Season One: I'm (Not??) The Best

Both Are True's next big chapter launched on Oct 10, 2023

There’s a line from the movie There Will Be Blood where oil barron and all around grinch Daniel Plainview, in a rather out of character reflective moment, says “I have a competition in me. I want no one else to succeed."

That line plays on repeat in my head, because it lays bare a feeling I am ashamed to say I see inside myself, a default mode that’s set to compare and compete, to know who the best is in any given situation and how far I am from that person. The desire to be the best drives me in ways I need not even think about anymore — it is simply there, this invisible hungry need for the win, the prize, the best.

Except it’s not really even clear what attaining that looks like? Whenever I reach my goals, I just set new ones. Or, most of the time I don’t set goals at all, instead simply resigning to the fact that I suck because I’m not the best and won’t ever be.

Like my goal is to keep myself in a state of not-best while striving to be-best. A genius plan if your goal is to always hate yourself. 

So that’s what this season is - a multi-month deep dive into the ideas of competition, comparison, testing and achievement.

Most of the essays this season are free, but not all! Paid subscribers get access to:

🧡 weekly paid only q&a chats and threads on topics relating to what I’m exploring in the essays

🧡 behind the scenes posts from me about this whole thing

🧡Full access to every essay this season

🧡Access to playlists I’ve made for some of the essays

🧡 Perhaps most importantly, an invitation to help me figure this shit out

And right now I’m doing a 21% off sale because fuck it why not! Use the button below to get your deal just like in blackjack. This deal only applies to the year long subscriptions.

If you would like to become a paid subscriber but don’t have the financial means to do so: EMAIL ME AND I WILL COMP YOU NO QUESTIONS ASKED NO PROBLEMS SERIOUSLY I WANT EVERYONE WHO WANTS TO BE A PAID SUBSCRIBER TO BECOME ONE REGARDLESS OF THEIR MONEY SITUATION.

A recap of every episode so far:

I’ll keep a running record of every post that’s gone live already for Season One here. For more details on the season and what you get as a paid subscriber, click here.

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Big essays ✍️

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Audio rants 👂

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⚠️⚠️⚠️ The stuff below is an earlier draft of this post and thus will contain some repeated info ⚠️⚠️⚠️

Join me?

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from these first 18 months of writing BAT, it’s that you all - the readers - are fuckin smart and cool and wise! So much of what I’ve understood so far about family and parenting and life has been from engaging with y’all in the comments.

And so I would like to formally invite you to join me on this Season One journey by becoming a paid subscriber.

Not much will change for free subscribers, don’t worry. The big difference will be that I’m gonna focus my time on engaging in the paid-subscriber threads and spaces. I’ll explain why in a minute.

Paying subscribers will get:

• weekly paid only threads q&a on topics relating to what we’re working on 

• behind the scenes posts from me about this whole thing (I’m going to play around with doing these as audio which paid subscribers can listen to via Substack or right in their podcast app like Apple Music or Spotify)

• Full access to every essay this season

• Perhaps most importantly, an invitation to help me figure this shit out

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In case you missed it: I also yesterday announced that I’m available to help people with their writing. One day later, it’s looking like i might have TEN new clients. So if you or your company wants to write stuff that doesn’t suck, or if you want help in starting your newsletter, check out this post and reach out.

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Background!

In early October, I will be launching a new SEASON of Both Are True.

Instead of writing about anything, like for example my obsession with the use of ‘net carbs’ on food packaging, I’ll be focusing my mind soul and (global) guts around a few topics all orbiting a single theme, topics that are harder for me to write about and require a bit more plumbing of the muck and the mire, the yuck and the yowza.

The season will act as a ‘forcing function’ (ew) to get me writing about this stuff. Because when left to my own devices (iPhone, Windows PC) and given the choice between going to the icky places of my own soul’s nether regions or exploring net carbs, I’m gonna go net carbs every time.

Like, what the hell nutritional labels are now bank statements?? Why do I love eating these carb balance tortillas so much?

Lately, though, I’ve wondered - is there more to life then balancing your carbs? I’ve been feeling the need to plumb the depths. Ya know, like Mario.

But also, like Mario, I can’t plumb alone. I need my Luigi. Which is you.

Why why why

A big part of why I’m making this decision is, honestly, one of the best problems in the world: there’s too many of you!

Both Are True has grown faster than those weird lil mushrooms after rain. Like whoa — one minute there were like twelve mushrooms and now, after that rain of Alex’s sadboi tears, there are 6,500 frikkin mushrooms?? That’s a lot of mushrooms omg I just realized the mushrooms thing works perfectly for the Mario analogy wow what a day!

But seriously even Mario can’t keep up with 6,500 shroomies.

How do I square the circle of wanting to dive deeper into figuring stuff out with paid subscribers AND also knowing it’s not really sustainable to do so with a newsletter this big? I know - first-world problems, help I’m drowning in champagne etc, but also - idk, I can’t really tell Wilder I can’t hang w him because the BAT subscribers need me, ya know?

So, in an effort to protect my own sanity and make sure I have enough time to actually write, I’m making the decision to focus my energy on engaging with paid subscribers. It’s an experiment — we’ll see how it goes, but my hope is diving deeper into the topics of each season with a group that’s also more interested in solving them (or realizing they cannot be solved but having fun trying) could be dope.  

I hope this makes sense. I’m having a hard time writing it because I feel bad, like ‘oh Alex you asshole you’re gonna just stop responding to everyone who do you think you are,’ but I do feel like it’s the right decision? Maybe?

