reading clearout - june 2022

Hi reader, happy current year! Hope all is well in 2023 so far.

Here are some notes on my reading from June 2022.

The Hole by Hiroko Oyamada

Longtime readers may recall that I previously wrote about Oyamada's The Factory, placing that work on my 2021 books of the year shortlist. I didn't feel as strongly about The Hole, which won the Akutagawa Prize in 2013 (for those unfamiliar with Japanese literature, this is a prize that I believe is named after an Akutagawa, much like how the Nobel Peace Prize is named after a Peace). My recollection of this book is the expert way Oyamada sets the mood for the reader, leaving me fully immersed in the protagonist's feeling of being trapped by circumstance in her strange new surroundings. For those wondering about my recommendation, I suggest giving it an initial try - it's a short book, so if you can manage its strangeness then getting to the end of this decorated work should be no issue.

Who Says? by Lisa Zeidner

In this thorough work, Zeidner guides the reader through point of view in fiction. It was a solid book but perhaps too technical for me, which could just as much be a reflection on me as on the book (I suspect this book is best suited for fiction writers, either beginners or those who need to brush up on their fundamentals). However, I did feel that reading Who Says? made me a marginally better reader, particularly in the ways it helped me recognize specific structural techniques that mark strong writing. A helpful example is in one of my notes from the book - scene compression, which is implied by the extent to which an author reveals background information through exposition, is one of the ways great writers differ from good writers.

There were two details regarding the book's topic that jumped out to me during my notes review. First, for details such as rolled eyes a writer should ask - does the reader need to see this? - then consider whether rewriting away from default omniscience is an appropriate objective for revision. Zeidner also comments that the third-person perspective operates best when the desired effect is like that of a reveal, helping limit the exhibitionist feeling that might emerge were this done in the first-person. Who Says? also made a few interesting remarks that had nothing to do with point of view. As one example, Zeidner points out that the difference in literary and commercial fiction is the extent to which details resembling stage instructions appear in the work, likely a result of how literary fiction strikes anything that isn't valuable to the story. She also remarks that fiction is superior to a movie whenever the story must break into a character's mind, making a book the preferred way to tell stories about mood or motive.

What Are the Chances? by Barbara Blatchley

Blatchley's book promises to explain why people believe in luck, which she does by focusing mainly on history and brain science. These two areas are not exactly among my main interests, so for me What Are the Chances? wasn't the greatest reading experience. (It also probably didn't help that I brought some familiarity on the topic of luck with me to the reading.) The main premise of the book is that human minds are deeply ingrained with the idea that events have causes, so we naturally seek explanations for what happens in our lives. This may lead us to fear the unknown, a category in which Blatchley also includes randomness, so our ability to see false patterns or conjure up unlikely explanations is partly a result of trying to control this fear.

One note caught my eye while reviewing - the Clever Hans effect. This refers to a sensational story from the early 1900s about a horse who seemed capable of performing arithmetic. Eventually, researchers determined that the horse was reading the body language of the trainer, who was subtly giving off cues regarding the correct answer. I believe it's included in this book as an example of why we should remain skeptical of unlikely explanations, but I think there is a lot more to be said about it due to the possible applications in all kinds of fields. For today, I'll note that this story rings true to me from those instances when a household pet seemed to intuit that I was about to leave despite my not having made any indication of an imminent departure.

The Nineties by Chuck Klosterman

Longtime TOA readers will know that I count Klosterman among my favorite authors. Those familiar with his work will assume, rightfully so, that he brings a necessary balance to my favorites list, with his presence contrasting with those of the more rigorous or literary authors (perhaps best exemplified by The Nineties being listed on the Goodreads "2022 Best Humor" nominee list). However, Klosterman has a unique approach to his writing that I see as its own form of seriousness, even if the results won't seem very serious to the average observer. I suppose what I mean is that regardless of whether the topic itself is serious, he always seems to approach those topics seriously, and I think this style leads to his writing being more interesting than logic would dictate. The Nineties, about the 1990s, is a good example of this in action - he didn't set out to write a comprehensive hindsight analysis of the decade, as perhaps a serious historian would, but rather tried to capture how it felt to live through it at the time, which to me seems like a goal that would require its own brand of serious thinking.

