DON'T BE AFRAID OF EMPTY ROOMS.

CUT YOUR TEETH is for the creators who sit at the intersection of taste, ambition, and business—because no one told you it's okay to be all three.

Most of this room is empty.

I’m not sure where to put my desk yet, but the living room will do, with its large space and general energy of “I’m not quite finished, but don’t give up on me yet.” As desks do.

I feel compelled to think, and sit in silence, and leave my headphones in my drawer while I write, and I honestly can’t remember the last time I felt that way. I’ve always loved thinking, going on walks, and writing from spare streams of inspiration that hit me like a delicate little spark during the most random times. Usually, they would come to me when I was moving too quickly, and too elevated, to take it all in.

In the last few days, they’ve arrived in steady streams. They see the pockets of rest and fill those crevices with fresh ideas, reinvigorated gratitude, and a sense of belonging that hasn’t been there for a long time.

This is the first place my partner and I have lived in together, on our own. Just the two of us. We were living with our mutual best friend for a few years, then decided that it was time to find our own place.

I won’t bore you with the details—”moving” is right up there with “putting together IKEA furniture” as one of my least-liked activities—but just know I’m truly lucky to have a partner like mine.

He’s stable. He’s supportive. He’s calm.

I’m a little crazy, a little eccentric, and I have moments that require deep patience and even more flexible understanding from a person who chooses to be with me the rest of our short, long, silly little lives.

It’s a big change, for the both of us.

To locate to a neighborhood that’s quiet. Trees flicker behind our new patio. We hear birds chirp in the morning. The floors are all wooden, so you can feel the cold through your socks, but you’re glad, because this means you’ll actually get a full night’s sleep most nights.

Before this place, I faced nothing but concrete, loud freeway noise, the taste of rubber in the air. I was frustrated about being surrounded by tall buildings and loud cars. I wanted more greenery, more silence, and more space to think.

So, we found a place. Perfect for the both of us.

It’s days like these where I’m reminded the emptiest rooms—be it in your house, the woods, on a walk, or in that little jittery space in the back of your own mind—is where the creative muscle truly works.

No one should be afraid of empty rooms.

Unfortunately, most people do.

And this is what I would like to write about today, for you.

For me. For all of us.

You might think I’m exaggerating.

Part of me wants you to be right. The other part of me wants to shake you until you have no choice but to look at the obvious tragedy that’s shaking the world, one mechanical first at a time. This part of me will do anything it can to open your stubborn eyelids and force it to admire the windfall of smooth-brained idiocy that’s devouring our human culture.

In my thirty-one years on this planet, I can’t think of a time where I’ve been more collectively concerned for the human race.

For what more serious matter is there, than to watch the decline of the one thing all humans are meant to do? The will to create—reaching its finality with no one to save it?

The lack of risk-taking. The lack of desire to be anything more than you are. The lack of wanting to do anything different. The lack of individuality. The lack of self-belief. The lack of desire to make things just to make things. The lack of the internal, restless fire that pushes you to exist for reasons outside your innate biological instinct.

Strangely enough, the only modern people I meet who defy these expectations are on platforms like LinkedIn, or perhaps, Substack. They’re not afraid to talk deeply about business, entrepreneurship, culture, and art. They’re not afraid to call attention to brands who are struggling to do anything remotely interesting.

However, the truly elite intellectuals are minding their own business, reading books from people who were too wise and upright for the world we live in now—minds like Plato, Hypatia, Socrates, Epictetus, and the like—and showing the actions of the immortal through examples we will likely never see.

I can guess, because when we observe and read from the world’s most brilliant minds, we attribute mannerisms to them that make sense. If we see a smart person move, we try to learn from them. We want to be like them. (Or, at least, I did, and have)

This problem is systemic.

It’s not solely related to the workforce.

It’s not solely attributed to non-creatives.

It’s on a deeper, more holistic scale, ranging from the people critiquing the art of others, to apologizers for those monetizing generative AI creations, to the strange in-between where a complete lack of identity directly correlates to a need to be adored by people who don’t matter.

More creative people are spending their energy on being recognized for being creative rather than creating the work.

More non-creative people are spending their energy defending tools that eliminate the creative process, and thus, encouraging the growing elimination of quality human-crafted art. And business.

This epidemic is burning within us. As individuals, and as a collective. As much as I dislike the idea of us all being connected symbiotically, biologically, or even spiritually, I have to accept that so much of this is ingrained in human nature, and my attempt to resist it will only keep creating static pushbacks that I really don’t like.

I feel the jaws of this epidemic closing in, even though I will never accept it. I can accept certain things are not in my control, sure, but I can’t accept this as one of them.

People are reading less. They’re writing less. They’re thinking less. They’re making less. They’re “generating” more, however. Artificial intelligence has convinced stupid and intelligent people alike that they’re using them as “thought partners” when, most of the time, they’re being manipulated by mirrored language they can’t truly out-prompt. (Believe me, I’ve tried)

They’re becoming so enamored with the idea of doing nothing that they have no idea what it’s like to create for the love of the act.

The process is where the real magic happens. I write because I love to write. The process matters just as much, if not more, than the final product.

“Prompting” AI to “write” a book for you is not the same as writing a book, and anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is lying. If you’re telling yourself such a crazy falsehood, be brutally honest. You’re not an artist. You’re an imitator desperate for an identity, and your insecurity in your ability to create anything from who you are now is what’s lured you into the steel jaws of AI idealisms.

I’m actually not anti-AI.

But I am anti-AI when it comes to art. The whole point of expression is to express yourself. If you lose the ability to express yourself—which, yes, the machine does take that ability away the second you outsource anything—you lose the right to call your art, art.

No one wants to be creative anymore.

They would rather be lazy and pretend they’re creative, instead.

What a shame.

But then again… what an opportunity for the rest of us.

The ones who give a damn.

The ones who love to create.

The ones who love the pain and pleasure of the process.

The ones who suffer with neurodivergence, disabilities, and adjacent problems, and don’t use those truths as excuses to be less creative.

Self-honesty is where creativity begins.

It’s now become easier than ever to delude ourselves into being dishonest.

Encouraged by the masses.

Monetized by those unseen.

Let me know what you’re itching to see from future emails.

This is your world as much as it’s mine.

See you next week, Toothcutter—

Taylor