🌿 “One day I’ll be an adult”

Hello to new subscribers, and warmth to old friends. I have been tending to my “secret little pop-up museletter” (concluding soon), whilst working with clients seeking differentiated strategy and leadership development. Autumn is here, and I thought it high time to write a meandering museletter to you.

I tend to approach these as if I am writing a letter to a friend (knowing I’ll indulge myself, and let my mind wander). Perhaps it will stir something for you, too. Let’s see where this goes.

Antimemes—they’re everywhere

—if you know where to look.

Since last month’s podcast on “Void Hunting—thoughts on things we can’t think about”, I have been noticing those who are also noticing absence. Be it political propaganda and misinformation, covert (and even overt) censorship, or actual antimemetic entities—once you become attuned, you’ll begin to see what you can’t see, too.

🏮 e5 // Void Hunting (+ strategy development)

Thoughts on things we can’t think about. ✨

foxwizard ☾Dr. Jason Fox

My friend Merlin recently shared a stirring piece on the matter. An excerpt:

“We hear winners write history and then go on to trust the history books in school to be thorough and conclusive accounts of our historical course.

We hear power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely and fail to apply this to the authorities that we trust, as soon as they have the stamps and badges and emblems to soothe our need for competence signaling.

We’re aware of divide & conquer and then fail to spot it in everyday political division.

We know that in war, truth dies first, but when the next set of news comes around that [initial event] happened that allows us to [dehumanize enemy] and [legitimize intervention] to [democratize terrorists]...

… I don’t see us stopping and thinking.

If you’re willing to kill, what kind of hurdle is a lie?”

You’ll notice a theme in my writing of late.

Pay attention.
Keep your wits about you.

In this age of artificial intelligence, ubiquitous corporate surveillance, extreme wealth inequality, mass extinction and ongoing gėnøcīdė, it’s important to consider things beyond face-validity. And to put a little more trust in all of your senses—not just your rational cognition, which is oh-so-easily mislead.

On the theme of antimemetics—a topic best approached surreptitiously—Nadia Asparouhova (one of my favourite writers) has a new book coming out called Antimemetics: Why Some Ideas Resist Spreading. “By noticing what gets lost in the memetic churn, we can reclaim our attention, find thoughtful ways to participate, and shape the exchange of ideas—rather than letting it unconsciously shape us.”

Are you shaping the exchange of ideas?
(I like to pretend I am).

Recent podcast appearances

I recently appeared on my friend Rahul Soans’ podcast “Finding Meaning in Work”. This was quite a personal and somewhat autobiographical podcast, despite my best attempts to deflect. Rahul is a warm, wise, and wily host. Listen to this one and know me better than I know myself.

My friend Leanne Hughes—who has been sharing ‘a podcast a day’ since the start of the year—recently re-shared this podcast episode we recorded last year on “The paradox of clarity”. There’s something so fun about doing podcasts with friends, I want more of it!

I also joined Jade Miles in conversation on The Futuresteading Podcast for an episode on “Casting Wizardry Spells On a Path For Humanity”. This conversation was sumptuous; wholesome, earthy and animate. But the opening introduction rubbed me as odd. Well, this line in particular:

“This is a big, hairy, bold conversation with lots of pauses, warm provocations, and a feast of new ideas for contemplation because he is, after all, a wizard—one who hopes to reach adulthood at some stage in his living lifetime.”

To a layperson this might sound as though I am ‘just a boy playing at being a wizard’. It requires some context.

Where are all the adults? lol

Many developmental scholars would suggest that we are in a time of arrested development. There are very few true adults.

To develop is to work towards integrating the wisdom we accrue through experience. The heuristic is: entropy + support.

Before the social media era, you could go disappear and explore the world. Immerse yourself in other cultures, have your stuff stolen, hit rock bottom, find support, find yourself, recover, and grow. These days, this is still possible, but... as soon as you land, you will be back online, with your social network and maps and top 10 places to visit for a selfie. It’s never been easier to bypass the struggle that makes for meaningful development.

We have effectively both smothered the entropy (it’s all mapped out now, neatly packaged, no surprises) and simulated the support (you’ll always have the internet and AI to figure things out for you—but is this true support?).

