I’ll keep this short - for now.
For a long time I’ve been caught in a bit of a mental conflict: I love doing things, and I love to think about things that have been done. I would have imagined that that would naturally lead to a two-pronged enjoyment of the world, but it was the exact opposite.
When doing things, I always got the niggling feeling that I was ‘pushing to production’ too hastily, that I hadn’t given critical thought to how I was making them sausages, and the second- (and third-) order effects of whatever I had embarked on.
[It is because of this that there is a sizeable number of projects wafting through the internet that I refuse to acknowledge having had a hand in creating.]
When the ‘thoughtlessness’ of deadline-spurred creation became too much for me, I switched to thinking, and with it came its attendant woes: eventually, thinking feels like a cowardly escape from having projects of your own while reserving the right to talk about everybody else’s work.
Because of this, I abandoned both thinking and doing entirely. For a while, I’ve gotten by on residual knowledge - sort of like my brain’s muscle memory. Sort of.
Today, I am challenging myself with a new project on Substack called Do While Thinking. If it sounds like it’s borrowed from a programming concept, it’s not by accident.
I’ll be doing things, and talking about how I’m thinking about doing those things, then using those thoughts to do more things - or improve on things I have done.
It’s the sort of stuff that leaves you with calloused fingers and a weather-worn face. It’s the true path to being less of a charlatan by the day.
Join me?
— Love, Mogwai.
