“sorry we are inside your mind and the DNA here is really bad”
Recently teamed up with a friend and we became business partners. The endeavour is a micropublishers, focusing on producing good quality books with an experimental lean into literature. For instance, one of our authors used an AI to re-write children’s books, merging Where the Wild Things Are with Heart of Darkness. We all use AI in our writing and to make images, but we use a variety of customised ones, both online and offline. We even have a private AI trained on our own writing, so it writes like us, it is one of us. Most of us have at least some formal training in visual arts and literature, but two of us are bona-fide linguists with PhDs and shit. We use computers to create experimental content and we are open about it. But with all this we know we invite criticism from the big wave of anti-AI sentiment. But all that anti-AI stuff isn’t even my biggest worry.
My main worry is myself. I worry that my words are perhaps really fucking bad and I am insane and oversharing shit and telling people all kinds of things that could get me into trouble. I worry that my mind is unhinged, and if I publish a book or another blog post expressing my weird views and strongly NEUTRAL opinions (more on those later), I’ll be attacked or ridiculed. This is a new fear, one I never knew I felt before. I thought I wanted to be well-known and have millions of followers, but it turns out I’m also scared of that too.
So whatever you do, do not click share, like or subscribe.
But seriously, I was brushing my teeth just this morning, and unbidden came to my mind the phrase “if you have friends that could tell the cops enough to have you arrested, then it’s time to stop drinking like that”. I was referring of course to yet another blurry night in my fucking cups. It started as it always starts; groggy morning feeling bad, drank too much once again, never again… nah too ambitious… how about not again tonight? Sure, that’s not hard, I definitely don’t want to feel like this again any time soon. Fast forward to the evening, I’m staggering around in the dark, walking our dog and drinking a can of beer. It’s after the “no more drinks or tomorrow feels like shit” watershed of 9pm. Long gone and likely that my drinking will go on another hour at least. At what point did that resolve melt away, dissolved by the alcohol in my bloodstream. At what point did a smart-arse like me get so fucking dumb?
Nearer midnight, I sent a text to my sisters that included a screenshot of a message I had sent to myself that very night. I send myself messages on WhatsApp as a form of note taking that merely exacerbates my already problematic mountain of notes concerning things that were important at the time but I no longer know what I was talking about. I wrote another article about this too, my internal meme wars. Anyway, I digress… so in the message I asked my sisters to tell me seriously whether they thought I was crazy. Here is what the message said:
hi there donte even bother explaining It to me you need to sell me this meme right now or it is gonna die like a fish out of water. That's right, sorry we are inside your mind and the DNA here is really bad, it just wants us to spell out our meaning for you. Sorry.
LOVE BOMB BULLDOZER.
Nobody fucking kares.
Mortal Fucking KOMBAT.
I installed that on the kid’s computer before I gave it to him.
THAT IS HOW FAR I WAS WILLING TO GO.
Red dead was the fucking runners up prize.
he failed my fucking intelligence test
There is a lot more of that, but I think you get the idea. The main gist of the note was an attempt to remind myself of the fact that I had installed Mortal Kombat 11 on a computer I gave to my son, who I no longer live with. He actually lives thousands of miles away from me now, with an 8hr time difference. He was sharing his screen to show us something on Steam and I noticed that Mortal Kombat was still installed. He’s only 12 and really Mortal Kombat 11 is about the most gratuitously violent computer game I have ever played. The whole franchise is banned in Japan, where I live. Yes, banned in JAPAN, I know… the country that created a superhero named Rapeman. So just getting a legit copy was hard enough, but why was it on my son’s computer? Oh, that’s right, I installed it simply to impress him, make him think I was cool. Luckily, I didn’t need to go that far in the end because he was perfectly happy with Red Dead Redemption 2 instead, and for a few months I was waking up at 4am (due to timezones) to play cowboys with him.
Back to the note. In my drunken confusion I unlocked the Id psychology trollface side of myself and saw that perhaps I had left it installed on his machine to see if he was clever enough to find it and curious enough to play it. And yet this narrative of me using it to test my kid’s intelligence is total bunkum. I had to uninstall MK to fit RDR2 on the pathetically small SSD on the laptop. But seeing the vestiges of it still there reminded me that it was installed on there once. However, once again the idea that I got it for my son is another lie to myself. I bought that game for me and it was never intended to be for him. But then again, was it? Which side of this story is now the true side? The drunken Id version with the weird psychological games and twisty fuzzy logic arguments, or the sober sense-making public explanation?
At the time I was content merely to type exactly 101 words that would confound even the most brilliant cryptographer, if they were given the egregious task of trying to work out what the fuck I was talking about. And knowing myself, I know that in a few months’ time, if I read that note back to myself, I would have a very hard time understanding it. But my mind had already raced off anyway, sliding off with this new thought; am I crazy? As I typed the words (and the actual ones I sent my sisters were a lot crazier than the edited ones I am sharing here) I realised that phrases like “sorry we are inside your mind and the DNA here is really bad” are utterly bonkers and could be an indicator that I am not of a right mind.
Einstein apparently never said that the definition of insanity is “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. Also, that’s inherently wrong from a scientific perspective anyway, as we know from quantum physics. However, let’s use this fake quote to springboard into something important nonetheless. It doesn’t really matter whether I am of right mind or not. It doesn’t matter if I say something clever or if I say something stupid. It doesn’t matter if people can understand or they can’t. It doesn’t even matter if they like it or hate it. It doesn’t matter. And this is where I find the zen place that I need to keep returning to if I am ever going to make it as a writer, editor, micropublisher whatever the fuck it is that I am now and want to be in the future. None of that fucking matters right now, all that matters is writing. As Jack Kerouac once said, “the voice is all”.
