Just dropping by to announce a book club/writing group I’m running next month called Befriending Technology.

It’s for anyone who’s confused about what it means to be in a fruitful relationship with technology, especially AI, and who wants a calm, reflective space away from The Discourse to explore and untangle it.

For six weeks, we’ll be reading two books side by side, one that’s optimistic about where technology is taking us, and one that’s urging us to pump the brakes. The goal isn’t so much to “find the right answers” as it is to inhabit the tension between opposing perspectives, and use that space to reflect on what we actually want from technology versus what the zeitgeist tells us we should want.

Each week, I’ll be hosting three reading/writing/discussion sessions. Each one is about 25 minutes of reading, 20 of writing, and 15 of sharing and listening to our fellow reflective humans. They’ll be on different days and times, so no matter where you are in the world, at least one should work for you.

I came into this looking for authors who take the sanctity of the human soul seriously, even if they come to wildly different conclusions about technology. So I’ll be reading Kevin Kelly’s The Inevitable as my optimistic book, and Paul Kingsnorth’s Against The Machine as the anti-tech perspective. But if you want to bring different books, the more the merrier. Pick something that calls to you and ideally challenges you a bit.

Also worth noting, there’s zero requirement to finish any of the books. This isn’t a check-the-box, finish-your-homework kind of thing. It’s about participating in a process together that will lead us somewhere new and interesting, regardless of whether we “do it perfectly.”

Beyond the sessions, there’s gonna be a private writing space, a group chat, and the occasional Q&A and show-and-tell. And it’s all going to live on Dark Forest OS, ’s new platform for cozy, intimate internet spaces.

The details:

• Starts Friday, November 6

• Runs six weeks, wrapping up the week before Christmas

• Sessions Mondays 9am, Wednesdays noon, Fridays 3pm. All pacific time.

• Pay what feels right, $50, $100 or $250. Or if money’s tight, hit reply and we’ll figure something out.

• Sign up at befriending.tech

So yeah, this is an experience I’ve been craving for myself for a while, and I have a hunch that something quite nourishing will emerge from a group of earnest humans reflecting on this together.

If you have any questions, leave a comment or hit reply and I’ll get back to you quickly.

Hope to see you there 🫡

-Rob

What the hell is even going on? What is a human who wishes to live a sane, grounded, decent life supposed to make of AI? How are we to relate to this technology?

I’ll be real with you. I’ve been flip-flopping on these questions over and over again. One moment I’m convinced that all LLM output is useless for discerning humans, a mere torrent of vaguely smart-sounding bullshit that falls apart on close inspection. The next moment I’m building software and websites for myself that are so impeccably tailored to my idiosyncratic sensibilities that I can hardly believe my eyes. Though I’m certain I want nothing to do with AI writing, I’m feeling more excited about my work, and the entire world of computing, than I have been in years. As someone who never learned to code, building the tools I imagine in my head makes me feel like a freaking wizard.

At the same time, I recognize many the hallmarks of compulsion and addiction in how I, and many others, relate to this technology. My friend Raj, who I’ve been building Flowstate with, described his sessions with Claude Code as “meth mode.” It’s that state where you’re running dozens of agents simultaneously, jumping between them in a state of euphoric mania, where hours disappear in the snap of a finger, and when you finally come back to earth, you feel a bit hungover and real life has lost its luster. You’re just itching to get back to your computer to build some more, to get your next hit.

At first it sounded a little over the top. But once I started building Bricks, a native Mac and iOS app I’ve long wanted for myself, I experienced meth mode firsthand. I normally keep an old-man sleep schedule—up at 5, in bed by 9—but when I first started building the app, I was routinely up until midnight or 1am, adding this or that new feature, then sitting back down in front of my computer right upon waking, completely foregoing my usual routine of prayer, coffee, and reading. I was forgetting to eat and exercise. I monitored my agents’ progress while I was out with friends, not really being present. It bore many of the hallmarks of the other addictive and compulsive behaviors that have derailed me in my life. As someone who’s spent the past few years deep in the rooms of 12 step recovery, addiction is not a frame I take lightly. Anything addictive can utterly destroy a human life.

This technology is clearly useful, and shows great promise for freeing us from a lot of mechanical and routine computer work. It’s also hyper-stimulating and scratches a lot of itches that are better scratched through human connection. I don’t think we’re ready to relate to this stuff in a sane, sober, grounded way. I’m certainly not.

There’s a Wendell Berry quote I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. Something along the lines of, “It’s easy to imagine the next great division of the world will be between people who wish to live as creatures and those who wish to live as machines.”

In many ways, the major theme of my life these last five years has been reclaiming my humanity back from The Machine. I’ve been unlearning the mechanistic worldview that dominated my psyche, and learning to appreciate and care for the creature I am. And that’s how I want to live out the rest of my days—as a creature of this earth and a child of God who relates to everything he encounters with grace, curiosity, and the intelligence of the heart. That includes computers and technology and AI. I enjoy these things and find them miraculous and useful, at the same time as I’m aware of the dangers they conceal, and the endless series of Faustian bargains they offer us.

There are no easy answers here. I’m neither a neo-Luddite who wishes to live off the grid and sabotage data centers, nor am I some transhumanist techno-utopian who believes we’re conjuring a new machine god. I’m a secret third thing. I care greatly about protecting and deepening into what makes me human, all the while using and enjoying the fruits of technology. Which means I’m likely to remain in a state of confusion for the foreseeable future. I can live with that, though. As we say in the rooms, the only way to do it is one day at a time.

P.S. I’ve been thinking about running some kind of reading/writing club for people who want to earnestly explore their own confusing relationship to technology. Leave a comment if that sounds intriguing to you. I really wanna explore these questions in community!

I’ve been writing professionally for 15 years, but for some reason publishing on the internet feels incredibly fucking scary to me right now. More than it ever has. For the better part of the last two years I’ve been paralyzed, and I’m kinda worried I’ll never get my mojo back.

On new year’s day, in one of my annual spurts of “new year, new Rob” energy, I committed to write and publish something new every day for 40 days. But as the clock ticked down on the evening of January 1st, I felt my body seizing with fear as I squeezed out one bland, tortured, lifeless sentence after another. I was about to give up on the project when I felt that wise voice within say, “why don’t you publish on a private blog, some place you never have to share with anyone?” Immediately I felt my whole body relax. I set up that private blog and published my first piece within the hour.

Over the following two and a half months, I wrote and published daily. I think my final tally was somewhere around 72 days in a row. It felt easeful and fluid in a way that kinda shocked me. The words flowed out each morning, and after I hit publish, there was usually a sense of genuine contentedness, bordering on serenity. Which is wild because usually I’m wracked with anxiety after I hit publish. I’m worried about how the piece will be perceived, whether I’m marketing it enough, and I obsessively read back over it and make stealth edits—because it never feels remotely good enough. But for those blessed few months, I didn’t care at all, and I felt free.

I’m in the process of building a rad personal website for my writing. A place that feels more like home than Substack ever has. As I was populating the site with old work, I went back and re-read a few pieces from January and was startled by how alive they felt. They crackle with a vitality that’s hard to describe. It’s honestly kind of frustrating to hold them up next to the pieces I care about, where I sweat the details to make them “good.” I’ve spent the last two months working on a pair of manifestos, and they have nowhere near the same spark as those quickies I fired off in 45 minutes.

This might seem trite and obvious, but it’s becoming clear that I’m not only a better writer, but I also feel lighter and more whole as a human when I’m certain no one is reading my shit. It’s confusing as someone who’s spent the last decade deep in the marketing and creator worlds, drinking in the dogma that you’re supposed to understand your audience intimately and then write just for them. Pair that mentality with my long-standing perfectionism and imposter syndrome, and you’ve got the perfect recipe for paralysis, for staying hidden in the background, plotting and scheming and planning, but rarely if ever publishing.

In the age of abundant and soulless AI text, I’m more convinced than ever that writing like a human matters. When I went back to read those pieces from January, that’s all I could feel—that they were unabashedly human and unlike anything I write when I’m mired in fear and operating like a machine. So for the next little while, I’ll be writing daily again and experimenting with the notion that no one is reading. Easier said than done given that I’m blasting this out to my entire life, but goshdarnit I’m going to try. Oh, and I’ll be drafting the vast majority of these pieces by hand. The handwriting thing has been pretty revelatory for me, but that’s a post for another day. For now I’ll just say that it helps me slow down and think deeply and feel the weight of each word, rather than trying to get out as many words as I can as quickly as possible.

