Creativity Won't Save You From the Cubicle

But it's the only way to become a good person.

Happy Saturday Morning. Thank you for reading. I know you could be watching cartoons.

This week was about creativity, escaping the cubicle, and how fiction is the only way to become a good person.

Let’s dive in.

---

Hot take: I hate calling AT&T.

I feel that I’m never talking to a human being. The monolith just borrows the mouth of whatever poor soul was assigned to answer my call after 2 hours.

“I have one question. Please don’t put me on hold again.”

“OK, no problem. I just need to transfer you. Please hold, sir.”

It feels like bureaucrats and blind rule-followers seek to invade every aspect of our lives.

In an act of fear, they make life into an algorithmic machine at the cost of their spirit. The bureaucrat's vision is a world without story or song—those can’t be crammed into a spreadsheet.

To the extent that we don’t rage against them, we are their slaves.

Rage Against The Dying of Your Story

“In the animal kingdom, the rule is, eat or be eaten; in the human kingdom, define or be defined.” — Thomas Szasz

Depression, in my case at least, could have been defined as “the failure to define and act out a personal story.”

Seen in this light, it’s easy to feel a sense of understanding—maybe even forgiveness. Building out a personal story is hard. It’s even harder when the people around you are so afraid that they seek to systematize the spirit out of the world. When we do that, we create a sense of certainty but leave each other with no story.

The natural state of people is ecstatic meaning. For thousands of years, while struggling to have enough food to eat and water to drink, humans created art, dance, and drama.

What happened to us?

Why are we lethargic, nihilistic, and bored when we have so much to be grateful for?

And, if we feel that the world is terribly screwed up, why don’t we have the energy to do something about it?

This is not a skin-deep issue. This is an issue of meaning. Of story.

How to Save Your Story From The Cubicle

It’s not that writing a novel will save you from your desk job.

People go to their job, act like victimized robots, and then expect to go home and write a masterpiece of fiction. By definition, that won’t work.

Fiction is moral. Without morals, we aren’t even interested in stories. It follows, then, that if you want to be a great teller of morals, you have to be a great actor of morals. (Or, at least, an interesting one).

That means you can’t wait for creative achievement to save you from the cubicle.

In fact, it’s exactly the other way around: You must save the creative potential inside you from the cubicle. You’re the hero—not the novel, TV show, or metal album.

In fact, we should be grateful to the cubicle for giving us the opportunity and resources to create something great (I know, right?). Turn our prison into a cacoon.

We are sometimes so wrapped up in the story of the modern world that it’s hard to recognize that life could be any other way.

Well, it can. I know it can—I’ve caught glimpses and seen it drastically change people around me.

Don’t be a mere storyteller.

Live a great story.

Talk next week,

Taylor

Share this newsletter with someone who has a novel sitting in their desk drawer.

Or, subscribe if someone sent this to you:

---

This week’s newsletter was inspired by the two posts of the week:

Fiction Is The Only Way to Become a Better Person

One Reason Creative Achievement Won’t Save You From The Cubicle

---

P.S.

Here are the quotes I’m pondering:

“A human being is a deciding being.” — Viktor Frankl

"Thinking is difficult, that’s why most people judge." - Carl Jung

“Be careful, lest in casting out your demon you exorcise the best thing in you.” —Friedrich Nietzsche