Create Dangerously or Else! (And Yes That Means You!

“Art lives from constraint and dies from freedom.”

André Gide

I actually came across this line in Albert Camus’s small but powerful book, Create Dangerously, a collection of speeches and essays arguing for the artist's responsibility to challenge and provoke society in whatever medium they so choose. I’m not sure where I picked it up - maybe City Lights Bookstore when I was working there way back when - or another bookstore. I’m always acquiring books but definitely never let myself have enough time to actually read as much as I would like. It’s a common sickness I think for most people that love to read…almost like an addiction…maybe a kind of trap to set yourself up for something good to only eventually let yourself down. Anyways, the quote (mentioned page 39 in Create Dangerously) definitely made me do a double-take as one assumes freedom should be in the meliorative. Looking at Camus take on it though, the apparent contradiction starts to make sense. He writes:

“That is true, but we must not draw the conclusion that art should be controlled. Art only lives through constraints it places upon itself; it dies from any others. On the other hand, if art does not control itself, it descends into madness and is enslaved by its own illusions. The most liberated form of art, and the most rebellious, will thus be the most enduring; it will glorify the greatest effort.”

Putting art and writing aside here, this quote, which I randomly came to flipping through the tiny books pages, actually reminded me of the tiny habits I have “controlled” myself with since the new year: no alcohol, trying to read 50 pages a day, novel writing (or at least some kind of creative writing), and actually by mistake, no X (formerly known as Twitter). I got locked out of my account because the email I had was deleted from lack of use which - shocking no one - has been great. Reflecting on the quote, I've found over the past two weeks that by making just a few small adjustments to my habits and routines to focus my energy on activities that usually (not all the time, mind you) bring me fulfillment, I no longer feel the inclination or pressure to fall back into false routines, i.e. bad habits I believe I was using because I wasn’t doing the things that brought me fulfillment. These habits, once considered necessary avenues of "relief" or, as Camus might put it, "madness," were actually methods of self-enslavement creating their own illusions, their own lives.

However cliché it sounds, I think it’s true that at any moment, at any point in time, you can simply change one’s actions and with a little bit of time, change the character you and I and everybody uphold day in and day out.

This week’s newsletter includes…

I’ve Been Obsessed with WoW (World of Warcraft) Drama (And I Don’t Know Why)

When I Grow Up I Want to be Like Robert Sapolsky

The History of the Wedding Ring

I’ve Been Obsessed with WoW (World of Warcraft) Drama (And I Don’t Know Why)

I am telling you this in confidence so please, PLEASE, don’t tell anyone…I used to be a giant WoW nerd. Luckily, I’ve recovered from the days of literally lying to my high school girlfriend that I was sick/watching a movie/generally sad only to raid with online strangers for digital loot that would make my Orc Hunter have STR +1. Still, every now and again, I have the itch…not so much to play but more so the intense community some of these players still have, specifically the PirateSoftware Drama. I will note, I literally have no idea who these people are, what they are doing, or why they are doing it (I assume it’s for elite loot or something but even nowadays I sense that would make me look like a newb) but what interests me about all of this is on an anthropologic level, especially in this circumstance. Basically…during a dungeon run with the OnlyFangs guild, their group pulled too many enemies, leading to a chaotic situation where two level 60 characters died. PirateSoftware, playing as a Mage, chose to save himself instead of using his abilities to help his teammates. This decision feels like it literally turned this tiny corner of the internet on its head, leading to hours of debating the moral, ethical, and pseudo-legal implications of PirateSoftware’s actions. I can’t get enough of it and really supports my thesis/idea that maybe not my generation, but Gen Z and Generation Alpha are going to be so in deep into these digital worlds the crossover from the real world into the digital is going to be so interchangeable, eventually no one is going to be able to tell the difference.

When I Grow Up I Want to be Like Robert Sapolsky

I’m not sure where I first came across Mr. Sapolsky…maybe a YouTube/TikTok video of one of his lectures which, writing that now, is embarrassing but nonetheless, it lead me to his lecture “The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst” and was, to put it bluntly, absolutely fucked up by what he was saying. Before I get into that though, what also floored me was how he was saying it, as in he sounded almost like a stand up comic/actor/philosopher scientist, making the entire room laugh one second to having them all fall into a quiet, hushed sense of awe from an idea so profound yet presented so clearly, it was as if the world suddenly became so much clearer to everyone there. His full name is Robert Morris Sapolsky, born April 6, 1957, and a renowned American neuroscientist, primatologist, and academic whose focus is primarily aimed at stress and human behavior but from what I gathered from the seminar above, Mr. Sapolsky is much, much more. I won’t get into the entire video because there is simply too much to unpack (plus there are a ton of free lectures online that I need to check out) but overall, the seminar and Mr. Sapolsky reminded me of my very early interest/obsession with trying to understand and figure out not only who we are but how we become who we are through behavioral biology, social and ecological environments, anthropology, nature versus nurture, freewill, and so on. For how often I am disgusted by people, typically people in power, coming across someone like Mr. Sapolsky who has made it his life work to understand us better, and hit us with quotes like, "After examining the full spectrum of ways our behavior is shaped by biology, I see no room for free will. In my view, what we call 'free will' is simply biological processes we haven't yet discovered or understood” leaves me renewed.

The History of a Wedding Ring

I got married last Christmas, December 2024, and ever since, I've been playing around with my wedding ring… husband husband's? See, I don't even know the proper name, which proves how little I know about the ritual I just went through. For me, as probably made aware by the Sapolsky rant above, it annoys me…. It even concerns me a little bit. So many of the rituals we go through, be it day-to-day work, going to a baseball game, looking at a painting, or understanding why I need to drink alcohol some days where some days I don't even think about it all (I've been sober since New Years and only now is it starting to become difficult) are made less effective…thinner…less grounded in the truth of what we are doing and why because we don’t know its true origins. Take my wedding ring, for example, which was given to me by my late grandma Bertha from her husband when he died. It was his wedding ring and, knowing all the things I know about his life, my grandma's life, and their life as a whole, there is much more of a weight due to the background than if, say, I got it from Jared's Diamonds or whatever the fuck signifying some new beginning (which is just lazy marketing). There is a legacy in this tiny band on my left ring finger that I have never felt before, and I now feel responsible for upholding it. And, in a way, I am also carrying on the tradition of the wedding band, which I've read originated in ancient Egypt around 4000 BC, where couples exchanged rings made from braided reeds, hemp, leather, or ivory. The Egyptians, rather romantically, chose the fourth finger of the left hand for wearing the ring, believing a "vein of love" ran directly from this finger to the heart.

I don't know if that's true, but, like love, it sounds good in practice and has proved effective since we are all still running with it today.

What I’ve Been Reading on Substack

against casting tape fiction, by (Brandon Taylor) a brutal but honest take on his views (and issues) about writing fiction in first person.

The TikTok Ban Shows America Is At War With Itself, by , and her thoughts on the TikTok ban, national security, the attention economy, and communication infrastructure

Biden’s Alternate Reality, by who had some harsh but very real words about President Biden’s final address to the public and his presidency.

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