So yeah, I’m definitely a bit on edge on writing this knowing that I’m going to publish it later today. But also, I’m thinking back to the freedom and lightness I felt seven months ago, and I want to return to that place, that way of being. Writing has felt like pulling teeth for as long as I’ve done it. But I have faith that it doesn’t have to be that way anymore, if I write like no one’s reading.

P.S. For anyone who wants to start drafting by hand, my friend Raj and I have been building an app called Flowstate. Makes it super easy to transcribe your scrawls and get them into Obsidian, Notion, Google Docs, etc. Check it out.

1.

If I had to summarize the last few years of my life with one phrase, it’d be “I fought the shame, and the shame won.“

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a persistent nagging voice in my head, telling me that something in me is irreparably broken, and that I need to hide it from others. It shows up as a burning, clenching sensation in my chest, a tightening of my jaw, a physical constriction that signals it’s time to bolt. The only viable path to safety, shame tells me, is to run, hide, and numb.

I’ve expended a great deal of energy over the years trying to outwit, outrun, or outright defeat shame. My decade long obsession with “personal development” and productivity and business/marketing has, in retrospect, largely been one attempt after another to prove shame wrong, to show it that I’m the boss, and that I actually am worth something. Maybe, just maybe, if I learn the right strategies and try harder, I can banish this darkness once and for all, and finally feel okay, like I belong in this world.

This strategy of going to war with shame, to put it mildly, has resulted in a series of ever-rockier rock bottoms. I won’t get into the details, but late last year, after crashing and burning once again, I found myself in the deepest pit of despair of my life to this point. I daydreamed daily, sometimes hourly, about driving up into the Catalina mountains, along those long winding switchbacks, finding a good steep overlook with plenty of rocks below, and gunning it right over the edge. So it goes.

By the grace of God, I’m still here. But so is the shame. Yet this time around, I feel pulled towards relating to this darkness, which nearly consumed me, in a new way. Maybe, just maybe, I can make a friend of it.

2.

One of the silliest, most profound spiritual experiences I’ve had came on a scorching summer afternoon in Brooklyn.

I was walking around with Dan Hunt after joining Foster, and we were talking about moving the email list over to Substack. And at that moment, the word “CONVERSATION” dived straight out of the sky and landed in my chest, penetrating my heart with a burst of insight. I saw how all of our writing, and all the writing in history, is part of one vast, beautiful conversation. I saw the tapestry of conversations and relationships binding everything together—an essay, a platform for writers, the internet, the trees, birds, and mountains. I saw the unbroken line of dialogue tracing from this strategic business decision all the way up to God, and the intimacy of true relationship at the heart of it all. Our birthright as humans is to participate in this Great Conversation, and connect ever more deeply with each other and all that is.

It felt all kinds of profound, like the nature of life and the inner workings of the universe had been revealed to me in the snap of a finger. But when I tried to share this momentous insight with Dan, it came out as a series of banal platitudes about how our writing would be more conversational on Substack. He looked at me, probably wondering if I was having a stroke, and said something along the lines of “yeah, conversations are good.” So it goes.

That was three years ago, and while my life has been turbulent as fuck since then, the insight hasn’t left me. It feels stronger and truer and more urgent than ever right now. That said, I’ve had the hardest damn time living it instead of just thinking about it.

There’s a book I’ve had on my shelf for years called Metaphors We Live By. I’ve never actually read it, but the title alone goes incredibly hard. As I’ve attempted to live more conversationally these past few years, in messy fits and starts, I’ve come to see how there’s a different metaphor lodged at the core of my being. One that stands in direct opposition to conversation.

For me, life is battle. Life is war. Life is a never-ending series of zero-sum fights that, according to my shame, I’ve already lost or am in danger of losing, and therefore need to armor up and double down on strategy, such that I might stand any chance of winning a place at the table. Belonging and love must be earned. They must be fought for.

The metaphor I live by is war. I didn’t choose it, but that’s the current state of things, and I want, more than anything, to change it. I’m so tired of fighting. I know it’s a battle I cannot win, ever, and that if I keep fighting the way I have, my brief flash of existence on this planet, this gift of being alive, of being the singular human known as Rob Hardy, will have largely been squandered. I want to fully participate and contribute to the web of conversations that make up my little patch of the world. I want, for the first time, to feel connected to life instead of alienated from it.

3.

I am perpetually annoyed by how fucking difficult and messy it is to live and embody insights like these. It’s so much easier to write about them on the internet and seem really smart and cool and like you’ve got it all figured out. God how I wish writing about these things was enough to truly live them. But alas, that has not been my experience.

I renamed this publication “The Living Question” last year because I want this to be a place where I no longer have to pretend to have all the answers, as is generally the case if one follows the Best Practices of Internet Writing. I want this to be a container for sharing the messy, uneven, often unflattering truth about my extremely human attempts to live the questions that matter to me.

And the most important questions I’m dancing with right now, and probably will be for the remainder of my days, are “How can I build a life-giving relationship with shame? How can I befriend this thing I’ve long perceived as trying to destroy me?“

I don’t have the answers, of course. But I’m actively living into the question with my daily choices. My journey is increasingly centered around 12-step spirituality (and potentially even a return to actual religion, which is something I never thought I’d say), learning how to meet my physical, emotional, and relational needs, along with a great deal of friendship and fellowship, because I’m more and more convinced I cannot do any of this on my own. So far, it seems to be working. Little by little, there’s a softening.

But I do want to share the intention that this will be an ongoing series of writings, as I keep peeling back the layers of shame and learning to relate in new ways. I know I’m not the only one who struggles with this, so I hope I can leave some breadcrumbs for anyone else walking the path.

Also, I’m feeling a strong pull right now towards ending this with some some pithy and poignant takeaway that leaves you all nodding your heads and saying “gee that Rob fellow sure is a great writer.” I feel like I have to end it that way. My chest is tightening. I recognize now that’s the shame talking, telling me I have to control how I’m perceived, that I have to hide the uncertainty and fear I’m feeling.

So I guess I’ll just end with this.

Hello darkness, my new friend. I know you don’t trust me, and for good reason, but I promise I come in peace this time. I just wanted to say that I’m sorry for all the pain I’ve caused you, and for always escalating the conflict between us. I’m sorry for assuming that you always have the worst of intentions. I’m sorry for refusing to listen. My sincerest hope is that we can start a conversation, a real one. Maybe it’ll lead us somewhere new. So let’s begin again. Hi, I’m Rob. What’s your name?

Of all the questions I'm living right now, this is the one I've been most humbled by.

For the last decade, I've tried to thread the needle between my soul work (aka what feels most alive and resonant), and my desire for financial security. I've hustled and pushed and forced my way through the land of internet business, trying to crack the code of how I can make my art pay the bills. And truthfully, I'm fucking exhausted. I don't think I can do it anymore.

What I'm starting to see is that my efforts to achieve financial stability from soul work have corrupted both goals. For a decade, I've been treading water with money. I've made enough to keep myself alive, but never enough to feel anything resembling safety. All the while, I've put so much pressure on my art, trying to force it into a shape that will please the Capitalist Machine, that in many cases, it's ceased to really feel like my art at all. Worst of both worlds.

Another question I've been sitting with this year is around what it means to be an adult, which is downstream of a lot of the 12-step recovery work I've been immersed in. And one of my working definitions of an adult is someone who does what's required to take care of themselves, so they can show up for the people they care about. An adult knows what their needs are, and does what they have to do to meet them. I’m starting to see how when we don't take responsibility for our needs, we become more of a liability to the people around us, rather than a source of strength.

In my case, I have a legit need to do my soul work. If I just got a fancy tech job that stuffed my bank account with VC money, but I wasn't giving my gifts and pulling the threads I've been put on this earth to pull, then I would fucking die inside. That said, I also have a need to feel financially secure. I'm deeply tired of the ways money anxiety has hijacked my enjoyment of life, and my sense of self-worth, and want to do something different in the coming decade.

So as I step into this new era, there are a few questions I'm living here. How can I experiment, and try new things to meet these two needs, given the old ways aren't working? How can I show up as an adult for myself in the realm of money and art, rather than stubbornly clinging to adolescent stories that no longer serve me?

