I’ve seen my mum drunk only once and nothing has ever convinced me of our inseverable blood tie than seeing her dance.
The other day, i realised that i listen to alan watts talking about the universe before I go to bed, the exact same way my dad fell asleep watching carl sagan talking about the universe every night.
Seekers of truth are seekers of universal beauty. Seekers of beauty are seekers of personal truth. When you look at the stars you can’t help but wonder how much they are maybe the same: truth and beauty.
Good writing is a re-constellation of the stars; a spatial reorientation of our understanding of reality itself, or the act of creating bridges between ideas that are otherwise (or assumed to be) empty voids. A discerning writer recognises that we are not only drawn to but deeply vulnerable to stories. Really, anything can be connected if you are skilled enough, which is a little scary.
Trying to save the world in any capacity is one of the least self preserving things you could do, because to do so is to willingly fling yourself against the most unmoderated edges of reality, the absurdities, the worst parts.
Don’t we all become addicted to the things that save us?
Guy yelling into a mic outside Parramatta Station: "I see you! You need peace! You are tortured by your thoughts! You may look fine outside but you’re on medication! I used to struggle with anxiety but then I found Jesus!"
People who don’t trust themselves shouldn’t lead, however people who won’t doubt themselves also shouldn’t lead. I think often about the archetype of the priest who is privately always in a crisis of faith.
Self-help writers are like porn stars. everyone pretends to be disgusted by them, whilst privately indulging their services
Nobody really tells you how disappointing it is to find your voice. It is just the sum product of everything you already know, all the things that are already in front of you.
If you do something enough you become screechingly aware of how unenlightened the work is. Writing is stringing words together. Operating a company is running meetings sending emails and ticking off to do lists. You can say some nice visionary things about it but at the end of the day if you don’t like the slog you won’t last long (enough).
Am I really operating the business, or is the business operating me? broooo (In a note entitled, “xistential ops”)
I am convinced the politics terms of liberty and freedom are totally redundant buzzwords. Liberty is shorthand for the elimination whatever oppresses me. For some liberty is free enterprise - freedom to act on the world. For others it is basic needs - freedom to exist in the world. So then what?
I always liked the idea of being an ethical utilitarian because they are sensitive people committed to a calculating pragmatism. But unfortunately my radical belief is that people are controlled by aesthetic more than they like to admit to themselves, or at least optics. They like to feel rational but they don’t like to be rational; being rational requires sacrifice. Even rational utilitarians, I think, are sometimes too committed to what it looks like to be rational. Also I know some utilitarians who do clearly awful shit, lol
I used to be interested in philosophy and ethics. It was appealing to unearth a grand theory of the way things are and how they should be. Frameworks no longer seem inadequate. Philosophers have their place. But I am not capable of seeing the world statically anymore. I can see it breathing too much.
Like a patient zero for spreading pathological pretentiousness, H says I am particularly at risk of alienating people with my intellect. I’ve tried to make myself more accessible, but now I think, well, so be it.
Why do we say somethings got legs? What about it’s arms
When I dated men, strangers would give compliments and make an effort to make us blush, an Italian woman once ambushed my bf to tell him “your wife is very beautiful” and it made our day. When I was out with a girl, restaurants would call them my “friend” which broke my heart a bit and men on the street would make the cunnilingus face at us while also attempting to proposition us for threesomes.
Negotiation is the art that recognises that within the foundation of a large decision there exists many tiny crevices you can shove your stick into and wiggle around.
Writing is simple in principle. You read and then you write. Writing is thinking, doing nothing, and writing. You eat and you shit. The best thing you can do to keep doing it is to not get too sensitive about it, whilst endeavouring to keep your sensitivity intact.
Feels like we believe that becoming yourself entails becoming more unique and therefore interesting. I’m not sure this is true; I discover myself increasingly as a blob of randomness. The people who love and know you do so in stupid details: you can’t sleep at regular times, you get stomach cramps when you eat garlic, you really like taking photos. I couldn’t imagine writing a eulogy for someone I love that lauded them as a community member and a philanthropist. What a way to give away how little you know about someone; talk about them like a colleague. I wanna talk about their stupid fixations, make fun of them. Maybe that’s just me
Universal nods of womanhood: Wow! I love that colour on you. Gossiping in the bathroom when you’re drunk.
There is a deliberate hardness in competent older women that I am starting to recognise more, understand more, and I like it.
