Reframing the Approach
New title and my reasons for it
I created this Substack as an outlet of frustration. Its intended purpose, one among many, was to write about the quick adoption and acceptance of media pushed narratives and their acceptance as fact. What I witnessed over and over during 2020 was what I had seen during the last 5+ years ever since Gamergate. An event happens, journalists or personalities with large platforms jump on to get attention to their work by commenting on the event. This competition for attention would then lead to the obvious hyperbolic rhetoric of the story. “Which frame for this narrative will get me the most clicks, most attention, and most praise,” was and think still is the name of the game. Seeing this bubble up and the year become increasingly politicized year I became engrossed in it just like many people, for good reasons and poor ones. In this environment, I named this Substack Narrative Corrections - because of my interest in offering corrections to the endless slurry of promulgated narratives pushed out by the press.
As much as a part of me still feels attached to the phrase itself, perhaps because it just looks or sounds nice, I don’t think it reflects at all what I want to put out into the world. While I think it is important to “correct” false narratives, I am opposed to the very framing I began with. The title suggests that anything I were to write would be a correction on a particular narrative. It further implies that I am so smart to know what is or is not correct more than anyone else. In a sense, the true purpose I had for a writing outlet was corrupted on the outset by my own ego.
I wish to treat any writing I do, personal, philosophical, political, cultural, fictional, etc., as an exploration of an idea or set of ideas. In an interview with Brett Weinstein, Jordan Peterson described the writing process for fear of misrepresenting I’ll link to here.
Writing, Peterson says, is a protracted form of thinking. Furthermore, Peterson says, “the advantage of writing as thinking is that writing makes you smarter than you are without the paper and pencil or computer.” Therefore, that will be my goal. To use writing as a tool for thinking about that which concerns or interests me. When you read anything I write in the future, please do so with this in mind. I will certainly miss things. If you feel I have overlooked something, feel free to point it out. It is all a part of the learning process as I see it.
It has no doubt also been obvious that I have not published anything on this site since early January. For the last four months, I have been pursuing a career change and, toward that endeavor, studying for a certification which I happily received. Now I once again have a full-time job which structurally has provided the means to write and read more. In the future, I hope to provide something worth others’ time perusing.