Thus, as a result of living in a relatively stable era of comfort/convenience/ease, and ready distraction—not to mention: rampant individualism and lack-inducing consumerism—we have diminished the conditions that give rise to true adulthood.

The good news is: this probably won’t last for much longer, lol.

We’re in for some tough times ahead—including a potential descent into authoritarian dystopias—which is why it behooves us all to humble down and wisen up. A few more of us, at least. 😅

To quote from Bill Plotkin, whose work resonates with ecological, developmental, depth, and gestalt psychology:

“Getting older by itself does not cause us to mature psychologically. Adolescence is not at all confined to our teen years. And adulthood cannot be meaningfully defined as what happens in our twenties or when we fulfil certain responsibilities, such as holding down a job, financial independence, or raising a family. Rather, an adult is someone who understands why they are here on Earth, why they were born, and is offering their unique contribution to the more-than-human world.”

The advice-columnist Cary Tennis gets it.

“For though I'm 56 years old, in the scheme of human development that Plotkin proposes, I myself am basically still in adolescence.”

And so are many of us, I contend.

Have you visited the underworld yet?

When I look back on my depresso years—around about the time I became properly “collapse-aware” and had the metacrisis-insight-cascade™️ that resulted in motivating epistles like “Are We Beyond Hope?”—it took an actual “sacred wound” (plant medicine) retreat to bring about the genuinely profound healing-context I needed in order to metabolise the grief I had been holding in my body.

It’s one thing to ‘intellectually process’ ecological/planetary/world grief—it’s quite another to bodily metabolise it.

Francis Weller, the author of The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief makes the case that depression is what happens when we fail to grieve. It’s suppressed sorrow—not grief itself—that ultimately oppresses the heart and diminishes our capacity for vitality and joy.

I’ve long been fascinated by these alternative ways to approach the ‘darker’ humours of life. Because, in the world of motivational speaking, it’s all positivity, optimism, and hope—which can have the effect of reinforcing the very conditions that give rise to negativity, pessimism and despair.

You can listen to a recent conversation between Francis Weller and Nate Hagens who, bless, is also on his own journey from metric-mode to something more mythic.

This is all to say...

... that when I talk of becoming an adult, I mean: to contend with the full fabric of reality—the light, the dark, the joy and the sorrow. To be at home within yourself, and the role you are to play. To belong to the world, whose wellbeing is your wellbeing.

It’s the wish I have for all of us who find ourselves questing amidst the metacrisis, in this time betwixt worlds.

Whew, now that’s out of the way: a quick musing.

Quality or quantity?

Nay—A Secret Third Thing, silly!

I was chatting with a close friend recently who is one of the OG bloggers in the field of innovation. A professor, in fact.

I was lamenting, as I do, about how so many folks now seem to methodically manufacture content in supposedly ‘optimised’ fashion. On Monday it’s a free newsletter, mostly written with AI, that teases a deeper article dropping this Thursday. Then some social media tease-posts on Tuesday and Wednesday, followed by the paywalled article on Thursday, with an ICYMI on Friday. Then: repeat the process next week.

Deep sigh. I mean, it’s fine. But... don’t we have enough content?*

* He asks, via the creation of content.

My friend agrees, which is why their blog has been on hiatus for so many years. They’ll share something when they have something meaningful to say.

The thing is: they already have so much substance to share. I want to know what they are reading, what questions they are mulling over, what has the attention of their muse, what new syntheses are coming to light. I’m not interested in polished thinking—I want thinking-in-draft. Companions to muse-aloud with.

I also know from my own experience—the longer it has been since I have written, the harder it is to write.

Writing is a practice. Something we tend to.

If you tend to it, you’ll tend to do it.
And vice-versa.

Thus if you leave sharing something too long, you’ll fall out of the practice. And then the threshold will become so high that you may begin to believe you don’t have anything worthy to share. Which, for some of your potential readers, is a travesty.

It comes back to intent

Do we seek to market—or to share?

I’m a terrible marketer; I don’t like it. But I love sharing what paltry insights and glimmers I have accrued in my adventures thus far.

Once upon a time we had a publishing house called “The Cleverness”. It was also the name of my skyship. In addition to sharing ‘thoughtful provocations for the quietly dissatisfied’, and hosting whisky and jazz events, The Cleverness had the tagline—a precursor to wisdom.

