“At last it was evening. The lights in the street outside came on, and the Neon restaurant sign on the corner jerked on and off, exploding its hard red light in the air. Into Jim Nolan’s room the sign threw a soft red light.”

— John Steinbeck, In Dubious Battle

This is good prose, and it was a beautiful reminder of why I love John Steinbeck. He was an excellent writer dedicated to his craft, no matter how controversial his stories or opinions. I really needed to come back to good prose, and I have not been disappointed by In Dubious Battle. It is a good book for starting a new job (haha if you’ve read it). Speaking of which I am somewhat drained while I write this. It is a good job, but there is definitely extra stress when you have to meet new people and go to a new place. And yet every year is new, so experience can sometimes provide a false sense of security. Kids grow, people move, time rushes.

Writing

I have been writing almost every day, and I have crossed 40,000 words with my new book. If I can get to 50,000 it will be close enough to full length for me to call it a novel instead of a novella. It has been a fun project, and I will still have to do a significant amount of rewriting and editing. It has shown me that writing, just like any other art, ought to be fun. I think the past two books have felt like monuments that I needed to build for myself before I could really admit to myself that I am doing this for fun, not to be a Great Writer. There must be a balance between spiritual gravity and joyful whimsy. This project is definitely on the side of whimsy, or its weird and crazy, I honestly can’t tell the difference sometimes.

I am also making peace with Substack/Medium/Social Media, I think. I have accepted that it will probably never be a significant source of income, and that is freeing to me because it allows me to avoid a “half artistic profession.” Lots of writers and artists have had to earn their bread a different way, and not depending on it for income it means I won’t have to play to algorithms or trends. I am not precluding the possibility of “building an audience,” but I’m not really making it a goal. My goal is to make the best art I can make and write what I love to write.

I have had some positive interactions on Medium despite my frustrations with their recommendation algorithm, so that is nice. I haven’t had as much traffic from Substack and I don’t really like their social media approach. They are not as greedy and creepy as Facebook, but it is still the same model of trapping attention around things that you love. I appreciate that they focus on encouraging people to pay writers, but I find that there is a pressure (if you are really trying to get paid on Substack) to write something “relevant” and/or controversial. It is nice to connect with people over reading and books, but as with all social media, it is important not to let the means overshadow the ends. Going forward I don’t plan to paywall any of my stuff except for books. It just feels disingenuous. It is also kind of insulting how little the Medium Partner Program pays. I have some stories with hundreds of claps, but they don’t seem to value claps anymore because the profit hasn’t even broken a dollar. The fact that you have to pay to become a Medium Member in order to write for the partner program doesn’t feel great, either.

As always, a huge thank you to those who have bought me a coffee. I really really appreciate it! I’ve been trying to add some behind the scenes photos and music stuff for anyone who chips in, as I am able. I’d say the biggest actual “perk” available on there are the recordings that are done for Lit Songs that I haven’t released anywhere else yet. It is probably going to be long time before the album sees the light of day publicly, but I add them on Buymeacoffee as I finish the mixes. There are currently two.

Music

I haven’t done as much music as I have wanted to, or at least, I don’t have much to show for what I have been practicing. I have mostly been playing the same things over and over. One of them is a riff that I am trying to get just right before I settle on recording the vocals for the song, the other is the song People Get Ready, written by Curtis Mayfield and performed by the Impressions as well as Jeff Beck et al. through the years. It is a beautiful song with a beautiful melody and it is really just a song that gives some relief to me. I’m guessing the people around me who have to listen to it get a little sick of hearing it, but I try not to push it too much. I think the lyrics are really timeless, you should go have a listen to both the original by The Impressions and to Jeff Beck at Ronnie Scott’s.

People get ready, there’s a train a comin’
Don’t need no baggage, you just get on board
All you need is faith to hear the diesel’s hummin’
Don’t need no ticket, you just thank the lord.

There ain’t no room for a hopeless sinner
Who would hurt all mankind just to save his own.
Have pity on those whose chances grow thinner.
There ain’t no hiding place against the kingdom’s throne.

Podcast

Eric and I will be returning for our fourth season of Raise a Glass. We actually have two episodes recorded already, which I am in the process of editing. We’re going to be doing a read through of Lord of the Rings. So if you want to follow along you can join the Patreon for free. There are also actual perks in the form of bonus episodes and blooper content for the different tiers — But I don’t think either Eric or I have a single entrepreneurial bone in our bodies so it’s very much what we enjoy and ways we can try to make it fun for listeners.

