Eat Your Words is This Just In (Again)

It’s been a little while since I’ve sent you a proper newsletter. Sure, I told you about my book because, well, it’s super exciting! Besides that, though, it’s been pretty quiet.

I put Eat Your Words (the newsletter, not my business) on hold a few months ago after becoming the sole owner of The Writing Cooperative and focusing on that newsletter, This Week In Writing.

Today, I’m back! Well, kind of. Eat Your Words (the newsletter, not my business) is no more. Frankly, I think I said everything I could on that topic, and that was part of the writing burnout that led to my little hiatus. Instead of Eat Your Words, I’m relaunching This Just In (which you’re reading right now).

This Just In was an early iteration of my newsletter. In addition to the punny name, it provides a larger area for me to explore and write about. Each issue of This Just In will explore creativity, food, technology, and everything in between. I’ll share ideas I’m contemplating, new ways to approach creativity, interesting things I’ve found, and maybe how some of my favorite foods tie in.

In addition to the name change, This Just In will not be weekly. I’m not sure whatthe frequency will be, Kenneth — I’m going to allow inspiration to strike. It will be more often than Eat Your Words has been over the last few months; I can guarantee that. You’ll get an issue right to your inbox when the muse hits me, hence the name, This Just In. It’s like breaking news, but without the deterioration of your mental health!

Ok, enough introduction. Let’s get on with today’s issue. (What, did you think all this rambling about names was the entire issue? I wouldn’t do that to you.)

Skipping Through The Multiverse

The multiverse is a popular entertainment theme, with multiple films and books capitalizing on the concept. Today’s email is a great example, as somewhere there’s a parallel universe where I didn’t change the newsletter name back to This Just In, and an alternative version of you is reading this email as Eat Your Words. Mindblowing, right?

What’s extremely wild about multiversal theory is that it’s not new. It’s actually very, very old.

I was first introduced to the ancient origins of multiversal theory in Benjamin Sledge’s fantastic memoir, Where Cowards Go To Die. He mentions the ideas of seventeenth century philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, who proposed a multiversal explanation for the existence of God. However, as I went down a Google spiral, I discovered that philosophical concepts of the multiverse go back even further — all the way to the Middle Ages.

With centuries of multiversal theories, it’s interesting that the multiverse is all the rage in modern storytelling (and that it was so poorly executed in Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness). Maybe writers are looking to the multiverse, hoping that there are better alternatives or at least worlds with different outcomes and options.

If you’re a fan of the multiverse and haven’t seen the film Everything, Everywhere, All At Once, what are you doing? It’s simply the best portrayal of the multiversal concept I’ve seen. With an infinite possibility of worlds, our alternative selves can be literally anything — from people with hotdogs for fingers to cartoons to rocks with google eyes. It’s brilliant storytelling and worth multiple viewings to capture all the worlds.

All this multiversal discussion begs the question, if there are infinite other worlds with infinite over versions of ourselves, are there also endless versions of that film? What about this analysis of the multiverse? I don’t know! What do you think about the multiverse and its infinite possibilities? Hit reply and let me know.