And we keep counting on...

Yesterday, the day after the disaster that is the 2024 Election, I learned that I was undoubtedly a "writer" in the sense that when that faced with emotions and thoughts that had nowhere to go, the most natural thing in the world was to put words down on a page. Some people have this affliction, many do not.

Given the circumstances we and the entire world will find ourselves in for perhaps the next decade or more, I think it is worth spelling out what this newsletter will be doing in the coming days.

Foremost, this newsletter is continuing on. Writing is important to me, and I hope that it brings every reader something of value every time I hit the big "send" button.

To the casual observer, this newsletter isn't going to change. Posts will keep coming out with almost unnatural regularity. They will have the same style, on the same topics on data, tech, user experience. It'll continue to find joy in how people measure things and show excitement over nerdy technical things. I'll continue to share posts and things that people send me. Guest writers are always welcome. These hopefully positive things will continue to come from me despite whatever bad things will happen around us in the days to come.

I just want it to be clear that the posts aren't continuing because I don't see the bad things, because I very much do. I am very much screaming on the inside and probably more than just a bit on social media. It's just that within my limited locus of control, writing and contributing to the data community through this newsletter is how I can contribute some positivity in the coming days. It's not business-as-usual, but business-despite-the-unusual.

Hopefully, dear readers, this sounds appealing to you and you'll come along for the journey. So here's a 365 day "free trial" of the full subscription, cancel any time w/ a few clicks directly through Stripe. Feel free to cancel on day 364, set a calendar reminder for it. Ghost doesn't let me generate gift post links so it's one of the few ways I can unlock those posts (and any archives) for people short of never writing subscriber-only posts. Subscriptions help pay for the server that hosts the site, as well as the ~$4 bill I get every time I press the email everyone button. In exchange I try to write a little bit extra every other Thursday for those folks. But maybe money's tight in these times and you just want to read a bit more and show some support just by being around. Use the link if you want, share it, ignore it. I'll keep the promo code active for a couple of weeks.

I'll close this post with an expanded version of the thread on Bluesky I posted that made me realize that, for better or worse, I'm a writer:

Just venting a bit here, but my last grandparent died about a month ago – she was ~102ish. We always lived far away so I rarely think of her except today.

Both sides of my family were from Vietnam, though my great-grandparents came from southern China. They all came to the US as refugees at the close of the war when the South Vietnamese capital fell. But the history of the region meant my grandparents would have been in the country some time around the events of WWII Japan's occupation and the Indochina wars, while my parent's generation would have grown up amidst the ~20 years of conflict with the communists in what would be the Vietnam War.

While I was mostly too young to ask, one noticeable thing about both sides of my family (6-7 aunts and uncles on both sides) is that they did not talk about the war period. Mom once talked about going to school while young, Dad had said he had joined the navy and was on a boat, but I heard little in the way of details, and nothing about what life was like there.

I was many years older when grandma just offhand mentioned how at some point an aunt of mine, her daughter, had been sent to a re-education camp for a period and managed to come back "but barely recognizable" due to the hardship endured. Many who were sent did not come back. I'm sure that there were many, many, many horrors and worries they just don't ever discuss.

Either way, a lot of things happened. Eventually, when or after the south fell, they somehow got out and emigrated to the US with barely anything to their name in the 1970s. They worked, studied, built new lives from nothing, and had families... my generation.

Most of my generation knows little to nothing about what the previous ones saw. I'm somewhat envious of people who can trace family roots more than three generations because all those records are long lost. But my generation knows on some level it was a mix of normal and horror.

Normal as in they'd tell occasional brief stories of going to school and being on the girl's basketball team, or having fun in places doing teenager things, or enjoying the rare corn on the cob. All while on the calendar the conflict must have been raging on somewhere. Horror as in they all knew people that "things" happened to, none of which they mentioned to us.

Either way, they're all normal folks, not a hero nor saint among them. I don't know what they did to survive, but they did. They lived through the times they found themselves in and had another generation of kids that are now having their own generation of kids.

I've been told that grandma's last words were 自強不息, a proverb that could be translated from Chinese as "be strong, without rest". It is a call for self improvement and strength. I'm 100% sure she was not tuned into today's political climate. She definitely didn't foresee our future. I like to think she wanted to tell her descendants what worked for her in an unpredictable life that has seen war and things go to shit from the 1920s to the 2020s.

So y'know. Times have always been "interesting" whether it affects us directly or not. Despite that, humanity, and us, will somehow find ways to keep going. Life really does find a way. Otherwise, I literally wouldn't exist.

Be strong, without rest.