Primordial Soup

When Oxford revealed its annual “Word of the Year” earlier this month, we had some questions—and not just because “Brain Rot” is two words. 

The truth is, we scroll past hundreds of images, sounds, and writings every day, pumping into our brains faster than any information has ever moved before. We absorb things that are neither meaningful nor thought-provoking—information with no purpose other than to fill space and time. Join us this week as we discuss the impact of this so-called Brain Rot. We explore the impact of AI “Slop” on our brains (yes, that’s really what its called!) And, we share some old-school knowledge about the importance space for creation.

What if we thought of the contents of our brain more like Primordial Soup than slop? Primordial Soup refers to the primitive water bodies on the earth that were so rich in organic matter that scientists believe the first life forms evolved out of them. 

What if we were filling our brains with such substantive, enriching, inspiring content that creative life was overflowing? Creative life was consistently pouring out of us?

The way we see it, this is a bit of a “use it or lose it” situation. We’ve each only got one brain, so let’s do our best to keep it healthy and looking straight ahead toward those big creative goals. 
Join us in setting the intention for mindful making in 2025!

You can listen to the Spark File podcast on Spotify, apple podcasts, and directly on our website.

Doors are open for our transformational 6 month program, BLAZE. Our next cohort begins February 6. Get all the information you need HERE

Chapters

• 0:00 The Spark File
• 19:49 Nourishing the Brain for Creativity
• 29:52 Diving Into Creative Primordial Soup

Transcript

The Spark File Podcast Transcript
Season 5, Episode 16: Primordial Soup

Susan Blackwell:
Welcome to The Spark File, where we believe that everyone is creative, but smart creative people don't go it alone. 

Laura Camien:
I'm Laura Camien.

 Susan Blackwell:
And I'm Susan Blackwell. And we are creativity coaches who help people clarify and accomplish their creative goals. 

Laura Camien:
Hey, you should know that just by listening to this podcast, you are joining a warm and wonderful clan of creatives.

 Susan Blackwell:
But, you may be asking yourself what exactly is a spark file? 

Laura Camien:
A spark file is a place where you consistently collect all your inspirations and fascinations. Every episode we're going to reach into our very own spark files and exchange some sparks, and from time to time we're going to talk to some folks who are sparkly and who spark us too. 

Susan Blackwell:
And your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to take some of those sparks of inspiration and make something of your own. So, without further ado, let's open up The Spark File. Laura Camien. How are you doing?

Laura Camien:
I'm really good.

Susan Blackwell:
And I'm really excited because I love Spark Day and I love it when you spark me.

Laura Camien:
Oh, Spark Day is so fun and I have a fun little spark for you today. I think I'm into it. It's a little one, but it's one that has, you know, taken up a little space in my mind recently, so I thought, Hmm, maybe I better share this. This week I read an article in the Atlantic by John Hendrickson. It's about the word of the year. According to Oxford, it's the word of the year. Do you know?

Susan Blackwell:
Wait, wait, wait. You don't know what the word of the year is. I heard it and I lost it. Can't pull it up.

Laura Camien: 
I'm going to tell you.

Susan Blackwell:
Yep, go ahead.

Laura Camien: 
Oxford word of the year is: Brain Rot. Obviously, we know that's two words, but we're going to let that slide.

Susan Blackwell:
You know what? I don't think I knew that. That is dark.

Laura Camien:
Yeah, it is dark because, like well, they've been under a lot of criticism because of I don't know I guess just how well, because, number one, it's two words not one. But because it is dark, it is a certain, you know, it could be perceived as a certain generational type of thing. Last year the Oxford word was Rizz, which is a little bit more peppy.

Susan Blackwell:
I think when you said,  do you know what the word is—I think I was still back on Riz. Still on Riz, yeah.

Laura Camien:
Which, if you're not tapped in, it's charisma, Short for charisma. Anyway, according to Oxford, brain rot is the word of the year and no other word or phrase seemingly better captures this distinct blend of listlessness, exhaustion, haziness, dissatisfaction that a lot of people are feeling right now and trying to describe right now. So Oxford defines brain rot as a “supposed deterioration of a person's mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as a result of overconsumption of material considered to be trivial or unchallenging.”

Susan Blackwell:
Let's hear that again.

Laura Camien: 
Overconsumption of material considered to be trivial or unchallenging.

Susan Blackwell:
Okay.

Laura Camien: 
Particularly online content.

Susan Blackwell:
Yeah, I thought that's where we were headed.

Laura Camien:
That's where we're headed, that's where the majority of it comes from and how we spend. You know, I, I, I still want to throw my phone across the room when it tells me how many hours a day I have been on it and I'm like how is that possible? I'm like I don't have that many hours in the day and I'm like, well, that's because they got sucked into that. So in this article, Hendrickson uses an example that happened to show up on that very day in his social media feed. At the time, we were in the midst of starting to hear about and contemplating all the cabinet member nominations and the news of which public programs might be cut when the next administration comes into office and other pretty damn important topics. And yet what the president-elect posted on his so-called truth social account was a manufactured image of present day Donald Trump hanging out with Elvis Presley, and there was no joke associated and no comment, and the whole thing was made to look like it was a historical artifact, which is ridiculous. And you could argue, who cares? Like what does that matter? Taken alone, obviously it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter at all. It's pointless.

Laura Camien:
And that is exactly the point. How many of these absolutely meaningless, mindless images do we scroll past every day, from everyone, every brand in our social media feeds? They're not informative, meaningful, intelligent, or thought-provoking. They're not a celebration of art or literature or higher thought. They don't appeal to our understanding of humanity. They don't contribute to any higher purpose at all. According to this article, the people in the President-elect's feed absolutely loved this post and went on to share additional AI-generated images that they created. Again, harmless, but again pointless. The problem isn't just one image, and it's not at all even about politics. It's not at all even about politics. It's not about AI. This was just the example that the author of this article used to make the point about brain rot. Even the human being in the highest office of our country's government uses his time in an absolutely pointless way.

Susan Blackwell:
Is the inference that he was puttering around on AI and generated this.

Laura Camien:
No, just that, he even thought to share it. That he took the time it takes to grab it and let's just share this, this absolutely meaningless, pointless, no comment, no thought provoking message, just you know. The point here is that's just one image, one of a million that we simply just absorb, hour after hour every day, hour after hour every day. Hendrickson writes, “Brain rot stems from this daily avalanche of meaningless images and videos, all of those little tumbling content, particles that do not stir the soul”. So I was amused and appalled to learn that the term for AI generated images is” slop.” Oh, did you know that? 

Susan Blackwell:
I had heard that. What an amazing—and it kind of makes sense, it's so accurate. Slop.

Laura Camien:
Doesn't that just make you think of the unidentifiable cafeteria food, just spoonful after spoonful of slop being dished out? And the problem is that all of this slop is taking up valuable space in our brain. It shortens our attention span, which in turn makes it harder for us to take in the more meaningful content. When we do feel inclined to pick up a book or learn a new skill, or even a new game, anything that takes longer than two seconds, I'll even say this sometimes, when I'm scrolling, there is something deep and meaningful that I would like to think about, and I will hit save so I can think about it later, because right now I'm busy consuming slop. That's what my brain is doing, and I don't have any room for more meaningful and nutritious food. So, brain rot is the neurological equivalent of donuts for dinner. It's like you have filled yourself up but you have not really, you know, gotten any nourishment. So, according to the article on The Atlantic, brain rot doesn't hurt, it's dulling numbing, something more like a steady drip. You know you have it when you have consumed, but you are most certainly not filled up, and the deluge of disposable digital stuff often feels like a self-fulfilling, self-deadening prophecy: Rotting brains crave more slop.

Susan Blackwell: 
Oh my God, it's just like zombies. 

Laura Camien:
It's like zombies.

Susan Blackwell:
It's a zombie equation.

Laura Camien:
It is. It is, Remember that movie, WALL-E, it's like that. And don't take my slop away from me, I'm just busy feeding this. So yeah, oh my God, the article even points out this there are times we're taking in slop, while we're taking in slop. Think about the TV equivalent, like the reality shows that feel designed to watch while you're looking at something else on your phone. 

Susan Blackwell:
Right.

Laura Camien:
It’s like, I think about—remember Muzak, that elevator music designed so that you were in fact hearing music but you could talk over it, you could have a conversation at the same time. People were highly critical of Muzak at the time because it wasn't really music. It was designed to, like, allow us to do something else. Now that seems so tame. It was actually trying to allow us to have a conversation, despite some sounds in the you know around us. But look at now we're creating content to be consumed while we're consuming other content. It's just slop on top of slop. So you know, the history lover in me was excited to learn this. Hendrickson really came through in this article for me. He said, though it seems highly modern, brain rot as a phrase dates back to Henry David Thoreau, the transcendentalist, the contemporary of Ralph Waldo Emerson, one of the founders of the Atlantic magazine. As Oxford University Press notes on its website, the first recorded use of brain rot was found in 1854 in Henry David Thoreau's book Walden, which reports his experiences of living a simple lifestyle in the natural world. As part of his conclusions, Thoreau criticizes society's tendency to devalue complex ideas or those that can be interpreted in multiple ways in favor of simple ones, and sees this as indicative of a general decline in mental and intellectual effort. He says “While England endeavors to cure the potato rot, will not any endeavor to cure the brain rot, which prevails so much more wildly and fatally?”

Susan Blackwell: 
Buckle up, you don't even know what's coming!

Laura Camien:
1854. And I think about, like just last year in politics we were talking with, like Hannah Marie Marcus…Hi, Hannah Marie, if you're listening! And she's like “Well, this country decided long ago… We did not want to be nuanced, we didn't want to deal with any topics where more than one thing could be true.” Or, as Thoreau says, “Those things that could be interpreted in multiple ways, complex ideas.” Ih, I just can't believe it. It's, it's just. It's nice to know, as the article points out, that today Walden Pond, outside of Boston, is one of the surest places that you can visit to alleviate brain rot. Still to this day, you can swim in the cool, reflective water, stare at the swaying trees, wander around the muddy shore. Even just the description of that stirs my soul.

Susan Blackwell: 
Yeah, this…this also reminds me, if I may, Laura. I was, um, Laura and I are giving ourselves a little bit of challenge to hopefully add to the the positive side of social media to share some, you know, sparks of inspiration on social, and so I was recording one of my sparks today for social media. So you're talking about Walden Pond and how this is a place where potentially it is the anti-brain rot.

Laura Camien:
That's right.

Susan Blackwell:
So I was sharing this thing from the author Joseph Campbell who specialized in mythology and during those famous interviews between the journalist Bill Moyers and Joseph Campbell, Bill asked Joseph Campbell, what does it mean to have a sacred place? And Joseph Campbell said “You must have a room or a certain hour of the day where you do not know what was in the newspapers that morning, you don't know who your friends are, you don't know what you owe to anybody, you don't know what anybody owes to you, but a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be. This is the place of creative incubation, and first you may find that nothing's happening there. But if you have a sacred place and use it and take advantage of it, something will happen.” And I think about this spark you're sharing with me today, which I feel I feel deeply called in, but also um sparks that you've shared around the necessity for boredom the necessity, in the, in the creative equation, the necessary—

Laura Camien:
Yes, yes—

Susan Blackwell:
I think about an amalgam of all of these sparks and my own, if I'm honest, my own challenges with it, and I think about what Joseph Campbell was saying about we have to have a place for creativity to exist and for our humanity to exist. We have to have a place like Walden Pond or a chair in your living room next to a record player where you listen to music that you love, like just that kind of a jam, that's right.

Laura Camien: 
And lately, like for the past three weeks I've been doing, I offered it up to all of our clients, but basically meeting like early morning getting online and writing, and the beauty of it is—the only thing I do before starting to write is make coffee. So I make coffee and I get to it and the like, just like. Just like Joseph Campbell said, I don't know the news that day, I don't know what's up and what's down, what's going on, and it doesn't matter. I haven't filled my brain with a whole bunch of other stuff, I'm just sitting down to write. And that has been such a gift, such a gift. And I am aspiring—I also told you this happened kind of by accident, because my sister and my nephew visited for like a week and we were so busy running around the city in a beautiful way that I didn't have time for watching any television for that entire week have time for watching any television for that entire week, and I remember saying to you like I haven't watched any of my shows, I haven't watched anything for a week, and I'm going to try to keep it going, because how much richer and more interesting have my days been not being filled up with—I didn't even have time for I had my phone out all the time, of course, for taking photos of Robbie and Marcy and like the stuff we were doing, but I was not on my phone in that way, you know what I mean. I just didn't have time and it was kind of beautiful. It was kind of beautiful, and so the challenge is like I don't, I obviously can't keep up that pace of being that busy nonstop, but can I decide that when I have some downtime, that there are things that I can do that are analog, that are old school, and not just consuming—

Susan Blackwell:
Brain rotting, brain rotting? Nathan asked me a provocative question this past week, which was what did you like to do before your phone? And I was like can you remember? I feel gross. I just remember um, uh, reading a lot more, that's that's loved reading a lot more reading a lot more reading. I loved reading.

Laura Camien:
And brain rot makes it difficult for our brain to focus long enough. Our attention spans have definitely shortened. I am building that muscle Just period, full stop. This whole thing got me feeling pretty down, like the dumbing down of the human race has been happening for hundreds of years, and it feels like we're just racing to the bottom faster than ever now, thanks to new technology that is more than happy to help us dumb ourselves down, and we're willingly doing it. Yeah, we're consuming more slop, faster than ever. So, I started to intentionally think about its opposite, like what would it feel like—

Susan Blackwell:
The sloposite? 

Laura Camien:
The sloposite of brain rot, good one Suze. The sloposite. What would it feel like to be putting things in my brain that feel like growing something, things that feel like neural synapses firing and connections being made in?

Susan Blackwell:
I love that.

Laura Camien:
I love how that feels. I know you love how that feels, susan. That feeling of a new idea that makes you feel alive or learning. An old idea that makes you feel connected to humans across time and space, or an idea that helps you understand someone else or yourself on a deeper level. An idea that creates space for more empathy in your brain. What if I commit to feeling more of that in the new year and feeding my brain whatever is needed for that to happen? It's not slop, that's for sure. Yeah, and then I was reminded of how, at Blue man Group, we used to talk about primordial soup or primordial ooze. If you're not familiar, primordial soup is a theory of how life was created on earth. That the water, the gases in the atmosphere, the energy sources, the light and heat, all of it combined, were so rich with organic matter that life simply sprang forth.  And in the coming year this is my resolution, because I'm pretty sure today is the day before January 1st, am I right?

Susan Blackwell: 
I think that's right.

Laura Camien: 
Future me is saying these words: In the coming year, I want to commit to thinking of my brain like that. I want to treat it like it is fertile ground. It is a primordial soup filled with so many ideas and inspirations that the possibility of life and opportunity and growth is present all the time. All I have to do is feed it what it needs and life will evolve from it.

Susan Blackwell:
Hmm! And how, how do you think you're going to do it, Laura?

Laura Camien: 
I am going to read more. I am going to make things with my hands. I am going to consume theater and art and film that stirs my soul. I am going to challenge myself to try new experiences that feel scary but exciting. All of that, all of that is how I'm going to feed my brain what it needs.

Susan Blackwell: 
That's a good soup.

Laura Camien:
I invite you, Susan, I invite all of our listeners to join me. We would say at Blue Man that the goal of the show is to connect all of us on a primordial level, to create a heightened sense of being alive, level, to create a heightened sense of being alive. As in: let's remember what it is to be human, to be alive. Let's remember that we all come from the same source, material, and it's not slop. That ain't where it's at.

Susan Blackwell:
That's very rich, very rich.

Laura Camien:
It is possible for life to spring forth from any and all of us In our world. Of course, we're obsessed with life in the form of creativity, any and all creativity that fights for the powers of good, and I just want to invite you, Susan, and you, dear listeners, to imagine what might spring forth from you, if only you feed your brain something other than slop. Let's not let our brains rot. Let's nourish our brains and invite more life to emerge in 2025.

Susan Blackwell: 
I love this. Laura Camien. Right on time, great message, great message. Great message for the dawning new year and it reminds me of the post-it I have had on my computer for some time now: Consume less, create more. And I was going to get more specific–Consume less slop, consume less slop.

Laura Camien: 
Create more. I feel like, and I think I'm sharing this, or have already shared this by this time on social, but you know, last night I went to see on Broadway “The Hills of California,” and it is not an uplifting show and nonetheless—

Susan Blackwell:
Uplifting because it's so fucking good.

Laura Camien: 
I left there so energized I'd been having a really hard week. I had been really struggling, feeling like a toddler, wanting to have a tantrum at all times about, like, I need a nap, I need food, I need this, I need that. Just like just feeling so not good. And then I went to see that show. I consumed a brilliant piece of art that made me feel connected to my friend, jenny, who I was there with, connected to these strangers who I spoke to at intermission because we were so moved by what we were experiencing. I felt connected to humanity. I felt reminded of what it feels like to be alive, this heightened sense of being alive and God dang it If that's not what it's all about, Suze. I don't even know why we're doing anything we're doing. That’s it right there.

Susan Blackwell:
That's going to be a good 2025. I love, I think this is a wonderful thing to hold in our sights. It's a really, really good North Star. I also, I'll say, if anybody is moved by this, if it's something that you want to jump on our bandwagon, come to the New Year's Creativity Kickoff. That is also anti-slop. That is like rich, fun, deliciousness.

Laura Camien:
You'll be swimming around in primordial soup with other people.

Susan Blackwell: 
Creativity bursting from your soup.

Laura Camien:
Creativity bursting from your soup. 

Susan Blackwell:
There's our poll quote. There you go. There's our new marketing campaign. There it is. You'll leave with creativity bursting out of your soup. 

Laura Camien:
Yeah.

Susan Blackwell:
Laura, that was beautiful and inspiring and I have to tell you, in all seriousness, you have done several sparks that we just mentioned around the attention economy, boredom and its necessity for creativity, this spark. And I think it was during attention economy that you talked about how I was expressing how hard it is, especially when I'm fatigued, to, to resist the pull of the scroll and you were like and it's designed to be addictive, so it's… it's, you know you, but we have to take responsibility for ourselves.

Laura Camien:
We have to because you can't win against it. If you think like I, can consume this slop and my attention span isn't changing. Incorrec, it is, it is and it's just like you know, when you you know a lot of people over the course of the pandemic like we stopped getting as much exercise or working out or whatnot, and people expressed like, oh, I feel out of shape, I don't feel as strong as I, as I used to be. We notice it when we can't lift things that we used to be able to lift.

Susan Blackwell:
Correct, right.

Laura Camien: 
Or we can't run or walk as long as we could without–this is what's happening to our brains, it's the neurological equivalent, and we have to say, oh my gosh, I need to work out my brain a little bit more. I've got to give it what it needs, or else, as my dad used to say and he was talking about muscles, but he would say all the time, use them or lose them.

Susan Blackwell:
Yeah.

Laura Camien: 
And so this is where brain, our brain, we're talking about—use it or lose it.

Susan Blackwell: 
Laura, I appreciate the spark. 

Laura Camien:
Thanks for coming to my TED Talk. I really feel like I got a little soapbox-y. Enjoy that.

Susan Blackwell:
I'll take it… It's going to carry me through this 2025.

Laura Camien:
Dive into… You know what, when we have that little image that Jill Dryer has of like the 10-meter tower and diving into it, I think in the bottom, the bottom of it, should be primordial soup that we're diving into Rich, rich, creative, primordial soup.

Susan Blackwell:
There we go. That's it. This episode of the Spark File was made on the lands of the Lenape and the Mohican people and, as always, we hope it put another bunch of sparks in your file. Hey, listen, if there's a spark you'd like us to explore or if you'd like to learn more about how to coach with us to accomplish your creative goals, email getcreative@ thesparkfile. com or you can reach us through our website, thesparkfile. com.

Laura Camien:
We'll even happily take your feedback, but you know the price of admission. First you have to share a creative risk that you've taken recently.

Susan Blackwell: 
You can follow us on social @ thesparkfile and be sure to subscribe, rate and five-star review this podcast. It really helps other listeners to find us. Also, If you liked this podcast, we hope you'll share it with people that you love, and if you didn't like it, take your opinion and toss it into the avalanche of slop that's flowing by you.

Laura Camien: 
Because we won’t see it. If something lights you up and gets your creative sparks flying, we're writing you a forever permission slip to make that thing that's been knocking at your door. It's your turn to take that spark and fan it into a flame.

Susan Blackwell:
You know you got to take it…

Both:
And make it!

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