Strangers. Celebrities. Entrepreneurs. Grifters. Scammers. Your mother. Your grandmother. Your neighbor. Your conscience. Yourself. Your fortune cookie. Your misdirected daydream on the way to the subway station. Your fleeting idea that left its origins in the bunker of your past and found footing in a sticky note you taped to your desktop drawer.

Now, there’s a hypnotic dilemma.

Do you want to confront that tiny voice inside? Or should that wait for another day? Perhaps it should wait. The best ideas require incubation, after all. While this is scientifically true, you’ll—still—have opinionated backs-and-forth on this topic with strangers who would rather order you to “stop being so fast” instead of taking their own advice.

But then you have to circle back and wonder if these people—yourself, included, with those troublesome thoughts and daydreams alike—really know what “being real” truly means?

Mental destruction aside, this is one of those culturally devoured and vomited statements that’s been recycled into oblivion.

It’s been tossed, turned, rotisseried, chipped, burned, and goopified like the most charred, gushiest marshmallow you can think of after its begged you to take it away from the goddamn fire.

This sentiment can come seriously, and perhaps, non-inaccurately, from the mouth of an influencer snapping a picture of themselves smiling on a beach in Bali, who’s never known how to actually embody this philosophy their entire, short, manicured life—while also convincing themselves they are, by all accounts, “being real,” because it makes them feel vindicated for trading who they are for making money on the internet through means they don’t prefer, but feel they must do so in order to conquer the mysterious Gods and Goddesses of Good Fortune that plague their social feeds. And their brains.

This isn’t to shame influencers. This conscious and unconscious misunderstanding of what “being real” means extends through all methods of work, and every type of worker. Corporate juggernauts. Entrepreneurs. Artists, too. No one is really “safe” from this butchered piece of language. They’re haunted by it. We are all trying to make our own path in the world, and we all—for the most part—seek methods of becoming successful through what we wish to do.

What’s interesting is that, at least in western media and tech culture, it seems we’re obsessed with this idea that “being real” opens the gate to authenticity. This authenticity is then what connects us to things like success, money, relationships, love, beauty. Take your pick. We all want some version, or versions, of these things for ourselves.

This is not something to shame, but something to acknowledge.

Are we acquiring these things of pleasure and temptation and presumed look Mom, I made it! rewards because we’re actually being our most honest selves, or are we acquiring them—or seeking to acquire them—because we’ve conditioned ourselves into following what everyone else wants, and we no longer remember who we were meant to be to begin with?

If you’re to ask someone close to you right now to tell you what “being real” means from their perspective—whether that’s in a taxi, in a cafe close to you, or perhaps even a friend over a coffee—they might give you the simplest, clearest, most sensible definition known to man: “Being real means you don’t pretend to be something else. You’re not being fake.”

This feels so obvious.

As most things worth thinking about, however, it’s never that simple.

In psychology, Occam’s Razor encourages that the simplest explanation might be the most likely true answer. I always try to subscribe to this belief system when I approach something new. Not as the final thought, exactly, but as the introductory argument. I believe nothing good comes from assuming the overblown before you have any evidence to back it.

That being said, this age of “slopification” and an oft-celebrated butchering of language as an all-encompassing world of systems, architecture, and ingrained beliefs threaded from culture to culture, generation to generation, person to person, and beyond this ornate tapestry that invites us to play in its weavings like a kindergartener discovering their imagination in a sandbox, it’s getting more difficult to believe what’s in front of me.

It’s becoming near-impossible, in fact, to believe the simplest explanation truly is the most understandable. Occam’s Razor, dulled upon application.

Artificial intelligence has donned its crown as a God of Mischief, and it threatens a perception that I once deeply trusted. It’s hard not to feel angry about this, as well, when you realize what this means for individuals who will follow suit, perhaps destined for an intelligent and meaningful life, only to squander their potential in the systemic flood of spiritual carnage.

What does it mean to be real, at all—in any timeline, any system, any practice? Whether you’re constrained by it, motivated by it, or curious to discover what it means for you, and the future you wish to carve for yourself? What does it mean to embody the person you yearn to become, but have unknowingly discarded?

What does this concept mean for the makers? The thinkers? The movers? The artists? The definers? The critics? The judges? The people who are defined by the work they create and further judged for said work? The people who live and die by the attention of the self and the validation of the universe? The people who are too stubborn to conform to others’ rules, but the second they feel insecure, they will flock to the closest reinvention station available, tickets punched and pockets emptied? The people who are responsible for determining whether descendants centuries from now will look at the work of this time, and find themselves embroiled in interest?

I don’t have an answer for you.

I know some people might find it pointless that I’m bothering to reveal that so early on in this discussion, to break the fourth wall with disappointing, anticlimactic, cloud-soft aplomb… but I truly don’t.

I’m not an expert trying to convince you that I know all the answers.

While this seems to be the method of persuasion and trust-building most people use when writing on the internet, I’m not interested in pretending to be more aware than I am.

I’m sharing this topic with you—as well as every other little thing that peppers this newsletter’s intestinal columns of meanderings and ramblings and incubating thoughtstreams—with you because I’ve built conscious awareness around what I absolutely do not know, and I want to use that awareness to pursue the curiosity.

Perhaps, at the end of this trail of curiosity, I will find an answer.

Or, you will, if you pursue it yourself.

We all have paths of curiosity worth taking, worth exploring. There are answers in front of you that might take the rest of your life to discover. Even when you think it should be so obvious that it emits a smell, like the world’s most untraceable perfume, you will go after it anyway, because the thought of not progressing post-awareness due to a lack of conviction is more painful than the acceptance of not knowing, period. It might cost you everything, but it’s certainly worth the attempt, isn’t it?

Perhaps this is one way to “be real.”

I do think about this, often:

The pursuit of what makes us curious, in an attempt to understand something that pretends to be unknowable. The hidden costs of the process, as everything worth chasing has a cost. The fragments of negative and positive possibility that all lead to a strange, unpredictable ending.

For me, there is no switch to flip. No command to listen to. No verb to take under my wing that constitutes “being real.” I just… am. There is no “being real.” There is no conscious thought put into the action.

But, does that mean I’m being my most honest self?

My “authentic” self?

I would say, no.

The reason I say no, is because this directly connects to a topic that I’m building an entire body of work around.

It’s all about self-creation, and what that means for the individual.

“Being real” is just one of many language-based, cultural signals that people try to use to connect with others, while understanding extremely little about themselves. Their desperation to “be real” and connect with as many people as possible, as quickly as possible, comes at the consequence of their lack of understanding what they truly want, and think.

(And, at the risk of being obnoxious, by “I,” I’m referring to “we,” which pertains to anyone who might relate to this. It’s very easy to get absorbed into the collective mantra that something might be referring to you when it’s actually not)

As you are reading this, I’m assuming some part of your identity squirms at the thought of the “act” of “being real,” when all you’ve understood your entire life is to walk in your own shoes.

There is no invention to be had, nor is there any need to assimilate the ideas of another to make yourself more palatable. Or presentable.

Every human—whether they realize this truth or not—suffers from the question of “how to be real” on a daily basis. If not daily, it’s frequent enough to become a signal that we experience on and beyond the screens sapping our concentration by the minute. By the second.

I’m constantly discovering and creating new things about myself—not to prove anything to anyone, but to pursue the curious triggers within that are begging to be heard, and understood, and indulged. The “itchiness” artists get when they don’t create is a universally understood phenomenon that every person I’ve talked to who creates for a living—or enjoys creating the most out of everything they do—knows to be a fact of the self.

It’s likely you are the same. My guess as to why this is, is because this is what it’s like to be constantly self-observant, but in the same breath, constantly second-guessing.

If you are creative, you have a strong imagination. You have an astronomical bedrock of ideas. You have many ways of communicating those ideas. You might find yourself hitting stone walls, and you might find yourself swimming upstream against a current of flames. All the time. Every day. And there’s a significantly high chance you overthink yourself into a corner—where you face the black void of consumption that tempts you to fear the breadth and depth of your own work, if only to distract you.

If this is the truth and you recognize yourself within that truth, we might know each other without knowing each other.

You could argue that artists—or creatives, if you want to extend that bridge, for they are not the same categorical thing—understand the act and exploration of “being real” better than anyone. This is because to create phenomenal art(work), you have to confront the deep, the hideous, and the ugly and the beautiful and all the in-between parts of yourself that are necessary to make something extraordinary.

It seems that now, in this age of consumption and personality-stripped “content” that drowns our attention and seeks to drain us of our individual thinking among this strange obsessive championing for intellectually inferior groupthink—that no one feels inclined to naturally look inward.

They’re more interested in gaining short-term attention through signaling to other brilliant minds trapped in cycles of destructive creativity-bleeding.

It’s a masochistic ritual in the digital and physical world to publicly ask for strangers and friends alike to “be real” when you have barely understood what it means to be yourself.

Now, if I remove the quotes around that, and simply treat the phrase as what it’s meant to be—a reminder to look inside, to listen to the self, to recognize the unfolding of the imagination as it pulls and tugs and builds—what does it feel like?

“Be real” is an identification.

I’m referencing the idea that most people in modern social media culture have come to understand as a call for others to drop performative acts, but not by any objective rules. They’re calling attention to things that might fall under their unwritten jurisdiction, but certainly nothing proven in the often-imagined Dictionary of Only Correct Things. (An affliction all of us have ingrained within us, to some extent, though I fail to prove anything about this beyond my bullish intuition that insists not everything can be perfectly described through the necessary lull of science and data alone).

To be real, is to be real.

It’s language that can transform the very method of how we speak to ourselves, one movement at a time. It’s an internal calling shaped by the little things we refuse to ignore, despite how often we try to shut them out—those ideas that flicker behind your eyes before your dreams take you; the way you smile without thinking at strangers who have an unshakeable aura. It’s the way things happen and appear on your face and in your heart before you have a chance to sculpt it into something societally, socially, or professionally acceptable.

To be real is to be real is to be real.

And I’m wondering if anyone truly understands what this means anymore. What the cost of ignoring this really is. There’s a daily influx of literally hundreds of thousands of articles, podcast episodes, blogs, and social media posts instructing you to be “real” without knowing what that means. This is not entirely the fault of the individual, as I argue that most of us are not aware of how deep this goes. In the same breath, I fear to see the consequence of humanity on the brink of failing to remember what it means to not to be real, but to be themselves.

Because that’s what we risk the most, if we fail to understand the connective tissue that makes us real, as individuals. Despite what collectivist minds preach, we can’t leave behind ourselves and try to “discover” what’s real within the gatherings and opinions of others. We need to get in touch with what’s inherently ingrained within us. I believe we all have these callings, these interests that no one else has influenced.

We are all born from the womb of our mother. Whether we have siblings, or we emerge alone, we are all separate entities. As children we’re drawn to things that have no connection to anyone else. I was drawn to writing and telling stories as soon as I learned how to talk. This was not an accident. It was ingrained within me. No one needed to tell me how to be interested in anything, and no one encouraged this specific vocation. I always knew, before I knew. Somehow.

Now, with that belief, I have to also assume that the act of being real is tied directly to this. There is no need to try and justify yourself as “being real” to others if you know that you’re not being real to yourself.

Maybe that’s the first barrier we need to break.

This strange, invisible, imposing wall that towers above us, that promises rewards of great discovery and even greater creative execution. How painful and ironic this lie is.

I fear that if we abandon those intuitive messages calling for us to be real before we ever “try” to be real for the sake of acceptance, and clamor for the approval of others for the rest of our lives, that we’re truly—without any awareness until the game of life ends—succumbing ourselves to the grandest joke of them all:

Pretending until we die, without ever truly knowing.

— Taylor Barnes.

Subscribe now

Share

If you are offended by this, then this newsletter isn’t for you.

This idea is not for you. This concept is not for you.

And perhaps, even, a creative life is not for you.

Maybe even being an artist, in general, is not for you.

Because, if you’re offended by this statement, It means you have no idea how to create things for yourself, and live with bodies of work that are crafted by your hand, for no other purpose than to serve expression.

You have no idea what it feels like to burn on the inside so deeply that you have no choice but to expel those sensations, regardless of what anyone thinks.

What those kinds of expression turn out to be, is—thankfully—up to you.

As the creator, the artist, the director, you are responsible for the channeling and depiction of those emotions that live within you. Artists get the “itch.” It’s a sensation that literally will not leave you the fuck alone until you do something with it. Do something about it. It’s relentless, ruthless, and has branches for teeth. I can speak from experience. Those fuckers are like witch’s nails.

For some, this is a freeing realization, and they accept it with open arms.

Some, who are insecure, and likely lost in the overthinking that comes with wanting to be liked, to be accepted, and to be celebrated without the necessary, and always-earned, ugly sides of those things—criticism, tomato-throwing, opinions that, yes, scrape your soft skin into bloody sandpaper— are destined to never make anything worth observing.

