A Note on Beginnings

February 13, 2024

This is the beginning. I’ve been thinking about how to strike out on this path for a while, and I suppose a quiet Tuesday morning at 5:30 am is a good a time as any. The side street we live on is home to a symphony of sounds/noises: geese honking down at the lake, the agoraphobic neighbor wailing into the night (I feel ya, girl), street car race screeches, a self-important transplant from Massachusetts orating boldly into his iPhone, the heavy trucks accelerating up the never-ending sloping hills. I find the late evening, and increasingly early morning, is the best time for me to lean into the shards of productivity. Grasping at my potential, hoping I don’t cut my hands again.

What am I doing here?

What am I trying to achieve?

Aside from simply enjoying the craft of writing, at least for my personal reflection as of late, I want to help people.

We’re just writing, we’re not going to second guess the content just yet. My brain will often judge and cancel an idea or thought before I can even fully form it. She do be working pretty fast, perhaps too fast for her own good.

With original aspirations involving something like a funny, well-researched sociopolitical commentary, encouraging and contributing to the growing tide of discontent among we zee people, this project has morphed and folded, then expanded into a beautiful blob web. So, here I am, humbly beginning without a clear goal in mind.

I want to share about my process: thinking, writing, creating, moving through the world. How I’ve come to this way of doing things; reflections on the last couple of years; formational stories to my identity, values, and life path.

I want to share well-written and well-researched articles and reviews of academic, intellectual, practical, and political rhetoric. As we approach the coming election, I’d like participate in the discourse as opposed to burying my head in the sand and declaring the American political system as a conspiracy and also a very broken, very ineffective and inefficient system.

I understand and empathize with the burnout and exhaustion many of us have when it comes to mainstream media coverage of the American government and all of her nibs and nobs. First of all, the media and news industries as a whole…. oooof, a whole bag of worms. That cluster aside, I hope to help people cut through the noise and make some sense of it.

My goal is to bring together stories, experiences (personal and shared), research, data, books, sites to help myself make better sense of the world. In doing so, I hope to (play a role in providing) provide a space where people feel seen, a place for solidarity, for discussion of what could be.

I acknowledge I am not the only one or the first one to attempt this ambiguous work.

For now, I’ll use my written words, but I have aspirations of podcasting, and unfortunately remain resistant to going it solo. If anyone knows a soul who might be a good conspirator/collaborator for me in the podcast realm, I would deeply appreciate an introduction or contact card.

I’d also like to draw in some visual art elements. Perhaps some memes, the best thing to come out of the internet to date, imo. Just beautiful bespoke encapsulations of culture, a moment, and deeeeeeeply philosophical.

If you feel called or know someone who might be interested in knocking around ideas in this capacity, PLEASE SEND ME A LINE so we may open a portal.

I’m getting the sense there will be a fair number of personal stories. I may choose to put these behind a paywall for my or my loved/forgotten one’s privacy at some point. Navigating the public life vs. private Spence will likely be plagued with some growing pains, and I really appreciate your understanding as I bare it all and relinquish my cherished privacy in the name of relatability and sense-making.