It's not a perfect style and the book did have some flaws but I could forgive some of the shortcomings due to his refreshing approach toward the subject. For me, it was interesting to encounter lifestyle details that I'm sure are on the verge of being lost to common memory, with a notable example being the way landlines controlled their owners. I wouldn't go so far as to say it resembled an addiction, but at a time where so many worry about smartphone dependency it makes for a pleasant diversion to think about the complicated relationship we've always had with our phones. I also had never considered the way audio formats influenced records for album sales - many longtime music fans repurchased vinyl favorites for use with their CD players. The note that the rise of rap made it possible for people to hold an anti-police perspective even if they'd never had a meaningful interaction with police themselves made some sense to me from experience - the music was popular among my teenaged peers, with whom I grew up in the type of town entirely unacknowledged by the genre. However, I am left wondering if an aside expanding on the idea could have been the best part of the book given how this specific trend has only accelerated in the ensuing decades. To close with a comment on an occasional TOA topic, I thought it was fascinating that some Gallup polls regarding the 2000 election didn't include climate change among its top sixteen issues.

the toa 2022 review - top ten most read, part five (#5, #3, #2, #1)

Hi reader, here's the fifth and final part of the 2022 top ten recap. I know I'm supposed to say something like "last but not least" in these situations, however in this case that sentiment may not fully apply due to how I broke out the substantial reflections into their own posts. In other words, this, the last section, may also indeed be the least interesting of the reflections. Complain if you'd like, just remember this is free.

In any case, thanks for reading in 2022, and hopefully we have more satisfying conclusions ahead of us in 2023.

#5 | "Presentation and Public Appearance" (May 11, 2019)

I have absolutely no idea what caused readers in 2022 to pick out this 2019 post (it's almost 100% certain that folks randomly stumbled onto it while cruising the information superhighway). Still, it's kind of interesting to reread one of the older-style TOA reading reviews. This post, riffing on a comment from Nassim Nicholas Taleb's Skin in the Game, reinforces an important reminder for our current "fast casual" information era - some ideas are too complex to be fully understood from just a couple of bullet points, so beware anytime you are promised comprehension without being asked to make the necessary investment of mental energy.

#4 | "Who Woke The Business Bro?" (July 9)

This one was covered separately a few days ago.

#3 | "It's Just Not The Time To Not Say" (July 3)

#2 | "The Final Schedule" (July 6)

This pair was presented together back in July, with the connecting thread being that I was essentially publishing excuses for slowing down with my TOA pace. Who knew a three-month break was just around the corner?

The first post was definitely a bit of an outlier on this list in the sense that it feels more like a blog post than anything else (let's call it a BLS - "blog-like substance"). The unfocused nature of a BLS meant I buried the main point under a cascade of syllables, so let's just restate it here - the best time to write something is when there is no choice but to write it. For those loyal readers who aren't writers, this can apply in other contexts - the best time to say something is when there is no choice but to say it.

The second post, noted as a leftover to the first post, had a little more to it thanks to my observation regarding why I was struggling to find topics - having already written about so many things over the years, I either had to think of new ideas or return to previously discussed themes. The problem with the latter is that given my view of writing as one way to think, the level of thinking for anything I had previously written about would therefore need to be much more rigorous than in the past. To put it another way, if I need to think more about a topic than I did in the past, then it would also be tougher to write about, which would have some obvious slowdown effects on my posting schedule.

#1 | "The Annual Misremembering" (July 12)

There are a couple of problems with rereading my own work. First, most of the older posts have an obvious flaw or two, which means rereading is often interrupted by a sudden urge to unlock the post and start revising it. The second problem is that I've posted so many things over seven years that I don't really remember any of it, which means rereading can also lead to these intense bouts of self-flagellation where I question why I ever thought it wise to put my words onto a public space.

