Hope you reach your goals for 2024. I am a recent subscriber, but appreciate your original intakes on various subjects (that doesn’t mean i always agree), so plan to keep in reading. (If you celebrate), have a happy christmas and new year.
I first learned about your work when you criticized the US withdrawal in Afghanistan on Breaking Points. Something about that appearance made me assume you were some anti-American leftist. Once I came across your essays I realized you were quite different, and you’ve surprised me many times since. I have really enjoyed the journey of following along and learning from you. You are a unique and indispensable voice, and I appreciate what you do.
Merry Christmas to you and your family, and keep up the good work.
I love the idea of helping to change the world in a better direction with a mere $49 a year. What a bargain! I hope you crush Chatterton soon. Merry Christmas.
I subscribed to you on Twitter recently. I align with most of your views, but it was your wreckage of the "pro Palestinian" movement by your powerfully written smart bomb that enticed me to dust off my slim wallet. I chose X to subscribe because I feel it's value is ultimately greater than Substack's in the struggle against the tyrannical establishment...but will switch over if you prefer.
"The thought of working a normal job horrifies me."
It should. I used to do it. I was vomited out of the normal job world. It had a mirage of security. In fact, there was nothing secure about it. I was at the mercy of others in ways I could not control. Life since than has had its struggles, but I would not dream of going back. Working for yourself, even if you are comparatively poor, is freedom. And freedom is more valuable than anything, even life, and certainly money. This may sound like a cliche, but it is literally true. Try to make money at what you do, but keep your freedom if you possibly can.
Having lived it now for 15 years I can confirm that the control in being self employed is far less illusory than the nonexistent security of a job was.
"I think most people read their favorite writers not just for the information and arguments that they provide, but also for the human touch", of course they won't get that here, they'll get a far more valuable perspective into an alien mind.
Good ending to the post, but can you write more succinctly? You go on a bit sometimes, and briefer and more to the point would be better. Merry Christmas to you too.
Hig biggest hit is the book “humankind”, but “utopia for realists” is crazier. And shorter, if you don’t want to spend more time. He has an upcoming book, “Moral ambition”, but it is not public yet.
He has the tendency to cherry pick social science articles and random anecdotes to present the most wild ideas as scientific and common sense. He is smart and haughty and an effective communicator. A worthy opponent!
"People often say that their career involves 'doing what they love,' but that also seems like a cope, as the odds that what any one person loves doing would be a thing that has any market value at all to others seem quite low, even if such thinking is adaptive, unlike becoming a bitter socialist."
I think you're missing something important here. Work should feel like WORK. Even the people who look like they're having fun doing their job all day have a grind to it - pro athletes practicing for hundreds of hours for every hour of performance in a game, actors repeating the scene for the 15th take, game designers are endlessly tinkering under pressure to ship, etc. Something that's fun if you do it recreationally will be a lot less fun if it's your career.
But that's OK, because doing work - focusing on adding some value incrementally, day after day, even when it's hard - has tremendous mental health benefits. Existential life satisfaction kind of stuff. It's true that you get that a lot MORE of that when your work also lets you see the progress of something lasting in the world as a result - teaching kids who show progress over the year, designing beautiful homes, building a business that gives employment, financial security, and will outlast you.
When Erik Erikson, Freud's disciple, was asked what adults need to do to lead a good, self-satisfying life, he said "to work and to love". The ability to do that is the mark of a complete and emotionally healthy adult person, and there are many pathologies having to do with a deficiency in one or the other. Don't misunderstand people's enjoyment of what non-financial benefits their work brings them by calling it "a cope". It's supposed to be hard! That's what makes it worthwhile. If it were easy, what satisfaction could you take, really?
I actually like programming. I get bored between contracts. But it still pays well both because lots of people don't share my opinion, and many aren't capable of programming competently.
I have another theory as to why your subscriptions slowed down in 2023, and it has nothing to do with you. When you started your newsletter during the pandemic, lots of folks had a lot of extra time on their hands. Even after the lockdowns let up, it was the era of free and easy money and many people took their leisure to get back to work full-time or working at all. Internet usage surged during this time. It's only now, late 2022 through 2023, that inflation has caught up with people and people are back at work full-time. They have less time for web browsing and will probably end up using their limited screen time for leisure rather than reading in-depth analyses of society.
“'Richard, tell me, does being at an event like this make you want to earn real money?' At that point, he pulled me aside and explained the exact line I had to take on Israel to become as important and successful as him."
Excuse me, I know you believe that you've proven yourself not to be an anti-Semite based on your last few posts, but I found this joke extremely offensive!
Given the highly assorted rantings in the chatter-sphere, I couldn't guess what the financially correct take on Israel is these days. But the general idea that you can improve your income by aligning with the most popular movements of the moment seems plausible to me (having just read a summary of how Sartre became the darling of the left curing the Cold War by embracing Marxism (and opportunely died before Communism collapsed)).
I agree with you Richard, writing is unlikely to be a source of serious income for most.
