Is Substack birthing a counterculture movement?
Sharing writings from my Substack echo chamber
In this Substack edition, I am going to try something new.
Rather than express my own thoughts explicitly or re-interpret the writings of philosophers, writers, thinkers of the past, I am going to share some of the interesting writing I have come across on Substack which is talking about similar themes as I discuss on my own.
Some of the writers have thousands of followers while others not that many. But all of them are talking about the same themes in different ways — The problem of meaning we are facing and possible solutions to them.
I believe all of them to be better writers than myself. And so in organizing and sharing their work here, I hope I can communicate my own message better.
I hope you guys enjoy these posts as much as I did over the last few months.
The Challenges
Below some good writings that I have come across which talk about similar challenges as I have been discussing lately on my Substack.
We are suffering from an information overload
Clearly Substack is becoming an echo chamber for me. Like all other social media.
A hall of mirrors where I simply see a reflection of my own thoughts. Thoughts which I possibly came to escape in the first place. The joke is not lost on me.
I’ve talked about information overload in a different context before in The Curse of Knowledge.
talks about how the age of information overabundance, people are becoming addicted to consuming low-quality, useless information or "junk info," which leads to intellectual obesity and constant distraction. writes how the rapid pace of information flow in the modern digital age is making it increasingly difficult to analyze information critically, leading to lazy thinking.talks about how promiscuous reading and shallow information consumption can be pernicious addictions that fail to satisfy or lead to true understanding.
Everyone is trying to manipulate us
Why is this new information for us? Hasn’t life always been a game? Hasn’t this been the wisdom of every culture from the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Semites, and the Persians who live thousands of years before us? Don’t all their literature,all their holy books, literally talk of deceit, trickery, and treachery?
But I guess the truth gets lost and every new culture needs to find it again. New un-truths masquerading as truths are birthed which need to be unmasked again. Maybe this is what Nietzsche meant by the eternal recurrence?
argues that tech platforms (the dopamine cartel) are exploiting the brain's dopamine reward system to keep people hooked on the platform and in the process replacing entertainment and art with distraction and addiction. talks about how, as society is being increasingly gamified, it is leading to addiction and distraction from real goals.
The Solutions
Below some good writings which discuss solutions on how to create meaning in an age of abundance, manipulation and information overload. They are by no means exhaustive. Simply ones I came across and which seem to be gaining popularity.
Embrace Art
What I call the “Nietzsche Solution” — God is Dead. Create in order create meaning. Create your own religion. Sculpt your own deity into existence.
I shared my views on this in my post Why am I on Substack?
This solution explains the birth and eventual deaths of various cultural fads: from fitness crazes like yoga, CrossFit, and barefoot running; to lifestyle trends such as decluttering á la Marie Kondo, minimalism, and the Danish concept of Hygge; to diets ranging from Keto and Veganism to intermittent fasting and OMAD (one meal a day). It also encompasses artisanal hobbies like craft beer, homebrewing, and sourdough breadmaking, as well as the eternal tug-of-war between productivity hacks and the anti-productivity movement.
Each fad starts as a hobby — the art of the individual — grows into a cult before sometimes exploding into a cultural phenomenon.
references Ted’s article on the “dopamine cartel” driving distraction and addiction and argues for art as the way out of it. comes back with a similar recommendation in response to his article by recommending people disconnect, pickup a hobby and reconnect with nature. argues that when faced with circumstances beyond our control, the best response is to create art. in a beautiful Kafka-esque style shares how writing helps drive clarity for him. shares his thoughts on how writing can be a tool for self-discovery, helping drive clarity, insight, and self-knowledge. shares how his art helps him fit into the world. Helps him become one with it in a piece reminiscent of Sontag and Oates shares how we create ourselves through our writing.
Embrace Religion
What I call the “Jordan Peterson Solution” — There is no meaning. Creating meaning using art will only create more fads. Instead, rekindle belief in old, ancient values which represent the synthesis of mankind’s struggle with meaning.