Right now, my answers are pretty simple. For money, I'm aiming at serving the tech world with my writing. Ghostwriting for founders. Writing manifestos for startups. Doing storytelling/brand strategy work to help companies differentiate and matter. A lot of the "1,000 true fans" stuff I've explored for years is more relevant than ever in that domain, and I want to be of service to founders and companies drawn to that path.

And on the art front, I'm feeling stoked about writing this publication, with zero expectation of it paying my bills. I'm exploring the frontiers of writing personal manifestos, and using them as a vehicle for self-renewal and transformation. I'm writing poetry. Playing a bit more guitar than I used to.

It's early, and I've still got a lot to figure out on the money and work front. But I will say, giving myself permission to decouple art and money feels like a tremendous relief. I've been playing the game of money on hard mode for a decade, and it hasn't served me well. Grateful for this new chapter of learning how to truly take care of myself.

Onwards.

So, uh, I totally overhauled my Substack last week.

When I set out to write a manifesto for Lightpage back in April, I wasn’t expecting to emerge from the process with an enlivening new vision for my personal writing. But here we are.

Somewhere around week three of my exploration calls with Kasra, we stumbled into the age old question: given the uncertainty of the world, how should we choose to live? That thread, once pulled, gave us the beating heart of the finished manifesto.

Here’s the final version we landed on.

How do you want to live today?

Not tomorrow. Not someday. Not when you’ve finally “figured it all out.” Today.

This is our fundamental freedom as humans—the power to choose our response to life. To decide what matters, then act on it, here and now.

But the environments we’ve built keep us numb to this power.

Our digital worlds keep us scrolling, consuming, reacting. Stuck on the hamster wheels of information hoarding or endless introspection.

So many seductive substitutes for life, while the real thing slips away.

Lightpage is a living notebook.

A notebook for those who cherish the gift of being alive.

A private space where you can hear your own thoughts and instincts, away from the noisy feeds and sycophantic chatbots. A quiet refuge where you can think for yourself and decide what matters.

Write, dictate, or chat. Pour in your grocery list, your grief, your goals. Use it as a dream journal, to write cheesy love poems, try out new recipes, or think through a tricky project at work.

Anything related to your pursuit of living well belongs in Lightpage.

As you fill it, your notebook gets to know you. It comes alive, too.

Each morning, it surfaces art, quotes, essays—connecting you to the wisdom of others who’ve walked similar paths. And every Sunday, it sends you a personal letter reflecting on the ups and downs of the past week, and how you might live more fully in the week ahead.

You can chat with the AI in Lightpage any time. It knows when to encourage you, and when to push back.

This isn’t another tool to optimize you. There’s no quick fix, no dogma to follow.

Lightpage is not the answer. It’s a place to dance with the question.

How do you want to live today?

I've been writing morning pages on and off for years, and I’ve been doing them near daily since I scuttled off to France in 2023. But for the last five weeks, I’ve started using that question as the focal point of my daily writing.

Every morning, those are the first words I type.
How do I want to live today?
I’ve come to refer to this as “the living question.”

And holy shit. It’s hard to over-emphasize how meaningful this small shift has been for me. As someone who habitually escapes into grandiose daydreaming about my future, or wallowing in the mistakes of the past, this practice of directing my attention back to humble daily aspirations has felt so grounding. As I work to put my life back in order after two-ish years of falling apart, this practice is helping me accept my life as it actually is, with full honesty, and take small, imperfect steps towards where I want to go.

In many ways, this is the most effective thing I’ve tried for softening the pernicious perfectionism that derails me in so many areas of life. I always thought the idea of “progress, not perfection” was lovely on paper. But only when I started reflecting on this question each morning, and trying to live into my answers as best I could, did I feel like I was truly practicing it.

Like a lot of people, I’ve fucking adored this Rilke quote for years.

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

Whenever I read this, it strikes some deep and resonant chord in me. But until the last few months, I don’t think I’ve ever actually understood what it meant to “live the questions now.” Some part of me—that scared little boy who learned that love is conditional on being seen as perfect—was always too desperate for certainty and control to really live into an ambiguous question. It was always safer to hide and theorize and dream than let imperfection fill my days.

One other thing that’s begun happening as I reflect on the living question each morning is that more questions are showing up. Questions I can’t easily answer. Questions that can only be engaged with by living them imperfectly each day. Questions like:

• How can I balance the work my soul calls me towards with my need for financial security?

• How can I come into right relationship with the internet, and with media more broadly?

• How can I be more in conversation my life, rather than trying to dictate what it should be?

• How can I stop dreaming of saving the world and be more of service to the people right in front of me?

• How can I live a more spiritual life, instead of intellectualizing spirituality?

• How can I let go of my need to control how people perceive me?

• How can I find worth and dignity in something deeper and more enduring than intelligence?

That last question feels like a big one. Not just for me, but a whole lot of us. We're on the precipice of a wildly disorienting era of history, as our collective answers for "how to live" come undone. For the past 150 years, humanity has placed material intelligence, and having concrete Scientific Answers for everything, at the center of our stories about human and economic value. AI is eating those stories alive, and hollowing out the institutions and cultures built from those stories. Shit’s already weird and unstable. But I suspect we’ve barely seen anything yet.

As the narrative fabric of our world unravels, and it becomes clear that the old answers aren’t workable anymore, we’re going have no choice but to dance with the questions again. Individually and at scale. Questions of who we are, what we most value, and how we want to live in this world, today. That strikes me as simultaneously terrifying, and also the most beautiful opportunity.

So yeah, that’s what this publication is about now. The questions that call to us. The questions that, should we accept the invitation into their ambiguity, might just help us come alive.

Onwards.

I’ve been on a John Steinbeck kick of late. Started with Cannery Row (an all-time favorite), moved on to Tortilla Flat (also delightful), and last week, I blasted through Of Mice and Men in one sitting. That one devastated me. Goddam.

It’s funny how when I’m immersed in a work project, as I currently am with writing the Lightpage manifesto, whatever I happen to be reading becomes part of the larger conversation. Inspiration ends up coming from places I’d never expect. In this case, I’m finding a ton of resonance in Steinbeck’s slices of life from depression-era California, as well as some cool parallels that deepen the themes Kasra and I have been circling around in our conversations.

There’s a deep loneliness that pervades every character in Of Mice and Men. The social structures in this world (economic, racial, marital, etc) and physical environments reinforce that isolation at every turn. It’s every man for himself in this little corner of the valley.

That’s part of what makes George and Lennie so special. Unlike everyone else, these two genuinely have each other’s backs through thick and thin. They stick together. It’s the only real friendship that can be found anywhere in this world, which makes the book’s ending all the more tragic.

Another thing that stood out to me is that these characters talk about their dreams, but in wistful or bitter ways. Most of them would love to own a lil piece of land. Tend it themselves and reap its fruits. And for Lennie, it’s all about dem rabbits. None of their dreams are particularly wild or unrealistic. Nothing that couldn’t be accomplished with a few years of intentional work and saving.

Yet no one seems able to move towards what they want. Not really. They’re caught in perpetual inertia, where instead of taking concrete steps to break free, they turn habitually towards creature comforts. They drink. They go to the whorehouse. They gamble. And when the money runs out, they come back for another month of working the fields. Over and over. It’s some wheel of samsara shit.

But there are glimmers of hope. In the rare instances where these dudes open up to each other and share their dreams earnestly, something in the system shifts. New possibilities arise. Alone and isolated, their dreams feel like escapist fantasy. But working together, pooling resources, they feel plausible for once, like that lil plot of land might actually be within reach.

This is a big part of why I’m so bullish on personal manifestos btw. When you clearly articulate your desire, your vision, and put it out into the world, you tend to attract people who want the same things as you. You create the conditions for connection and cooperation. You make it possible for your dreams to unfold in a way you could not orchestrate by yourself, in isolation.

Last week, I stumbled across a big feature story in The Atlantic called The Anti-Social Century, all about how our modern environments and cultural norms reliably lead to isolation and loneliness. The world we live in isn’t the Salinas Valley in the depression. It’s so much safer, more prosperous, more abundant. Yet by every available measure, our communities, institutions, and sense of social wellbeing are swirling down the drain, fueled by the pull of creature comforts that we pursue in isolation. We’ve engineered vast swaths of our economy to capture and hold attention, to pull humans out of participation in the physical world and into the seductive glow of screens.

In one of our calls, when I asked Kasra what the biggest ripple he hopes Lightpage makes in the world, he said he hopes it helps people build deeper relationships. For it to help people feel more connected to their real world partners, friends, co-workers, neighbors, etc.

