Reflections on 2023

A Year of Thinking Dangerously

I’ve come to understand “thinking dangerously” as an art form.

It is a fine balance, occupying a space between pushing the boundaries of what we see around us and the all-too-easy descent into pointless criticism, driven by our attention being taken hostage by events we do not control and struggle to understand.

I find something of “the zone” or “flow” about it: I cannot pursue it, only be open to it. The more I chase it, the more elusive it becomes. I do not plan my writing or follow “story structures,” although I may at some point when I have a better grasp of what the story is that only I can write and I don’t yet, although shapes are beginning to form.

I can only make sense of the fifty reflections I have published during the year in retrospect. Dots to be joined looking backwards. As I do so, some of them merge, and the challenge becomes, as Maurice Saatchi wrote in 2011, to apply “brutal simplicity of thought”. (Link at end) I want to trim the edges off what I have been noticing …