Writing a new book

Dear Subscribers,

I didn’t think I was going to write another book. There are so many other ways to communicate that better meet today’s short attention spans and fast news cycles. A book takes months or years to write. What could one say about AI or politics or any number of topics when we rush past the landscape at such terrific speed?

I will only write another book, I thought, if the material absolutely has to be in book form.

Well, I’ve started writing another book, probably my final book. It has to be a book and not a series of substack posts because the material requires sustained attention. Substack posts pop up in your inbox and recede down the scroll bar into oblivion. People typically read them during email time or browsing the web time, in contrast to reading a book, which is typically more intentional. The material in this book asks that the reader sit with it, linger over it, return to it, stop and think about it. The book is meant to be an experience in itself.

I’ll share two excerpts from the first draft. Here is the opening paragraph.

The most important thing to know about this book is that a human being wrote it. I did not use AI to generate these words. Why is that important to know? Because when you feel something, you will know you are not alone in feeling it. I was feeling it too—or some kindred feeling. I am feeling something, and so are you, and therefore we are together.

As I write this book, I pause often to feel the reader across time and space. Sometime the pause is for a few seconds, sometimes for longer. I pause until I feel an actual person. It is uncanny and, rationally speaking, implausible that I could feel an authentic connection with a reader I’ll never meet, maybe someone who isn’t even born yet. My intention is that when you read the book, you will have one of those uncanny moments when it seems that the author has written these words directly to you. You won’t be imagining it.

I probably won’t publish with a traditional publisher. I want to retain control over the title, the design, the cover, and the audiobook (if I record one). I may not produce an electronic version—not sure yet—because I envision this book as an object you can hold in your hands. I want it to be beautiful. It will transmit something through its form as well as its content.

I’ve worked on it sporadically over the past year, but only in the last couple weeks has the full vision of it seized me. I’m going to be working on it in earnest the rest of this year and into next. Therefore I’m not going to be posting much writing to Substack. I will still post the occasional podcast or video, however, and maybe some excerpts now and then. Some really special videos are in the pipeline. I won’t be posting on social, political, or technology issues for the time being.

I am very grateful to those who have continued their paid subscription despite my irregular posting. If you continue to subscribe, you will be supporting me and my family as I write the book. You can also donate through my website, one-time or monthly, in any amount you choose. This is crowdsourced patronage—an alternative to monetizing content through ads or paywalls. Beyond the financial support, donations boost my morale. When people send money without getting anything in direct exchange, it inspires me to rise to the level of their trust.

In tone and theme, this book will resemble The More Beautiful World our Hearts Know is Possible, but longer and deeper and even more lovingly written. I am in full service to this book. Here is another excerpt:

For the speaker, a truth does not become real until someone hears and understands it.

That means that speaker and listener have an equal power to bring truth into manifestation. It is a joint process, the process of creation, the exercise of the power of fiat.

Fiat. The word has a bad connotation today, used as a term of disparagement to describe federal reserve money: “fiat currency.” Let us reclaim that term, because it refers to a primal creative principle: the power of word. Fiat means, “to speak something into existence.”

God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

Who was the listener, through whom these words became real? Is the listener the divine female counterpart of the male creator God of Genesis? Few Christians seriously ask how God could be male if He is prior to all duality, as “male” makes no more sense without “female” than “short” without “long” or “near” without “far.” Meanwhile, secular people typically dismiss the male creator God as a figment of the patriarchal imagination.

A third possibility beckons, the divine embodiment of the generative power of listening, the feminine power that receives the words of God and even draws them forth. It is she who then becomes pregnant with the seed of creation. Something is always born in the one who listens in full receptivity to the words of another.

Something is always born in the one who listens in full receptivity to the words of another; equally, something is born in the speaker too. Thank you for your attention, your support, and your listening over these years.

Charles