Welcome to A Marginally Better World (Maybe)
In a world where people are Just Saying Things, I might as well try to say something, too.
In my experience, writing is hard. Sometimes I look back at the messages and emails I’ve sent and think:
Who is this person? (Me.)
Are they trying too hard? (Surely.)
Did someone edit this? (Hope so!)
That’s to say, I enjoy doing it, and over a year ago late last year, thought I should do it more often! The struggle, and perhaps what’s taken so long, is threefold:
- I greatly appreciate clear, novel, radical (“root-grasping”) writing. Thus it takes me time and great care to whittle my thoughts down in to something meaningful.
- “Why am I speaking?” is a great rule, and making space for marginalized people to speak up is more important to me now than ever.
- Creeping fascism, among other things, has continued to erode my presence of mind.
Almost five years ago, I gave a talk which you could summarize as, “here are some little things you can do in your software project that could result in 🌈 A Marginally Better World 🌈 (Maybe). There was even a slide:
If you detected a hint[1] of sarcasm there, you’d be right. The sarcasm originates from the idea that software and best practices therein are probably a drop in the bucket. It’s like, we could and should be aspiring bigger and better things, like forming a tech workers union, right?
Right. But you don’t get to A Marginally Better World in just one jump. It’s a lot of little things laddering up, building on each other, and giving you the courage to keep striving.
Most of the time it’s actually my photography that fills that daily need. But when it comes to writing, it’s like, for a couple thousand “days ending in ‘y’” too many, the absolute worst people on this planet have run their mouths off about the absolute worst, fascistic, bigoted drivel you can imagine. Pair that with the fact that some thoughts don’t fit within 300-500 characters and, I guess I have a blog now. Again.
We’ll see how this goes.
Let the record show that this slide was positively dripping with sarcasm! And earnestness! Seriously, why not both! ↩︎