life rx 6 mar 24
it's a way to be free
Before we get into it—you may have noticed (lol) that this newsletter has switched to a daily format, which might be a lot more of me in your inbox than you signed up for. If you’d like to cut down on emails while remaining a subscriber, you can go to manage subscriptions > white noise maker and toggle off receiving email notifications. I’m also petitioning Substack for a digest feature, which would allow you to receive one email a week, so stick around for that!
And, of course, if we’re parting ways, I’m sad to see you go, but I get it, and a chill inbox is a wonderful thing. Thank you for reading, and I’m sure we’ll cross paths again someday. <3
that said, back to our regular … what is it?
the king of swords, and a passage from John McPhee’s Table of Contents: “A nurse comes into the room and hands McPhedran a slip of paper. He looks at it and learns of the birth of his first grandchild. He sets aside his reactions, making no remark. He opens a safety pin and asks Elaine Ladd to say, as he presses it against this and that place on her feet and lower legs, whether the sensation is dull or sharp. In random choice, he turns the pin, as she says, ‘Dull, shop ...Dull, shop... Shop, shop, dull, dull, shop.’”
the aleatory
Something I realized a few weeks ago: everything that works in a human is a feedback loop. When to breathe, when to eat, when to sleep. It’s not like breathing in is “good” and breathing out is “bad.” Being hungry isn’t a sign of shame. And neither is pain. It’s all information, and information, in a healthy system, is a good thing. It allows you to want and to navigate toward want. But a long time ago, somehow, don’t ask me—I got the idea that needing anything was a problem. Hurting, hungering, whatever. That they just shouldn’t be happening. In other words, if you poked me with a safety pin, I would go away and think very hard about how I could un-happen it. I would grow a shell you couldn’t poke through. Dull isn’t good, shop isn’t bad. Or as Mr. Callahan says in “River Guard”: “We are constantly on trial. And it’s a way to be free.”
the assignment
Go for a drive. Pay attention to what’s happening when you hold your breath.
writing prompt
Make it a long letter to an old friend, and write it in a way that nobody else would understand the substance of what you’re talking about.
a chune
“River Guard” by Smog
credits: small spells tarot deck by Rachel Howe
Table of Contents by John McPhee
“River Guard” by Smog
Dear diary, thinking about feedback loops has made me optimistic. I feel like I’ve been hunting down some very basic dispositions and interpretations of mine which color everything else. I don’t want to get anything perfect. I just want to dance. X S