Is cold pragmatism the inevitable allotment for women?
one of the greatest cruelties of being alive as a woman is how much of what you give towards the success of others goes unrecognised and undervalued, because well, you give it away. There is then a double-bind in the cultural story we tell about giving which is that we should give freely, unconditionally and seek no returns. To an extent, sure. But also no.
I get to decide that I, too, deserve something in return. I refuse to be responsible for everything and everyone. Most community organisers I’ve met are women doing it for almost or definitely no money. Because they like it so much, some might say. As if people don’t like making money?
Some people are convinced they need to suffer to create, and the creation they do is usually wet, overdone. I disagree with them. Plus, you will suffer anyway. Why cling to it?
Sometimes inspiration is in the corner like a speckled deer. Other days it hounds me like a dog
I wanna to write a story about a kid who grows up sniffing glue and gets bullied for it. Only for him to grow up and achieve his dreams. He becomes a glue researcher,
Creativity: sensitivity meeting control
Yesterday at the Vietnamese restaurant I said "Number 3 please, the half and half" to the shop owner and she kept saying “OK. 3 right? 3?” and I said yes, then I was like oh dear god she’s not going to 3 dishes out is she, but I figured it was just my neurotic brain. Why would this woman assume I came here alone to order three of the same dish? Anyway then she brought out three of the same dish and got mad at me. See, I’m not crazy. sometimes neurotic brain right.
Long sentences that are still good are ones that have a lot of interesting hooks hanging out of them
Who you date and marry matters a lot, up until a certain point where it doesn’t. Because you’re yourself and you’ve got what you’ve got, and whether you can communicate well and ask for what you want determines the rest of it.
“What is love but a second hand emotion”. How does that make any sense
More than anything else in my twenties I’ve learned that love is abundant and non possessive. Maybe romantic love is some pinnacle of it, but it’s far from the only and most abundant source of love.
Everything I do willingly is a love letter to someone else.
The only thing that keeps us going to seek connection is the memory of what it’s like to be loved. A little hope of how uniquely important someone can be to you.
Someone who loves you is someone who doesn’t fall for your usual bullshit.
Love exists on the intuitive level. “I know this person but I don’t understand them.” If I think I understand them then I’m wrong.
Relationships are compensatory. Given enough time.
once my sister gave me relationship advice: “relationships are like washing machines: they need maintenance”, and I thought that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard, anyway I still think about that all the time
In the broad daylight of love we clearly see how embarrassing we are.
In challenges we see how flawed we are.
I am always asking myself two questions. How do I reduce the distance between who I am and who I want to be? And secondly; how do I decrease the resistance to who I really am (and might have to be forever)?
The more I try to be better, the more I am going to disappoint myself. This is a statistical inevitability, not an existential imprisonment.
I am sometimes fixated on a veneer of my own shininess. I am vulnerable to the appeal of accolades. Things which promise to cleave a clear boundary between myself as shithole western Sydney girl and a modern, self-actualised woman. But I’m and always will be a shithole girl living in a shithole world.
“Oh my god! This grocery store has everything!” “Of course it has everything, that’s why it’s called a grocery store.”
I see how when B works it’s like his bar springs into life like Pixar characters around him. There’s no defense against his joy. I like this.
I respect the performance of hospitality workers, and their sensitivity to how energy is mirrored; their respect for the innate power dynamic between a guest and a host.
Isn’t it strange how you can ride on someone’s cab or Uber for forty minutes and not say a word to them.
“We live in a rental world. You live, you rent, you die, you fuck off” - B
They say your humour points to your pain. So does your pain point to your humour. I get along with people who find death really funny. “What’s so bad about death? Most people have done it. And they’re… fine”
Real laughter is hard-won. Every true friendship I’ve made has started with real laughter.
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13: "Seekers of truth are seekers of universal beauty. Seekers of beauty are seekers of personal truth. When you look at the stars you can’t help but wonder how much they are maybe the same: truth and beauty."
Interpreted carefully, I believe this is true at a deep and precise level! Seekers of truth are indeed seekers of beauty, because the sensation of beauty likely is all about your brain making accurate predictions of novel sensory input that is appropriately challenging. A brain that just experienced strong beauty is also brain that just made a correct prediction of the sensory input that it was about to experience. Furthermore, this sensory input was sufficiently challenging that this was a non-trivial task for the brain. Thus, beauty is triggered upon successful prediction of future non-trivial sensory input. It is the discovery of sensory truth. I started my substack primarily to write about this view. There are a few subtleties as I believe that there are beauties that can be experience purely in thought, but the point survives!
Really enjoyed this