Atomic Lines
2025-11-19
Recently, I've been falling into a bad habit of postponing my writing throughout the day due to distraction and procrastination. I think it's because I put it in my mind that I have to create the "perfect" set of conditions in order to write. I have to be just the right level of energized, just in the right mood, just the right lighting, etc. But I need to realize that the exact perfect conditions aren't going to happen and that what matters more is the habit infrastructure itself.
I'm not the biggest fan of that self-help literature crap, but when Atomic Habits by James Clear became super popular, I was skeptical at first. I read most of it and internalized the message. To understand that most of our lives are actually these small rituals is something that I had learned when I was younger as a sophomore in my high school English class. Back in that time, my teacher (shout out to Jay Garrett by the way, one of the best to ever do it) showed us the importance of rituals as symbols and symbols as rituals, but I always interpreted that more through the lens of literary criticism than through actual, well, life.
For me, Atomic Habits really put into perspective that those little rituals are happening in sequence all the time and that if we want to live better lives, it's best to analyze and change those rituals themselves. I was a bit contrarian to the validity of that idea just because of the cultural popularity of the book, but also because this conventional wisdom was corrupted by Optimization Culture. I think that people generally understood the conventional wisdom behind the book, but applied it toward goals and ideologies that to me are inherently opposed to living a fruitful life. It also didn't help that James Clear himself was writing the book through that perspective of Optimization Culture.
Even still, I understand and appreciate thinking and writing stuff for people to read. Well, of course I do, considering that I have this site. But the unfortunate thing that I've seen is that this thoughtful studiousness is so grossly commodified now that it seems that everyone who wants to be thoughtful or creative now has to do so through this mercantile lens. These days I can't engage with a piece of video media unless I want to see a fucking ad somewhere in it, whether it be through sponsorships or even worse, a creator's own product that they use their platform to sell. It's disgusting.
For me, I have a tough time figuring out my life in relationship to finances, money, and that ever so famous c-word. On the one hand, there's a bit of envy in seeing Newsletter Merchants; you know, those who monetize their writing with those predatory business models. I will NEVER ask you to subscribe to my writing. Just read it, man. It's here, for free, forever. But if I want to be an anti-commercial writer, there's a certain level of acceptance I have to face: I won't make a "living" off of my writing. Even if I achieve any level of notoriety, I wouldn't want to leverage that notoriety for money. Truth be told, I have more important things to do than make money with this shit.
A thing I've thought about in regards to my true mission: I think about writers who have inspired me over the years and what I've found is that these people will write millions of words in their lifetimes, but typically the thing that gives them eternal glory and puts them in the annals of history is not even a single work, but usually a single line. They work their whole lives tirelessly trying to put out a message through walls and walls of text, but through all of that toiling only one thing emerges, just a single thing that gets them their spot in the Canon Club.
Money isn't what I'm after. No, I'm looking for that one line that will immortalize me. But for it to get here, I have to write all the other ones first.