Tangent: March Digest
What caught my eyes and ears in March
Hi Friends,
This is my monthly digest where I round up and share things I read, watched, and listened to this month that I enjoyed.
This month, I'm also giving you a window into the thoughts that stayed with me throughout the past few weeks.
Thank you for reading!
What am I thinking about?
What makes art valuable?
If you've been online over the past couple of weeks, you've likely seen the flood of images turned in the style of the legendary Japanese animation studio, Studio Ghibli.
This has re-ignited debates about whether AI-generated images emulating distinctive styles are ethically acceptable (distinct from legal copyright concerns). Last year I explored my own tensions with using AI in my essay, The Genie and the man. Those tensions persist and have only deepened as AI has become part of my daily routine.1
Here's how I'm currently framing the question: What truly makes human-created art valuable? From your friend's watercolor hanging in your bedroom to Picasso's Guernica, what elements give art its value, and how do these manifest in AI-generated work? Is it effort, artistic skill, or something else entirely?
I'm still in the early stages of exploring this question, but I believe it ultimately comes down to our concept of beauty—what it means and how we define it.
I'm a firm believer that beauty is both objective and subjective.
Everything is political
The word "politics" has become as taboo as the word penis.2 But I think we're mistakenly conflating politics itself with political discourse and media coverage.
Here's how I define politics: the dynamics of our collective life and the decisions that create functioning communities, societies, and civilizations.
The air you breathe is political. The roads you drive on are political. what your child learns is political, whether you or the state teaches your child is political, what you can and cannot do in public is political.
I understand the impulse to disengage. How could you not want to distance yourself from political discourse when we're drowning in tribalism, surrounded by half-truths, with family dinners hosting competing realities?
It doesn't help that mass media has clear economic incentives to provoke strong emotions like anger while avoiding the nuance complex political scenarios require.3
My fear is that as people continue to confuse politics with political discourse, and as that discourse deteriorates further, we'll accelerate this vicious cycle of political apathy—the very conditions that breed oligarchies and perpetual dysfunction. Once we reach that point, everything becomes unavoidably political as the failures of our political process become impossible to ignore in daily life.
Conviction and Optimism
Beyond my thoughts on conviction, I've been wrestling with: "How do you prime yourself daily to acknowledge the immense privilege that life is?"
How do you counter waves of sadness when they wash ashore?
How do you accept that embracing life fully doesn't require a tragedy like losing someone you love?
Research suggests avoiding phone use when you wake4 and practicing gratitude and meditation in this liminal state may imprint a default mindset of gratitude and optimism.
But what happens when you hit a roadblock during your day? How do you build the awareness to return to a positive baseline?
I do have conviction. I am optimistic. But these feelings fluctuate wildly throughout the day, creating unnecessary friction and triggering old scripts and limiting beliefs. I'll continue experimenting with what works for me and share my findings.
What should Tangent be?
My grandest ambition for this newsletter is to become a one-man magazine reflecting the full spectrum of interests that populate my mental universe—one you find inspirational, educational, and entertaining.
I want you to read a post about road rage, then one about tariffs, followed by thoughts on a book I loved. Borrowing Alice Lemee's term: to have enough "creator gravity" to bring you along an interstellar journey through my varied interests.
I realize it's a lot to ask. After all, you don't read The Atlantic for sports coverage, watch Bravo for history lessons, or tune into ESPN for psychology insights. There may come a point when this newsletter needs to become less divergent and more focused.
Why? Audience size matters. Soon, I hope to publish books that reach larger audiences and generate substantial income from my writing (the perennial writer's dream). The publishing industry remains a powerful gatekeeper of taste and distribution despite the internet, and industry dynamics dictate that most publishing houses won't consider you without a sizable audience (~10,000 subscribers).
A larger audience gives me leverage to decide whether going direct makes sense. My thoughts are evolving, but this is where I stand now.
What I’m Watching
Craig Mod on the Tim Ferriss Show
Before watching these interviews, I only had passing knowledge of Craig Mod. By the end, I was captivated by his commitment to craft, his mindfulness, and his fascinating life journey!
Here is the link to Part 2.
The Ultimate Guide to Writing with AI - How I Write/David Perell
David is the former sensei for Write of Passage and host of How I Write (one of my top three favorite podcasts). This video showcases vintage David—the same engaging approach that kept hundreds of people captivated across every time zone for 1.5-hour sessions. Beyond entertainment value, David offers thought-provoking insights about AI's evolution in the writing context and shares practical tips at the end.
As I mentioned in the opening section, I'm still navigating the tensions around how and when to use AI in writing. But if you're ready to move beyond that philosophical stage and want actionable strategies you can implement today, I recommend you watch this.
What I’m Reading
The Great Passage
I almost put down this novel about 30 pages in. I'm so glad I didn't.
This Japanese novel by Shion Miura is a beautiful ode to words and their meaning. The story follows Majime Mitsuya, an awkward, lanky guy tasked with creating an ambitious dictionary called The Great Passage.
The plot seems mundane, and the book starts slowly. However, like growing fond of a barista at your local coffee shop through the warmth of familiarity, these characters gradually won me over. Once I found myself rooting for them, the book began delivering beautiful insights about the power of words, meanings, and definitions. I ended up falling in love with this book.
