Love what you do
Welcome to this week’s issue of The Jumpstack! This week, we try doing what we love. Let’s jump in!
The ongoing adventures of @jodiesjumpsuit
Tuesday, I went to a funeral. Thursday, my son had surgery. And on the day between, Twitter Canada was very kind and invited me to their #Trending2020 breakfast presentation at their headquarters, which kinda felt like walking into a surprise party.
Twitter’s office in Toronto is charming, and fantastically committed to detail (the overhead lighting was in the shape of hashtags!) and I was surrounded by media professionals. I immediately turned into a wallflower, and I perched upon a couch as I envied the easy small talk around me. I have still to figure out how to be a confident “Hello, I am This and I do That and Here is Why You Should Care” person.
But that didn’t matter in the end.
The presentation was interesting. In a nutshell, there’s a swing away from influencers with massive followings to smaller, more personable creator ones: it isn’t about how many followers you have, it’s now about how you engage with them. Are you aspirational, or are you relatable?
On that theme, amateur art and fandom are also growing: people collaborating and sharing their hobbies is a welcome change of pace on a platform where many have just gone for an argument.
There was also discussion of blended realities and driverless cars: I tweeted a quip, and then, suddenly, Michelle Slater asked where “Jodie’s Jumpsuit” was sitting. I raised my hand as the audience of Important Media People turned and looked at me. I think I blushed. (I can’t imagine that I didn’t. )
Michelle said she enjoyed my tweet, and then read it aloud, which… was infinitely fucking awesome. It’s not everyday that the Twitter people read out a tweet of yours, in front of an audience, in their own headquarters. I think I’m still blushing.
After the presentation, I was a little less shy. I met Ama Scriver (who had fabulous nails) and Rebecca Zamon (who had a fantastic knapsack) and Simon Ostler and Mackay Taggart (both of whom I squealed about like I was a teenager.) They were all very kind to me. I then grabbed my swag bag and jumped onto the streetcar—and immediately went back to being a nobody again.
I think I’m starting to acquire an appetite for such events: it was definitely a boost in the middle of an absolutely gruelling week.
Take my advice
Once upon a time, a decade or so prior to this one, I won an award for giving good advice. It was on a parenting website, and the advice I gave seemed pretty obvious.
(No, you should not entertain strange gentlemen from Craigslist who are very interested in your gestating third-trimester body, that path leads to monsters.)
I got bragging rights and a few cookbooks out of the deal. As a result, I’ve developed a taste for telling people what to do, and this exchange between two app-crossed potential lovers is enough for me to dive in:
While a segment of Twitter dunks on the gentleman for being too earnest, or too emotional—dating has become positively anemic since it moved to apps—I see a person who was open about the time and care he had invested, his disappointment, and politely moving on.
The lady, on the other hand, was rude and in posting the exchange to Twitter, petulant and spiteful. Someone did dodge a bullet, but it is not the person she thinks it is.
If you’re looking for love, it is not in your best interest to treat everyone you come across as a lab rat you’ve put in a labyrinth of your own invention. One, it shows a complete lack of regard for the individual, which reflects poorly on you, not them; and two, you run the risk of inevitably selecting someone who sees the labyrinth for what it is and puts you in their own. If you’re looking for a relationship built on manipulation and control, as opposed to intimacy and respect, go ahead, but I don’t recommend it.
No one is perfect, including yourself. Adhering to arbitrary rules that conveniently reframe your poor manners as strategy will not serve you in the way you imagine. Ask yourself if you are looking for a partner, or an employee: how you prioritize mutual respect will tell you the answer, and if you should be on a dating app, or LinkedIn.
(Want my advice? Hit reply with your conundrum and if I think I’ve got something useful to say I’ll include it here. Of course, I’ll keep you anonymous!)
My type
I relate deeply to this short piece by Dan Brooks: I have a tween, one who loves to swear and is more online than I’d like him to be. (Yes, parenting is an endless exercise in revealing your own hypocrisies.)
Brooks addresses a problem in our culture of the fixed type, a series of categories that we pigeonhole ourselves and others into, because it’s easier to think of ourselves as limited to our identities as opposed to liberated by our actions:
The illusion of a fixed nature gives us an excuse to repeat bad behavior. To insist that what we do determines who we are—and not the other way around—is to make freedom and therefore responsibility a part of our worldview at the most basic level.
This isn’t a struggle contained to adolescents: I’d say this is something we all struggle with in some way or another.
I loathe to call myself a writer, because my idea of a writer is someone with achievements that seem out of my reach. And yet, if I think of what I would’ve considered a writer to be five years ago, I’ve become one through my actions. My desired fixed nature is to consider myself not a writer, a nobody: it’s easier and safer to be a nobody, but it’s also a lie I tell myself to not do things. I lie to myself about what I do, because what I could do if I told the truth to myself is unknown.
To be a good parent, like Dan Brooks, I must lead by example: acknowledging my actions, and not hiding behind what I fancy myself—because I’m raising a person, and not a type.
Save what you love
Wanna read a love story?
Bhavya Dore guides us through three centuries of an extraordinary family library that has become one of historical importance, fuelled simply by love and resolve. The book collection in northern Serbia boasts volumes from all over the world, and continues to act as a shelter for books that have nowhere to go:
We are [like a] Red Cross for culture,” he says, after the tour. “We have a whole network—many institutions in Serbia and Europe—where when people [learn about] … books [that are going to] be destroyed, they call us.
Click for the beautiful pictures of the library, read for the illiterate grandmother who outwitted the occupying Nazis: all good love stories are daring adventures.
And that’s it for The Jumpstack this week! I hope you liked it—if you did, won’t you hit that heart over there? I’ll see you next week!
— Jump