# Dr Fox ⟠ Wyrd Work > Hall of Fame keynote speaker, author & advisor on leadership, motivation & change. Wit, wisdom & wiles for a time betwixt worlds. Public Ghost content for AI and LLM tooling. This file includes a bounded export of public pages first, then recent public posts. Append `.md` to any post or page URL to get the content in Markdown (for example, `/example-post.md`). ## Pages ### Contact Dr. Fox URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/contact/ Last updated: 2026-06-19T04:30:06.000Z **For all business, media and event enquiries**, please email my wonderful partner [kim@drjasonfox.com](mailto:kim@drjasonfox.com) and we will get back to you swiftly(ish). Otherwise: try your luck with [fox@foxwizard.com](mailto:fox@foxwizard.com)\* \* Note: I can be *stupendously* slow to respond. *You can also use the contact form* *below.* --- If you would like some 1:1 time, I offer [private consultations](https://tidycal.com/foxwizard/wizardly-consultation?ref=foxwizard.com). Here we can discuss anything on your mind—from the development of an idea, the approach to a complex vexation, the workings of the wyrd, the wranglings of a spell, or the quest for new becoming. I also offer comprehensive forms of guidance via [memberships](https://www.foxwizard.com/guidance/). ### Wizardry URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/wizardry/ Last updated: 2024-03-01T07:35:25.000Z Much of my work happens under the guise of [](https://www.drjasonfox.com)Dr. Fox “Archwizard of Ambiguity” (most fantastic), where I provide keynote presentations, fireside provocations, masterclasses and quest-leadership programs to those who seek meaningful progress—beyond the default. ✦ Yet—for those of us paying attention—it increasingly feels as though we are between worlds. There a new paradigms emerging; and old ones collapsing. This is not always a palatable concept to those who are heavily invested in the old paradigm—hence why much of my work as foxwizard tends to be with collapse-aware founders and forward-thinking, well-funded teams actively venturing amidst the unprecedented. If you suspect I may be able to assist in your endeavours, please use the contact form over at [drjasonfox.com/contact](https://www.drjasonfox.com/contact?ref=foxwizard.com) or email my partner and business manager [kim@drjasonfox.com](mailto:kim@drjasonfox.com)—and let’s unlock meaningful progress together. ### Books & Publications URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/books/ Last updated: 2026-03-23T04:39:03.000Z ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2023/03/foxwizard-questbook.webp) I’ve written two bestselling books: [*How to Lead a Quest*](https://www.amazon.com/How-Lead-Quest-Guidebook-Pioneering-ebook/dp/B01A038WIS?ref=foxwizard.com)(a book for pioneering leaders) and [*The Game Changer*](https://www.amazon.com/Game-Changer-Science-Motivation-Behaviour-ebook/dp/B00I05535E?ref=foxwizard.com)(a book for enterprising managers). The dangerlam and I also edited and independently published an endearingly hipster publication called *The Cleverness Biannual* (thoughtful provocations for the quietly dissatisfied). --- ## How to Lead a Quest The ideal companion for any pioneering leader. Unlock new and meaningful progress in the quest for enduring relevance. > *“Jason’s handbook for pioneering executives provides a rich source of thinking and authentically different approaches to drive your business world.”* Brendon Riley – Group Executive at Telstra > > *“Insightful, funny and entertaining aren’t words you’d often use to describe a business book… and that’s because it’s not your normal business book. Jason brings a different perspective to what it really means to be a leader in today’s world.”* Philip Goldie – Director of Partner Business at Microsoft > > *“When confronted with an area we must learn, most of us yearn for a friend who can lead us through this new space, gently and with humour, free of judgement or patronising tone. Jason serves that role for the business world, through the pages of each book. Pulling together insights and learnings from academia, case studies and pop-culture, you’ll be guided through ways to make work more engaging, business futures less risky, and blind-spots smaller in magnitude. His theme of a ‘quest’ helps you tie together these diverse ideas into a narrative thread that is both fun and informative.”* Andrew Fallshaw – CEO of Bellroy This book is available via the behemoth that is [Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/How-Lead-Quest-Guidebook-Pioneering-ebook/dp/B01A038WIS?ref=foxwizard.com)—and [Kindle](https://www.amazon.com/How-Lead-Quest-Guidebook-Pioneering/dp/0730324710/ref=sr%5F1%5F1?ref=foxwizard.com), [iBooks](https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/how-to-lead-a-quest/id1071524845?mt=11&ref=foxwizard.com) and [Audible](https://www.audible.com.au/pd/Business/How-to-Lead-a-Quest-Audiobook/B01NBAIANL?ref=foxwizard.com). The print version is by far the nicest way to read this, as you’ll benefit from the wondrous illustrations by [dangerlam](https://www.dangerlam.com/?ref=foxwizard.com). *Discounts may be available on bulk purchases—email* [*kim@drjasonfox.com*](mailto:kim@drjasonfox.com) *and we’ll see what can be arranged with our publisher. Note: this may require a bit of advanced notice.