Writer Wander 025 - Six Hyper-Specific Images that drive me insane

Wander, like a tried and true old man screaming at the clouds, recounts his irrational hatred of six completely harmless images

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:25

This is Rider Wonder twenty-five. Images that resonate with me for better or usually worse. I'm recording in a whisper because I'm in a place where there are other people sleeping in other rooms and in which I am uh you know I'm recording here because we're in a process that uh could or could not change the rest of my life depending on what I do with it. But that is neither here nor there. We will probably talk about that in some future. But for now, what's important for you to know is that I have to whisper in order to be heard without rousing anyone from their sleep. Because as you all already know, I'm so fond of waking early. And I've spent the last hour awake without doing much, so I figured that I might as well record one of these and just think through some random things. And uh I'm not too sure about the direction of this episode, but the idea occurred to me based on you know a few episodes ago about this idea of perception being power, and I just thought about like just random images that come to my mind that have just strong connotations behind them to me that often arouse like very strong and irrational emotions around them, right? And what's very interesting about these is again these are these are irrational. Like oftentimes the images themselves do not necessarily suggest the things that I am taking from them, but in my own in my own perspective, probably due to my own experience, I'm just like drawing connections where there may or may not be, but I think it'll still be a very fascinating study in the kind of phenomena that I'm talking about. So the first thing I actually want to talk about is mac and cheese with shells specifically, not just any kind of mac and cheese, we're talking about mac and cheese with shells. So there's something archetypical about consuming mac and cheese with shells as opposed to just the traditional macaroni pasta. Shell pasta is very unique in that due to the structure of the shell, it you know the cheese is more is more pronounced because you have you have this better idea of like the cheese filling of the interior of of the shell. And I don't know, I feel that when you look at pictures of shell mac and cheese, it just it just looks more more complete, right? It feels it just feels more appetizing to my eyes than when I look at like a standard bowl of like mac and cheese because you know the macaroni pasta, despite being the traditional pasta for a mac and cheese, is actually not very good at retaining the cheese. So it just it looks very unsatisfying to eat compared to the shells, because with the shells you can see like little pools of cheese building up within it, and there's something to that that I feel that mac and cheese with shells, I associate it with the experience of childhood of consuming mac and cheese in your childhood, sort of for similar reasons that people associate dinosaur shape, chicken tenders or chicken nuggets with their childhood. There's just something about the shape of food that enhances the eating experience that can turn what should be a normal eating experience into something that takes you back. It reminds me of the opening uh or one of the scenes in this uh this novel called Swan's Way, which I think it is one of, if not, the longest published novel, or at least it was for a time. And part of the conceits of that story was that the protagonist would be taken back in time through memories based on things that he, you know, just random experiences that he had. One of the famous scenes in that novel is where the protagonist gets a a Madeleine pastry, he dips it in tea and he eats it, and just the experience of consuming that Madeline brings him back to a period in time in which he was doing exactly the same thing. And there's a similar dynamic at play with me when I eat mac and cheese with shells, and specifically when I'm eating it with very liquidy cheese that you know that feels very artificial, ideally, something like craft, it brings me back to you know just one of those evenings where you know I'm hungry and I need someone to make me some mac and cheese. And you know, oftentimes I just eat the mac and cheese without any chicken, not not even nuggies, not even nuggies. I just eat the mac and cheese alone, and that'll be a full meal somehow that would satiate my my young body, those those so-called empty calories. Well, you know, take that world. Empty mac and cheese, that's that's the way to go, but so long as you just shells, of course. The next image I want to talk about is the young married couple with the man in the front holding up a wine glass. And this is an oddly specific thing, and maybe it's just a thing that I've noticed in my in my circles in the people that I'm around. But I think I've had multiple occasions in which I have, you know, uh, you know, I I I think I've I've like talked to a lot of you know, a lot of young married couples, and uh, I think I've been in some conferences where young married couples are, you know, they're just talking about their their experience, um, how they you know how they were able to have healthy healthy relationships and and whatnot. But they always seem to have like this one photo where it's like when when they want to show off like how how united they are as a couple, they always have this one photo in which like the two of them are like sitting down, you know, they're dressed in like fancy or business casual, you know, clothes, and like the man is like he has his arms wrapped around the woman, and he's got like um he's got like a glass of champagne or a glass of wine like raised up in the air, and you know I I don't I don't know why. I don't mind seeing pictures of of married people, but I I just I just that particular rendition of the picture where you're like raising the wine glass up and like you're you're looking triumphantly at the camera while you're holding your wife like I I don't know I I that that is so that is so cocky and there's no reason for it that it it just seems so