Hello, World

Dear Friends,

How was your summer vacation? I hope it was great. What did you get up to? I'd love if you dropped me a line or left a comment to tell me all about it.

Mine was really good. Well, it wasn't very summery, and I do wish I'd done more fun things like watch more of the Knicks run and the World Cup outside, or go to the beach (how has it been two years since I've been on a beach?). But it was still good because I got some important things done and learned a lot. Here's a rundown.

Number 1: Everything doesn't automatically go to shit if you take a break

The other day I was talking to someone, and in the middle of our conversation they said, "You're still doing your newsletter, right? Or are you on a break?" I said yes I was, just on a summer hiatus, and that I'd be coming back this week. It was said in a kind way, a sort of "of course I love reading it (WHO DOESN'T) but it just now occurred to me I haven't seen one in a few weeks" way. You know, as if talking to me reminded them the newsletter existed, because — surprisingly, I know — my newsletter and I were not constantly the center of their focus and the only things they ever thought about.

Some of you know I was very anxious about taking a break. I'd been so consistent about sending something out every week, and I worried that a break would be literal: It would break me of the habit I'd worked so hard to built. Worse, it would break my commitment to you, my lovely readership, and you'd all give up on me and go to other, greener newsletter pastures. I'd hoped to do a more structured hiatus, to let everyone know which was the last newsletter before the break, what would happen over the break, and when I'd be back. At the very least, I ought to have finished the story I was in the middle of (we're still not finished with the story of Add Yours, if you can believe it).

Instead, I just... stopped. Abruptly, and kind of messily. And wouldn't you know, it worked out fine. No one unsubscribed or wrote me in confusion. Everyone got on with their busy lives that, again surprisingly, do not revolve around this little missive I send out once a week.

To be honest, it worked out better than fine. I was feeling a specific sort of burnout in July that is perhaps too personal to get into in this space, and the newsletter felt like a drain. That made me sad, because I love this newsletter. It's important to me, and all of you are important to me, and I didn't want any of it to feel like a grind, because it isn't. So it was good that I listened to what my brain and body were telling me, even if maybe I should have listened earlier. I listened so much that, last week, when I'd told myself I'd come back, I still didn't feel ready. It was the first week of the US Open, I was distracted by other work (more on that shortly), and I didn't feel it. Unlike some of my friends, the hardboiled professionals among them, I could not bring myself to sit down and write this. So I gave it a bit more time. Which brings me to the next thing I learned.

Number 2: If you're going to take a break, take an actual fucking break

This one is a re-learn. As some of you know, I lived in Stockholm for a few years when I was working at Spotify. My first summer there was challenging — the first year was challenging, honestly — but my second summer was very important, because it was the summer I taught myself how to take days off. Please don't misunderstand: I'm not some relentless workaholic who's grinding 100 hours a week. I'd taken days off before. But I'd never taken days off. Allow me to explain.

If you're an American, you've probably marveled before at the amount of paid holiday people in Europe get, particularly in Scandinavia. And if you're Scandinavian, you're justifiably smug about this (less justifiably smug about other things, but we can argue about those another time). The thing you (Americans) need to understand, though, is both how much and, at times, how little (complimentary) a lot of people do with that time off. When most Stockholmers take four weeks off in the middle of the summer, they take four weeks off. They disappear. You do not hear from them. They're in the country, or out of the country. Sign on the shop says "Gone Fishin'." They're away away.

Even the people who remain in Stockholm in the summer do this. One of the magical things about Stockholm is that it's not only a city, it's also an archipelago. I lived on a large island. You can swim all over the place. So all summer long, there will be people in parks and on docks lying about, reading, picnicking, jumping in the water, swimming, and relaxing. It was illuminating to me as an American. Yes, I know, we sit in parks and read and swim. But there was a different vibe, and the vibe was YOU'RE TAKING THE DAY OFF AND SAVORING EVERY MINUTE OF IT. So that second summer, I started asking myself this question on days off: "What do you want to do today? Not should do, but want to do." And my god, it was magical. That summer culminated in a pièce de résistance which came in the form of five days sat on a pebble beach on a small Greek island during which I did nothing but read five books, paddle around in saltwater, and eat a really good sandwiches from the Greek bakery in town. I've never had a better vacation, before or since.

Now, I did not do any of this during the summer that's just ended. I honestly failed at nearly all of it. Even over the past few weeks of not writing this newsletter, I did almost none of those things, besides some occasional days spent reading, and certainly some days spent watching extraordinary amounts of tennis. But I did take a true break from this newsletter, and that helped me a lot. In fact, I was able to finally finish a draft of the chapter outline for my proposal, which is huge. That specific bit of work has bedeviled me for far longer than I'd like to admit, and it required a different kind of work from me, a "battling some demons" kind of work.

Moving forward, I need to be mindful of this. There are going to be times I need to take a break and focus on a bigger, more important task. This little garden will not whither and die without constant attention. Many of you had a lot of wonderful suggestions on how I could do this moving forward — seasons, scheduled breaks, and so on. I'm not yet sure what form the breaks will take, or what any of it will look like, because I think it depends on a few factors. But I will keep you informed, and I will keep this little garden humming, even if I let it get a bit wild in summer or a bit dormant in winter.

Number 3: You get what you pay for

Because I'm already over 1300 words, and that's a lot for the first week back, I'm actually going to save this one for another week. Yes, I will be back writing about tech and community and the rest of it. I might even write about the whole Open AI/Hugging Face thing, which is both terrifying and absurd, because "Hugging Face"?!? But I want to give a special shoutout to The Tennis Podcast. In particular, shoutout to The Barge, the user community I've spent a good amount of time enjoying this summer after I finally became a "friend of the pod," aka a paid supporter.

Guys, I don't know if you know this, but paying to access something that's private and well-moderated can be a much nicer experience than wading into the often-toxic waters of public, unmoderated internet madness. Not saying one is necessarily better than the other, but it is worth a solid discussion. So maybe next week.

Number 4: Popsicles rule

The biggest thing I learned this summer is that Outshine popsicles are incredible and if your freezer isn't stocked with at least five different flavors, are you in fact living your life the way it's meant to be lived? I don't think so. Outshine, I know I'm not ad-supported or sponsored, but I would 100% sell my soul to you, please be in touch.

(My flavor picks: watermelon, peach, pomegranate, tangerine, and lemon. Throw in coconut if you're my fellow popsicle obsessive friend. NB: Black cherry tastes exactly like the popsicle version of a cherry Luden's cough drop or maybe a 1980s 7-11 Slurpee, and I mean this in the most positive complimentary way.)

Until next Wednesday!

Lx