Peter Shoemaker

We all know how very clever and tireless our consumer society is at inventing countless bogus pleasures, laboriously hyped stimulants designed to keep us in a state of emotional tension capable of triggering a kind of mental anesthesia. A Tibetan friend of mine who was contemplating the flashy advertising billboards in New York commented: “They are

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We write to expose the unexposed. If there is one door in the castle you have been told not to go through, you must. Otherwise, you’ll just be rearranging furniture in rooms you’ve already been in. Most human beings are dedicated to keeping that one door shut. But the writer’s job is to see what’s behind it, to see the bleak unspeakable stuff, and

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Best practices are rarely the best — they're mostly just cargo cult common practices.

And as more people adopt them, the more mediocre they become.

The best is usually what most people aren't willing to do.

In a word, we’ve struggled for two years to find someone with taste—with an eye for what stands the chance of being interesting, entertaining, or useful to an audience. 

We’re not alone. I’ve talked to authors, podcasters, documentarians, late-night TV writers, YouTubers and TikTokers, and they all share this problem. Most of these creators are

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“The bad news is you’re falling through the air, nothing to hang on to, no parachute. The good news is, there’s no ground.” — Chögyam Trungpa