stupid it's like you're raising up a freaking wine glass and you're like oh look at me I'm I'm so so high society we're we're so fancy look at us enjoying our life enjoying the finer things in life with my stupid uh fucking champagne glass it raised up it's like you know I don't know it it just it it it strikes me as uh and you know I guess I'm gonna sound like a Marxist when I say this. I'm not a Marxist, but but it sounds like you know it feels very very bourgeoisie, very high upper middle class energy that is radiating from the image. And it just you know I I guess I guess the let me try to dissect this. Let me see what what I can get out of this because I I I I still don't quite understand where this hatred I have for for this image comes from. And I think it comes from a place that you know typically in the context in which I'm being presented this image, it's in the context of you know a couple that's talking just about you know their life, how their their different struggles, and you know, how how they've been able to stay together in spite of all those struggles that they've had. But the problem is that when you have an image like that, it betrays a certain level of socioeconomic status that you know obviously the temptation is to think that if you're someone who has that social economic status, you don't really have any real problems, right? And you know, I get the point that you know everyone has their own problems. We should never minimize someone's problems, even though there's always someone who's suffering more than we are, and you know, just because you're rich, it doesn't mean that you that you run out of problems. It just means that you have different sets of problems. But I I don't know that there's just there there's just some unstated arrogance to to that image that I you know it it grinds my ears. I I hate it. I hate it so much. The other one is uh, you know, a little more positive, back to a more positive note. It's like the guy, an image of like a guy staring off into the horizon. This is very common in adventure novels, medieval adventure novels, medieval fantasy adventure novels where and give me one moment I'm about to sneeze. Okay, never mind. Um I think that was my sneeze. But yes, in in readable adventure novels and in a lot of paintings too, there there's this image of like again a young man staring off into the horizon. And I think that this is a kind of image that I'm never gonna get tired of seeing because I feel that the the archetypical sensations from this image are are profound. There's just something, particularly in the young male psyche, that just you know, it sees a certain romance in that kind of image, a certain romantic resonance. Um, you know, this idea of possibilities left open to explore, of doors that are still open for you, that are beckoning for you to come, and but you just have you have to walk through, you have to cross across these long, these long distances. And who's to know what the things you'll find are, especially when you have like this massive countryside ahead of you, or like that one painting from the romantic period where it's like a guy standing in a cliff, and you know, there's like an entire world of of cliffs and and mountains spread out before him, and the heights are so majestic and wonderful, and you have this man that's you know that's staring at it from the center of it, you know, taking it all in, taking in the you know, the whole world in in all of its gambage and all of its possibilities, and the there's something very youthful about this kind of image. Something that you know it speaks to like the springtime of our lives, in which, you know, in the sense I am still in that springtide by being in your twenties. But by virtue of being in my mid-twenties, I am sort of in the dying ghast of that of that springtime, where the popular perception at least is that those options are beginning to close. Not that not that I can't chase them, but around this time I should start settling down to a particular path, a particular a particular mission in life, you know. And it it is uh it is quite fascinating, precisely, uh, for those reasons that that I mentioned. The other image, of course, and this is something that I went at length on for probably too long in the perception podcast, but it's when, you know, well, it's not the perception podcast, I I called it the a sensitive young man. If you're interested in listening to that episode, you know, it'll probably inform a lot of this episode. But the you know, it's the professional guy walking with a Bluetooth. You know, there's no need to enter into any more detail about this than what I do beforehand, but in case you didn't listen to that episode, um, I I just hate the idea of like people in business casual or in suits walking down public streets talking in a Bluetooth. It doesn't happen that much anymore. It's usually people on their phone, but I guess the phone just looks more natural to me and it it it gives less business vibes because hypothetically that person could just be on a personal call. But the issue with the Bluetooth is that when it was a Bluetooth, you knew that it was a guy that was dealing with like business issues while he was walking. Like you're thinking about like this young, you know, maybe this guy in his mid-40s, he's got like gray hair, and you know, he's dressed very handsomely, he's like a white guy, and you know, he's walking down a street with you know with this little stupid Bluetooth sticking out of his ear. And he's talking about KPIs and monthly reports or quarter or business quarters or or net income results and whatever, and you know, you just want to kill this guy. It's like it's like dude, just enjoy your walk through the fucking street. Like, don't take your work outside of your fucking house. Like, you know, your your life is probably busy enough. You're probably working 60 plus hours a week and you know, whatever investment bank that you work in, you know, you don't need to be taking that outside, dude. You really don't, man. And it it pisses me off. Just the idea that people like that can exist, you know, the working culture like that can exist. And you know, that's why when I when I see people like that, when