Happy Halloween everyone! This is the first issue of The Token Muse newsletter. You can read archives here (once I have some). Being this is Issue #1, I decided to talk about the why behind this newsletter, how it will hopefully spark some inspiration or creativity for your day. Then the what. What I'm offering for your reading time.Ever since I made my first website back in circa 1992 I have wanted to start writing a newsletter. Back then it was a post-aol self-hosted Internet world. That was before commerce and advertising took over the majority of the Internet. I was using a company called Concentric Network (now owned by Verizon).According to the first time the Wayback Machine crawled my site www.concentric.net/~sfillmer was in 1999. I had not looked at that page in maybe 20 years until just now. Apparently the Wayback Machine exists just to exploit my complete lack of creativity in building my own website as it looks almost the same in 1999 as it does today. How is that even possible? But here we are a mere 23-ish years later and I finally got a newsletter setup and running.The Why Behind this NewsletterTrying to figure out the "why" was much harder than I thought. Everyone has those standard excuses "I don't know what to write," or "I don't have anything to say," or "who is going to read this anyway," and so on. There are countless excuses, but in the end my thinking came down to (1) I like to write and take photos, and (2) I like to connect with others online. I came up with plenty of other reasons below if you want to take a deep dive into that thought.In my experience, doing anything for the wrong reasons almost always kills any creativity and freedom that can happen in that space. Most "good" reasons today almost always revolve around how much money it can made, or how many "members/followers" of whatever you can gain (because more followers equals more money). I'm trying to ignore those reasons.No sales. No ads.Just so you know. I'm not selling anything, I'm not asking you to DO anything (other than maybe read), and I HATE ads with a passion. So I put in the description "No sales. No ads." because that's important to me, I hope it's appealing to you.How many spaces do we have left in our daily lives where the agenda is to enjoy the space without being sold something? If I ever find space like that, I stay longer, engage more, and feel lifted up. Ads wear me out. They are so engrained in everything we do it's impossible to get away from them.More Reasons WhyThis was mostly for me to try to understand myself, but in case someone else is also struggling with this question, here are a few other reasons I came up with...to make space for creativity to happencreate original content just for this spacebe a launching point for interesting topicsengage with readers in a fun and positive wayprovide some kind of value to readershave content that doesn't depend on social mediato create new content OFF social mediabecause my son created one for his company that looks so cool I want to be as cool as his is (FIG Insights), and he didn't wait 23 years to do itto force myself to be creative againto create content without having to conform to the expectations of someone else but to just to do something I enjoy doing for the sake of doing itto create a more personal community through emailto take and post more photosto read other people's newsletters more oftento be more open source with media and contentto discuss topics I personally enjoyto continue to refine my writing skillsI also love to read other people's newsletters. If you have one, send it over, I would love to subscribe and learn about what goes on in your world. If you have ever thought about starting up a blog or a newsletter I would encourage you to just do it and don't worry about what people think or whether it's "good enough" or not.All it has to be is unique to you. Nobody else can be you. You are what's interesting to me.The What Behind this NewsletterI've loosely broken up the organization of this newsletter into a muse and a token. This section is the "muse" part of the newsletter (it won't always be this long). The token section is bite sized, curated content. This is intended to be easy to read, skim, or click through on interesting things from around my Internet world.To steal a term from the crypto world, I'm going to offer a few tokens, or findings if you prefer, that interest me, hopefully one will interest you as well. The topics are loosely focused around the categories on my website.Photography (lots of photos)Technology (about the tech we use)Thinking Offgrid (outside the box)Living Life (just everyday life stuff)Matters of Faith (hopefully small inspirational things)The Uncategorized (an open creative space)I may or may not hit each topic (token) each issue, but that is what makes up the sandbox I intend to hold myself to as time goes on.What is NOT Behind this NewsletterSometimes it's easier understand what something is not. So if that interests you, this newsletter is NOT...A place to sell thingsA soapboxOld content. This is new original content created specifically just for this newsletter. I do have a blog and I would love for you to read it if you are interested.A place to be intentionally controversial or divisiveA place for politicsA place with a hidden agenda of any kindA place for negativity or trollingA place to criticize or judge othersI didn't say anything about frequency. I have in my mind to do a weekly (out on Friday) newsletter, but who knows. It may be bi-weekly, monthly, I'm still trying to figure that out.