Neither of those two applies to this post, however - you could say it's a bit of a unicorn. I just reread it, and I have no urge to make any edits. I also enjoyed reading it, almost as if it were some kind of fresh work from another writer thanks to the fact that I didn't recall so much as a word from six months ago. If this is going to represent my writing from 2022, then it's just fine with me.

the toa 2022 review - top ten most read, part four (#4)

Hi reader, we're going to skip #5 for today and move straight to my reflections on the fourth most-read post from 2022.

#4 | "Who Woke The Business Bro?" (July 9)

There's not much I can add that is specifically related to this post. It's a short piece with an obvious point, though I suppose whether the point is obvious or not depends on how clearly you've thought about this topic. I can also note that there is an element of a "TOA special" here in the way it's crafted to give any type of reader an angle for disagreement (or maybe I should say - it doesn't finish where it started, another TOA hallmark). But I'm not feeling compelled to add to any of the above today.

Maybe the only real observation I can make about this post is that it's a good example of why I don't share TOA with my current colleagues. I've been involved in my organization's DEI group since late 2019. It's been a good experience despite slow progress, but for the most part I've been able to maintain my commitment and stick with the process. The past year or so (at the time of the post, it would have been a few months) was a turning point for me. I think my patience gave way to frustration far more easily than it did in the first two years, with a consistent source of this feeling stemming from those who prioritized learning ahead of working toward the organization's stated goals. I can partner with anyone who values learning, in fact I am more than willing to play some role in contributing to their learning process, but in this specific context I've started to feel that the "learning process" operates a lot like a small child's "eating process" - waiting around until someone more experienced serves a highly curated, easily digestible nugget at just the right time. Would you like to try a carrot, even if it's a little uncomfortable? No, of course not, since eating includes only the things you are comfortable eating. Would you like to tell me you're hungry? No, I should just know, to spare you the vulnerability of admitting you need my help.

But there is another angle, which goes back to something I mentioned in the original post. Despite my frustrations maybe what's happening is actually the right thing, and I'm simply failing to accept my role in the next step of the process. I suppose it's reasonable that I should help others continue the learning process that they began in June 2020, and that they should define this process rather than me. OK, I can entertain that idea. But if this is the case, then shouldn't reality be reflected in the paycheck? Schools pay the teachers, not the students. At perhaps the most basic level this is what DEI in the workplace is all about - recognizing, valuing, and compensating people for the work produced through their skills and experience, which in the DEI context often refers to such that have traditionally escaped acknowledgment. In an organization such as mine, there is a strong emphasis placed on having the qualifications to further DEI work, but no reward for those already in the team who are furthering DEI work. If we need to start somewhere, why not with those who are helping their colleagues develop and apply these skills to the work? I think as long as paychecks make no recognition of the ongoing work in the present, then it won't be possible to accomplish the goals set for the future.

the toa 2022 review - top ten most read, part three (#6)

Hi reader, part three of the 2022 "top ten most read posts" series. Like last time, this one ran long so we'll cover just the one for today.

#6 | "How To Skip What You Love" (June 5)

I had this holiday tradition for many years with my brother where, after the usual festivities had ceased for the evening, we would plug The Sims into a PlayStation and play the game "head to head" into the wee hours. The only thing I learned from those sessions is that although no two people play The Sims in the same way, there does seem to be a shared instinct among gamers to recreate the closest possible version of ourselves in the game. This allows the player to turn The Sims into more than just a game - it becomes a virtual life lab, and we ran our pointless experiments over endless bowls of reheated stuffing while that voyeur Mortimer made his best efforts to distract us from noting our most important observations.

In hindsight, I can't say many of the events prophesied by The Sims has come to pass for me - no, I did not parlay my entry-level military job into a successful career as a musician (yet), and I feel it's highly unlikely I'll marry any neighbor after three dates. However, I did learn one thing about myself, and I think this lesson comes through in the post - my playfulness. One of the initial challenges I struggled with in the game was getting my character's personality to match my real one. The way you create a personality in the game is by allocating points across five categories - sloppy/neat, shy/outgoing, lazy/active, mean/nice, and serious/playful (adding points moved you from left to right, or left/right - for example, adding to sloppy/neat made you neater; the system makes no sense since it assumes people can't max out in all five categories). I had the first three categories more or less worked out right away - shy, active, and nice. I dropped myself somewhere in the middle for sloppy/neat. After allocating my points to those four categories, I made my mistake - instead of correctly stuffing all my remaining points into "playful", I wasted the remaining points on "outgoing", indulging some vague notion of creative license, or perhaps just testing a hypothesis that a chattier version of myself would improve the gaming experience.