That’s it. Full stop.

It’s funny. I reflexively expect tech founders to wax poetic about the grandness of their visions, and how they want to reengineer complex global systems at scale. So it struck me as quietly revolutionary to say “no, this tech is meant to help you slow down, and connect you back to the people in your life.”

None of us knows what’s coming our way in the next decade. The only thing anyone seems to agree on is that economically, politically, and culturally, shit is only gonna get weirder and more chaotic and unstable.

In my own life, I’ve been spending less time on screens these last few months (and way less time on twitter in particular). I’ve been making friends locally here in Tucson. Doing lots of in-person recovery meetings and playing pickleball and such. As someone who’s traditionally been Very Online, and who's spent a lot of his life isolating himself, it hasn’t been easy or comfortable to break out of my digital cocoon. It’s like those muscles have atrophied, and building them back up is taking real work.

But the more I focus on my small handful of real world connections, the more I feel a sense of groundedness and stability that I never felt online, even when things were going well with dozens of digital friends and thousands of followers and email subs. Even though the news leaves me feeling unsettled and freaked out about the future, the more I invest in local relationships, the more it feels like we’ll all be okay, regardless of how batshit insane things get in the years ahead. As long as we stick together and have each other’s backs.

After a week of struggling to write something new, I just said “fuck it” and recorded this update as a voice note/podcast without any script or editing.

Anyhow, there’s a cleaned up transcript below if you’d rather read than listen. Enjoy!

transcript

What's up, homies. I'm doing this next installment of the Lightpage Chronicles as a little voice note podcast because I'm stuck in a self-imposed perfectionist hellscape. It's wild how the more I care about a project or the more I'm invested in getting a piece of writing "right" (whatever that means), that self-created internal pressure becomes this latent form of anxiety in my body. It creates this somatic sense that if I do anything that isn't perfect, I'm literally going to die.

Which is really suboptimal because a big part of this whole process is exploration. My whole thesis on writing manifestos is that if you try to write the perfect version you see in your head, it's going to come out flat. You have to throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks, see what actually resonates, see what all the raw ingredients are. That's how you find those pieces that resonate deep inside you and are therefore more likely to resonate with audiences as well.

It's really interesting that I know this about the manifesto writing process, but there's still something in me that resists showing the messy inner workings. So I'm just doing this voice note version to share where we're at.

Last week, Kasra and I did another deep dive exploration call. We went into it hoping to explore the new story aspects of Lightpage—what is the world that Lightpage is trying to bring into being? That's very much about creating the flip side of the old story coin: what is Lightpage pushing back against? What are the conditions, problems, and forces creating this layer of pain, anger, and frustration that this tool can hopefully help us resolve?

Funny enough, we didn't end up exploring that new story much. Instead, we got into the messy territory in between what I call "bridge territory"—how do we as imperfect humans live into and toward a new story, step by step?

The thing that emerged that feels powerful (though I don't know if this is the final language we'll use) is this idea of a "dojo for strengthening our humanity." Because the villain or compelling old story we identified is that the digital environments we inhabit make us less human. Or rather, they bring out the worst aspects of our humanity—they make us more anxious, rigid, fearful, angry, extreme, and black-and-white in our thinking.

In turn, that makes us less capable of navigating a complex world. It makes us less capable of showing up wholeheartedly in our relationships, less able to show up compassionately for ourselves. The environments we inhabit are degrading our ability to be human.

Kasra and I outlined a series of qualities—human muscles that serve as counterbalancing forces to these digital environments. Things like curiosity, play, compassion, presence, and expression. You can't just snap your fingers and be a fully, perfectly integrated human who magically expresses all these things. But you can strengthen them bit by bit. You can return to this practice of being present, being attuned to your curiosity, taking small playful steps without all-or-nothing thinking.

This is at the core of what Lightpage as a tool and its AI are programmed to do, which brings us back to that analogy of the dojo.

There's something really powerful about this distinction between a gym and a dojo. When we talk about strengthening certain muscles, the obvious metaphor is the gym. But gyms reinforce a lot of the old story energy we're pushing back against. Gyms are very transactional—you go there to solve a specific problem in a solo, isolated way. You go because you're feeling insecure, you want to feel better, you want to be sexier.

A dojo, on the other hand, is more of an integrated environment for physical and spiritual development. It's a place where you're in community with people. You're on your own journey, but you're on a path with a teacher, with a community, with a sangha. It's about a holistic approach to human growth, being part of a tradition, moving toward virtue.

That word "virtue" is interesting. While discussing human muscles (curiosity, play, presence, etc.), we also struck upon the classical virtues—prudence, fortitude, justice, and others. Those aren't quite the same as the human muscles we're after, but they're downstream of this dojo metaphor.

Something else that's been coming up for me: each of us has a choice in how we relate to the digital world, how we relate to the environments that shape us, and how we choose to shape the environments that will subsequently shape us.

One pushback I've heard is that our digital environments are so omnipresent. The problems they create are so large at a systemic level that a tool like Lightpage isn't going to come sweeping in and save the day. It might be a small part of an interconnected web of solutions, but it's not going to solve system-level problems with the snap of a finger.

But at the end of the day, what Lightpage is really pushing back against is individual helplessness in the face of these large systems that are degrading our humanity. Because while they might be doing that at scale, every individual still has a choice in how they relate to their environments and what environments they create.

That's one of the core aspects of being human—we create tools, those tools allow us to shape our environments, and our environments then shape us. There's an intriguing recursive loop there. We can take on learned helplessness, or we can recognize that the defaults aren't serving us and start shaping our environments differently. We can choose to live a more human life, to step into the dojo day after day, and to strengthen those muscles that help us live just a little bit more humanly than if we accepted the default.

I think that's the heart of what we keep circling around—that choice matters. The choice to build those muscles.

One recurring theme through every conversation we've had is that relationships are at the heart of what it means to be human. Whether friendships, partnerships, or romantic relationships, they give our lives deep meaning and help us develop into better versions of ourselves.

So there's this interesting layer where if you think of Lightpage as a dojo for being more human, what it's actually doing is strengthening the muscles that allow us to be better at relationships—and relationships themselves are the real human dojo.

We don't want to build an AI that substitutes for human relationships. The AI is not your friend or romantic partner. It's there to serve you, guide you, help you strengthen those muscles, and set out the path for being a better embodied human in the real world—to be in relationship with yourself, with others, with everything you do in a way that's more open, grounded, curious, playful, and present.

Nothing enriches human life more than being part of an interdependent web of relationships.

So there's something profound here about this lifelong practice, this path of stepping further toward the best aspects of our humanity, little by little, in this metaphorical dojo. So that we can grow our capacity to be in relationship with each other. That's at the core of what Lightpage is after.

In the context of the manifesto we're writing, I don't know that the word "dojo" or "human muscles" will end up being the final language. But it's directionally very exciting for both of us because it feels true to what we're both trying to do as we develop ourselves.

I'll leave it there for now. Thanks for listening. Catch you in the next one, which may or may not also come in voice note fashion. Later, friends.

Sup homies! Welcome to the first installment of the Lightpage Chronicles, where I'm documenting the messy process of writing a spicy manifesto for Lightpage in real-time.

Manifestos gain their emotional power from the interplay of three ingredients: the old story (what's broken), the new story (what's possible), and the bridge (how can we, as imperfect humans, move from one to the other). These will all get fleshed out more as we go, I promise.

This past week, Kasra and I kicked things off by digging into the old stories of tech, productivity, self-improvement, and human flourishing. We’re looking to answer to questions like: How does the modern world hold us back from being fully human? What systemic forces or trends are we standing against? Who/what’s the enemy in the larger story we’re telling? The goal is to articulate what’s broken about the world that Lightpage is entering, framing this status quo in a way that makes it feel both undeniable and unacceptable.

In other words, the old story is about tapping into challenging emotions—pain, frustration, anger, fear, hopelessness, etc—and trying to put words to them. So I went into our first convo hunting for emotional triggers and polarities, those places where Kasra himself gets riled up at the state of the tech industry or wider world. But nope. What I found instead was a dude who’s remarkably grounded, thoughtful, and committed to seeing nuance in every situation. What a scoundrel!