Writing is the production of property, in this case, intellectual property. The value of any property is, in part, determined by the level of excludability. The level of excludability exists along a continuum. Intellectual property occupies the “low end” of excludability. It is low, in fact, that we have to create artificial scarcity through IP law to make any money off of it at all.
I also agree, that it is very very hard to bring subscribers from elsewhere into Substack. I have learned not to expend time and energy attempting to do so.
Poetry presents the "writer's/artist's dilemma" in its most distilled form. It's possible to have a more or less middle-class income if you're a top-notch pundit (painter, filmmaker, etc.), but no one ever makes a living by poetry (as distinct from by teaching poetry). As such, I've come to think that more writers should follow the path of great Republican poets such as Dana Gioia (inventor of Jell-O Jigglers, head of the NEA and translator of Seneca) and Michael Astrue (head of Social Security and translator of Petrarch): First get an MBA and achieve success in management, then after the first few million, retire to pursue the life of the mind. Of course, not all aspiring writers have the chops to succeed as an MBA. But the key point is that the "FU Money" needed to fund a middle-class lifestyle as full-time unpaid poet can be attained after a reasonable amount of time on Wall Street or Silicon Valley (whereas the FU Money needed for a 'rich' lifestyle takes much more time, talent and luck).
Most writers should have jobs because the jobs 1. help ground them and 2. give them ideas and material. Wallace Stevens is probably the canonical poetic example of this. All the Metaphysical poets had real jobs and I suspect that was good for them.
I wonder if there are any Silicon Valley poets, writing code by day and verse by night. There are obviously many essayists.
At one point in the past, I read up a little on class systems. One major difference between the US and UK is that classes are more cultural in the UK and classes are more financial in the US. E.g. in the UK (at least, 50 years ago), you could raise your status by giving up employment and living on a minimal investment income; there was "genteel poverty" because gentility was defined by not working rather than by a certain level of consumption. I attribute this to the fact that the US is more of an immigrant society and the cultural churn has prevented a system of universally known cultural markers of class status to be set; people have to rely on the much easier to learn estimation of money/material consumption. But one consequence is that people can discover that certain sorts of people have status that's wildly out of correlation with their income and consider it to be odd. In Britain it wouldn't be strange that one person makes ten times as much money as another and yet has lower status.
Hope you reach your goals for 2024. I am a recent subscriber, but appreciate your original intakes on various subjects (that doesn’t mean i always agree), so plan to keep in reading. (If you celebrate), have a happy christmas and new year.
I first learned about your work when you criticized the US withdrawal in Afghanistan on Breaking Points. Something about that appearance made me assume you were some anti-American leftist. Once I came across your essays I realized you were quite different, and you’ve surprised me many times since. I have really enjoyed the journey of following along and learning from you. You are a unique and indispensable voice, and I appreciate what you do.
Merry Christmas to you and your family, and keep up the good work.
I love the idea of helping to change the world in a better direction with a mere $49 a year. What a bargain! I hope you crush Chatterton soon. Merry Christmas.
I subscribed to you on Twitter recently. I align with most of your views, but it was your wreckage of the "pro Palestinian" movement by your powerfully written smart bomb that enticed me to dust off my slim wallet. I chose X to subscribe because I feel it's value is ultimately greater than Substack's in the struggle against the tyrannical establishment...but will switch over if you prefer.
Whatever you would like to subscribe to. X and Substack are both on the side of the angels here, so you can’t go wrong.
"The thought of working a normal job horrifies me."
It should. I used to do it. I was vomited out of the normal job world. It had a mirage of security. In fact, there was nothing secure about it. I was at the mercy of others in ways I could not control. Life since than has had its struggles, but I would not dream of going back. Working for yourself, even if you are comparatively poor, is freedom. And freedom is more valuable than anything, even life, and certainly money. This may sound like a cliche, but it is literally true. Try to make money at what you do, but keep your freedom if you possibly can.
The old joke about going freelance is "Trading the illusion of security for the illusion of control."
Having lived it now for 15 years I can confirm that the control in being self employed is far less illusory than the nonexistent security of a job was.
"I think most people read their favorite writers not just for the information and arguments that they provide, but also for the human touch", of course they won't get that here, they'll get a far more valuable perspective into an alien mind.
Good ending to the post, but can you write more succinctly? You go on a bit sometimes, and briefer and more to the point would be better. Merry Christmas to you too.
Merry Christmas, and thanks a lot for your writing this year.
For next year, I think what the world needs is a Hanalysis of the work of Rutger Bregman. Just saying.
What should I read of his?
Hig biggest hit is the book “humankind”, but “utopia for realists” is crazier. And shorter, if you don’t want to spend more time. He has an upcoming book, “Moral ambition”, but it is not public yet.
He has the tendency to cherry pick social science articles and random anecdotes to present the most wild ideas as scientific and common sense. He is smart and haughty and an effective communicator. A worthy opponent!
note: not suggesting you do that too, might have come across like that
"People often say that their career involves 'doing what they love,' but that also seems like a cope, as the odds that what any one person loves doing would be a thing that has any market value at all to others seem quite low, even if such thinking is adaptive, unlike becoming a bitter socialist."
