Weekly Insight
Everything I’ve made that mattered came out of hours nobody was watching. The ones after the work, when there’s no task and no one waiting on me.
Alcohol was a scheduling system. It made the same decision about my evening every day for years, so I never had to figure out what I wanted to do with that time. When I quit, I lost the substance and the answer.
So you substitute. Anything fast enough to close the question before you’ve answered it will do. The phone took over and still gets more of those hours than I’d want. Overwork is the same move with applause attached, and it’s the one most of us are running.
Boredom is the part that does the work. What replaces it isn't glamorous. I don't reach for anything at 7pm now. I finish my steps, prep the next day, get tired on my own. None of that would make a good post. What matters now shows up in the morning.
If your output feels thinner than the effort you're putting in, look at your evenings before you look at your discipline. Notice what you reach for at 7pm, and what it costs you by ten the next morning.
Podcast
My guest this week is with Steve [Sage-Outlaw-Caregiver] on September 3 at 5:00P EDT
Steve is the founder of Outside Feet and the artist behind Artificial Idiocracy.
He spent seventeen years at USAID as a project manager, 83 projects across 63 countries, more than $500 million aimed at getting capital into the hands of small businesses and the working poor. Serious work with almost no margin for error. For most of that career, drinking was how he carried it.
He put it down on August 4, 2018.
That handled the alcohol. It did not touch what was underneath. During COVID he was diagnosed with ADHD. Working from home had stripped away the outside structure that had been holding him together his whole life. Then came six bosses in four years, termination proceedings against a record with almost nothing on it, and denied leave he had already earned.
In April 2024 he drove roughly 28 hours to a facility in the Colorado mountains with his two dogs, Max and Slushy, and 36 cans of Monster. He expected a month. He stayed two. The first month felt easy because he thought the problem was anger. Anger turned out to be the armor, and inpatient is built to take the armor off. What was left underneath nearly ended things in a hotel room at four in the morning.
What he built after is a dog wellness company named for the animals that kept him alive, and an AI art practice where a whole Renaissance-punk world of corvid characters is taking shape. We will get into why six years sober was only the first layer, what it took to learn the language of feelings at forty, and the three-part pigeon series he made about his own stages of life.
What I’m Creating
This is me working on the guided portion for Tuesday.
The first Clear Hour is this week, September 1, 11:00am ET. We arrive, we make, we say what happened. Cameras optional, mics off, nobody looking at your screen.
You don’t need a sobriety date. You don’t need a finished project. You don’t need to call yourself an artist, and plenty of people there won’t.
Bring something you’re making. Perfection isn’t the goal, presence is.
When: Tuesday, September 1, 11:00am ET. 8am Pacific, 4pm UK.
Where: Zoom. The link goes out to subscribers tomorrow.
Cost: Free.