Not sure I have an answer, but there seems to be an incredibly heavy bias towards one's own experience with marriage as a child. People have car accidents, and still get back in cars all the time, but anecdotally in the context of my own left I've met hundreds of people whose view of marriage was shaped entirely by their parents divorce. Leading them to write marriage off in it's entirety. They never question what their parents did wrong, what they could do differently, and assume their marriage IF they ever did get married would be a one to one replica of their parents. They're perspective is that marriage is broken. Not that the two people building one are. Which leads to looking for answers in all the wrong places.
Thank you both for sharing this conversation! I love how it moved from knowing and claiming our own true hearts through journaling to taking that openness off the page into one another’s homes.
Thank you for this enlightening exchange, the first few question brought up a few things for me,
Thought (AI, social media, online persona) can never capture the whole.
David Bohm said, “So thought is an abstraction. Literal thought has this problem in it that, implicitly, it’s trying to say that it’s seeking the ideal of not being an abstraction, but just being another copy of what is. It is not leaving out anything. I think you can see that there’s always more, and we could say, therefore, by means of thought we could not capture the whole. That’s what I’m suggesting. We can always get more. There’s no limit to thought which you can set, because people could always discover more. Scientists could discover more and more and more. But still, it’s always limited. It’s limited because it doesn’t get all, right?”
Arendt’s distinction between meaning and truth, and her belief that thinking seeks meaning rather than truth.
Do you want the truth or a story a narrative.
What is most difficult, writes Arendt, is to love the world as it is. Loving the world means neither uncritical acceptance nor contemptuous rejection, but the unwavering facing up to and comprehension of that which is.
What a fabulous article! I never had a word for what has happened to my life- enantidromic! Thank you for increasing my vocabulary and thereby deepening my understanding of my life.
Was not sure what to make of this, so I resisted reading for a while. Once I got reading, I could not put it down. Insights aplenty on agency and the human condition. Thank you.
"Write, even though machines can write for you, because the purpose of writing is not just to produce writing, but to distil your thoughts, refine your beliefs, and maintain your agency."
If you'll forgive me the vanity of quoting myself:
"The ancient, intrinsic value of writing as an alchemy of self-discovery and self-formation, and as a cognitive and spiritual shaper of civilizations, reemerges forcefully when machines are able to supplant the purely practical, market-based 'writing as skill' approach that has dominated classrooms for decades. In other words, there is an opportunity here for clarifying why we write at all, humanistically speaking...[W]hat an artificial intelligence cannot do is to give coherent, clarifying, formative voice to your scattered thoughts, feelings, intuitions, and personal vision. It cannot express or articulate yourself. Only you can do that. Otherwise, you’re letting a machine tell you, and others, who you are." (https://www.livingdark.net/p/the-zen-of-words)
• While the piece makes a great case for individual responsibility in maintaining agency, systemic forces still matter. AI and algorithmic design favor engagement (often through manipulation), making it harder for the average person to resist automation’s influence.
• Not everyone has the luxury of mindful self-improvement—economic pressures, education gaps, and information overload make it easier to be swept along than to resist
It’s true and tragic that life isn’t fair, and that sometimes our fates are not under our control, but dwelling on such facts helps no one, least of all the people most affected by them. I’ve been at rock bottom — depressed, alone, homeless — and what got me out of my situation was not blaming my problems on “the system”, but focusing on the things I could do something about, such as myself.
So, I don’t think self-improvement is a luxury available only to some of us. On the contrary, I believe it’s the only way out for those who are hardest hit by the vicissitudes of life.
And this isn’t just my personal experience; extensive research has found that people who take responsibility for their lives (even if their misfortunes are not their fault) tend to be healthier, happier, and better able to deal with life generally.
I really enjoyed reading “A Correspondence” with Freya India, and I’m a fan of your Substack. I truly appreciate the time you took to reply to my earlier response.
Overall, I agree with your perspective. My own path began with serious challenges, starting with reform school and followed by time in adult prison as a juvenile offender. Despite these hardships, I was able to break free from that cycle and create a new life by confronting my circumstances and taking decisive action. Like you, I chose to focus on what I could control rather than dwell on life’s inherent unfairness.
That said, I believe the "bootstrap" ideology, the idea that anyone can succeed solely through hard work, can oversimplify the realities many people face. Some encounter extraordinary obstacles, whether it’s trauma, mental illness, or systemic oppression, that make personal progress far more difficult. While I firmly agree that personal responsibility is crucial, it’s not always sufficient. I don’t want to take away from your powerful story or perspective, but I think it’s equally important to acknowledge that not everyone is in a position to take that first step, no matter how much they might want to.
I’m living proof that change is possible. Yet I also recognize that the playing field isn’t level for everyone. Self-improvement is transformative and should absolutely be encouraged, but we must also recognize the support some people need to make that transformation attainable. And again I enjoy your writing very much. It is my favorite.
Not sure I have an answer, but there seems to be an incredibly heavy bias towards one's own experience with marriage as a child. People have car accidents, and still get back in cars all the time, but anecdotally in the context of my own left I've met hundreds of people whose view of marriage was shaped entirely by their parents divorce. Leading them to write marriage off in it's entirety. They never question what their parents did wrong, what they could do differently, and assume their marriage IF they ever did get married would be a one to one replica of their parents. They're perspective is that marriage is broken. Not that the two people building one are. Which leads to looking for answers in all the wrong places.
