Starting 10:43 AM
Why write?
Louise Glück writes in her Writing as Transformation (The New Yorker, and probably behind a paywall):
It seems to me that I have wanted to write for the whole of my life. The intensity of this insistence, despite its implausibility, suggests an emotional, rather than literal, accuracy. I think my life didn’t seem my life until I started to write.
***
Making up stories, making up anything, seemed to me the most involving and wonderful activity I could possibly imagine. And the story seemed, in some way, more important than anything in the world, I suppose because it was not subject to change. I imagine that people believe in God for the same reason.
***
How different all this is, in its essence and outcome, from physical life. In the great physical events, extreme bodily pleasure and extreme bodily suffering, the self disappears completely or is lost. Either way, an involuntary act, unlike the struggle to be, to exist, that underlies the need to write.
What good is writing, or any other art?
The Problem of Money: Thoughts on Lewis Hyde’s The Gift (Lit Mag News)
Recently Becky suggested I write something about Lewis Hyde’s book The Gift, which grapples with the question of how writers can survive in a world that requires money. As we all know, lit mags don’t pay. Instead, they charge—fees to submit, to enter contests, to get editorial feedback, for expedited submissions. How is this fair? Shouldn’t we expect something tangible in exchange for our efforts? When they don’t pay writers, don’t lit mags resemble the jerk who asked my opera singer friend to perform at his wedding for free?
The Gift by poet, essayist, translator, and cultural critic Lewis Hyde, reframes the problem somewhat, but before I get to that, I’ll say that the bigger problem, its source, is the way our culture devalues creative work. Even people close to you might not appreciate your time spent writing, and may resent it for taking you away from activities with more visible benefit.
***
Hyde argues that art is a gift. (“I think it comes from God.”) Gifts move us and inspire gratitude. We don’t necessarily do anything to deserve them. They just happen, unwilled and unbidden. This is true of both experiencing art and creating it. (Hyde points out that artists are often described as “gifted.”) Like an encounter with an inspiring teacher, a gift transforms us, and like other intangible goods—natural beauty, love, friendship, happiness—art cannot be commodified. Its value, while significant, cannot be measured.
The problem for us is that our market economy’s method of assigning value is money. (If it doesn’t pay, it doesn’t matter.) Market economies are based upon a system of exchange—yesterday I exchanged twenty dollars for a twelve-pack of canned dog food, for instance—but while I may pay to listen to music, enjoy a film, or read a book, the pleasure art brings me has no direct connection to my payment. There’s no exchange, in other words, not like dollars for dog food. As Margaret Atwood says, a gift “by its nature has spiritual worth but no monetary value, being priceless.”
And because of reading that, Nicholas Low's Superhuman Fantasies (The Point) feels relevant here.
In 2023, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen released a document called “The Techno-Optimist Manifesto,” in which he proclaimed himself a de facto spokesman of the “effective accelerationist” movement. E/acc, as it is known in online spheres, is billed as a rejoinder to effective altruism and has gained traction in recent years among Silicon Valley technologists and the new right. The fundamental idea of e/acc is that accelerating technological development is the best way to resolve most of our cultural problems. The policy corollary is that we should therefore deregulate the tech industry, especially with respect to AI, nuclear power and nanotechnology.
But Andreessen’s manifesto is not focused on policy. Rather, it is an expression of what we might call “superhumanist” discourse. By this I mean that his proclamations largely revolve around the idea that humankind already possesses the power to become superhuman, if only we could get around a thoroughly nihilistic establishment. In a section headed “The Enemy,” he writes, “Our enemy is deceleration, de-growth, depopulation—the nihilistic wish, so trendy among our elites, for fewer people, less energy, and more suffering and death.” Nihilism is, for Andreessen, generally associated with progressivism, though he is careful not to openly avow either right- or left-wing politics. He concludes: “Our enemy is Friedrich Nietzsche’s Last Man.”
***
Philosopher Charles Taylor has argued that our “secular age” has been defined by the possibility of an “exclusive humanism”—in other words, a “humanism accepting no final goals beyond human flourishing, nor any allegiance to anything else beyond this flourishing.” But one could make the case that, at least in some circles, superhumanism is becoming our new guiding star. The “death of God” may have paved the way for human flourishing to become our supreme value, but that very supremacy has led humanity in turn to pursue self-deification. The same old humans, in other words, but made invulnerable to suffering, tricked out in fancy gadgets and, just maybe, immortal. Elon ex machina.
