My friends, regardless of your particular outlook or set of beliefs, I’m sure you agree that we live in a time of delusion. I’m sad to report that working writers like me are largely to blame. But fret not, I have some ideas.
The Contemporary American Writer - A Problem
Think about it. The effusive, embarrassing, years-spanning praise of Theranos scammer Elizabeth Holmes was, at its core, very earnest work from scores of our best paid and most accredited writers. See crypto crook Sam Bankman-Fried for the same phenomenon. Go back a little further and we see the Financial Times awarding Enron the Energy Company of the Year award in 2000. Hell, there was a bevy of “the Afghanistan War is going well” writers right up to the collapse. I could go on. And on. And on.
The point I’m getting at is that every current horrifying scheme from the powerful is enabled by our cream of the crop, raised up from the ranks American writers tapping into all their very real talents. An examination into our age of delusion and its devoted corps of tireless working writers can be hilarious, dark, and often both if you keep digging. The “we’re just doing our jobs” energy of someone working on the factory floor of a weapons manufacturer is the dominate ethos. The damage done can be similar.
Perhaps systemic literary delusion comes in cycles that we can plot on a graph like the tides. The excesses and delusions of the Gilded Age were similar in a lot of ways, which is why I find Mark Twain more prescient and hilarious with every passing year. In his semi-autobiographical Roughing It, Twain recounts working as a young writer for a Nevada mining town paper. He mostly writes articles wildly inflating the value of different mining claims—the mining claim brokers are primary advertisers for the paper, you see.
Twain wallows with palpable delight in how transparently fake the whole exercise is. Yet, in true Twain fashion, he earnestly buys a mining claim of his own only to get burned by the same hustle he writes about. This is why we love him. Replace “mining claim” with “crypto coin X”, and you realize America has not changed much at all. Twain was the OG crypto-bro.
The Tragic Archetypes of the Literati Youth
What intrigues me are the personal journeys of our contemporary homegrown writers from sensitive kiddos I used to admire into relentless machines of destruction. I’m a 33-year-old Millennial, and the writers from my life’s circle started as the most inspired and shiny eyed kids on the block. The “I’m a writer” types enter puberty swinging, diving into far out sci-fi concepts involving mind control after smoking a first joint. The Sylvia Plath-obsessed slam poet declares she wants to change the world before belting a blush-inducing work-in-progress about her first orgasm at an open mic. What’s cooler than slinging your unremarkable take on Camus between swigs out a red cup to a lover-to-be at a lame college party? Absolutely nothing. If anybody was to write an ill fated love poem, it was these beautiful critters.
I was not a Literati Youth and lived in the shadows of these true believers. I was a reader but did not have literary ambitions growing up and got sucked into marine science STEM in college. I was the one reading those pot smoke infused sci-fi concepts and blushing at those open mics. I played the lover-to-be of the Jungle Juice swilling philosopher out to conquer the world. The Literati Youth were the ones I liked to be around. Someone has to be the one to say “wow, that’s really interesting” and be seduced, right?
But the Literati Youth I’ve observed largely folded under the pressure of working adulthood. There’s a brutal dream bubble pop, usually somewhere in the train wreck of working lives between the ages of 20 and 30. Here are a few of the archetypes I’ve noted.
The Noble Sacrifice: The most common move is getting out of the working writer game entirely to nurse a secret manuscript for 40 years while raising a family with a real job. These are the happiest and wisest people in my estimation, even if they carry an internal wound that few people can see. They chose to make a noble sacrifice to the gods. No whining.
AWOL in Academia: An elite special forces cadre stay in academia and go for an MFA and/or a PhD. They tend to vanish into a black hole and I never hear from them again. Did they transcend the mortal toil? Are they more like the special forces than I realized, engaged in secret literary missions? I’m still at a loss.