I used to see people like that very, very frequently, you know, I wanted to punch them in the head because again, there is an unstated arrogance about that, where it's like, oh I'm busy. What what are you doing? Well, you know, I mean I'm too busy enjoying my life, bro. I'm sorry. Then there's there's that one pose that authors do on the back of their books. So you know how in every book there's like a a little picture of the author, and you know, I I'd say something like seven times out of ten. It's not always, but it's common enough to where like it's a tendency, and anyone who's read a book can attest to this. You know, authors have like this weird pose where like they might be dressed in something like a turtleneck or you know, some some fancy clothes, and like they're they're they're like slouched down, like looking at the camera, and uh they they you know something that they sometimes they had they do this thing where like they're holding up they're propping up their chin on like their their their hand. And it's like you know, it's like that one like thing that like intellectuals do all the all the time where you know they they prop up their chin on their hand and and it's hilarious. Like it's like the the smart people pose. It's so it's so stupid, it's so but you know, I don't understand you you never pose like that for literally anything else. Why are you posing like this for your book and why specifically your book? It's like you know, again, this wouldn't be that bad if it wasn't for the fact that literally every author has a pose like this. You know, a part of me, you know, when I publish my books, um, I don't know if I'll include a portrait like this, you know, just to spite people. Like I think it'd be kind of hilarious, kind of funny, just like a portrait of myself, like doing this stupid pose where I I have my chin propped up on my on my arms, or where I'm you know slightly slouching down while looking at the at the camera while I'm dressing in some in some comfy in some comfy clothes. You know, that is like the go-to author pose, like they look so chill, you know, they they look like dogs. They look like it, you know, they look like my you know, I have a French bulldog, they look like my French bulldog, like lying down, chilling, like looking up at a at a camera, that that's what that looks like, you know. So to all the prospective authors out there that are taking that image, you guys look like my dog, okay? And the last image I want to talk about for this podcast is the image, the archetypical image of the innovator wearing a turtleneck. Now, the first person who started this, unlike all the other images that I've been discussing so far, this one does have a traceable lineage. I'm not sure if he was the first one to do it, but he was certainly the most famous. The first person to start rocking the turtleneck as an innovator is Steve Jobs, and I believe that ever since then the turtleneck has had an association with elite Bay Area tech culture, and it has never been able to shake it off to the point where you know whenever there's people who are trying to project this image of innovation, of being, you know, being forward thinkers, they they often dress in, you know, like a simple black turtleneck in an attempt to subtly understate their own their own elite nature, right? You know, there was like this one woman who started a pharmaceutical company that ended up being a scam that she used to dress in, you know, a black turtleneck in honor of Steve Jobs because you know that was the vibe she was going for. She was trying to get this vibe of of an innovator. But where I've really been seeing it a lot recently is in like these um, you know, the these videos that are trying to sell courses to you about how to like you know buy and sell um real estate properties, and it's always these dudes that are talking about passive income while dressed in their turtleneck, you know, you know, implicitly saying that they know better than you, and again, it pisses me off and it's hilarious. It's like you know, again, these dudes in their turtlenecks trying to get me to you know purchase these investment properties because that's that's one thing, right? By the way, if someone is teaching you their investment methods in a course, and unless it's something that's like passive investing, like an index fund, because it's it's just because an index fund, I can I can I guess I can get someone getting like a course or like watching something about that because it's something basic enough that you know everyone is already passively investing, it's just that or most people are already passively investing, it's just that it's usually in their in their 401k account, so they don't they don't really notice. But when you're talking about an active investing strategy, like you know, buying and selling properties, it's all or you know, people forex trading used to be like a thing, um, and you know, obviously it still is, but I think that a lot of the gurus about it are just not around anymore, and certainly with crypto, when you have people selling courses on like these active strategies like day trading, crypto, or or whatever, when you have these people selling these courses, it's usually a questionable sign because usually these people are probably making more money from the courses than they are from their actual techniques, because again, the incentive structure just isn't there. Why would you be sharing these techniques to make money in an active strategy for making money in the public? You know, that would just make it harder on yourself, and it would eventually dilute the effectiveness of the strategy unless you found out that there is a better market in selling courses to people who want to apply these methods. But yes, that was Ryder Wander. That was uh another edition of you know, Wander looking up at the sky and cursing the clouds like an old man. But uh, I'm sure you have some images like this that they just you know they just grind your ears that that you know they're completely harmless in and of themselves, but you your mind just starts making associations with them that you know that you don't that you don't like. So that was uh Rider Wonder uh signing off.