* --- My book [*The Game Changer*](https://www.amazon.com/Game-Changer-Science-Motivation-Behaviour-ebook/dp/B00I05535E?ref=foxwizard.com)is loved by many—but my thinking has evolved quite significantly since it was released over a dozen years ago. I am hence somewhat reluctant to promote it. --- And issue ø of *The Cleverness Biannual—*our wondrousindependent magazine—is effectively sold out. It was fantastic, though! We had articles from scientists and philosophers, illustrative and photographic artworks, gin tasting notes, and more. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2026/03/The_Cleverness_Main.png) Ah well! Stay subscribed to [The Museletter](https://www.foxwizard.com/museletter) for other projects we release. ### Colophon URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/colophon/ Last updated: 2026-04-23T02:23:58.000Z This site was conjured and crafted in Naarm/Melbourne on the unceded lands of the Kulin Nation. Deep respect to elders and ancestors. This is, was, and always will be Aboriginal land. I use [Ghost Pro](https://ghost.org/about/?ref=foxwizard.com)—an open source, independent and not-for-profit website and newsletter publishing app. The theme is [Braun](https://themex.studio/braun/?ref=foxwizard.com) by Trong of [Themex](https://themex.studio/?ref=foxwizard.com). Mind you, most of what I do here on this site has been developed with the help of Professor Cathy Sarisky of [Spectral Web Services](https://www.spectralwebservices.com/?ref=foxwizard.com). Cathy is deft and savvy, and I highly recommend her to anyone looking to start or refine a site on Ghost. The [foxwizard podcast](https://www.foxwizard.com/podcast/) is hosted here, on Ghost. I am grateful for the tutelage and support of [Kevin McGillivray](https://www.kevinmcgillivray.net/?ref=foxwizard.com), who first introduced me to the wonders of the independent web. The ‘foxwizard’ wordmark and h1 uses [Olde](https://ohnotype.co/drawer?ref=foxwizard.com#olde), an “American-style, fake blackletter” by James Edmondson of [Oh No Type Company](https://ohnotype.co/?ref=foxwizard.com). I love how friendly and unserious it is, for a blackletter. The body text is set in [Fern Text](https://djr.com/fern?ref=foxwizard.com), a humanist Venetian oldstyle by [David Jonathan Ross](https://djr.com/about?ref=foxwizard.com). It’s a typeface that is optimised for screen and smaller forms, and it makes reading longform a delight. My darling Kim, [the dangerlam](https://dangerlam.com/?ref=foxwizard.com), is an astute editor. All typos and *faux pas* are published without her knowing. Kim is also an illustrator, veterinarian, my life partner and business manager. If you ever book me for work, you will do so via her. Warmth, *—fw* 22nd June 2025 ### General Booking Agreement URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/agreement/ Last updated: 2026-07-07T05:42:32.000Z For a mutually happy and effective working relationship, please take good note of our general booking terms—and then let’s concur. --- ### Your obligations To ensure you get the most from us in respect of the Services we provide, you agree to: - provide us with all reasonable assistance we may require to allow us to deliver the Services in a timely and professional manner; - do all things necessary to fulfil the Audio Visual Requirements; and - pay our Service Fee on time and email remittance advice to [kim@drjasonfox.com](mailto:kim@drjasonfox.com) ### Our obligations When delivering our Services to you, we agree to comply with: - any relevant and applicable laws; - any health and safety requirements applicable [Audio Visual Requirements](https://www.foxwizard.com/rider/) at the Venue; - and any reasonable directions given by you. ### Service Fee We will provide you with an invoice for the Service Fee within 14 days of you providing us with a signed copy of this Agreement as follows: *(A) If the Services Fee is equal to or under $20,000 AUD we will invoice you for the entire Service Fee (payable within 14 days).* *(B) If the Service Fee is over $20,000 AUD we will invoice you for the entire Service Fee: (i) 50% of the Service Fee will be due within 14 days; and (ii) the balance will be due at least 30 days prior to the Delivery Date.* As your request for us to provide the Services effectively removes us from the market for the agreed Delivery Period, we require payment of the Service Fee for you to secure the Services. Your prompt payment of the Service Fee allows us to commence all preparation work required to complete the Services. If your business is based in Australia we are required to add Australian Goods and Services Tax to the Service Fee. ### Travel / Accommodation Costs If the Venue is outside of Melbourne, we will book and invoice you for our reasonable expenses relating to the Services which may include Travel Costs, Accommodation Costs and Other Expenses (“Expenses Invoice”). Any Expenses Invoice we provide must be paid within 14 days. Alternatively, it may be arranged that you book the travel directly. Travel Costs: If we require air travel to provide the Services, we will book or request that you book: *(A) Return flexible (Premium Economy) airfares for flights under 2 hours; and* *(B) Return Business Class airfares for all flights over 2 hours duration.