Update on Brevity's radio silence
An apology and some explanations…
Hello, everyone. I realise my recent radio silence as of writing the first edition of the Brevity Memorandum may imply a sort of “early death” of the project in some eyes. I’d like to address this small issue with an apology and some explanations.
Brevity is a passion project of mine some time in the making. I write frequently for myself on the issues we discuss for a number of reasons:
As a student of international relations, I have to keep up with what’s going on across the world (especially in those areas I intend to study the most — i.e. the transatlantic space and the Indo-Pacific);
As a member of a political party in Portugal, I have made it my mission to understand the international political landscape so that decision-makers can best act in light of the EU-Portuguese consequences of political developments overseas;
And as an individual, I understand the necessity of keeping up with current events as paramount: good citizens are informed citizens, and only by contextualising our own politics in light of what goes on elsewhere can individuals consider themselves truly informed.
However, we are all human, and life can give us pretty bitter lemons. That has been the case, recently, with health complications concerning a very close family member. This has made me mostly unavailable to work on passion projects such as these, much to my personal dissatisfaction.
I will be coming back to Brevity soon™ — I haven’t given up on this project, and am still taking notes on these issues. What I am not currently doing, however, is organising those notes for publication here, as this process can be somewhat time-consuming, and more pressing issues will have to take precedence for now.
For now, my focus will be on writing my MA thesis and working on other academic projects (here’s hoping), getting my family and personal issues in order, and working towards the upcoming (three!) Portuguese elections. I apologise for setting expectations regarding this project that I could not follow up on, but you can count on me coming back to this as soon as possible (with some extra blog posts to share my experience recently visiting Brussels’ many European and transatlantic institutions during those1 days).
With that, I offer you my sincere apologies regarding this, and hope to be back in your inboxes in the coming weeks.
CC
I was in Brussels from February 19 to the 22nd, so you can guess I’m referring to the many rifts opened between Europe and the US during those days.