Reading

Aside from In Dubious Battle I have been reading way too many books simultaneously again. Death’s End (Three Body Problem book 3) in Chinese, Don Quixote, some Edith Wharton short stories, Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, Augustine’s City of God. This month, Wharton’s Xingu stands out in my mind. It tells about a hilarious little joke pulled on some stuffy English ladies and their book club. I don’t want to spoil it because it will be better to read it for yourself, but it is one of the funniest things I have ever read and I’ve read Kurt Vonnegut. Edith Wharton was a sharp woman, and I feel like she must have been getting some revenge for something.

I am also almost done with Death’s End in Chinese and I can hardly believe it. It is about 500 pages and it has been several years since I started working through it. I feel like my reading level has definitely gone up, but that really depends on how well I can keep up with my flashcards. Rather than go for 100% comprehension, I look up about five words and add them to a flashcard app. I think it has genuinely helped my vocabulary grow because I am understanding a lot more than I did at the beginning. I also read the English simultaneously just so I can know what really happened and fill in the gaps because there are some pretty crazy things that happen in it. I think Three Body is a special series. It is not very well written in terms of the prose, and neither are the characters particularly deep, but the ideas and the execution of them is astonishing. There are some fresh insights about space and time and our relationship to the cosmos and the earth that I think makes the series worth reading.

#update #September #2026

Thank you for reading! I greatly regret that I will most likely never be able to meet you in person and shake your hand, but perhaps we can virtually shake hands via my newsletter, social media, or a cup of coffee sent over the wire. They are poor substitutes, but they can be a real grace in this intractable world.

Send me a kind word or a cup of coffee:

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Eyes on screens see with no sense of true scale, The cosmos can be reduced to an inch, The colors of reality made pale, And all can be rearranged with a pinch. Do you want to erode your will to live? Do you want to see without being seen? Do you want to waste what you have to give? All this and more can be found on the screen. Stop! Do you remember your childhood? When your mirror was your parents' faces, When the veil was thin, between you and Good, And love and hate not warped, public races? Go outside if you want to remember. Love on the scale of love, and no other.

#poetry #sonnet

Thank you for reading! I greatly regret that I will most likely never be able to meet you in person and shake your hand, but perhaps we can virtually shake hands via my newsletter, social media, or a cup of coffee sent over the wire. They are poor substitutes, but they can be a real grace in this intractable world.

Send me a kind word or a cup of coffee:

Buy Me a Coffee | Listen to My Music | Listen to My Podcast | Follow Me on Mastodon | Read With Me on Bookwyrm | Connect With Me on Substack

“So deeply inherent is it in this life of ours that men have to suffer for each other’s sins, so inevitably diffusive is human suffering, that even justice makes its victims, and we can conceive no retribution that does not spread beyond its mark in pulsations of unmerited pain.”

— George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss, Chapter 7

“Lawful mercy is nothing kin to foul redemption.”

— Shakespeare, Measure for Measure

Well the last month of summer is coming to a close and we have some large life changes on the horizon. I have always been somewhat calm in periods of transition, but I have begun to wonder whether a good deal of that calmness came from naivety. Now I can only think of what it will mean for my kids and our family and how on earth we will afford a house someday. And yet, when I survey my life, I see so much richness to be thankful for. My family is beautiful and our life is not easy but comfortable and meaningful.

I have also been thinking on mercy and justice, and cannot help but observe that we seem to have forgotten the lessons of history. I cannot help but think with some fear, that the violence wrought by the Trump administration will come back to harm us. Foreign aid is not only charity, it is also good policy. If we sow seeds of hate at home and abroad we should not be surprised when those seeds grow and attempt to choke us somehow. This is why justice and mercy must be mentioned in the same sentence. The justice we need is not merely concerned with “fairness,” but with intentional and proactive steps that not only punish wrongdoing, but strive to build a better future.

Writing

I started rewriting my novel, and discovered a new platform which has helped me get my writing habit back. It is called Koala Quill. It gives you one dollar per day that you show up and type for fifteen minutes. It works by measuring your active typing, so you can’t just copy and paste or leave the tab open, and I am almost ashamed to admit that it has been the most reliable way to get me back into a writing habit. The monthly subscription is less than $30, so if you manage to do it every day you end up making money. I’m going to do it for a year, and hopefully it will keep me typing and writing as my life changes.

I have now gotten through most of the rewrite of my new book, and it is now going to get harder because there are some new scenes I need to draft and add in. I am actually procrastinating from it by writing this update.

I did get a monthly supporter on Buy Me a Coffee, for which I am very grateful. It’s good to know that a real person out there appreciated some of my work. Thank you!

I have also gotten some nice comments on Medium with my Sonnets, which is a nice encouragement.

