The Undercurrent is an odyssey into the mystical subconscious, accessed through the doorway of everyday reality. If you like my writing, tap the ♥️ or 🔁 button to help more people find it. Thanks so much for your help building this budding newsletter! ~ Leona
I’ve been caught in a loop of “what’s the point?”
“There are so many self-help, spiritual, personal development writers out there, what’s the point of me writing anything?”
“The void is so full of other people shouting, what’s the point of me adding my voice to the din?”
“Social media is rotting our brains, what’s the point of posting on it? Even if I’m trying to do something good, and Substack seems to not be so terrible yet?”
“Smarter, funnier people have already said what I’m trying to say, what’s the point of saying it again?”
Everyone knows that poking holes in your own dreams is a fool-proof strategy for success and happiness.
I finally got up the nerve to revisit my own damn post where I give a pep talk to creatives, and was pinched by the closing quote:
“Don’t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It’s self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can’t try to do things. You simply must do things.” — Ray Bradbury
So I’m not thinking, I’m just sharing. Because I miss being here. I miss hearing what comes up for you in the comments. I miss having a community centered around writing and thinking. I miss knowing that I contributed something to this corner of the internet, even if the only ones who read it are AI bots.
It’s true that there is too much information in this world for our caveman minds to handle. They are building data centers everyday to keep up.
And maybe that’s where I’m looking at it wrong.
Because I don’t follow an unfeasible number substacks, spend hours I’ll never get back staring at photography books, or listen to endless ambient electronic music because of all the information they summarize. I follow artists because they — you — make me feel something.
The information is secondary to the transmission.
I want to see reality through the stained-glass mosaic of your consciousness.
I want to feel how your depths reverberate and your heights quiver from the onslaught of facts and experiences and fake news.
I want to watch the smoke that is your lifeforce curl in each and every passing breeze.
I want to see you bend and leap, and though I can’t hear the beat, through your dance I get a sense of the music that moves your soul.
Because you help me make sense of this mad tumble of shapes and events. You help me distill the theoretical into something my body understands — a feeling, a sensation, an energy.
Facts aren’t the solid ground my heart craves. My heart needs truth of a different kind to pound on.
Forget the reality. Give me the experience.
The fig tree turns sunlight and soil and rain into figs. The redwood bears no fruit but climbs toward the sky. The sea kelp does… whatever sea kelp does.
The input can be the same simple formula, while the output is a chaotic, impossibly balanced, irreplaceable ecosystem.
And so, I’m back, writing with the hope that my work pollenates even a single bumble bee that goes on to make the honey that feeds to badger that wakes up the fox that tries to catch the rabbit that almost dies but galvanizes the other rabbits, ok, now we’re in Watership Down.
As a recovering scientist, I’ll likely have to remind myself that my value, my work’s value, doesn’t have to be so utilitarian.
If you ever feel this way as well, I’d love to know what resources help you come back to creation for the sake of creation.
It’s really good to be back.
♥️
Leona
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Welcome backkkk! I adore your honest words here. When I have entered these loops going to nature has always re-inspired me (eventually) and also doing something im not ‘good’ at — create some to ing out of your normal , it helps you not think about the outcome and keeps you present in the simple act of creation 💓 much love
Doesn't mother nature create of her own accord? As a part of this absurdity, nature, I feel free to create for creations sake. Doesn't scientific inquiry open more mysteries? Sharpen your tools, maybe? What did they tell you in brain school?? you rock as a writer.
Keep your creation and discovery free from lesser motives like perhaps commercial success or persuading others and it will be more pure. To quote The International Noise Conspiracy "unfettered creativity is one of the most powerful manifestations of subversion possible, for it offers us all a taste of freedom" thank you for your art, I'll keep up mine and be sure to share it thank you, the way you unpack nuances and mixed feelings like perishables in July makes me feel like I'm not alone in this whacky world.