This Newsletter Looks Different Now
On new beginnings, Ada Limón, a personal rebrand, and the pursuit of purpose
Hi everyone, and Happy Vernal Equinox.
If you read my last essay—the one about walls and the crushing darkness of February—you can only imagine how thrilled I am that it’s finally spring, the season of new beginnings. If February is the Tuesday of months, then March is the Monday: not everyone’s cup of tea, but at least it’s a chance to turn a new leaf and begin again on a different foot.
Speaking of new beginnings, you might have noticed that things look a little different around here. Welcome to my freshly updated newsletter, now titled notes from a reluctant optimist.
Thanks to encouragement from a few folks, I’ve been working over the last few weeks to develop a stronger presence and personal brand here on Substack. I didn’t expect to do much with this platform when I first started my newsletter last year. But as I kept writing and my audience grew incrementally, I realized that Substack might actually be a viable home for my thoughts and overall ~vibe~ online. It’s certainly less aggravating than Instagram is. And though I’ve only been churning out essays for fun, I realized there was something crucial missing here—an underlying theme, the beating heart of these collective essays. Much like me, the newsletter was lacking a purpose.
As I worked to thread the connections between my essays, I realized that the feeling of purposelessness—that existential turmoil that rears its head so frequently in my writing—was the engine behind most of my stories. Whether I explore the topic through art, human connection, literature, or some other medium, there’s a unifying theme here: life feels weird and beautiful and scary and precious for a lot of reasons, and I’m not really sure why we’re here to begin with, and writing is my way to deal with all of that. So I’ve decided the purpose behind this newsletter is to explore that very purposelessness that’s so characteristic of the human experience. And not just the purposelessness, but the hope, too.
This is all a lot clearer if you read what I put on my About page today. Here it is:
As a writer, I have always felt deeply, observed carefully and intellectualized my own existence, usually to a scathingly critical degree. Accordingly, being has both exhilarated me and put me ill at ease in recent years. And lately, I’ve been trying to come to grips with being sentient and alive—here and now, in this body, on this Earth—by considering myself a reluctant optimist.
To me, reluctant optimism is staring into the harrowing chasm of the human experience and begrudgingly admitting that, in spite of everything, life is a gift and it’s good to be here. Perhaps you feel a little out of place on Earth, or a bit purposeless, or simply a little sad most days. Maybe you’re not really sure what the world has to offer you, or what you have to offer to the world. Even still, you’re determined to make the most of your time here.
notes from a reluctant optimist is here to offer perspectives on navigating the human condition from a writer who feels similarly.
That all said, the content here won’t change much—I just wanted to make this official and put a label on it, so to speak. Though my goals or this newsletter might change in the future, I want to wield it now with some conviction.
If you happen to think this type of newsletter might resonate with friends or family, please feel free to share it with them, or on your own social media channels. I’ve been shy in the past about allowing people to share my work, but if it touches you in any way, I’d be honored to know it made the rounds online, no matter how near or far.
I’m keeping this letter brief, but I’ll leave you with a springtime poem from one of my favorite contemporary poets, Ada Limón. As always, thanks for being here. See you in April!
