64 Comments

1) NOT NEW SO NOT TELLING 3 THINGS ABOUT MYSELF YOU FUCKERS

2) yes

3) define "party"

4) 2023 is going....well? normally? quietly? knock on wood

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Madeline, checking in about the "you fuckers" thing?

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i am one of them

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I am really glad to BE here

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not to be TOO much of a taylor swift fan but have you seen the ghosts in the anti-hero video?! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1kbLwvqugk&ab_channel=TaylorSwiftVEVO

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those ghosts rule also this music video rules

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wait also the lil short film of the funeral is v good

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re: #3 – I think your identity is YOU, a guy who does not suck unless it's funny and you want to commit to the bit

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what is life if not a commitment to the bit

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parlay that ish am i rite

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omg Jesus on the top of that list took me out

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everyone share your poop your pants story go

mine was unfortunately due to grad school, thai food, and power walking

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aaaaa

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CONGRATULATIONS!!!!

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brb gotta go write 600 individual hellos

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"This identity is what drives me to succeed..." Of all of the reasons cited for not being able to accept success, this one strikes me as the most likely, and perhaps the most common. I think a lot of people rely on failure identity to motivate themselves to improve, fearing that if they saw themselves as successful, they'd lose their motivation, and then actually fail.

ALSO, would like some more detail (perhaps another illustration?) on this "food only for rich people."

ALSO, love the Nissam Taleb quote. He is SUCH a jerk and he says all the best things.

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I, too am intrigued by the "food only for rich ppl". Looks suspiciously like a turd.

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am looking into this will report back with haste

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Oh also, CONGRATULATIONS ALEX!!!

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THANK U

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1000% about identity of a failure being the only way I know how to succeed. have you figured out a different way? if so plz report back.

so regarding the food only for rich people - sure! The original image was a photograph, so i'll have to go back and ask the photographers if they got any close ups of the food. will report back.

and yes, nissam taleb is a yuck

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Woo hoo! I'm so happy for you, Alex! Success is a weird, ephemeral beast. And those new-subscriber dopamine hits are real. But all of that is background noise to the awesome work you're doing. Just keep being you! You're awesome. (And apparently Substack agrees with me!)

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thank you Jillian truly that means a lot coming from you whose work I greatly admire !!

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dear alex,

i love you and i love this and here are some specific things i love:

-- the elephant in the china shop

-- I’ve vetted each of you

-- I was shame

-- Still.I.Am

-- Cool people like Jesus, Bruce Lee, and Eminem

-- not sucking becomes existential threat

-- Even ghosts get the non-blues

-- retracting like a turtle in The Fast & The Furious

-- a literal photo of me taken minutes ago!

-- Papa Patriarchy

-- emotions aren't horses. Or rather, they are, but you better let them run wild and free.

-- so it's revolutionary for me to be excited about my dumb essays on poop? Yes. Yes it is.

-- I’m really glad you’re here

-- We're all just ghosts riding the wild horses of our emotions up and down this side of the beating heart

and now, for my answers to your questions:

If you’re new here, hi! tell us 3 things about you - 2 truths and 1 lie.

1) i'm not new here.

2) i'm old here.

3) i answered anyway even though i'm not new here.

4) i did three truths and one extra truth.

Do you like yourself? If so, how?

1) i do.

2) i am fortunate to have had a family that told me they loved me a lot. i also believe that everyone is lovable and also potentially likable. i also start a lot of days with gratitude journaling and whenever i see someone achieving something that i want, i'll strive to think about what i have, who i am, things in my life that other people would really be grateful to have. sometimes i'll think about myself as a little baby who deserves love (and LIKE), because i was a little baby like wilder is a little baby and YOU were a little baby. and still are! you're a little baby and i love you and i like you.

What party are you tryna get to before you can take off your ghost costume?

the communist party

(i'm not big on parties)

What else is going on how’s your week hows your 2023? Got any questions for me?

i have a little bit of a head cold (but i'm grateful i have a head that can BE cold!)

and i have asked you questions. they are in an email. i love you, you little baby ghost you

PS i think jesus MAY have been happy

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MYQ thank you as always and forever. I woudl like to double click on "PS i think jesus MAY have been happy" -- how do you know?

answers coming your way to ur email sooner rather than later

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in answer to how i know that jesus MAY have been happy, i would say... because of the definition of the word "MAY"

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Yay Alex!!! Congrats, have loved following your lil Substack journey on here. I also love your "what would I do if my son came to me with this problem" -- gonna use that with my imaginary child

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thank you Ali!! and don't even worry about using an imaginary child, feel free to simply ask 'what would I do if wilder came to me with this problem" he can help us all

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First, congrats on being a featured Substack, Alex! That's a great win, even though it leads to big first day of school energy. Loved that line, btw!

I'm gonna answer the "do you like yourself" question. The answer is, yes, I basically like myself, but my self has been a work in progress, so the degree to which I like myself has grown over the years. Some of that is just growing up, but it's not like people just magically learn to like themselves because they get older. In fact, people who don't put in the work to like themselves actually hate themselves more as they age. Studies prove this, but I can't show you the studies because I've only read the headlines.

But for real, I think you're doing the work you need to do to like yourself more and be happy, but you're in this middle period of your life where you're too old for all the youthful angst and you're too young to look back on everything. Basically, you're in the thick of it, and in the thick of it, it's really hard to be happy because you're mostly thinking about the next thing, or the thing that just happened that didn't go so well. But here's *the* thing: all that thinking is a choice. You can put your mind to future, or set it to the past, or you can set your mind to the present. And your present has a lot to offer, Alex! People who are strangers to you are reading your amazing work on the internet, and some of those people are paying you real money, which is actually fiat currency, but it's also a symbol of their passion for your work, because that's how capitalism works. So what I'm saying is, live in the now, dude, because right here, right now, you're crushing it. But also, none of this really matters because even if BAT went away, you'd still be an awesome dude with family and friends who love him, and sure everyone would be bummed that there's no BAT, but they'd be happy that you're here in this world with them, so what I'm getting at is that there's a lot of winning all around you.

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Michael damn dude this gave me the tingles. There's so much truth in here, and so much also that I have a hard time accepting - grist for the mill of what I will write about soon, I am sure.

Thank you for the kind words though dude. Truly.

One thing I wonder a lot about is whether I am married to this idea of 'i am a failure' as the only way I know how to push myself further to succeed. do you have that engine running in the background? and/or what other engines might you have?

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As an almost-crier myself, I get how huge 60% is! Substack got it right with BAT! Well deserved!

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hahahaha thanks Jane! almost criers across the globe, unite!

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My favorite is always your hyper-realistic photography (I guess that's redundant? All photography is hyper-realistic?)

Also, I noticed that, at the end of the day, we are still talking about the evergreen project of accessing The Party, in both a temporal and spatial sense.

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some photography can be very unrealistic. absurd. or photograph things that couldn't possibly happen. whereas my photography is hyper realistic, you are correct.

hahaha so true about the party. now and forever. I feel like soon we should tell the people of BAT about the history of The Party whadya say

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“Stoicism is about the domestication of emotions, not their elimination.” - Nassim Taleb. THANK GOD. YES! Love the messiness of all of it, and the truth of all the feelings. So relateable and love that you're writing about and through all of it like this. Man, fuck stoicism!

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FUCK stoicism!! hahaha I am gonna wirte an essay with that title and get a whole lotta people mad at me WHICH WILL PROVE MY POINT BECAUSE THEY WILL BE FEELING FEELINGS, A STOIC NO NO hahahah

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HAHA--PLEASE write that!

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