Gatekeepers Are Dead, Long Live The Gatekeepers

August 24, 2026

Before the Internet things were different; this was the First Age.

If you wanted to get your message out there you needed either a lot of money, fame, or power. Usually you needed some combination of all three. Barring that you needed to find someone with money, fame, or power (or some combination) who was also willing to help you. These people were often elites of some kind. They could be professionals with an industry journal, the editor of a local magazine, a rich patron with connections, or even political party officials. These were the people who held the keys needed to pass into the public sphere: gatekeepers. Their job was to search out people of interest, people with something interesting to say, and promote them. Musicians needed talent scouts, authors needed agents, writers needed editors.

Attention was infinite and quality content was scarce. Gatekeepers filtered through the trash and surfaced the gems. The public paid attention because that was all that could be done.

With Flying Pen, When Mortals Sleep

August 10, 2026

It was a sweltering August day. I made my way across the promenade, and through the bustling crowd, to a small line forming outside the Timkin Art Museum. Inside, I stumbled on Pieter Bruegel the Elder's Parable of the Sower, painted in 1557, nearly five centuries ago.

When Bruegel took his brush to this canvas, the New World had just been found by Europeans, and the United States was still long into the future. Around me then were all those people, those wandering souls, who across those centuries stood before this same piece and idly mused at a thing made by the hands of a long-dead Flemish man.

I thought about him. Not Bruegel—another man—one whom I've come to know these past few years. He does not know of me, yet we both could have seen this very painting. We were connected through the mists of time by this canvas portal to the past.

What Is Potential Energy, Really?

July 27, 2026

As with seemingly every other man my age, I've taken up running to stay fit. Your metabolism slows as you age and what used to come for free with youth now takes time and deliberate effort to maintain. I don't care for the running, but it needs to be done.

The thing is: it does give me lots of idle time to think, just like a long walk. Both have become for me a form of meditation, a way to de-stress and to mull over complex ideas. I find that I think better when I'm moving, regardless of precisely how. Yet, near the end of every run my thoughts inevitably return to the same idea:

When will this be over? I want to be done.

Friendship Is An Exponential Function

July 13, 2026

What allows you to make friends and to keep them? Being a social person helps with making friends, surely. As does putting in the effort to be a good friend. But I'm sure we've all had the experience of wanting to become friends with someone, but yet it never really happens. Maybe there's never the time. Maybe you're too far apart, and I mean that literally.

This is something I've observed over time, as friends move around and as people's lives grow, evolve, and change: the total friendship between two people evolves as a function of distance.

This means that two people, given the inclination to become friends, will see their friendship improve and decay based on their physical distance from each other—how far they live from each other. I think this makes intuitive sense. Two people who live together obviously see each other more than two people who live a continent apart. Yet what is surprising is that this function is not linear.

Because It Speaks In Words

June 29, 2026

There is a difference between knowing something, and truly understanding it. I think we've all had those moments, the ones where a truth you learned a long time ago really sits with you for the first time. It rests in your mind and stretches out, finally showing off the great expanse of nuance hidden deep within.

Most nights when you happen to spy the Moon, Jupiter, and Venus sitting in a line in the sky, you see them as the dots beside a crescent that they are. Yet sometimes, when framed amid the sunset sky above the wisps of silver cloud, you see them differently. You realize in that moment that you, your great-grandparents, Julius Caesar, and Aristotle all saw this same sky. It has always been for us. We know so much about Jupiter and Venus today, yet no human eye has ever seen more than you're seeing now.

I think we are all, in this time, realizing the true power of words and what they mean, not to those who speak, but to those who listen.

Would You Believe That This Is It?

June 15, 2026

Last year I heard this song from a band called Loser Demon. The song is called Holding Ground and here's the chorus that has been stuck in my soul ever since (added words, mine):

would you believe that this is it and it is good?
doesn't surprise me and i hope that it never would
(I'm) holding ground

I heard that phrase and was immediately repulsed the first time, yet something about it lingered in my heart. I think that reaction is likely the same for lots of people these days. I mean, look at the world? Look at the strife and the trouble and the heartache? How can this be good?

The True Expense Of Nature

June 1, 2026

It's Saturday morning, and you have no plans. Perhaps your schedule happened to line up that way, perhaps the kids are gone, or maybe it's just luck. Regardless, it's glorious. You bask in the glow of a lazy morning while you decide just how you're going to spend today. In your mind you go over different ideas, considering each and its consequences.

You could go to the beach! No, too much effort. You could stay in and read a book, but it's a nice day. You could read outside. Perhaps though it's better to go for a long walk first, grab a coffee maybe? You need to grab some things at the store, and that's on the way. Eventually you arrive at a plan: walk to get coffee, read for a while at the café, then stop by the store on the way home! An excellent plan—efficient and relaxing!

What have you just done? How did you arrive at this decision? There were so many variables, a nearly infinite possibility space, yet you managed to make do. Perhaps Nature itself is not so dissimilar.

A Field Guide To Learning

May 11, 2026

Let's say you're someone who wants to learn about an academic discipline. Perhaps advanced Physics, Sociology, Early-Modern History, or Cognition Science. Of course, there's YouTube pop-sci videos (which I love) and no shortage of products and services that purport to teach you the basics. But what do you do when you want to go beyond those basics?

I'm not an expert, but I have been on a few of these journeys myself and so I want to lay out the paths I've taken and offer some advice to those who, like me starting out, had a very hazy view of the terrain and no idea who to trust with your education.

For anything vaguely academic in nature, I highly recommend trying out one of the books in the Very Short Introduction series.

Why You Can't Write That Book

April 27, 2026

I could do that, I just need more time.

In life we are constantly wishing we had more of something: time, money, friends, energy, etc., and we develop plans to try and meet these goals. We alter our diets, our schedules, we start exercising or reading more. Often times these changes result in significant improvements to our lives. Yet, we never have the energy, the time, or the money that we want. Even when we do succeed in making changes, something else comes up and blocks further progress.

Let's say you want to write a book. You change your schedule to allow for dedicated writing time. However during that time, you're unmotivated. You diet and exercise and read interesting books, trying to kindle the enthusiasm you know you have, but now you have no energy left to write. You have the time, but only to spend staring at a blank page.

Mailing Things Is Fun

April 13, 2026

Sometimes I can't tell if I'm discovering a cool new hobby, or just getting old. Regardless, today I come to you with a tale of a little endeavor of mine.

In early 2020, a family member took a job far from home and, because of the nature of the work, would therefore be out of cell service for large swaths of time. As a gag, we decided to communicate via long-form letters over email as well as the occasional postcard. Later that year, in the grips of a pandemic, my D&D group went virtual, but that came with several drawbacks—including the sudden lack of the ability to pawn chewing gum off of me during games.¹ So, before our first virtual game, I mailed every one a pack of gum, to be opened on the call.

It was fun, a cheap little laugh. However in the time since, my occasional appreciation for the mail has become nothing short of a deep and profound predilection.