Thank you both for sharing this conversation! I love how it moved from knowing and claiming our own true hearts through journaling to taking that openness off the page into one another’s homes.
Two of my absolute favorites on Substack. Love this conversation. Hope to hear more from you both!
Just remembered, in this recent state of the culture piece, Ted Gioa says culture changes first haha
I think y'all are getting at the same thing tho
https://www.honest-broker.com/p/the-world-was-flat-now-its-flattened?r=1uvpyv&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
I can never truly express how helpful and timely this was for me. Thanks for writing this y'all!
Thank you for this enlightening exchange, the first few question brought up a few things for me,
Thought (AI, social media, online persona) can never capture the whole.
David Bohm said, “So thought is an abstraction. Literal thought has this problem in it that, implicitly, it’s trying to say that it’s seeking the ideal of not being an abstraction, but just being another copy of what is. It is not leaving out anything. I think you can see that there’s always more, and we could say, therefore, by means of thought we could not capture the whole. That’s what I’m suggesting. We can always get more. There’s no limit to thought which you can set, because people could always discover more. Scientists could discover more and more and more. But still, it’s always limited. It’s limited because it doesn’t get all, right?”
Arendt’s distinction between meaning and truth, and her belief that thinking seeks meaning rather than truth.
Do you want the truth or a story a narrative.
What is most difficult, writes Arendt, is to love the world as it is. Loving the world means neither uncritical acceptance nor contemptuous rejection, but the unwavering facing up to and comprehension of that which is.
What a fabulous article! I never had a word for what has happened to my life- enantidromic! Thank you for increasing my vocabulary and thereby deepening my understanding of my life.
Was not sure what to make of this, so I resisted reading for a while. Once I got reading, I could not put it down. Insights aplenty on agency and the human condition. Thank you.
Thank you, both.
Thank you for this. Love this part especially:
"Write, even though machines can write for you, because the purpose of writing is not just to produce writing, but to distil your thoughts, refine your beliefs, and maintain your agency."
If you'll forgive me the vanity of quoting myself:
"The ancient, intrinsic value of writing as an alchemy of self-discovery and self-formation, and as a cognitive and spiritual shaper of civilizations, reemerges forcefully when machines are able to supplant the purely practical, market-based 'writing as skill' approach that has dominated classrooms for decades. In other words, there is an opportunity here for clarifying why we write at all, humanistically speaking...[W]hat an artificial intelligence cannot do is to give coherent, clarifying, formative voice to your scattered thoughts, feelings, intuitions, and personal vision. It cannot express or articulate yourself. Only you can do that. Otherwise, you’re letting a machine tell you, and others, who you are." (https://www.livingdark.net/p/the-zen-of-words)
Where I Might Push Back:
• While the piece makes a great case for individual responsibility in maintaining agency, systemic forces still matter. AI and algorithmic design favor engagement (often through manipulation), making it harder for the average person to resist automation’s influence.
• Not everyone has the luxury of mindful self-improvement—economic pressures, education gaps, and information overload make it easier to be swept along than to resist
It’s true and tragic that life isn’t fair, and that sometimes our fates are not under our control, but dwelling on such facts helps no one, least of all the people most affected by them. I’ve been at rock bottom — depressed, alone, homeless — and what got me out of my situation was not blaming my problems on “the system”, but focusing on the things I could do something about, such as myself.
So, I don’t think self-improvement is a luxury available only to some of us. On the contrary, I believe it’s the only way out for those who are hardest hit by the vicissitudes of life.
And this isn’t just my personal experience; extensive research has found that people who take responsibility for their lives (even if their misfortunes are not their fault) tend to be healthier, happier, and better able to deal with life generally.
Sources:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11762867/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10698268/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9432765/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165032718325916
https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/beyond-school-walls/202303/the-dynamic-potential-of-internal-locus-of-control
I really enjoyed reading “A Correspondence” with Freya India, and I’m a fan of your Substack. I truly appreciate the time you took to reply to my earlier response.
Overall, I agree with your perspective. My own path began with serious challenges, starting with reform school and followed by time in adult prison as a juvenile offender. Despite these hardships, I was able to break free from that cycle and create a new life by confronting my circumstances and taking decisive action. Like you, I chose to focus on what I could control rather than dwell on life’s inherent unfairness.
That said, I believe the "bootstrap" ideology, the idea that anyone can succeed solely through hard work, can oversimplify the realities many people face. Some encounter extraordinary obstacles, whether it’s trauma, mental illness, or systemic oppression, that make personal progress far more difficult. While I firmly agree that personal responsibility is crucial, it’s not always sufficient. I don’t want to take away from your powerful story or perspective, but I think it’s equally important to acknowledge that not everyone is in a position to take that first step, no matter how much they might want to.
I’m living proof that change is possible. Yet I also recognize that the playing field isn’t level for everyone. Self-improvement is transformative and should absolutely be encouraged, but we must also recognize the support some people need to make that transformation attainable. And again I enjoy your writing very much. It is my favorite.