No one’s harsh enough about this, because people are afraid of hurting feelings.

I’m not afraid of hurting your feelings. My goal is to drill this into your skull and demand you to think for yourself. Do you hate me for this? Good. If you want to fight, it means you have something in you. Something that needs to be stoked. If you’re indifferent, good. You don’t care. You’ve already decided how your story will go, and you would rather I fuck off. I commend that. If you love what you’re reading and feel validated, great. Every person reading this is different, and every single person is allowed to walk away with completely different takes, points of view, and to hate me. To like me. To feel nothing. To feel whatever.

If you’re trying to be liked through your art, you need to reconsider where you’re standing.

The point of making art is not to please anyone, but to unleash the parts of you that have desperately tried to grow teeth since their inception inside your soul. Their eggs incubate while you ignore them and stoke the flames of other projects that you don’t give two shits about. Abandon the desires to be liked by people through your art and instead learn to sprout wings that make you fly high, above, and far away into the sky of where YOUR SOUL AND HEART AND MIND truly yearn to be.

No one has to like you.

Trying to be liked makes you unlikable.

Trying to be liked makes you uninteresting.

Simply creating for yourself makes unbelievable art. It forces people to pay attention. It forces YOU to pay attention. But instead, you ignore those impulses because the world is feeding these insipid little demons that would rather trade their identities and self-belief and entire fucking dignity for a few seconds of attention. Or, maybe you won’t make that choice… but your neighbors, and their neighbors, and all the neighbors in-between, have. And they will. And you have to look inward and away from the noise if you truly give a damn.

Even if no one looks. Even if no one pays attention to you. You have to learn be comfortable with what you’re making. Most people will tell you that you should be glad for publicity. This is true. Making money from your art requires attention. I won’t deny that. I won’t reject that. However, the difference any artist worth their future legacy needs to adopt is this:

You should never stop making art because no one pays attention. You need to make art so that you force yourself to pay attention, even when no one else will. Eventually, what makes you worth talking about—if you’re any good—will fall onto you. They will notice, because you dared to be the FIRST TO NOTICE.

This is intimate. This is confronting. This is devastating. And all the other things that people like to wax poetic about, but I’m serious. Hope you can feel how serious and frustrated I am typing these out, because while I do not care at all if you like me, I am begging you to think twice about you being disappointed someone didn’t read your fucking Substack or like your fucking Instagram post or read your fucking book.

GIVE THE DAMNEST DAMN ABOUT YOUR ART SO THAT THOSE DAMNEST DAMNS TRANSLATE INTO AN UNDENIABLY “YOU” BODY OF WORK PEOPLE WILL LOVE, HATE, AND REMEMBER—NO MATTER WHO PAYS ATTENTION TO YOU RIGHT NOW.

And even then… you may never be discovered.

But that is the risk we take. As artists, our purpose is to create because we need to. Not for others, but for ourselves. Otherwise, we die a toothless death.

You are an ARTIST, not a performer.

You love your art.

Start acting like it.

— Taylor Barnes.

Subscribe now

Share

Yes, this is an ode to fury and righteous anger and whatever else you would like to label under everyone else'’s favorite box of Instagram slogans they’d like to fire at you—yes, you; you are and I are not separated in this discussion, my friend, otherwise you would not be reading this right now—with the precision and recklessness and carelessness of a goddamn gatling gun.

But most of all, this is an ode to the people who were told they were never meant to be the MAIN CHARACTER by people who were too afraid to be the PROTAGONISTS OF THEIR OWN LIVES and would rather see you suffer irrelevance and inadequacy and pain and lost legacy than ever take the chance on yourself that they were too cowardly to take.

I used to live for everyone else.

My enemies. My allies. My loves. My old dreams that never had a place to be, but tried to find anchor, anyway, even when they didn’t belong anymore, and I was too weak to say: “No, I’m sorry, you did your time, and I’m grateful, but your place is no longer here, no longer with me, no longer in this life, in this world, in this space between.”

I lived and lived and died and died and revived and revived and I paid for it for it paid for it paid for it. Every. Time. They are seeds that grow and wither and die. They are seeds that planted potential. They are towering trees and blooming buds and roots tangled beneath the earth without the chance to eat.

I’ve witnessed brilliant women and men alike serve others for the majority of their childhoods, only to burn themselves into ash the second they try to actually pursue what they want to pursue. I have listened to the cries of the trapped and the furious ARTISTS and MAKERS and BUILDERS as they wail against the bonds of self-inflicted pain, desperate for change, desperate for escape. Desperate but lost. Lost and racked with too many thoughts to realize their internal forests are barring them from the ocean they seek.

I’m confessing to you as a WITNESS and a PARTICIPATOR. I am not telling you this as a stranger, because we’re not. We’re not really strangers, because all people who go through this understand it so deeply that they have no choice but to LOOK within the EYES of the TRUTH and remark: “Oh, fuck, you, too?”

I have trapped myself and I have pursued. I have failed and I have gained. I have lost and I have triumphed. I have suffered and I have lived. I have been happier than ever in heart and soul while suffering in the prison of flesh and bone.

And you?

What are you, my stranger-friend? Are you lingering in the depths of hollow decisions and intentional soul bankrupting? Are you waiting for someone to save you while you carve your way through the OCEAN of INDECISION? Are you itching to act on the urge to make, create, think, develop, deploy, discover what you have always longed to embody, but were too afraid what you would do to disturb others’ stories in order to make it happen? Are you eager to act from a place of guilt, rather than a place of strength? Are you losing confidence because you truly lack confidence, or because you gave all your confidence to the side characters in your narrative?

Joseph Campbell waxes poetic about the Hero’s Journey. It fills the books of experts and professors who come after. The original course-creator cycle began with people who majored in fields of teaching that they didn’t know how to wield for themselves, and so they contributed to the professorial journey: learn, teach, learn, teach, learn, teach. No work of their own. No establishment of their own design.

You have likely learned this in your classes. The Hero’s Journey. Save the Cat. Literary systems and guidelines that help millions of writers and storytellers out there, but are a disaster to others. (Myself, included, but I’m no longer ashamed to admit this). You have studied it, too. Or maybe you haven’t. Only you could know about the truth behind that.

I learned these fundamentals—the weaving of the fictional hero in a tale of obstacles and woes and mentorship and saving the day, or the princess, or both—while rejecting them in my college years, armed to the teeth with the hunger to know, yet too stubborn to adopt what I had engraved into my brain. I was an English Literature major, what do you expect? I can now read with a critical eye and understanding of author intention most people don’t have, but with that educated strength comes the struggle of being aware of your IMPERFECTIONS, your INADEQUACIES, your DISGUSTING COLLECTION OF WEAKNESSES that make you identifiable as the artist, and not the critic… but at what cost?

The cost is overthinking. I know the answer. The cost is taking the habits you had to begin with, and transforming them into weapons of mass internal destruction. Destruction of the soul. Destruction of the heart. Destruction of the work you have always longed to pursue, but shelved, simply because you were too afraid to admit you really WANTED IT.

I’m convinced these teachings—well, mostly our response to it—are part of what make anyone and every artist and storyteller and person of strong individuality allergic to guidelines. Some thrive on them. They love being told what to do. They love being fed systems, and frameworks. Templates. Ideas. Thoughts pioneered by another.

But I look at these people and I get inspired to build my own. I long to create my own ideas. My own systems. My own frameworks. Or… no, that’s not right, either. You know why? Because I’m not focused on building those into systems. I’m creating work. A BODY OF WORK that is truly mine, and will always be mine. Literature. Brand writing. Fiction. Essays. Whatever the hell these are—oh, yes, THOUGHTSTREAMS. Because that’s what they are—not quite stream-of-consciousness, not-quite-anything else… and because I studied poetry and I’m not thinking about any of the proper systems poets use to create exceptional work, I would rather set my toes on fire than claim I’m a fucking poet.

It doesn’t matter what I’m creating. I am the MAIN CHARACTER of a BODY OF WORK that will function and thrive only through MY perspective and MY beginnings and MY losses and MY discoveries and MY changes.

This is the untold story people are suffering with. This is the truth no one wants to admit when they feel so hungry and tired inside. This is what so many artists crave and yearn to feel. They want to be remembered.

There is silence, and there is legacy. Some want to be private. I long for that, too. But I also long for impact. I long for my stories to reach millions. I long for my words to inspire billions. I long for my work to outlive me and outlast me and outlove any kind of loving or living or lasting that I could feed into it. I long for AI to wish it could copy me but never aspire to accomplish. I long for humans to hate and love my work, and have real opinions on why they work and don’t work. I long for the BODY OF WORK to be a creation of ME as the MAIN CHARACTER and the DECIDER and the INVENTOR and the VISIONARY.

You are the director of your life. You are the dictator. You are the inventor. You are the creator. You are the PROTAGONIST who has been told your entire life that you have no reason to love what you love and that you were better off serving someone else’s dreams instead of believing that your EGO actually has SOMETHING of VALUE to SAY.

You are a gift. Your work is a gift. Your perspective is a gift.

I am begging you not to waste your time on this precious earth worrying about everyone else’s journeys—worrying about being the protagonist of your own damned life wandering these folds of atoms and ideas and flesh—and to please, finally, for all that is out there and knowing, to assume your role as the MAIN CHARACTER in a life of your own design.

Once you realize this is the type of self-betrayal you have committed for too long, it will feel like a dam breaking. You will feel the floodwaters. You will feel the pain. You will feel the memories of people who doubted you. You will most of all feel your OLD SELF cackling, pointing, jeering. You will then have the opportunity to silence that bastard and watch them bleed out. Once, and for all.

And if everyone else wants to continue living as characters who are remembered only for who they were when they were alive, and never for the work they created in their short time on this earth…

That is their choice.

Not yours.

— Taylor Barnes.

Subscribe now

Share

real beauty is not clean or orderly or lovely but instead shocking and destructive and challenging and crippling and confronting and disruptive and profound and interesting and uncomfortable and dynamic and mysterious and unraveling and unapologetic and raw and misunderstood and intentional and emotional and spiritual and simple and complex and made without barriers and without restrictions and without tethering because to do those things would be to eliminate its reason to be.

if clear is kind, then obsession is perfect.

think about it. the world’s greatest in everything never understood what it meant to sit back and let everyone else do what they wanted to do. they were ruthless and savage and vicious. this doesn’t mean you have to be a horrible person to win. obsession is madness and dedication for the people who want it. lack of obsession makes you boring and beatable.

who should you write for?

i work in brand and advertising and copy and whatever else fall into those folds. i write fiction to feed my soul and bare the bones of my heart. why does my heart have bones? i’m not sure, but it makes sense. telling you this because it took me way too long to realize my inner entrepreneur and inner artist were at war for expression and happiness. currently trying to figure out where that lives. where fulfillment lives. because it’s not in writing for others. if my writing of expression and art and thinking beyond the commercial could feed me forever, nothing could defeat me, and my internal enemies would no longer have the ammunition they have used to destroy me. and so i must write for me, because she has waited forever with no turnout. perhaps you should do the same, but only if you see yourself reflected in this. or not. i’m not your boss

no one remembers how to scroll anymore.

everyone on substack complains about seeing people they don’t like in their feed. you have no idea how lucky you are to be free and surrounded by other free minds. there are people who will never have the opportunity to write in a forum exposed to other free thinkers. pull your head out of your ass and take stock. you’re fucking lucky and your lack of gratitude and your inability to read the room will forever make you unreadable and uninteresting. learn how to scroll and build a world for others. your neighbors have the same privilege.

moral grandstanding is killing art.

artists and their art should always be separated. it’s vital and important to be able to acknowledge masterful works by their formation and intention without bringing the person into it. the people who obsess over this are more interested in being morally superior than they are in creating anything interesting.

please, just once, stop planning your writing and see what it does to your work.

writing these daily thoughtstreams (stream of consciousness) pieces has been freeing. I feel connected to every word. no overthinking or planning. it needs polish. but right now we’re not in the stage of polishing. we’re in the stage of reconnecting and exploration and defining what the voice is and what it always was, now without the shining cuffs to keep them imprisoned.

you’re not a fucking trend.

in case you forgot.

— Taylor Barnes.

— Taylor Barnes.

Subscribe now

Share

To be less dramatic, and perhaps a little clearer, I may admit that I’m waddling through the aftermath of a few deep nights and early mornings clacking away at my keyboard, strategizing with a more disciplined and niched approach than I have in the past, switching contexts with the speed and recklessness of an Olympian table tennis player, battling nausea from stress and metaphysical blockages I don’t quite understand (yet), and all the while crafting some language for a couple of awesome projects that I’m really not allowed to talk about here, but sometimes wish I could.

