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.
#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.
