I'm trying something new in this newsletter edition. Instead of focusing on one topic, I'm talking more about my week as a whole--life updates, learnings I've had, and content I'm creating. I was inspired by my good friend John Mavrick's newsletter Weekly Wonderings. Please reply to this email how you find it!

This week I:

• 🪶Continued writing poetry for my upcoming video
• 💘Had a interesting interfaith dating experience
• 💃Tried Zumba for the first time ever.

P.S.: We're coming up to the 100th issue of Aidan's Infinite Play (<-- actually insane) and I would like to do some sort of Q&A for that issue. If you have some question, any question about ideas, me, or anything honestly, please reply to this email with it so I can add it for that all spicy 100.

So, I Learned Poetry In 30 Days...

As I wrote about last week, I'm trying to learn poetry in 30 days. I never got poetry. I was taught to treat it like an academic war dance, taking my analytic knife and attempting to cut up each section—I’m sorry, stanza—into little pieces to identify what in goodness gracious was going on. Most of the time I was left disappointed. But after reading some poems from one of my great friends, I felt I had to give it another chance.

Boy I'm glad I did.

There's something magical about poetry. To paraphrase, Russian Literary critic Viktor Shklovsky: good art makes familiar things seem strange and strange things feel familiar.

This is called Strangefying, and it's one of the things poetry does best. Great poetry connects disparate ideas together through association to convey meaning. In this way, it can describe a strange feeling like that of romantic infatuation as falling out a window through, soft, wispy clouds, into a wheel barrow of knives. Or it can reframe how you see a familiar feeling like using technology, your phone for example As Arthur Clark explains: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

Poetry's power of association is what allows this strangefying process. This is why cliches are so bad. They’re once interesting language which has gone stale like an old piece of bread. They don’t give that novel shit our brains want.

There's another reason poetry is so powerful: it's super simple.

I don't mean simple in meaning, I mean simple in form. In English for example, all poems are made up of the 26 characters of the alphabet. That's it. This is different from other art mediums which often include various other auditory, gustatory, tactile, visual, and oratory sensations.

By de-emphasizing the role of sensations and realistic appearance of the physical world, poems put themselves more in the realm of the imaginary.

So, expect a video and article on poetry in the future. For now, here's one of my personal favorites of the poems I've written below. A good number of friends have said it was fire--one even said I should get it published. I don't know about that last one but I was flattered.

🪶Does Atlas Crack Under The Weight Of The World?

By Aidan Helfant

Sometimes I find myself beside him in the dark of night,
when doubts haunt my mind, and I'm looking for a light: The Thinker.

Stoic he sits, wrestling with riddles that bind the stars.
On his iron throne stone, he seems invincible.
His metal muscles shining, in the moonlight, he is impenetrable.

Did the man who is the thinker, know what he would become?
Did he too waver beneath virtue's weight, like a beaten drum?
What wars were waged in the battlefield of his mind?
Were victories lost, territories resigned?
If yes, why do we see him whole and pure?
Should he not be broken, yet made to endure,
like Japanese Kintsugi pottery,
the cracks becoming a sign of old,
yet more beautiful because, like us we know,
he fought, he cried, he struggled,
and almost
broke...

Will others gaze at me as I gaze at him?
Am I to be a brazen brass statue, stoic and strong?
Will they know how I toiled, like the titan who holds up the sky?
Sweating, straining, tensing, training,
each moment of rest feeling like betrayal's sting,
each pause a sin against everything.

If that's to be my fate, then let me lift higher still,
let my brass frame bear more so others can play,
for if they glimpse the cracks beneath my gleaming face,
perhaps they'll never dare to take my place.

💘My Interfaith Dating Experience

For the last three weeks I've been dating a Christian woman. Here's the thing: I've been atheist my whole life. But in the spirit of open mindedness and curiosity I decided to give it a shot.

It didn't work out... But I learned a lot about religion in the process. And, I got to meet a lovely woman. I mean what I say next with the utmost respect.

While dating, I went to church, bible study, and had many conversations with my Christian friends and non-Christian friends about faith. Ultimately, I resonate deeply with the values which underly Christianity and many religions for that matter. Kindness, gratitude, honesty, are my favorite style of pina callada.

My main problem is the foundation of all of these values is based on beliefs I fundamentally don't resonate with. I don't believe in God. I don't believe in original sin. I don't believe in hell unless you count the waiting room for the DMV.

I'm a super curious individual and to me religions can hurt that curiosity. Imagine all the things you could explore in the world is starlight filtered through stained glass, creating thousands of truth shattered hues. Religions to me, take one color they see, and name it things like Christianity. For when you believe in Him, you put on rose tinted glasses, every other color combining in masses, to the only color it could be, God, God, God, pray to me.

But what makes me sad is they'll never see, how many other colors there could be.

And sorry, my poetry pizazz was coming through there.

Again this is just my opinion--aside from my reservations with religion, it was a profoundly growing experience. I understand the beauty of the one color they do see. It brings community and meaning in a world which can seem so grey. I met many wonderful people through this dating experience. It's just, not for me. I have religious friends who are profoundly curious. It's just, more rare than non-religious people from my experience.

💃Zumba Is Fun

I've been going to the gym for four years. I think I can confidently say I look like a slightly more toned version of Jim from the office. But my flexibility is that of a dead tortoise.

So, I figured I'd try some Zumba--a fitness program that involves cardio and Latin-inspired dance. It's so much fun. Sure, the first class I flopped around like a Goldfish on speed, but I soon got used to it after a few classes. I'm confident to say, I'm slightly less bad at dancing as I was before.

My goal is to become more flexible and in control of my body. As a guy this is especially important to me. We're usually thought of as gorillas that happen to wear clothes, so this might help fight the stereotype a little. Plus, I got interested in learning more about emotional intelligence a few months ago, and this should tag along nicely.

📸News From The Channel!

📺Latest On De YouTube - The Game That Makes You Want To Die, And Like It Elden Ring players routinely die over and over and over again, and yet keep coming back for more. Why? From overcoming challenges to personal growth, this video explores why millions love these notoriously difficult games and how it can transform our real lives.

🎙️Latest On De Podcast - 🎮Aidan's Infinite Play: E47 Jordan Minor: Video Game Of The Year:
Jordan Minor is the Author of VIDEO GAME OF THE YEAR, a unionized PCMag writer, and a self-proclaimed fake Street Sharks guy.

In this podcast you will learn:

• What makes a revolutionary video game?
• How video games as a medium differ from other mediums?
• Underrated and overrated video games?

🎙️Latest On De Podcast - 🌄Digital Self-Actualization: E2: How Can We Motivate Ourselves To Self Actualize?: What is motivation? What type of motivation is best for self-actualization? How can we build this motivation in our lives?

💡My Best Insights:

P.S. Some of the links below are Amazon affiliate links.
📖Book - We Have No Idea: This physics book will make you appreciate the incredible amount we don't know about the Universe. It will humble you. It will put you in your place. And then, it will make you more curious than ever. And this is coming from a guy who avoids math like asparagus.
📺YouTube Video - How The Frogs Cooked Dinner: Ye know that myth about the frog that wanted to cross a river with a scorpion and then the scorpion killed them both by stinging the frog halfway through? This video turns it into a extended narrative serving as a metaphor for the problem of faithless nihilistic pessimism in a world lacking of meaning. It's bloody beautiful.