2026-03-29
John Berger and Susan Sontag discuss how they tell stories. I just want you to know that my pinky was up while holding my cup of coffee the entire time while listening to this video. Sontag said that she inducts the stories she tells through language as the sole mediator, while Berger asserts that his stories come through what he sees in his head and that language is simply a byproduct of that. I'd say that historically, I lean more towards Berger's disposition, but that my ontology of what I see is unique to me as a result of being a giga-dreamer and seasoned psychedelic user. To me, that's the world I am emboldened to capture through language because it's more real than anything in meatspace. However, I think Sontag has the more apt process because while I have intensely vivid dreams, my thoughts are bound almost entirely to language here in meatspace, so it's a balancing act I have to perform here.
100 Jumps: new Sisyphean task just dropped. I've been playing the shit out of this game. I love games that are deceptively simple in concept and mechanics. After several attempts to hit 100 jumps, the meta keeps getting deeper. Also, I appreciate how good the UI is on web and mobile so I don't have to download some stupid app littered with microtransactions.
Henry Miller on turning eighty. Henry Miller is a writer I discovered recently after going down an autofiction rabbit hole, and I am very glad I did. It's been a great inspiration for Cogito, though I would say my work is less overtly sexual and more cerebral. Either way, the clippings shared by Maria Popova gave me a bit more comfort about the idea of maybe becoming an old fart one day. I have no desire to grow old, and given my health conditions I most likely won't, but God sure does love irony.
I finally got around to watching The Amazing Digital Circus and it deserves all the hype. Short synopsis: a woman puts on a headset she finds in an abandoned office and wakes up trapped in a 3D animated circus as a cartoon jester along with a cast of other victims who are forced to go on stupid adventures directed by a sentient AI. The writing is quite good. It's got a mix of humor and existential dread, and the writers do a really good job of laying small clues across the narrative that reveal the nature of the world these people find themselves in. I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes from here.
The Circularity is an audio drama that sits at around 90 minutes. It was done by Adem Luz Rienspects, a 4chan alt-lit guy who's recently been making the rounds in more established literary circuits. I enjoyed the audio drama, even if there's a stupid fucking ad for boner pills in the middle of it.
The idea that everything is signaling rings pretty true, but I don't agree with the writer's cynicism here. He said that signaling is just transmitting information, but seemed a bit caught up on the idea that it all goes back to status. Of course, he gave the naturalistic argument for it ("Monkeys do it too, bro!") but I'd say that signaling goes deeper than petty status-seeking. Everyone wants to be seen and acknowledged, but this isn't because they want high-status things like money or access to sex with hot people; they signal because they're afraid of being alone. No matter where you are in a social hierarchy, the worst place to be is not in one at all. Even if things like politics, charity, and education are ultimately status games, the underlying principle behind playing those games isn't to "win" them so to speak, but to find connection with our fellow humans and the world we live in.
Send a message in a bottle and find some too.
Clavicular X Channel 5: this interview was a weird one. Clavicular seems to be deflecting the fact that he is influencing culture in a way that people haven't seen before. It's as if looksmaxxing is a veil for him; all the anxiety from growing up, especially as a teenager during COVID, has manifested into an ethos that rejects all facets of the human experience in service of the mog. To him, "ascension" can only be achieved through dominance, with vanity as the driver. But in this ascent, what is he hoping to find up there? Also, this whole narrative of young men being dejected is getting out of hand. Double standards exist, but for these men to act like there's no way out is harrowing. As much as Clavicular wants to claim that looksmaxxing is apolitical, it's anything but that. I hope that as he continues to confront the media, he'll understand the position of responsibility that he's thrust himself into and holds himself accountable.
Speaking on men's issues, Of Boys and Men is a publication that tries to take issues that young men face in a more grounded way. In short, men need to understand that it's okay to ask for help. If they don't, no one else will.
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