🪶AIP 99 Poetry, Selling Like An Artist, And Optimistic Absurdism
This week I:
- 🪶Continued writing poetry for my upcoming video
- 💸Had a valuable insight about selling like an artist
- 🫏Learned about my new personal life philosophy: Optimistic Absurdism
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.
🪶More Poetry Writing
Since beginning my poetry writing journey about a month ago, I've written over 10 poems or the average number of individual sesame seeds on a McDonald's Big Mac bun. I believe this scientific term for this is "addicted," but I prefer to call it a "healthy hobby?" What would we do without euphemisms am I right?
Anyways, here's one of the poems I wrote this last week I think will resonate with you since I assume like me you had a childhood. If you did not, please reply to the email--I would very much like to have a conversation.
Elegy To That Little Boy
By Aidan Helfant
Sometimes I’ll spare myself a passing glance,
in a puddle in the rain,
walking to God knows what.
In the puddle I see That Little Boy. At times I consider jumping through the puddle and taking over his life. What a simpler life that would be. But then, what would he feel if he looked through the puddle—excited, scared, or just puzzled? Would he want to jump through?
I still remember him...
Deltora’s Quest, Terraria, Harry Potter, piñatas, ice cream delights, Monopoly, shy crushes, pornography, movie nights, soccer games, classroom strife's, Minecraft parties late at night, endless white bread and stupid fights, sleep overs with stolen wine—or was it grape juice—never mind, not a thought of wasted time.
His world was wrapped in bubble wrap, protected from the outsides traps, finding joy in a days relax, like a Golden Retriever, playing in the grass.
At times like those... I get an incredible urge to reach into the puddle and hold that boy; hold him like your favorite stuffed animal. I’d whisper in his ear.
*Cherish it.
Cherish that childhood bliss you now have.
Because one day, you’ll come home and you’ll see Terraria is now taxes, sleepovers are now sleepless nights, and that simple joy is now God shining a giant middle finger while spinning his massive galactic co—
Then after I’d scared the shit out of him, I’d hug him closer and say:
And yet when you’re me,
you’ll cherish that too,
because you know if life was a buffet,
where you only ate from a single place—it’d be pretty fucking bland!
So cherish each time for its own,
because after all,
me is me,
and you is you,
and I would never trade how I've grown,
for the simple experiences of youth.
💸The Art Of Selling As An Artist
I've long struggled with figuring out how to sell as an artist without sacrificing my soul. After watching this fantastic video by Ryan Ng Films, I think I finally have a understanding how.
Which is why todays newsletter is sponsored by Coca Cola! Spend your holidays inside relaxing with your family while enjoying a nice glass of--okay you got me I'm joking.
In the video brings up this idea: if you really love your art so much, you would want to give it the care it needs to reach other people.
Or as my girlfriend likes to say: your vision deserves better than to suffocate in half-measures. I'm just kidding I don't have a girlfriend, but I do have a lot of art, which has not reached the audience I was intending because of improper marketing.
I think artists like me tend to have this romantic conception that if we simply make something good enough, people will come. That might have worked two hundred years ago, but now we have the internet, and more content than one could watch in many many lifetimes. It's no longer enough, to just make great art.
So, you have to market. The important caveat here is you have to market authentically. Treat it like a game. Experiment. See how it feels. And double down on what works. Personally, I find linking my content in this newsletter feels great, but I need to do more. So in the future I'm going to give my hand with YouTube shorts, and physical printing of YouTube posters to put around Cornell (no idea how that's going to go). I'll tell you how that goes in future editions.
🫏My New Life Philosophy: Optimistic Absurdism
Anyone who read last weeks newsletter on interfaith dating knows I have a complicated relationship with religion and philosophies in general.
I grew up in an atheist household. On the one hand, I'm a pretty big skeptic about anything science might term "a load of beeswax," but on the other hand I have a profound resonance with many aspects of religion and spirituality. I want to find a philosophy/religion that resonates with me but I also am scared of labelling myself as anything because it might put me into a box which hinders my curiosity and open mindedness.
These problems didn't seem present when I came across Optimistic Absurdism from exurb1a (he's my favorite philosophy YouTuber by far, you should start with his Exam for humans if you have never watched him).
Optimistic Absurdism has two aspects to it.
First, it's optimistic. It recognizes there are bad things happening in the world and lots of life is fundamentally unfair and that pigeons have to eat their lunch on the ground, but it empowers you in doing what small things you can to make the world a better place. You can make the world a better place--at least optimistic absurdism thinks so. But the funny thing is, even if you couldn't, it wouldn't matter. Because living life through an optimistic lens is pretty much better in every way compared to a pessimistic one--trust me I've experimented.
The second part of Optimistic Absurdism is Absurdism. Absurdism which was created by Albert Camus in response to the meaning crisis brought about by the loss of religion for many people after the surgency of science. Camus believes it isn’t meaninglessness that hurts, it’s the contradiction of needing meaning and not getting it that hurts.
Absurdism isn’t the answer life. It’s the rebelling of needing an answer.
Or as I like to think about it, Camus looked at the need for cosmic significance and raised a massive middle finger at it.
This doesn't mean there aren't things in life to find meaningful. I find tremendous meaning in my friendships, family, learning, art and growing as a person. I care about making the world a better place. But these personal meanings don't connect into some grand universal purpose for life; there is none.
One of the great stories Camus relates absurdism to is the myth of Sisyphus. For those who don't know Sisyphus was cursed by the Gods to forever roll a rock up a hill only to have it roll back down and start over again. Camus analogizes finding meaning in a meaningless universe like being Sisyphus. The answer is not to try and find ultimate meaning--rolling the rock up the hill in frustration--but to accept the rock rolling with joy as one’s life.
And that's okay.
Because then, you'll realize that along your rock rolling path, you've been able to use that sacred I at the beginning of every sentence. That sacred sound that means the Universe has made itself small enough to know its infinitude. You are that that knowing, that finite infinity. And then, you'll know for all the pain and desperation of being a thing that can feel pain and desperation, it’s an honor to have been a thing at all.
📸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 - Poems For The Lost by exurb1a: trust me this isn't like those trashy pompous poems you might have had to read in high school. This is good stuff. Stuff you can understand. They are more great stories with hidden meanings than poems in the traditional sense.
📺YouTube Video - and then we'll be okay: a fantastic story that encapsulates the human need to strive for better which can be our greatest downfall.