Apologies to @etiolation, if they are still around and it's a problem, for coopting this thread.

I want to start writing. My goal is to be a famous and well-compensated pundit with lots of beautiful young groupies and first class tickets spilling out of my inbox.

I'll settle for having a minor impact making someone's life a little better.

But, I really don't know how to get started in making it useful, how to engage in a broader community of writiers and develop and connect with an audience.

So I'm reaching out to the highest quality online community of which I am a part:

Is there anyone here who knows their writing has impacted another? Would you care to share the how's, the why's, and the wherefores?

Is anyone here a part of a writing group that's open to new members? Would you share?

Is there anywone here who has made money as a writer?

My particular writing focus is how to increase the level of "goodness" in the world. I don't even yet have a fully formed idea of what I think that is, perhaps a good topic for an essay. But, I don't even really know what an essay is. Somehow I got through a liberal arts education with decent grades, but don't seem to really know diddly squat about abstract thinking. More importantly, I don't have a well defined goal of the point of anything, with one exception: connection. The only time I truly feel at peace in this world is when I feel connected to another human. And it's a thing that perhaps a lot of folks take for granted, but which I was (presumably inadvertently) trained to avoid at all costs as very young person.

So, if you have any thoughts on how to develop focus and form, and identify venue, and raise profiles and get feedback, I'd be most obliged.

All the best and all the blessings

I'm a big believer in the theme system proposed by CGP Grey (discussed in much more detail on the Cortex podcast), and have been thinking about what I would like my theme for 2022 to be. After realigning my financial situation this year through the (imaginitively named) Year of Finance, I want to spend some time focusing on myself as a person and my existence in the world.

Enter the Year of Authenticity. Recent circumstances and some serious meta-cognition have led me to the conclusion that I am not sufficiently honest enough about my values, beliefs, expression, and well, myself. I find myself bending to the various social situations I find myself in, and it feels very dishonest at times. So I plan to spend 2022 thinking more about the person that I want to be, being more true to that desire, and trying to align my various "selves" into an individual who I am confident being in any situation.

I already have a few things in mind that I expect to work on, including my public gender expression and my fear of expressing opinions in unfamiliar groups and situations. But I find myself wondering, how do other people experience the desire to be more authentic? Is this something any of my fellow Tilderen have ever spent time working on? What are your approaches to practicing authenticty? Do you have an idealised version of yourself which you work towards? Do you find yourself acting differently with different groups of people? Is this even something I should be worried about? Lets have a talk about it :)

Edit: The nice thing about a theme (watch the video if you haven't, it gives a good explanation) is that it's fuzzy, and it can mean a lot of things, or even change meaning when necessary.

A few have mentioned the idea of consistency, which is not really what I'm shooting for. I don't believe that there is a core, unchanging, self that I have inside me that I am wanting to unleash on an unsuspecting world. I know and embrace that as humans we are emotional, multi-faceted beings, and that changing social situations necessitate changing mannerisms. I don't expect to behave in the same with with my university professors as I do with my best friends of multiple decades. I haven't yet nailed down exactly what I do mean by authenticity, but I do know that it doesn't mean trying to be the same logical, consistent character to all people.

There's a reason I've started thinking about this journey for 2022 now, even before December: there's a lot of introspection and metacognition required for something like this. Being an intronaut can be scary and difficult, but I'm excited to see where it takes me! This whole process is just beginning, and I'm looking to gain insight into others' experiences to help frame my own view of what this year can/might/should mean for me. Thanks for everyone's responses so far <3