Haven’t been a subscriber for long, but my dads been sending me your work for a few months now and I can’t express how much I look forward to reading each and every new post. You inspire and educate, but more importantly you openly share and communicate your unique perspective with others, something I feel the world needs more of.
On a separate note, what for the ‘cans on the shelves of society’; “your telling bit of imagery” at the end of this weeks post? I’d love to hear your interpretation. Personally I feel as though the cans represent ideas which people resort to when there aren’t better ones available- I.e in formally being a low-income individual, I remember the days where all I could afford to eat were cans of beans and big bags of rice. Not that the other, much fresher and nutritious food wasn’t “available”, it just wasn't to me.
The idea of finding "your craft" has always been of utmost importance for me. I think I've already found mine, thanks to your work. Yes, I mentioned it many times but I'm will to mention it once again, because it's true. Plus, it was interesting to learn about your experience and how you get into writing yourself.
My journey started when I got bored with my 9-5 with the understanding that it's not what I really want to do. I felt that the generic question 'Where do you see yourself in five years?' wasn't that dumb as it seemed at first. The previous 5-10 years were exciting, I had certain goals, most of which I achieved, some of them accidentally; and some of them became goals retrospectively (funny, yes). But the upcoming 5-10 years didn't seem clear. The mundane and things I was doing every day seemed transient and I couldn't answer this question. Then I rediscovered writing (it was my hobby when I was a kid, maybe it tells something, you know?). It became a huge part of my life but I wasn't sure it's really THE thing. But then I discovered your newsletter, 'The Soaring Twenties', catacombs, Art vs Content, the cult, and all of these things that gave hope and help to find the answers to questions I couldn't answer on my own. Now I have 11 essays published, 2 drafts, a lot of stuff planned and the 5-10 years are clear.
> Every day is a blank page to write upon, a new block of marble to chip away at, a fresh silent space waiting to be filled with your music. The prospect of tomorrow elicits hope and not dread. Possibility and not apathy.
This is how I feel it now. This is something I needed to read and will read again when I will need it. Because this is something I was telling myself but couldn't be completely convinced I was doing the right thing.
And, again, I like looking for patterns and themes that weave throughout your work and this "Possibility not apathy" perfectly wraps up what 'The Soaring Twenties' are.
So, thank you, Tom, for a brilliant piece. This piece will be on my list of favourites. It would be my first recommendation when I share your newsletter with a friend. And, what's important as well, It will be an amazing opener for The Commonplace vol.2 😉
Really dug this piece. I've struggled with this as a writer, since my day job is copywriting for a PR agency. I enjoy aspects of my job, some of it is genuinely soul-sucking. I think starting on Substack has given me a creative outlet to give myself a sense of fulfillment. I think over time, you just start to appreciate the good things and learn to make the soul-sucking a little less draining. I wrote some similar sentiments if you're interested.
Wow, thanks for the hommage Thomas ! Really appreciate it.
I really loved this piece. It talked to the soul, because I felt just the same as you fir years. I never worked in a kitchen, but I did a few of these paper-shuffling jobs. I remember myself bent over my computer in a cold building in the outskirts of Paris. And then again a few years later in the south of France. The setting was different, the weather was nicer and I could always walk by the sea in the evening, but the feeling was the same; my days were a logical sequence of data crunching tasks, excel sheets and braindead smalltalk with my fellow inmates. As it is often the case with big companies, there was no clear correlation between my work and the end result. I could have been working for nothing and I'd never realize it. In there, your manager's word is everything, and if he said I was doing great, I'd have to believe him, eventhough I had no idea what I was concretely working towards or if my work carried any real meaning. A cog should never start thinking about its place in the grand mechanism; that's when it starts to jam.
