When Puzzle Pieces Collide!
Please spare me a few minutes as I introduce a new element within my Substack.
Tuesday, February 4th, 2025
Dear Freedom Friends,
All writers experience challenges. Hurdles. Pitfalls. Chasms too wide or deep to traverse. Until they learn how to fly, swim, rock climb, or some such analogy.
In other words, until…they…overcome.
My biggest challenge is not writer’s block. Far, far from it. I have dozens of largely written Substack Articles waiting to be published. My problem is misguided perfectionism. I say “misguided,” because “perfect” is impossible. Yet, despite knowing this — I tend to hesitate.
But, no longer! This year, I am giving myself permission to publish all of those “ah-ha” moments, as they come to me!
These types of Substack articles will lack the obvious eight hours of diligent research, cited references, links to websites, studies and quoted articles, and they may entirely lack supplementary images. INSTEAD — this new vein of writing will reflect the raw results of decades of personal experience coming together in response to a “cognitive flash in the pan” moment.
They may be rough. Even somewhat vitriolic, compared to my normal even keel. Off the cuff, almost! But, in 2025, I am giving myself permission to NOT jump through hoops in an effort to gain the trust of doubters, naysayers, skeptics, cynics, committed haters of alternative ideas, and all around misanthopes.
In other words — you can believe me or not.
I say this because I have previously set my sights on writing content that could help a person turn themselves around. But, I now believe that level of exculpatory or inculpatory evidence is often pointless. Quite simply, many people today seem to be unwilling to consider the most obviously true and blatantly valid evidence if it runs contrary to their preferred world view.
We cannot change minds. All we can do is speak openly and clearly, so those who begin to seek on their own, can find us.
In 2025, I’m going to prioritize the people who have already arrived, shown up, woken up (not “woke”), and I’ll be investing considerably less energy to spoon-feeding, cajoling, inviting, or logically begging people to break out of their box, leave their echo chamber, and so on.
I have learned that people adopt new views under three circumstances:
(1) They experience a life event that shatters their illusions,
(2) People like you and me speak honest truth, without platitudes, and they somehow hear us,
(3) Or — they come under narrative attack, are inundated with one-sided Kool-Aid propaganda, and lose track of reality in the process of gaining an echo chamber.
Today, I announce my liberation from responsibility for the closed-minded, and I look forward to offering more content as we pursue the resurrection of American Values after a quarter century of dangerous backsliding.
Good, you can't please everyone.
Trying to convince the intractable is an exercise in futility.
However, I don't think the solution is to publish work you feel is incomplete.
I would suggest that a better method is having a team of trusted quality checkers.
They will read the work and let you know what they think, which makes it easier to maintain a consistent level.
It can be challenging to give yourself an objective evaluation because we remember the work at all stages so our perception is clouded by previous impressions.
This is also the reason why people miss their own spelling mistakes but not other's.