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1. choosing to walk

“When you choose to walk, you choose not to pursue immediate gratification or even comfort but simply to expand the number of things that might happen to you. Walking invests in the potentiality of your experience with almost no promise of tangible reward at all, which is something like being alive.”

The brilliant compares the two best things in life: writing and walking. Not only are these activities life-affirming, but you can do them for free.

Read choosing to walk

2. The Real Thing (Warning: politics)

Despite everything happening in political news these days, there seems to be no uniting opposition. Instead, we—the opposition—are divided. makes a damn good case as to why that is. When she shoots, she does not miss.

Read the Real Thing

3. I Was Wrong About Midsommar

The YouTube creator, meeptop, dropped this video essay re-examining the film Midsommar. This is my favorite genre of video: a profound exploration of identity, self, loss, and so much more—all dressed up as film criticism.

Sometimes, I wish I could cut video out of my life altogether. “It’s just dopamine farming and passive consumption.” Videos like this are the exception, and they are why I still allow myself to watch videos. My life is better because of this video and I think yours will be too.

However, if you have not already watched Midsommar, you should absolutely do that first.

Watch I Was Wrong About Midsommar

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Artists often prioritize the end result of their art—a sad symptom of our market-driven culture industry. But I’d argue that the act of creation contains a therapeutic element. Sometimes just scribbling lines becomes something more than just scribbling lines. It becomes a portal for your subconscious mind to tell you about your sensory perceptions of the world. What is your body telling you? What is the environment telling you? What are your innermost dreams telling you?

What seems random in the moment may become more clearly defined upon further reflection. This has certainly been the case for me many times now. So, I wanted to share how I created the circumstances that allowed that to happen—because, well, it is pretty cool. But in order to make that happen, you need to make it super easy to doodle.

Since I always have my phone on me, I bought the Procreate Pocket iOS app.1 I can’t bring my iPad with me everywhere to take advantage of 5 minutes here or there, but I can doodle in Procreate Pocket.

This doesn’t have to be an app though. Carrying a small pen & pad in your pocket could do the trick2. But it’s important that you like your choice. I know we artsy types sometimes fantasize about going full Luddite and abandoning these damn phones once and for all.

But if the app is what gets you to actually do it in real life—then that’s the only thing that matters. So, despite being a very vocal luddite on Substack Notes, and literally joking about the Unabomber, I encourage pragmatism on this one—even if it means downloading another damn app.

But the most important part is reflecting on your artwork. Really allowing it to speak to you. What is your heart telling your head?

It might be a new perspective on something familiar. It might be a profound insight that prompts a significant life change. It has been for me at least 4 times in my life now, bringing me closer to the truth each time. Not some generic truth either, but my truth. The truth I need to know to become who I am.

The following are 3 doodles I created in Procreate Pocket and my reflections on them. I did not use any prompts or “have a plan” before sitting down to draw. Each of these took 15 minutes or less. My hope is that these can serve as an example for your own process (otherwise I’m just trauma dumping on you for no reason and that would be cringe3).

So, here we go!

1. Upside Down

Unfortunately, I was born in a society that—ostensibly—has the most material abundance of any group of humans in history. Like, ever.

But actually living here tells a very different story.

Our social systems are… flawed to say the least. As a kid born to the peasantry, I’ve been subjected to quite a bit of turbulence. A childhood wasted in the grey Soviet slog known as public school. Ended up in the stereotypical college debt trap with the added bonus of choosing communications as a college major—perhaps the worst financial decision of my life. With the added benefit of being neurodivergent recluse, things were, ugh… not looking good for me.

Through all of it, I never made it a secret that I was suffering. Struggling to do “the right thing.” Begging the authority figures in my life to provide some kind of help or direction or guidance.

No help ever came.

The truth was that nobody gave a fuck. Not my teachers. Not my guidance counsellors. Not even my own damn family.

This doodle is a reflection on that feeling. Of being upside down, begging for help, but looking up to only find eyes glazed over in absolute apathy.

I know this might seem like some doomer shit but there is a secret magic to expressing your sadness through art that heals you in some beautiful but invisible way.

2. Free Falling

Lmfao this is literally one of my favorite things I’ve ever created! It is a reference to that one song—you know the one—but the doodle mixes it up with a dark twist. A man is falling to the Earth, horrified knowing that he’s about to be splattered into dog food.

This is representative of both a personal falling as well as a collective one. If you scroll through my Substack notes—hell, even most of my essays—you can tell that I’m not exactly a well-adjusted member of civil society. But it feels like more than just something happening on a personal level. Of course, that is how I experience it. How you likely experience it too. But its also much more than just that.

Things are about to get really bad. Like REALLY BAD.

bad Bad BAD. BAAAAAD!!!!

We might be looking at one of the most turbulent times in human history. So many things are going to break and so many people will be broken. Does it not feel like we’re all free falling at this point? A collapsing quality of life that might not stop until we quite literally bomb ourselves back to the stone age.

Idk, that’s the vibe I was trying to capture at least.