Quite frankly, I probably overlooked the playfulness option simply because I didn't fully understand it at the time. I must have thought of playfulness as something that could be said of certain people (like saying "he's tall") rather than a quality that everyone possessed to varying degrees (like height). I don't believe I ever described someone else as playful unless it was extremely obvious to everyone, such as in the presence of a relentless goofball or an outrageous flirt. I therefore gave myself no chance of noticing the lesser yet significant degree of this quality in myself despite there being no shortage of examples suggesting such in those days - in my mind, I saw the way I goofed off as more of a situational behavior rather than an expression of personality. Another explanation is that since pretty much anything I'd worked on up to that point in my life required a degree of seriousness, success in general seemed very much dependent on taking things seriously. I think this fooled me into thinking it was a worthwhile aspiration to cultivate seriousness, or at least to present myself as a serious person whenever I felt the situation called for it. In my mind, a playful person and a successful person were two different persons. This didn't lead me to abandon my playful qualities, but I think I did ignore them to a certain degree because I never considered the possibility that playfulness could also be a factor in my success.

Since I had accustomed myself to presenting a serious side, when the game placed seriousness and playfulness on a sliding scale I naturally leaned toward the former. For me, succeeding in a game that simulated real life meant doing all the things I thought I should do to succeed in real life. You could say such a decision reflects the greatest design accomplishment of The Sims - despite presenting the player with no set way to win or lose the game, the player naturally tries to win anyway by accumulating wealth, which in a capitalist society is the definition of last resort for those who are otherwise unable to define success. Up to that point I had thought that seriousness would help me achieve this form of success, both in the game as well as in life.

As a writer I know that this is when I'm supposed to tie this whole thing together with a nice neat bow, detailing the moment of epiphany while playing The Sims when I suddenly realized the error of my ways. Alas (and at the risk of sending James Joyce spinning in his grave) I think the fact is that life doesn't really work in this way - the singular "aha!" moment that changes everything always feels like an oversimplification, like the way meteorologists pinpoint sunset down to the exact minute even though I've seen some of them last for over half an hour. I'm not sure exactly when I recognized just how badly my mentality regarding the value of seriousness was selling me short, but it definitely wasn't one moment while playing the game. (If there is any epiphany to describe in this essay, it's perhaps my realization as I write that the only meaningful way to win The Sims - to beat the game, as they say - is discovering how to precisely recreate yourself in the game, since this would demonstrate that the gamer had achieved a complete understanding of the self.)

I do believe playing The Sims did have some role in this process, and perhaps there was one night when I tweaked my character's personality a few points over from serious to playful that led me to recognize myself a little more on the screen. But I also know that there were so many other contexts where I noticed how injecting playfulness improved the situation, perhaps by leading to a better outcome or just making it a better experience for everyone, and eventually enough examples accumulated where I was the protagonist of these moments. At some point, it just became obvious how much more I had to offer if I recognized this quality in me. A serious approach to life is a perfectly acceptable mentality... for a serious person. For me, best described these days as someone who is constantly fucking around (apologies for the lack of a better expression), adopting a serious approach means the best I'll ever do is live up to someone else's expectations. I actually think that is all well and good for some people, but for me I'm more interested in reaching my own potential.

I think in recent years I've started making sense to myself because I am finding ways to apply my qualities to situations rather than trying to emulate the qualities that seem to be demanded after studying those situations. As I mentioned in the original post, I'm also becoming better at understanding others and recognizing how powerful this quality is for them. But I think what I notice most is the evidence of absence, where a lack of playfulness or perhaps a refusal to acknowledge its calling has confined someone within a diminished life. I think I've always known that anything you skip for long enough will disappear from your life, but maybe it hadn't been so obvious to me until that day when I encountered the woman who could walk right past the game she once loved to play.

the toa 2022 review - top ten most read, part two (#7)

Hi folks, part two of the 2022 "top ten most read posts" series.

