I thought about starting a podcast today.
I thought it might be a Smart Move toward expanding my “brand” because who sits down to read when you can half-listen to someone’s spiel while Swiffering your floors or driving to the mall to buy more stuff? It’d be PAID SUBSCRIBERS ONLY and oh, the exclusivity! The enticement! A Smart Move, indeed.
Podcasts are awesome. I might support yours by listening, shouting it out on my Instagram story, or even paying for it on Patreon if I’m really down for the cause. New media is democratic and interesting and everything good in between. If launching a podcast is the tall, dark, creative potentiality hanging out, smoking cigs at the seedy bar in your brain, I say green light. Seedy bars where you can still smoke are where all the best ideas are born, after all. Give me that “Global examination of polygamy” “Who killed JonBenét Ramsey?” “Why you should drink celery juice” script through your Amazon mic at your kitchen table, baby, life is short.
But I’m not going to start one. Because they represent a tension in my heart re: how society makes me feel about how I spend my time.
Here’s my fundamental question: do we need to be learning/absorbing opinions and information 24/7? I think I read once that our minds digest audiobooks and podcasts the same way as reading books and if that’s true, that’s dope. I love to read. I literally write stuff for people to read. So by the transitive property I must love anything reading-adjacent.
But I also love to cut loose and sing and dance and FEEL! The culture of productivity teaches us that some forms of evocation are more valuable than others, like what arouses from reading nonfiction or listening to podcasts, which is often just more knowledge on a subject or about ourselves to help us perform more efficiently in some capacity. I don’t want to acquire knowledge all the time! I want to acquire freedom and pleasure! I want to hear the words “I've seen your flag on the marble arch / and love is not a victory march / it's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah” and know I’m about to cry the Seine. Maybe I read too much about 1960s counterculture, nostalgic for a time I’ve never lived, but I think in the information age, there needs to be a place for simple hedonism. Turn on, tune in, drop out, even just to an Otis Redding record while the pasta water boils.
Anywho, no podcast for me. At least not anytime soon… I think. I hope you throw on good music today and feel something raw and uninhibited. I like you when you’re reading my newsletter, and when you’re listening to podcasts, but I like you when you’re dancing, too.
the same thing has been on my mind lately, too. the pressure to acquire (or produce) Knowledge instead of just like, making whatever you want and enjoying life...can be so overwhelming. Why does it feel illicit to do things that feel good without stacking something ~educational~ on top? Why do I have to constantly acknowledge how horrible everything is by reading heavy books and listening to serious podcasts and watching documentaries? Seems like a scam. I’m gonna listen to/watch/make things that make me happy! and I refuse to be joy-shamed!