Brief ramblings: New domain - same old blog

It is 282 days since I last posted a blog – I am still around and doing okay, for what it's worth. Here's a post with all kinds of tidbits that I want to get off my chest today.

Professionally it's been a rollercoaster, causing demotivation. For example, it was great to receive the Leo Waaijers award last year, exactly because it was an honorary prize in Leo's memory. Several months later, an abrupt announcement increased the prize money from €0 to €50,000. I'm still not okay with how all that went down and the damage has not been repaired.

At the same time I'm also struggling to actually generate sufficient revenue for ResearchEquals. Many university reps say they love the work but there's always something that makes it not perfect enough. It is a tiring pursuit to make something apparently desirable sustainable in this landscape. The navelgazing that happens every time for a few thousand euros is disproportionate. With all the millions slushing around, I would expect at least more conversations to explore options. It highlights deeper problems than the publication culture, and honestly, forces bigger than I can push back against.

I love working on ResearchEquals, but it feels taken for granted on many days. I see the people championing ResearchEquals behind the scenes, and greatly appreciate what they do. I feel seen by individuals. Yet those individuals too fight those bigger forces – ResearchEquals may not exist in twelve months if there's no substantial change in support from institutions. There, I said it.

So I have taken to writing about my frustrations in private as I find it annoying to publicly vent. About the absurdity of expensive consulting processes. About the injustices in the world that are increasingly accepted. About a world in need of change, with a great desire for change, but also a great inertia because we build systems that avoid any risks but expecting pay-offs nonetheless. About many other things.

As a way to deal with my frustrations in thought, I'm increasingly adopting a philosophy of "Doing as thinking" – recognizing that thinking is not always an intellectual effort. I may write about this another time, because I've come to believe we fetishize thought as thinking too much.

In January I continued my gender journey and officiated my non-binaryness into the German registry. I dropped my initials (HJ), as these were my baptismal names and I left the Roman Catholic Church almost a decade ago. Officiating this was way more emotional than I thought it would be – the doing was more powerful.

As a consequence of dropping my baptismal initials, the domain name chjh.nl no longer applies. I registered chartgerink.com recognizing that this is the username I use across the web and probably is easiest to link to my person. This is now my blog.

If you notice any broken links on the blog, it is my fault. Please let me know anytime and I'll do my best to fix it – migrating a backlog is bound to introduce some issues. I have no answers for my frustrations, and merely posting them here is an act of putting them out in the world. It remains slightly unstructured, as I did not want to overdo the writing, because I merely want to get started publishing on here.