I couldn’t bring myself to write another word last weekend, but I fought with myself all Sunday over not posting the Sunday Dose.
You promised to post every Sunday.
Yes, but I write all week and I’m tired.
You must be consistent with your practice.
But isn’t this obsession with content digital capitalism?
No, it’s a commitment to your writing. It’s engaging with culture.
But I need space just to be.
And so on.
Obviously, “space just to be” won out, but as Sunday rolled by, I still felt guilty for not showing up.
A conversation with a colleague made me feel better.
“No Darlings this week?”
“I couldn’t bring myself to do it.”
“That’s totally fair. I don’t know how you write all week and then do it again on the weekend.”
Bless the people who let you off the hook when you can’t do it yourself!
The truth is — break or not — Darlings is no burden. Although I write all week for work, writing here gives me freedom. It’s when I can exhale, fall into flow, and feel most like myself.
5 good things
My best friend, T.
Porridge (steel-cut) with banana, cinnamon, roasted nuts, and honey — this breakfast feels like love to me.
My mum! She’s been there for me heaps lately, and I’m super grateful for someone I can be fully myself with.
My commitment to recovery and healing — It’s fking annoying, but it’s good I keep coming back, I guess?
My new Sony headphones. These “cans,” as the audio bros on Reddit call them, add so much value to my life. My ears and heart feel safe and nourished.
Read 🔪 Wellness by Nathan Hill
My brother Ben is a voracious reader. He reads dense, intellectual books on philosophy, psychology, feminism, and history, ones I wouldn’t have the patience to read.
But one stream of Ben’s taste perfectly aligns with mine — epic, sweeping literary fiction about dysfunctional families. His latest recommendation, Wellness by Nathan Hill, perfectly reflects our shared genre hard.
Jack and Elizabeth fall in love as uni students in Chicago’s burgeoning art scene in the 90s. Drawn together by troubled upbringings, a relationship steeped in salvation forms a dissatisfying marriage that mirrors the unhealthy dynamics Jack and Elizabeth escaped in childhood.
Similarly to Jonathan Franzen’s layered novels (Ben and I have read them all), Wellness beautifully connects the personal with the public.
From the anti-establishment, bohemian ideals of 90s Wicker Park to the kale-halo tech-bro wellness culture of the 2010s, the characters in Wellness engage with cultural phenomena in ways that reflect more about our times than critics directly commenting on them.
Through Jack and Elizabeth’s fraught relationship, I learned some home truths, like how people change (or try to) yet fundamentally remain the same (frightening), and how our reality is created by the stories we choose to believe — so, it’s “important to pick the right stories.”
Every couple has a story they tell themselves about themselves, a story that hums beneath them as a kind of engine, motoring them through trouble and into the future.
Oh, and certainty is a total farce! When Elizabeth asks, “If nothing is real, if certainty is just an illusion, what do we do? Believe in nothing?” The psychology professor and mentor replies.
Believe what you believe, my dear, but believe gently. Believe compassionately. Believe with curiosity. Believe with humility. And don’t trust the arrogance of certainty.
Wellness is such a good book that it inspired me to create a new shelf on Goodreads called “very-good”. V. good = excellent btw.
Listen 🔪 Broken men
I’ve been listening to IDLES all day, every day, for two weeks. Two guys at work are obsessed with the band, and after seeing them play last year and raving about it, I was intrigued, but I never followed through.
What got me to finally press play? My favourite Substack,
, described IDLES as “The Wiggles but for maladjusted adults” with songs about addiction and recovery. Plus, I check out everything A. J. Daulerio recommends and anything addiction-related.I’ve been listening to TANGK, mostly. I tend to get stuck on an album I like and repeat it for months before losing interest (four-second hot). I’ve dabbled in the other albums, but some political songs’ lyrics are too cliche, heavy-handed, and possibly insincere.
I Googled the lead singer, Joe Talbot, and found out he’s a 39-year-old recovering alcoholic divorcee dad with mummy issues. The fact I was immediately turned on is why I’m currently celibate.
ICYMI 🔪 Kindred
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote an essay about my auntie’s adoption and her documentary, Kindred, which is now on SBS On Demand. Support First Nations’ film and watch it. It’s beautiful.
With love & dopamine,
Nx
🔪 Quote of the week
It is an odd feeling, to sense one’s aliveness, for perhaps the very first time, to understand that life up until this point was not being lived, exactly; it was being endured. - Nathan Hill
If you want to support my writing, become a free or paid subscriber. As a paid subscriber, you get a dopamine boost knowing you’re paying for something you value. You also get the Sunday Dose (full access), essays like this, Best Lists, and Dopamine Darlings (shiny new things that fill the void). A portion of your subscription will go to Common Ground, a First Nations not-for-profit working to shape a society that centres First Nations people by amplifying knowledge, cultures and stories.
I loved this weeks offering. It is so vibrant and reflects a life well lived.
Look at him goooooooo