Music

I was able to record and mix another song for the Lit Songs demo album, so that is a win. (Supporters on Buy Me a Coffee of any amount can listen to the mixes as I get them done!) I ended up rerecording the acoustic guitar with a metronome. It helped me realize all the weird things I do with rhythm, and I don’t know whether I should lean into the weirdness or try to tone it down. I should probably meet in the middle. I’ve noticed that my guitar playing has gotten a little more schizophrenic. I think it is because I have been pushing so hard to get faster and ‘better.’ While I do think I have improved a lot, and have a lot more tools, I have been feeling kind of exhausted when I practice, and I think I need to go back to basics and just enjoy the power of a simple note. A good friend gifted me some classical guitar books that I want to work through.

Reading

My wife and I read The Mill on the Floss this summer. It was good to get back into some George Eliot. She is a very good novelist, which is good, but it is also a little demoralizing because it shows me a level of artistic achievement I am not sure I will ever reach. I am not a writer like George Eliot, and I don’t know if I will ever write such a chunky, cozy novel to sink into. I fly off the handle too much. But then, I’d rather find my own voice, and after reading the ending of Mill on the Floss I am unpleasantly surprised to see that finding a good ending is as hard for great writers as for the rest of us. The failings of our heroes are just as important to acknowledge as their strengths, just as it is important for aspiring writers to balance the inspirational work we read with some mediocre writing that shows us that getting our work published might not be so impossible after all.

We also saw Measure for Measure and Midsummer Night’s Dream by a favorite Shakespeare Company of ours and they were really great. There is no silence like theater silence, which we experienced as everyone watched Isabel deciding whether or not to offer Angelo mercy in Measure for Measure. I think Shakespeare externalizes those secret, passionate, battles that we have within ourselves. I wish I could tell you that my internal Isabel always chooses mercy, but she does not. Yet mercy is the only way we will ever see a cessation of violence on this earth, and God gave us the Cross as an example. Yet so strange is the turning of my life, that I find myself having to offer mercy more often to those who profess to follow It than those who do not.

#Update #August

Thank you for reading! I greatly regret that I will most likely never be able to meet you in person and shake your hand, but perhaps we can virtually shake hands via my newsletter, social media, or a cup of coffee sent over the wire. They are poor substitutes, but they can be a real grace in this intractable world.

Send me a kind word or a cup of coffee:

Buy Me a Coffee | Listen to My Music | Listen to My Podcast | Follow Me on Mastodon | Read With Me on Bookwyrm | Connect With Me on Substack

“Art too is just a way of living, and however one lives, one can, without knowing, prepare for it; in everything real one is closer to it, more its neighbor, than in the unreal half-artistic professions, which, while they pretend to be close to art, in practice deny and attack the existence of all art —as, for example, all of journalism does and almost all criticism and three quarters of what is called (and wants to be called) literature.” (Last paragraph of letter X).

Depending on your profession you might be incensed or traumatized by this sentence. I will not comment on the censure of journalism and almost all of criticism because I do not have Rilke’s certainty. One could accuse him of arrogance, but I do think he is hitting on a truth, which is the human propensity for making ends of our means. Good reporting on current events serves a valuable end for democracy, but it is not meant to be art. Good literary criticism can help us understand great works and what they mean to us, but the criticism itself would not exist without the art. As a writer and podcast producer who puts work online, I would also add podcasting and content creation and cultural criticism to the list of unreal half-artistic professions. They may serve a good purpose, but they are not a worthy end in themselves, and they can easily eclipse art itself. In my own life I have noticed that I often use the busywork of podcast editing or post publishing to avoid the creation of real art (such as my novels or songwriting). Rilke’s words haunt me in those moments.

The second passage that haunts me is Habakkuk 2:20:

“But the Lord is in his majestic palace.
The whole earth is speechless in his presence!”

This comes at the end of four or five lines in which Habakkuk decries lifeless idols that do not speak or talk:

“Woe to the one who says to wood, ‘Wake up!’—
he who says to speechless stone, ‘Awake!’
Can it give reliable guidance?
It is overlaid with gold and silver;
it has no life’s breath inside it.” (NET)

What strikes me is the image of the entire earth being silent. It made me realize just how much noise we all make. Such a cacophony of words and sound. And yes, I do count online words. They may not make noise out loud, but they make noise in our minds. This is humbling to think about. I wonder: What am I doing, adding to this cacophony? Am I following my calling, or just idolizing myself and attempting to talk over God?

Think about this: our laptops and phones are made of precious metals, and we say to them “Wake up!” We ask them for guidance. We use them to magnify and record our most secret vices and our most admirable virtues. We imbue them with meaning just as ancient people imbued idols of wood and stone. By writing content, I am giving a potential reader more meaning to imbue their personal idol with. Of course, this metaphor has limits, or perhaps none, which is what makes it dangerous. If an idol is anything we imbue with meaning, then an idol could be a book or a coffee mug or a house or a person. What is the middle Way here? The point, for me, is to take the pressure off what I create. God does not need me to proclaim His beauty or His goodness. I can be silent before Him.

After spending hours mixing and mastering I have often gone outside and listened to the wind in the trees and the singing of the birds and the subtle creaking of branches and the fluttering of insect wings and thought, “I have never heard music more beautiful than this.” God, after all, is the Lord of sound itself. Our creations, even the Greatest, are really not so great compared with Him. They are only reflections in a dirty mirror. In a similar way, the publishing of art is a compromise, an attempt to reflect the joy and meaning I have discovered in the act of creation. By the time I share it it is already dead to me, but it can take on a new life in the mind of the reader, and so haunt them.

Thank you for reading. If you would like to be haunted by more of my words, please consider supporting them by subscribing or buying me a coffee:

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My heart beats in the distension between Eternity and mortality which Meet at the seams of all I've ever seen. How often have I peered through a loose stitch, Wondering, when I leave this skein behind, How far my soul must fly before it rests. Why must my soul, from my body, unwind? Am I destined to fail the final test? Even belief in a blessèd heaven Leaves so much to the imagination That some have turned it into a weapon And, by fear, set nation against nation. Even so, of such is our soul composed, Bad with good entangled, God only knows!

#poetry #sonnet

Thank you for reading! I greatly regret that I will most likely never be able to meet you in person and shake your hand, but perhaps we can virtually shake hands via my newsletter, social media, or a cup of coffee sent over the wire. They are poor substitutes, but they can be a real grace in this intractable world.

Send me a kind word or a cup of coffee:

Buy Me a Coffee | Listen to My Music | Listen to My Podcast | Follow Me on Mastodon | Read With Me on Bookwyrm | Connect With Me on Substack

“Our haste from hence is of so quick condition That it prefers itself and leaves unquestioned Matters of needful value.”

— Shakespeare, Measure for Measure 1.1

This is my last summer as a “stay at home Dad.” I ought to reflect on the time I have spent caring for my children (which is really just the beginning of my parenting journey). And so I have; I see that 'reflecting on the value of' is a meaningless phrase that dodges the real question—because we will never know the true value of our life decisions—not unless we are granted Divine Insight. There are a thousand hidden variables that we will never see, and many thousands of ripples more that escape the meaning of 'variables.' How can I calculate the worth of seeing my baby boy smile just for me? Or snuggling with my girl when I read her books every day? This is the problem with a culture so focused on screen appearances and data driven decisions. We can do this with anything, even reading; one can post quotes on social media, but one of the great joys of reading is not finding quotes, it is experiencing the culmination of a thought or a plot in context. It is the sort of joy that cannot be posted online because no one wants to copy & paste three chapters and an explainer (and even if you did post it, it would suck the exclusiveness out of it). Sociology and science are useful tools that can help us understand ourselves and the world, but they were never meant to replace our hearts. Do I really need a study that tells me about the positive outcomes for children who have active and involved fathers? And even if I did, and I found that study, I would still be plagued by a nagging doubt that I was not that father in that study. Science is maddeningly specific, so we must be extremely careful when we apply it to our lives. Real scientists know this, which is why they speak in experimental terms. Most of us are not real scientists, so we misuse it and doubt all our assumptions unless we have a verified dataset with a regression.

Writing

It has been very difficult to write. It is mostly my fault, but this summer has felt far more busy than I wanted it to. It has been busy with good things and lots of fun, but still busy, and at the end of the day I feel so tired that I just want to relax or binge. Still, I managed to do some writing, and have written through the end of my current project (for now). I am now starting at the beginning and rewriting it to get it all in my head and see where I might need to add some sections. I almost always have the opposite problem that Stephen King has. He writes in On Writing that he usually cuts at least 10% from his draft material, whereas I always find myself having to add things. I think a lot of writers out there are Stephen Kings in that sense, but I don't know.

I did write a Sonnet, and I got my Substack up and running. Substack is okay, but I do not enjoy the fact that they cloned Facebook and default to an algorithm driven homepage. They do encourage people to actually pay writers for their work, which is nice, but I get suggested content from people I don't follow and it annoys me. I have been able to engage with authors, which is cool, but I don't really know where the line is between honest engagement and coming up with comments in the hopes of being noticed. I have been thinking a lot about C.S. Lewis's Inner Ring and I will have to write an essay soon incorporating the Abolition of Man. I have never loved social media and I am highly skeptical that there is anyone who does. Even when it is made up of things I love (books and theology etc.), there is just something hollow and distracting about it. When I spend an inordinate amount of time on Substack's social platform I come away wishing I had been reading a book instead. This is hypocritical because I feel the need to post on there in order to “build an audience,” but that has never really worked for me and I am not convinced anyone can build an audience from nothing. The people most famous on Twitter are people who are already famous. My strategy, I guess, is just to keep writing (not posting).

Music

I attempted to record a song but my timing was off, which hurts more when you are a one man band and your 'recording studio' is almost never quiet. I usually track acoustic first because that's how the songs were written and it is the foundation, but I think I will have to track drums first and use a metronome because the timing really hurts me. It is frustrating because I have to track acoustic in order to actually figure out what to play on drums, but this is a learning process. I could use a metronome, but I don't enjoy tracking guitar with it. I do believe in practicing with a metronome but when it comes to performance I find it can get in the way. My intentional practicing has fallen off a bit and I should get back to it.

Reading

The book that looms largest in my mind this past month is Dostoevsky's Notes From a Dead House, which was a Father's Day gift from my wife. He wrote it after spending four years in a Siberian prison camp and it is full of startling and beautiful impressions. I'll just say that it helps put my 'suffering' in perspective, and has helped me rediscover the joy of reading for itself and no other end. I'll just leave a long quote here:

“Tyranny is a habit; it is endowed with development, and develops finally into an illness. I stand upon this, that the best of men can, from habit, become coarse and stupefied to the point of brutality. Blood and power intoxicate: coarseness and depravity develop; the most abnormal phenomena become accessible and, finally, sweet to the mind and feelings. Man and citizen perish forever in the tyrant, and the return to human dignity, to repentance, to regeneration, becomes almost impossible for him. What's more, the example, the possibility, of such self-will has a contagious effect on the whole of society: power is seductive. A society that looks indifferently upon such a phenomenon is itself infected at its foundation. In short, the right of corporal punishment, granted to one man over another, is one of the plagues of society, one of the most powerful means of annihilating in it any germ, any attempt at civility, and full grounds for its inevitable and ineluctable corruption” (Part II, Chapter III).

I am also reading Measure for Measure and I am very excited to go see it this summer. Find some Shakespeare near you, it will change your life.

Ah yes, for July 4th, I also read Langston Hughes' Let America Be America Again and it was beautiful. I have been recommending it everywhere because it is that good. I believe poetry has the power to take all our pain and thought and feeling and passion and redeem it all into something beautiful, so that, for a time, we can find relief.

#update #July

Thank you for reading! I greatly regret that I will most likely never be able to meet you in person and shake your hand, but perhaps we can virtually shake hands via my newsletter, social media, or a cup of coffee sent over the wire. They are poor substitutes, but they can be a real grace in this intractable world.

Send me a kind word or a cup of coffee:

Buy Me a Coffee | Listen to My Music | Listen to My Podcast | Follow Me on Mastodon | Read With Me on Bookwyrm | Connect With Me on Substack

Why call it New England Stoicism, When underneath the rocky soil, there lie Bottomless terrors and paroxysms, Bursting through the soul like a newborn's cries? Vicissitude is life's only constant. So why pretend that change does not exist? Why deny natural decay's portents? Why ignore the existence of death's list? As if your old house were Buckingham Palace? And its unused china something precious? Preserving only what you miss, will miss Those moments in life that are most precious, For which we will be judged at heaven's gate. Change must be allowed to change; too late!

#poetry #sonnet

This sonnet was inspired by living in New England and Ethan Frome.

Thank you for reading! I greatly regret that I will most likely never be able to meet you in person and shake your hand, but perhaps we can virtually shake hands via my newsletter, social media, or a cup of coffee sent over the wire. They are poor substitutes, but they can be a real grace in this intractable world.

Send me a kind word or a cup of coffee:

Buy Me a Coffee | Listen to My Music | Listen to My Podcast | Follow Me on Mastodon | Read With Me on Bookwyrm | Connect With Me on Substack

To be no more; sad cure; for who would lose Though full of pain, this intellectual being, Those thoughts that wander through eternity?

Milton, Paradise Lost, II.145-50

We are finally at the end of the school year and I feel more like a defeated runner dragging themselves across the finish line than a triumphant victor. My emotional stamina, whether depleted by vice or by virtue, has been in question for some time now. But as we look towards the summer I am hopeful. There are good things in the future, and I am glad that I serve a good God, who wants to bring Love and Justice and Goodness to the world, in spite of our failings. And I am very glad that He does not value us based on money or status or achievement. I have been brought face to face with my pessimism and pride, and it is painful; like losing a layer of skin. I am going to try to change. And remember that art is fun.

