Regaining Aspects of Oneself, Planet of the Apes, and More A.I. Encroachment on Creative Industries

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Sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt

Isn’t it funny how our lives are cyclic, like a spiral eddy touching on the same, yet distinct point again and again? A lesson will come in one form, and if it’s not consciously integrated, it will rearrange the lesson in another way ad infinitum until we finally get it.

In my life I’ve had lulls in my creative potential, and then great bursts of momentum. I’ve wasted a lot of time struggling to figure out what exactly that pattern is, until this morning when I had a revelation: I am at my best and most creative when I don’t self-censor — when I worry less about being considered to be problematic, and worry more about being honest. Truthfully, I’ve self-censored a lot in the past couple of years. I do believe that has taught me valuable tact — but at a cost.

What spurred on this revelation was taking a look at some writing that I did over 3 years ago now, in the winter of 2021, at the peak of so much utterly baffling nonsense happening in the world. I was rereading some of my old pieces, and to my astonishment, I already have written so many things that I’ve wanted to say here for years, but have been too frightened to. The clarity and conviction of my writing shocked me — I wrote this? The voice sounds like me, but like some better, more authentic version of me that I’ve lost track of, and now hope to regain connection with. It made me realize how insecure and frightened I’ve been over the past few years, and how I’m ready to be brave again. And what’s funny is that the universe has tried to teach me this lesson before: a lesson I thought I had learned but clearly did not.

So, in an effort to regain more of myself and finally integrate the lesson that the universe has been trying to teach me, I’m going to start writing more for postcreature/predirt, a much more artsy-farsty, shoot-from-the-hip the newsletter I began before we even started using Substack for Death in The Garden. I was so concerned about writing something that might reflect poorly on this project that I completely abandoned it… but in truth postcreature/predirt could turn out to be something very meaningful to me and I want to share more of myself (not just this particular version of myself) with people who might be interested in other aspects of my human journey — a proper vanity project, if you will (almost as vain as promoting my own writing in a newsletter about things I find interesting).

The title of the newsletter comes from a poem that I wrote for some assignment when I was in college. It essentially means to me that while I acknowledge that, as a human being, I am something unique in the world — something that perhaps has more responsibility due to my innate abilities and nature — and I am yet “predirt,” as is everything, no matter how painful that truth may be. Even all those years ago, my awareness of death, my confoundment at the human condition, and my desire to penetrate down down down into the depths was on full display. I was in touch with the truth of sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt, however unconsciously, even then.¹ It’s almost as if we are who we are in some unchanging, yet metamorphosing sort of way.

Check out this piece, for instance:

et tu, Brute?

There’s almost nothing I would change about this, and it reads as someone who is fired up, engaged, and feeling emboldened. I long to feel like that again.

So, if you are interested in reading writing from me that is perhaps more personal, spiritual, psychological, poetic, dark, feminine, aggressive, problematic, etc, consider subscribing. If not, carry on. I’ll try to come up with a logo and clean up the aesthetics of the newsletter next week so it looks less horrendously bland. I’m also in desperate need of a logo.

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The Planet of the Apes and Intriguing Questions

I am usually not one for classic Hollywood summer-blockbuster-super-high-CGI films, but recently Maren and I watched all of the newest iteration of the Planet of the Apes films. To be honest, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed them. Some of the themes of the films were actually hot topics of conversation between Maren and I recently.

Not to spoil the films for anyone, but themes such as language and whether or not it makes us human — what is languages’ role in conciousness and self-awareness? What role does language have in building societies, in the creation of technologies?

I was honestly surprised that through big-budget action sequences and CGI apes there were some very poignant ideas being expressed.

So if you are in need of a fun watch please give these films a watch and let me know what you think.

Also, a channel I follow created a great piece discussing some of the concepts from the films:

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A.I. Threatens Music

As per usual, of late I have been digging into and trying to reconcile and understand AI. It would seem that the first place in which AI will reach its economic tendrils as far as the major creative fields go is the music industry, with video/film only a few months behind.

While on a bike ride recently I listened to a Rick Beato video with Ted Gioia whom had a very great and educated conversation about what companies such as Spotify are already doing to undermine creatives and disrupt the music industry to further their economic incentives. Please give it a listen and let us know what you think about the implications of all this.

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1. “The world is a world of tears, and the burdens of mortality touch the heart.” - The Aeneid, I, line 462 by Virgil. The Master and His Emissary is truly full of treasures.