Time to Upgrade to Full-blown Aluminum Hazmat Suits

Deep Rex Vol. 5

“Deep Rex” (recommendations) is my ongoing series of mini-essays/recs for paid subscribers.

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Who wants to come to Costa Rica the first week of May? Discover a New Model for Psychedelic Therapy.

This year, the non-profit I co-founded is pleased to offer a novel Natura Care Integration Program. The idea is to take everything innovative and important from our core addiction program—a highly supportive environment with a focus on integration, nature immersion, and counseling—and provide an offering for the general public. 

This is for anyone interested in integrating entheogenic experiences in a therapeutic setting that nourishes the soul and encourages wellness on all levels, with optional plant sacrament ceremonies each week. I also plan on teaching a writing workshop or two, maybe some yoga :) Learn more here.

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1. Social media is a major cause of the mental illness epidemic in teen girls. The CDC’s bi-annual Youth Risk Behavioral Survey came out, and fuck, does the data look grim. Jonathan Haidt, who has been doing important, data-driven work to illuminate this issue for years, has an epic write-up about it here. Freddie has an essay also worth your time “Some Reasons Why Smartphones Might Make Adolescents Anxious and Depressed.”

At the risk of sounding redundant, I see part of my work as helping people understand that screen addiction is a real thing that has negative consequences for many. But the truth is, too many people still don’t understand the grave toll excessive screen usage can take on our lives and collective sensemaking. Only the future will reveal just how bad it is, and whether we can find balance with technology.

At the heart of this issue is the insidious power of algorithmic forces, which operate in ways that are both subtle and pervasive. I’ve argued that these algorithms are manifestations of the collective unconscious—meaning, you need near super-human awareness and real-time shadow integration abilities to allow these forces to only enhance, and not hinder, your one precious life. It’s no longer a tin-foil hat statement to say that we are being controlled by technology from a handful of mega-corporations (time to upgrade to full-blown aluminum hazmat suits).

I also think it’s undeniable that the more whole you feel, the less time you’ll spend staring at a screen. I’ve noticed that most of my smartest and most thoughtful friends, writers I know and admire—like Holly, Sasha, Erik, Jason, and many more—are spending less, not more time on social media these days.

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2. The best podcast I’ve done in a while. By now, I’ve done enough podcast interviews to know when something truly novel emerges, and this conversation with Eyal Shay was one of them. For one, I love talking with Israelis. For two, Eyal is a philosopher trained in dialectics, and he came to our podcast curious about addiction based on some intuitions, but at the same time, not driving any agenda towards trauma, somatics, psychedelics—or whatever other hot-button topic that I (obviously) live for—but doesn’t always draw out the best in conversation. We talked about what it means to heal from addiction—and how with psychedelics and other modalities, some people can, indeed, permanently heal. But we also jammed on the importance of play, dialectic vs dialogue, and more.

Healing Addiction (w/ Alex Olshonsky)

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3. The Library of Babel and Substack aesthetics. You may notice I’ve used Erik Desmazières’s art before in my essays—he’s a living master of etching and engraving, a Frenchman.

Des Amateurs perplexes (épreuve rehaussée), 2007

He works in the style of the old Renaissance greats, flexing his own hallucinogenic vision at times with more than a little nod to M.C. Escher and his ever-winding staircases.

Relatedly, one of my favorite short stories of all time is “The Library of Babel” by Jorge Louis Borges (another Rex). It’s short, it’s heady, it’s mind-blowing, it’s the stuff that reminds one how expansive literature can be. And I recently came across the dopest illustrated edition imaginable, by none other than Desmazières:

You may also notice that I never include AI-generated art in my essays. My theory is this: the art I wish to propagate is the fruit of human loins, not synthetic. According to this theory, I could very well include as an object of design/art itself the code comprising the AI, and it would qualify. But not art created by AI. There’s just so much human art left to celebrate. A fine distinction, I grant, but an important one I think.

A Substack without aesthetics is like a symphony without its conductor. The use of stock images is merely superficial, while personal photography or AI art adds another layer of complexity and depth. For me, writing essays is not just about conveying information, but also an excuse to immerse myself in art history and consult with savvy friends to arrive at a complementary aesthetic or thematic resonance.

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4. Everything Everywhere (All the Tired Memes). The moment I watched Everything Everywhere All at Once, I was enamored by its seemingly transcendent metamodern philosophy, which appeared to be pushing beyond the boundaries of postmodernism. However, upon a second viewing, I found myself less enthused, prompting me to embark on a research quest to uncover the film’s undercurrents…