The Sovereign Artist—Episode #1
The Dangers of 9-5 Employment & Musings on Addiction & Economic Growth & Descartes’s death & more
Hello friends,
And welcome to Episode #1 of the The Sovereign Artist series.
Before we kick off, a bit of context:
I’m Vizi Andrei. Say hello on Twitter or Instagram—my DMs are open.
A few years ago, I wrote my first book called Economy of Truth—which is no longer available.
It was an exciting project. It was an endeavor to find out who I am and who I want to be. I wrote it because I needed it. I wrote Economy of Truth because it’s the book I wanted to read.
But—this is a big but—I made many mistakes.
I was reluctant to seek feedback and advice. I rushed the entire process. The book came out poorly structured. I no longer resonate with the work I created. The scope, marketing, and promotion behind it were lacking in terms of style and elegance.
But I still launched it.
And despite all of these mistakes—the book turned out to be quite successful.
Thousands of people bought it. The reviews were generally positive and constructive. And I still get a lot of DMs from people asking me where they can buy my book from, even though I no longer talk about it online.
I find this to be crucial information. The project was uncreative—yet people still liked it. The demand was there. The demand is there.
It means that this project has potential.
And that’s exactly why I want to bring it back to life.
But this time I am going to take a completely different route.
And the first big change is that the book will have a different title: The Sovereign Artist.
The second big change is that I’m writing the book in public.
This newsletter is the playground that helps me organize my research, exercise my creativity, and seek feedback.
You will be able to contribute—ask questions, share ideas, and offer suggestions.
The structure of this newsletter is as follows:
In the first part—this one—I will share information and announcements about the process, tactics, and promotion behind this project. I will show you what I’m working on and how I (try to) strategize everything.
In the second part—see below—I will share the research behind the book without giving you spoilers: let’s not ruin the experience.
Here are 3 aphorisms, 3 insights, 1 philosophical joke, 5 books I’m reading, and 1 question for you to reflect on.
Enjoy 🥂
3 Aphorisms
I.
To live well, don’t look for answers.
Learn to love the questions.
Life is much more about wonder, adventure, and reflection rather than evidence, order, and direction.
II.
If you win an argument, you are not the winner.
The winner is the truth.
Lead the argument by order and style—then you’re the winner!
III.
The road to job security is paved with quicksand.
It seems safe and smooth on the surface, but the risks are hidden under the road.
In your career, you don’t want to choose any road—but to find your own way through the wild.
That’s where the strongest species like to hang out.
Thread of the Week
3 Insights
I.
Scott Adams on humility:
“Humility is your best friend. When you can release your ego long enough to view your perceptions as incomplete or misleading, it gives you freedom to imagine new—and potentially more useful—ways of looking at the world.”
II.
Alain de Botton on addiction:
“We get addicted. Not necessarily to heroin or whisky, but to everyday innocuous activities that attract no alarm or suspicion. We are hooked on checking the news or tidying the house, exercising, or taking on fresh projects at work. It can look to the world as if we are just being productive, but the clue to our compulsiveness lies in our motives. We are checking the news to keep the news from ourselves at bay; we are working on a project as an alternative to working on our psyches. What properly indicates addiction is not what someone is doing, but their way of doing it, and in particular their desire to avoid any encounter with certain sides of themselves.”
III.
Matt Clifford on prestige and economic growth:
I find the explanation deeply reductionist but I still find it fascinating.
“I stumbled upon this 2017 review by economic historian Mark Koyama of The End of the Past by Aldo Schiavone. The End of the Past is an exploration of the economy of Ancient Rome and Koyama uses it to ask an intriguing question—I consider it to be one of the most important in history:
Why did the Industrial Revolution happen when it did?
Why didn’t it happen much earlier, in Rome?
Rome at its peak was plausibly as rich as Europe on the eve of the Industrial Revolution. Why did it decline rather than generate sustained growth?
The fairy grotto, 1867
Schiavone’s short answer is that the wrong activities were prestigious. The only high-status way to earn an income was to be a rentier. The ubiquity of slavery, as well as being a moral horror, meant that manual work—and certainly any attempt to increase productivity—was low status. As a result, there was no way for a culture of innovation to thrive.”
This raises (at least) two interesting questions:
What is prestigious today that holds society back? And what activities do we need to increase in social status?
High-ambition entrepreneurship is still lower status in most of the world than structured careers. Being a tinkerer (experimenter; you learn by doing, by taking plenty of small risks on a frequent basis) remains low prestige relative to its importance in the context of the Digital Age.
But what else? Let me know if you have any ideas.
I Think, Therefore I Laugh
Descartes wasn’t a morning person.
He used to wake up at 11 am at the earliest.
That was until Queen Cristina of Sweden hired him in 1649 for private philosophy lessons starting at 5 am.
Descartes died in 1650.
H/T Mahmoud Rasmi
(Some) Books I’m Reading
1. The Timeless Way of Building by Christopher Alexander
2. The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity by Carlo M. Cipolla
3. The Minimalist Entrepreneur by Sahil Lavingia
4. The Sacred and the Profane by Mircea Eliade
5. Seeing Like a State by James C. Scott
1 Question
How can I gain the freedom to make mistakes without being harmed by them?
Hope you liked this episode 🥂
Any feedback, suggestion, or criticism is welcome: feel free to reply (if you got this in your inbox) or send an email to viziandrei@outlook.com
Thank you for your time,
Vizi Andrei
Creator of The Sovereign Artist