Getting the Most Important Relationships Right
Tomorrow’s event:
The Glass Bead Game w/ Laurence Currie-Clark and The Arch. Every Saturday @ 6:00 PM ET. RSVP here. 120 mins.
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November 13, 2020
There is a part of me that wants to raise my personal stature, or get famous. I am feeling into this, and I cannot tell if this desire is coming out of ego. I have considered gaining more stature before, and I have even planned out all of the potential paths. They are: 1) writing, 2) podcast circuit, 3) clout chasing, and 4) legacy media.
The idea for the writing path is simple: write for a decent size publication, then leverage that to write for a bigger one, then leverage that to write for an even bigger one, until I arrive at writing for The Atlantic or receive a book deal from a Big 5 publisher. I have no shortage of things to write, and I have the capacity to write all day.
I have a contract sitting in my inbox to write for Aeon, and it has been sitting there for a while now. I also have the option to write a white paper on social skills related to the culture war for Dale Carnegie Training, which could lead to a follow-up piece for the Harvard Business Review, and I have this piece that the daemon wants me to write for Ribbonfarm called LARP It Until You Become It: Adventures in Weird Stoicism. I have been chatting with Venkatash Rao for a while about submitting something to him, and this piece might be the one.
All of these might be good starting points to unleash the “write your way to fame” algorithm. I have received two book deals from indie publishers for my memetic tribe white paper, one we turned down, and the other just fizzled out, but we probably were not going to take it anyway. Those offers gave me confidence and the following thought emerged: yeah, I am a guy who can get a book deal.
I would like to have options when I write a book though. I would like to have the option to go for a Big 5 publisher, even though I might not accept it. I know people who went through a book agent, and I am pretty confident I can leverage my network and play that game.
The next path is the podcast circuit. I am scheduled to go on Vince Horn’s Buddhist Geeks soon, and Jim Rutt wants me to go on The Jim Rutt Show, and David Fuller has invited me back to do something with Rebel Wisdom. All of these will bring more attention to The Stoa and myself. I am going on their shows because they are my friends however, and it seems like this is how friends connect these days: by going on each other’s podcasts.
I can consciously engage in the podcast circuit strategy to get more attention. This is how my former therapist got famous. When he faced his initial controversy, Jordan Peterson went on every podcast that would have him on, which eventually led him to experience a podcast escape velocity. There are so many interesting things happening at The Stoa, I sense this strategy is open to me, albeit surely to a lesser degree of intensity.
The next path is through clout chasing, which is basically getting “big names” on The Stoa. The average views on The Stoa’s YouTube channel seem to be 300-500 views per video, with some going to 1k views. In contrast, ContraPoints video has received 70k views. When I see that, I am actually Stoically indifferent, and I really do not give a shit. It does give me data though: if I bring more people on with Natalie’s stature, then the channel could grow. I could also make the process easier by dropping the anti-marketing strategy, and making the YouTube aesthetics less Stoic Punk.
The last pathway is levering legacy media. We received a brief mention in the New York Times already, and I probably could leverage some local media connections in Toronto, and use some strategies from my fellow Stoic, Ryan Holiday. This seems like a high-risk approach, as I can see some goofy piece popping up on VICE media because of it.
Ultimately, I am pretty confident I could get more stature and fame if I wanted to. It is good to know that I have this confidence, as that provides a certain power, but there are so many unintended consequences if I pursue these paths. Unpacking all of this removes any desire for stature or fame, and perhaps I never really wanted to raise my personal stature as suggested at the beginning of this entry.
I actually do not know what this desire I currently have is. It does have something to do with thumos though. I am feeling a lot of thumos at the moment. I have so much of it actually it feels like there is excess energy I need to expend. All of this does feel potent, and this potency has a “do something” vibe about it.
It was wise to channel this something towards getting into the right relationship with reality, especially before any strategizing about consciously raising my personal stature occurs. I sense the Metagame Mastermind is slowly helping me play the right ecology of games, but what is most important for me right now is to get my most important relationships right.
Camille and I are conversing about us these days, and about what we want together, and we got annoyed at us last night. We are often together, but we are often together while being lost in the spectacle, by gazing into our screens. We are either gazing into our phones, or into our laptops, while the TV or Netflix is on in the background. It feels gross thinking about all of this screen time. That is not the way to be together, and we both know that. But yeah, our asses got limbically hijacked.
When we first started dating it felt like it was us vs the world. I am a Scorpio, and she is an Aquarius, and I have this book called Sextrology: The Astrology of Sex and the Sexes, and it says this about the Scorpio and Aquarius combo: Any antisocial tendencies are expanded. Feeling superior, they teamup in a you-and-me-against-the-world bond …
I sense we are slowly returning to this vibe, sans the superiority thing. Before I even consider opening up this Pandora's box of stature and fame, I sense it is time to get into the right relationship with the other important relationships I have. Most of them are already good, and the choice to make them great is in front of me.
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