CxD #200‼️ ⚠️Big Changes⚠️ Please Read🙏
We are born only knowing the truth. Then we see.
~Ecclesiastes
Dear Character Designers,
⚠️I’m making some big changes and would like to articulate the reasons.⚠️
The fundamental reason for change is that I want to build a genuine and deliberate community with and for people who care about character. 🌱
In case you’ve forgotten the CxD mission statement:
Fewer things are as fundamental to living a full and wholesome life as developing y(our) character and nourishing it in whatever skillful ways we know how. This little corner of the universe dedicated to character is a gentle way of trying to remind ourselves of what we are up to, character-wise. Doing it together, with others—in relationship—is one of the most expedient and fulfilling and authentic way I know how.
One non-trivial difficulty, however, is that for the first 199 issues of CxD, the communal engagement has been mostly unidirectional ➡️: I’ll get a comment or email after publication (for which I’m always grateful, don’t get me wrong) but there are few connections being made between others; there is no discussion; there are no deep explorations as far as I can tell; and nobody is thinking/creating and contributing actively; and so I worry that the CxD newsletter has become just one more piece of content among hundreds competing to be seen in isolation. I don’t want that.
I want a community. A place and space for people to both encounter character-inspired content and a place to ask questions, respond to the writing and the stories, and to respond to each other. And to have the right to contribute themselves, engage in dialogue, find new character design opportunities for us to consider and to begin to create relationships and, above all, to begin to care about other CxDers.
For example, one of our own recently had his photograph selected by Time magazine as Top 100 of the year. Instead of just seeing the photo for 2 seconds and scrolling past it, wouldn’t it be lovely to discuss that shockingly scary Texas storm from February? To ask Tamir how he went about taking this photo? To discuss photography and how it relates to the study of character?
We need a better way of doing just that, lest we all become Ted Cruzes booking flights to Cancun.
So:
I’ve discovered and learned how to use a platform called Circle that will help us build the next iteration of CxD. This is where all members will be able to post comments, post their own findings and character curiosities, reply to each other, host events like happy hours and zoom calls, participate in book clubs, introduce themselves, ask questions, offer guidance and probably hundreds of other things genuine communities do for, and with each other, that one-way newsletters can’t.
It turns out, based on experience and all the data analytics, that if people pay for things, they treat them with more care, and find them more valuable, almost in a tautological way: this is valuable because I make it so.
Depsite CxD never being about money, I’ve discovered that over the first 199 issues of CxD, the subscribers engage and read each issue while the non-subscribers read much more sporadically and many don’t read it all, despite my pleas for them to unsubscribe.
—Why the inertia of non-subscribers?
—They are literally not invested in it.
I would rather have, therefore, only 5 or 10 or 20 or 100 subscribers who participate than 1,000 who kinda maybe sorta do or don’t.
I can’t emphasize this enough: I want as small a community as possible, with as little fluff as possible, with as few members as genuinely, truly, want to be here. A thousand true fans, as it were; I don’t care about the other 8 billion humans roaming around. There’s no minimum, but there’s a limit: only people who honestly care and think about character will be invited.
Therfore, the CxD Circle community will only be accessible to CxD subscribers. The cost is $5/month, so $1/per Newsletter—same as it’s ever been for this newsletter subscription. So that’s the big-picture change:
CxD subscription = upcoming access to CxD community.
After the last CxD issue #199, I received this comment from one of our CxD readers, a real-life mensch of kindness:
I am so grateful for this newsletter, for the thought it provokes, the encouragement to be mindful and caring and kind, for the humorous entries, for the reading lists and podcast recs; best thing is the connection I feel to the author when I pull one of these up. My daily life can be hectic and I am frequently behind by several issues but I never delete one until I at least browse it. And I'm never sorry that I took the time to check it out! Congratulations on getting to #199 and thanks from the bottom of my heart! Btw, I taught scuba for 3 years here in Austin year round and I dealt with a few folks who had panic attacks on their first open water dives. Always when that happens. It was interesting to note that that instructor used a similar technique to the one I used back in the day. Cheers!
All future CxD newsletter issues will henceforth contain 1 free character design morsel for everyone. The remainder of the issue will be behind a subscriber’s paywall.
So:
Or, with the holidays upon us 🎁, think of someone that might enjoy reflecting on character once a week:
All CxD newsletter subscribers will receive an invite to the Circle community in the next 7-10 days. The invitation will be from cxd@characterbydesign.org so please check your spam/google-social-tab folders to make sure it isn’t being shuffled into the digital weeds.
Here is what the rough sketch of our soon to be CxD community is starting to look like on the Circle platform:
One key difference between the newsletter and the community I want to emphasize: members will have the ability to post their own content (in most of the spaces)—meaning you’ll be able to participate and begin discussions, and make offerings, rather than just “liking” stuff or posting a comment here and there somewhat passively. This is a community where your voices will be heard.
With enough CxD members joining the community I’ll be delighted to devote more of my time and resources to designing and developing it further by:
Writing original longer-form inquiries into character
publishing a CxD Podast that I’ve had in the works for some time now
offering workshops and access to my upcoming online course(s) about learning how to learn, interdependent note-making, emotional intelligence, etc.
monthly meet-ups via Zoom and in-person (if you’re in Austin, Tx)
a monthly book club discussion
film discussions (and screenings?)
Facilitating conversations on channels that are always open
AND A THOUSAND OTHER OFFERINGS I CAN’T EVEN BEGIN TO IMAGINE YET BUT THAT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE
TLDR: The CxD Newsletter is morphing into a community; all paying subscribers will be able to read the full thing and participate in and create the CxD community together. Please join us.
Flex those generosity muscles:
