#154 | Flaming hot takes
Changing the format of this letter
Ok, hi. Just a moment ago, I was sat over my empty plate, sick with cheese-filled beef, pancakes and AF beer. Nauseous from the second-hand smoke and faux-marble columns. And I realised — “What the actual heck is the point?”
I’ve been writing to you for the last month, but not writing, only journaling. Writing says something new; journalling keeps a record. Writing is a creative act; journalling belongs to Time Team. Journaling is the librarian of the literary world, the essentially un-sexy Tony Robinson, whereas writing a Substack is Margot Robbie. Journalling is only useful for self-work (which nobody else cares about) and filling in the daily blanks.
What happens if nothing much happens in a day? Does anything ever happen on Tuesdays or Wednesdays? So that’s Monday evening to Thursday morning — blank. In a journal, this must be filled in. More beautiful hills, more wooded lanes, ever broader valleys. A frothy sunset. A goopy sunrise. Descriptions are nice, but are they interesting? At first, yes, through novelty. But then… No. I don’t think they are. So the “what the actual heck” expresses my surprise at this revelation.
The “is the point?” is the fact that I’ve been writing without making a point. The best writers I follow say something and then substantiate it. Noah Smith and Tyler Cowen push their economic arguments, Niall Ferguson references history and current affairs, Anne Lamott tells me about life and love. The reason to write is to get a point across. If you’re a Marxist, you write to explain to others why previous communist experiments didn’t hold water. If you’re Dom Cummings, you write to blame others. Some write so their kids get in touch with them, while others write to topple governments. Some put pen to paper to simply become better writers. If you’re journalling, you’re filling in the blanks. The only point being made in the case of sharing your journaling is having discipline to write. But there is no hot take. And what is life if it’s not for the hot takes? So, if I’m not writing to make a point, to send a message, to share a theory, I’m wasting your time.
I have done no route planning for this cycle, yet I now know that every valley is astonishing in its beauty—every left turn has surprised. When the ordinary is beautiful (and it is), it must be said once. As one post. If I share the details of every valley, oak and waterfall, I will run out of adverbs.
It’s coming up to three years to the day that I’ve been writing these letters. Obviously I know this is an email, not a letter. I say to these emails are letters because the idea of “newsletter” gives me the ick. Gap for Kids sends a newsletter, so does UKIP. A letter is more personal. I sign off at the end. It’s sealed with a digital kiss. An e-kiss. And in these three years, I’ve experimented with every format which isn’t a listicle. When living in Istanbul, I wrote endlessly, two or three thousand words a week, often more. These were not very good words, granted, but they built a writing muscle. More recently, I’ve written about startups or about finding meaning in life. I have written amid arguments, on safari, and with covid. Only infrequently have I not published something.1
These letters have been a happy consistent during inconsistent times. And they are best when I have captured a stream of in-exhaustive observation and let my subconscious rip. The acid test: if writing begets writing and it’s fun, it tends to be good. Conversely, when I sit down with a pencil and rubber, pontificate, and fish the argument from some deep intellectual crevasse which has long since been covered in the snow of underachievement, the product at the end is boring. It’s less me.
So, I am writing to say I will be writing again, and dropping journalling format. It’s been a nice experiment but ultimately one which doesn’t want me to take my clothes off and jump in the jacuzzi.
I like to sit down and work out what the hell I think about something (even if it is as obscure as the Second Serbian Uprising). And then, having thought, written, and bitten my nails right down to the knuckle, you can read something interesting about the places I see. I win because I can observe wherever I cycle through with more purpose than I would otherwise. For example, writing this, I am deciding to go to Tito’s secret layer. Who was Tito, and why did he have a nuclear bunker in the middle of Bosnia that could sustain 350 people for half a year? Who would go in the bunker? Would you want to? Is six months enough for the nuclear fallout to clear? I don’t know. Yet that’s more interesting to learn about, write about, and read about than my breakfast on Thursday.
I don’t like regularly writing about writing. It’s done a lot by very bad writers or done well by outstanding writers. Being aspirational, I refuse to be shackled in the former bad-writer camp, but I also am self-aware enough (thank you therapy) to know I am not yet in the latter. Even so, getting back to writing — not journaling — is an essential point to make. So we’ll be returning to some longer essays. As you know, I’m cycling from the UK to China. So I’ll re-iterate: This remains a travel blog, and it will remain as much while I live from my panniers powered by pasta pesto. Therefore, do expect a post on my kit, visa considerations, my diet, the inevitable D&V, and my strategy for cycling for seven hours a day for seven days and not going clinically insane.2
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Live well,
Hector
I have only not published when lost in the foot hills of a breakup, when I can’t look at the screen, let alone structure a thought or review those haunting red squiggles. When my smashed heart is being superglued by good friends and endurance events, I send a poem which has some subversive reference (“the road less travelled”, for example).
To end, some house-keeping: As part of my recapitulation to the beastly art, I’m getting rid of that absurd heart on these emails, so if you love or hate something I’ve written, reply to the email and say so, or send me a WhatsApp. The “<3 Like” may make a difference to visitors (I have said to you conclusively that it does), but it may also not. Only a lone intern at Substack knows. That they haven’t told us it does indicate it makes no difference at all. It’s an absurdly low percentage of people who click the heart, anyway, and I suspect it’s only really other Substackers — quite niche people. So now it’s not an option, sorry. Similarly, I am not sure the comments add anything, so I’ve removed those. Now you get my writing, and I ask for nothing back. Not a kiss, not a poem. Nothing.