Hi,
Welcome to the Hardihood Books October Roundup. I hope autumn is treating you well.
What I Published in October:
In my first essay this month, “On Being Genuine,” I explored some ideas I’d been kicking around in my head recently. The essay is about the need to self-consciously try to do the right thing, as well as the corrupting influence of too much irony. It’s not that I’m against irony per se. Irony has its time and place, and in that proper time and place it can be a very good thing. The problem is when irony takes over – when one tries to be ironic all the time, it begins to make deeper emotions harder to feel. And it makes it more difficult to take action in serious circumstances. We shouldn’t need to be ironic about everything we do. Later in the essay, I got into a discussion about process and outcomes. If you’d care to read the whole thing, it’s free.
Speaking of process vs. outcomes, next I published chapters III and IV in, “If You Can Keep It.” As is perfectly obvious to any reader, the fantasy world of the story is based heavily on the Roman Republic (including with the social classes and rules about men and women which would have been customary at the time). One of the currents fueling the debate in the Senate in the third chapter is, of course, a philosophical disagreement over process and outcomes in the law. As with the first chapters, this installment is free to read.
My second essay was, “On Skepticism and Physical Fitness.” I wanted to take the opportunity to expand on a point I’d hinted at in my essay over at Ultraphysical from August, “On Training and Tacit Knowledge.” My day job is as a personal trainer and I’ve had numerous conversations with people who were frustrated with the back-and-forth nature of changing guidelines on nutrition and exercise, and who weren’t sure what to think. I offer some guidelines about how approaching the topic with humility and scientific skepticism can help someone to cut through the noise.
After that, I published a story called, “When Halloween Came Early.” It’s about a grandfather and his grandchildren and Halloween, and it attempts to poke fun at the changing times as the grandfather reflects on his own memories of Halloween (perhaps with some exaggeration) and how different Halloween is today.
My next story was called, “The Sound of the Rain.” It’s more of a seasonal reflection than a traditional Halloween story. In the story, the two characters are wrestling uncertainty, and the question of what makes human beings afraid, while walking in the woods, although the weather is neither charming, nor idyllic, but rather harsh and unpleasant.
Finally, I released chapters three and four in, “Civilization in the Wilderness.” These early chapters are mostly setup, but soon our party will be heading out into the Louisiana Territory. While I would prefer not to be historically tone-deaf, I have taken some creative liberties. Feel free to email me with any inaccuracies and I will endeavor to correct the web versions.
From the Archive:
Since I didn’t have a lot of Halloween content this month, I figured I’d link a few stories from 2021 (you can also go to the “Halloween” tab on the navigation bar at the top of the homepage).
“I Don’t Believe in You” and “The Forest of Gaunt” were written entirely on a whim. I’d had the ideas for both well before I wrote them, and I liked them so much I decided to stick with Halloween as a theme in years future. They’re certainly bizarre, but I suppose I have an odd sense of humor. “Halloween in Omaha” was written spur-of-the-moment and it was fun to write. I can’t write horror, so most of my Halloween stories end up in the humor genre.
In Closing:
Paying subscribers should keep an eye out for tomorrow’s newsletter, which will contain another short Halloween story.
Please feel free to email me with any feedback. If you’re on the free list and you’d like to respond to one of my stories or essays, you can email me, or reach out via Twitter (@benconnelly6712) or LinkedIn (which I no longer check frequently). You can also follow me on Notes.
Thank you for reading and subscribing.
Cheers,
Ben Connelly