Writing

I have been writing. Not as much as I would like, but progress is progress. I hope I can find more time this summer. If I can plan to get up earlier it would be great to have some routine. To be honest (and what is the point of this if I am not honest?), my passion for writing has not carried me far enough. I am really going on faith. I believe the passion will come back, but I don't think that is uncommon with creative work. A great deal of writing happens away from the page. Virginia Woolf, for example, wrote in her diary about the books she had to be reading while working on a particular project. The imagination must be always working on problems and possibilities. I have also been plagued by a great deal of self doubt lately, and whether or not I am making a fool of myself by publishing things. That self-doubt is most likely due to insecurities and/or spiritual combat, but it definitely hurts me and creeps into all my other relationships. I know I shouldn't worry, but that is easier said than done, especially when the State of the World is added on top of everything else.

Substack

If you are reading this on Substack, cool! I made this decision the same way I made the decision to post on Medium. As always, write.as/hdansin is the definitive home for my words, and subscribing here is the best way to stay up to date. However, write.as does not have very good “discovery” features, and it seems like more and more writers are finding audiences on Substack. There are also a lot of public intellectuals/writers I respect on it. In an ideal world I would not have to maintain my work across multiple platforms (the copy/paste fatigue is real), but here we are. I don't really believe in paywalls, so all my work (except for the books I'm working on) will continue to be posted here for free. The only paywalled content I am considering posting on Substack are audio recordings of me reading some of my essays, if I get around to producing them; and pictures of some of my handwritten drafts/song lyrics.

Here are the links: Substack | Medium | Buy Me a Coffee

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Music

I have been playing, and I usually enjoy it, but once again self doubt hits me here. I sometimes feel that I play too much when I play. I don't use enough restraint and my notes mean less. Guitar is something of an outlet for me, so there is a sense in which my playing reflects my internal state. I have not been doing as much intentional practice, which I should really get back to. I've also not made any more progress on recording Lit Songs, which will hopefully change this summer. I did get together with a couple of friends to jam, and it was a lot of fun.

Podcast

I should also put a note here, and say that Eric and I finally launched a Patreon for our podcast!

https://www.patreon.com/cw/RaiseaGlass2012

It actually has a lot of content for paid subscribers, so if you want to support me/us and get some more things in return than warm fuzzies and my eternal thanks, it is a great way to do it. We have some fun plans for the next season.

Reading

As you can see I finally started reading Paradise Lost. It has been on my list for a while now because it shaped C.S. Lewis and Tolkien and is a Big Important Epic Poem. It is very good, but I do not love it quite as much as the Iliad. The whole thing so far is about Satan, and definitely romanticizes him. I can really see how C.S. Lewis's Perelandra is kind of a response, and even a critique of the “heroism” that Milton infuses Satan with. Yet there is truth here, and it is worth reading. I think it is fascinating in the beginning, when Satan says that their struggle (rebelling against God) has no other purpose than to rebel. They are evil not for evil's sake, but because God is good and they are opposed to God. If God were not good than they would not be opposed to goodness:

To do aught good never will be our task,
But ever to do ill our sole delight,
As being contrary to his high will
Whom we resist. If then his Providence
Out of our evil seek to bring forth good,
Our labour must be to pervert that end,
And out of good still to find means of evil,

I.159-165

Milton is, I think, projecting the nature of our own Sin onto Satan. God's commands are good, if we follow them. The only reason we rebel is “just because” we want our own way. It is a fascinating way to engage with the story of Genesis. It has also inspired me to experiment with some different meters in my own poetry, and try something different besides iambic pentameter, to see what I come up with. Milton throws shade at rhyming in the preface. “…rhyme being no necessary adjunct or true ornament of poem or good verse… but the invention of a barbarous age, to set off wretched matter and lame metre.” That take is a bit silly, but there are a great many children's books I've read which would have been better if the authors hadn't tried to force the rhymes. Dr. Seuss is an exception, and I think Shakespeare's sonnets will always work against Milton here. But I am inspired to try some new things with poetry.

I've been reading lots of other things. Finally finished book six of Wheel of Time. Still working through City of God. Read Alan Noble's new book To Live Well, as well as lots of Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales. Blew through Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams in about two days. Listened to Daniel Handler's Poison for Breakfast. Despite all that I keep choosing video games and/or TV at night, and after I lay down and pick up my book I usually wish I had been reading – to say nothing of all the writing I could have been doing, and the sleep I am missing. But after making that list, I am realizing that I might be fixating on my vices, because I really do read a lot more than I watch.