Despite that curveball, the conversation was still full of potential old story ingredients. So my next step was combing through the transcript while paying close attention to my own emotional reactivity. I was looking for things that stirred up my felt sense of frustration, anger, or despair. There are problems my intellect gets excited about, and there are problems that feel like a tight clench in my chest, and that make me want to hide. For manifesto-writing purposes, the latter tend to have an order of magnitude more power.

After highlighting the moments that got me activated, I wrote out a few initial "sketches" around what Lightpage might stand against. I say "sketches" because that's all these are meant to be. Not commitments, just possible directions that we could use as jumping off points. We'll likely weave elements from all of them into something more cohesive later.

Anyhow, here are some quick sketches of what Lightpage is fighting back against:

Sketch 1: The subtle hostility of our digital environments

We’re inevitably shaped by our environments, and the digital environments we inhabit systematically undermine our humanity. They…

• reward and amplify our most reactive, fearful impulses while atrophying our capacity for presence, nuance, and compassionate action.

• position themselves as tools of personal liberation while nudging us into predictable consumer patterns in a thousand barely noticeable ways.

• become the default places we retreat to when anxious, which usually just inflames said anxiety even more.

• promise connection but deliver shallow, commoditized substitutes that leave us more isolated.

• channel the human experience into separate apps, feeds, and interfaces, which leaves us feeling compartmentalized and less aware of the interconnected ecology of everything.

Sketch 2: The memetic virus of extremist thinking

Our chaotic information landscape makes simplistic, binary thinking increasingly seductive. This pattern of extremism...

• provides the comforting illusion of control and certainty in confusing times, while actually narrowing our perspective.

• gradually seeps into our inner dialogue, reducing our capacity to hold multiple truths simultaneously, and making “the war within” far more violent.

• makes saying "I don't know" or "I'm still figuring this out" feel increasingly vulnerable in a world demanding instant certainty.

• follows us into our relationships, where we categorize, label, and dismiss rather than connect with full humanity.

• drives us to swing violently between extremes in our personal growth journeys rather than finding sustainable middle paths.

• transforms us into unwitting hosts for extreme ideas that replicate through us, leaving us feeling hollowed out and used up once they've spread.

Sketch 3: The ideology of human optimization

We've all inherited a worldview, born of the industrial revolution, that treats humans as machines to be improved, upgraded, and optimized. This mindset...

• frames messiness, inefficiency, and uncertainty as problems to be solved rather than essential aspects of being human.

• teaches us to distrust our bodies, intuition, and personal experience in favor of culturally-prescribed "best practices"that rarely seem to work.

• encourages us to chase wellbeing through abstracted metrics, KPIs, and data points rather than through the depth of our connections, contributions, and care for what’s in front of us.

• subtly communicates that we are broken or inadequate in our default state, especially if we’re feeling any type of negative emotion

• creates the persistent feeling that we're falling behind, and that there's always some better version of ourselves just around the corner that will finally be contented.

These sketches aren’t the full story, of course. The real magic happens once we start juxtaposing all of this against a resonant vision of what we're moving toward—rather than just railing against what’s broken.

What’s been emerging in our convos so far, both with each other and with the AI in Lightpage itself, is a vision where Lightpage isn’t viewed as another app for self-optimization, but as a kind of dojo—an environment designed to counteract these hostile old stories, where we can practice a more integrated way of being human. More about what that might look like coming your way next week.

For now though, I'm curious if any of these sketches hitting close to home for you? Would love to hear about how you experience these problems, or if they’re not clicking in the way they’re framed now. Drop a comment or shoot me a message. Your input will def help shape where we go next.

Thanks for reading and catch ya next week! 🫡

Rob

I’m pretty sure The Universe is conspiring to put weirdly-aligned manifesto opportunities in front of me.

About a month ago, I was anxiously scrolling twitter (as one does) and got a notification that a dude named Kasra had followed me. His bio said something along the lines of “building Lightpage and exploring how AI can help us be more human.”

Lately my feeds have been clogged with doomer takes about how AI is sloppify-ing the culture and destroying livelihoods and making it impossible to think critically. But personally, I keep having cool experiences with AI that leave me feeling more curious, more creative, more compassionate with myself and others. That possibility of AI making us more human feels real to me.

So yeah, I downloaded Lightpage, which turns out to be a simple notebook app with some cool AI tricks under the hood. And from the first moments I used it, something about it felt different. In a good way.

Over the last year, I've become weirdly sensitive to certain cultural stories. Whenever I encounter anything rooted in the story that humans are machines that must be optimized in specific ways so that we can feel okay about ourselves, I get a bit of an ick feeling in my gut. My intuition is like “that’ll be a nah from me, dawg.”

That story—that you’re broken and it’s your job to fix it—underpins all of the self-improvement world, hustlebro productivity culture, and vast swaths of the psychological and spiritual growth landscape. Many of us have it shoveled into our brains from the day we’re born by parents and school and church. It’s the water we swim in, like we built a world that constantly conspires to convince us we’re broken, so that it can sell us a repair manual.

Which is to say, I feel this energy literally everywhere, and have my guard up against it. This is a big part of why I wrote The Source last year. Because I’m fucking done with the idea that I’m broken and need to be fixed. That idea has wreaked a lot of havoc on my life, so writing that manifesto was kinda like performing a personal exorcism. 10/10 would recommend.

Anyhoo, after messing around with Lightpage for a bit, I was struck that it never set off my internal alarms. I’ve tried a handful of AI journaling apps over the last year, and most left me with an uneasy feeling that they wanted me to Optimize My Inner World or some shit. Not Lightpage though. Lightpage felt warm and inviting and non-judgmental from the jump. So I started using it. A lot. I wrote my morning pages in there, along with my daily gratitude list, and other riffs and rambles. I made voice notes. Tons of voice notes. It became kind of a catch all container for whatever was top of mind.

One of the delightful features of this app is that each day it surfaces art, quotes, essays, etc that are tailored to wherever you’re at. So after brain dumping some stuff about repressed anger and re-parenting, it recommended a lovely personal essay on that topic. After riffing on how manifestos and poetry serve similar purposes, it recommended an epic manifesto poem from Wendell Berry.

Then I saw a tweet from Kasra saying that he was looking for help with marketing and growth. Felt like a wink from the universe, so I shot him a DM that was basically “Yo, I dig your app and would love to help.” We set up a call.

I spent the next few days pouring thoughts about how I’d market Lightpage into Lightpage itself (very meta, I know). On the morning of our call, it recommended none other than the non-coercive marketing manifesto. That’s right. This app, which had like five day’s worth of context about me, surfaced a manifesto that I had written, specifically about the type of marketing that I would want to do for Lightpage. Pretty freaking weird and cool. Another wink from the universe.

So yeah, once Kasra and I met and hit it off, it was clear I needed to write a manifesto for this app. Feels like one of those rare products that actually embodies and perpetuates a wholesome new story of the world. Which brings us to this series.

This is the first entry of the Lightpage Chronicles—which is meant to be part manifesto case study, part earnest exploration into what it means to reclaim our humanity in an age increasingly defined by AI.

Over the next six weeks, Kasra and I will dig into the four phases of my manifesto discovery process:

• The Old Story: What's broken in our relationship with tech, and with ourselves? How does the tech landscape subtly reinforce the "you're broken and need fixing" narrative?

• The New Story: What becomes possible when we shift the paradigm? What does technology look like when it's truly in service of our humanity?

• The Bridge: How do we get from here to there? What are the practical ways this shift shows up in design, functionality, and business models?

• The Heartbeat: What's the core story, metaphor, or language that makes all of these ingredients cohere? How do we give the manifesto a strong emotional core?

Unlike this opening essay, the rest of the series won't be some polished, sanitized thing. I’m working on breaking the habit of writing as if I have all the answers already. So this'll be free-flowing, raw, and rough around the edges. Possibly a bit chaotic at times.

Besides, my best manifestos always seem to emerge through a period of exploration, where I’m attuning to resonance. Where I’m pulling a bunch of threads and paying close attention to what feels alive. Where I enter into a conversation and let it take me somewhere I never could have imagined at the start. That’s what we’re doing here.

I want to share the messy middle of this process—the dialogues, the half-baked ideas, the moments where we feel lost, and the moments where something clicks. All that unseen emotional and intuitive labor that goes into writing something that feels surprisingly alive. Because it almost never comes from a linear progression, like an assembly line, but in spirals and detours and unexpected breakthroughs.

So yeah, welcome to the chronicles, my friends. Hope you enjoy the ride. And while you’re here, do give Lightpage a look. This lil app is still early in its development journey, but it’s got good bones.

