A Year of Absurd Experiments
Week 1: Tackling uncertainty one day at a time
Experimenting with Absurdism is a new limited weekly section of the Theory Gang newsletter for 2024. This newsletter was born from a leap into the Absurd, and I’ve written a book of daily reflections on my journey here. I invite you to cultivate your very own absurd experiments with me, while I figure out what I’m going to do with these 366 reflections.
What is Experimenting with Absurdism?
It’s a compilation of daily devotions I wrote to deal with the most ridiculous decision I’ve ever made: quitting my job without a plan. I finished 366 of these, but it still feels incomplete. Maybe it always will.
Is it published?
Not yet. I queried ~20 agents right after I finished it, with minimal interest. I’d like to publish it with a traditional publisher. I have my heart set on ONE agent, but I don’t know if we were ready for each other when we first met. We’ll see how it goes this time around
Why make a newsletter about it?
I have a lot to say about science and absurdity. More than will probably fit in a book, and I have so much tucked away in Google Docs that I need a bit of accountability to get it out somewhere.
Who should read Experimenting with Absurdism?
Only those who are ready to look into the abyss and laugh/cry/smile when it looks back. Only those who wish to learn how to embrace the insanity of this world.
Ok, I think I’m ready… what practical stuff will I get out of this?
Everything, duh. I started writing to help myself out of a very dark time, and I suspect you could do the same. Now, I’m in a great headspace, and so the experimental conditions are altered - so this should be fun. Either way, experimenting with the Absurd will help you
thrive in uncertainty
laugh more
think deeper about things that matter to you
solve the unsolvable - jk but you’ll enjoy the unsolvable more ;)
How will this work?
Well, we’re trying shit, so I’m not sure, but what I will promise you is that I will send you packets of quotes, prompts, stories and reflections that helped me. Some of them will never be published in the book. Sometimes, I’ll send you exactly what I wrote 3 years ago, and sometimes, I’ll edit. Sometimes, I’ll give you just the quote and a prompt for you to work on. You’ll get Weekly Newsletters containing something for each day of the week.
The first reflection for the week will be for everyone, but the rest will be a little more free-form and raw, and thus will be kept behind the paywall.
Let’s go.
January 1
“All great deeds and thoughts have a ridiculous beginning. Great works are often born on a street corner or in a restaurant's revolving door.”
Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus
There’s no guarantee that ridiculous beginnings will birth great deeds, but ridiculous is a good place to start; this book was born when I tanked my cushy biotech career. From the outside, my career looked great: I was a published scientist with academic and biotech experience in molecular neuroscience, sipping first-class champagne on an E175 Embaer on my way to meet world-renowned experts every week. On the inside, all that champagne was pickling my guts. I sunk into a deep depression and let my career lapse with no plan. I think we’ve got “ridiculous” covered here.
Like many people, I went through a shitty time in 2020, but I realized that I did it to myself. The world/universe/higher power had nothing to do with it; I self-selected a terrible new boss who was concerned with paltry metrics over what I valued: effective education and new knowledge. All of the glamorous travel halted, the drug I was working on failed its Phase III trial, and I was left sitting in the consequences of my decisions.
Seven years prior I left academic science, knowing that this cushy biotech career would eventually make me want to gouge my eyes out, so during that time I tried a bunch of shit to figure out a new career: looked into starting a cannabis lab, held fun intellectual events, made a game, started a nonprofit, canvased for democracy reform, learned to code, started several businesses, wrote several grants, and even built a news aggregator prototype for a renowned physicist. I hoped one of these activities would whisk me off to a new beginning, but with each attempt, I worked myself deeper into depression. I kept journaling about how it’ll all be worth it when I find The Thing, and thinking ‘I’m bound to find the thing if I just kept thrusting myself into everything like a human battering ram!’ Well, I broke through, or down, depending on your perspective, and realized there is no Thing once everything collapsed, and the only Thing I could do was write.
I can’t explain it, and as a scientist, I’m always looking for an explanation. I’d rather have performed hara-kiri than succumb to the idea that my logic and hard work could only take me so far - and I almost did, but instead, slumped over, catatonic, one day I picked up the Myth of Sisyphus, and realized that Camus is a genius because it’s hard to unalive yourself while you’re laughing. I didn’t really ‘get it’ until I ‘lost it’. Of all the well-reasoned choices I’ve made, my favorite was ending something sensible to start something ridiculous.
I spilled my guts, but for this to work, I suspect you have to take a turn: Think/write/paint/sing/meditate/what-the-fuck-ever you do about a ridiculous beginning you’ve experienced.