The Growing Good of the World is Partly Dependent on Unhistoric Acts

We're at the start of a new week, friends!

Today, I had the pleasure of being part of the release party for the San Jose State's Student Research Journal 26th issue. I've been working with the SRJ since last year as the editor-in-chief, and I couldn't be more proud of my team. They've done a phenomenal job, and, as the only student-led, double-blind peer-reviewed and open access journal dedicated to library and information science, that work is key to the field.

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You can read my editorial, Innovation and Responsibility: Librarians in an Era of Generative AI, Inequality, and Information Overload here, and the link to the whole issue is right here. Our authors for this issue were fantastic, both throughout the publication process, and during the wonderful panel event that they attended this evening.

As some of you know, I enjoy the scholarly side of things. I got my taste for it during undergrad, but it was really my MFA at Stonecoast that instilled in me the skills to tackle academic work. Working with the likes of Theodora Goss, Tobias Buckell, and Robert V.S. Redick gave me such a boost for getting my own work into the world. Now, as EIC of the SRJ, I'm getting to do that for others. It's a great feeling.

Artistry: On the diffuse life

This week, work on my novel continued: I finished work on the 6th chapter, and have started on the 7th. At this point, while there's revision work to do on the first two thirds of the novel, what I'm especially excited for is getting to the space for the new ending I've worked out. My reverse-outline helped me see where the gaps in my story were, and that helped me understand how to restructure things. It was painstaking, but utterly worthwhile.

These days, when we see so much nonsense about "AI" floating around in the world, I'm reminded of something that Dr. Normal Mooradian wrote in his article for the SRJ issue that just got released. He makes the important point that "human beings value knowledge intrinsically and extrinsically while, by virtue of their nature, organizations value knowledge extrinsically only."

As a human being, I value he process of writing, the work of getting words on the page. I value the raw experience of unfolding myself through art, and of putting myself back together in unique combinations through the stories I create. Sure, I’d like to support myself as an artist, but I create art because it’s what being human is for.

I knew someone once who poo-poohed those artists who won't ever become "great," who are destined to always be performing in small-time venues. But I say, as long as they are experiencing the joy of their art, for the sake of the art alone, then what they are doing is worthwhile.

There is deep value in the ability an artist has to provide for themselves through their art as well: to make a living through their passion. But that seems to rarely be the end-all-be-all of an artist's career.

I think, as automation continues to roll forward, humanity has the opportunity to reflect on what matters. There might come a day when machines come along and take away all the accessible jobs: we're living in the age of science fiction realized, after all. But this future only bothers me if we still place our worth in the hands of our work. If we place the worth of our lives in the simple act of living well, of being the best person, the best artist, the best human we can be: then we're living well.

A dear friend shared this passage from the novel Middlemarch the other day that speaks to this so powerfully:

"Certainly those determining acts of her life were not ideally beautiful. They were the mixed result of young and noble impulse struggling amidst the conditions of an imperfect social state, in which great feelings will often take the aspect of error, and great faith the aspect of illusion. For there is no creature whose inward being is so strong that it is not greatly determined by what lies outside it. A new Theresa will hardly have the opportunity of reforming a conventual life, any more than a new Antigone will spend her heroic piety in daring all for the sake of a brother’s burial: the medium in which their ardent deeds took shape is forever gone. But we insignificant people with our daily words and acts are preparing the lives of many Dorotheas, some of which may present a far sadder sacrifice than that of the Dorothea whose story we know.

Her finely touched spirit had still its fine issues, though they were not widely visible. Her full nature, like that river of which Cyrus broke the strength, spent itself in channels which had no great name on the earth. But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs."

That, right there, is one of the most profound statements I have ever encountered. And it's a reminder to us: our lives are beautiful for their very existence. Their worth is not defined by salary, by externalities like fame. Our life has meaning through those "incalculably diffusive" effects we have upon others in this world.

Alright, so that's where I'll wrap up today's newsletter.

There's a lot more I could write.

Microsoft's had a huge data breach, Michigan has earmarked $55M for a basic income pilot program for moms in Flint, Republican governors in 15 states reject providing money for summer food programs for kids.

But instead of diving into any of that nonsense, I'll end with this picture from the Internet, because that is what the Internet is for.

Go easy, friends. And, if you can't go easy, go as easy as you can.

~Odin