Simon’s Book Club Podcast

I’ve been speaking with someone in the comment section of my YouTube videos about whether I should talk about Narcissism or not. From their perspective, I’m taking on unnecessary self-inflicted atonement and too much emotional hygiene. I loved the provocation, and it got me thinking about not talking about Narcissism anymore, but, my god, it’s such an interesting topic! It’s hard for me to put down. I feel very strongly against binary thinking, and good guy vs bad guy reasoning, and - to be honest - the vilification of narcissists is something that I want to explore. I think an entry point to this discussion is how The Dark Knight depicts schizophrenics, which is neither humane nor empathetic, and is oversimplified. The movie hasn’t aged well as a result.

At the same time, the way we look back at what our parents and grandparents used to say, and think about how that didn’t age well, it’s folly, or even lol narcissism, to think that we have everything figured out now. What are the ways we speak and interact now that, 20 years from now, will make us cringe? Is how we think of narcissists going to be one of them? Will our circle of compassion extend to them anytime soon, or are there too many cultural factors at play to allow us to empathize with them?

I’m not sure, but what I am sure about is that this is vrrrrry interesting to me. Let me know what you think.

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Are all of these ideas coming to me inspiration, or rumination?

What different thoughts arise when running alone vs running with someone

Technofeudlaism, Cloudalists, and Effective Value Memes discussed during a 17k run.

For today's morning run, I thought a lot about technofeudalism and post-shame. Here, I'll share some of these thoughts.

Can a Good Morning run overcome a Bad Night of Sleep?

No it can't. Not even close.

How personal should a personal journal be? Is it all about stories and experiences, or about analysis of patterns, or both?

Day 2 of my Daily Writing Project, where I'll share my morning pages, and hopefully encourage some of you to get into writing.

February 11th 2025.

What a dark and rainy morning, cold and uninviting. I'm writing today's journal without having run in the morning. My body felt the rain before I knew it was there. I felt very heavy and lethargic and stayed in bed longer before I opened the shutters and saw the storm.

The city now has a blue filter over it all, a hazy pro mist look. Cold temperature, no warmth. Why are rainy days blue? Why not red or green? Is it the same reason why oceans and lakes are blue? I need Neil deGrasse Tyson to explain this to me. Would Homer describe this look as pale wine?

I'm at a part of my life now where I'm looking for my next project and trying to figure it out. I have some runway after my last project in Spain, and I also have an awareness of what I didn't like about corporate work, and even writing this now feels scary. I want to share my writing, but if my projects don't work, will talking about corporate life be damaging?

Really, I just want to write every day the way Asle paints every day in Septology. Just let me feel this pen on paper and share what's alive in me. Find those moments of light in the darkness, as Asle was interested in. I gave up on that book after 100 pages. It was just, too miserable. An artist is terribly alone and misses his dead wife, and just prays and paints and thinks all the time about what other people are thinking. It's unrelentingly sad. It's not what I want to go to sleep with. My nighttime reading of fiction should be light and not that heavy.

And I really miss reading Infinite Jest. What if I start reading it again? Some people watch reruns of Friends and Seinfeld. Why not rereads of Infinite Jest? People reread Harry Potter and they live in that world. People reread the Bible and they live there. Why not reread the only Metamodern text that I actually enjoyed?

Why keep looking for different iterations of themes that I've already found? Well, it's because this book is so goddamn heavy, and I don't mean like dark heavy, but just heavy. Physically, it's a huge book.

You know, I've really been entertaining the idea of sharing these daily journals, but something seems very vulnerable about it, and I worry about the pornographic element. What's usually deeply intimate and vulnerable changes when it becomes performative. How will my writing change knowing I have someone over my shoulder?

Will I be able to connect with myself as deeply as I'd like to, as I usually do, or will my writing change based on viewer response? And, is this fear of changing for others a sense of the ego creeping in? I'm gonna start reading Rick Rubin's book today on the Creative Act and see what that could tell me.