July From The Forests of Arduinna

Really cool updates and this month's essay digest

Many readers have told me that monthly digests of my writing are extremely helpful, so I apologize that I’ve been a bit irregular with them. I’ll try to get better at remembering to do these. Before we get to that part, though, I wanted to tell you a couple of quick things:

Now with fewer errors!

First of all, some really awesome news. As you know, I’m really quite terrible when it comes to proofreading my own essays, many of which are quite riddled with errors.

That’s why it’s really damn awesome that two readers will be correcting my essays. They’re both really frequent readers and also have been quite helpful pointing out mistakes to me, so I’ve asked them if they’d be willing to help more regularly and they’ve agreed.

So, yeah. The more exigent of my audience can stop grinding their teeth as they read me. Hope your dental bills haven’t been too bad!

Now with fewer words!

Maybe you’ve noticed already, but I’ve been trying to write shorter essays, because not everyone’s got 45 minutes to spend on just reading me. Most of my essays in July were under 2500 words, and a few of them were just under 1500. Of course, I’ll still write long reads once in awhile.

Now with more social media (ugh)!

You all probably know I stopped reading social media feeds last year. This has been amazing for my sanity and sense of self, but not so good for promoting my work; since I’ve got a book coming out, I’ll need to be back in the fray a bit. Hardly thrilled, but on the other hand, I’ve gotten better at making graphics for my essays:

Anyway, at least until the end of the year, I’ll actually be giving (limited) attention to Twitter (or X or whatever the hell it is now) and Instagram (where I usually just post shirtless gym photos) for promotion. That’s all I’ve got the stomach for at the moment.

Now with more writing elsewhere!

You already know I’ve got a book coming out, yeah? I’m damn excited. This also means that I’ll be writing a bit more elsewhere as part of the publicity drive for the book. Also, there will be excerpts of Here Be Monsters being published all over the place, including here.

In addition, essays of mine will be published in two fine print projects in the coming months. One of them will be in Dark Mountain 24, and another in Fiddler’s Green. I’ll of course let you know when purchase links are live for those delightful things.

Also, if you’re reading me and want my writing in your delightful thing, I’m always open.

Now with more of The Re/al/ign!

I took a couple of months off from recording my video and podcast series, The Re/al/ign, because summer’s been quite busy for me and others. However, a new “season” of recordings is about to begin and I’ve tapped the following really amazing people to be guests:

• Clementine Morrigan & Jay LeSoleil (the folks from Fucking Cancelled)

• Þórdís Elva (Icelandic writer and activist)

• Catherine Liu (professor and author of Virtue Hoarders)

• Edward Butler (professor, philosopher, polytheist, and one of the smartest people I know)

• Felix Marquardt (co-founder of Black Elephant, former Davos junkie, and all-around fascinating human being)

And those are just the ones I’ve already lined up. Suggestions for more absolutely welcome!

Now with a July essay digest!

Okay, here you go! And one more thing — the discounted annual paid subscriber sale is still going until the end of August:

3 July: The Mysteria, 7: “Thy Kingdom Come” (paid)

The most recent installment of The Mysteria, this time on Artificial Intelligence.

The real threat of AI’s integration into our lives, not that it will become god-like, but that we’ll eventually not notice we’re treating it like a god.

10 July: Climate Chaos and Forgotten Agreements (free)

This essay made quite a few people cancel their subscriptions to my substack, and I got a few aggressive messages from people. Funnily, though, they all seemed angry about completely different things. Go read it and be angry with me. :)

14 July: Political Theology: An Introduction (free)

What’s Political Theology? That’s what this series is about. Every month I’ll be posting one or two short essays in this series, and this is the introduction.

15 July: When Did Humans Start Changing The Earth? (free)

This is an essay in the Political Theology series, specifically on the idea of the Anthropocene and its discontents.

“… international scientific bodies actually meet together and take votes on these questions, just like councils of bishops and cardinals once did to decide on theological matters.”

23 July: Reckoning (paid)

I don’t write enough personal essays anymore, and I tend to put them behind paywalls now specifically because this feels ‘safer.’ I really needed to write this one.

The body and the mind reckon and dance together in grunts, groans, and then sudden moments of unexpected clarity. They each become bigger to accommodate the other, because they are both each other, and they are both me.

24 July: A Leftism of The Garden (free)

This essay was at least partially inspired by the online-leftist fights against degrowth and, in particular, the absurd stuff about bananas. Will write about this in more depth in the next installment of The Mysteria.

Without land, you cannot grow your own food. Also, without land, you cannot build a home. Also, without land, you have absolutely no choice whatsoever except to sell your time and labor to someone else in exchange for money. You can then use that money to buy food, and pay rent, and to heat your apartment, but at every step you’ll always be giving your money away to others to do things your ancestors just a couple of generations back did for themselves.

Yeah, sure: we’re told it’s all better this way. Who really wants to grow their own food, or build their own home, or chop their own wood, when we can all scroll mindlessly through social media feeds watching people doing those things instead?

27 July: The World’s Real Queer

One of my favorite essays I’ve ever written, and really short, too. Here’s the media graphics for it:

Thanks as always for reading me. And please consider letting me know what you’ve been thinking of this shift in writing in the comments!

—Rhyd