My thoughts ran a bit long today so we'll just do the one this time.

#7 | "We Back... Sort Of (On Breaks)" (October 12)

There's this Haruki Murakami memoir called What I Talk about when I Talk about Running that I've read two or three times over the years. I don't say this too often about a book but I remember it being rather disappointing. As I recall, it got started, kept going, and then finally ended... nowhere. Of course, it's been so long that I actually can't say if this was precisely my problem with it. As longtime TOA readers know, I don't object much to going nowhere. The problem might have been that I thought the best parts of the book could have been written with no mention whatsoever of running, which would be consistent with how I've reacted recently to similar work. As not just a runner but a (sort of) writer, and not just a runner but a runner who also occasionally (sort of) writes about running, the experience felt a bit like being served a piece of sushi by a cookout grillmaster - although the link to running intrigued me, I realized soon enough that Murakami's strengths as a fiction writer hardly ensured he could offer an equally satisfying experience when serving up different fare.

This post, which ended a TOA-record three month pause between posts, might have been my attempt to try writing Murakami's book for myself. It's partly a post about what running can do to your other hobbies (it kept me from writing) and partly about what running can teach you about your other hobbies (a break recharged me for writing just as it did for running), but it's mostly about the connection between writing and running. I'm not sure if I managed to succeed at the task. The astute reader, for example, will note that running comes up only in the final paragraphs, so how could it be about running? I could have clarified my point by plainly stating the connections, perhaps explaining how finishing a marathon the first weekend of October meant the preceding few weeks were absorbed by serious training, which I partly made time for by putting down the pen. However, I think I was walking a thin line between a post about the connection of writing to running and a post about just running, and I suspected overstatements regarding the connection would have pushed me across the line from the former to the latter.

The reason I wanted to avoid crossing this line is because I don't think writing about running leads to my best writing. In my mind, what I talk about when I talk about running comes at the expense of talking about far more important things. This may be an elusive realization for us amateur runners, who I believe generally rely on running as our main tool for figuring out how to live our best lives. For you non-runners, let me clarify - running takes a long time, during which there is little more to do than think. But I suspect this is also why I sense a certain futility when I write about running - there isn't an obvious difference between thinking while running and just thinking, so the extra work to explain why running played a role in my thinking often becomes a burden. I still may personally feel that I came to some kind of epiphany while running that could not have happened at any other time, but there isn't always an effective way to prove that to the reader. Could I have achieved the same result while walking, or perhaps sitting on the couch? From my experience, the answer is "sure, maybe" and that's enough to undermine any writing about it.

It may be unfair to tie this back to a book I read many years ago, but as I mentioned earlier it's also a reaction I've had to other similarly constructed work. The relationship between running and anything that happens outside of running always seems less obvious to me as a reader than it seems to me as a writer. I can relate - as a runner, you can have these moments where your entire being soars with each additional step, and in those situations it seems sensible to share the experience in writing. I remember an afternoon in late August when I was crossing from Cambridge to Boston over the Mass Ave bridge. At some point in the ambiguous zone between the two cities, I looked straight up in the air and became dizzy under the bluest sky I had ever seen. The strangest thought flashed through my mind - if this is all I get, I'll take it. I still have no idea what brought that to mind. In fact, my only conclusion a few months later is that I might now understand better why some people believe in God. But for me, those few seconds under the bright blue sky didn't lead to anything else - I didn't join the clergy, I didn't go down to the local church the following Sunday, I didn't even start wondering about God myself. I just went home, drank some water or Gatorade, and presumably took a shower.

