Nobody's talking about neighborhood pubs, loneliness, and creativity
Issue 002: We're creating a whole new world together, and that can feel a little lonely
“If you know what you want to do and you do it, that’s the work of a craftsman. If you begin with a question and use it to guide an adventure of discovery, that’s the work of the artist.”
—Rick Rubin, ‘The Creative Act: A way of being’
Last August I moved to a neighborhood in Central Austin called Rosedale. My house is walking distance to a coffee shop, quite a few restaurants, and a public park with a public pool, not to mention a grocery store and a bookstore.
After the move I noticed I wasn’t driving much and decided to save the ~$700 per month I was spending on a car payment, insurance, gas, and maintenance, and buy an e-bike1. My house is a half-mile from Shoal Creek Trail, one of the crown jewels of Austin’s urban trail system, so I use that for runs and walks with the dogs and, if I have a meeting downtown or relatively central, I hop on my bike and I’m there in 10 minutes.
There’s also an old pub called Draught House (pronounced “draft”) right in the middle of it all. Originally opened in 1969, it’s the kind of place where the bartenders will hang out at your table and chat when it’s slow; the kind of place I can hide in the corner to dig in to a novel or get some work done.
It’s also the kind of place where you can really get out of your shell and talk to people. If you know me, you know I’m famously introverted2, so I’m really working on that whole “getting out of my shell” thing.
Draught House has become a kind of extension of my house for better or worse, and I’ll often stop there for a pint on my way home from my girlfriend, Jules’s, house. (We live a few block from each other, too, so I really do have everything I need nearby.)
The pub is a true neighborhood spot and it’s mostly full of dudes and dads getting together to talk about dude and dad stuff, which is great because dudes are lonely. Well, everybody feels lonely—so much so that the U.S. Surgeon General declared loneliness an epidemic in 2023. It was NY Magazine’s cover story a few weeks back.
The pandemic really did a number on all of us.
I know this is a newsletter called “nobody’s talking about this,” but everybody is talking about that. That first few months of isolation, especially, followed by the chaos that was 2020 seems to have rewired our brains and produced stress in us we don’t yet understand.
One night recently I pulled in to the pub and my buddy Dan waved me over so I ducked inside real quick, they handed me what is now known as “the Nate3,” and went back to Dan’s table.
I didn’t get his name, but one guy was talking about how he’s been writing music recently so I jumped in and asked what the most fulfilling thing about creating has been for him. He told me the thing that had been most fulfilling is just being able to point to things he’s creating, knowing he’s putting in the work—then we went off on a tangent about how lonely the act of creating something new is, and how rare it can be to actually like the thing you created.
Bringing something new to the world is tough, especially if you have a particular thing you’re going for. It really sucks to have taste or vision sometimes. It’s why I try really hard to never ask a songwriter or creator who they think their art reminds them of. That stuff’s already in their head. There’s no reason for me to invite them to compare their work to somebody else’s more than they already, naturally are.
I watched this conversation recently between Andy Cohen and John Mayer, and Andy asked John about whether or not he likes his own music when he writes it.
John replied, “If you don't like it, it's just because it exists a little bit beyond your own tastes for that moment. You begin to like it. As a writer, you write something and go: 'I bet this isn't any good', but your tastes catch up to it… It's a very complex, kind of twisted thought, but why does my [not] liking my idea have to stop me from writing the idea? Maybe what you like and don't like right now is not essential to it.”
Unrelated, a highly accomplished friend of mine in the tech space who’s working on a new idea recently texted out of the blue to tell me he’s really been struggling with imposter syndrome.
Imposter syndrome and creativity are at the intersection of everything. I don’t know anybody who’s creating anything, be it a song, a piece of artwork, or a company, a lifestyle, a relationship, who doesn’t deal with some level of imposter syndrome. And what happens when you feel like an imposter? You get in your head.
