It's Been a While, Hasn't It?

Thoughts, updates and advice to bear in times of chaos.

I can’t remember the last time I sent an email to you guys. It must have been a while though.

The truth is, last year I stopped writing altogether. Moving from writing daily on Medium, sending out newsletters every morning and working on a few other passion projects in my free time, I went cold turkey overnight. Nothing. Zero.

That was around six months ago. I have a good reason for stopping, though. See, my publication, Mind Cafe, was picked up by Medium. I’m now a partner of theirs, which means they fund me to run Mind Cafe and manage a team of editors, authors and managers of the various other projects we’ve been working on. I won’t bore you with the details, but that’s that.

Anyway, I recently received a few lovely comments on articles of mine. A couple of people even said that the piece in question was ‘the best article they’ve ever read’. Bold claims that I’m sure will be overridden soon, but nonetheless, that got me thinking. I love to write. So why did I ever stop?

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The world is in turmoil right now, but you don’t need me to tell you that. Whole countries are being shut down, businesses are collapsing and us normal people are left wondering where it all went wrong.

And yet, during this time of indoor introspection, I’ve realised something. Whether it’s playing the drums, piano, drawing, designing websites or writing, I’m a creative. And I haven’t been creating - at all. The minute I sat down to write an article earlier this week, I felt at home. At peace. It felt right to be putting words onto digital paper and sending them out into the world, so I’m going to do it more often.

The point of this email is to tell you two things:

1. You’ll be seeing more of me around here. Perhaps daily, as before. But if not, definitely a few times each week. We’ll see. I hope that’s okay, but if it isn’t, feel free to unsubscribe. I won’t take it personally.

2. As I take this time to create more and focus on what I love, I’d encourage you to do so, too. Yes, it’s a great time to snuggle up, watch Netflix and binge-eat. Trust me, I’ll be doing plenty of that. But try not to waste these precious few weeks. If you're out of work and you’re healthy enough to knuckle down on the projects you’ve been delaying for a while, perhaps now’s your chance. You might not get an opportunity like this again.

So that’s that. I’ll see you again around this time tomorrow. Stay safe.

- Adrian