Brian Wiesner

But what makes us

HAPPY

?

While this is likely a bit different for everyone, I believe that once we have reached the “love and belonging” step on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, we have already achieved a lot of happiness.

Human connection is absolutely key to wellbeing as found by many scientific studies. And conversely, social isolation has been... See more

I suppose this is just a gentle reminder that if you sense you are in a moment where things are blossoming, where your hard work is crystallizing, where what you once hoped for is coming true—it is a good idea to take some time and appreciate it. To cherish the abundance you have created. To allow it in. To take some time to be with it. There is no... See more

Mimetic desire is the idea that people desire something because someone else desires it, or that one person's desire mimics another's . Concept developed by French philosopher René Girard, who observed that people's desires don't come from within, but rather they mimic what other people want.

The challenge, or opportunity, for companies like Substack is to figure out how to help creators reach new audiences and grow without having to compromise on ownership. The aggregators of the early internet unlocked great power for creators through building central gathering places. We are doing the same with the Substack app and features—like Reco... See more

Becoming a parent and engaging in the grueling work of caring for another human has brought me to the visceral realization that what this world is lacking — what we actually need most — is each other. It sounds hippie-ish and obvious, but as McKibben hints at, it’s going to become ever more serious and tangible. We are relational creatures designed... See more

Do Yourself a Favor and Go Find a ‘Third Place’

We need physical spaces for serendipitous, productivity-free conversation.

Myself and people my age have been trained under the illusion that we can effectively eliminate any and all friction from our lives. We can work from home, Amazon prime everything we need, swipe through a limitless array of mediocre dates, text our therapist, and have a person go to the grocery store for us when we don’t feel like it, all while

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Admittedly, an increased difficulty in impressing friends with neat tips and trivia hardly constitutes a social crisis. And perhaps benefiting from closely kept secrets was too easy in the past, anyway: In my Punch-Out example, I gained a disproportionately large amount of esteem for something that required very little effort or skill. But when... See more