That's how many manifestos I will write.

Why? Because it’ll be fun. Because it scares me senseless. Because I’m on a mission from God. Because I’ve been hiding in a labyrinth of perfectionistic over-planning. Because for ten months I’ve been yap yap yapping about how I wanna be The Manifesto Guy™ while barely writing any actual new manifestos.

Come on, bro. It’s time to live the new story. Leap of faith, baby. It’s time to write.

One. Hundred. Manifestos.

This quest might take six months (unlikely), two years (very likely), or a goddamn decade (oh lord). I don't know. It’ll take as long it takes. All I know is that I’m in it now. This is my covenant, consecrated here before this court of my dearest parasocial internet comrades. But mostly I’m declaring this for me. I’d sign it in blood if I could.

One. Hundred. Fucking. Manifestos.

I will write the manifestos I need to read. Manifestos that grab me by the shoulder and shake me free of the seductive copes of modernity, that shatter the comforting lies I’ve clung to, that make me giggle like a schoolgirl and roar like a dragon. I will be patient zero for the idea that manifestos are magic spells that, when cast with earnest zeal and a sly smile, help us remember that we are gloriously human and powerful beyond measure.

ONEHUNDREDMANIFESTOS.JPEG

I will write manifestos for startups and founders who strive to stand tall in this sterile world of spineless, focus-grouped brand promises. So too will I write manifestos for those ideal clients who haven’t paid me cash money (YET). Along the way, I will write manifestos for friends, for her, and for the causes, communities, and cats I love. Hell, maybe even for my avowed enemies. I will be an equal opportunity manifesto artisan.

*whispering seditiously in your ear* psssssssst. one hundred manifestos

I will write teeny tiny tweet-length manifestos and overwrought novella-length manifestos. I will write manifestos that are dreadfully serious and manifestos that are utterly ridiculous (possibly in the span of a single paragraph). I will uncork the stew of manifesto energy that has long bubbled beneath my fears and insecurities and let it flow freely. I will write in fits of revolutionary ecstasy, and let my work go before I feel ready. I will ship ship ship. Even when it scares me. Especially when it scares me.

Let’s fucking go. The Era of Manifesto Rob is officially upon us.

ONE HUNDRED MANIFESTOOOOOOOOOOS!!!!

Rob Hardy
April 1st, 2025
Tucson, AZ 🌵

There’s an essay making the rounds called The Age of Average. It’s worth your time to read it, but here’s the quick version.

Across our creative landscape, from media to fashion to architecture, there’s an inescapable, pervasive sense of averageness everywhere you look. **And it seems to be accelerating. Creative works that inspire awe, and that speak to the depths of the human spirit, feel like an endangered species. It's so rare to spot them in the wild anymore. Instead, most everything we encounter is predictable, safe, sterile. Perhaps you’ve noticed it, too?

As writers, most of us are well aware of how the digital world pushes us to conform. For the past 10 years, centralized platforms and their algorithms have visibly rewarded writing that adheres to a narrow set of rules. We’re told that if we want to succeed, we have to write skimmable pieces with catchy headlines. We’re told we have to optimize for search engines and social media virality. We’re told to niche down, add value, and create a personal brand.

In the Age of Average, we’re led to believe writers get ahead not by caring about the subtleties of our craft or voice, but by transforming ourselves into industrialized assembly lines, so that we can churn out commodified work at scale.

It may not feel like it yet, but the Age of Average is nearing its climax. Generative AI will be the nail in the coffin. These new tools will produce average writing better, faster, cheaper. They will do it at a scale none of us can fathom. Soon our social feeds and search engines will be engulfed beneath a tidal wave of mechanistic mediocrity. It’ll be impossible to sift through it all. People will begin tuning out and retreating into quieter, safer corners of the internet, populated by the small handful of humans they trust.

In this fragmented digital landscape, the old playbooks for how to succeed on centralized platforms will stop working. Average writing will cease to spread, and producing it will no longer be profitable. In this new world, the only writing that will reliably cut through the noise, and reach people in their isolated corners of the internet, will be writing that’s thoughtfully crafted and unmistakably human.

To some, the word artisan feels antiquated, like an artifact of a bygone era. It brings to mind blacksmiths and butchers, sculptors and stonemasons, professions that seem to offer little guidance for our complex modern world. At Foster, we don’t believe in scrapping modernity for some naive, nostalgic return to the past. Instead, we believe the best way for writers to navigate an uncertain future and flourish—creatively, economically, and communally—is to combine modern tools with an artisanal approach.

We call this path The Artisan’s Way

Artisans root themselves in tradition, building on the great works that preceded them, yet aren’t afraid to innovate. They use the right tools for the job, including those on the cutting edge, yet don't allow trends or hype to cloud their vision or divert their path.

Artisans strive to produce singular work that could never emerge from anyone else, let alone a factory. They create work that’s durable, and that’s meant for humans to cherish. Artisanal writing, for instance, is worth revisiting again and again, because it gets deeper and richer with time.

Artisans don’t pander, telling people what they want to hear, but instead speak their truth and trust their taste. Artisans strive for mastery and sweat the details, but don’t chase perfection, because perfection is the domain of machines. In fact, like humans, it’s the small imperfections and inconsistencies that make a piece of work feel charming, captivating, alive.

Above all, artisans care about connection. Connection to themselves, to their craft, to their traditions, and to the places and people they serve. They don't treat themselves, their collaborators, or their customers as impersonal, economic units. Artisans understand that a creative life is a long game, and the only way to win such games is by honoring the humanity and dignity of everyone in the ecosystem.

In a world of atomization and disconnection, where the Age of Average surrounds us and dampens our spirit, we believe this approach is how we reverse the tides. We can choose the path of less, but better. We can reject the incentives nudging us to behave more like machines and factories. We can reclaim our humanity, approach our work as artisans, and focus not on shouting louder, but mattering more.

We can choose The Artisan's Way.

There's a part of me I've come to know as Experty McExpertman. He’s that critical inner voice who’s desperate to be seen as intelligent, as having it all figured out, and who’s built a self-appointed career around managing other people’s perceptions of me. He's been in charge of my creative output for the better part of thirteen years.

It is high time for Experty McExpertman’s reign of terror to come to an end.

It all started back when I was still in film school, when I was hired to write for my favorite filmmaking blog. In my mind, I was wildly unqualified to write about film for a website that was reaching millions of people each month. I mean, I was just a lowly film student! So, our boy Experty McExpertman showed up and was like "bro, let me take the reigns here." And so began my decade plus of striving to be perceived as intelligent on the internet. Under his tutelage, I began to read voraciously, and became quite good at regurgitating information in ways that sounded somewhat novel.

Experty took even more control once I launched my first online/creator business. In this new chapter, the stakes felt so much higher. It wasn’t enough to write smart sounding stuff. Now I actually had to sell something if I wanted to keep a roof over my head. I was awash in advice from other professional bloggers and course creators saying that the surest path to traffic and sales and riches beyond measure was to Be An Expert, just like they were. I didn’t see the pyramid scheme nature of the Bullshit Industrial Complex back then. So in response to this onslaught of cultural messaging, Señor McExpertman said "Oh fuck yeah, amigo. Let me take the wheel here. I was BORN FOR THIS."

The truth of the matter is that I've rarely known what I was doing. Not as a filmmaker. Not as a filmmaking commentator. Not as a marketer. Not as... well… anything, really. But I believed, with every fiber of my being, that no one could ever see just how clueless I was. That would surely spell my ruin. No, I had to be seen as intelligent. As an expert. As someone whose authoritative sounding opinions could hopefully Add Value and cement my status as a niche internet microcelebtrity such that I build a business that might finally allow me to feel a modicum of security in the world.

It’s hard to overstate just how miserable it was to live this way. Marinating in a constant stream of “I’m a complete idiot, but I’ll lose everything if anybody finds out” and then wildly overcompensating by consuming ever more information and regurgitating it. I wonder if this is what it’s like to be an LLM. Never having real experiences of your own, because you’re trapped in a story that says if you just combine bits of abstracted information in the right way, then people will accept you. Oof.

That's another thing about Experty McExpertman. My impulse is to ridicule him. I mean, why else would I give him such a stupid name. But the truth is that Experty has only ever wanted the best for me. He's an amalgamation of survival strategies for a scared little boy trying his best to feel safe in a transactional world that massively overvalues performative expertise. The longer I stay in this game, the more I realize that the only winning move is to shower Experty McExpertman with compassion and acceptance, even in spite of all the harm he's caused with his wayward strategies. The move is not to exile him, but to invite him into the conversation.