Earlier this week, I listened to a podcast interview between Kelly Wearstler and Rick Rubin while on one of my daily walks in the woods, close to my apartment. It’s one of those activities that keeps me sane after a session of deep work and writing: slipping on my one pair of running shoes—one peppered with holes, the other with a half-peeled heel—closing the laptop shut, and leaving without apology. Without explanation. Without a teeth-chattering message to send to a Machiavellian boss through Slack… yeah, I don’t miss those days.

Anyway. I found this particular interview on a whim while adjusting my headphone settings, seconds into stepping outside.

The air was chilly, the cement smelled magnetic due to the fresh sheen of rainwater, and I could not have been more excited to let the cooler temperatures sneak through the sleeves of my sweatshirt, and drop reminders of the coming autumn into my heart. The summer has felt a thousand years long. I’ve greatly missed it.

Once I found this podcast episode—realizing I hadn’t actually listened to Rick Rubin as an interviewer quite yet—I was already out of the suburban neighborhood down the street of my place, and turning right into the path below the never-ending canopy of enormous trees that formed a barrier between the busy, yet shockingly quiet, street, and the families nestled comfortably on the other side.

This realization always makes me pause; how funny, to constantly be on the edge between noise and silence, even when your reality can just be allocated to one at a time, depending on who and where you are.

You must understand that the reason I chose to listen to anything while on this walk—as someone who advocates for spending time with your own thoughts and absolutely loving the safety of my INNER WORLD—was because my brain was being especially unhelpful with its overthinking, catastrophizing, and using my imagination for the negative, and unproductive.

I didn’t want to deal with the noise, so instead of traipsing about in the woods with classical music—or nothing—like I would normally, I chose a conversation to observe, and allowed it to sit as background noise while I daydreamed and captured loose thoughts on my notes app through moments of clarity.

If you don’t capture your thoughts whenever they attack you, I don’t even know how you function. I used to let everything stir. Now I have dozens upon dozens of pages of texts to myself I capture every single week, on every walk. I am constantly bombarded with ideas. For me, there is no such thing as being bored. How can I be bored, when my mind is constantly running, and knows how to stimulate itself with imagination and observation? I imagine you might have similar thoughts, or perhaps something different, but don’t be afraid to make it clear to yourself that you refuse to choose boredom. People will tell you that boredom is fine, but it’s not. If you choose boredom, you’re choosing to be blind, deaf, and toothless.

Now.

The podcast itself.

You might be wondering what this has to do with anything.

(Un)surprisingly, it has to do with everything.

Kelly Wearstler and Rick Rubin are two people I deeply admire, and relate to in different ways. I understand Kelly, especially, for how and where she gets her inspiration—looking to sources beyond her project’s practice in order to craft something original—and how she sees the world through its many shapes, colors, and languages. She’s always felt like the twin flame mentor who is far more brilliant than me, but absolutely more unafraid, unabashed, and unrestrained by any potential anxieties or roadblocks or whatever other excuses we use to barricade ourselves from success. My past self is guilty of those, and while most of the chains have been rattled and removed, there are some that linger, like serpentine coils of iron painted in gold.

I don’t refer to Kelly’s intelligence and creativity as superior, or at least, more refined and confident, to be humble, but to express with great gratitude and delight that I finally have someone to relate to—outside of my interests, by the way, for I have no desire to be an interior designer, but you will always get my take on the medium of design as a whole—and learn from; someone creative and fascinating who feels directly connected to the belief systems I have, too.

I can’t remember exactly what made me want to talk about this, but there was a moment where Rick asked Kelly about color.

She explained very clearly, with great enthusiasm:

“Oh, God, color is so emotional.”

Those words unleashed a vision within me.

Read more

A Substacker will publish a 15,000-word article about how we all need to take things slow, and think differently, and pace ourselves, while clipping some interview with Donna Tartt that somehow “proves” beyond a shadow of a doubt that her way is the only way, and you convince yourself that’s the Way to Write, when you know deep within yourself that you rebel against that philosophy, but you’re so torn between a dozen different pieces of advice, opinions, and straight-up bullshit that you don’t know where to look anymore. On the other side the digital neighborhood, another Substacker will preach the exact opposite. Then somewhere else, carving down the middle of the faux-editorial backwash we’re spoonfed on a daily basis—regardless of where you are, because Substack is yet another social platform among a sea of social platforms, and anyone who denies that simply haven’t stepped out of their own delusion—is a writer who only knows how to sell solutions to problems they’re somehow comfortable writing about for the rest of their lives.

Don’t know about you, but I find the fate of the Substack course-sellers to be the most tragic. Could you imagine only writing about one educational/semi-helpful guru thing for the rest of your life? How boring. Anything that comes with teaching others in such a literal, step-by-step, dated way makes me want to rip random pieces of paper apart and set them aflame. I have a hard time believing these people actually enjoy what they’re doing. Maybe they do, but that’s likely because of the cash flow, and not because they’re passionate about creating article after article after article about the same, overblown, hyperbolic “HERE’S HOW TO MAKE OODLES OF MONEY WRITING THIS VERY SPECIFIC AND OVER-NICHED WAY” messaging. Or maybe they are. I guess judging these people is really blind of me, so I won’t try to push on that too much. But I will express my skepticism, as a writer who tried to do that once, in her own way, in a way that was genuinely helpful, only to find nothing but pain and misery and impatience and disgust and frustration and a complete lack of fulfillment that bled me fucking dry.

Every one of these writers—no matter who they are—on Substack seem to be building their identities and rhythms of publishing on glorified temper tantrums built on personal insecurities, and not truly thinking about the reader beyond the algorithm.

Don’t do this. Don’t do that. Write like this person. Don’t write like this person. Write six pages a day like Stephen King. Take years to publish one book like Donna Tart. Write magic systems like Brandon Sanderson. Go in blind like Pierce Brown. This is the best writer of all time. No, THIS is the best writer of all time. My mistake, actually, this is the worst writer of all time. My bad. So why are you following their example, again? Oh, because you’ve forgotten to think for yourself? That sounds familiar. Never mind, why are you not following them?I just told you they’re the best! Your writing voice can only be discovered if you follow Sylvia Plath’s writing routine, of course. No, scratch that. Virgina Woolf’s! No, actually, you need to think and write and be exactly someone else in order to embody a style you can only call yours… wait…

See the problem?

If you don’t, I’m gravely concerned for you.

I’m not going to be completely hypocritical here and boss you around with some fake nonsense about how your life is going to remain stupid and fickle and pathetic if you don’t follow my advice. But I will be brutally honest about how thinking and writing only for myself—in my way, on my time, and without any interference from the outside world—completely transformed my relationship with writing. Not in weeks. Not in months. Not in years. In days.

Do you understand that no one—literally no one—can write like you?

This is beyond perspective, and experience. This is beyond taste, and palate, and vision. While those things are exceptionally important—especially now, when most people are so disconnected from their own individual creative expression that they have a hard time seeing themselves among the drivel—they’re not what makes a writer who’s words are worth reading.

This is about creating and sculpting language in only the way you see, feel, and interact with words.

How you envision stories and thoughts and ideas and people and themes and loves and hates and messages and concepts and abstracts and literals taking shape through letters. Syntax. Patterns. Rhythm. The breathing in-between specific words. Syllables. You can feel it in how I write, maybe. Without editing, I write in many run-on sentences. If I’m aware, I will shorten them. Clip them. Add musicality and unexpected ideas in ways I like to do. Because the actual wordplay is a massive part of the expression for me. Whether I’m writing essays, or a quick thought to share on LinkedIn or Substack, or a piece of fiction gathering recognition and embodying a soul of its own in my computer’s veins.

As a writer, your relationship with words is sacred. It’s not something you can learn from someone else. I know this goes against so many teachings from phenomenally talented writers. But I don’t really care.

My job is not to tell you how to write.

It’s my responsibility—as a fellow writer on a never-ending journey of personal self-creation and writing writing writing—to encourage you to look deep within yourself, and take stock of what inspires you. What makes you move, and think, and create a certain why. What drives you to erase a sentence someone else would keep. What pushes you to think beyond the scope of the page, and what pulls you back. What weaknesses you possess that could be someone else’s grandest strength, and vice-versa. What makes you The Only Writer of Your Kind.

I hate quizzes, courses, exercises, templates, all that schlock. I absolutely despise the growing insecurity bred among people who just never understood or learned how to write for themselves, first, and so have to work backwards from pleasing the public (their mentors included) instead of discovering what sets their hearts and souls ablaze.

There is no point in writing anything if you’re only going to write like every other person before you.

Your voice has to come from a place that is uncopyable. Unidentifiable. Unique beyond any other thing you’ve come to see. Over-studying, over-editing, and over-learning from the examples of other writers will bog down your individual perspective and make you yet another template among the shopping mall of writers who could’ve been better than they are.

So, I encourage you, once again, to stop looking for inspiration from others.

Only you can decide how to write.

— Taylor Barnes.

Subscribe now

Share

there’s nothing wrong with not wanting to be in a community. the peer pressure to force friendships and find your tribe and conform to groups feels so backwards. we should be focused on growing as individuals and exploring ourselves as well as intentionally connecting with others, not trying to maximize the amount of relationships we can grab as fast and as brainlessly as possible—like some twisted gross fucking Rolodex.

the doormat dilemma.

kindness is wonderful. but so is conviction. Don’t confuse kindness with being an intentional doormat. A doormat will tell you that it’s virtuous to let others win and never yourself. very important you don’t listen to them.

the romance of the old movie experience.

there are very few things more beautiful to me than a vintage movie theater. oh to be one of those lucky patrons who got to dress up and sit in those seats and watch masterpieces unfold in a time where it was celebrated and respected and beloved.

brands need to know this.

the amount of creative finesse, vision and direction behind magazine editorials is unmatched and no one in other high-growth industries (tech, SaaS, AI) seem remotely interested in learning from their mastery of visual and language craft. massive missed opportunities there.

stop complaining. (while I complain)

social media is an ocean of opportunity and you have to remember that it’s completely optional. you can make any platform a place of expression if you want. the anger and annoyance comes from things we can’t change mixing with things we perceive we can’t change but actually can. the strategies to go viral on Instagram vs. minding your business and curating an art gallery that speaks to you will require you to make totally different moves, but you’re either not prepared to sacrifice fulfillment for attention OR sacrifice attention for fulfillment. you can choose which one you want. it’s not the platform’s responsibility to cater to you. you have a choice and it’s a privilege to have a choice.

no one knows how to spell anymore.

I HATE AUDIOBOOKS. and while I think they’re important and necessary and powerful, it does concern me how many people who only listen to audiobooks stopped learning how to fucking spell.

sometimes you’ll be let down.

if a client you love stops paying you or fail to fulfill their obligations to pay you for reasons beyond their control, it’s acceptable to leave. don’t feel guilty just because you like the client and you know it’s not their fault. you have standards and bills to pay. it’s not your responsibility to save someone else’s burning house when they fail to locate the water hose.

you’re choosing to not be creative.

literally anything can be gamified, fun, interesting, or a bedrock of creative inspiration if you learn to sculpt your worldview.

— Taylor Barnes.

Subscribe

Share

— Taylor Barnes.

Subscribe now

Share

It feels silly to even write that down, as a question. A thought. A consideration. Because for me it’s never been anything to consider, or question, or wonder about. It’s simply been a TRUTH embedded into my bones, designed into my DNA since the moment I stepped into the ocean that is advertising, narrative, and all the ripples borne from those origins—that brands not only can become art, or feel like art, but that they’re meant at their very core to resemble art in all forms.

The best brands in the world, the most timeless fixtures in history, culture, and the communities we create and break and disassemble and worship and tear apart and love and hate and adore and destroy and eviscerate and rebuild and laud and criticize and talk about and rant about and gossip about are CREATED with ARTFUL intention. There is no in-between. There is no escape from this. There is no argument around this very specific and very misunderstood area of BRAND CREATION that no one seems interested in talking about outside of their social circles, or coffee rendeszvous, or the occasional thread started up in a Slack channel gathering cobwebs like Nosferatu on his most social evenings.

Despite what you may think, I don’t mean treating brand as art in a literal sense. Well, in some ways, I do, but not in the concrete, 100% “I want this to be framed and hung up on my wall like a Rothko,” but in other ways I do. This won’t make any sense until you walk through this experience with me, whether you give a fuck about brands, you work in branding for a living, you’re just entering this world, or you’re curious about what this angle on brand could be about.

Let me explain before this essay gets out of hand and becomes a sculpture of another idea that intersects with the canvas of BRAND, ART, LANGUAGE, and the threads beyond that tempt me and pull me into their vortex of temptations on a daily basis.

