Lately I’ve been struggling with Substack. I overcommitted and overextended myself, and now that the honeymoon phase is over I’m finding Substack — reading, liking, commenting, and even, unfortunately, connecting — to be so much work. The same is true for my writing. The compulsive energy I felt to write, write, write as if my life depended on it is gone. So now I’m trying to pick up the pieces in this new, second phase. I’m not sure how it will shake out.

A few weeks ago Zadie Smith — one of the great essayists of our generation — published a piece in the New Yorker that I keep returning to. To me, it’s a Perfect Essay. So I wanted to share that. Her piece has brought me joy through its handling of nuance and sheer artistry, and it reminds me of the kind of writing and thinking I aspire to. Which is partly what motivated my Substack experiment to begin with. So maybe I need to re-center on that.

Here’s the essay: