Creativity Under Capitalism is going on summer break!

Why breaks are essential to avoiding burnout.

Whenever my partner and I try a new dinner recipe and end up loving it, he half-jokes that the recipe is "going into the rotation." When we're making our grocery list the next week, he inevitably asks if we want to make that recipe again. And I always tell him we should wait a few weeks, lest we wear out chana masala or this delightfully crunchy peanut-edamame salad. 

That's what I'm doing here. Creativity Under Capitalism is going on summer break, but not because I'm quitting the project. It's because I love writing this newsletter, and the best way to keep loving it is to avoid burning out.

Newsletters are a unique type of challenge, even for a practiced writer. They're more marathon than sprint, but unlike novels or other lengthy projects, they don't have a defined endpoint. They kind of just continue until the writer gets tired of doing it, or until life circumstances prohibit them from putting out issues consistently. And while I have little control over the latter possibility, the former is something I can work to mitigate in advance.

Research has shown time and time again that breaks are essential to avoiding burnout. Whether they’re “micro-breaks” scheduled throughout a busy workday (à la the Pomodoro technique) or vacations sprinkled over a year or two, they help us rest, regroup, and remember why we’re doing what we’re doing in the first place. This brings me to my next point: remembering why I started this newsletter, and how I want to maintain it long-term.

Substack has changed a lot in the eight months since I started Creativity Under Capitalism. For some of the newsletter’s subscribers, this means a whole lot of nothing; Substack is simply the word attached to the issues you get in your inbox every other week. But those who found this newsletter via Substack—and probably use the platform at least somewhat regularly—have seen firsthand how a tool once reserved for old-fashioned email newsletters has morphed into a social media app. Notes, or Substack’s equivalent of pre-Musk Twitter, has become the driving force behind Substack’s user base. It’s your homepage when you punch Substack.com into your URL bar; it’s where most of your Substack notifications come from; and it’s where newsletter writers now find a large chunk of their subscribers.

The result, no matter how much I’ve tried to resist it, has been an unpleasant, subconscious shift in how I prioritize my Creativity Under Capitalism-related work. I find myself checking Notes more frequently, because that’s where people hang out. I feel the need to post Notes regularly so I stay at the top of the algorithm, thus driving more attention toward my work. (Those who say there isn’t an algorithm behind Notes vastly misunderstand the degree to which engagement drives the modern web-browsing experience. It’s there, I promise.) Worst of all, I catch myself comparing my “achievements” (AKA subscriber counts and engagement data) with those of other users.

All of these things go against my creative philosophy. I have practically shouted from the rooftops that I’d rather write what feels real and true to me than pander to financial markets or algorithms. And I struggle to empathize with those who leverage a new platform in a transparent stab at internet fame, rather than to connect with others or share work that feels meaningful to them. Allowing the quicksand of social media to pull me in, then, does an obvious disservice to my creative mind and my self-esteem.

It also violates this newsletter’s core purpose. I started Creativity Under Capitalism because I was tired of seeing creatives bend (understandably yet unfortunately) to the will of the constantly-moving targets that are social media algorithms and evolving markets. I wanted a space in which I, along with my fellow creatives, could ponder the consequences of making art under capitalist-driven pressures and constraints, as well as how we could break free of both. Trying to appease Notes and other social media paths, then, defies the very reason I began writing here in the first place.

So, how do I address these concerns while facilitating a joyful long-term newsletter-writing experience? By doing what many of us miss about childhood: going on summer break.

TL;DR: Creativity Under Capitalism is going on a month-long summer break, meaning there won’t be any issues of the newsletter in June. This isn’t because I’m quitting the newsletter; it’s to avoid burnout and remind myself why I write the newsletter, which is to exchange nourishing and (hopefully) liberating creative ideologies with you all. After today, the next issue of Creativity Under Capitalism will appear on July 12. If you subscribe to The Freelance Series, your payments have magically been paused so that you will not be charged for the month of June.

I’m excited to see how a short time away allows me to come home to my newsletter’s original purpose. I’m also looking forward to letting non-newsletter ideas thrive in the empty space. Who knows what will grow there!

Thanks for supporting Creativity Under Capitalism up to this point, and thanks in advance for supporting it again in July. As a token of my appreciation, here’s the beach playlist I’ve maintained for the last couple summers to help you get into the vacay mood!

What’s been inspiring me lately:

✰ Desert Oracle, a radio show and small magazine from the writer Ken Layne. I first fell in love with Layne’s writing a few years ago when I received the Desert Oracle book as a gift, but when I was in Joshua Tree earlier this month, I found issue #10 of the magazine. I absolutely love that Layne embraces the mystery of the southwest while sticking to the facts, and I’d like to think that Layne would enjoy my novella-in-progress—we seem to have a lot in common.

✰ An event I attended last weekend that spotlighted five Arizona journalists who became authors. Seeing that they were able to split their careers so successfully—and across extremely different genres, no less—was uplifting, and made me feel as though I, too, will someday be able to foster both journalism and book-writing careers.