3. Tripping

Ahh, so this one… yeah. This one might seem super abstract. But I spent a lot of time deciphering what the actual fuck is going on here. Funny enough, I’ve come up with an interpretation that spawned some pretty serious self-reflection.

For one, if it wasn’t already obvious, this is about my use of weed—as you can see by the guy lighting up on the bottom left. What might be slightly less obvious is the pink circular object on the right… yeah, that is the portal to my own subconscious mind that can only be activated while smoking weed.4

So, the square head represents my inner Apollonian drive. You know, the overly intellectual rigidity that we’re all familiar with. I’ve felt like I’ve lived most of my life in this box5 so to speak. Essentially, I’ve been reduced to my own oppressor, my own tiny tyrant. My inner Apollonian isn’t just a tyrant—it’s a HOA member power-washing the graffiti off my soul.

I’m being frugal, and disciplined, and orderly, and proactive.

All the things they say are good things.

But holy fuck I’m miserable.

In the last few years, I’ve been opening up to my inner Dionysian. The creative chaos that has spawned my best work. My deepest passions. The same energy that got me to open up this newsletter! Well, my inner Dionysian is the guy riding the snake. He is fighting off my Apollonian drive, trying to reclaim my own inner peace.

Growing up, I watched every adult in my life become increasingly estranged not just from the world, but also themselves. They think mindless consumerism can pacify the pain.

It fails every single time.

It just ends up leaving them worse off as the system’s fangs get sharper with things like planned obsolescence, and the rise of the subscription economy.

I think there’s something about living in this particular day and age that compels you to focus almost exclusively on your Apollonian drive.

By fighting off the Apollonian drive with weed, it feels like a way of spiritually reclaiming agency and autonomy of my own mind. I have been optimizing myself to death, and I can’t live that way anymore.

Final Thoughts

Go draw your rage. Doodle your dread. Let your subconscious vomit on the page. The world’s on fire—might as well make art with the ashes boiii

As we enter the cold times, its a great time to watch one of my favorite video essays, Fear of Cold by Jacob Geller. His videos never disappoint. Fear of Cold is the perfect video for drinking hot chocolate on a cold day—alone!

Watch here

2. The Creative Act by Rick Rubin

After a few interviews, I had to buy Rubin’s book, The Creative Act. Holy shit—the book imaginatively illuminates the darkest aspects of creation. Also, the audiobook version is pure ear candy. Narrated by Rubin himself, it has an almost ASMR quality to it (including beautiful sound effects).

Read quotes here (no affiliate link)

3. George Saunders on Kindness

“Find out what makes you kinder, what opens you up and brings out the most loving, generous, and unafraid version of yourself—and go after those things as if nothing else matters. Because, actually, nothing else does.” —George Saunders.

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Welcome to 3 Things Thursday, where i share 3 cool things… on Thursday!

1. TikTok Vs Democracy: perhaps the greatest video essay created this year. absolutely stunning. Not only was the entire thing recorded in a single take, but it also SLAM DUNKED fukuyama and i’m here for it.

2. Crash Course on Buddhism: local internet hero John Green does it again in part of Crash Course’s series on religion. Life is suffering but the suffering is slightly more tolerable after a good Crash Course video.

3. Coraline: this is a delightful movie for fall. Despite being released in 2009, the story is shockingly relevant today. Might even be timeless. Plus, stop motion is the highest art form and nothing will change my mind.

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The Murphy Memos

Exploring the absurdity of existence with crappy jokes

By Max Murphy

Welcome to 3 Things Thursday, where i share 3 random things… on Thursday!

1. "Cancelling": A Culture of Retribution: this was a blind-blowing video essay exploring the problems stemming from cancel culture. We’re not actually “holding people accountable” we’re just participating in an angry mob that dishes out cruelty because it makes us feel good.

2. Max Weber described The Iron Cage as the way we trap ourselves in rigid social systems based on rationality. Despite their efficiency, these social systems end up diminishing autonomy, resulting in the sad sack of shit you see in the mirror every morning.

3. Elite overproduction is an idea from Peter Turchin that describes how a society can produce too many aspiring elites without the ability to absorb them into the existing power structure. Given the many angry college graduates across the country, I’m starting to think this idea has some teeth.

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Welcome to the first edition of 3 Things Thursday, a new series where I share 3 random things… on Thursday!

1. Frans de Waal, the primatologist who popularized the term “alpha male” explained how we’ve basically warped the idea of alpha male to a mean-spirited bully instead of a well-liked leader.

2. Have you ever wondered about AI like ChatGPT becoming conscious? How would we even know? This is an AMAZING video exploring that topic, but watch at your own risk. Shit be crazy!

3. I recently released David Graeber was right about Bullshit Jobs1, a video essay exploring Graeber’s theory about BS jobs. I explored a few interesting trends that happened after Graeber tragically passed2 such as how poorly paid essential workers were during the pandemic, the rise of over-employment, and the latest academic evidence that may have validated Graeber’s theory once and for all.