What is long-form journalism? I couldn’t imagine. I barely wrote 500 words on paper before eyes glaze over and I got the placating “I’ll read it later”. Would anything any subject merit a word count between 1,000 and 20,000 words? I attempted the November National Novel Writing Month challenge to no avail. That is, until I changed the game.

My peers shared the other evening they received a grant from the state as artists and organizations. I would celebrate their success had they not emphasized the detail I didn’t want to hear again. The deadline for applicants came and went the 1st of November last year. I’m sure they told many individuals, but I must remind, an idea’s only as good as its timing. Remembering to pack an umbrella made little difference if you only recall while standing in the storm.

His pleasure with himself still reminded that fortune favors the prepared. So, I set off in search of my own state-offered aid. I encountered MacDowell soon afterwards.

^{I can almost taste success, in the hands of hard work. A heads up doesn't hurt either.}

MacDowell

As to whether or not my inexperience understands the gravity, I cannot say, but apparently MacDowell is the nation’s leading residency program. Perhaps I might emerge a leading artist if I continue this Way. By offering individuals the space to place new steps towards lasting works, Macdowell nurtures the arts. I could feel the urge to apply welling up like brown cola at a fast-food joint.

Founded by Edward MacDowell and Marian MacDowell, his wife. A composer himself, it comes as no surprise one moved by the arts aimed to give the gift to others. Such is the power of love, as well.

It would mark a third time in recent memory James Baldwin and his work came up in conversation. Baldwin earned a residency at MacDowell among others.

In a way, I am not unlike Baldwin, creating literary work to provoke the masses to action, a word at a time. Detailed instructions meant to initiate thoughtful sounds like ‘ooh’s’ and ‘mmm’s’.

I spoke on my patron plan briefly and would expand more in public on the 8th. I also separate funds to enable a visit to New York to hear a contemporary speak.

Between grabbing at grants and seeking supporters, I felt a need to write- not only about my efforts but of the trials many of us face as well.

Baldwin leaves us a diatribe of sorts from a radio interview on being black in America. He said:

To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a state of rage almost, almost all of the time — and in one's work. And part of the rage is this: It isn't only what is happening to you. But it's what's happening all around you and all of the time in the face of the most extraordinary and criminal indifference, indifference of most white people in this country, and their ignorance. Now, since this is so, it's a great temptation to simplify the issues under the illusion that if you simplify them enough, people will recognize them. I think this illusion is very dangerous because, in fact, it isn't the way it works. A complex thing can't be made simple. You simply have to try to deal with it in all its complexity and hope to get that complexity across.

I hold it to be true, on blockchain to blackness. I don’t begin this Way because it’s February, or a month dedicated to Black History or even for the quiet truth I was born this month. Black history is in fact, American history, and despite silence being one of Benjamin Franklin’s thirteen virtues, any prolonged quiet on the matter abets negligence and ignorance to an open wound on the face of America.

^{Everyone in America is an American. This is our problem.}

Silence

I cannot keep well-kempt and silent on needful matters. Ignorance, like a common cold, spreads as we pass it on. Then I pass on prevention, washing my hands of dumb jokes. I offer knowledge as a lozenge to soothe the voices of the disenfranchised, screaming for a shot, if not, only some acknowledgement.

I would shut my mouth if only if it put pejoration in its place, and idle chatter to rest. We’re sensitive to words, not out of weakness, but for their power. Self-deprecation would only reinforce defeatist attitudes, taken to the extreme. Then what would repeating pejoratives like retard and Negro do?

I don’t mind that ignorance generalizes those foolhardy individuals who recommend blockchain to make ‘life-changing wealth’ as “crypto bros”.

I am not pleased, by contrast, with how the NFT is seen, but what could I expect? Anyone could make something and call it art, yet mastery cannot be hidden. Those truly offering a form of self-expression as a means of communication and abstraction could not be compared to the likes of celebrity shysters, though.

Ultimately, I wrote for myself. Many friends assuage their guilt for not engaging my writings consistently. They fear, as writer and arbiter, I shall sentence them to life. What they don’t realize, I do not condemn them to life in ignorance. They do it to themselves.

^{Take note, that everyone profitable, successful or positive also does it to themselves. How oft we forget, it goes both ways.}

Post Summary

• I am a long-form journalist. I give important topics space to grow in people's minds. If you plant trash, heaps will grow. Planting seeds might bear some fruit.
• Macdowell, a residency for writers, gives individuals space to grow as well. I think an application couldn't hurt my chances. It wouldn't hurt as much as full-blown ignorance, anyway.
• The virtue I make my focus this month is Silence. Many things ask for our quiet, and deserve it, libraries and reverence for the dead. Many other things, beg our silence but do not merit it, like prejudice, indifference to social matters and poor humor.
• I cannot keep quiet about matters important to me any longer.