By Nathan Young
This post is for everybody who participated or showed an interest in the New Narrative collective group a couple of months ago. This is a general update on where I'm at, where the project is at, and the next steps going forward.
I apologize for dropping off the table with this project about a month ago. There were a variety of reasons at play, from holiday anxiety, to election anxiety, to COVID anxiety, to anxiety anxiety, to anxiety anxiety anxiety, and everything in between. I feel especially bad because I know some of you put in quite a bit of work towards your contributions to this project and I feel like I might have let you down.
I’ve come to realize that I might have to rethink how I organize these groups going forward. I really truly am hoping to one day open the doors and give other people more autonomy in this project, but this time around I think I jumped to that spot too quick. There were a lot of amazing ideas and things coming forward, but the way things were organized it was all destined to stretch me too thin personally, and perhaps stretch The New Narrative in too many directions too.
I’d love to reignite the affinity groups, but I think they need to be more about inward mutual support rather than an outward representation of the New Narrative. As examples, the podcast group would be less about producing a New Narrative podcast and more about creating a network of support to help each other create their own podcasts. The social justice group would be less about gearing up for specific political action and more about creating a community of learning around social justice issues. The storytelling group could be any number of things in this regard too.
Hopefully, this makes sense and is still interesting to you. I'm sorry if this comes off as a disappointment. I think the big challenge for me is always going to be finding the right equilibrium with how much control I give-up vs maintain to keep this project moving, giving everybody a sense of involvement, and the timing of those shifts too. I also have to be real about my own time and energy.
I have some relatively simple initiatives I hope to roll out soon, which I also hope will be helpful for this community. I’d still like to find ways that we can build out the collective, just at a slowed-down pace and more in accordance with the guidelines I set above.
Another important aspect of all this is I’m always aiming to bring cool people together and see what comes of it. If you found yourself and ideas gelling with any specific people, certainly don’t hesitate to connect and collaborate amongst yourselves.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. I’d also love to get a sense of who’s still IN and would like to make stuff happen, vs who’s interested but would mostly prefer a lower level of engagement for now. All answers are fine—I’m mostly just happy that you read this far down in the email—but I do want to focus energy in the short term around the folks most ready to make something happen. I’ll follow up with more details of the next steps as I see them and we can go from there.
I hope all is well with everybody! Welcome to 2021. And here is hoping for a brighter and more optimistic future! ;)
Thanks!
Nathan
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