We’re not going to walk through what a brand is, or dictionary poetry—because that’s what most people who write “how-to” and introductory articles focus on, so they can please the AIO and SEO gods and their nonsensical algorithmic chains—but we are going to walk through the parts of BRAND as an Idea, a Concept, a Living Entity that seeds and feeds into your everyday experiences. Mentally, physically, spiritually, conceptually.

First off, there’s no point in writing this if I’m going to try and speak for the WORLD and its billions upon billions of conflicting voices. Vox Populi, ad nauseam. The voice of the earth’s people translated and butchered through a perspective that could never align with the opinions of strangers because I have never lived those lives, have never walked in those shoes, and have never dreamed about walking their shores and eating their breakfasts and singing their songs and loving their lovers.

What I will tell you is that, from my point of view as a BRAND WRITER AT LARGE—freelancing, consulting, gallivanting about in the throes of language and design and all the physical and digital mediums that inspire those avenues—I go out of my way to treat every brand project like an art piece. However, I don’t treat it simply as expression; this is where the terminology gets a little muddled. If I were being too literal, I would be objectively incorrect about how brands should be labeled, because art is expression, and to treat a brand that’s designed to make money, garner attention, and develop interest as a living entity cannot be an expression of the self. At least, not on its own. It must be created in conjunction with purpose, mission, values, and a Reason to Be that extends way beyond a desire to make something aesthetically pleasing and basically functional. There needs to be a real problem to solve, and a solution created with intention and strategy, as well as, yes, artistry… and taste.

This is not an article about taste. Not entirely. But it’s one of those topics that have gained massive attention through trendy stories, even though it is one of the more important things we should be discussing as a collective, and as individuals. I’m not tired of this conversation at all, but I also don’t consume as much as other people. I mind my own business 90% of the time. However, that means when I finally carve my way back into the growing maelstrom that is the ecosystem around TASTE as a medium, a movement of thought, and whatever else both leading tastemakers and desperate chomping-at-the-bit boring-as-hell tastecosplayers are interested in gabbing about that day, I find myself confronting the inevitable fact that people are tired of a conversation they should be interested in having, but they’re so burnt-out by buzzwords and shallow takes that they would rather burn everyone at the stake than give the topic a decent fucking try.

As a brand writer, love working with contradictions. Ideas that don’t make sense at first glance, when combined, can make for some astonishingly beautiful outcomes. Portraits that move. Ideas that leap off the website, the page, the billboard. Stories designed with risk and elevated with perspective. To put it simply, if I’m crafting a narrative system for a brand, or a voice, or an identity, I’m always going to look at opposite industries, or inspirations beyond their immediate neighborhood. For example, if I’m going to write for a B2B software brand, I’m going to look at anywhere but other B2B software companies: fashion, apparel, jewelry, sportswear, fitness tech, restaurants… anything and everything with incredible worldbuilding and jaw-dropping palates. Going the exact opposite direction of where I’m working ignites a slew of ideas that no one else will think of.

The legendary Kelly Wearstler describes this perfectly, and it’s not surprising to me at all that someone with such an original palate has a similar point of view.

Now, the growing relationship between consumers and brands is fascinating to watch. It’s full of contradictions in its own way. Can’t help but empathize with the consumers for their growing frustration with performative brands. Can’t help but feel attached to the brands that are actually trying, and are damned anyway because they have the audacity to want to sell some things and make money and pay people and contribute to the economy.

Capitalism and art are not inherent enemies, but that’s an adjacent discussion for another time.

I can’t help but wonder, though—if brands tried a little harder, were not only honest but attempted to get to a rooted, more artful story at the heart, and positioned themselves as living POINTS OF VIEW, would consumers be more curious? Would they be interested in stepping into their worlds, and not just buying their products? Would it be possible to admire the work of modern and future brands like we’re gazing upon Warhol’s many faces of Marilyn Monroe? Would it be inspiring to tell stories that push the envelope beyond an overly strategized campaign designed to sell the product, rather than tell a story that invites the customer into their orbit? Would it be worth the cash? Worth the capital? Worth the bootstrapping?

Would it be worth the trade-off to try something a little different, a little wild, a little fucking incredible that might cost you a week’s worth of sleep but might pay off in years down the line, when everyone’s quoting that one tagline you came up with, when everyone’s referencing that color palette you chose that everyone thought was absolutely insane but you did it anyway, when everyone talks about the daring story you told with alarm bells going off, but you ignored them because you knew down to the bitten-down cuticle that the narrative you were crafting for the world to see would be fucking legendary?

I think it would.

There’s a reason we’re drawn to heritage brands. Heritage in general, actually. Storytelling that transcends generations and hypnotizes the individual, without overpromising or pushing their nose up your ass. There’s a sense of relatable wonder that stems from a brand actually giving a damn about their narrative. You feel it in the early works of Tiffany & Co. You recognize the footprints established in magazines like VOGUE that grab your attention on the shelves and walk you through their glossy pages. You slip on Nike sneakers and feel ready to take off into a marathon even though you’ve never lapped a couch in your entire life. You follow intentionally and unintentionally branded figures through visual and verbal systems that align with emotions and dreams and concepts that light you up from the inside, even when you’re trying to understand: “why? Why this? Why now? Why them?”

Sometimes that beautiful attempt to understand why BRANDS and ART speak to you is exactly why you should pay attention. Not trying to boss you around—as I’m realizing right now this is how it’s coming across—but share some advice that I could use myself. I always try to NOTICE what’s around me. I try to take stock of the beautiful things that come into my orbit. There is always something remarkable to observe and think about, to try to dissect and understand. There is always a brand, an art piece, a story, a figment of HUMAN IMAGINATION to mull over and wonder about.

So what the fuck does any of this have to do with BRANDS AS ART?

Everything.

Companies are becoming less interesting, by choice. They’re just not even trying. They’re either scared, or they’re convinced that they don’t have anything interesting to say, or do, or make. And that’s annoying, of course. Or… no, it’s much worse than an annoyance. It’s also signaling something much deeper that terrifies me, because there’s only so much control that I have as a person who writes for brands. I can push and push and push, but there’s only so much PUSHING I can do. If you’re in the brand world, you understand this. If I don’t start with a blank canvas and initiate collaborative creative control as soon as possible, and develop trust with the client and their partners, then the efforts feel extremely touchy, and the outcome rests solely on whether or not the person you’re working with trusts you to deliver ART, and not just a BRAND. If they want just a BRAND, they’re going to play the same game as everyone else, and suffer as a result. Their opportunity to challenge their industry and create a VOICE WORTH LISTENING TO dissolves the instant they acquiesce to the causes and machinations and expectations of the outside world and all its whittling, derivative, demonstrably idiotic rules and systems and laziness.

In my partially (and always) growing educated opinion—the only way to fight against this wave of UNINSPIRED BRAND NUMBNESS is to view BRANDS as a new, adjacent FUTURE AGE ART FORM that deserves the same treatment, consideration, intention, emotional investment, intelligent expression, and logical placement in culture as living, breathing, moving icons. This is the only way we’ll save the brands from the bland, the near-dead from the dead-and-forgotten, and the stories we want to tell from the stories we feel forced to tell.

There is a human connection to brands (and vice-versa) that reaches beyond consumerism and capitalism and products and purchasing and relationships and sales and copywriting and marketing and advertising. There is a responsibility brands have—especially when they move and speak like art—to respond to the subconscious messages consumers are sending to them.

There is also a responsibility of the CREATORS behind the BRAND(S) AS ART to trust their vision… and never, ever compromise their reasons to be.

— Taylor Barnes.

Subscribe now

Share

It’s cool in our apartment. A little too cold. My fuzzy socks are providing little barrier against the icy wooden floorboards, but it’s perfectly alright when I have the luxury of perspective. There’s a forest behind us, where a woodpecker has drilled a thousand not-too-suspicious holes into its sacrificial tree, and there’s the nightly song of frogs and crickets lingering like phantoms among the leaves and bark. Reasons to stay, and write, and think, without complaint, without a single want left in the tank, and a burning hunger to spill today’s thoughts as they come, like the most stubbornly slow sand through the most complicated spiraling hourglass.

The spot next to me on my couch is empty. You’re welcome to come sit, if you’d like. I have an espresso machine, so I could make you a coffee. I’m a “drink coffee all day and night” kinda person. I don’t have any limitations on coffee, and I find it very funny when someone finds it really strange to love drinking an espresso late at night. I’m an early bird, but honestly, with this Next Chapter I’m pursuing, the natural spool of creative energy that rushes through me unwinds and releases all kinds of imaginary threads through my conscience in the late hours of the night. This is when my writing seems to glow the most. Maybe it’s time for a routine change. Anyway. You didn’t ask for that, but that’s the kind of chats we’ll have on this couch. If you still want coffee, tell me what you like, and I’ll do my best to dress up an espresso cosplaying as a latte. Next time, though.

I have Sex & The City running in the background—potentially the most overrated guilty pleasure I’ve ever seen—because I can’t simply bother letting it occupy more than a quarter of my concentration right now as I write out this letter for you. It’s one of those shows that drags me in with its early 2000s aesthetic charm and New York City “running amok” flair, but the “plot” lines and characters and sense of humor (sex comedy is not my thing) are littered in cutesy caricatures and a type of feminine culture that I have a very difficult time relating to. It’s one of my mother’s favorite shows, so I wanted to give it a fair shot. There are pieces of it I like, though most of it is unwatchable, for all the reasons I mentioned earlier.

Believe it or not, this isn’t random.

You came here because I titled this essay something along the lines of “how to be interesting,” or something similar. Or whatever else. I haven’t decided yet. My argument stands regardless of what it’ll be in the end.

If you’re curious where this originally came from, you can glimpse this thoughtstream from last week (not a requirement, but some thoughtstreams find connections over weeks, if not months, and maybe years if we get to that point-we will—so you might get a kick out of it):

Now, I’m telling you this because this show has—despite its flaws, and despite its flimsy characters and over reliance on tropes—somehow probed my interest enough to have it playing in some capacity in the background.

Occasionally, I’ll lift my head from writing, crack a smile, then return to what I’m working on, because Carrie Bradshaw—the cleverest, wittiest, quirkiest, and most insufferable gremlin of her little posse—said something sparklingly funny in a way that dragged me away from what I was doing to see how her friends light up and laugh at whatever quip she just doled out.

It’s not a huge reaction. It’s not warranting of anything extreme. It’s just enough. It’s that dose of Something that you can’t really describe. That sparkle of Specific Enough to get your head to turn, your brain to flicker with a freshly lit match of Curiosity, and your thoughts to turn all of their attention towards that One Thing that’s driving all of those experiences.

You could call this innate curiosity. You could call this the desire to learn. You could call this the ability to NOTICE. You could honestly call this so many things that to list them all out would sound overly performative and I really do not have the energy, nor desire, to lay that all out to you right now.

It does make me think, though, about what makes people interesting.

The Most Interesting People are unbelievably curious. They’re intelligent, creative, and artistic. They have deeply insatiable passions and a flame that can never be quenched. There’s something magnetic about them that you can’t turn away from. They’re ambitious, and have their own opinions. They have conviction, and aren’t afraid to ruffle feathers, while also being flexible enough to listen to opposing views without damning the other. They don’t subscribe to extreme political identities, and have stories to tell and experience that are far, far more intriguing to digest than their gender, sex, or origin. I guess we can call these people MIPs, now that I think about it. Funny.

Don’t want to let this thought slip—MOST INTERESTING THINGS. (Don’t want to call these MITs, but it’s deeply amusing) That’s worth talking about, don’t you agree? That’s very exciting. I love that. Okay. When I think about the things personally, those are very clear and very obvious. They glitter like diamonds. From styling and typography in magazine spreads to language found in brands to how screenplays are formatted to how bathrooms can be designed like fine jewelry. The possibilities are endless and it can be addictive just to think about all of those interconnected threads of INTERESTING MICRO OBSESSIONS.

The Least Interesting people (once again, to me) are copycats. They have zero identity and they do nothing but wait for things to happen to them. They make excuses for everything. They’re not interested in anything—what a shock—and aren’t drawn to do anything with their life. They consume all day and never create. They’re constant victims. They lack hobbies. They’re so disengaged from the world that they simply don’t care about anything. You don’t want to talk to these people at all because what is there to even talk about? You can tell from looking at them that they would rather trade their brain for mindless dopamine.

Now, picture this on a grander scale.

The whole notion of Interest.

A ZONE OF INTEREST, if you will.

Haven’t seen that film, but it’s on my list. (Have you?)

We get interested in things for many reasons, of course. I’m not a neuroscientist and I’m not going to pretend that I understand all of the chemical and psychological reasons we become INTERESTED in Things and People. That’s a very diverse subject matter that requires research, studies, and a whole slew of other things I’m just not qualified to enter.

Think we should normalize admitting we don’t know things instead of pretending we do know things in order to get attention and validation from strangers who believe we know the things we don’t actually know. You know?

But what I do want to share is how I feel and experience these things on a deeply intimate level.

To be Interested is to acknowledge that the world is what it is, and your perspective and ability to view through the lens you’ve subconsciously and unconsciously crafted for yourself. It’s to celebrate, understand, and to know, and to share all of those things with the other person without actively telling or forcing those concepts down someone else’s throat.

People who are truly interesting don’t need to pretend.

They just are.

It’s that simple.

You feel it through their skin. You see it light up their eyes. Interest has its own identifiable signals. Things you can’t ignore. You can feel the insecurity from people who wish they were interesting, and easily compare that sensation to those who actually are interesting. The difference is impossible to ignore once it punches you in the face. It’s a good punch, too.

Did you read this expecting me to teach you how to be Interesting?

Now that’s a joke if I’ve ever written one.

No. Obviously not. And that shouldn’t be your goal. Your expectation. You need to realize that the fact you’re curious about this at all shows you’re already more interesting than you’ve given yourself credit for. You don’t need a stranger on the internet to tell you that. You don’t need some special book or course or super secret special awesome recipe to help you “unlock” being interesting.

There’s a very strange niche submarket of manipulative storytellers—because, yes, this is a part of storytelling that uses the forces of power for means of questionable returns—that will convince you to believe you can’t possibly achieve or do or think certain things without buying whatever they believe. Their belief systems are not your problem, and they’re not designed to help you. Not like this. Plenty of books and mentorships and courses will be worth your investment, but it should never feel vague. These are distractions dressed up as solutions. Always spot the difference.

If you’re still reading this, you’ve probably realized that, damn, you are more interesting than you thought. Because you’re interested.

(There’s an obvious correlation there that most people ignore but feels very clear once you get ahold of it).

You likely have a ton of things to talk about, learn, and share with others. With great excitement and greater aplomb. With ideas built on top of other ideas, and memories built on top of memories. Your interests are, after all, amalgamations of messy, scrapped, revived, and deeply felt and understood things that only you could truly appreciate on a cellular level, and only specific people will understand once you share them.

If you’re not sure what this means in a tangible way, there are a few ways to explore this for yourself. You likely have a wealth of knowledge and experiences and daydreams and stories and concepts and collections and passions and whatever else that propel your legs, arms, thoughts, and everything connected forward and onward into your everyday life. You likely have an overflowing fountain of beautiful collectibles—picked up and cherished and loved and observed from the digital and physical archives of your many many many experiences that no one could point out but yourself—and you are foaming at the mouth to share it all, share it all!

I’m not going to suggest specific things these might be, because I don’t know you, and you could be a librarian, or an astronaut, or an NBA player.

I don’t fucking know.

And I won’t pretend to know.

But what makes you interesting is really, really, painfully simple.

Just think about those things that light you up.

Be interested in other people, too. This isn’t an ego game. This is about unleashing, receiving, and reciprocating, and connecting. So, be interested in the stories of others. Their histories. Their futures. What they love and value and believe in. What they make. Engage with them. Engage with yourself. Return their Offers of Interest with your own things you love and value and believe in. To collaborate in conversation and thinking with things that make you interesting and what makes your Fellow Interested Party (FIP?) interesting is an act of respect and mutual exchange that will help you not only feel pretty damn good at the end of your conversation, but leave you inspired to make yourself even more interesting by feeding into the orbit of others.

Again, this is not to be confused with blowing up your ego. Being interesting doesn’t automatically mean you’re a good, cool, or neat person. It just means you’re going to have a way more fun life, because your perspective hasn’t been burdened by anything intrusive that doesn’t belong there.

Don’t stress about whether or not you’re “interesting.”

Think, create, and do. Follow the funnels of what makes you happy. What fills you up and lights you up. What stokes a flame inside. Those things only occur to interesting people. It ignites charisma and invokes magnetism.

I guess it really is that simple.

— Taylor Barnes.

Subscribe now

Share

is the freelancer dead? many other titles are taking precedence. consultant. fractional. advisor. contractor. there’s a growing disconnect between the value and terminology of freelancing from both the client and provider perspectives. an agency will come to you still asking if you’re a freelancer, but you’ll likely still position yourself as otherwise, even if that’s exactly what it is. thinking about this a lot as I yearn for the definition of freelancing that always remained true to me—that it’s a constant ANNOUNCEMENT and PROCLAMATION of identity, creative interest and unique problems to solve without any strings (chains?) attached. it might be freeing for some freelancers to label themselves as something less clear but fancier, but for others it might be an opportunity to reclaim the word as a signal. i’m interested, in my own career, how owning that label as a person versed in verbal identity, brand narrative and the craft of story could own this. and happily. i’m free as a bird and want to write in many ways in many fields for many brands and many people, myself included. there’s a vision of solitude and beauty and lovely things that come with that. like Audrey Hepburn directly injected her smile from Funny Face into my blood and gave me the internal permission that was always there, but for some reason I never wanted to believe. have you ever thought of that, as a FREELANCER? or maybe you do operate by another name that you’re happy with? does this word make you feel like you should be paid less, or valued less? do you feel constrained by it? it feels like one of those words that people felt the need to abandon for no other reason than deluded market perception, like they have less control over how they pitch themselves and make money from clients and brands unless they change their label. if you are wrestling with that, try to remember your work and point of view are the things that matter most. also being firm but also respectful. it doesn’t matter if you call yourself a freelancer or an advisor or a professional pigeon. do beautiful work in your exceptional way and that will travel with you long after you change your mind on your career.

— Taylor Barnes.

Subscribe

Actually, that’s a lie.

I am quite sure about how I feel about this.

Viciously sure.

And I’m viciously sure that this very strange, very unpleasant mass adoption of words-made-uninspiring-paste is reflective of something deeper.

I can already feel the ruffled feathers. The gritting teeth.

Understand that if you’re sensitive about this in the opposite way, and you have no desire to feel “attacked,” you might not want to read this.

I don’t believe in personally attacking anyone, or anything, as I believe everyone—especially, in fact, the people I deeply and heavily and personally disagree with on spiritual, political and whatever-al levels—should be allowed to say whatever the hell they want. Now, for some reason, countless people hate the idea of listening to opposing views so much that they feel the insatiable desire to brand themselves a victim; so much so, that when it has nothing to do with them as individuals, they’ll feel personally victimized, and they would rather throw a tantrum on social media, or send a spicy email, or something else that people with actual influence have experienced (and not me, heh)… though I imagine it’s a very sour thing to come across.

If this made you giggle, good… this is serious but also not serious at all, but perhaps in that veil of unseriousness you can find your own brand of seriousness; that’s basically what the show Succession does masterfully and I you haven’t watched that twisted satirical masterpiece, I highly recommend you do.

Okay. All silliness—or was it silliness?—aside…

I have a bitter relationship with trends.

It’s a dynamic as toxic as Carrie Bradshaw strolling through New York City, spectacularly dressed, but woefully delusional about her role as the undeniable common denominator in all her stories of misery. Thing is, I choose to be this strange Bradshaw level of toxicity, because I would rather give trends the cold shoulder than engage with them. I make a conscious effort to pull away from trends, hype, and viral topics. They’re not only irritating, but they’re not helpful. While everyone sees these as race cars of opportunity—and would rather hop on that harsh rubber track without even thinking of putting on a helmet—it’s blisteringly sad how quickly they’ll divorce their Spouse of Creative Integrity without even consulting them. Leaving their respective husband or wife or whatever works in this metaphor in a nasty fit of tears, wondering why they were abandoned in all their jewels and frills and timeless idealisms for the sake of a quick fuck.

I guess that is what it is, isn’t it? If your creativity, identity, story, personality, and all the things in which you devote yourself from the heart, soul, mind, flesh, and beyond is your Spouse in this scenario, than trends are the Mistress. They’re sweet, they’re gallivanting everywhere dripping with honey and syrup and sugary delight, but once they suck you in, the temptation transforms into consequence, and soon your left with a broken marriage, remorse, and a whole lot of regrets.

Niche commentators in multiple industries are harping constantly in your orbit. 50% are parading these mistresses around themselves, and the other 50% are complaining about them. I’ve seen people across all categories you can think of, passing through my social feeds like strangers in a fictitious rolodex.

And every single one presents a hopeful kind of spirit, with an image that might look casual enough to convince their viewers that they’re doing something more “real” compared to the person you saw five seconds before, featuring a splash of large, center-aligned text—most of which are leaning towards a bright, pale, gross yellow color, for some reason—while posing in a way that pretends to not be posing.

At first, maybe, you felt something. When trends begin, there’s something exciting about them. That’s why they become trends. Their short-lived lifespan is a testament to only one good thing about their reason to be: the fact that, at the beginning of their inception, they inspire someone enough to start creating something.

But, that’s where the positives end.

Before I start gutting the enormous, complicated fish that is the complete wreckage of words-turned-into-trends….

Something you should know about me is I consider myself to be an Honorary Hater. I feel things very strongly, and have opinions forged in iron and stone. They’re brutal and unforgiving. However, I try to be critical in a way that’s nuanced, no matter how white-hot I might get about a subject. I’m human, so I fail often. What I’m about to discuss with you is one of those topics where trying to measure myself against my own emotional and logical reasoning leads to a strange feeling of peacocking that I don’t want to subject you to. So… what you’ll receive instead is the variant of me that I wish everyone would do in their newsletters, social posts, and day-to-day coffee chats: the Truth.

This Truth that you may or may not be ready to hear is this:

It doesn’t matter if it momentarily brings you “joy” or “happiness” or a rush of beautiful golden dopamine that tricks you into believing you’ve created something you like… you have been persuaded to move further away from the language that feels right to you, and you’re adopting someone else’s voice.

Everyone says it doesn’t matter. “Steal from what works and make it your own.”

I understand the sentiment. I work in advertising and brand. I write for a living in many fields, for many people, in many ways. I get the methodology. To say that I’m “against” it would be untrue, but again, there’s nuance to this worth exploring.

However, don’t believe most people truly understand what this phrase means.

In fact, from what I’ve seen in the last few years, “steal from what works and make it your own” might as well be shortened to “steal what works.” Period.

Which is disgusting, by the way. And lazy. And shameful. And while we won’t get into the conversation everyone and their favorite LinkedIn influencer is having about artificial intelligence and the many ways the usage, lack of understanding, and widespread glamorization of these technological idols is directly influencing the conscious, guiltless theft of unoriginal ideas…

The responsibility is not on these tools, or the trends, or anyone. No one but yourself. You, or me, or any stranger facing these obstacles on their own have to arrive at the harsh reality that the individual has failed.

Maybe you’re not one of those people.

Maybe you’re hellbent on crafting your own things, and you’re resistant, and perhaps even more stubborn than I am.

To be honest, I don’t actually care what you do, as long as you have conviction, and real thinking and drive behind what you’re doing. (I don’t condone stealing in the name of “inspiration,” so please don’t misunderstand this sentiment)

The problem is, most people—instead of actually making something their own—usually slap on a new coat of paint, and pretend it’s something new crafted through their perspective. They lie to themselves first, then lie to the world.

This is the approach most people celebrate, and get really sensitive about, and I actually do think I understand why—humans are insecure, and they don't like being told what they’re doing isn’t fresh, or interesting, or good. Both smart and dumb people can fall into this category, so you’re not a special snowflake if you think

I genuinely don’t remember when this specific influx of butchered words started, but I know the practice won’t end anytime soon.

You know what I’m talking about.

Chic. Slop. Aura. Maxx.

Those are top of mind… but I know there are more.

They’re not interesting or intelligent or profound in any way. They’re just there to grab attention. Their definitions have warped and changed based on consumer behavior. This is nothing new, of course, but it’s something we need to keep in mind if we care about multigenerational literacy across the board.

My problem isn’t how these words are being defined. It’s the lack of power or yearning to understand why they’re used the way they are, and what they represent when you remove yourself from the Portrait of Life and take a long look at what’s unfolding in front of you.

“Chic,” for example, is a word that used to have strong cultural roots.

(It still does, I hope)

But with the glorification of the recent “It’s kinda chic to…” trend, it’s lost any and all weight.

What did it mean before? Does it matter? Does the weight or significance it held for the fashion community and culture even matter anymore? Does anyone care? Does anyone care that no one cares? Does anyone care that no one cares about anyone else caring?

The cycle continues. It drips into the folds of the future. It sucks from the innovation of the past like some disgusting little leech.

I might have too strong of an attachment to words, and our cultural vocabulary, and how we treat the definitions of words that were crafted and carved into the zeitgeist and chiseled their histories into the kind of marble we’re not meant to see.

But, I can’t imagine I’m the only one who feels like this, like the growing over-flexibility around the destruction of words, and the lazy application to trends and their slick velocity and gross rapid crash-and-burns, and the undeniable push towards thinking less and less and less about what we put out into the world should be fucking accepted.

