I've caught myself lying in my own journal a few times too, and have taken that as a cue to bring up the topic in therapy. It's always been a for-sure area of growth, often gaslighting myself to stay in jobs or relationships that aren't good for me. And the temptation is always there to just pretend I don't know I'm doing it. If I didn't have so many past examples of facing it vastly improving my life, I might just go that route.
I love how she (and you) open up about those moments, because I really relate.
It baffles me that people are shocked that someone could have contradicting viewpoints or that they might act in ways that don’t align with their values, like, isn’t this called being human?
The flattening of everything into "content" is such a tragic development. On top of which is the frankly weird vibes and implications of "consuming" it. You "consume" "content". A sentence bereft of clarity and the distillation from the beige nightmares of a thousand marketeers and MBAs.
Not only in the literal sense I do not "consume" "content", a remark I'm required to make because I've been slacking on my autism and am up for recertification soon, as whatever I "consume" is still there after I do so; A book, or a movie, or a youtube, doesn't destroy itself 5 seconds after reading.
But moreso, the connotation of passivity implied by "consuming" effectively circumscribes how we talk about it. Reading, watching, listening, with attention and intention (this part is important, vaguely watching something on another screen while you fuck around on your phone is not what I'm talking about here) are not passive activities. By reading etc. you become an active participant in the act of creating understanding and meaning. I like to call every book a cookbook, only half-joking, as the words on the page are just that, inert words on paper, until you read and engage with them. Thinking about what media I treasure there's a through-line with all of them: they struck a chord in me, yes, but if I didn't pick up the tune and continued playing along with it, it would've been just that, it would've faded out, but instead by picking up what they're putting down it's transformed to be a part of a greater harmony. It needn't be a huge, life-altering thing either, it can also be something small that adds a tiny melody to your music. To subsume all that, that being a part of the transformative process of experiencing something, under the same category as "consuming" endless short videos about manufactured celebrity outrage, outside of the obvious political implications of partaking in assorted ills of our time like racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, fatphobia etc. by proxy... I don't like that one bit.
this is SUCH an insightful take Kleo! The idea of content consumption completely removes the agency the reader plays in forming their own interpretation... no wonder these same consumers mistake their own passive alignment to the worth for passivity in West herself.
Finally! Something in defense of West that gets it. Another thing the book really succeeds at is showing the messy truth of our own sexual subjectivity/desire/what we want/don’t want versus what we are taught that we want.
I appreciate the essay. I'm reminded of the discussion of what it means to tell a true war story in The Things They Carried. Do you go with factual information? Do you say what would conjure the "right" feeling in the reader? Do you give an accurate portrayal of what you (or others) perceived at the time? Do you stick with what was most vividly remembered?
When I try to write down dreams, I often find myself incorrectly reporting details to turn the images which weren't a reasonable story into something halfway coherent. Kinda-lying can happen to try to make data match a heuristic.
I loved her book too! I listened as an audiobook and she reads it while including some of the voice notes she took! I really appreciated how candid she was about her jealousy and insecurity with her poly relationship. Too often I come across writing or characters in poly relationships that are either complete disasters or rose tinted glasses, and I found her nuance SO refreshing
Yes!! Loved this breakdown. I really enjoyed Adult Braces. I resonated with the messiness of getting what you want but it totally sucking the life out of you and what happens next. Your breakdown was exactly what I was thinking but didn't have the words for.
Loving this. I've learned a lot from your varied, messy, and very alive writings over the years. I think the things that trigger or make me uncomfortable or even mad in writing are feelings that move me and give me the opportunity to practice nervous system regulation (stepping away, finding my own opinion from the activation). Plus compassion and respect for someone who is on a different path than myself. I give myself the space to wonder where they'll be next time I come across their art and dwell on my hopes for their happiness.
If our generation coming out of the Content Era has reinforced anything in me it's kill that fucking influencer in your head. We are so much more than content.
oh my god yes. kill the influencer in your head! and the passive content consumer. people really don't even have a sense of themselves as participating in the meaning making of the art they consume now, so they can't regulate some of those tricky emotions that you describe. It is so informative to see what gets dusted up by reading about another person's life or thoughts, or consuming art that makes you uncomfortable. recently I recommended a book to a friend that meant a lot to me, and she almost immediately put it down because of a line here or there that she disagreed with. she was surprised that I would read a book that had lines of the sort in it ( really conventional self-help stuff ). but I told her that the book meant a lot to me and gave me a lot to think about while being super conventional! she did end up finishing it, and didn't end up liking it the way I did, but I have seen many people just outright refuse to read something that isn't perfectly designed for them and what they want to hear and I find it very scary. do we have such little faith in our own ability to interpret things and bring our own thoughts to the work? it's disturbing!