***
Rather than solving the problem of suffering and revealing eternal truths, Nietzsche foresaw science uncovering the limits of human knowledge. Science would lead not to an understanding of the fundamental truths of nature, but rather to the realization that humanity is wandering through an endless hall of mirrors. (As with so many of Nietzsche’s ideas, there’s an uncanny prescience to this thought: just a few decades after his death, physicists would undertake experiments that showed that when we examine the universe at the most granular level, we find something like a reflection of ourselves.) He thought that for most people, this knowledge would be devastating and would lead to nihilism, a loss of faith in the value of life.
***
Nietzsche might in some sense condone the idea of a Promethean birthright, but he would never accept Andreessen’s contentions that “there is no material problem—whether created by nature or technology—that cannot be solved with more technology,” or that “the ultimate moral defense of markets is that they divert people who otherwise would raise armies and start religions into peacefully productive pursuits.” Indeed, it’s hard to square Andreessen’s own valuation of superhuman strength and adventurousness with the goal of diverting people into “peacefully productive pursuits.” Working for a tech company is the province of the “last man,” not the Übermensch.
What if Nietzsche was onto something about aesthetics as a cure for nihilism? Not tragedy in and of itself, but in the act of creativity. What lies behind that creative act is multi-facected - a bit of madness that time and ourselves can be transcended, that love seeds the act, a mystical alchemy uncontained by binary code, a humility rising out of the gap between conception and realization - that is both human and more than. What is more productive than enlightening our souls and the souls of all humanity?
“After Making Landfall”: Journal of Arts & Letters, Alaska Quarterly Review, ANMLY, Smoky Blue Literary and Arts Magazine, Fairlight Books, Black Moon Magazine,
“Saved by Rock and Roll” submitted to: Flash Frog, and BRILLIANT FLASH FICTION
A rejection from yesterday:
Thank you for sending us "Pieces About A Small Indiana Factory, 1976 - 1984." We appreciated the chance to read your work. We will not be including your submission in the upcoming issue, but we wish you well with your writing and hope that your work will be a perfect fit for another publication.
As writers ourselves, we understand the time and effort that writers devote to their craft, and we know that it is never easy to receive these messages. Please know that we receive many submissions and can publish only a small number. Often, decisions are difficult.
We do accept--and encourage--simultaneous submissions. See long lists of other publication possibilities at
https://www.newpages.com/
writers-resources/young- writers-guide http://www.pw.org/literary_
magazines?&perpage=* http://www.
everywritersresource.com/ literarymagazines/ https://www.facebook.com/
groups/35517751475/ https://discover.submittable.
com/ https://publishedtodeath.
blogspot.com/ https://thegrinder.
diabolicalplots.com/ https://heavyfeatherreview.
org/calls/#journals https://www.clmp.org/programs-
opportunities/calls-for- submissions/
Thanks again.Sincerely,
Barbara Westwood Diehl
How to Cry in Public Places: Geez, Poland could almost be Indiana.
Alomst 12:30, and I need a break
Not much a seista, but I did find my phone.
Worked on the submissions listed above and gave up on doing anymore. Thought about, even gave “Scenes” some tweaks. Then I decided not to pay the submission fees.
Working in fits and starts again.
We can make it if we try: Despite rural challenges, Hoosier communities say READI critical to housing, quality-of-life goals
After contacting 132 communities across Indiana, reporters found READI has provided many regions with the necessary funding to complete affordable housing, downtown revitalization, workforce development and other projects.
“READI has been a complete game-changer for rural regions like ours,” said Julie Halbig, vice president of economic and community development for Regional Opportunity Initiatives, a nonprofit advancing economic development in the Indiana Uplands region.
Out of Coke, but not wanting to go out - it is hot here now.
Going to work on reading up on writing stuff.
From the Can't-Help-But-Screw-Up file:
Thank you for reaching out to the editors of Black Moon Magazine. We are currently closed for submissions, but rest assured that your submission has been saved and will be reviewed once we reopen. If you would like to withdraw your piece, please reply to this email thread, and we'll ensure it is no longer considered.
For those inquiring about our next issue, we are aiming for a release by the end of December. We apologize for the delay, as our editors are balancing full-time jobs and school commitments. We truly appreciate your patience and understanding, and we anticipate returning to a standard schedule by the end of the year.
Warm regards,
The Editors of Black Moon Magazine
Song for the day:
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