In Your Head is the worst place to be. There are a lot of voices in there, and they’re all just… you. Every blank you try to fill in about why somebody doesn’t like you or didn’t like the thing you created, or why that thing happened the way it did? It’s just your brain telling your brain stories. Just knowing that can’t stop anybody’s brain from doing it—I know it and I struggle with it constantly—but it does help to know it.
I think it helps to remember that especially right now, while we are still very much coming out of the 2020 pandemic time warp. People are actively creating new worlds for themselves.
Maybe it would’ve happened with or without the pandemic, but many of my friends are moving, having kids, getting divorced, getting married, or quitting their jobs to follow what would’ve previously been considered some crazy dream—often on what seems like a whim, too.
People just don’t have the patience to live a life they don’t want to live anymore, so they’re creating something new.
As a country, we’re deciding, again, whether or not we’re going to elect Donald Trump, or we’re going to elect Kamala Harris. I think y’all know where I stand on that, and either way, whoever we choose, we are creating a very new future for America.
And
creating
something
is
lonely.
Creating something new means spending time in your head—it means thinking and overthinking, and trying new stuff. It means hating that new thing you created for a minute, because even though it’s “good,” it’s new, and new is scary.
The loneliness epidemic is very real. I’m glad the Surgeon General is tackling this as a public health crisis, because it is. I am grateful for spaces like my local coffee shop and Draught House, and to live in a walkable neighborhood where I actually talk to and know my neighbors. I’m grateful for friends who go out of their way to check on and spend time with me, even though I’m pretty naturally extroverted and optimistic. All of that helps beyond measure.
We need to be very intentional about going out of our way to be curious and kind to one another right now—to everybody. Some curiosity and kindness could turn somebody’s loneliness into solitude, which is entirely different.
Really listening when you ask somebody about the life they’re building or the art they’re creating might just free them up to tell the voices in their head go pound sand and spend time with the thing they’re creating in a healthy way.
I quoted Rick Rubin’s book, “The Creative Act,” up top. You really should read the whole thing, maybe twice. He’s got a few essays about being childlike, and he said, “As artists, we seek to restore our childlike perception: a more innocent state of wonder and appreciation not tethered to utility or survival.”
What if that’s the key? What if, like my friend at Draught House, you’re just supposed to enjoy the process of creating whatever it is you’re creating, knowing you put in the work?
Happy Friday, y’all.
Cheers,
Nate
p.s. As always, my email address is nthnryn@gmail.com if you need to get in touch. ✌🏼
Everybody's talking about this
Did you hear that that Venezuelan dictator/reverse-Grinch, Nicolas Maduro, wanted to crack down on political dissent so he just… decided that Christmas is in October now? I didn’t know we could do that, or that it would work.
Did you hear that there’s an election coming up and voter registration deadlines are coming up in the next few weeks all across the country? You should check to make sure you’re registered at your current address.
Did you hear that parenting is really stressful and childcare is insanely expensive and Travis County’s Prop A is on the ballot in November to help make childcare more affordable across the city? I’m voting yes.
You should go to this
Alright, here are some things to know.
In 2017 I started a happy hour with a bunch of friends called Cocktails & Conversation. The first one in over a year will be hosted with my friends at Rivian at their new space on South Congress on Friday, November 8. We’re going to make it a bit bigger with some live music and food and drink from some local Austin favorites. Put it in your calendar, and be on the lookout for more info.
I’ll be starting a “Nobody’s talking about this” dinner series in November or December, location and topic TBD. If you’re a paid subscriber to this newsletter, you’ll get first dibs on snagging a spot—but don’t worry, I’ll make it public at some point, too.
💫 The more you know: If you’re an Austin Energy customer and you buy a qualifying e-bike they’ve got a really generous rebate system. I paid $1,200 for mine and they just cut me a check for $400. It’s pretty great.
Hey, don’t worry, that’s a joke.
A pour of Cynar and a Meanwhile Pilsner.
I love your love for Rosedale!!