I periodically update my reading, and post informal reviews on Bookwyrm.

This summer I plan to limit screen time to the weekend, and try to keep a semi-regular “work” schedule. But I will also be applying to jobs for the fall and processing the end of my life as a “stay-at-home parent.” We can't really afford for me not to work, so I'll have to keep finding ways to slot writing and everything else in between. I will also try to stop complaining about it. I am going to try and cherish this summer as much as possible.

As Lemony Snicket's librarian says, “keep reading.”

#update #June

Thank you for reading! I greatly regret that I will most likely never be able to meet you in person and shake your hand, but perhaps we can virtually shake hands via my newsletter, social media, or a cup of coffee sent over the wire. They are poor substitutes, but they can be a real grace in this intractable world.

Send me a kind word or a cup of coffee:

Buy Me a Coffee | Listen to My Music | Listen to My Podcast | Follow Me on Mastodon | Read With Me on Bookwyrm

— From Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe (p259).

When I think about my recent creative output I get the same sick feeling in my stomach I used to get when I showed up to class without doing my homework. The months have gone so quickly, and my emotions have been so up and down, that I haven't been able to maintain any consistent output. My mind wants to turn to the worst habits, and I feel very distracted. We are not going through a crisis or anything like that, but we're just tired. I am ready for the school year to be over. At the very least, I can say that I did some things this past month, and I do consistently* play guitar and read and study my languages. I think discipline consists much more in the little decisions that we must make over and over every single day, than in the resolutions we make a few times a year.

Writing

I did a little work on my current novel, but not enough. Throughout my days I hear my characters calling to me, wondering where I am and why I am leaving them where they are. Then when I do sit down I get distracted and/or my toddler comes and starts poking my face or throwing books at me because she wants me to read to her.

Music

I have been playing almost every day, but I haven't really produced anything but podcast episodes. It is just really hard to find the time and energy right now. Sometimes I try to play around the kids, and they enjoy it for a few minutes, but then my toddler twists the tuners on my guitar and I get mad. I do believe that being interruptible is a virtue that Jesus displayed, but more often I feel like Harrison Bergeron's Dad.

Listening

I spent a great deal of time with Needtobreathe's new album, The Long Surrender. It was the first time since the HARDLOVE era that I really connected with and decided to buy one of their albums (yes, I still buy physical discs). It had a confessional, honest tone that felt very timely. Favorite tracks are probably Say It Now and Strangeness of It All. It was a great comfort to reconnect with a beloved band, especially in this season of life and this season of the world.

Reading

I have just finished Robinson Crusoe and I enjoyed it. According to the Preface, Defoe intended it for “the Improvement and Instruction of Mankind in the Ways of Virtue and Piety, by representing the various Circumstances to which Mankind is exposed; and encouraging such as fall into ordinary or extraordinary Casualties of Life, how to work thro' Difficulties, with unwearied Diligence and Application, and look up to Providence for Success.” It is full of un-hypocritical 'middle-aged moralizing' that the world seems devoid of right now. It definitely has some rough edges, but for a novel written in 1719 I think you might be surprised how pleasant it is to read once you get used to the punctuation and spelling. My copy also has a bunch of appendices that give some context for the novel, which I appreciate.

It has shown me just how uncomfortable I have become with Solitude, and how hypocritical I am when it comes to my engagement with technology. I wish I could say that after reading Robinson Crusoe I have changed my Ways. But the awareness of a Sin does not always Deliver you from It. Sometimes it makes you feel more Wretched. One of the appendices includes a sermon of sorts, about Solitude, in which the author (Richard Baxter) describes how much “VANITY and VEXATION” we could be delivered from by Solitude, if only we could be delivered from ourselves. I think this is why we have engineered the extinction of boredom (besides greed). We use our devices to escape from ourselves, and I am too painfully aware of that in myself right now. Still, it is a starting place, and I am resolved to keep fighting for my Tranquility and Peace and Industry, by the Grace of God, throughout the ordinary and extraordinary “Casualties of Life.”

#update #May #2026

Thank you for reading! I greatly regret that I will most likely never be able to meet you in person and shake your hand, but perhaps we can virtually shake hands via my newsletter, social media, or a cup of coffee sent over the wire. They are poor substitutes, but they can be a real grace in this intractable world.

Send me a kind word or a cup of coffee:

Buy Me a Coffee | Listen to My Music | Listen to My Podcast | Follow Me on Mastodon | Read With Me on Bookwyrm

Sources

Defoe, Daniel. Crusoe Robinson. Edited by Evan R. Davis. Broadview Press, Toronto, Ontario, 2010 (1719).