I’m not a lemming, and neither are you.

But for some reason, our neighbors are spending all of their hard-earned energy racing to the bottom of the barrel, starting with how they speak.

And it’s affecting millions upon millions of others who take on those mantles and chant a Lie that directly opposes the Truth they’re trying to adopt.

Well-intended. Misdirected.

That being said…

Well-intended destruction is still destructive.

If you want to move away from this, and start to preserve the beauty of words, you have to ignore what everyone else is doing. Pursue your own path. Ignore the temptations. Remind yourself that those quick wins and millions upon millions of engagements and comments and potential riches are designed for someone else’s story, where they’re perfectly happy trading their diamond narrative for the burnt coal remains of a half-baked idea.

(And I use the word “idea” really fucking loosely)

Even if this reads as overdramatic… there’s a possibility you’re right.

But it doesn’t really change anything.

The world turns. People say what they want to say and do what they want to do. You have the choice to take this as something to keep in the back of your mind the next time you ready up your Substack note, Instagram post, or that article that’s been sitting in your drafts for months. That choice exists whether you even remember you read this or not.

And I guess what you do with that information is your business, isn’t it?

Good night and good luck,

— Taylor Barnes.

made a decision literally right this second—11:55 AM, right before I’m hopping on a very, very important call that’s making my skin buzz and eyes light up and my blood simmer in fire—that these off-the-dome ramblings need a specific column on this Substack. Why? Because I want to, mostly. The second reason is because they deserve to have their own home. We all have unorganized thoughts that deserve a place to stay. Some people love their notes apps. I don’t really love those, to be honest. I have a lot of thoughts to capture as I roam, but I prefer unleashing them all in one sitting if I can. The ideas stew, and stir, and flood, until they break a gate I can’t even see—more on that later, actually—and I’m suddenly bombarded with creative imagination and backlogged daydreams and full bottomless oceans rampant with the DESIRES and the BEAUTY and all the things I LOVE more than the air we need to breathe. (Do we love air, really? We respect it, but do we truly love it? Do we love it like we do our favorite books, or candies, or songs? I say I love air almost out of obligation, like I’m talking about an abusive boyfriend who might be controlling my finances, or something—with some kind of detached fear that if I admit I don’t actually love fair, it’ll spontaneously disappear, and I won’t have access to ). Wait, no. Your mind isn’t a dome. It’s a floodgate. FLOODGATES. They’re protecting an unbelievable amount of influence and power and danger as well, beautiful and terrible, but you have to be aware of those things before you can truly harness it. I have an ugly attachment to my floodgates. Guess it’s time to break them open. It’s really hard to shift identities between the Creator and the Curator, especially when working, but it’s vital to recognize the differences. Realizing this is a point we can all learn from, regardless of where we come from and how we work and think and make things, you know?

slop. chic. taste. fuck.

terms. social media. destruction. beautiful things. ugly things. templates. SO MANY TEMPLATES. reels, reels, reels. carousels. instagram. linkedIn. Substack. yelling. laziness. zero effort turned into glamorized “strategies.” courses, courses, and more courses. big blocky rebranding that screams desperation more than the fat straight-laced letters tinder is trying to pass off as something “new.” (new doesn’t always mean better). learning I'm getting too used to complaining about people who complain about complaining. complaintception. everyone jumps on trends and they all feel so boring, and lame, and dumb. you’re smarter than you think and you’re wasting your time trying to show up as everyone else. stop doing that. you have a voice, a story, an opinion, things you love and things you hate. don’t let the internet decide what you can and can’t say or should and shouldn’t say. did you know you actually have control over how you react? that you’re not automatically entitled to rage just because someone upset you? you have agency, choice, whatever buzzword you want to use to make yourself feel better. it’s a growing billion-dollar market opportunity to convince you that you don’t have control over your life and you need to “learn how money moves” as if a cotton dollar bill has a fucking soul attached to it. funny. also rich people are not inherently evil and poor people are not inherently virtuous. I loooooove monochromatic as a visual style and architectural point of view, but it’s becoming its own template, and the more I see myself copied and pasted, the more I realize I need to spend time recuperating within the PERSONAL PALACE OF MY OWN DESIGN. wrote about that this week, and really enjoyed that. “slop” is used too interchangeably and has lots definition. “chic” is a commodity now, and nothing more; a cheap costume that ironically has redefined itself through the cultural zeitgeist, and not what it was originally meant to convey.

your attitude needs to change. not substack.

if you’re new here, i left Substack for a hot minute because I had brainwashed myself into believing that the platform was the problem. it wasn’t. obviously. think we both know that, but i digress. it’s a really cool place. full of deep thinkers and stupid people pretending to be deep thinkers. I’m a weird hybrid of the two. (i mean, you have to be a little delusional to publish daily letters like this on top of freelancing, consulting, and working on personal fiction projects, right?) All social media platforms can be cool places. i experience this constantly; people waxing poetic about how “toxic” their platform is, but they conveniently forget that if they don’t like something… they can just scroll past it. they can ignore it. they can block people. they can just create, mind their business, and move on. if you don’t want to play in this ocean, you don’t have to. move along, and no one will miss you. or, stay, and learn how to adjust and stop being a victim. make every place you visit, digital or physical, an opportunity to express yourself and bend the rules the way you want. no one else is stopping you, and that’s a type of freedom millions of people don’t have.

i want to be big. REALLY BIG. but my way. not yours.

I told someone I admire the other day that I wanted this newsletter to be something extremely special, and huge, and something I can’t even properly visualize yet. I want to help people as I help myself—this multi-hyphenate writer who aspires to leave her footprint on the world across brand, art, digital culture, editorial, the internet, the physical mediums that translate our work and thoughts and creative blood in the way it was meant to, and a bunch of other things. this could be one of my BODIES OF WORK that deserve a place on my mantle when I’m 95 years old. I want that so bad. I believe in it so bad. the vision is all over the place, too, but so am I. (part of the appeal, you know?) It’s part of what makes my writing voice the way it is—this odd, misshapen, lovely, ugly thing that can come off as untamed but is designed to live as its own beast. I like it. some people will hate it. others won’t. that’s the whole point, remember? to just be yourself and live the life in your truest way, and tell stories in only the way you can. no restrictions and minimal outside inspiration. you are meant to create, not consume, so stop eating everyone else’s dishes and learn to make your own fucking recipe. it’s one of the many things I'm trying to do with this letter, with CUT YOUR TEETH, and all the things we talk about every day. dream big, have audacity, go after what you want, watch and eat and think and live and write the things you’ve always wanted. do it. you have to. no one else will.

i want to be rich.

in money. in art. in love. in peace. enough fucking said.

— Taylor Barnes.

It’s not really because I’ve never had a quiet, stubborn, slightly snoopy seedling of interest the last decade or so to explore this, but more because I’m only now realizing that I have conscious, self-granted permission to do, be, and act exactly the way I want to do, be, and act.

Your first instinct reading that headline is to probably think only about physical personal style. Your wardrobe. That one shirt you obsessed over on eBay. The one of many millions of Caroline Bessette clones flooding your Instagram feeds.

God, I’m so fucking tired of trends and people selling their brains and identities and souls just to look and sound remotely “relatable” for twenty-two and a half seconds of attention dripping in gold and glitter and all those sweet, stupid, stupendously silly Algorithm God Promises. I don’t drink, but seeing this shit makes me sympathize with those who do. Or feel some kinship with smokers, who trade stress and drink for the finger-twitching itch to fill their lungs with life-draining smoke. The need to escape is ripe. What a joke to witness on a mass scale. Is it not? You already know the answer. Trends are destroying everyone’s independence and creativity and sense of being who they want to be, and each person is solely responsible for it. We are not immune to the pleasures of Wanting to Be Liked, but we have to be present and conscious enough to understand when those desires we’ve conditioned ourselves to want are actually not at all what we fucking want.

In actuality, I’m not only referring to my wardrobe. Which, if I’m being fair, is the area that’s suffered the most in my adulthood, and childhood. Growing up, I was too busy, anxious, and stressed to invest creative energy or interest into how I dressed, and I was much more concerned with disappearing to lessen the chances of stirring conflict, rather than becoming more visible. Visibility was something I deeply loathed as a concept.

So, it’s one of the things I’m changing.

This flows from the internal expression and all its forms, to the clothes we wear on our bodies.

Most people like to talk about personal style as a wardrobe, only, but I like to consider it something much more layered than that. Instead of thinking of this as a $4,500/month closet you’d find in the darkest trenches of New York City locked in Dickensian stormy nights… picture a mansion.

Scratch that. A palace.

A Personal Palace.

A timeless vessel of beauty, vision, and an astonishing attention to detail that only you can create. And curate. And love. A building constructed of many walls, many windows, many drapes and pieces of furniture—maybe you have some empty rooms, too—all decorated and positioned in a way that reflects the person you are. An ode to the shapes, textures, sounds, sights, smells, fleeting ideas, half-realized dreams, drops of nightmares, and all the ugly and beautiful possible impossibles in-between.

A castle that truly mirrors, and captures, your personal style.

Across desires, dreams, ambitions, loves, losses, gifts, and weaknesses.

How this castle feels and looks is up to you, of course, but let your soul and mind wander free with this idea. Especially if you find yourself eager to discover the missing pieces you’ve unknowingly always wanted to reach. Reply to this letter with an idea you came up with. Would love to hear more about it. I expect every single person reading this will have remarkably different Personal Palaces, if they take this exercise seriously.

As I’m writing this, I’m thinking of my contrasting and converging personal tastes in the context of this Personal Palace. The volume of this idea feels too astronomical to try and write about in one letter that will, undoubtedly, turn into a letter about many other things. If you’re a multi-hyphenate person in any way, you understand this blockade.

Anyway. Palaces.

To put this as simply as I can muster right now, few visual things bring me more creative peace and stimulation than the stunning pieces of baroque architecture planted all over Rome, but in the same breath, few things make me more intrigued than the thinking that inspired the faceless walls and monolithic smooth stone surfaces of brutalism.

The maximal Classical Master meets the minimal Silent Obelisk.

There’s a lot to discuss in there, if you happen to be a more abstract thinker by day, and a more literal thinker by night.

If you are more of an Abstract Thinker, we should talk, because these kinds of thinking and imagination methods—from what we’re drawn to, to what we wish to create, to what we can’t explain we absolutely love and can’t live without—don’t resonate with everyone, but once you find the person that speaks in a similar language, it’s incredible what magical things you can create together, through art and exploration and all the facets in-between. Remember to not be afraid to pursue the intricacies behind your abstract or literal thinking, because—and I’ll be honest with you—I can be an outrageously stubborn Literal Thinker without meaning to be, too.

Before I get too far down the rabbit hole on that one, even if it is a glorious trail to travel…

If you were to ask me how I categorized my CREATIVE PALATE—and, yes, this is going to be the first in a series of letters specifically about this practice/art form hybrid… and yes, I did make this decision right now—I would tell you that it’s a constant storm of hidden contradictions and less obvious interweaving threads that inspire the architecture, wallpaper, paint job, furniture, and even the damn silverware of your Personal Palace.

Whether you’re the Maximal Baroque or the Minimal Brutalist. Or some glorious hybrid in-between that would make Kelly Wearstler break out in hives, because from a consumerism perspective you’re probably not going to get any interested eyes on a design that breaks too many rules to make any sense to anyone but you. (Then again, with how brilliant and versatile Wearstler is… she might love that idea).

Now, if it sounds a little repulsive to others but perfect to you, good. That’s the entire point, after all—to make a sanctuary of truly original ideas, thoughts, inspirations, and untold stories ruminating in that mind of yours that only you can truly understand. And it’s not for sale.

You might be scratching your head right now.

That’s okay.

We’re going to dream this up together, because what we’re planting here is meant to expand, fold, and build upon ideas that are unique to you. I didn’t have a proper name for this concept until I wrote “Personal Palace” in this letter, so please understand that this idea surprised me too.

Quick note—always be open to surprising yourself. To be frank, the act of creation is the only way to get there. You can’t outline, plan, or strategize your way there. You simply have to feel them out with your fingers, your brain, your mind. And the converging paths that branch off from them. You never know what shockingly valuable nuggets of gold are lurking in the trenches of your blisteringly brilliant subconscious abyss. It’s an ocean, ripe with kelp forests frayed around the edges with ideas of deep and sentimental power, old and fresh. These are the real secrets (that aren’t actually secrets) to creating new and beautiful things, from a perspective that’s truly yours.

I challenge you to visualize this for yourself.

This is not going to be a typical how-to anything, because this is an instinctive process for me, and to list it all out in numbers and words and all that garble won’t be helpful to you. The best, and most honest way, I can “guide” you as a person, is to just visualize this metaphor alongside you. My words. Your thoughts. Make sure your’e somewhere comfortable, because this might be the kind of exercise that makes you bring out your sketchbook and charcoal wands.