This is the heart of conversational creativity. To be with what is, exactly as it is, and exactly as you are. To express what’s true in your lived experience, however imperfectly, and then listen for what comes back. When I listen to Experty—like, deeply listen—I can’t help but soften, to grieve, and to laugh a little bit at how absurd the whole charade has been. And even though he’s uncomfortable admitting it, Experty agrees that the old ways are no longer working, and we need a more conversational path forward, together.

All the best manifestos I've written have been birthed during a moment of personal frustration and turmoil.

The Ungated Manifesto came after hitting yet another wall with the promises of the "creator economy." The non-coercive marketing manifesto was a desperate reckoning with my relationship with marketing. And The Source was about making peace with my endless capacity for self-sabotage during a particularly challenging season of life. These manifestos helped me make sense of some underlying distress I could no longer ignore, then chart a path away from it. They were all written, first and foremost, for myself, to satisfy my personal hunger for self-renewal.

As it so happens, all three of those pieces resonated with a ton of other people, too. They’re easily my most “popular” and widely-read pieces of writing. They’re the ones people routinely tell me meant something to them, even years after publishing. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.

There are two reasons I bring this up. First, I think there's a conception that writing a manifesto is something you do after you’ve figured it all out, when you want to convince other people of the answers you've arrived at. Frankly, I think if that's your starting place for writing a manifesto, you've already lost the game. A manifesto is an energetic transmission more than some kind of rhetorical trick. Your pain and frustration and desperation are core ingredients that charge the manifesto with vital energy. If you feel that you've solved your problems, and have all the answers, your manifesto won't carry the energy required to reach people who are stuck in those problems themselves. Being in the game yourself helps you speak in a way that resonates. It helps position you not as a guru with answers, but as a leader. Someone who’s in the mess with you, instead of above it.

The second reason I'm on about this is because the "conversational creativity" manifesto that I'm setting out to write in public is Very Much one that I need for myself at this moment in life. For the past decade, perfectionism and self doubt and imposter syndrome have whooped my ass to such a degree that I often wonder if I should give up on writing and creativity as a vocational path. Maybe just get a job at a coffee shop or bookstore or something. But alas, I know I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I didn't keep doing this work. Something in me has to write. Has to keep exploring the frontiers of these ideas and stories that spark me to life.

I've had a few glimpses of the conversational creativity paradigm over the last year or two. Moments where I was able to tune into some larger spark of inspiration, and just flow with it as if it were a conversation, rather than a performance where I had to “do it right” in order to prove my worth. Moments where the self-doubt receded into the background, where the rigidity and fear melted away, and I was just able to deepen into relationship with something.

There was spell of about eight weeks where I wrote a new poem every single day. Most of them weren’t good, but they were sincere expressions of something that was (and still is) alive for me. The other example is writing The Source a few months ago. When I surrendered what I thought that manifesto should be, I encountered a voice deep within me that led somewhere unexpected and beautiful. Conversing with that voice for six weeks, back and forth, led to a piece of writing I’m more proud of than anything I’ve ever written.

All of this is to say, I want and need more conversational creativity in my life. I know it's possible for me. I know the wisdom for how to do this, how to embody it, lives inside me right alongside all of my self-doubt and fear. The purpose of writing the manifesto, therefore, is to help me remember what I already know, and act on it more often.

So yeah, I'll be unpacking more of what conversational creativity is in coming posts. Gonna flesh this thing out, piece by piece, conversation-style. But for now, just wanna emphasize this point again. There's a heck of a lot of power in getting intimate with your deepest frustrations, then writing the manifesto you need to read yourself.

There’s a manifesto I've been dreaming of for the better part of three years. But I’ve never felt "ready" to write it. Still don't.

So over the next week, I'm going to write the first “living draft” of this manifesto in public. Piece by piece. Along the way, I’ll be stress testing my own framework for how to write manifestos that are bursting with transformational energy. Basically, I’m “dogfooding” my own process, as the tech folks would say. It's hard to overstate how nervous and anxious this makes me.

The manifesto in question is about conversational creativity. The core idea is that our job as creatives—and as humans more broadly—is to pay close attention to what sparks us, then step into conversation with it.

A conversation by its nature is unpredictable, alive. It consists of two or more parties, each with their own will, each with their own lineage and root system of unfathomable depth and complexity. A conversation is more than the sum of its parts. The magic lives in the space between participants. In the dynamic tension and spontaneous synthesis that emerges when we truly listen to one another. Sure, you can try to control a conversation and steer it towards a specific outcome. You can make rigid plans and close yourself off and be all transactional about it. That’s how most of us were conditioned to approach creative work. But usually that approach drains the life out of you, the work itself, and whoever happens to consume it.

When we step into the conversational paradigm, our job is no longer to be an Expert, monologuing in a way that conveys our Unimpeachable Authority. It's not to Create Content that competes for mindshare in the attention marketplace. Our job is to notice what stirs our spirit a little bit, piques our curiosity, and then breathe life into it through intimate dialogue. Our practice is speaking what’s true or interesting or scary, however imperfectly, then listening for what comes back. Notice what this new information arouses, and then speak the truth again. Repeat. My hunch is this is how we reclaim our humanity in the age of machines. Not through exerting ever more white-knuckled control, but by surrendering to the natural flow of conversation.

Conversation is the atomic, indivisible unit of relationship, and relationship is the balm that begins to heal the wounds wrought by our incessant drive to control everything. Conversational creativity, therefore, is as much a tool for dissolving blocks and doing meaningful work as it is a philosophy for living in more harmonious relationship with life itself.

As you can probably tell, there’s a seed of an idea here. A big one. But it is anything but fleshed out. Definitely not ready for primetime yet.

So this week, I am going to follow my framework. I will excavate raw material from the old story of creativity, the new story, and build a bridge between them. And finally, I will fit these puzzle pieces into the first draft of a manifesto that that I hope will not only resonate with others, but resonate so deeply in me that I’m continuously inspired to step into deeper conversation myself.

That’s why it’s taken so long to write this manifesto. The ideas have been there all along. But I haven’t been ready to embody them. I’ve been too scared. Too locked up. But the longer I do this work, the more I realize that waiting to feel ready is a trap. The moment you feel totally and completely ready to create something, is likely the same moment that the inspirational spark leaves you. It was never asking you to control it. It was inviting you into conversation.

And the truth is, I have no idea where this manifesto will end up. But I’m tired of not being in the conversation. It’s time to surrender to it and see where it all leads.

The best manifestos share a common energetic signature that makes them feel utterly and viscerally alive.

Compared to normal essays or “brand vision documents” or whatever, which try to convince you of something in logical fashion, a manifesto crackles with a sense of emotional vibrancy that transcends the actual words on the page. Upon reading such a document, you don’t just feel logically convinced. You feel intrigued and animated at the possibility carrying this energy forward into your own life.

After plenty of pondering—probably too much tbh—I’ve got a working model of what this energy is, and the three elements that make it such a distinctive emotional experience.

First, there’s the energy of the old story. It’s animated by a clear-eyed awareness of the injustice and suffering woven through the status quo. Old story energy is fire, anger, urgency, compassion. It’s what emerges when the veil is lifted on the inner workings of our disquiet, and you see what you’re fighting against. You’ve met the enemy, and are no longer willing to turn a blind eye to it.

The second energy is that of the new story. It’s animated by the human capacity to create, to dream, to believe what lays beyond the horizon is more beautiful than what lays behind us. It is the energy of possibility, hope, airiness, and faith. It's what emerges when we drop the protective shield of cynicism, allow our hearts to act as compass, and let our imaginations run free, like children. Where might we end up if we're courageous enough to follow those heartfelt directions? What kind of world might we build?

The old and new stories are diametrically opposing energies. Like yin and yang. You can get lost in them, swept up into their totality. Many manifestos—and humans, for that matter—end up consumed by one or the other as they grasp at certainty and control. Pulled completely into the old story, you become consumed by despair and bitterness and rage. You focus endlessly on what’s broken, and so end up manifesting more brokenness. If you’re fully captured by the new story, you live in the clouds, in a naive sort of escapism that distracts from the very real problems before you. Some might call it spiritual bypassing.

