SPIRITUAL SOAP: Artistic Integrity vs. Insta-Reactions
A battle against brain fungus
Before we were The Black Sheep, we were a newsletter named Spiritual Soap. Please enjoy this article from our history!
I know you’re reading this. The thought of your reaction is always near the top of my mind. I can imagine your reaction as easily as I can visualize the apathy on an LA waiter’s expression.
Something happened to me that I can’t easily explain or undo, but I’m doing both anyway. The voice I write with has changed texture and color in a chemical reaction to some new element. Making art feels like swimming in gelatin; the process is slow, thick, and though I see through it, I’m still stuck in the middle of an undifferentiated mass of something alien.
I want silence and focus, but the salvation they offer from my Jell-O prison evaporates like morning dew.
I used to talk with myself more. I used to navigate the world with my own intuition and interest—now I have it curated for me by indifferent systems. My internal monologue has been dead for years, replaced with the Digital Dialogue, something less like communication and more like schizophrenia.
There’s a steep price to pay for the ease of publication unmediated by gatekeepers. I will never never know the writer’s voice that doesn’t expect to be read, stretching out freely within the deathly silence on the other side of every word. I can’t remember what it felt like to create something that would never be seen—not just unpublished, but lacking all potential to be shared by message or photo.