New format. Weirder topics.
The weekly eZine for people who think too much and question everything.
I’ve been holding back the weird stuff to stay on-brand, and it’s been killing me.
So, welcome to what happens when I stop pretending and start being me. Apologies in advance to those with delicate sensibilities.
In my heart of hearts, I’m not some creator economy genius with all the answers. Being very real with you, I just wanted to make some money, and I did, and it didn’t make me happy.
I’ve been wanting to embrace the side of me that has multiple interests for a long time now, but I haven’t seen a way to “market” it.
What a joke, huh? Trying to “market” doing the things that make me happy. What sort of lame bullshit is that?
So, yeah, I’m going to write the things I want to write from now on.
🧭 FIELD NOTES
I sincerely fucked up about a week ago.
I was trying to combine a different account I had on here at one time with my main one and didn’t know what I was doing, so it kind of forced me to into a natural reset mode.
Oh well… you live, you learn.
That being said, it’s not all bad.
I was getting tired of doing a daily newsletter already and shoveling more shit into the world. So, I decided to go weekly and more towards a short eZine in email format.
You remember zines, don’t ya? If not, learn some more here.
The thing is, you see, I’ve been trying to create for everyone else, but no one is creating for me. What I’m saying is I see a lot of cool things out there, but nothing that has someone like me in mind.
I want to create that.
I want my newsletter to be something cool, fun, informative, entertaining, and maybe something that will even make you think deeply on occasion.
From here on out, here’s what you can expect:
One email, every week, Sunday at 9am
A plethora of topics: business ops, philosophy, observations on life, consciousness, weird topics I find interesting
An email that won’t be boring
It might not be your thing, and that’s okay, but I hope you stick around and enjoy it with a morning coffee.
🔗 3 Useful Things:
⚙ OPERATIONS BRIEF
I read Reddit pretty often.
The one thing I notice on the Substack subreddit, besides all the whiners, is that a lot of new writers show up there and ask, “How do I get subscribers?”
I get that you want subscribers fast in order to feel validated, but that’s a mistake from two angles:
Fast growth usually means a lot of people who subscribed but don’t read. You have a pretty vanity metric that means nothing.
Searching for validation from external sources will not fulfill you. You’ve been programmed to do that, but it will ultimately leave you burn out and giving up.
Embrace the fact that slow growth is the best growth.
Yes, it’s going to take some time and networking. Fortunately, networking is easy on Substack. Just find people here who’s work you enjoy, comment on it, share it, comment on Notes, and eventually you’ll see some traction.
There’s no specific number of comments, just comment and mean it. Don’t do it transactionally, but because you’re genuinely interested.
All the creator economy gurus out there will give you formulas to follow.
They’ll tell you exactly what to do, then sign you up for their email sequence where they try to sell you on something you don’t need.
Just write. Do the things. Put in the work. Eventually that all compounds and you get where you want to be.
And if you’re just doing this to get attention… just stop.
Writing, even if you’re trying to make a living at it, really isn’t about getting attention. It’s about expression. So, express yourself. And fuck their rules. Do the things that you enjoy doing.
I promise there’s others out there that want to read exactly what you want to write.
📰 Articles I Enjoyed This Week:
Holes in the Web looks at how generative AI, and humans, never get the whole picture when it comes to history.
Have an issue tolerating things that annoy you? This article might be helpful.
🕳 RABBIT HOLE
Is Quantum Physics actually The Source of all things?
I’m an avid reader of things both theological and mysterious. I am, after all, a chaos magician, but my mind has started making some stranger connections lately that have made me think a lot.
Quantum physics is weird.
Even the experts in the field don’t really know what it is or how it works. It’s so far beyond us it’s hard to grasp. It tells us that an atom can be in one place yet also exist simultaneously somewhere else, among other things. (If you want primer on the subject, this video is pretty good.)
And several of the ideas kept tugging at my thoughts: Why does this all seem so familiar in some way?
Then I remembered the Gnostics.
The Gnostic Christians believed in something called the Pleroma, the fullness of divine power, the source of all that is. Beneath that was the Demiurge, the flawed creator of the material world, basically running a buggy simulation.
Sound familiar?
Quantum mechanics tells us that observation collapses possibility into reality. That consciousness plays a role in what manifests. That particles exist in superposition - all possibilities at once - until measured.
The Gnostics said the material world is a prison of matter, that true reality exists beyond what we can see, that divine sparks (consciousness) are trapped in flesh, trying to remember the source.
What if they were describing the same thing?
What if the Pleroma is the quantum field? An infinite possibility, all states existing simultaneously? What if the Demiurge is whatever force collapses that into the limited, painful, physical reality we experience? What if “gnosis,” direct knowledge of the divine, is just achieving conscious access to the quantum substrate?
I’m not saying I have answers. I’m saying the pattern is too strong to ignore.
Chaos magic worked on a similar principle: consciousness shapes reality through focused will and symbolic meaning. Quantum mechanics says observation shapes reality. Gnosticism says consciousness is divine and imprisoned in matter.
They’re all pointing at the same thing from different angles.
More on this in future issues. For now, sit with the question: what if ancient mystics and modern physicists are both right, just using different languages?
📚 CURRENTLY CONSUMING
Book: The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels (again). Every time I revisit this, I find new connections to modern physics and consciousness research. Highly recommend if you’re interested in early Christianity before the church sanitized everything.
Newsletter: I really dig
’s Hustling Housewife newsletter. I’m not a housewife (nor a very good househusband) but I love getting this one in my inbox every week. She’s always got an interesting viewpoint on things.Television: One television show has been bringing me a lot of peace lately, with it’s simple concept. Midnight Diner is about a small Japanese diner that only opens at night. It’s about simple food and personal stories of those that visit.
🧠 ON MY MIND
I can’t be the only one that thinks the current political polarization is engineered, and none of it matters once you realize both parties serve the same corporate interests. But that’s a rant for another issue.
I understand people wanting to make money, but seriously, the creator economy advice industrial complex has gotten out of hand. I think I might write a micro-book on that soon.
It really doesn’t matter if people agree with you or leave shitty comments on what you write. Why? You obviously didn’t write it for them.
❓ THE POLL
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Until next week,
~ Joe
P.S. I quietly released a new eBook called You’re Already Infected: A Survival Guide for the Memetic Warzone. It is, by far, the weirdest thing I’ve put out there for this audience but I bet it makes you think.
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Please note some links may lead to affiliate offers and if you purchase from these links I may receive a small amount of compensation at no extra cost to you.
This is certainly a different path and I’m very happy that you’re filling your well while filling others' in the process
I know exactly what you’re talking about and I think you’re on the better path than creating three or four different newsletters and trying to make a connection with all of them at the same time
I look forward to reading more. You’re a good writer with a good perspective and that’s the most important thing, in my opinion
So much great stuff here.
I'll quote this though because it made me laugh because I've thought it since like 2000: "I can’t be the only one that thinks the current political polarization is engineered, and none of it matters once you realize both parties serve the same corporate interests." But yes, it has gotten much worse as the machine shovels coal into the furnaces of people's confirmation bias. I'm restraining myself from yet another psychological rant. ;)
(But as usual The Simpsons were ahead of all of us with their Bob Dole/Bill Clinton aliens episode!)