Welcome to Silent Letters

This is a wrap up for Verge of Now. I never liked the name for one thing, too self-referential. Though no one ever truly gets away from it, the last thing I want to write about is myself. But before I disappear behind the curtain, a brief introduction as to who is writing Silent Letters and why:

My general approach to writing is experimental and Silent Letters will be too. But where my prior ambition was to create something completely different each time, Silent Letters will arrive on a regular schedule and aim for around a thousand words. Most times, though not always, I’ll be writing to someone I admire, living or dead.

I’ve read some books I ponder daily but I’m no scholar. Writing from a place of darkness, if (for example) I read something decades ago that still moves me, I have no interest in revisiting the work to mine it for quotes, I’ll talk about whatever stays with me after all that time has passed. This means on the plus side it’ll resonate with personal meaning but on the downside I’ll have forgotten a lot of detail. I may occasionally get something wrong or misattribute, in which case I gladly welcome correction. I feel my approach is worth risking occasional error, being less propositional and more perspectival.

Most books that have meaning for me I found on my own. Conversely, most of the selections from school I found boring if not utterly stupefying. I get why people roll their eyes at an Arts degree, it’s like they stunted the curriculum on purpose. My World Religion courses were okay but the general approach was ‘just the facts’ and reductive analysis rather than sacred awakening and holistic ego-death. A few classes were truly enjoyable and memorable (well hello there Shakespeare, thou Scrabblist and Diviner of language and life.)

With a handful of exceptions I never read a book twice. I never read (or bought) a book in order to signal that I read (or bought) it. I never take notes. I rarely read secondary sources, preferring to engage great thinkers directly. I read as fast or as slow as needed to grasp the ideas being conveyed (for example I often had to read thoughts of Socrates three times slowly before proceeding.) With little rereading and no notes, everything ends up in an expanding compost pile of ideas, insights and implicit revelations (the dark place from which I write.) This sometimes makes it challenging to attribute whose thoughts formed a bridge for my own, but even giants stand on the shoulders of giants don’t they? It’s giants all the way down.

First up will be a letter to the author of Surveillance Capitalism. I started writing it in my head some five years ago, when the idea for Silent Letters began taking shape.

Perennially yours,

Jeff V