“Thank you” would die on your lips
If you knew,
What pride and ambition and hate
I have had to fight in myself,
To earn it.[^1]

March has ended and I am not quite sure where it went. Did I write? Yes I did. Did I make music? Yes I did. Did I do either of those things as well or as much as I had planned? No. If there are 'creatives' out there whose output is steady and controlled, I am certainly not one of them. I have worked hard to develop 'bare minimum habits' that help me maintain some consistency, but on top of those habits my output has always been stormy. Sometimes it overflows, sometimes it dries up, and I have to dig a deep well with my fingernails to find anything. Lately the music well has been much more productive than the writing well (at least in terms of fiction). I do not think this is unnatural in the sense that humans are not machines, but it would be nice to have an even keel. Ultimately though, I can rest because I believe that my life is Not My Own, and there is freedom in that. I just have to remember it, and endure it.

Writing

I wish I could banish the guilt I feel when I think of how little progress I have made on the book. I did write a pretty long essay, but for some reason I just can't shake a sense of failure when I don't work on the book. E.B. White once likened the impulse to write something as having a storm cloud over one's head until the thing is written, and I resonate with that very much. I suppose I should stop feeling guilty and just recognize that these works that seem to appear over my head are just manifestations of the creative process; but I push back on that phrasing “just manifestations of the creative process,” because I feel that it cheapens the work. I will say that the Manliness essay was a cloud that had been hanging over me for years, and it felt good to finally dispel it. Writing is a fascinating process. Control over it (for me) is both a responsibility and an illusion.

Music

I have been playing and practicing quite a lot. I bought a new acoustic guitar, which I have 'needed' for a while. The neck on my old one is somewhat rough, which means it taught me a lot about proper technique and finger position, but come showtime was really limiting and nerve-racking. The new one, an Orangewood, is very nice for the price, and I am liking it more every day as I break it in. I almost immediately started recording (semi-officially) the Lit Songs album with it. I think I have gotten good enough with my microphones and production process that I can make very nice sounding demos, complete with drums! The challenge is really just finding time when the house is quiet (which is not often, with two young kids). I mostly record at night instead of playing video games, which is good, but also I need to sleep. I need to pace myself.

Reading

I read a lot for the podcast, namely Piranesi and That Hideous Strength and Borges (still editing those recordings). For fun, I have picked up Robinson Crusoe and The Divine Comedy. I have enjoyed That Hideous Strength and Robinson Crusoe the most out of those.

I have also decided to try and revive my Latin. For language learning, my main goal is usually just to be able to read. To that end I have been reading 死神永生 (Death's End) by 《刘慈欣》(Liu Cixin) for over about a year. I try to read one page a day, writing down words I don't know, then adding them to Pleco's flashcard function. I do think my comprehension is improving, but it is still far from where I want it to be. For Latin, I am restarting Gustatio Linguae Latinae. My wife is a Latin teacher, so I've got a pretty good motivational head start, and it has really been a lot of fun.

It is really amazing to me how video games have the power to inoculate so many of my life-giving impulses. I think it is because video games offer a facsimile of what they promise: skill building (learning a musical instrument), exploration (reading about a new place), immersion (learning a new language and reading primary sources), self-expression (writing). Please note, I do not think video games are evil, it is just that they can be easily abused out of all moderation. I have also been fasting from breakfast to dinner for Holy Week, and it has helped me realize just how many impulses for consumption I have, and how little I deny them. Those little snacks and cookies and glasses of milk add up, even though they are not harmful in themselves. And it seems to me that the modern adulthood our culture strives for is less about self control, and more about working ourselves into the ground for a life that doesn't require it. So many of the things we buy are for pure convenience and organization, so that we don't have to think or be responsible. AI is no different in this regard, and the commercials for it emphasize the fact that it can automate tasks that we have already striven to automate, so that we will just become Dostoevsky's “General Humans” or C.S. Lewis's “Men Without Chests.”

Well, until next time.

[1]: If I do not cite a poetry source, you can assume that I wrote it.

#update #April #2026

Thank you for reading! I greatly regret that I will most likely never be able to meet you in person and shake your hand, but perhaps we can virtually shake hands via my newsletter, social media, or a cup of coffee sent over the wire. They are poor substitutes, but they can be a real grace in this intractable world.

Send me a kind word or a cup of coffee:

Buy Me a Coffee | Listen to My Music | Listen to My Podcast | Follow Me on Mastodon | Read With Me on Bookwyrm