So naturally, I started scribbling little things. Littles notes, little ideas for a novel on the cheap notebook provided by the company in which I was writing during every meeting, less because I needed to than because I wanted people to think I was a serious young man, focused on his work. Little ideas I was ashamed of, because how ridiculous and pretentious of me to think I was made for this; I had read the lives of Hemingway, Camus, Céline and these guys were clearly cut from a different cloth that me. Nevermind, I kept writing my little stuff, I even wrote some dialogues and descriptions in the "new email" section of my corporate outlook maibox- easier to conceal if a nosy coworker passed by. And I kinda got hooked by it. When I was home for the week-ends, I'd give it a more serious go, and I realized something strange; it made me happier. I appreciated the evenings with my friends a little more, my bullshit job became less tiring and when I felt down, I thought about the words I'd get to write once home, and it gave me the energy spike I needed to finish the day. I even began to read differently, the novels were showing different layers now and I could see the blueprints of the structure and the intentions of the author. It felt a little like Neo seeing the green code of the Matrix for the first time. Of course I wasnt thinking I was creating the chef-d'oeuvre of the 21st century, but at least, I was creating something. Something that came from inside, something I had control over, and something I was clearly becoming better at month after month.
I guess I discovered my craft. And the funny thing is, everytime I let it down (because too much work, not enough energy, etc.), I felt again like when I was hunched over my laptop. That's when I realized that whether I liked it or not, the craft found me as much as I found it, and it wouldn't let me go. The path is clear, but we must be willing to see it and walk it, despite the rainy days, the mud and the brambles that always come with it.
Anyway. I begin to sound like a selfhelp guru, I guess it's time to stop. Thanks again Thomas for this inspiring piece, and welcome back to the Twitter realm !
No better words could describe today's essay than "possibility and not apathy". At least for me.
Lately I have been at the same rut, the same dreamless nights and anxious mornings, waiting for the weekend to come so I could be alone in my thoughts without "job" being in the back of my mind.
But the distinction you made was brilliant: work is what will keep you together during hard times, job is what may tear you apart before them. To carryover between the two is a triumph of wiseness, intuition and persistence.
Great read, as always, thank you Thom.
PS: I have the exact same thoughts on cuisine. It seems like the only work that can not be made futile because people will always want well served food on their table.
Haven’t been a subscriber for long, but my dads been sending me your work for a few months now and I can’t express how much I look forward to reading each and every new post. You inspire and educate, but more importantly you openly share and communicate your unique perspective with others, something I feel the world needs more of.
On a separate note, what for the ‘cans on the shelves of society’; “your telling bit of imagery” at the end of this weeks post? I’d love to hear your interpretation. Personally I feel as though the cans represent ideas which people resort to when there aren’t better ones available- I.e in formally being a low-income individual, I remember the days where all I could afford to eat were cans of beans and big bags of rice. Not that the other, much fresher and nutritious food wasn’t “available”, it just wasn't to me.
Thanks Thomas!
The idea of finding "your craft" has always been of utmost importance for me. I think I've already found mine, thanks to your work. Yes, I mentioned it many times but I'm will to mention it once again, because it's true. Plus, it was interesting to learn about your experience and how you get into writing yourself.
My journey started when I got bored with my 9-5 with the understanding that it's not what I really want to do. I felt that the generic question 'Where do you see yourself in five years?' wasn't that dumb as it seemed at first. The previous 5-10 years were exciting, I had certain goals, most of which I achieved, some of them accidentally; and some of them became goals retrospectively (funny, yes). But the upcoming 5-10 years didn't seem clear. The mundane and things I was doing every day seemed transient and I couldn't answer this question. Then I rediscovered writing (it was my hobby when I was a kid, maybe it tells something, you know?). It became a huge part of my life but I wasn't sure it's really THE thing. But then I discovered your newsletter, 'The Soaring Twenties', catacombs, Art vs Content, the cult, and all of these things that gave hope and help to find the answers to questions I couldn't answer on my own. Now I have 11 essays published, 2 drafts, a lot of stuff planned and the 5-10 years are clear.
> Every day is a blank page to write upon, a new block of marble to chip away at, a fresh silent space waiting to be filled with your music. The prospect of tomorrow elicits hope and not dread. Possibility and not apathy.
This is how I feel it now. This is something I needed to read and will read again when I will need it. Because this is something I was telling myself but couldn't be completely convinced I was doing the right thing.
And, again, I like looking for patterns and themes that weave throughout your work and this "Possibility not apathy" perfectly wraps up what 'The Soaring Twenties' are.
