ARCA PERSPECTIVES
WITH miriam

Internet commentary is my favorite. I love any meta conversation about our relationship to culture online, to how we are shaping and morphing ourselves through technology, and then on a more micro level, around trends and conversations happening online.

The digital life is real life now; I think many people still deny that reality but I embrace it! I've learned so much about my 'real life', i.e. how I engage with people, my community, my family, friends, work etc. through conversations about our behaviors online.

The book The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson. I listened to it on audiobook a week or two ago and have been thinking a lot about it.

It's a book about the Cholera epidemic in mid 19th-century London. It's not my usual type of book but I heard it mentioned on a podcast and it sounded interesting, and wow is it. It's of course about the science of how the disease actually spread, and about the urban layout of London at the time that allowed this to spread in the water.

That alone is interesting, but the conclusion of the book really got me. It was all about how interconnected we all are, how responsible we all are for one another. How it was only when a local priest who really knew this specific London neighborhood in and out connected with a scientist that they were able to pinpoint the Cholera source to a local well. The priest knew the streets and everyone living in it like the back of his hand. It was through that local knowledge and connection that he could solve such a mystery.

The author ultimately lays the point down really finely and says that a global pandemic is likely to happen (he wrote this in 2006 which is EERIE) because of how urbanized all of our cities are (so many people in close quarters) and how important it is for us to protect ourselves and others.

But that the answer is not in self-isolated; quite the opposite, he sees it as becoming even more interconnected. To know our neighbors, to feel as close to one another as we are physically, living next to each other. It was such a salient reminder to me, and I got goosebumps as I listened.

The way I've cracked the code is that I create relatively soon after I curate. I think the reason why I've been able to stave off the burnout after three (!) years of posting on TikTok is because when I listen to or read something, I want to talk about it in the moment. And so that's when I usually make a video. Not after I've sat on it, or scripted it or whatever.

I think the closer you can bridge the gap between curating/consuming, the more excited you will be to create and talk about the thing. Obviously you're not always (or often) able to post videos or podcasts or whatever immediately after curating something, usually.

So the question is: how can I engage with this material like I just discovered it for the first time, when it's time to create? Maybe it's about curating before you've fully read/listening to the thing. If a title is engaging, curate it so you have the excitement of listening to it later. Or maybe it's when you're scripting out notes for creating, don't script out word for word; script out titles or categories or whatever so when you hop on the mic or camera, you can discover in real time too.

Start by deep diving into a single person who you find interesting. If you find me on TikTok and you like the books I read or podcasts I listen to, see who I follow and follow some of them.

Look up 5 of the different authors I talk about and follow them. Instead of setting yourself on an endless mission of "develop my personal taste," start with just one person whose taste you like and then mine that person for all the information they can give you. Soon enough, you will fill your feed with engaging voices reading and listening to a wider variety of stuff.

From there, I believe your taste will refine itself. You'll find stuff you want to queue every episode of, or stuff that you're shaking your head in disagreement at. You need more information to respond to, ultimately.

Me following one journalist on Twitter, and then following so many different journalists they retweeted led me to years later having so many books, podcasts, authors, and Substackers that I love. Slowly expand your ecosystem by lurking in other peoples' little ecosystems, essentially.