And I still believe that the development of knowledge, wisdom and insight results from positing. You have to put something forward. You cannot simply sponge up knowledge—it must be transmuted via the warmth of your own enacting. It’s all, as ever, relational.

And so: we suspect we have something clever to share » we share it » we realise it’s not so clever » we become wiser.

These contributions may, one day, reveal themselves to be embarrassingly shortsighted. Or devoid in poetic sensibilities and taste. Or they may reek of privilege and bias. But—we reflect, correct, improve, deepen, develop and improve.

And so, as much as I cannot robotically adhere to the discipline of metronomically manufactured content pumped out in accordance with some supposedly optimal ‘best practice’ formula to appease whatever algorithm I’m attempting to court—I do know there is a deeper rhythm to attend to. A fire to keep alight.

I also know that there is a vast difference between private journaling and public sharing. Even if your public sharing is simply quietly posting to your own semi-secret blog. (Less ‘broadcast’ and more simply: a ‘casting’.)

Good writing is clear thinking, and just knowing that someone else might be reading this is enough of a litmus to ensure I check myself before I wreck myself. Publishing my musings for you here sharpens my own understanding and sense of things.

So, does this mean quantity trumps quality?

Facetiously: yes, this is true—but it’s also a false proposition.

Bring back the (personal, independent) blog

Like many of us, I am quite done with centralised platforms (and their algorithms) influencing what we say and how we share.* I’ll write about this more in a coming post. It relates to the bots+bros slop we are seeing, and the way that so many of us seem to bemoan centralised social media (surveillance) platforms owned by mega-corps—only to flock to newer centralised social media (surveillance) platforms owned by venture capitalists.

* Although, I must add: I am still slowly extricating myself from them. As much as I would like to remain in the penumbra, I must contend with the arena from time to time—lest people forget that this wizard exists.

My encouragement to you is: find your own patch of the internet to quietly tend to your own writing. A secret temple, deep in the woods, where only those who know might find you.* Manu Moreale has compiled a great list of blog platforms to choose from.° He also hosts interviews with independent bloggers.

* Do this in real life, too.

Over time, you might find that, in tending to the practice of your own writing, you find your own Voice once more. And, in time, you will find your kindred spirits, whose work you follow and are a fan of, too.

Web rings will emerge (like fairy rings).

There are shifts happening in the underweb. Decentralised social media protocols are slowly developing their own mycelial-like networks. We’ve made so many mistakes with what web2 has become. The open web has been captured by extractive corporate interests. And whilst there has been much (successful) effort made by centralised web2 players to snuff the spark of web3 (and whilst web3 itself remains fraught with existential peril)*—there is some developing maturity in the field of protocol development.

* Some may recall that I was going to offer an “Introduction to blockchain, crypto, smart contracts, decentralised finance, NFTs, regenerative finance, protocol-development, AI-agents, web3 (and web4)”. Well, that was back when I thought we might be entering a new chapter of regulatory clarity and maturity. But Donald Trump then went and launched his own memecoin, effectively championing the worst of grifts (the ‘casino’ aspect of web3 is the least interesting and wholesome part of it all). Many hardworking protocol developers are now feeling demoralised. Meanwhile large traditional investment firms are moving in. This is not the end of decentralised coordination, but I am going to hold off from teaching anything until things settle. Having said that: web3 remains one of the best arenas for training as a sensemaking complexity practitioner (so humbling!). But: no introductory course for the short while. I’ve a book to write, anyway. And our collapse has now accelerated, so: yeah. 😅

A new web blossoming, in the underground. It’s still early; you’ll still need to keep your wits about you. But wiser and more wholesome alternatives are becoming ever more apparent.

Warmth,
—fw

PS: I have been working with clients seeking to deepen their leadership and strategy development. Clients who seek to venture beyond the default, so as to develop the savvy to flourish amidst complexity and the emergent.

If you have an offsite or event coming up—or if you are seeking strategic differentiation and advantage (in a time of exponential change and homogenised insight)—I would love to hear from you.

I’ve long realised that one of my favourite things is working with folks who already subscribe to these museletters. You have the complexity savvy and poetic acuity to bring about new and meaningful progress. And I’d love to help you with this. 🧡