Substack: Still for Writers
photo by Augusta Sagnellifirst and foremost, happy birthday to my twin brother . It’s been a beautiful ride so far. Let’s keep dancing.
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A few months ago, I began a correspondence with a fellow author who sent me a Substack message to the effect of I haven’t read anything you’ve written, but I think we’re kindred spirits.
David wasn’t wrong. We’re both indie authors interested in alternative publishing models and David was particularly interested in the idea of authors buying back the rights to their debuts (three years ago, I bought back my rights to Slim and The Beast, a coming-of-age fiction set in North Carolina; my wife, , and I are preparing a 10th anniversary edition via our own imprint, Kingdom Anywhere).1
David’s latest book, The Femme Fatale Hypothesis, received multiple rave reviews and awards, but what struck me most about David’s message was his genuine interest in engaging in a literary conversation (although David has a Substack, , he currently uses it exclusively to read and connect with fellow writers).
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We live in an era in which writers are told to strive to WIN! by getting agents and publishers and publishing deals, oh my, and then Netflix specials and awards and you’re the best ever, you’re winning! Now write another one of those big successful novels that is adaptable to the screen.
Even here on Substack, which has genuinely changed my writing life, the influencers are starting to influence and the most successful writers prose-oil salespeople are peddling tips and tricks to convince the masses they’re only a few steps away from a major publishing deal so long as they LIKE AND SUBSCRIBE NOW!!1!! (this is neither hyperbolic nor the only reality on Substack … this place really is what you make of it).
Still, it’s worth asking why across most creative industries, the most successful commodified success stories teach us to preach to disembodied digitized followings as if the point of it all were to become personally branded cult leaders, paving our future with gold or perhaps just maybe, the American presidency because why stop at the Nobel Prize? Hell, this is America!
Alas, hypocritical times make hypocrites out of all of us.
My conversations with David have given me pause to consider how each of us participates in various forms of mindless cultural consumption—more subscribers, more likes, more comments, more everything!—rarely considering how fundamentally related this behavior is to the identitarian authoritarian reality of the 2020s.
By remaining in our selected bubbles and poking holes in all the others, David reminded me how the powers that be convince us to maintain a certain distance from taking a hard look in the mirror, redirecting our outrage towards the megalomaniacal spiteful billionaires of the world instead of thinking how we a) purchase participate daily in systems that democratically elect rich assholes b) continue to basque in the grotesque human consequences of an exceptionally American United Statesian version of life as a zero-sum pursuit of happiness power.
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But I digress. Like most novelists trying to build a life that affords me the time and stability to write (I always think of a painter living on the street with a sign: will paint for paint), part of the absurd befuddling reality of pursuing authenticity in this era of mass-produced consumption egotism is that hypocrisy is a fundamental aspect of contemporary creative life.2
What I do not accept, however—and this is where David and I agree that Substack at least provides the opportunity for authenticity vulnerability—is some artists’ feigned sacrosanct unwillingness to participate in a system they end up devoting an inordinate amount of psychic and creative time to criticizing just the same (capitalism isn’t going anywhere, folks, and wouldn’t it be nice if a few more writers became billionaires financially independent?)
and so in that spirit, below are my impromptu answers to seven questions David sent me the other day (I hope some of you will consider answering some of these questions in the comments section, or via email, or perhaps via your own Substack post).
Twin Steps, photo by Augusta Sagnelli7 Questions1) Is merely being enough, or must a life have a reason/intention beyond merely being?
Being is surely enough insofar as it's only when we start to think about needing a reason/intention that being becomes complicated. To the Alan Watts' point of it all, dancing might be enough because the music is playing and the music is life.
2) If simply being is enough, is it possible to reconcile purposelessness with the idea of accepted moral behavior?
I think so. Purposelessness arises when we think about the absence of purpose … when we’re in a flow state (dancing, making love, writing a novel, for example), life is too exciting to be concerned with the idea of purpose, or lack thereof.
Like atheists hell bent on proving the non-existence of God, the cynic nihilist is confined to assigning potential purposelessness to everything, which means they’re just as tethered to the meaning of existence as everyone else.