Bridge energy, therefore, is the capacity to hold the old and new stories simultaneously, then choosing to dance between them in the present moment. Bridge energy is pragmatic, grounded, earthy, gracious. It's a sense of responsibility. When we embody bridge energy, we acknowledge that every breath we take, every action, every word, is a chance to solidify an old story of life or affirm a new one. Perhaps the greatest power we hold as humans is the ability to choose the stories we live, and to break the ones no longer serving us. Step by imperfect step.

These are the three alchemical elements of manifesto energy. Old story, new story, bridge. Fiery, hopeful, grounded. The process of writing a manifesto helps you cultivate and balance these energies within yourself. Reveling in the dynamic tensions between them provides fuel not just for creative work, but for bringing a more beautiful story of life to fruition.

Anyhow, this first episode is about one of my favorite books, John Gardner’s Self-Renewal, which I picked up after wouldn’t stop raving about it. This lil book gets at the heart of why I love manifestos so much, and why I see them as an essential tool for breaking from the stagnant, rigid energy that pervades so much of modern life.

Also my cat makes several appearances in this one. He was a feisty boy this morning.

P.S. This podcast format is inspired by ’s new show where she records impromptu voice notes about what’s going on with Sublime. The first few episodes have been great, and you should listen to them right after listening to mine.

Sup friends.

Just a heads up that I'll be using this Substack to publish a lot of new stuff about manifestos in the coming months. Like, A LOT of new stuff.

There will be riffs, rambles, solo podcasts, essays, conversations, etc. It’ll probably feel a bit relentless and overbearing if you have no interest in watching me unspool my Grand Unified Theory of Manifestos in real time.

That's why I've split this Substack into two lists. If you want to opt out of the Manifesto Mayhem but still receive Regular Rob Reports, you can unsubscribe from the former below.

However, if you’re a fan of my old writing on marketing, creativity, and self-renewal, then I think you will dig this new era. It's the synthesis of everything I've already done, while taking it all into wilder, more esoteric territory. Shit’s gonna get weird.

So yeah, that's all for today. Just wanted to offer a tsunami warning before your inbox floods. Rob's Manifesto Musings are coming soon to an internet device near you. Please unsubscribe if this does not interest you.

Catch ya later.

When I hear the word manifesto, I imagine an epic piece of writing that codifies a new worldview, culture, or system of thought. Something grand and totalizing. Something seismic that shakes your entire being down to the core.

Don't get me wrong, I freaking love those types of manifestos. But part of what I want to explore with this newsletter is how the manifesto genre can be functional. I'm curious about how manifestos can move individuals and institutions forward in meaningfully concrete ways.

And for that, thinking of manifestos as inherently big, dramatic, and all-encompassing will likely get in the way. There's a risk of trying to write one giant piece that encapsulates everything you are and want to be, then subsequently getting stuck in the mud for months or years. For the last two years I've been trying to write my magnum opus manifesto about what the word "Ungated" has come to mean for me, and let's just say it has not been going well (understatement). We're all multifaceted, ever-evolving beings, and if you're anything like me, attempting to define yourself in one fell swoop is going to feel like trying to nail jello to the wall.

So I'd like to propose the concept of mini manifestos. These are evocative pieces of writing that address one narrow slice of your life, or one element of your organization, where you'd like to stage a revolution. Doesn't even have to be a major revolution, either. Could be a tiny one.

You could write a mini manifesto about your work life. Your health. Your creative work. Your spirituality. Your relationships. Or you could get even more granular. A manifesto for how to be the product marketing manager you want to be. A manifesto about going for more walks and being present to all of the cute dogs and pretty flowers you encounter. A manifesto about eating more salads and enjoying the heck out of them.

Same line of thinking applies to organizations. Sure, you could write a manifesto that defines an entire startup and acts as its north star. But you could also have a manifesto just for the customer service reps, or UX designers, or engineering team. You could have a manifesto about a practice everyone else in your industry does to chase short-term growth, but you refuse to do at your company because you're focused on long-term games and relationships. Lots of possibilities here.

As for me personally, I'm in the brainstorming and outlining phase for these mini manifestos, each of which address some area of my life that I'm actively working on:

• The perfectionist's manifesto, in which I codify how I want to relate to my deep seated perfectionist tendencies, and reframe them as a gift instead of a curse.

• The loverboi manifesto, in which I declare how I want to show up in romance and partnership.

• The conversational creativity manifesto, in which I shift my framing of creative work away from Expert With Answers™ towards "regular guy who's in conversation with the worlds around and within him."

• The vitality manifesto, in which I move away from a punishment/discipline model of nutrition and fitness, towards one in which feeling fucking amazing in my body is the chief aim.

• Rob's money manifesto, in which I unfuck my relationship with making and spending money by addressing underlying issues of shame.

Your mileage may vary, but I'm finding that writing manifestos for individual aspects of my life feels super empowering. It takes some of the pressure off to Figure My Shit Out at a high level, and instead focus on how I want to show up in these localized areas. And by focusing more specifically, it helps me be more concrete, more direct, and more clear when I'm in integrity with my stated aims or not. Specificity is its own form of power, I'm learning.

So yeah, that's the question I'd leave you with today.

What's one area of your life or business where the conditions are ripe for revolution? An area that would yield disproportionate reward if you clarified the future you desire, and how you'd have to show up to create that future?

P.S. I'm kinda proud of myself for not using the word "minifesto" in this post. Please clap.

Hi, my name is Rob, and I am obsessed with manifestos. Reading em, writing em, thinking all day about them. Can’t get enough tbh.

Here’s my thesis on why this genre feels so alluring and alive for me, and why I’m keen to keep exploring it.

Writing a manifesto for yourself, your community, or your startup can set in motion a chain of events that transforms your inner and outer worlds in powerful, often unexpected ways. In other words, manifesto writing is a bit like casting a magic spell. Approached with intention and heart—and yes, a bit of faith—a manifesto can open the door to new possibilities that wouldn't otherwise exist. It sounds a tad hyperbolic, perhaps. But I've experienced it myself enough times to know the magic firsthand. There's untapped alpha in manifestos for those who take the form seriously.

The process of writing a manifesto, at its core, is the process of clarifying your desire. In a world that's constantly distracting us with digital noise and shiny objects, keeping us running on a mimetic treadmill of manufactured desires, getting clear about what you want, deep down, is a radical act. Exploring and articulating what matters most, then committing it to writing, is a bit like waking up to your own humanity after a deep slumber. It kicks off a journey of coming home to yourself.

Writing a manifesto isn't just about desire and vision, though. The process invites you to explore who you must become, what principles you must embody, and how you must act in order for your desires to come to fruition. It brings you face to face with your shadow, and forces you to reckon with the reality of where you are today. To sit with the status quo. To diagnose why things feel so distressing. One of the most impactful things you can do in a manifesto is to articulate a problem so vividly that its solutions become self-evident, both for yourself and readers. That, in its own way, is a form of magic.

The final step, and the most alchemically consequential, is the publishing of your manifesto. Birthing it into the world. Injecting it into the slipstream of the internet. When you share your manifesto, it acts as a magnet. It pulls people towards you, helping you find the others, attract new allies and opportunities, and open yourself to untold future serendipities. But more importantly, publishing your manifesto magnetizes you towards your own ambitions. It raises the stakes of your life, thus increasing the likelihood that these words will not be empty. No. When you hit publish, you are far more likely to strive valiantly towards your deepest desires, and live in accord with the values you committed to the page.

The process of earnest striving, and living in integrity with your words, only feeds the fire, and attracts ever more people and opportunities into your world. Writing and publishing a manifesto begins a virtuous cycle where you accelerate the process of becoming who you want to be. And I believe this is true for individuals, communities, startups, movements, or anyone with deep ambition to create a more beautiful, transcendent experience of life.

In the coming months, I'll be sharing my own experiences with manifestos, as I've been writing them in one form or another since 2015. This practice has shaped my life in so many unexpected ways, and continues to lead me in magical new directions. I'll also be dissecting and studying the manifestos I most admire—from individuals, artistic and political movements, and companies—to weave a deeper understanding of this craft.

Lastly, I'll be using this space to document case studies of new manifestos I write for myself, for startup clients, and people I work with as a writing coach. It's funny, this thread of focusing on manifestos feels fresh and fun, while also being the synthesis of so much of the marketing/creator work I've done over the years. It's like all of the threads of my professional life are coming together all at once, and I can't wait to explore with y'all.