Now I am not a literary scholar, but I am a linguist, and I know that a phrase like “sorry we are inside your mind and the DNA here is really bad” is really quite an anomaly. First, it breaks the fourth wall, not so anomalous but definitely interesting, as it draws us in and uses deixis to place you, the reader (and yes, I know nobody reads my stuff so right now that’s just me myself and I) into the story space. Next, the narrative offers an intriguing viewpoint, from inside the actual mind of the reader whose fourth wall we so rudely just broke. But it’s funny because we said sorry. Also, who is we? We don’t know. Us. Finally, it’s hilarious because of the DNA being really bad here. Like, who can see DNA and tell that it’s bad? Does it smell off? Is it just bad genes? Genes like the ones that made the current US president so orange and racist. Is that the type of bad DNA we’re talking about, or is it the bad DNA of my own brain that I can blame my alcoholism on?
There, you see… I analysed my own writing and even I have no idea what it means anymore, or even if it’s good or not. But I do know objectively, as a linguist, that this anomalous phrase I texted to myself last night is FUNNY and made me laugh, and I was just trolling myself with my Id brain and now the hungover hardworking editor dude has to take over and write it up into a fucking essay to share on his blog (my blog… fuck me what’s the narrator’s angle for this piece?) for what purpose I cannot imagine except for the simple fact that I am driven to write and must write or I go insane, but as I am already insane, writing puts me at risk. I am opening up this wounded and sore brain and showing people the inside. I am allowing people to view inside my mind and tell me if the DNA is bad.
So when I texted my sisters and asked them if I was crazy, partly it was a cry for help, partly it was genuine concern that I may, in fact, be totally off my rocker and in need of therapy (ps. I have had therapy before and it really helped, now I find meditation keeps me from drowning in constant despair). But also mainly I just wanted to see if they would get the joke my drunken Id brain was telling me. My drunken Id brain was making Fake News for me out of the bubbling, fizzing turmoil of my incessant inner monologue.
And now, what… I’m actually going to go and publicly write about my struggle with alcoholism and depression? I am going to publish an article about my fears and self-doubt on my website and on Medium. I am going to share the text message I sent myself and I am going to mention that I was worried about my own sanity? And we are even going to probe the BIG question, the question anyone who reads this (ie. Nobody) the question of for whom did I really purchase Mortal Kombat 11?
But then I think about people like Donald Trump and I realise that being insane isn’t a problem if you have enough money. Saying crazy shit these days seems not merely forgivable, but commendable. A convicted felon is now the US president AGAIN and I am worried that I am going mad!? Lolcry.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman once said, “in a sick society, women who have difficulty fitting in are not ill but demonstrating a healthy and positive response.” I am a bloke so I’m really sorry for stealing this one, but I think that quote can also be applied to mental health issues (to which Perkins-Gilman was no stranger). This is a perfect quote to start an article about Depressive Realism… maybe that would be my next blog post.
Anyway, doesn’t matter; that’s how I feel. Christ, I wrote nearly 2,000 words, no ChatGPT, all before 10AM, with a hangover! I was inspired by this brilliant article by JA Westenberg titled “Want to Make It as a Creator? Be Famous, Go Viral or Go Fuck Yourself.” And I even had time to fact check that fucking Einstein quote (which, I am afraid to say Christopher Nolan didn’t when he cited that quote in Oppenheimer, even though that film actually features a BRILLIANT performance by Tom Conti actually portraying Einstein!) Westenberg’s article really spoke to me and this is the REAL real truth about why I texted my sisters last night, and why it doesn’t matter if I am a good writer or if anyone reads this shit or anything else. The thought that made me go dark again last night was the fact that there is so much SHIT out there, everywhere. Utter shit. I was watching a thing that had been publicly aired, featuring brilliant actors, but they were wearing fake wigs and fake bald heads and the makeup was utterly crap, the jokes stale and verging on racist at times, and there is ME worrying that my stuff is shit? No, forget it. I’m just going to keep writing and keep working just for my own sake, for my own sanity. If you don’t like my writing, see you around.
Here’s the brutal truth about mainstream success: You either need to be famous already, or you need to be willing to light yourself on fire for attention.
JA Westenberg
And that was what I was doing last night, and that’s what I am doing now. I am trying to light myself on fire. It’s what I do anyway. I have a very self-destructive personality. My maternal grandfather once stuck his fingers in an electric socket in a suicide attempt. My father once told me he had felt numb for years. I’m currently an alcoholic and I’m teetering again on depression. But writing is the only creative thing I know that doesn’t make me feel like I’m imploding. So I write. I am lucky to have found others I know who I can work with, lucky to have support from my family. And by the way, both my sisters unanimously decided that, yes, I am insane.
Sis1: Yes think you’re insane bro
Sis2: Yea dude, you’re totally mental. Xx
I’m not a huge Bukowski fan, I prefer Burroughs, but I did like this quote:
When I begin to doubt my ability to work the word, I simply read another writer and know I have nothing to worry about. My contest is only with myself, to do it right
Charles Bukowski
You see, I’m going through the same exact fucking thing. So I am going to hit publish now and I dgaf if I get a lotta likes or clicks because I am going back to writing. Thanks to anyone who stuck with me this far. Maybe see you next time.
Oh and by the way, I just published a book called Ratio all about why I quit Twitter. It’s full of essays, poems and anecdotes about Arnold Schwarzenegger and Dril. You can read about it here.