Mainstream Machiavellians: Most of the ones who stick around to work in the mainstream bring strong teacher’s pet energy as tireless servants to the highest bidder. These militant dorks actually miss the classroom. In their minds, it’s all about getting that A+ and a letter of rec from the professor. Often the attitude is like getting first chair in band, a la there can be only one winner determined by public contest.
The problem is, “the professor” just so happens to be a billionaire eagerly perpetuating said age of delusions for wicked gains. Instead of dueling clarinets, reputational combat is the contest. You leverage that minor writing award and your rival’s culturally insensitive Cinco de Mayo Tweet from 2007 to win the fight. These Twitter addicted cosmopolitans with great professional headshots are very happy to write in jackboots if their beloved master commands. The previous managing editor’s head sits on a spike at their desk. Mass quantities of cheap wine are consumed alone.
Ad Copy Kool-Aide: Advertising copywriting draws more relaxed but savvier writers in like a month to the flame with the higher pay, corporate endorsement ego boost, short word counts, and shot at upper middle classdom with good bennies. I’ve done my share over the years, and if Gabriel García Marquez put in some time doing ad copy for chemical companies, nobody is above such a gig.
But for the love of all that is holy, I urge these writers to not internalize their own marketing campaigns as landmark cultural achievements. Surely the minimally self aware must agree, marketing is the original machine of delusion with a lineage more ancient than the bazaars of the Bronze Age. “Buy my dates! Your wife will get pregnant and our local river goddess will bless your sheep” was the “This VR headset will give you the perfect life with cool friends #wowlovewow” Clio Award winning marketing campaign of its day. Just sell us the product, girl boss Don Draper. We’re not looking to you for spiritual guidance.
w4a Tar Babies: Let’s not forget one of America’s signature new writing styles, writing-for-the-algorithm. Because acronyms are everything now, let’s call it w4a. These wayward souls are truly lost in a sensationalist wasteland. There have been more published w4a articles advocating ruinous, and usually sexual, lifestyle choices in the last five years than the entirety of humankind’s twisted antics beforehand. Yes, I even weigh the scene of Ancient Greek play The Bacchae where Pentheus crossdresses to spy on an orgy in the forest and is ripped limb from limb by his own reveling mother in my assessment. But I shouldn’t give these w4a professionals article ideas, I’m sure becoming a murderous party mom would be the hero of an article: “I’ve Never Felt so Alive” - 7 Reasons Decapitating Your Grown Son Between Orgies at the Bacchanalia is Good for Your Mental Health. Eh, too long.
But you know what? My thoughts on these articles are irrelevant and they weren’t written to inspire thought or dialogue. I clicked them and that’s the entire point. God forbid I comment on or share a w4a article, making the author’s victory absolute. I am Briar Rabbit smacking the crap out of the Tar Baby just to get stuck in the muck and trapped by Briar Fox. Spin away and win that click economy, you cheeky w4a blighters. But look out for that AI, because w4a writers appear the most vulnerable to being replaced.
What’s the Alternative?!
To be blunt, if one zooms out and takes a full reckoning of American writing right now, the value to the human soul is probably a net negative. Bummer! Most lies are fairly harmless, “buy this new Apple codpiece and your life is going to become amazing” isn’t singlehandedly destroying the world. But the higher and truer purposes of writing—to explore what is true and what is beautiful to nourish the soul—can be hard to find in the endless sea of spin and illusion.
To both know and love the world are the sublime joys of being alive, and writing has always been one of the most powerful methods to this cause. Do yourself a favor and read Drinking Alone Under the Moon by 8th Century Chinese poet Li Bo. The story is simply a happy but lonely man drinking with the moon and enjoying life:
“Among the flowers, a single jug of wine;
I drink alone. No one close to me.
I raise my cup, invite the bright moon;
facing my shadow, together we make three.
The moon doesn't know how to drink;
and my shadow can only follow my body.
But for a time I make moon and shadow my companions;
taking one's pleasure must last until spring.
I sing — the moon wavers back and forth.
I dance — my shadow flickers and scatters.
When I'm sober we take pleasure together.