The Token Muse Inaugural Issue
The Token Muse Inaugural Issue
The Token Muse Inaugural Issue
Happy Halloween everyone! This is the first issue of The Token Muse newsletter. You can read archives here (once I have some). Being this is Issue #1, I decided to talk about the why behind this newsletter, how it will hopefully spark some inspiration or creativity for your day. Then the what. What I'm offering for your reading time.Ever since I made my first website back in circa 1992 I have wanted to start writing a newsletter. Back then it was a post-aol self-hosted Internet world. That was before commerce and advertising took over the majority of the Internet. I was using a company called Concentric Network (now owned by Verizon).According to the first time the Wayback Machine crawled my site www.concentric.net/~sfillmer was in 1999. I had not looked at that page in maybe 20 years until just now. Apparently the Wayback Machine exists just to exploit my complete lack of creativity in building my own website as it looks almost the same in 1999 as it does today. How is that even possible? But here we are a mere 23-ish years later and I finally got a newsletter setup and running.The Why Behind this NewsletterTrying to figure out the "why" was much harder than I thought. Everyone has those standard excuses "I don't know what to write," or "I don't have anything to say," or "who is going to read this anyway," and so on. There are countless excuses, but in the end my thinking came down to (1) I like to write and take photos, and (2) I like to connect with others online. I came up with plenty of other reasons below if you want to take a deep dive into that thought.In my experience, doing anything for the wrong reasons almost always kills any creativity and freedom that can happen in that space. Most "good" reasons today almost always revolve around how much money it can made, or how many "members/followers" of whatever you can gain (because more followers equals more money). I'm trying to ignore those reasons.No sales. No ads.Just so you know. I'm not selling anything, I'm not asking you to DO anything (other than maybe read), and I HATE ads with a passion. So I put in the description "No sales. No ads." because that's important to me, I hope it's appealing to you.How many spaces do we have left in our daily lives where the agenda is to enjoy the space without being sold something? If I ever find space like that, I stay longer, engage more, and feel lifted up. Ads wear me out. They are so engrained in everything we do it's impossible to get away from them.More Reasons WhyThis was mostly for me to try to understand myself, but in case someone else is also struggling with this question, here are a few other reasons I came up with...to make space for creativity to happencreate original content just for this spacebe a launching point for interesting topicsengage with readers in a fun and positive wayprovide some kind of value to readershave content that doesn't depend on social mediato create new content OFF social mediabecause my son created one for his company that looks so cool I want to be as cool as his is (FIG Insights), and he didn't wait 23 years to do itto force myself to be creative againto create content without having to conform to the expectations of someone else but to just to do something I enjoy doing for the sake of doing itto create a more personal community through emailto take and post more photosto read other people's newsletters more oftento be more open source with media and contentto discuss topics I personally enjoyto continue to refine my writing skillsI also love to read other people's newsletters. If you have one, send it over, I would love to subscribe and learn about what goes on in your world. If you have ever thought about starting up a blog or a newsletter I would encourage you to just do it and don't worry about what people think or whether it's "good enough" or not.All it has to be is unique to you. Nobody else can be you. You are what's interesting to me.The What Behind this NewsletterI've loosely broken up the organization of this newsletter into a muse and a token. This section is the "muse" part of the newsletter (it won't always be this long). The token section is bite sized, curated content. This is intended to be easy to read, skim, or click through on interesting things from around my Internet world.To steal a term from the crypto world, I'm going to offer a few tokens, or findings if you prefer, that interest me, hopefully one will interest you as well. The topics are loosely focused around the categories on my website.Photography (lots of photos)Technology (about the tech we use)Thinking Offgrid (outside the box)Living Life (just everyday life stuff)Matters of Faith (hopefully small inspirational things)The Uncategorized (an open creative space)I may or may not hit each topic (token) each issue, but that is what makes up the sandbox I intend to hold myself to as time goes on.What is NOT Behind this NewsletterSometimes it's easier understand what something is not. So if that interests you, this newsletter is NOT...A place to sell thingsA soapboxOld content. This is new original content created specifically just for this newsletter. I do have a blog and I would love for you to read it if you are interested.A place to be intentionally controversial or divisiveA place for politicsA place with a hidden agenda of any kindA place for negativity or trollingA place to criticize or judge othersI didn't say anything about frequency. I have in my mind to do a weekly (out on Friday) newsletter, but who knows. It may be bi-weekly, monthly, I'm still trying to figure that out.