Permit me an extended quote from Milan Kundera’s novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being:
When a society is rich, its people don’t need to work with their hands; they can devote themselves to activities of the spirit. We have more and more universities and more and more students. If students are going to earn degrees, they’ve got to come up with dissertation topics. And since dissertations can be written about everything under the sun, the number of topics is infinite. Sheets of paper covered with words pile up in archives sadder than cemeteries, because no one ever visits them, not even on All Souls’ Day. Culture is perishing in overproduction, in an avalanche of words, in the madness of quantity. That’s why one banned book in your former country means infinitely more than the billions of words spewed out by our universities.
Today marks issue number 50 for Desk Notes in 2021, and now, with my shameless use of Kundera, it’s time for a short break. A few days for me to reflect and project rather than create. So I am going to clean the desk, savor these final weeks of the year, and return in January with what’s sure to be a breathless, frenzied need to publish.
A reasonable and traditional ethic asks the average person to measure what they receive against what they give, whether the subject is money, a laugh, or simply carried groceries. To make a specific prescription about quantity is both crass and misses the point, but, in the hushed moment before sleep, you know how the scale balances. And this same scale is a useful heuristic for any writer or artist: how does what you create compare to what you consume? What are you sending into the world? Is it valuable for your readers? There’s never a bad time to recalibrate and ensure the balance is right.
Part of that recalibration makes me eager to see how Desk Notes will grow in 2022. I have some, well, large plans for the coming months that I know you’ll enjoy, but I need your help with two things first.
Hit reply to this message and tell me what’s working and what’s failing. What issues kept you intrigued? What issues made you contemplate cancelling your internet service? Forget any concerns about kindness—this is one question where dissent takes precedence. I have an affinity for the irreverent, outspoken, and disputatious anyway. Separately, these issues travel quite far, but I would like to learn more about all the readers I don’t know—hit reply and say hello.
You can definitely help me by introducing Desk Notes to your friends. If you enjoy these issues, please don’t keep them a secret—I will be grateful if you tell a few friends to subscribe. Here are some links to make that quick and easy:
Thank you for all the comments, thoughts, and questions this year. I enjoy hearing about what issues readers enjoy, and it is always intriguing to learn when my writing triggers something unexpected. The next Desk Notes arrives on January 7th.
Have a good holiday, Christmas, New Year’s, and, in the meantime, you can find every past issue here: www.charles-schifano.com.