. In the first few months of the year, I continued my intense obsession with poetry, reading it daily, and writing it fairly frequently. After three years of having a rejection goal of submitted writing, I was finally able to reach 10 rejections from lit mags for poetry, and have my second ever acceptance for poetry. Despite all of this, by the time May rolled around, I found it difficult to read much poetry, even harder to write anything.
The next few months were focused on work and reaffirming my identity as a designer, something that had been important in a previous season. Consumption-wise, I shifted toward reading YA fantasy, a piece of an even older season. The return of these focuses affirmed the very idea of seasonality in this form: if a passing interest is important enough, it may float back into my attention and take ahold of me in another season.
I’ve always had trouble focusing on any specific interest for very long, and rather than fight against that and force myself to stick to one thing for too long, or to try and address multiple interests at once, I can let go of some of them, knowing that I can return to them in another season, after I focus on this season.
Execution over Ideation
I’ve been pondering what Zane Lowe said about creativity:
I think everybody on this planet is a creative spirit and thinks about things creatively, or allows themselves to twist or change the shape of something—but we don't execute on it. So what drives the artist to want to execute on that vision rather than just let it be a thought? There are people who probably didn't make the best art when they first started, but they put it out and they got better and better.
The pottery parable about quantity over quality haunts me at all times, so it’s no surprise that I continue to try and consistently put out art. However, in this past year of writing, I’ve become keenly aware of how a small difference in effort results in vastly different quality in a given essay. Quantity by itself doesn’t lead to quality, a good idea by itself doesn’t lead to a good piece of work. The quantity of work I’ve put out in the past has given me the tools to have a basic level of quality to most of what I write, but if I want to get any better, simply churning out weekly letters without putting much thought into them won’t make me improve in any way.
When writing, I spend most of the time trying to identify what to write about in the first place, rather than just picking something and putting the requisite energy into it to create an interesting thing. With a limited amount of energy, I’m interested in seeing if dedicating more time to executing an earlier idea could lead to better returns, or at least build a habit of putting more into each piece of work that I do create.
Depth over Breadth
I’ve chased breadth for a good amount of time, so maybe it’s time to dig deeper into whatever I’m learning about or writing about. However, knowing me, there’s only so much depth that is useful or relevant to me, so it’s worth redefining what depth could mean.
Tim Ferriss of Four Hour Workweek fame claims that reading three books on a topic by different authors will give you more knowledge on that subject than 99% of people. This sounds overly simple, but with a specific enough content domain, it’s likely an overestimate. For example, in the past few weeks, I’ve both read a book about Japanese men’s fashion and listened to a multi-part podcast series about the history of the ivy style of men’s fashion. Between these two works, I feel significantly more knowledgeable about this content domain, likely more so than nearly anyone I know.
As I dig into interests throughout my seasons, perhaps I’ll read three books about them to understand them more than most of my peers, and execute on the ideas these explorations bring. However, I don’t see these as resolutions or requirements for my year to go well. In all honesty, if I continue to go through next year just as I lived this year, I wouldn’t mind — I’m fairly happy with how things have been going. If I do end up following through on these things, that’s cool to! I’m curious to see if my hunches are correct.
See you next year.
Drops of the Week
PLAYLIST - december 22 - didn't listen to too much music this month but added some recommendations I saw on reels.
ARTICLE - "same old" by Jasmine Sun - newsletter from a friend that semi-influenced this one
FILM - Glass Onion - go watch it
Donate to Abortion Funds Mutual Aid Networks
Thanks so much for reading! If you're not already subscribed, I'd love for you to subscribe here. You can also check out my older newsletters here. I have a monthly newsletter called reflecting pool as well.
Also, I'd love to hear your thoughts— you can reply to this email if you loved or hated the letter, or you want to tell me about how your day has been. I'm all ears.
Auld Lang Syne,
Nikhil