(Did you know there’s a brand that makes journals and paper out of recycled stone? I’ve never tried it, but I’m so curious).

Your Personal Palace is a place where anything and everything of deep value, intention, and artistry goes… as long as it’s yours.

Think of the walls. The rooms. The windows—both in shape, and the sheer amount. Window shutters, too. Are there plants? If so, what kind of vases are you looking for to support them? Do you have a garden? What about your bedroom? Your wardrobe? What would you hang on your walls? What coat of paint would you use? Does your living room have a coffee table? Are there sculptures suspended above the dining room table (if there is one)? Are you living in a humble cottage that would drive the most content fairy green with envy, or a mansion suspended deep in the Scottish highlands a la Logan Roy’s family legacy? Or perhaps you want to live in a white box, with laser-cut walls, no windows, and a simple white carpet where you can sit on a mat and think of the many inspirations that form the backbone of your life?

It simply doesn’t matter.

It can be as grandiose or as simple as it needs to be. It just needs to be yours. Do not go to Architectural Digest. Do not look at other images of houses. Do not look at inspiration for this. This must come from within. The point of this also has nothing to do with the actual aesthetics or design perspective, so understand that.

Once you have an idea of what your Personal Palace looks like from this perspective, we need to think of how you populate the rooms. These rooms are not rooms in literal terms—I know I keep using that word, but trust me, it’ll help you come to terms with this imagination project—but rooms that embody the parts of you that encompass expression, passions, interests, and all the diverging objects of thought and creativity that flow from those points.

I’m also going to challenge you to think about this as broadly or as narrowly as you want. This is less about following a strict regimen, and more about allowing your mind to let go of the chains you’ve placed upon yourself, and have a lot of fucking fun with introducing yourself—to yourself.

I’ll tell you what I’m thinking about, if you really need an example of what these “rooms” could look like for you…

The Wardrobe. See, not a literal room. Wardrobes are wardrobes. Not even considering a bedroom. Guess I’ll sleep on the lawn in this house. Anyway. The style I like is very, very simple, but I lean towards bookish, and almost corporate. And I like it. Because it’s mine. I’m learning that I really love menswear styles. Oxford shirts. Slacks with sneakers. Have always loved black, white, and monochromatic styles. I live in athletic wear, but want to take thing more seriously in this category. I don’t wear makeup, and my long, wild red hair is often swept up in a bun, but one of my missions is to actually get an expert to build me a custom hair routine so I don’t feel like a teeth-gritting teenager. Don’t wear jewelry. Don’t think I need it, but this might change once I actually get outfits together. (The idea of a capsule wardrobe is appealing, too)

The Writing Room. Another room that isn’t a room. It’s just who I am. I reserve a place in my mind, in this mental Personal Palace, to write. To always write. Without abandon and without measurement. It’s a private place, first, and always has been. I write to live and live to write. Fiction. Essays. (This newsletter is daily, after all). Brand writing for my clients. Editorial curation for others. It’s a blessing. A beautiful curse. My longest relationship to date.

The Literary & Arts Museum. I know it’s blasphemous, but I’m a writer who is extremely selective about what she reads, and is even more selective about books she buys. I only have my favorite novels purchased, and my partner and I can currently fit every single book we own on a small, lone bookshelf. Just trust me on that. This is a place for every piece of writing I love—novels, memoirs, design books, a couple of fashion books (I’m not even a fashion girl, but have you seen how beautiful and magnificently story-told these are?), magazines that inspired me in the middle of a shopping trip, and photography. Now, this Museum I’m picturing embodies all of those interests, and shows, in perfect balance, how the art of words, imagery, and culture intersect. Maybe literally.

I actually need to think on this more… but that’s the idea.

When you focus on creating a CREATIVE PALATE that lives as a source of truth within you, your passions become characters. Your interests start to develop voices that are unique from one another. They begin to take shape in a way that no one else ever thought possible. It’s a fascinating intersection of work and play that creatives seem really eager to skip, because most of them don’t believe that it’s possible to obtain. Or make.

Everyone’s talking about taste, and while taste is extraordinary valuable—and I’m afraid that the grand slopification of social media will ruin the word “taste” as much as it’s ruined the word “chic”—it’s not the whole story. It’s one piece of the major cosmic structure that forms you as a human being.

It’s not only about how you perceive and curate the world around you. It’s also about how you create, and the methods that start from the inside. Believe it or not, even though most people insist that there’s nothing “original” anymore, that’s simply not true. Originality begins when you open your eyes, and look inward. Those memories, passions, experiences, and the Personal Palace that exhibits your many converging and opposing tastes, are what nourish truly interesting and profound ideas.

Good luck, and good night,

— Taylor Barnes.

Subscribe now

Share

My giggles are gone—it’s late in the afternoon, and I haven’t had time to truly sit down and write for myself just yet—but the amusement behind this idea is not. So, it stays, and thankfully, so are you.

It’s 3:30 PM and I’m itching for my second coffee of the day, about a half an hour before a call I’m very much looking forward to. Maybe someday I’ll talk about this call and the aftermath, if all goes well…

Anyway.

This idea came to me in the shower, and so you have to suffer with me.

Or, laugh. Which is preferable.

The original concept behind this was to write a literal, bland as hell 20-step “guide” to show you how to be as boring as possible, packed with all the “advice” you see posted on every social media wall, on every LinkedIn article, and on every entrepreneurship-buzzing X feed. People like to fight me on what they consider actual useless advice, but if this helps clear any confusion, I consider any and all trends to be absolutely pointless.

I liked the idea, sure, but as soon as I opened up my laptop and finished writing the headline, something struck me.

Struck me not in the, say, lighting in a bottle sense, but more like a delicate little spark. A nip on the heel courtesy of a sentient cotton ball pretending to be a poodle. A perturbed sliver under the skin that you can’t quite pluck.

I stopped myself from pursuing the admittedly superficial and many-times-done idea, because I realized I was almost entering a pattern I have consciously tried to peel off my brain ever since I pivoted this newsletter for the thousandth time.

(If rebranding were a sport, I’d be a fucking Olympian).

And that pattern was accidentally falling into the exact habits I’m trying to break. By creating something silly and parodying, in a way, the marketing and sales storytelling behind masterclasses, and courses, and other pieces of purchasable things thrown at you on a daily basis, I was contributing an equal amount of shallowness.

I don’t even believe that these things I just listed off are inherently distasteful. Quite the contrary; I’ve invested many times into books, mentorships, and courses that have significantly changed my life, career, and self-awareness as a creative human—including Ogilvy on Advertising, which, to this day, serves as one of my personal bibles.

Now, why does this matter? In some ways, it doesn’t. I could’ve still gone through with what I was thinking about doing. It probably would’ve gotten at least a curious response. Maybe a few chuckles. Maybe a few swipes and disinterested shrugs. Maybe. But instead, what I would like to do is walk you through why this is important on a grander scale, because most people who are so quick to jump on trends and abandon their identity could use a solid, bare-bones kick in the teeth.

Writing daily personal essays is a commitment.

It’s a commitment that forces me to think about my ideas without falling into the temptation of going with what’s easiest, and what’s fastest. Especially right now, as I face an interesting career transition, living in a new apartment with my life partner, embarking on side quests that light the fire in my blood and a delicious current of lightning in my brain. Especially during this awkward time where I’m unleashing everything that comes to this dome, and practicing curation in terms of the Soul, and not of the usual parameters I would use to guard, systemize and deploy my taste.

I don’t think I’m a boring person.

SIDE NOTE. It’s 9:38 PM now. Been a few hours since I started this article. Been a few hours since I thought about the beginning of this. My eyes are glazing over, dry and tired and bloodshot. I think my thoughts have been stirring with the might of a whirlpool Odysseus would give the wide berth, because I’d completely forgotten I was writing this. It’s interesting to skim over this—because I’ve made a pact with myself to not cut anything glaring or sequential to these articles, as this is part of the entire point of writing CUT YOUR TEETH this way, as crippling, uncomfortable honesty is one of the most important ingredients to this messy, beautiful place. Now, as I’ve read, I’m leading myself to places I didn’t really think about before. This is the magic of writing that can’t really happen without the working of the brain in the background as you leave and commit yourself to other projects. Even when you’re not sure what to write about, let the ideas unfold as you go. Feel them flow from fingers to keyboard. Or pen and paper. If you have those, you’re a better person than me. I get carpal tunnel when I try to write with just pen and paper, sadly. I’m almost jealous.

But, I almost gave into a trope, rather than a proper idea.

A trope that would automatically chain me to the Kingdom of Bore—might write that down; there could be a short story idea lingering in-between those syllables—and I would have no one but myself to blame.

You might think this is silly.

Who cares? Who gives a shit, Taylor? Why would anyone give a flying fuck about whatever you’re trying out? Why does it matter if you post something thoughtless and silly and contrived? The rest of us do it. Why should we even pay attention to the flywheel you’re throwing at me right now? Goddamn.

Those are all potential, validated questions that could pop up as a response. I unconsciously anticipate them even when I don’t want to. I simply write, and think as I write, and publish. For this newsletter, I no longer put myself through the painstaking editing process, only because this is a test of the Self to push through the boundaries of limitations and see what’s possible when I allow the mind to unbind itself from the

I almost gave into the temptation of going with the funny joke of an idea that didn’t really align with who I am as a person, instead of writing out the answer to the question that was sitting in the back of my mind: “Why am I even considering the easy way out? I have so much I would rather say.”

I’m never going to discover my true, Undiscovered Strengths as a writer—and neither will you, by the way—if I (or you, once again—heh, aren’t I cool and meta) allow my distractions to guide me from dopamine-induced excitement to the addictive, syrupy-sweet promises teased to me through these half-baked, unexciting, shallow ideas?

So instead of giving you the parody of a 20-step guide, or course, or whatever—and honestly, if I’m chronically allergic to anything in the digital universe, it would be the abhorrent how-to guides that most freelance writers were stuck learning how to dish out for tech companies in 2018 to pay their bills—I think it’s more appropriate to give you the honest advice 99.9% of these gurus wish they knew how to give you in a fraction of their snake oil time projections. For free.

How to be so boring no one could possibly give a fuck about you even if you gave them all the sex, drugs, and money in the world.

The secret isn’t really a secret.

It’s simple, and it’s a trap even the most intelligent people fall for.

The “secret” is to constantly show up as someone else, and never as yourself. It’s to train your mind, soul, and heart to be that of a Consumer, and never the Creator. It’s to be so wrapped up in the opinions, stories, and time-limited narratives of others that you forget what it feels like to hear your own thoughts. It’s to be so paralyzed by the idea of unpopularity that you don’t even dare take the chance to fall flat on your face, even if that one mistake could lead to a life-changing win. It’s to be a person who steals, cuts, trims, screenshots, and copies, but never takes their scrambled vision to the canvas. It’s to be so embroiled in what’s happening now that you completely lose sight of history’s greatest stories that transcended tragedy, beauty, and curvatures of humanity. It’s to be the person that’s never curious, and never comfortable with their own thoughts, and never interested in creating anything of value for themselves.

To be boring is to sacrifice everything you are for everyone else.

And, yes, this is what most people are telling you to do.

Yes, you could go viral. You could make money. You could get attention.

That’s great, in its own way. I applaud earned success.

But then what? What will you have to show for it once the vibes end, you shed your old skin, and what you became known for doesn’t reflect you at the place you are right now? What will you do when everything you ignored makes sense, and nothing you actually did makes sense any longer? What will you do when the templates become obsolete, your writing folds within itself because you have’t shared an original thought in years, and everyone else has moved onto something sparklier, shinier, and prettier? What will you do when you dissolve into ashes? When you become insignificant?

Not sure how you’re feeling, but I’m not grinning anymore.

Goodnight, good morning, and good luck.

— Taylor Barnes.