I'd love to say at this point that such instances of pure wonder don't happen when you go for a walk. I believe for me the power of running is what brings these ideas to my mind, but I know better than to assume readers will accept that what is true for me is true on average (!). This is the toughest task for any writer - to read their own writing from the perspective of a reader. If the writing centers around some kind of anecdote, the questions for the writer-turned-reader are fairly simple. First, will the reader accept the anecdote's connection to the larger point? Second, has the writer overlooked anything that might undermine the premise? To return to my example, even if I had indeed built on this God Moment and changed my life in some meaningful way, there would still be readers who raised the thorny issue of all the other writing describing God Moments involving people whose two feet were firmly planted on the ground. In order for me to make this anecdote relevant, I would have to do a lot more than just share the story and expect others to accept it on its own merits - I would need to actually write much more about it until the reader was convinced that there was no other context in which I could enjoy such an epiphany. But then I would be writing about running, which would be a distraction from the far more interesting writing regarding my God Moment and what I think about that today.

This leaves the writer who runs in a challenging predicament. If something worthwhile happens while running, what's the best way to write about it? This is a big question, but I can offer an initial approach - a tangential method, making just enough contact with the running without giving it a chance to overtake the writing. I suppose this rules out any kind of post about my marathon, but I think the world will survive just fine without it. I've already said the most important thing about it in the initial post - taking a break from running to start the year helped me understand why I should take a break from writing in the middle of the year. Amusingly, I had some moments during the marathon which signaled to me that I was ready to return from my writing break. These resembled the way I recognized it was time to end my running break - just as those sudden urges to run told me it was time to return to running, quick thoughts at various mile markers regarding what I might write about the race signaled to me that I should soon return to writing. I may have continued with these musings all the way to the finish, but at around mile twenty the expected muscle challenges finally caught up to me and so from that point on I focused entirely on avoiding injury and completing the race.

I eventually dragged myself across the finish line, returning to where I had started hours earlier, which is a common feeling for runners - most days, it's just a bit of time and energy spent going nowhere. The meaning of such pointless exercise comes from returning to where you started as a slightly different person. For me, a marathon always seemed impossible due to my history of picking up ill-timed injuries, so crossing the finish line was just another item I could add to that list of things I was wrong about all along. But I think it was also a useful reminder that going nowhere, running the same circles day after day, is sometimes the only way to get somewhere. I think this is how writing works - most of your effort takes you nowhere, so you need to understand how going nowhere fits into the process of getting somewhere. What happens most days is that whatever you need to write about just isn't possible yet. Much like how the runner who hasn't trained up to the full distance isn't yet a runner capable of finishing the race, you aren't yet the writer who can write what you need to write. All you can do is find whatever reason you can to stick with it so that you can return to the desk next time as a slightly different writer. One day you realize something actually did happen, and it's a special moment - all those days of going nowhere has finally led you somewhere. I don't understand any of it, I just know that it's the closest thing to magic you can find, the moment when the finish line suddenly appears on the page or on the road, and the most obvious thought in the world comes to mind - if this is all I get, I'll take it.

the toa 2022 review - top ten most read, part one

Happy New Year! Hopefully your 2023 is off to a good start. If my life is any indicator of yours, then I suppose your year has already included some of the following - some deserved relaxation over a long weekend, quality catchup time with friends and family, perhaps a mild hangover (or two), and, of course, the persistent hope in the back of the mind that this year, finally, turns out to be that mythical Best Year Ever.

There may also be some out there who use this time for review or reflection on the past year. This phenomenon isn't just limited to individuals - it's also a common practice in many types of organizations. The persistence of this practice was evident over the past couple of weeks as my inbox was flooded by various "best of 2022" compilation-retrospectives, which I would generally summarize as little more than a desperate plea for pageviews via last-ditch hyperlink vomit.

But jokes aside, does TOA really sneer at these so-called peers? Hardly not, we're just as starved for attention here at TOA HQ as all the rest. I think the only meaningful difference between TOA and the rest of the "competition" is that we aren't quite so desperate... well, we are desperate, let me make that clear. But the balance still tips ever so slightly in favor of dignity, and as such we spent the past few days resisting the temptation to succumb so pathetically to one of the strangest traditions in modern history - publishing a year-end review before the year ends.

