Putting Our Fear to Use in Our Creative Practice
Adam Becker on Standing Up to Bullsh**
“I’m just the sort of person who is constantly concerned I could be wrong. Doubt is a central feature of my experience of the world.” —Adam Becker, physicist and and author of More Everything Forever
Preview: Emerging Form Episode 139 with Adam Becker
When Adam Becker began writing More Everything Forever, he thought he was writing a takedown of Silicon Valley’s science denial. He even got a book deal for it. But as he began writing, he realized, “that’s a topic, not a story.” We talk about how he scrapped most of what he originally wrote to “follow the juice,” and how that led him into fearful places—both in terms of the content he was covering and his ability to tell the story with the kind of precise detail necessary. This brings us to discuss why he considers doubt a strength in his writing practice, why bringing his body into his awareness as he creates is essential, being a planner vs. a pantser, and why he spends time with trees.
Adam Becker is a science journalist with a PhD in physics. He is the author, most recently, of More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley's Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity. In addition to his books, he has written for the New York Times, the BBC, NPR, Scientific American, New Scientist, Quanta, and many other publications. He lives in California.
What We’re Reading and Listening to:
Rosemerry:
When I was in California a couple weeks ago, my friend Alison Luterman (episodes 64 and 25) gave me her copy of All Fours, knowing I would love this sexy, funny, heart-breaking novel. She was right. I devoured this book and wondered how Miranda July found the courage to speak so openly about middle aged women’s sexuality, identity, relationship with our bodies, relationship with other women and relationship with our careers. It’s not for everyone. Christie, for instance, hated it. As did my friend Sherry. I guess it’s one of those books you love or hate. Me: LOVE.
This past weekend at Telluride MountainFilm, I had the chance to watch Mr. Nobody Against Putin, a film shot by a Russian schoolteacher who documented the militarization of the Russian schools following the invasion into Ukraine. It is quirky and funny and heartwarming and quickly becomes sad and terrifying. The film won the jury’s award for best documentary of the festival. Ultimately, I came out feeling so inspired by what one person can do to stand up for equality, democracy, integrity. In this way, it rhymes with the interview we do with Adam Becker this week as he stands up to the billionaires in his most recent book. I so highly recommend this film, which is released in the US on June 6. Though it’s covering changes in Russia, it feels terribly apropos of what is presently happening in the US.
Christie:
I attended Telluride MountainFilm with Rosemerry and was as wowed as she was the weekend’s best — Mr. Nobody Against Putin. Everything Rosemerry says about the film is true, but I came away feeling less upbeat than she did. I’ve had a hard time shaking the grief I felt over seeing Pavel "Pasha" Talankin’s account of how his school was required to inflict propaganda on students following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Pasha objects to this state-mandated story line, the requirement that students regurgitate it, the militarization of the school curriculum and the disinformation that Putin is sending to residents of his industrial city. As Pasha witnesses his former students coming back from the war in coffins, it has become so dangerous to mention the true number of war dead that he doesn’t dare film the funeral of a dead solider. He eventually flees the country, and makes the dangerous choice to share the happenings he captured on video. I want to feel empowered by the film, but instead I was left wondering whether attempts like these to shine light on the things happening in Russia will provoke real change in the country, or only serve as documentation of what really happened for future historians and scholars (which is an important and necessary task, to be clear). It will surely help people outside Russia see what’s happening. But can it reduce support for the regime within the country? Yes, I’m still reeling from seeing how effective propaganda has been inside the U.S. How can you shift a society to a fact-based narrative when the masses are being inundated with an alternative reality?
I cannot stop talking about Everything is Tuberculosis by John Green
I am so glad that this book has become a bestseller, because it's so damn important. Why are 1.5 million people per year dying of a treatable disease? John Green explains why -- these people aren't dying of a bacterial illness (well, not entirely) they're dying from systemic failures of our medical and social systems. We can live in a world without tuberculosis, we've just chosen not to. Green writes about the issue with tremendous empathy. He will make you care. I'm grateful to him for using his substantial platform for good.
And Then It’s Exponential
I made a cage out of doom.
Thought, who am I
to change the world.
Believed that thought.
It’s not so much that
the doom dissolved,
no. It’s never been
more real. But the cage?
Just one story of just
one person who chooses
to stand up for integrity,
equality and peace
is enough to show
what one courageous
person can do.
Then the bars of that cage
bend enough for the most
courageous part of the self
to slip through. I’m not
saying it isn’t scary.
But this is how
one becomes two.
—Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer
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This week, we talk with Adam about the art of paying attention and how he brought that into his book, how craft can make writing about a distasteful subject more pleasurable, why you might want to find ways to treat yourself as you progress on a project, and how They Might Be Giants contributed to his book. If you are not yet a paid subscriber, you can go now to our website, EmergingForm.substack.com, or by clicking the button below. Thank you!
Two Questions:
(share your answers with us here on Substack or in our FB group)
How has a song lyric inspired or made it into your creative project?
What part of creative practice brings you the most pleasure?
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