When I'm drunk, we each go our own ways.
I make an oath to journey forever free of feelings,
making an appointment with them to meet in the Milky Way afar.”
Doesn’t that feel like a deep inhale of refreshing air? C’mon, we all know that this is the good stuff. But what’s a working writer to do? I have found a personal escape from the sad fate of my aforementioned working writing peers. Maritime writing.
There’s honesty in boats
Like a dish shared with colorful characters in an exotic land of an Anthony Bourdain show, an experience aboard a story worthy boat manifests a confluence of cultures, stimulating ingredients, fascinating places, and memorable human beings expressing themselves fully. I think back to a visit to Mongolia eating heaps of buuz (steamed dumplings) in a gher (yurt) with the local nomads in the desert miles from anywhere. I held a cup of steaming, salty, milk-based Mongolian tea from the goats outside on a freezing February morning. I wasn’t changing the world or spinning a narrative, but I was certainly a part of life with that first sip.
A good meal brings us back to Earth with positive reenforcement. These spices are from that mountain range. The chef opened this noodle bar after a war. “Ah!” the corporeal-hating soul realizes. “There is joy and truth in reality. I don’t want to miss out.” Nourishing writing, the good stuff, helps us fit into the universe, not mount a futile rebellion against it. Like when sipping the Mongolian tea, I get the same part-of-the-real-world buzz from boat writing. When seeing a boat being built in a factory or hopping aboard, the senses are fully activated and the mind focuses. The fishy stank of a sea lion colony. The rhythm of the heaving seas. The sizzle of a welder. The map with our location. If you have some guts to stand your ground against business interests seeking to turn your article into a marketing piece, there’s true authenticity to be found that roots one into the real life experience.
You learn more about the world when hopping aboard a story worthy boat for a day than a lifetime online. Every boat has a designer, usually a maritime elder who has lived a lot of life. Every boat is built by a team of underdog tradespeople with their own stories. I’ve written articles about cruising Kenai National Park in Alaska from the deck of a charter yacht and toured a yacht building yard in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. My article about cannabis use on boats in the Pacific Northwest won 1st place in a writing competition this year. Did you know there are successful yacht brokers who are closeted potheads with vials of clean urine in case of a drug test hidden in their shoes? That’s the real world for ya.
An honest maritime writing story deals primarily in material realities. Most of my articles are accompanied with a technical specs table complete with vessel dimensions like length overall, beam, and horsepower. A sizable portion of the readers are seeking this information the most. Getting the exact names of the locations visited from bays to seafloor features and noting sea state brings the adventure to life. Trying to understand and accurately present the hull form with its chines and bow entries and transoms is more meditative than creative. There is strong Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance power here.
This maritime ethos of honesty is reflected brilliantly in Steinbeck’s writing about Captain Tony aboard the Western Flyer in The Log from the Sea of Cortez. For the lifetime sea salt, there is passionate love for the truth of a compass bearing and a wrathful hatred of what is false, say, an outdated note on a map. The subjective world of opinions and words are deeply suspicious and inherently wicked to the good captain. Perhaps more editorial boards need a brooding Captain Tony in the mix.
I lean as heavily as I can into my interviews for the non-material truths. What does this boat project mean to you, designer? What was the most difficult phase of the build, manufacturer? Where did the vessel name originate from, owner? The sources—racing sailors, working mariners, naval architects, tugboat engineers, entrepeneurs, and all—alway say it best. “To me, this project represents the future”; “Actually it’s crazy, the factory almost burned down”; “The name is my daughter’s who died last year of cancer” are the type of responses one may get. The story takes off. And it’s honest. I try to make Captain Tony happy.
I’m here. Being here is good. Such a state is medicine for these times. The mind, body, and spirit hum in vibration, not unlike the guy wire on the Western Flyer at the end of Steinbeck’s work that’s the answer to his pondering about the meaning of life.