I think you're missing something important here. Work should feel like WORK. Even the people who look like they're having fun doing their job all day have a grind to it - pro athletes practicing for hundreds of hours for every hour of performance in a game, actors repeating the scene for the 15th take, game designers are endlessly tinkering under pressure to ship, etc. Something that's fun if you do it recreationally will be a lot less fun if it's your career.
But that's OK, because doing work - focusing on adding some value incrementally, day after day, even when it's hard - has tremendous mental health benefits. Existential life satisfaction kind of stuff. It's true that you get that a lot MORE of that when your work also lets you see the progress of something lasting in the world as a result - teaching kids who show progress over the year, designing beautiful homes, building a business that gives employment, financial security, and will outlast you.
When Erik Erikson, Freud's disciple, was asked what adults need to do to lead a good, self-satisfying life, he said "to work and to love". The ability to do that is the mark of a complete and emotionally healthy adult person, and there are many pathologies having to do with a deficiency in one or the other. Don't misunderstand people's enjoyment of what non-financial benefits their work brings them by calling it "a cope". It's supposed to be hard! That's what makes it worthwhile. If it were easy, what satisfaction could you take, really?
I actually like programming. I get bored between contracts. But it still pays well both because lots of people don't share my opinion, and many aren't capable of programming competently.
I have another theory as to why your subscriptions slowed down in 2023, and it has nothing to do with you. When you started your newsletter during the pandemic, lots of folks had a lot of extra time on their hands. Even after the lockdowns let up, it was the era of free and easy money and many people took their leisure to get back to work full-time or working at all. Internet usage surged during this time. It's only now, late 2022 through 2023, that inflation has caught up with people and people are back at work full-time. They have less time for web browsing and will probably end up using their limited screen time for leisure rather than reading in-depth analyses of society.
“'Richard, tell me, does being at an event like this make you want to earn real money?' At that point, he pulled me aside and explained the exact line I had to take on Israel to become as important and successful as him."
Excuse me, I know you believe that you've proven yourself not to be an anti-Semite based on your last few posts, but I found this joke extremely offensive!
I thought it was hilarious. Made me do a double take, then laugh. Or at least chuckle.
Given the highly assorted rantings in the chatter-sphere, I couldn't guess what the financially correct take on Israel is these days. But the general idea that you can improve your income by aligning with the most popular movements of the moment seems plausible to me (having just read a summary of how Sartre became the darling of the left curing the Cold War by embracing Marxism (and opportunely died before Communism collapsed)).
I agree with you Richard, writing is unlikely to be a source of serious income for most.
Writing is the production of property, in this case, intellectual property. The value of any property is, in part, determined by the level of excludability. The level of excludability exists along a continuum. Intellectual property occupies the “low end” of excludability. It is low, in fact, that we have to create artificial scarcity through IP law to make any money off of it at all.
I also agree, that it is very very hard to bring subscribers from elsewhere into Substack. I have learned not to expend time and energy attempting to do so.
Poetry presents the "writer's/artist's dilemma" in its most distilled form. It's possible to have a more or less middle-class income if you're a top-notch pundit (painter, filmmaker, etc.), but no one ever makes a living by poetry (as distinct from by teaching poetry). As such, I've come to think that more writers should follow the path of great Republican poets such as Dana Gioia (inventor of Jell-O Jigglers, head of the NEA and translator of Seneca) and Michael Astrue (head of Social Security and translator of Petrarch): First get an MBA and achieve success in management, then after the first few million, retire to pursue the life of the mind. Of course, not all aspiring writers have the chops to succeed as an MBA. But the key point is that the "FU Money" needed to fund a middle-class lifestyle as full-time unpaid poet can be attained after a reasonable amount of time on Wall Street or Silicon Valley (whereas the FU Money needed for a 'rich' lifestyle takes much more time, talent and luck).
https://www.firstthings.com/article/2010/06/regard-the-scuttlebutt-as-true
https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/dana-gioia/
Most writers should have jobs because the jobs 1. help ground them and 2. give them ideas and material. Wallace Stevens is probably the canonical poetic example of this. All the Metaphysical poets had real jobs and I suspect that was good for them.
I wonder if there are any Silicon Valley poets, writing code by day and verse by night. There are obviously many essayists.
Philip Glass drove a cab. Charles Ives was better known in his own lifetime as an insurance executive & writer on that topic than a composer.
"I was talking to an attractive French woman"
I'm drawing a blank here (jk)
At one point in the past, I read up a little on class systems. One major difference between the US and UK is that classes are more cultural in the UK and classes are more financial in the US. E.g. in the UK (at least, 50 years ago), you could raise your status by giving up employment and living on a minimal investment income; there was "genteel poverty" because gentility was defined by not working rather than by a certain level of consumption. I attribute this to the fact that the US is more of an immigrant society and the cultural churn has prevented a system of universally known cultural markers of class status to be set; people have to rely on the much easier to learn estimation of money/material consumption. But one consequence is that people can discover that certain sorts of people have status that's wildly out of correlation with their income and consider it to be odd. In Britain it wouldn't be strange that one person makes ten times as much money as another and yet has lower status.