So, thank you, Tom, for a brilliant piece. This piece will be on my list of favourites. It would be my first recommendation when I share your newsletter with a friend. And, what's important as well, It will be an amazing opener for The Commonplace vol.2 😉
Cheers!
This was absolutely beautiful!
Excellent as always. I need to write a full piece in response to this. I could write about the craft for days.
Really dug this piece. I've struggled with this as a writer, since my day job is copywriting for a PR agency. I enjoy aspects of my job, some of it is genuinely soul-sucking. I think starting on Substack has given me a creative outlet to give myself a sense of fulfillment. I think over time, you just start to appreciate the good things and learn to make the soul-sucking a little less draining. I wrote some similar sentiments if you're interested.
https://thatguyfromtheinternet.substack.com/p/joy-is-a-tension-between-happiness
".... until oblivion ...." Really? How do you know?
Wow, thanks for the hommage Thomas ! Really appreciate it.
I really loved this piece. It talked to the soul, because I felt just the same as you fir years. I never worked in a kitchen, but I did a few of these paper-shuffling jobs. I remember myself bent over my computer in a cold building in the outskirts of Paris. And then again a few years later in the south of France. The setting was different, the weather was nicer and I could always walk by the sea in the evening, but the feeling was the same; my days were a logical sequence of data crunching tasks, excel sheets and braindead smalltalk with my fellow inmates. As it is often the case with big companies, there was no clear correlation between my work and the end result. I could have been working for nothing and I'd never realize it. In there, your manager's word is everything, and if he said I was doing great, I'd have to believe him, eventhough I had no idea what I was concretely working towards or if my work carried any real meaning. A cog should never start thinking about its place in the grand mechanism; that's when it starts to jam.
So naturally, I started scribbling little things. Littles notes, little ideas for a novel on the cheap notebook provided by the company in which I was writing during every meeting, less because I needed to than because I wanted people to think I was a serious young man, focused on his work. Little ideas I was ashamed of, because how ridiculous and pretentious of me to think I was made for this; I had read the lives of Hemingway, Camus, Céline and these guys were clearly cut from a different cloth that me. Nevermind, I kept writing my little stuff, I even wrote some dialogues and descriptions in the "new email" section of my corporate outlook maibox- easier to conceal if a nosy coworker passed by. And I kinda got hooked by it. When I was home for the week-ends, I'd give it a more serious go, and I realized something strange; it made me happier. I appreciated the evenings with my friends a little more, my bullshit job became less tiring and when I felt down, I thought about the words I'd get to write once home, and it gave me the energy spike I needed to finish the day. I even began to read differently, the novels were showing different layers now and I could see the blueprints of the structure and the intentions of the author. It felt a little like Neo seeing the green code of the Matrix for the first time. Of course I wasnt thinking I was creating the chef-d'oeuvre of the 21st century, but at least, I was creating something. Something that came from inside, something I had control over, and something I was clearly becoming better at month after month.
I guess I discovered my craft. And the funny thing is, everytime I let it down (because too much work, not enough energy, etc.), I felt again like when I was hunched over my laptop. That's when I realized that whether I liked it or not, the craft found me as much as I found it, and it wouldn't let me go. The path is clear, but we must be willing to see it and walk it, despite the rainy days, the mud and the brambles that always come with it.
Anyway. I begin to sound like a selfhelp guru, I guess it's time to stop. Thanks again Thomas for this inspiring piece, and welcome back to the Twitter realm !
No better words could describe today's essay than "possibility and not apathy". At least for me.
Lately I have been at the same rut, the same dreamless nights and anxious mornings, waiting for the weekend to come so I could be alone in my thoughts without "job" being in the back of my mind.
But the distinction you made was brilliant: work is what will keep you together during hard times, job is what may tear you apart before them. To carryover between the two is a triumph of wiseness, intuition and persistence.
Great read, as always, thank you Thom.
PS: I have the exact same thoughts on cuisine. It seems like the only work that can not be made futile because people will always want well served food on their table.
All things in nature thus retrace
The paths acknowledged as their own;
They gladly then regain their base.
Assigned to them is this alone,
To seek as end their starting-place,
And make the world a stable zone.
(Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy)