New beginnings, again.
On the trepidations of following the creative urge.
Hello old and new subscribers, it is me— Santi, fellow human and writer of words, coming to you with exciting news.
Wait, what is this?
I started this newsletter when I moved to Shanghai in 2019. I wanted to share my experience living and traveling in China (and Asia). Being in such a radically different country was an eye-opening experience that made me think about politics and culture.
However, I was there for only a brief time because of a little thing called the COVID-19 pandemic. In February, 2020, as lockdowns started in Shanghai, we decided to leave, thinking we’d be back in a couple months... Alas, three years later and China is still closed to foreigners.
After returning to Mexico, renting a house in the countryside, then going back to Mexico City, and now living in Madrid, I’m excited to share that the newsletter is back.
First, let me offer some reflections on why I stopped and why I want to continue.
The writing club
When I was still living in Shanghai, I joined a fiction writing club. The premise was simple: we would each write short stories (or chapters within a larger story), upload them to a forum, read them, and meet up in a café to give each other feedback.
Most of us were aspiring writers, yet, everyone would talk about their stories with equal parts excitement and seriousness. They would be thoughtful about the feedback given, and, if given a chance, would discuss their narrative arcs or a character’s motivations for hours on end. It was great.
I met a woman there that had a lasting impression on how to approach one’s aspiration. We’ll call her Jane.
I first met her at a weekend retreat the club had planned on a near the Yangtze river. She told me she had been a writer for the past few years. We talked at length about the act of writing, the novels she liked, and her inspirations for her stories. She was unapologetically passionate about her craft as a writer, and she gave amazing (often brutal) feedback.
It wasn’t until a month later when we were having dinner at an Uyghur restaurant (called Sapar, btw, and you should absolutely visit if Shanghai ever opens again) that she very casually slipped that she oversaw admissions at a very prestigious international school. That was her day job. It wasn’t bad; she liked her coworkers and was invested in the kids’ futures and all, but she knew that wasn’t her vocation.
Jane’s attitude was so refreshing. She didn’t wait for the world to give her permission. She just wrote and sent her short stories to various literary magazines, and attended the writing club religiously. She didn’t need external validation to come to terms with who she wanted to be and what she wanted to do. And I’m sure that she’ll be very successful in her own way.
Embracing the creative urge, again.
There's a creative urge that I think is innate in all of us. A deep motivation to create something out of nothing: whether that is planting a garden, writing a book, building Legos, or starting a business.
Yet, most of us are scared to even acknowledge what those motivations are.
Why don’t we approach our aspirations with the same seriousness we approach our “real” jobs? Why is our creative process so filled with apprehension?
I have no clear cut answers yet, but I just know that our creativity will be stunted until we don't address the real fear of letting go and being vulnerable, of showing ourselves as we are.
It has happened to me when writing.
There are some days where nothing clicks. I have an idea that I want to explore and things just don't flow. I feel unsure. There's a latent anxiety within me that silently begs me to stop; to just go to Youtube and watch geography videos and forget about this thing I wanted to do.
During the worst days, I blame myself. “Stop trying to do something different, Santi.” “That is cringey, don’t share it.” “You are you and you know your limitations, why try to change?”
Well, something like that happened with that newsletter two years ago. I struggled with my perfectionism whenever I wanted to publish something new. And when the pandemic hit, it was a legitimate excuse not to focus on it. As time passed by, it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Why continue if I had stopped publishing six months ago? It’s been one year, come on? Two years gone by, forget about it.
Well, two and a half years later, I say to you, dear reader: welcome back!
Ok, Santi, that’s a nice story and all, but what is this newsletter about?
Right.
This newsletter will be about what I find interesting: the books I read, the conversations I have, and the places I travel to. I find the world a fascinating place., and I am constantly trying to make sense of it. Sometimes successfully, sometimes not.
So, expect angry rants on urban planning, city walks, opinionated book reviews, impassioned thoughts on the importance of trees, insights on writing fiction, and a long etc.
I make your three promises, dear reader:
You will learn something new.
It will not be boring.
I will be all over the place.
The next newsletter will be a book review of “Death and Life of American Cities” by Jane Jacobs. One of the most influential books on urban design, written over 60 years ago. We’ll talk about sidewalks, density, freeways, and enumerate all the ways Le Corbusier got city planning wrong.
Thanks for reading!