I love these pieces because there is something to be said about over reliance on rationality, reason, intellect and logic in our world today which can cause some of the issues I discussed in The Curse of Knowledge.
critiques the dominance of rationalism in modern society, advocating for a reintegration of intuition, mythology, and religion to enrich human understanding and experience. He argues that over-reliance on rationality diminishes our appreciation of beauty, tradition, and the mysterious, leading to a less vibrant and meaningful existence. recounts his journey from skepticism to a renewed faith in Christianity, influenced by a deep exploration of various levels of consciousness and the realization of Christianity's comprehensive narrative power in making sense of human existence and morality.
Embrace Stories
What I call the “Harari Solution” — The world is built on stories. As a species, we cannot live without them. We destroy one story only to create new ones. The world is an illusion. Accept this. Choose the stories you read and want to believe in. Choose your truth carefully and intentionally.
I wrote briefly about my views on Harari’s book Sapiens in the post The Power of great Storytelling.
The posts below don’t talk about the power of stories directly but they subtly hint at it by using metaphors, describing cultural shifts and the challenges we are facing today.
questions why we read fiction? in her beautiful short meditative essay explores the power of stories in shaping our beliefs. Likening the mind to a beach and ideas/stories to the waves she advocates for an open-minded approach where beliefs are freely examined and only retained if they prove valuable. examines how stories have evolved in our societies. How figures like Kanye West, Elon Musk, and Donald Trump have shifted from being seen as heroes to anti-heroes, reflecting a broader societal preference for complex, controversial characters in an era marked by cultural fragmentation and skepticism towards traditional heroism. hints at how our stories are fragmenting us and creating a stasis in our response to our mounting problems, which he compares to the unpredictable conditions of the fictional planet Trisolaris in Liu Cixin’s novel “The Three-Body Problem”
Embrace Nature
What I call the “Rousseau solution” — Man is born good. It is Society that corrupts him. It is society that makes him obsessed with status, wealth, and power. The solution is to return to a more natural way of living, closer to the earth and in harmony with the environment.
Personally I live in a big, cosmopolitan and bustling city. But I find it extremely interesting how people, over generations, move out of villages and into cities, only to find themselves wanting to move back again.
Again, I cannot help but think about Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence.
explores his decision to stay in New Hampshire, valuing space for personal growth over urban opportunities. explores how places shape their inhabitants by demanding certain exchanges and imposing their values and lifestyles. asks the same question as Frederick but goes further and questions whether the influence works not both ways.
Conclusion
All the writers above have different solutions — the Nietzsche solution, the Jordan Peterson solution, the Harari solution and the Rousseau solution — to the same underlying problem of meaning.
What I find great about these writers and their writing is that they are not trying to analyze abstract ideas, sifting them under the cold light of reason and arriving at the objective truth — like philosophers.
No! They are all, almost without exception, living the truth which they speak of.
is living in nature. is living the life of a born again Christian. has given up his fulltime job in Finance to become a full-time writer. is writing his Substack while trying to write/publish a novel.They are baring their souls and in that they fulfill Baldwin’s definition of the artist:
“An artist is a sort of emotional or spiritual historian. His role is to make you realize the doom and glory of knowing who you are and what you are. He has to tell, because nobody else in the world can tell, what it is like to be alive. All I’ve ever wanted to do is tell that, I’m not trying to solve anybody’s problems, not even my own. I’m just trying to outline what the problems are.
I want to be stretched, shook up, to overreach myself, and to make you feel that way too.”
- James Baldwin - Personal Interview
But - and this is an important BUT - the truths which they are sharing are ‘their’ truths! Whether they can become ‘your’ truth is for you to figure out.
My advice — and this, in fact, might likely be the advice of most folks I quoted in this article — would be that ‘their’ truths cannot be ‘your’ truths.
How can they be when each one of them is in the process of creating ‘their’ truths through their art precisely because they could not find that truth out there.
‘Their’ truths, despite their best intentions, will not instigate the same action in you as it did in them.
Your truth can only be borne out of your own Art. And anyone who tells you otherwise is selling you something.
The Evil Hour - For every philosopher there has probably been an evil hour when he thought to himself, 'What do I matter, if people do not adopt my weak arguments too?' And just then some wicked little bird flew past him and chirped, 'What do you matter? What do you matter?'
- Friedrich Nietzsche - The Joyous Science
Further Explorations
This post was meant to be a bit of my synthesis of the voices I have been reading on Substack which relate to the topics I have been writing about as well.
