The violence in making decisions
Poetry, "Mother, I crave violence," Substack chat & more
I feel like I spent most of the past seven days adjusting to the time change or watching TV, since there are four (four!) shows I’m excited about that started streaming this month—three of which premiered or had the entire season drop last week. I’m not normally such a TV girlie but I’m never a patient girlie, so I did not want to wait long to consume ✨all the media.✨
As a result, this week is gonna be quick and easy. A little reflection on decision-making and some fun links. Enjoy!
Decisions are Violence
I’ve thought a bit about the violence of decision-making recently, a concept I was first introduced to in college when reading A Director Prepares by Anne Bogart. Bogart explains that decisions are inherently violent. I think the idea does apply to life in general, to an extent, but let’s consider it within the microcosm of creativity.
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You have all of these options at your fingertips when you start to make something (whether that be producing a play, making music, painting, etc.), and you must essentially choose what you want and kill the other options. (yes, this sounds very dramatic, but I did major in acting and lived for the ~d r a m a~)
Take, for example, this haiku I wrote as part of my 2023 poetry project:
tulips
a blooming bubble
universe perched on a stem
ushers in springtimeThe prompt was simply “tulips,” so I could have taken it in any direction I wanted. I decided on a haiku because this type of poem traditionally focuses on nature. Also, I’ll admit, as a greener poet it’s much easier to wrap my head around writing a poem when I have some sort of scaffolding. In this case: 3 lines, 5/7/5 syllables each. I also personally like when you can take the lines of a haiku and it makes one sentence, so I aimed for that instead of sentence fragments.
Writing a haiku meant no rhyming quatrains or moving odes, the syllable requirements limited word choice, and my own goal to have this poem unfurl as a complete sentence required a clear, unified train of thought. All these decisions put constraints on what I was writing. But within those constraints was a delicious challenge, and the poem ultimately wouldn’t exist without them.
To be cruel is ultimately an act of generosity in the collaborative process. “Ideas are cheap” we always say in the heat of a rehearsal. Ideas come and go but what is important is the commitment to a choice and to its clarity and communicativeness. It’s not about the right idea or even the right decision, rather it is about the quality of decisiveness.
- Anne Bogart
Over a decade later, this is the chapter from A Director Prepares that really stayed with me. I’m curious, what do you think about this particular sentiment? Do you think it applies to life in general as well, or solely a creative practice?
Hot Takes, Cool Recs
I interviewed Julia Marsh at Sway a couple years ago—she runs an alternative materials company that is aiming to replace all that thin, plastic material with something seaweed-based. It was wonderful to catch up with her and her team, Alyssa and Russell, in anticipation of the TOM FORD Plastic Innovation Prize…which was recently announced they won! Read it all here.
An NYU student wrote about her study abroad experience in Florence, Italy for Insider and received a lot of backlash. Let me just say I am deeply grateful that when I was a college student, I didn’t have a clickbait website as a platform for my unedited thoughts. I won’t link the post, partially because it’s in the tweet below, but also because of this: Insider was incredibly irresponsible for publishing this and I don’t want to give them traffic for it. As someone who used to write for Insider, I’m not surprised they approved some kind of clickable hot take, and the way they format their posts doesn’t allow for much nuance. It’s fine that this girl had a bad time studying abroad, and I’m genuinely sad that she did! But this piece severely needed some editorial guidance.
Also, Amanda Knox chimed in for some dark levity:
The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is back! I loved this little behind-the-scenes video with the stars and can’t wait to see the show for myself.
I’m considering getting a foldable treadmill—do you have one you love? Even with a relatively intense midday workout I still spend a lot of time at my computer, so I’d like something I could use for 10 to 15 minutes at a time and break up all that writing.
I had a video on my personal TikTok blow up, which was pretty cool! I’ve only experienced mild TikTok fame because videos of my cat, so it felt nice to have other people see my photography for a change and most of them were very nice. I also love love love this particular self-portrait and am really happy to be doing this self-portrait project!
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Today I’m adding a new addition to my Substack publication: a subscriber chat. This is a conversation space in the Substack app set up exclusively for subscribers—kind of like a group chat or live hangout. I’ll post short prompts, thoughts, and updates that come my way, and you can jump into the discussion. I’ve already posted a q and would love to see your reply!
To join our chat, look for the chat bubbles. Go to the main Substack page (substack.com) and then click the chat bubble icons on the left or you can download the Substack app (ios or Android), which is pretty handy if you read multiple publications. Chats are sent via the app, not email, so turn on push notifications so you don’t miss conversation as it happens. Here’s a quick and easy breakdown of what to do if you’d like to use the app:Download the app by clicking this link or the button below. Substack Chat is now available on both iOS and Android.
Open the app and tap the Chat icon. It looks like two bubbles in the bottom bar, and you’ll see a row for my chat inside.
That’s it! Jump into my thread to say hi, and if you have any issues, check out Substack’s FAQ.
That’s it for this week! Thanks for being here.
- Theresa
That's a lovely haiku AND self-portrait! I do think the sentiment about decisions coming down to the quality of the decisiveness carries through to regular life, too, absolutely. Making a choice is pretty meaningless if you don't feel good about it and want to commit to it.