Feelings are the new currency

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Thank you to Steve Johnson for this beautiful image.

Today, once again, and as ever, I want to talk to you about feelings. They will become the most valuable currency we have, and sooner than you think. Maybe they already are.

Crypto flopped, and thank goodness. Invest in feelings now.

But first, a brief detour. Let me first tell you who I even am, because I haven’t really done that yet. Shouts to the great

Lucas Mangum

for reminding me that this is an essential thing to do.

In late 2022, I started this newsletter. In 2023, I wrote half of a novel (second half forthcoming), and co-founded the illustrious Mangaroos podcast with my friends Mark and Alex. It was a good and busy year-and-a-bit.

I love writing, and I love talking about manga. I’m never going to stop doing those things. But I don’t consider them to be my main pursuits. So, in 2024, the focus is slightly different.

2024 is about chasing the bag.

That means success in my career, comfort for my family, and – hopefully – deeper relationships with everyone in my life.

So I’m finally going back to school, which is something I’ve been threatening to do since the last time I was in school, long ago. I’ve been accepted into the Nagoya University of Commerce & Business’s Global MBA program. For yes, as much as I admire writers and creators and wish that I could walk full-time among them… I’ve got to recognize where I’ve made my biggest moves up until now, and double down on the path I’m on, rather than try and blaze a brand new one. I don’t call myself a writer, because I respect the writers I know too much. Their constant dedication. Their ability to weather the haters. I’m not a writer like that. I’m a guy who loves words, and reads constantly, and writes when the whim strikes.

I’m so fortunate for so many reasons, but here’s one: I love my job. You know, the thing I’m doing when I’m not reading or writing words (though sometimes it involves both of those things).

I’m a corporate skills trainer, working with major Japanese corporations to help professionals communicate and work more effectively within diverse teams. I do this work mainly in the Japanese language, but also sometimes in English.

(On the side, I also do a bunch of Japanese to English localization work, because it’s fun, and it keeps my writing sword sharp enough to use when I need it.)

In the future, I want to continue doing this kind of work, but better. I want to be more helpful to the people I work with, and offer them more insightful solutions.

As a stretch goal, I want to see if I can go into business publishing indie created English-language works in Japanese, and maybe even doing something with manga.

I’m almost 40 goddamn years old. But I’m just getting started.

And when I say almost, I really mean almost. I’m 39. In Japanese, that can be pronounced san-kyu. Another thing that’s pronounced san-kyu in Japanese? Thank you.

So I consider this, my 39th year, to be my thank-you year, my year of gratitude. Gratitude to everyone who’s helped me get to where I am. To everyone who’s inspired me. To everyone out there who I’ve never met and never will meet but is doing something beautiful.

(By the way, no, I’m not going to stop being grateful when this year is over lol. Can you imagine?)

That’s where I’m at, and who I am. And I say all this because I think it’s important to be honest, especially with you who is kind enough to be reading this.

If we’re going to enter a world where our feelings are more valuable than ever (and we are), then we need to be honest with each other, so that we can feel safe in feeling around – and with – one another. Soon, that might be the most important thing we can do for each other, as human beings, in this AI- and tech bro-infected world, where we are merely pawns. Maybe it already is.

They can force-feed AI down our throats, but they can’t make it feel. Not like we do.

The god damn tech bros are determined to make each of us as lonely as possible, so that we continue to buy all of their products, and subscribe to their app-based services, and isolate ourselves in compulsive quasi-entertainment in an attempt to console ourselves.

But I’m seeing evidence all around me that our feelings – those squiggly and uncontrollable gusts and tides inside of us that give life its richest colours – are the true currency of the future. They can’t be stockpiled and exchanged the way other currencies can, but they can be shared, and nurtured, and protected. Having them is worth pursuing, and not having them is a truly terrifying form of poverty.

I don’t know about you, but I’d rather feel something with somebody than get a Starbucks gift card from them. For example.

On the most recent episode of the always-excellent Plain English podcast, Derek Thompson talked to the author Charles Duhigg, about how to really connect with people, and communicate effectively. The idea that resonated with me the most was this: Don’t focus on facts. People can’t connect over facts. Instead, focus on feelings. Don’t ask “Where’s your hometown?” Instead, ask, “What do you like about the neighbourhood where you live?” Get people to open up, and be willing to open up. People can, and do, connect over feelings.

Elsewhere, over on The Honest Broker newsletter,

Ted Gioia

wrote a fascinating and appropriately dread-inducing piece about the trend of post-entertainment, which I urge you to read. Here’s the chill-inducing graphic from it that’s gone somewhat viral:

Dopamine Culture suggests a scary and homicidal future. But all hope is not yet lost. The left side of that graphic, slow traditional culture, is not gone. Those options still exist, for those willing to reach for them. And while the quick-hit crack-like nature of Dopamine Culture delivers quick squirts of chemical pleasure-adjacent stimulation to our brains, I would argue that we need to simmer, to spend time doing things slowly, in order to really feel.

And so we come back to my true love, reading.

I’m that one guy on the train who isn’t staring at his phone or sleeping.

This is the most intimate evidence I’ve encountered so far, because it’s the evidence I felt. Last night, on the train, reading Whalefall by Daniel Kraus.

The whale is appalling hyperbole

Those five words, in that precise order, and sandwiched among thousands of other similarly luxuriously arranged words, had the power to make me stop in my tracks. Because of them, I had to take a little rest. I had to sit, for a little while, with how those words made me feel.

They made me feel tiny in the face of something enormous.

But more importantly they made me feel something. More than anything else that happened that day, or since.

I took time out to savour that.

Reader, I’m not trying to tell you that those words should make you feel any kind of way, especially presented as they are here, out of context.

But I hope sincerely that you felt something reading this.

Cherish your feelings, whenever you notice them, and share them with someone you value whenever you can.

Thanks for sharing mine with me.