Hey Devon, as always, I enjoy how you hit the in-between notes, explore nuance in depth, and not lose momentum in your essays at all! (You know the belief that you should avoid nuance on the internet, because people will think you're indecisive or boring? I always found that bogus. You can dig into nuances AND still be entertaining!)
In blogging, I rarely talk directly about my life in memoir style. I'm more likely to mention parts of my life to fit with the points I'm trying to make, often in some persuasive essay. I notice that I tend to make my life sound sadder than it really is!! It sounds so angsty and mopey...Even when there's a happy ending to the story, it still sounds sad, for some reason. Even if I don't actually feel that sad IRL. Yeah just something I noticed in my nonfiction writing, haha. I guess I'm actually more truthful/ emotionally balanced in my fiction, ironically...Maybe because I feel more confident in my fiction writing skills, lol.
Oh I've been having complex feelings towards non-monogamy too. On the one hand, it sounds really cool. I like the idea of it, and I find it exciting to hear how it works for others. I especially love the "network of support" rather than the "one-person support" idea. Yet, even for monogamous couples, I never thought it was healthy to rely on the partner for everything...It's better to have a wider network of support, with friends, acquaintances, colleagues, etc.
I'm torn about the jealousy part. I definitely think I can get jealous, want to feel special and prioritized (rather than to feel shoved aside, like an after thought, like I'm not important to anyone). But another factor, is that when I have a crush on someone, the thought of liking anyone else just repulses me...NOT for any moral reason. If anything, I kind of wish I could be more balanced, and be less intensely focused on one person...then maybe I would be happier. XD Well, I've never been in a relationship before, whether monogamous or non-monogamous, so I wouldn't know.
Sieran, I always love your comments! sometimes I worry that the density and nuance of my writing loses people, but I love getting to think and explore in this way and I'm so grateful for the people who meet me at that level like you do.
I also find that my writing about my life makes everything sound sadder than it is. sometimes I think I have started to believe in that narrative of sadness because I am so effective at telling that kind of story. (I am also, as a psychiatrist told me recently, a really neurotic person and that just means I can access negative emotions more easily and that probably won't ever change! It is not a problem!) I had a guided meditation experience that was really impactful at Midwest Furfest this year, in which I symbolically located the pain jug from which I have drawn all of my art up to this point, and I discovered that now it is empty. This should have been a celebratory thing, but without alluring traumas to write about I'm not sure who I am as a writer. I am trying to get back in touch with the joy and playfulness of it again. writing long long reviews of books I love and thumbing my nose at the haters of that book certainly helps.
I actually am pretty similarly wired to you when it comes to non-monogamy, I think. I get very heavily attached to a serious partner and they really become the locus of my romantic and sexual world. when I'm really badly in love with somebody they are the only thing that I masturbate about for months or even years at a time, for instance. but I have also cheated in many of my monogamous relationships and have a lot of kinks and a persistent sexual drive that can sometimes make long-term monogamous commitments difficult, and most of the queer people that I connect with are decidedly not monogamous themselves. navigating all of this has been a struggle because what I want emotionally is rarely what seems practical or normative in my community. recently, I've gotten into a relationship where we are able to explore non-monogamy in a way that feels really emotionally safe and playful for me: I can just snuggle up against them and cheer them on while somebody else plays with them, and that way I get to feel included and connected and they get to have some fun new experiences with new people, and none of it feels like a threat to the relationship but rather a deepening of it. It is a really specific kind of dynamic that I can feed off of easily because I don't really need sexual stimulation on my body in every sexual encounter. I like to just be close and supporting player. This was something that I thought wouldn't even be possible in a relationship until recently, but in the queer world almost any configuration is possible if you talk about it and experiment with it. I am still resolutely emotionally monogamous though. or romantically I guess I should say, I have many close loving friendships that do kind of blur the line between partner and family and friend. figuring out this stuff has been a long time coming and I think will be a constant evolution, but I can say that at last I finally feel safe and like what I want is okay and achievable, and what I want isn't what I always thought it would be! In that respect I relate a ton to Lindy West and her non-linear path toward polyamory.
One thing I’ve become disillusioned with is how much Substack is very much the same as other social media platforms as having a “hot take” economy.
“I wonder how many of her critics and scolds have even read it.” This is exactly how a felt re the Hasan Piker shoplifting hot take frenzy recently.
You as usual are a breath of fresh air, thank you for sharing your perspective.
