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A life well-lived is a life well-examined. A life well-examined has a little weird and güd within it. This newsletter is an examination of our weird and güd world.
The Sun by Edvard Munch (1909)
Weird
Nature is the origin of every horror story; grotesque monsters with eyes that see only sustenance or threat, pits of the earth where poison and lava burst forth, parasites that seek only another organism’s personal space, burrowing into bodies.
Anyone that doesn’t see horror in nature hasn’t looked close enough.
When nature is the source for the most brutal and unusual terrors—from predators that routinely eat their prey alive to unseen organisms that eat their way out from the inside—what is a human but the child of that horror?
It’s no wonder we throw ourselves into the illusion of separation from nature with our civilizations. We are rational, we are civilized, we are tame, we are anything but animals.
Denial is when the pain of self-destruction is preferred to the pain of accepting reality.
Mimmo Paladin
Animals don’t bear the tax of shame that self-awareness requires; their efforts and motives are as naked as their bodies.
Nature is a college leftist’s nightmare; unrepentant, unabashed exploitation flows through every interaction. The circle of life is merely a beautiful narrative that applies the warm glow of meaning to a world where survival is the god every organism seeks.
Even so-called mutual relationships, like the bird eating the shameless life-stealing ticks off a buffalo, are the human invention of fairness clumsily transposed to nature’s best Disney moments—mutually beneficial exploitation.
I love nature, I fear nature; I love nature because I fear nature.
Accepting the foundation of nature’s horror can be done even while we scramble to pull ourselves above it. Or perhaps our climb out of the brutality of nature’s birthing ward entirely depends on accepting the reality of our origins.
Orchid Mantis
We can learn a lot from the naked intentions of the natural world. When you see this praying mantis, evolved to wear the alluring colors of an orchid, do you see beauty or do you see deception?
I suppose for human eyes it can be both.
Animals don’t need to tell the truth. Animals have no choice in deciding what action aligns with their morality; without self-awareness, all morality is set by the god of survival.
Our civilized human world exists within the brutal natural world, never beyond it. We can reject pieces of nature’s morality with walls and words and what we create.
Your actions are not always followed by nature’s consequences now, but man’s. Your failures and mistakes don’t damn you to an immediate death, but can be softened till you can offer the potential that would’ve otherwise been wiped from existence by a slightly better competitor.
Being able to avoid nature’s consequences and apply our own systems to decide what works and what doesn’t is one of the crucial ingredients for human progress.
Of course, that doesn’t mean we always get it right.
Güd
Lord Frederick Leighton (1830-1896) - Solitude
When was the last time you offered someone genuine praise? Not the kind of praise that’s interchangeable and recyclable, but specific and spontaneous.
Effort matters in praise; a row of cartoon hearts on a selfie doesn’t hit the same way a stranger stopping to compliment the clothes that hours of your life bought does.
In one way, we’ve never offered more praise. People—or their avatars—are a near-constant presence in our lives; you “see” your friends every time you get online. Likes and comments of praise rain down like manna from the virtual sky.
Yet, man cannot live on yaaas queen alone.
I’m no praise supremacist, but there’s an evident hierarchy of praise. There are the barista’s kind words about your outfit, the customer’s genuine thanks for a job well done, the stranger’s DM of appreciation for your art, your partner’s unexpected admiration…..and then there is the distant friend’s silent digital gesture:
🙏🙏🙏
Repetitive phrases of mechanical praise and neon pixels of cartoon emotion offer only a sample size of the pie that is praise.
Sometimes a few bites are enough to satisfy a sweet tooth, but praise is more than just a shot of sugar. We need substance, we need nutrition, we need more than a few treats that are only dispensed when we pull the lever labeled “Post.”
If we confuse digital crumbs of praise for a sit-down meal, could a culture that’s perfected public performances of support be in danger of starvation?
Is there a person somewhere, hungry for that human need to be seen, relegated to pushing the digital lever of posting just to receive a few crumbs of praise a day?
Perhaps we love dogs so much because we see ourselves in their eager eyes. We respect cats, with their disinterest in our mundane movements; models of a mind unplagued by approval-seeking. Dogs easily become our shadows, following us everywhere, seeking and repeating whatever brings them not just praise, but attention—good or bad.
