Dividual

Nov 18, 2024 | blakebutler.substack.com | Blake Butler

Unedited free writing composed while listening to Godspeed You Black Emperor’s NO​ ​TITLE AS OF 13 FEBRUARY 2024 28​,​340 DEAD for the first time from beginning to end w/o pause over headphones in my office with a candle burning. Gathering in platitudes occluded through ritual deviance bypassing eternity, nothing stuns. Even the big boss at the end of the hall eats blood from his hair and calls it knowledge.

Nov 11, 2024 | blakebutler.substack.com | Blake Butler

There’s been a lot of online debate lately about literature as a product of elitism. Reading and writing requires time to be able to partake in, obviously, and yet most of the people who bring this up as a talking point appear to be doing so in bad faith as a means of denigrating desire for knowledge.

Jun 17, 2024 | blakebutler.substack.com | Blake Butler

Having found acceptance for the first time publishing online, my entire world began to open up. I became immediately obsessed with writing all over again, in a quite different way than I had than just writing on my own in relative silence—not only from feeling capable, now that someone else had seen merit in my work, but from finding countless others in a similar position all over the world.

Sep 21, 2023 | blakebutler.substack.com | Blake Butler

Through most of the 2010s, I wrote almost exclusively while listening to music through headphones so loud it would blot out any outside sound. I’d often get in a habit of playing the same record over and over—so that I could begin to learn to disregard it, too, somehow narrowing my attention within even the high volume.

Aug 10, 2023 | blakebutler.substack.com | Blake Butler

I’ve been struggling with reading lately. Too much going on, too much consumed brain bandwidth, less clarity of focus, not enough time. It’s a common complaint, of course. Who has time for reading when everything else feels up in the air? Where do you fit in space for thinking when you’re so tired you want to collapse? In general, I haven’t let this bother me as much as it might have once. Haven’t I already read enough? Do I really need to stay abreast of every entity that hits my radar with any pull?