owning my own fictions

The conversation by Jess Allen

I have been Feeling Weird about the fact that we’re midway through 2023. Otherwise, life operates as normal. I peer over the cliff at the rocks that jut out, feeling vertigo. I buy almond dipped pretzel sticks from Nijiya market. I consume an Italian sub with mortadella, salami, shaved onion, from Lucca’s with great pleasure. I get sickly, I recover. I see my friends — in coffeeshops, at the theatre, in parks. My phone lights up with a single word from J: 'Sublime.’

At the sushi counter my friend explains the main terror of being in a situationship: they say they want one thing but their actions feel meaningfully different. In the end actions tell you the truth, don’t they? It’s frustrating, I know. We walk home in the loaming darkness and talk about love. Everyone has their own incentives, hidden agendas, hopes, inner worlds. You can project what you feel onto another person, but understanding doesn’t work like that.

I tell her, revealed preferences. Pay attention to revealed preferences. You can only trust what people do, not simply what they say. It’s the same with ourselves: sometimes we fantasize about one reality and end up living another one out.

An example: I joke with my friends often about being free, a nomad, spiritual, nature-bound. Forget productivity! Perhaps I could just Be instead of Do. I could learn yoga in peace! Move to Bali! To some extent I’m partially serious. Some part of me craves looseness, lack of structure, sweetness. But I know in my heart I won’t just pick up and move to a remote, lush, place. Of course I hate big cities. Noise, heat, crowd. But I know why I choose them. And I know why I seek challenge, difficulty. I find it fun. At the end of the day I’m drawn to ambition, drive, relentless pursuit. I love people. I like being at the very heart of possibility. I’m wired that way.

Revealed preferences. The types of situations I indulge in, the friendships I deepen, the men I date, the places I choose to put down roots. Not that everything granular has significance, but more often than not I find myself scrutinizing one aspect of my life and finally realizing like oh this is what I really wanted. I chose this.

That’s freeing in a way — when you realize most of life is a series of choices, subconscious or conscious. Something deep, primal, in you is rewarded by the choices you make. Fully recognizing and owning those choices is the journey.

At the end of the day, I choose my intimacies.

I choose what to pay attention to and what to ignore. I choose what to write about. What slant in perspective I want you to appreciate. I read this interview with Cynthia Ozick who says she’s working on how not to lie when writing fiction. I often reflect how we function daily within our own elaborate fictions. Most of life is learning how not to lie to ourselves.

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PPS: I know I said another travel post but I felt like randomly writing this one, oops!

Life inputs

Books:

• I read Happy Hour by Marlowe Granados about youth, female friendship, social capital — has the same vibe as Otessa Moshfegh, Emma Cline, Jen Beagin. If you like those authors you might like this

• Rereading The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron and started reading The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson (which has been a book that so many of my friends are obsessed with so it’s finally time for me to read it)

Substacks:

• If you’re looking for new things to read, i really love Anna’s newsletter of her favorite reads every Friday. I also really liked this piece she shared on twitter

Writing for me is hard labor, no matter the length or the form. I start out in fear and doubt, and continue in this state of prolonged discontent and conscious forcing, until certain unpredictable moments of excitement take over, when the thing begins to know itself and its own trajectory.

Anna Gát: What to Read This Weekend #23

• I love Moon Lists for their creative journaling prompts:

Dessert First

Living in your most expensive clothes. Strawberry ice cream & champagne for dinner. A weekday matinee. Contrary to the above, recall an instance when you — purposefully — did not save the best for last.

August Prompts: Lukewarm in a Heatwave

• I recently found really enjoy Ebie and Kai-Lin’s shared substack, My Brilliant Friend. It reminds me of me and J’s Kopiclub (where we used to write substacks together from our shared living room. Female friendship is so precious)

July In Review

Song of the week

(admittedly not french, but I’ve been replaying this song 300 times since hearing it on Justine’s playlist)