I've caught myself lying in my own journal a few times too, and have taken that as a cue to bring up the topic in therapy. It's always been a for-sure area of growth, often gaslighting myself to stay in jobs or relationships that aren't good for me. And the temptation is always there to just pretend I don't know I'm doing it. If I didn't have so many past examples of facing it vastly improving my life, I might just go that route.
I love how she (and you) open up about those moments, because I really relate.
It baffles me that people are shocked that someone could have contradicting viewpoints or that they might act in ways that don’t align with their values, like, isn’t this called being human?
The flattening of everything into "content" is such a tragic development. On top of which is the frankly weird vibes and implications of "consuming" it. You "consume" "content". A sentence bereft of clarity and the distillation from the beige nightmares of a thousand marketeers and MBAs.
Not only in the literal sense I do not "consume" "content", a remark I'm required to make because I've been slacking on my autism and am up for recertification soon, as whatever I "consume" is still there after I do so; A book, or a movie, or a youtube, doesn't destroy itself 5 seconds after reading.
But moreso, the connotation of passivity implied by "consuming" effectively circumscribes how we talk about it. Reading, watching, listening, with attention and intention (this part is important, vaguely watching something on another screen while you fuck around on your phone is not what I'm talking about here) are not passive activities. By reading etc. you become an active participant in the act of creating understanding and meaning. I like to call every book a cookbook, only half-joking, as the words on the page are just that, inert words on paper, until you read and engage with them. Thinking about what media I treasure there's a through-line with all of them: they struck a chord in me, yes, but if I didn't pick up the tune and continued playing along with it, it would've been just that, it would've faded out, but instead by picking up what they're putting down it's transformed to be a part of a greater harmony. It needn't be a huge, life-altering thing either, it can also be something small that adds a tiny melody to your music. To subsume all that, that being a part of the transformative process of experiencing something, under the same category as "consuming" endless short videos about manufactured celebrity outrage, outside of the obvious political implications of partaking in assorted ills of our time like racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, fatphobia etc. by proxy... I don't like that one bit.
this is SUCH an insightful take Kleo! The idea of content consumption completely removes the agency the reader plays in forming their own interpretation... no wonder these same consumers mistake their own passive alignment to the worth for passivity in West herself.
Finally! Something in defense of West that gets it. Another thing the book really succeeds at is showing the messy truth of our own sexual subjectivity/desire/what we want/don’t want versus what we are taught that we want.
I appreciate the essay. I'm reminded of the discussion of what it means to tell a true war story in The Things They Carried. Do you go with factual information? Do you say what would conjure the "right" feeling in the reader? Do you give an accurate portrayal of what you (or others) perceived at the time? Do you stick with what was most vividly remembered?
When I try to write down dreams, I often find myself incorrectly reporting details to turn the images which weren't a reasonable story into something halfway coherent. Kinda-lying can happen to try to make data match a heuristic.
Thank you for writing this so I didn’t have to.
I loved Adult Braces, she was vulnerable, funny, and brilliant as usual. And people tore her to shreds because she’s ……..in a throuple?
It’s so irritating how people’s brains turn off when you mention polyamory. It feels like no one actually read the book!
I loved her book too! I listened as an audiobook and she reads it while including some of the voice notes she took! I really appreciated how candid she was about her jealousy and insecurity with her poly relationship. Too often I come across writing or characters in poly relationships that are either complete disasters or rose tinted glasses, and I found her nuance SO refreshing
Yes!! Loved this breakdown. I really enjoyed Adult Braces. I resonated with the messiness of getting what you want but it totally sucking the life out of you and what happens next. Your breakdown was exactly what I was thinking but didn't have the words for.
Argh this is SO GOOD. Thank you 🙏🏽
Loving this. I've learned a lot from your varied, messy, and very alive writings over the years. I think the things that trigger or make me uncomfortable or even mad in writing are feelings that move me and give me the opportunity to practice nervous system regulation (stepping away, finding my own opinion from the activation). Plus compassion and respect for someone who is on a different path than myself. I give myself the space to wonder where they'll be next time I come across their art and dwell on my hopes for their happiness.
If our generation coming out of the Content Era has reinforced anything in me it's kill that fucking influencer in your head. We are so much more than content.