Purposeful Yet Unambitious in an Intelligent Design World
Mankind will forever debate whether or not intelligent design plays a role in our existence, but intelligent design is categorically the force behind a boat.
Every boat is built with a purpose by capable humans. The new yacht is a pleasure dream incarnate and only concerned with being such. The military-inspired pilot boat will spend its life shepherding maritime shipping through dangerous passages. The stout hearted fishing vessel brings us seafood and bears surly seafarers safely through the foulest seas. The sporty racing sailing trimaran is a cheetah, purely adapted to chase down prey on the regatta. There’s no ambiguity about purpose or meaning. Everything has its place.
With boat writing, one understands the appeal of intelligent design as a world to live in. How wonderful to behold the beautiful lines of brilliant yacht designer Mr. So-and-So or the utilitarian genius of a clever galley layout. It’s a realm of intention from a fellow mind greater than, but not entirely unlike, my own. What’s the meaning of life, you ask? Well, we’re casting off for Alaska, so getting there is the meaning of life for now. Ask somebody else when we pull into Ketchikan, I’m just a sailor.
In addition to the comfort and sense of belonging in an intelligently designed world order, boat writing is purposeful but profoundly unambitious. I’m not supposed to influence public opinion for a political interest. I’m not hawking a product nor praising dystopian technology as our savior—unless the claws of a rogue editor dig into my work without my approval, but that’s another story.
No, there’s a refitted fishing boat heading out to sea off Oregon and I’m to present the saga of the new refrigeration system installation as honestly as I can. So what? “This new system should be a game changer for my business and my family this year” the lifelong fisherman might tell me. The rest of the fleet may get the same upgrade if the season goes well, representing millions of dollars. The so what reveals itself. The real guts and viscera of civilization spill into view.
In my work, I seek to root the reader firmly in the real through an honest telling of a boat and a physical journey. By the end of my R2AK article that recently appeared in SAIL magazine, you should be more connected with the world, not less. Tragically, rather than weave readers into the fabric of reality, contemporary American writers seem mission focused to disorient their readers. Minds disassociate from bodies, rendered apart almost violently with palpable glee. Where’s the expression of truth and sensuality of beauty? No, there is no truth or beauty these writers seek. No tea to sip. No boats to hop.
As Water Rat said to Mole in the Wind in the Willows, “Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing—absolutely nothing—half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.” The primary purpose of boat writing is simply to be underway and take the reader with you, something Alan Watts touches when he compared life to music and dancing. You don’t dance with the intent of getting to the end of a song. In such a world, the best music would be a mighty one-second finale and the most avid music fans would sprint out of the concert to be first out the door.
A symptom of this age of delusion is a deeply internalized disdain for the corporeal realm. There is no intrinsic beauty, sexy is whatever we want to sell. We will live in the metaverse and on Mars next year if we can just get these articles big on social media for bossman Zuckerberg or Musk, never mind technological realities. Tech mogul Bryan Johnson injects the blood of his own son in a never-ending quest to de-age himself often to media approval and fascination. The seduction is easy to understand. Everything is possible without the pesky universe smacking us around with reality. I can be sexy, immortal, and Mars-based thanks to the writing I’ve bathed myself in? Tempting.
Othering is a sociological term that means to “view or treat (a person or group of people) as intrinsically different from and alien to oneself.” In my estimation, the brunt of American writing right now is hellbent on othering ourselves from ourselves. In this time and place, a randomly selected reader is more likely to emerge from their reading experience feeling estranged from the existence in which they are a part. Estrangement lends itself easily to darker emotions of fear, anger, and sadness. Have you seen many angry, fearful, or sad people around lately? These are states of mind ripe for manipulation or exploitation.
Maybe working writers reading this can take a pause—whether bent over advertising copy or scheming a Machiavellian ascent at a Condé Nast outlet—just to check the othering effect of their work. Hop on a boat if you can, even a canoe for an afternoon will do. You won't change the world, but you will be a part of it.
You're fucking crazy. Don't stop.