Those who don't overthink about the essence of life are simply dancing, and those are the types of people who make me feel most alive. Purpose is fleeting, there's no such thing as a universal meaning to life, but deciding to make the bed in the morning and go do something creative with your day is as profound philosophical choice as any.
3) Do we choose our own purpose, or is our purpose simply the sum of our reactions to our circumstances?
I'm going to play the truism card and say purpose chooses us, and when we're attuned to the cosmos / God / muses / however one defines it, choosing to dance or play a melody is no more of a thought than Michael Jordan chooses to spin to the right when a 7 foot center is coming at him so that he can become a ballet dancer in the air. In short: purpose is the sum of something I have yet to define.
4) Does purpose require a desired outcome? If not, then how do you know you have lived with purpose? If so, how do you determine that the goal is worthy of your purpose?
“What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.” Viktor Frankl
I do believe, to Viktor Frankl's assertion up above, that purpose is often related to a "worthwhile goal." Whether that's simply getting out of bed, or finishing a novel, or raising a child, like any good journey, there are pitfalls unimagined outcomes along the way. It reminds me of that famous T.S. Eliot quote about coming back to where we started and knowing ourselves for the first time. The goal is worthy of my purpose to the extent that it inspires me to live, to act, to be an active participant in the goings on of the universe … when I retreat from the world, I become resentful, lethargic and apathetic, which are all clear signs of the looming doldrums of purposelessness.
5) Can our purpose be dictated by another; i.e., can being compelled to act constitute a purpose?
Yes. It's why fascism is so attractive, at least initially. I suspect most people prefer to be told which purpose to pursue because it makes it far easier to deflect personal responsibility when the chickens come home to roost. There’s a book by the late journalist Chris Hedges called War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning, and what is more compelling than being told to destroy the bad guys? On the other side of the human condition is the joy of being compelled to create—from lovers to brothers to muses to artists, when we’re open and attuned to a creative purpose waiting to be fulfilled, there are few things more compelling than sitting down at the proverbial desk.
6) If our purpose (our Why) is to serve (others/a leader/a god), must we relinquish our choice of How we live?
No. I don't believe our purpose is to serve. The sentiment feels too religious to me, and I find it to be a relic of an orthodox puritanical approach to life that is afraid of sex, drugs, and rock n' roll.
But that’s just like, uh, my opinion, man, which is why I'm hell bent on forever (and sometimes stubbornly) choosing exactly how I want to live. If I serve something, it's the Muses, which aren't deities in my mind, but that space inside the self that glows like a lightbulb when we know we're on the right track creatively speaking … like surfing a beautiful wave in Portugal or dancing to a James Brown tune or playing harmonica with my eyes closed because I'm now connected to The Beyond.
In the words of my favorite Milan Kundera novel, Life is Elsewhere.
7) What is the relationship between one's understanding of the meaning of Life and one's individual purpose?
The meaning of life as a universal idea is a myth created by folks who like to be controlled or to control others lest they face themselves. Individual purpose is the individual's assertion of their existence, which confirms that the meaning of life can never be universal but must be defined in a subjective, personal way.
This individual purpose can change from day to day, month to month, decade to decade, but I don't believe there is a singular meaning of life and I abide by Viktor Frankl's philosophy that we are not in a position to ask (let alone define) the meaning of life, but rather to consider what life asks of us.
To this end, it is our responsibility to be open to existence and respond. The meaning of life, in my opinion, is to figure out what the meaning of life is for oneself. If that’s tautological, maybe life is, too. It is the individual human being’s duty to consider the question what is the meaning of life? on a daily basis and to attempt to respond earnestly, authentically and subjectively without infringing on others’ to do the same.
Or, to co-opt John F. Kennedy Jr’s famous quote, ask not what life can do for you, but what you can do for life.
Thanks for these questions, David, and for the continued conversation.
12I was chatting with my poet friend the other night and felt particularly sheepish to admit that while I don’t order books from Amazon because bookstores > billionaires, as an independent author I can’t afford NOT to sell my book on Amazon because it turns out most people still prefer facility and comfort (including me) to refusing to support the very billionaires they blame for the ills of the world. Oh the hypocrisy!