When a shortcut to steady shots of praise appears, who is foolish enough to believe they won’t feel the pull?
If you get your fix of praise somewhere else, the temptation of tiny shots might not be as enticing. Yet, for those who’ve long gone without a word of support—even if that word is a yellow caricature of praise—becoming a coked-out lab rat in love with their crumb-dispensing lever is inevitable.
Better some praise than none, but all praise is not equal. The praise that comes to us in our mechanical trades in the virtual market—my post for your comment, my comment for your post—lacks the spontaneity of praise in the pre-posting world.
We still live in the PC4PC era, only with just enough sophistication to internalize the dance.
The barista, the customer, the stranger, the partner—all offer their praise unprompted, in reaction to you as you are before them. The you that gets yaaas queen'ed is only a single side of that real-world self, a concoction, a presentation put together for a specific place and purpose.
When our virtual self is better-praised than our true self, our offline existence starts to feel like the ugly step-child we feed and clothe out of obligation alone.
Phillip Leonian
In a world everyone seems united in believing is a dark, dystopian nightmare, why aren’t we adding moments of kindness wherever they fit?
A genuine compliment takes a minute, but the person who receives it can wear the glow of being seen for a day.
There’s enough research to show that a good compliment is like a spell—it can’t be seen, but the effect can be measured. A boost of dopamine, an uptick of social enjoyment, even an increase in overall positivity; praise is as close to a magic phrase as mere mortals will ever get.
Giving a compliment comes with its own return on investment. Seeing a smile you caused is rewarding, but the habit of learning to see people with a focus on what’s worth complimenting can change your life.
Rather than our default, judgment-first mindset, a practice of conscious complimenting grows your perspective into one that seeks beauty and goodness in all things.
When we’ve reached a peak of social isolation and societal alienation, creating bits of connection with genuine praise is an effort we can’t afford to scoff at.
It’s alienation and isolation that live at the core of hatred and depression. It’s alienation and isolation that amplify the siren song of sinister ideologies and malicious groups.
But giving and receiving compliments isn’t that simple, as their lack suggests. Insecurity makes us compliment-averse in both directions and a lack of praise in our own lives convinces us that praise is nothing more than pretty words for feeble minds.
Our aversion to offering genuine praise is a mirror bearing the reflection both of ourselves and our society; never silent at the chance to criticize and condemn, but mute or mechanical at the opportunity to praise.
Why wouldn’t we seek every chance to find something we appreciate in even just one person each day?
If I haven’t convinced you to give a genuine compliment today, perhaps it’s me that needs to offer that compliment to you.
Although a digital compliment sent en masse isn’t exactly what we’re aiming for, this one is still genuine:
You’ve read to the end of a newsletter written by a relatively unknown writer. I admire your dedication to reading and your desire for new ideas from different sources—that’s a strength and a characteristic that improves our world.
I hope you know how great you are for that.
I hope this makes your week a little weirder and a little güder. Now go forth, be weird, and above all, be güd.
I sit alone at a desk biting my nails to bring you every edition of Spiritual Soap. Is it worth it? Don’t tell me, show me; share my work or donate to help keep me going.
Enjoy the weird & güd aspects of our world? Join the weirdest semi-secret society online to uncover all the ancient güdness in the modern myths we call movies.
Thank you (🙏🏿🙏🏿🙏🏿) for this blogpost Salomé. It brought a tear to my eye, two actually. One for being hilarious and another for the bolt of humanity you charged the write up with. In the dreary ocean of meanspirited cyber jabber you've created an island of humaneness and reason. Compliments just aren't enough.
Also, you're extremely good at picking out images that are impossibly congruent with your writing. Is it witchcraft, artificial intelligence or what?
Finally, you've mentioned that you struggle with being succinct but I don't see any sign of that here. Any of the topics you write about could be novella length but your sentences are laser precise. Seeing your tab in my email brings me joy. Thank you.
Oh shiiiiiiiit.
The best compliment I’ve ever gotten was from a white-haired woman working as the registrar at my university who said to me during a very mundane and potentially annoying task: “your face is so pleasant.”
That was 18 years ago, and I still find it sustaining.