A Shift in Focus

and the yes/no chopping block

Now that I have climbed up the mountain and come down committed to writing a mystical memoir this year, the next question is: how? As I laid out in my conversation with J.P. Marceau, I have a full-time job and a rambunctious young family. Outside of these priorities, that gives me about 6 to 10 hours per week to dedicate to creative work. One can accomplish a lot in that time, but not everything.

My first response was to hunker down and get super focused on writing and ditch all of the other lesser things that could subtract from accomplishing the goal. Say yes to one thing and no to all the others. Say goodbye to podcasting, writing essays, publishing newsletters - whatever it took to complete the one thing. Then, once it is finished, do the next one thing.

But then, a few things happened. Nicholas Kotar graciously challenged my reasoning during our epic round-table discussion on myth-making:

Derek: Should we focus on telling the story or teaching the interpretive structures?

Nicholas: It’s good that you want to go deep and be a storyteller. But I’m not sure that it is possible for us to be only one or the other. Whether we want to or not, now days, we have to do both [tell the story and teach how to see it].

Then, I posted my interview with Matthieu Pageau. The feedback was significantly positive, overwhelming even. I thought people’s attention would be towards Matthieu (which it mostly was), but people seemed to go out of their way, of all things, to compliment my interviewing skills. Understand, in the back of my mind at the time I am thinking about not posting interviews anymore to make more room for my main projects. Here’s a sample of the comments people shared:

Great interview, probably my favorite Matthieu interview to date. Exciting to think he will be more involved moving forward. - George

Great interview, probably my favourite Mathieu interview to date. Exciting to think he will be more involved moving forward. - Joshua

This is so much better than the JBP interview - lGalaxisl

You are the best interviewer Derek. Really impressed man. This interview is the most insightful conversation I’ve seen of Matthieu before - A Kernal from the Catacombs

I really appreciate your videos. I have been watching Johnathan and Matthieu's conversations for a while now. At some point I came across your videos and think you have good insight and good interview skills. Keep up the good work! - Create not Consume

I began rethinking my idea of letting go of interviewing. Based on the feedback, my ability to converse is a gift that blesses people. Should I let it go so flipantly?

Finally, it all came together, and I saw the light. It’s not a matter of merely saying yes to one thing and no to all the others. It’s about hierarchy (you knew it was coming). The main thing informs the order of importance, the value, of the supportive things.

Think of concentric circles. Telling stories is in the center. Second layer is research and conversations. Third layer is engaging with the public audience on platforms like YouTube. Fourth layer is contributing to the schools that shape my worldview in which my stories take form, like The Symbolic World Blog. The main thing informs the books I read, the people I talk to, the facts that I pool together.

Photo by Gary Meulemans on Unsplash

When you know your seeds, you will learn the right companion plants. The seeds will tell you the ecosystem they do best in. What do you do when you have corn seeds? - plant beans and squash.¹

What are my three sisters?

1. An original project (e.g. mystical memoir)

2. YouTube - for public level engagement, like podcasts, book reviews, close reads

3. Substack letters - for close-knit engagement at community level

This is the approach I will be taking in 2023. After all, I am not ditching interviews or book reviews. Rather, I am reprioritizing them as supportive activities toward producing the end goal of publishing original projects. Interviewing has a way of drawing out special insights than writing, and vica versa; I see from different angles and perspectives. Retrospection and dialogue are inseperable. Moving forward, my filtering questions will be:

How does this activity compliment the main goal?

Will this help the seed grow?

My old focus was to teach people how to see stories and films more meaningfully and pitch away at my original projects here and there. This year, I’m making a shift in focus, rather than taking my endeavors to the yes/no chopping block. I’m keeping the essentials and reappropriating them according to the main thing. We will see how it goes…

Notable Activity

• You can't see what's right in front of you, here's why (Matthieu Pageau clip) - I put a decent amount of tender loving care into this 59-second YouTube short. Even added some background music. It’s moving and motivational.

• I posted a new reaction video with my daughter. We unbox Nicholas Kotar’s' new special edition book The Son of the Deathless. It was a lot of fun to make and my duaghter’s reactions are priceless.

• I experimented with posting a thread on Substack - Testing: One-Two-Thread! It seemed to go over well. Thank you to Stephanie who writes

  This Little Café
  and others for helping us navigate new technological territory. I'll be posting a new thread tomorrow, Thursday 1/25. I'll be reading your submissions and replying in the early morning hours, at lunch, and in the evening. If it continues to go well, perhaps we shall make a thing of it, something like 'Thursday Threads'. To be determined.

• The “website” has begun - derekjfiedler.com - is active. Really it’s a forward to the ‘about’ page on Substck, but shush… Feel free to send visitors this way; it’s a central place to get a snapshot of what I’m about and what I am doing.

Sincerely,
Derek J Fiedler

1. You might to listen to the podcasts I shared with expert gardeners, like Evan Doukas and Steve Larson, on my Gardening Playlist.
Also, I updated the hyperlink for the Know Your Seeds letter to https://derekjfiedler.substack.com/p/know-your-seeds. Just in case you have shared or referred to this article, it would be best to update to this link. Thanks :)