I've started another Substack
After months of quietly untangling my ideas
At the beginning of the year, I decided to take my thinking more seriously, and to make it more visible.
I’ve spent the first few months doing a lot of very invisible thinking. It’s been fun, but also quite painstaking. It’s helped me to slowly firm up a point of view. Now I have a pipeline of essays that I’m excited (and slightly apprehensive!) to start sharing. They all connect with a red thread that I often explore here - culture, who makes it, how it’s defined, and what makes it strong, something to be proud of, something to protect.
I’ve really enjoyed the process of taking my insights seriously, putting pen to paper and untangling my thoughts, and learning how they connect with each other. It reminds me of Joan Didion, who once famously said; “I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.” This couldn’t be more true for me; it really is a form of mental housekeeping.
Culture isn’t an easy one to write about with conviction. It has so many qualities and definitions, means different things to different people. Culture is tangible, it’s intangible, it’s how we move, it’s what we make, what we consume, it’s our shared norms and expectations. It can be beautiful, it can be boring, it can be niche, it can be widespread.
I’m not retiring Whisky Cat. I like that it’s looser and more undefined. Maybe I’ll start using this space to share unresolved thinking and ideas, which I suspect will still have its place, particularly in this era of hyper-polished content.
If you’d like to follow my writings on culture, you can find me here.