Thank again for sharing!
oh my god yes. kill the influencer in your head! and the passive content consumer. people really don't even have a sense of themselves as participating in the meaning making of the art they consume now, so they can't regulate some of those tricky emotions that you describe. It is so informative to see what gets dusted up by reading about another person's life or thoughts, or consuming art that makes you uncomfortable. recently I recommended a book to a friend that meant a lot to me, and she almost immediately put it down because of a line here or there that she disagreed with. she was surprised that I would read a book that had lines of the sort in it ( really conventional self-help stuff ). but I told her that the book meant a lot to me and gave me a lot to think about while being super conventional! she did end up finishing it, and didn't end up liking it the way I did, but I have seen many people just outright refuse to read something that isn't perfectly designed for them and what they want to hear and I find it very scary. do we have such little faith in our own ability to interpret things and bring our own thoughts to the work? it's disturbing!
Hey Devon, as always, I enjoy how you hit the in-between notes, explore nuance in depth, and not lose momentum in your essays at all! (You know the belief that you should avoid nuance on the internet, because people will think you're indecisive or boring? I always found that bogus. You can dig into nuances AND still be entertaining!)
In blogging, I rarely talk directly about my life in memoir style. I'm more likely to mention parts of my life to fit with the points I'm trying to make, often in some persuasive essay. I notice that I tend to make my life sound sadder than it really is!! It sounds so angsty and mopey...Even when there's a happy ending to the story, it still sounds sad, for some reason. Even if I don't actually feel that sad IRL. Yeah just something I noticed in my nonfiction writing, haha. I guess I'm actually more truthful/ emotionally balanced in my fiction, ironically...Maybe because I feel more confident in my fiction writing skills, lol.
Oh I've been having complex feelings towards non-monogamy too. On the one hand, it sounds really cool. I like the idea of it, and I find it exciting to hear how it works for others. I especially love the "network of support" rather than the "one-person support" idea. Yet, even for monogamous couples, I never thought it was healthy to rely on the partner for everything...It's better to have a wider network of support, with friends, acquaintances, colleagues, etc.
I'm torn about the jealousy part. I definitely think I can get jealous, want to feel special and prioritized (rather than to feel shoved aside, like an after thought, like I'm not important to anyone). But another factor, is that when I have a crush on someone, the thought of liking anyone else just repulses me...NOT for any moral reason. If anything, I kind of wish I could be more balanced, and be less intensely focused on one person...then maybe I would be happier. XD Well, I've never been in a relationship before, whether monogamous or non-monogamous, so I wouldn't know.
Sieran, I always love your comments! sometimes I worry that the density and nuance of my writing loses people, but I love getting to think and explore in this way and I'm so grateful for the people who meet me at that level like you do.
I also find that my writing about my life makes everything sound sadder than it is. sometimes I think I have started to believe in that narrative of sadness because I am so effective at telling that kind of story. (I am also, as a psychiatrist told me recently, a really neurotic person and that just means I can access negative emotions more easily and that probably won't ever change! It is not a problem!) I had a guided meditation experience that was really impactful at Midwest Furfest this year, in which I symbolically located the pain jug from which I have drawn all of my art up to this point, and I discovered that now it is empty. This should have been a celebratory thing, but without alluring traumas to write about I'm not sure who I am as a writer. I am trying to get back in touch with the joy and playfulness of it again. writing long long reviews of books I love and thumbing my nose at the haters of that book certainly helps.
I actually am pretty similarly wired to you when it comes to non-monogamy, I think. I get very heavily attached to a serious partner and they really become the locus of my romantic and sexual world. when I'm really badly in love with somebody they are the only thing that I masturbate about for months or even years at a time, for instance. but I have also cheated in many of my monogamous relationships and have a lot of kinks and a persistent sexual drive that can sometimes make long-term monogamous commitments difficult, and most of the queer people that I connect with are decidedly not monogamous themselves. navigating all of this has been a struggle because what I want emotionally is rarely what seems practical or normative in my community. recently, I've gotten into a relationship where we are able to explore non-monogamy in a way that feels really emotionally safe and playful for me: I can just snuggle up against them and cheer them on while somebody else plays with them, and that way I get to feel included and connected and they get to have some fun new experiences with new people, and none of it feels like a threat to the relationship but rather a deepening of it. It is a really specific kind of dynamic that I can feed off of easily because I don't really need sexual stimulation on my body in every sexual encounter. I like to just be close and supporting player. This was something that I thought wouldn't even be possible in a relationship until recently, but in the queer world almost any configuration is possible if you talk about it and experiment with it. I am still resolutely emotionally monogamous though. or romantically I guess I should say, I have many close loving friendships that do kind of blur the line between partner and family and friend. figuring out this stuff has been a long time coming and I think will be a constant evolution, but I can say that at last I finally feel safe and like what I want is okay and achievable, and what I want isn't what I always thought it would be! In that respect I relate a ton to Lindy West and her non-linear path toward polyamory.