The Melancholy Man, Chuck Palahniuk and the Greeks, What the shit is a “Vault”?

How are you? How is everyone? I’m…fine, sure. Better than fine really seeing I’m getting married next week on Christmas Eve. That’s always exciting.

It's very strange to write that because…well…I'm not one for such rituals though I do believe in love a great deal. I also never really like putting myself in the spotlight 100% though I know that’s contradictory as I’m writing a newsletter where I am the sole supplier of the words. I have a background in acting too but…to side with myself on this one, those two mediums are collaborative in my eyes meaning I supply the words with the characters or story or both, and you, the reader, receive them. I have very little to do with it in the actual interaction and reaction in the given moment, if there even is one. If there is great, if not, well, maybe not for you this time around but to be changed is the goal, as it is with most things.

You make breakfast in the morning to change from being hungry to full. You sleep to change yourself throughout the night to be rested in the morning. You may start learning a different language on your own or upskill yourself for work to change your way of living, your setting, your existence. Or, returning to me, you read this newsletter to change what you didn’t know into something you now do.

With all this changing, the dangerous question to ask yourself is obviously, for what? Why? If you aren’t subbed, I battled that query along with many others along the same lines in Sunday’s paid newsletter, which, lucky you, all free readers get tomorrow. If you want to sub, click the button below to support the work.

This week’s newsletter will include…

The Melancholy Man, According to Kant

An Interesting Quote from Chuck Palahniuk, author of “Fight Club”

What the shit is “The Vault?”

And…a poem

The Melancholy Man, According to Kant

I came across this quote, read it a few times, and felt, more so saw, a bit of myself in it. I’m not sure if that’s something you do, reader, but on days where I’m desperately looking to find a reason for being/doing, I tend to try to orient myself in time/space by way of defining who I am first, and then going from there. Egotistical, sure, but it’s how I cope from day to day because I’ve always been a firm believer that the better you know yourself (or admit to yourself that you will never know yourself at all), the more reasonable/creative you can be from a purer place than not.

Of course, I don’t agree with a few things here…like, “He regards changes of fashion with indifference and their litter with contempt…” because fashion is interesting to me on a sociological level, as it has to do a lot with status and how it evolves or devolves with what’s being valued at all within the present time. What I probably connect with most is the line, “He has a lofty sense of dignity of human nature.” That one struck a chord with me because I, and I’m sure many others, hope to create works that reflect, uphold, and celebrate the dignity they perceive in human nature from their distinct lense through whatever art they practice. Call it a gift to humanity, an offering, what have you but to me it’s moreso stepped in appreciation and awe. And, of course, this line, “To him all chains are abhorrent, from the gilded fetters worn at court to the heavy irons of the galley slaves…” I mean, Jesus…great Scott…it reads like poetry. It is a righteous middle finger to the societal definitions of status and power hierarchies we, or at least the more significant population, struggle with daily.

A Thought from Chuck Palahniuk, author of “Fight Club”

I came across some words from Mr. Palahniuk (Fight Club, Invisible Monsters, Choke), who said, “Experts in ancient Greek culture say that people back then didn't see their thoughts as belonging to them. When ancient Greeks had a thought, it occurred to them as a god or goddess giving an order. Apollo was telling them to be brave. Athena was telling them to fall in love. Now, people hear a sour cream potato chips commercial and rush out to buy them, but now they call it free will. At least the ancient Greeks were being honest.”

It made me first think of Neil Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death,” which was one of those titles that honestly, truly will fuck your head up for a while, primarily focused on how media, particularly television, converts public discourse into entertainment, eventually degrading our ability to engage with serious ideas. It was nothing short of prophetic (published in 1985 by Viking Press in New York), considering the guy who used to host “The Apprentice” is President-elect for the second time in US history, and his right-hand man is Elon Musk, owner of the X social media platform and appears addicted to being in the spotlight as much Trump himself.

I digress…but what’s at the core of a line like “people hear a commercial for sour cream potato chips and rush out to buy (and) call this free will” struck me as so brutally honest, so brutally true, that I didn’t know what to do with it at first but then, it was all so obvious and clear that it was hard not to see it out in the world in my everyday life. This then made me think of Gil Scott-Heron's phrase "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised," which originated as a spoken word poem and song in 1970, and how, actually, it likely very much will be. It is every day by our phones; every instance of life is recorded and presented, like a mini-revolution.

Still, it won’t be gods or goddesses commanding us but constructed figures of faux totems of power who wield authority through businesses and products wielding their "charm" and influence, bolstered by algorithms they have created.

What the Shit is This?

This one might have been written better by my sister (who is much smarter than me and works in this field), but what interested me about these things called “Vaults” or “the Vaults” was that no one knows quite what they do. According to Wikipedia, “The vault or vault cytoplasmic ribonucleoprotein is a eukaryotic organelle (a structure in the cells of multicellular organisms) whose function is not yet fully understood. Discovered and isolated by Nancy Kedersha and Leonard Rome in 1986, vaults are cytoplasmic structures (outside the nucleus) which, when negative-stained and viewed under an electron microscope, resemble the arches of a cathedral's vaulted ceiling, with 39-fold (or D39d) symmetry. They are present in many types of eukaryotic cells and appear to be highly conserved among eukaryotes.”

NOT YET FULLY UNDERSTOOD? So, scientists are telling us something often missing from science textbooks due to their mysterious nature: 40 years since the discovery of these giant, half-empty structures produced within nearly every cell of every animal on the planet is still… unknown and just floating around in us.

I know I sound like Joe Rogan right now, but that is very, very weird, though some studies/reports show they are involved in processes such as transporting molecules within cells and contributing to drug resistance in cancer cells. That would make sense, but knowing that NO ONE knows what these “Vaults” are doing while roaming around after all this time was fascinating. As Socrates said, "I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing."

Untitled

I found this poem from 2021. I'm not sure where it came from or what I was thinking, but it appears that even back then, I was juggling with meaning and trying to deconstruct it somehow to get to something more. It is strange how some things stay the same.

We give impressions of life, gusts of wind through leaves who listen but cannot hear.

A person lives within moments, brushstrokes, and garnered blotches of importance, defined by whom? I don't know. You tell me.

Deconstruct your greatest meaning and your greatest moment, and tell me how you got there and why holding onto it needs to define you.

I'll wait.

Meaning and unmeaning (also crucial for objectively feeling the passing of time) are what people live by.

People only remember what cereal they were eating the day X happened.

Though stacks always go higher, something inside us still insists:

Less will always surpass what you'd give your life for.

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