Michael Mulligan > Recent Status Updates

Radar operators at nuclear facilities are not artists. They are not stoners. They are not conspiracy theorists. They are precision-trained specialists trusted to handle world-ending information with zero room for error.

When they say: “I saw something on radar move at 9,000 mph, stop mid-air, then vanish,” the only honest reply is: “What agency told you not to talk about it?”

There's been a lot of criticism of safetyism and safe spaces and trigger warnings. And sure we need exposure. But I was happy to read this defense of Denial by poet David Whyte:

"To live in denial is to be in very good company. To deny denial is to invite powers into our lives we have not yet readied ourselves to meet."

This is a humbling portrait of Vincent, showing his flash temper, grandiosity, self-contradictions, zig-zagging life path, and failure to connect with others; its realness makes this all the more endearing.

This book goes into great detail about Vincent's suffering. Yet I think it's dangerous to romanticize about the suffering. Diarrhea, destitution, and migraines weren't essential to his creative process.