Note: the shittily generated image for this post was made by Elementor AI.

I believe I was born out of the world, but I understand why many people believe they were born into it.

In this book I’m reading, there’s a line that says: “Pointlessly looping church-organ tracks is doing nothing good for the world, but as a malindustry it’s using up fewer brains and resources than hedge funds or cryptocurrency.” The quote is talking about how Spotify distributes money to artists based on streams, but I’m more concerned about the second part. About malindustries, and using up brains.

Also recently, I watched a YouTube video from Good Work on ayahuasca, and how “some of the biggest investors in Silicon Valley have recently condemned ayahuasca for completely frying the brains of the founders they’re counting on to build the pointless apps of tomorrow.”

Both are referring to the propensity for high-earning and, naturally, useless and wasteful and environment-destroying industries wasting the creative potential and the energies of people who could actually do something good for themselves and maybe society if it wasn’t that society rarely rewards these things except randomly sometimes, and sparingly, at that.

The book was You Have Not Yet Heard Your Favourite Song by Glenn McDonald, a deep dive into how the Spotify algorithm and how streaming has changed music, and the YouTube channel is a satiric investigative-journalistic exploration of business, investing, and the tech world. 

One of the maxims we live by here at eggphrases (mostly just me in my digital playground, but contributors are always welcome–that’s you; email me pretty please) is that if you see something said twice in two disparate places close in time together, it’s likely true–of course, I just made this aphorism up and it only applies when it feels true, not always. But it applies now.

Now, everyone is a naturally born artist. Everyone wants to paint, or draw, or cook, and sing, and build things–that’s human nature, as far as I understand it. Few are encouraged to “pursue” it–even those that do heed others not to, and dish out advice like “if you can’t imagine doing anything other than this, then don’t pursue this artistic path” because the road is hard and tough and poorly recompensed and few make it and do something more lucrative, if you can. Successful artists sometimes end up being the natural gatekeepers of their own profession, notwithstanding that corporate society is discouraging the whole thing, too.

In order to “choose one”–either the brain-wasting and pointless-yet-well-paid pursuits of the corporate world or the moneyless-yet-spiritually-fulfilling work of art (that everybody wants to do, by nature of being alive) is to ignore either societal demands or human nature. The vexing point is that societal demands are somehow built on the back of human nature. So how did we get to this global sickness of the spirit? Somehow, you have to have both. You can’t choose one–you have to straddle both, like those double balance beams they have at playgrounds.

For money, I write about marketing technology and the world of data. I enjoy it, mostly. I mean I’m writing and I’m learning things, so that’s not too bad. Should I keep doing it? I enjoy it enough to keep doing it. 

I believe I was born out of this world, but given its state, it would be easier to believe I was born into it.

Ok, that’s enough of my half-baked thoughts. More to come later.