I'll leave you with a passage where one of the supporting characters, Kishibe, contemplates how working in the Dictionary's Editorial Department has begun to change her:
"She had pursued her life and her career without thinking, drifting along like someone who comes to a fork in the road and unhesitatingly takes the easier way.
Working on the dictionary, delving into words the way we do, has changed me, she thought. Awakening to the power of words—the power not to hurt others but to protect them, to tell them things, to form connections with them—had taught her to probe her own mind and inclined her to make allowances for other people's thoughts and feelings.
Through her work on The Great Passage, she was seeking and gaining access to the power of words as never before."
Finally, My Brain Makes Sense to Me by Charlotte Grysolle
Charlotte is a fellow Write of Passage friend who has been writing for years on neuroscience, breath, and wellness/productivity. Her latest edition resonated with me deeply.
Charlotte shares her journey through ADHD testing prompted by her overactive mind. While the results showed ADHD-like traits without a clear diagnosis, this experience led Charlotte down a rabbit hole that helped her work with her mind instead of against it. From her post:
Those moments when you zone out during mundane activities and your mind drifts into an endless spiral of thoughts? That's your DMN [Default Mode Network] working. It's responsible for mind-wandering, self-reflection, replaying past conversations, generating creative ideas.
The DMN is essential—it helps us make sense of our experiences, process memories, and plan for the future.
But here's the critical part:
In a neurotypical brain, the DMN is supposed to deactivate when you focus on an external task. When you start working, reading, or talking, your brain shifts gears, engaging the TPN—your brain's focus mode.
Pure Independence by Morgan Housel
I think Morgan is one of a handful of modern writers who can pack numerous ideas into the fewest words possible. The author of The Psychology of Money definitely delivers in this essay about having agency (my only gripe with this piece is that I would substitute "agency" for "independence" and it would be even more powerful). This quote stood out:
Less stress is a good point. It’s mentally exhausting to pretend to be someone you’re not. It’s part of why so many people look forward to retirement: it may be the first time in their professional lives they can truly be themselves.
Financial independence is easy to grasp – you no longer rely on others for income. Intellectual and moral independence is more nuanced, but not having it is a unique form of debt.
How James Bond Can Fix the Crisis in Masculinity by Ted Gioia
I'll give you an extra thing I'm thinking about: Manhood. What it takes to be a man and to engage romantically in current times. That's why I was drawn to Ted's article examining the future of the Bond franchise and what the sexy spy archetype might mean for future movies. However, it was the section Ted calls his "advice on masculinity" that really grabbed my attention.
Here’s the one big thing that movies and TV shows will never tell you about masculinity. But you need to learn it.
A man achieves happiness in life by delivering on his responsibilities. You have no idea how important this one thing will be to your mental health, your sense of self-worth, your relationships, and your ability to find meaning and purpose in your life.
I’m talking about your responsibilities to your family, your colleagues, your teammates, your friends, your communities and groups, your country—and even to total strangers. (Yes, you have responsibilities to them, too.)
But above all I’m talking about your responsibility to yourself. And when I say you owe something to yourself, I mean your higher image of who you should be.
Living up to these demands is what makes a man happy. It’s also what makes him manly.
A real man goes out into the world and gets things done in order to fulfill these obligations. And this is where traditional masculine values come in—toughness, perseverance, endurance, vitality, ruggedness, and all the rest.
If you figure this out, everything else will fall into place.
What I’m Listening To
I made you a playlist
Want to get a taste of my eclectic music taste? Well, I made you a playlist so you can go "wow" or "wtf." This playlist contains some of the songs I listened to most in March.
There's Japanese R&B. There's Classical. There's Spanish Rock. There are old-school Italian ballads. There's Salsa. There's Dua Lipa.
Check it out!
Gia Fu's Salsa Sessions
I've rekindled my love affair with salsa this year (and started taking lessons again). I've had a love-hate relationship with this beautiful genre: I love salsa music, but got too in my head about needing to be "good" at it because I'm Colombian and that's what everyone expected.
Gia Fu's jam sessions have been a perfect low-pressure way to simply enjoy the music and let my feet do the talking while I work from my standing desk.
She's also a phenomenal DJ who brings deep cuts you won't find on Spotify. She's the real deal.
In case you missed it…
I wrote earlier this week about tariffs. Hilariously enough, the situation has changed in the past 72 hours, and 72 hours from now, it may drastically change again...because 🙃.
I know most of you have an aversion to political content (based on the open rates for this latest edition), but I'm asking you to read for just 60 seconds, then decide if it's worth continuing for 2-3 more minutes.
If you like what you read and want more insight, I highly recommend Kyla Scanlon's recent post—she captures the situation brilliantly.
I liked this recent piece by Alex Dobrenko where he explores similar tensions.
Perhaps even MORE taboo now.
That's precisely why I wrote a post on tariffs—because I couldn't find analysis with the rigor I wanted from mainstream outlets.
Something I just started doing and will report back on.
…this format rules bravo king…
My writer goal is to be featured in Tangent's monthly digest. Jk. Loving this roundup! It's so interesting to see what brilliant minds are reading / listening / watching!