Finally however, the wait is over! For the first time in TOA history, I actually have a definite list of the "most read" posts from the past year (which really means "most clicked on posts", which means nothing). I'll post them here over the next few days alongside any reflections I may have in hindsight about those posts. Today's list is part one of the TOA Top 10 from 2022.

(And how many parts will there be? Like how could I know? I'm only the writer/editor/head of marketing around these parts.)

Good luck!

Honorable mention / T-#10 | "The Long Intro" (April 6)

For those of you who've never done anything like TOA - or have just never had an original idea - please note that the creative process goes as follows:

1. You have a good idea

2. You get swept up in the excitement of #1

3. You start working on #1, propelled by #2, without pausing to think at all about obstacles or admin or whatever else that will eventually force you to slow down (spoiler alert - #4)

4. You encounter your First Obstacle

5. At this point most folks give up

So for the Top 10 list, the first obstacle turned out be the type of thing that I'm sure keeps the administrative professionals tossing and turning throughout a sleepless night - there was a tie for the #10 spot! I did the only illogical thing - instead of just including both of them (or perhaps editing this series to a "Top 9" list, which the LinkedIn-TedTalks Industrial Complex refers to as "working smarter, not harder") I went ahead and looked down the list for one more to include as an at-large #10 post. Naturally, I couldn't pick between two, so I ended up just returning to my original predicament like a lost hiker who ends up making a big circle through the woods.

So what does this long intro have to do with "The Long Intro"? Nothing and everything. I'm glad you asked, finally. We've all been waiting. You can read it again if you want.

Honorable mention / T-#10 | "The 25th Hour" (March 1)

This post captures one of the biggest challenges from 2022 - how to restore some of the good habits I lost during the pandemic. Specifically, what I talk about here refers to the problem of how to make time for the things that don't happen unless I make time. For me, I've always referred to these as the Three R's - reading, running, and writing - and the return to a pre-pandemic lifestyle saw my commitment to these hobbies pushed into what I call the 25th hour.

What's the short explanation for the the 25th hour? I think it refers more so to a mindset than anything else - it's where you make the excuse that you don't do things you want to do because "you don't have the time". This may be true on occasion. But I think if your lifestyle, like mine, leaves you repeatedly returning to this excuse, then maybe it's worth considering whether you are making the tough decisions necessary to have time for the life you want to live.

#9 | "The TOA Newsletter - February 2022" (February 1)

This post won't end up anywhere near my list of all-time best work (or even halfway up such a list) but in retrospect it does offer a rare summary of the circumstances that enabled TOA since its start in February 2016. When placed alongside the previous post ("The 25th Hour"), it also offers a real-time record of my thought process - the posts show how my conclusion regarding my TOA commitment changed over one month from "I don't have the time" to "I don't make the time". I hope in the future that it takes me less than one month to claim responsibility for my own decisions.

#8 | "Proper Corona Admin, Vol 106. - Individual Responsibility" (June 12)

This was the 106th post I wrote specifically about COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic. One thing that I'll offer as a warning for future TOA-types who may consider structuring their work in the form of a series - although there are some initial benefits in terms of framework, you always have to balance it against a sense of complacency which comes from feeling that the work can lean against the previous writing from the series. This was subtly obvious to me when I reread this post - if I had written this as an entirely stand-alone piece, I suspect I would have done a little more to clarify my ideas, tighten up the writing, and perhaps emphasize what I really needed to say in the essay.

In terms of the contents in this post, I think I still believe in my ideas even though I've hardly thought about them in the past few months. From a strictly per-diem mentality, the vaccine truly is free money - if you don't get sick as often or as severely, your relatively better health will translate to more time or higher performance at work. But the bigger story personally is how far my mindset on COVID has shifted during the ensuing months. I now regard masking in the same way I consider my shoes when arriving as a houseguest - I'll do whatever is preferred by the hosts, which is a simple way to approach a situation where I no longer have the desire to form my own opinion. And as it regards vaccines, maybe I'm starting to think us rich countries should make sure anyone in the world who wants one can get one rather than continuing to spend time and energy on persuading the holdouts to come around.