When was the last time you had this conversation with yourself? Probably never, if you took the time to open this email. Newsletter. Column. Letter. Glorified diary entry dripping with too much to say and too much to think and not enough desire for harmful habits to make it half as good as anything Kerouac wrote. (Don’t really mean that, but you kind of get what I mean, yeah?) Whatever you want to call it, I guess. Doesn’t really matter. Now. Look. I’ll say it straight, because you deserve that, and you’re still rocking your way down this message, faster than I can mentally picture the entire portrait as it unfolds—your delusions are not fucking grandeur enough. You don’t dream big enough because you’ve never believed you were allowed to dream big. Or, to dream at all. Or, worse, you’ve had enough imagination to have grand dreams—for the dreamer is born, not made—and you’ve had visions, and you’ve had half-ideas borne from the blood and the soul and the trickling nightmare-delight hybrids you have never had explanations for, but somehow knew deep in your gut that they were real—and these, after all that… you ignored. You ignored those warnings and pursued the pain of others’ judgments. You ignored the good and chose the vile. You allowed the perspectives and opinions of Enemies and Allies alike poison your vision. The tears you’ve cried have been more for others and less for yourself. (Well, consciously, but we both know that those tears leaked from the eyes of the child within you who never had the audacity to challenge the system, say no to those who blocked them, and channeled their rage into horrendously addictive energy that made them stay up until midnight vomiting in the fucking toilet). this might hit too close to home. but you need to hear it. because I did, and if I could go back in time and shake myself by the shoulders, I would. I would, and I would scream into the face of the Girl I Was when I was old enough to understand where my heart wanted to go, but too afraid to pave the trail I wanted to pave. And I would wipe away her tears, and tell her to buck the fuck up and believe in herself and all that corny garble you don’t want to admit actually makes sense in the Hollywood makes-our-hearts-burst-into-flame way. Please understand that I’m telling you this because no one else had the gall. Please understand these are not warnings, but words of encouragement. Certified green lights to signal the traffic of your future. Your past. If I could go back in time, I would, but I can’t. Maybe you want to go back in time, as well, but you know you can’t. You can’t, and that’s okay, because the future still lacks tread. I’m giving you permission as a total fucking stranger because someone has to, because the only reason you’re still reading this is because you needed permission from someone who wouldn’t bullshit you. So I’m telling you right now that you can. You can fucking dream big. You can be so delusional it makes your chest tight and the air leave your lungs. You can be so unbelievably obsessed with your ideas and your dreams and your stories and your vision and your fucking everything that you can abandon the Dreams of Everyone Else behind and finally Achieve What You Want to Achieve.

You can. You will. You have to.

Good morning, good night, and good luck.

—Taylor Barnes.

There is nothing beautiful about complacency.

There is nothing beautiful about laziness. There is nothing beautiful about wallowing in self-pity. There is nothing beautiful about watching everyone else pursue their dreams while you drown yourself in self-inflicted woes (and lies). There is nothing beautiful about laughing at people who are actually trying, and insisting you’re superior because you didn’t have a shred of the audacity they did.

There is nothing beautiful about throwing Everything You Could Be away because you were given the excuse to do so by a random stranger on the internet that said you have every right to be angry about something you don’t actually understand.

Because it’s easier than ever now to broadcast victimhood and laziness and your bare-as-bones lack of giving a fuck, and you still wind up surprised that you’re not opening the doors you thought you would open. What a shock. What a disaster.

If you couldn’t tell, this is quite hideous, and not actually that funny at all, and to say I’m furious about the growing acceptance rate around this behavior is an understatement.

I’m angry about this strange unconscious shift towards intentional complacency because I was raised with the encouragement to pursue my dreams, no matter the cost, and to not let excuses define me—and yet, all around me, there is always at least one person who allows their misplaced hatred of society, or culture, or the government, or whatever else to direct and define their every move.

My mentors believe the same. The people I admire the most believe(d) the same. You think Michelangelo was complacent? You think he believed skipping the process of chiseling perfection out of marble and just “believing he deserved it” would’ve given him the same legacy that he has?

No. Obviously that would never happen. I could write an entire series of letters about Michelangelo alone, but he became who he was because he applied himself and he loved the work and he loved the process and nothing could’ve stopped him. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. He would look at the wave of complacency today and laugh. He would be thoroughly disgusted by the lack of effort. The lack of fucking passion.

We admire the greats for being the greatest. We study them because they’re the greatest. It’s the same with scientists. Engineers. Builders. Entrepreneurs. Thinkers. Inventors. Makers. Artists. Athletes.

For some reason, though, we have recently chosen a narrative of laziness, complacency as a verb—now that’s a joke if I’ve ever read one, and I’m no comedian—and it’s brainwashed countless young people into believing they’re entitled to things just because of who they are. Their lack of effort is a poison supported by their equally lazy and chronically depressed peers, and it shows. The leaks are obvious.

If that’s you, let me be frank, because the only kind way to approach this is to be clear:

You’ve been told you shouldn’t have to work by people who hate work, and insist you should be damned if you do love work. (This is worse if you actually want to be rich; wealth does not inherently equal villainy, and being poor does not automatically make you virtuous). You’ve been told to accept the bare minimum by people who would rather see everyone fail—including themselves—then allow themselves the chance to get rich. You’ve been told to not even try, because why should you when you’re apparently “owed” a debt by “the system?”

You might think I’m getting political out of nowhere, but if you do think that, I need to push you to think about this deeper—because this is exactly what complacency comes from.

Complacency, in my unprofessional opinion, is born from insecurity, and this only becomes worse when it’s encouraged and logirifed on a mass scale. Yes, you could say ChatGPT and Claude and their Big Daddies are responsible for the electric current of complacency, handholding, and perpetual self-deluded victimhood. But, I would argue that you always have a choice, and bending the knee to the Musks and Zuckerberg’s and Altman’s of the world will never, ever do you any favors.

The acceptance of complacency is the rejection of potential.

You will never find the next Steve Jobs twiddling his thumbs and mumbling about the world and how “everyone’s against him” and how he’s somehow the only special person on the planet who would rather be complacent, point fingers, blame your problems on growing global juggernauts like every AI company on the planet, get angry at the success of others while you do nothing on your couch, etc. and etc.

The people who will change the world are never going to worship complacency.

If you don’t want to be complacent, don’t ever lose that. This is becoming a remarkable thing, to actually give a fuck about what you do, to actually strive to be the best you can be, to actually make something out of yourself that lives long after you’re gone. This is, sadly, one of the ugliest things to happen to humanity, and our growing acceptance of it—the normalization, the glorification, the glamorization and all the descriptors you could possibly need (pull out a damn thesaurus if you must)—will only get worse.

While everyone else is racing to the bottom and trying to drag you down with them, be the first person to say “no, I actually care, and I’m going to give a damn about myself.”

If your friends want to waste their lives and squander their potential and pretend the world is against them, let them. Let them do what they want to do.

But you must have courage to defy that, and choose to act.

Reject complacency and you choose beauty.

Have conviction. Have passion. Have ambition.

Accept complacency and you choose The Curse of Eternal Ugliness.

Choose wisely.

— Taylor Barnes

Might delete later.

I’ve been a writer for a long time. A copywriter, still long… but less than writing in general. A creative, since I opened my eyes. Maybe even from the womb. An artist, always. Perhaps in the cycle before me, whether that was crafted by intelligent design, or God, or evolutionary circumstance that’s too complex for me to understand but always grabs ahold of me in a way where I have no choice but to fucking listen so what’s the point? So many of us are, you know. You, too. You’re an artist. A creative. A writer. Musician, maybe? Painter? Filmmaker? Director? Entrepreneur? The ambitious creator-of-all-things-you-love-more-than-air that no one can copy but everyone will try? You know this already, so I don’t need to tell you, but I’m going to anyway—why, oh why, the fuck are you still following trends? Why are you pursuing the algorithm? For quick wins? Shots to the moon? A rush of golden dopamine so sexy and sweet it runs like gold in the bristling caverns of your brain matter? You’re hardwired—down to the bone, your DNA, the billions upon billions of cells and atoms and all the other fantastical things that make you who you are—to make, make, make. To be, be, be. To create without rules, without laws, without the tethering of other’s demands. Experts will try to convince you that you have to follow trends to survive. I disagree. I’m going to prove it. In my way. And so will you. You’ll flip off the trends and channel your own path because you realize sooner or later that you have no choice, and the most remarkable artists that ever lived—from business to the classics and beyond—never, ever, gave a single fuck about short-term trends and limited beliefs. They radically pursued who they were. They created who they were through action. They never gave up. They pushed, and failed, and kept going. You ill do the same, because you are designed to breach the world’s open arms and feed its insatiable earth with creations and thoughts and ideas and concepts that only you, as your individual self, can create. You’re not a fucking trend, so stop acting like one.

If this burns you to read as it did for me to write, good.

Don’t let that warning eat you alive without a result.

— Taylor Barnes.

You drink the dopamine gold as if it were the finest wine.

What glitters on your social feed imprints on your brain. Yet another over-edited stranger on LinkedIn selling you a $27 course promising you’ll find “inspiration” through their half-baked, AI-generated garbage. Trends dominating the ads flooding your breaks in-between videos, podcasts, and personal writings are telling you to buy! Share! Review! Join our cult community!

Everywhere you look… there’s hell.

Noise. Signals. Lies. (Lazy) storytelling.

The more you consume, the less cognizant you become about what you consume. You stop paying attention to what you’re eating. You start losing sight of why you wanted to eat that thing to begin with.

Over time, you realize what a horrible mistake you’ve made, but once you realize what’s happened, it’s already too late—and you have no one but yourself to blame.

A grim tale, yes.

But, there’s more to this story than the foundations.

As someone who works in brand narrative and advertising, I don’t fault what advertising is meant to do—persuade you to buy things.

Or, more accurately, remind you of why you needed specific things to solve your problems to begin with. How it’s done can be tasteless and poorly motivated.

(But, in the right hands, it can be beautiful)

Now, here’s what I do fault:

The over-reliance on drinking in what’s spiraling through your everyday interactions like the aftermath of opened floodgates. The practice of completely letting yourself loose and wild in the trenches of overconsumption, because you’re—whether you admit it or not—more interested in escaping into a world someone else made, rather than planting your feet in a world of your own design.

You’d rather scrap your way onto Escapism Express than indulge in the makings of Originality Island.

If you disagree, that’s good.

It means you’ve been in that place before, and you’re fighting against it.

Or, it means you’ve recently realized the horrible place you’re in, and you’re tired of walking the same steps as everyone before you. Or, it means you’ve wasted an insulting amount of time trying to be liked instead of listening to the fragments of inner storytelling that shape you into an uncopyable someone. Or, it means you’re in a very confused—and very delusional—state, where you’re knee-deep in this bullshit, and you can’t see you’re just seconds away from drowning.

Most people are uncomfortable with being alone.

Some were not lucky enough to raise themselves on daydreaming, getting lost in their head, and letting their imagination play.

A tragedy that writes itself.

I’ve always been a daydreamer. A girl with her head in the clouds. My only fond memories from my childhood and teenage years was rooted in the stories and characters I created from nothing. I discovered a love of writing in kindergarten. No one taught me that. I just knew it. I just did it. I followed it, and it never stopped.

I never realized how much of an advantage being a daydreamer—a person who loves being in her own thoughts—would become as an adult in her early thirties.

I also never realized how important it would be in my line of work, and how listening to my early mentors was one of the worst mistakes I could’ve made as an inherent, intuitive storyteller. But, that’s a story for another time.

What I do think is vital to point out is how depressing it is that most people are so terrified of the effort it takes to look deep inside themselves and carve out the uncomfortable, the beautiful, the ugly, the terrible, the disastrous, the life-changing, and the moments in-between that make them irreplaceable.

This matters, because these are the ingredients behind truly original work. If you consume too much—if you barrage your mind with the thoughts, opinions, creations, and inspirations from other people—you slowly (but surely) lose your sense of self, and you sacrifice what makes you unique for the rush of some shallow “trend” that convinced you it was the right thing to do.

Write this down if you must:

To be original is a choice.

Most people give up before they truly try.

They would rather consume, instead.

They would rather fall victimhood to the brainwashing of cycle after cycle, social post after social post, news after news, celebrity after celebrity, gossip after gossip, announcement after announcement, and so on and so forth—instead of taking a very serious, and very challenging, and very rewarding, bet on themselves.

They would rather kiss the sugary-sweet promises of Everyone Else, rather than sculpt their passions, interests, and the blueprint of their soul into something remarkable.

Those tasks, the monumental ones, take time. They take time and blood and sacrifice. They require pain and delusion and recklessness. They ask you to sharpen your fangs to break into their world and whimper in the face of their masters. They ask you to trade what you can so you can finally see What Could Be.

They ask you to eat at their table. Sometimes, you do. When you recognize masters, you want to greedily mop up what’s on their plate. Sink your teeth in. Rip the flesh off the bone. Look into the eyes of the feast-bringers and raise your hackles. You have entered their domain. You will win. You will do what it takes because you’ve learned what conscious consumption should do—fuel the original stories within you.

Stories you then channel into work.

Into art. Into business. Into relationships.

Understand this, my friend:

You are not meant to be insignificant.

You are not an overconsumption slave.

You are meant to create.

So go.

Eat with intention.

Devour the world’s most beautiful things.

Consume what the masters made so your palate emerges refined and glorious and untouchable.

Then, abandon all caution…

And fucking create.

Connect with me on LinkedIn.

If you’re interested in exploring what I do for clients, hunt the White Stag.

See you soon,

Taylor