AND ALSO — I’m still gonna read all of your comments and respond when I can! Haha look at me hedging.

Remember seasons? 

The TV show kind, Season One, Season Two, etc. In LA they’re all we have since our temperature seasons are Nice and Too Hot. 

I love how TV seasons give shape to things, what with their beginnings and their endings and what not. 

Infamous Enemy Number One and writer of

Everything Is Amazing

Mike Sowden

was the one who got me on the idea for creating Substack seasons. He’s done…five now and somehow keeps getting picked up for another? Each of his seasons focus on a topic, for example season two is about Fake and Unreal Maps and season five is about the science of color. Season six, I’m being told, will be about why Mike is changing his newsletter’s name to “Alex Is Amazing.” 

I love this seasons idea and will be stealing it from Mike, thus making me better than him in ways that are forever true. In fact, it makes me the best, which, funny, is the topic of the first season!

Season One: I’m (Not?) The Best 

Wait what the hell who put that ‘not’ in there? Note to editor please remove that I can’t seem to do it over here.

There’s a line from the movie There Will Be Blood where oil barron and all around grinch Daniel Plainview, in a rather out of character reflective moment, says “I have a competition in me. I want no one else to succeed."

That line plays on repeat in my head, because it lays bare a feeling I am ashamed to say I see inside myself, a default mode that’s set to compare and compete, to know who the best is in any given situation and how far I am from that person. The desire to be the best drives me in ways I need not even think about anymore — it is simply there, this invisible hungry need for the win, the prize, the best.

Except it’s not really even clear what attaining that looks like? Whenever I reach my goals, I just set new ones. Or, most of the time I don’t set goals at all, instead simply resigning to the fact that I suck because I’m not the best and won’t ever be.

Like my goal is to keep myself in a state of not-best while striving to be-best. A genius plan if your goal is to always hate yourself. 

This stuff, it’s hard to write about. I’m ashamed of it and unsure whether I can ever make it ‘go away,’ or if I even want to. But I do know this: I want to write more about it. And there’s a lot to write about. Some of the topics I’ve already began to explore include:

• how I started prepping for the SAT in 4th grade at a russian math school with a teacher whose FIRST name was Einstein

• How I’ve gotten very good at the ‘I don’t even care if I’m the best I’m just a normal guy’ schtick.

• the origins and purpose of our society’s message that ‘you can do anything’ (The Achievement Society by philosopher Byung-Chul Han is guiding my thoughts here)

• And how this achievement ‘you can do anything’ attitude permeates children’s books like Thomas the FuckTrain Engine 

• my perverse belief that “being happy” can’t be something everyone can just…get – you need to earn it and it needs to be hard and not everyone can have it (trust me, I wish I didn’t believe this but I think I sorta do?)

• How the ‘never enough’ principle fuels both endless achievement and addiction (and my experiences with both!)

• My obsession with and fear of being ‘normal’ – how being an immigrant here all I wanted to do was fit in but also at the same time stand out 

Pricing

They say to have pricing that makes you slightly uncomfortable. I don’t get why they say that but they do and you know how they’re always right anyways the pricing is going up when the new season starts.

So if you want to lock in the current rate FOREVER and trust me BAT is FOREVER, subscribe right now like right now like now. 

When the season starts in October, pricing will increase from:

• Monthly: $5.23/month —> $7.23/month

• Yearly: $50.50/year —> $70.70/year

• Founding Member Price: $120.12/year —> $140.28/year

  • Founding members will also get one of the below perks (whether you sign up now or later, you’ll get this):

    • I’ll do a review of your substack and record a humorous video review of it which you can use however you wish 

    • I’ll do a review of your writing and record a video review about it which you can use however you want 

    • a 1 on 1 hour long chat to talk about anything you want (including your writing and excluding sharks even the tiny ones)

In closing

coming soon: a CLASSIC piece all about the things I’ve learned on the way to 6500

Tis a fool’s errand, I often tell myself – to think that I could make a living as an artist, and yet, here I am. 

And also, here you are! About 200 of you pay for the newsletter, generating about $12,000 in yearly revenue for this enterprise.  

That’s…insane!!! That’s like…actual money. It makes me feel like this is an actual viable career path for me. Like I’m a baby in the big leagues of this whole newsletter thing. Like it’s all becoming…real.  

I would love Both Are True to be my full-time job. And ya know what, I think it can be. 

Brb gonna hurl can’t believe I wrote that without sarcasm or cynic detachment, in fact let’s all take five minutes for a hurl break. 

Ok thanks for that. 

So finally, once more with gusto, here I go asking you to help support this newsletter.

IF YOU ARE ABLE TO FINANCIALLY DO SO, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. It is the single best way you can support my journey in becoming a full-time artist.

Last week I did an amazing tarot card reading with

Caroline Cala Donofrio

(post and video of this coming soon). The final card she picked was The Fool. It’s the first card in the deck, the zeroth card, and also Caroline’s favorite card. She told me The Fool is the hero of the Tarot deck which obviously tickled my ‘main character I am the best’ ego mightily. But more so, The Fool is a beginner - he knows not what he does but he does it so well, that is to say he does it at all, leaping off the cliff not knowing where it shall take him, or perhaps knowing that he shall tumble and bruise but doing so beats the alternative of just chilling at the top of the cliff twiddling his bones till death does he fart.

So here I go, taking a Big Mario sized leap.

Catch me if you can??