I would love for people reading this to send me links related to the topics above.
While reading Peter Watson’s book ‘Age of Nothing’ I came across how the small village of Ascona in Switzerland, in the midst of the chaos of the early 1900s, became the birthplace of the counterculture movement.
How it attracted , a remarkable number of feminists, pacifists, literary figures, anarchists, modern dancers and surrealists who questioned old values and experimented with new lifestyles to create a new society for a new age.
Among the better-known luminaries who passed through Ascona included D.H. Lawrence, Franz Kafka, Carl Gustav Jung and Hermann Hesse.
Ascona was the precursor to the Woodstocks, the Glastonburys and the Burning Mans.
Somehow Substack seems to be giving off similar vibes to me. And if
is right, then the time is ripe for such a birthplace to emerge again.Or is it just me? Am I just stuck in a hall of mirrors? An echo-chamber of my own making where I am hearing my own voice?
Thank you for reading this. If you have made it this far I wanted to share with you other Substacks I enjoy as well. I believe all of them deserve to be supported for their great work.
in his newsletter "Cosmographia" delves into the world's diverse cultures, geographies, and mythologies through the lenses of maps, history, geography, art and poetry. shares thoughtful poetry almost every other day. in his newsletter "Art Every Day" shares a daily dose of art ranging from Renaissance masterpieces to contemporary work which share not only the work but also its history and significance. blends posts on self-knowledge with thoughtful commentary on art, literature, music and history from a culturally rich part of the world, interpreted through the modern lens.
If you enjoyed this. You can also consider subscribing and upgrading your membership to Stray Reflections as well. Writing for this Substack requires time and I would love to make this space more sustainable and dedicate more time to it.
I would like to leave you this week with this thought provoking meditation by Nietzsche on the value of art and artists. In some way it answers the question asked by
in What does your stupid art even do for the world?[paragraph spaces added by me for clarity]
Delusion of the Contemplatives
The superior men are distinguished from the inferior by the fact that they see and hear unspeakably more, and see and hear more thoughtfully - and it is this which distinguishes man from the animals, and the superior animals from the inferior.
The world always becomes fuller for him who grows up to the heights of humanity; there are always more interesting fishhooks dangled before him; he is constantly exposed to more stimuli and is likewise more susceptible to pleasure and pain - the superior man invariably becomes at the same time happier and unhappier.
But a delusion remains his constant companion: he thinks he is merely a member of the audience before which the great drama of life is performed; he calls his nature contemplative, and thereby overlooks the fact that he himself is actually the poet and elaborator of his life - that while he admittedly differs a great deal from the actor in this drama, the so-called practical man, he differs even more from a mere spectator or patron who takes his seat before the stage.
To be sure, he possesses the vis contemplativa and a retrospective view of his work characteristic of a poet, but at the same time, and more importantly, he has the vis creativa which the practical man lacks, appearances to the contrary notwithstanding. In point of fact, it is we thoughtful and perceptive individuals who constantly make something which was not there before: the whole ever-increasing world of value judgements, colours, weights, perspectives, hierarchies, affirmations and negations. This poetry of ours is continually learned by rote, rehearsed and translated into flesh and substance and even into daily life by the so-called practical man (the actor of our drama, as I said).
Whatever has value in the present world has no intrinsic or natural value - there is no such thing - but rather the value which has been given and bestowed upon it, and it was we who gave and be-stowed! We alone have created the world which is of any concern to man
But it is precisely this knowledge which we lack, and if we catch sight of it one moment, we forget it the next; we misunderstand our greatest strength, we contemplatives, and give ourselves far too little credit - we are neither as proud nor as happy as we could be.
- Friedrich Nietzsche - The Joyous Science
Ranas, great taste in reading and thank you for including me. I agree there is a vibe to substack that is primordial and precursive and potentially deeply exciting. Or it could fizzle. Or it could be crushed under its own weight. All the same, we are of a similar mind.
I only started using Substack a few weeks ago actively, and haven't started my own just yet, but about half of this echoes the super long... 'thing' I'm writing (that'll be broken up into the first few posts, and about page), and you follow a bunch of the same people I already do.
Something is indeed happening here. Hell... if Zizek is here, that's enough of a reason to be here, no? haha