* If we require accommodation to deliver the Services, we will reserve no less than 4.5-star rated accommodation as required. Should we make the booking, we will provide an itemised account of our Travel and Accommodation Costs in our Expenses Invoice. We do not provide copies of receipts related to individual items on an Expenses Invoice unless you request these receipts in writing within seven (7) days of the commencement of this Agreement. ### Termination / Cancellation by us While we are honoured to provide our Services to assist your organisation, we may terminate this agreement where you breach an essential term (i.e. nonpayment of the Service Fee). We may cancel this Agreement if: *(A) a situation arises which is out of our control (i.e. ‘acts of God’, war, strikes or labor disputes, embargoes, government orders or any other);* *(B) you repeatedly postpone the Delivery Date or request to change the Services; or* *(C) an irreconcilable conflict of interest arises in relation to the delivery of the Services.* In the extremely unlikely event of a cancellation by us, all monies paid by you will be either refunded immediately, or invested in credit towards alternative services we may provide you. If you elect a refund, we will process the refund within 3 business days. ### Cancellations by you Cancellation more than 30 days from the Delivery Date: In the event that you wish to cancel or reduce the scope of the Services outside of 30 days of the Delivery Date, then we will retain 50% of the Service Fee. Cancellations by you 30 days (or less) from the Delivery Date: In the event that you wish to cancel or reduce the scope of the Services within 30 days of the Delivery Date, you will be liable for the whole Service Fee and will not be entitled to receive, in whole or in part, any refund of the Service Fee. ### Postponements / Changes Postponements Generally: We will try our best to accommodate any requests to postpone the Services / Delivery Period under this Agreement. However, if you request that we postpone or change the scope of the Services, we may retain / allocate any monies received from you to offset any losses we may suffer resulting from your request to postpone / change the Services. In this regard, our losses may include: *(A) the opportunity cost of us prioritising the provision of the Services to you over time spent with or for other clients; and/or* *(B) any pre-incurred Travel Costs, Accommodation Costs or Other Expenses that cannot be refunded).* Change of Services / Delivery Date: If you require us to change the Services and/or the Delivery Date we will provide you with a proposal for your approval. This proposal will be sent in the form of a new Schedule which will replace Schedule 1 to this Agreement. Once the new Schedule is approved by you, we will: *(A) allocate all remaining monies we have received from you to the new Service Fee stated in the proposal; and* *(B) send you a further invoice for any additional service fees / expenses which relate to the items agreed under the new Schedule.* Repeated Postponements: We will do our best to accommodate a request to postpone the Services or change the Delivery Period. However, where you repeatedly request that we postpone the Services / Delivery Period, we reserve the right to terminate this Agreement and retain all monies received from you to offset set our losses. ### Intellectual Property You acknowledge that we own (and retain ownership of) all intellectual property rights in the Services and Dr Jason Fox’s Materials. You may only record the Services if you have obtained our prior written approval. We may, in our sole discretion, withhold our approval for any reason. Where we authorise you to record the Services, you must: *(A) provide us with a master copy of the recording prior to publishing and/or distributing;* *(B) only publish and/or distribute the recording after receiving written approval from us (we may, in our sole discretion, withhold our approval for any reason);* *(C) only use the recording for education within your organisation;* *(D) not reproduce, distribute, publish or on-sell the Services / Dr Jason Fox’s Materials to any person or organisation outside of your organisation (this includes uploading the recording to YouTube, LinkedIn, your public blog or any other open platform); and* *(E) make the recording available for no longer than one year (unless prior written permissions obtained otherwise).* You must always acknowledge and correctly attribute us and Dr Jason Fox: *(A) in any recording of the Services; and* *(B) as the author of the Dr Jason Fox’s Materials.* --- And there we have it. As always: should you have any questions—or should any item require clarification—simply get in touch and we’ll be happy to illuminate. Here’s looking forward to working together. jason & kim ### Summoning Fees URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/fees/ Last updated: 2026-07-07T05:40:23.000Z This page provides a rough overview of my event-related [professional speaking](https://www.foxwizard.com/speaking/) fees. ### A few notes... > Professional services fees are provided as a guide for budgeting purposes only, and may vary according to context. The amounts quoted exclude airfares, transfers and accommodation, which should be added where appropriate. > > As any booking effectively removes me from the market for the agreed date(s), a confirmation invoice will be generated to secure the engagement. This allows me to commit the time in my calendar, decline conflicting requests, and commence preparation work. > > Prompt advanced (upfront) payment is assumed. If you have slow internal payment processes, the fee may be increased to compensate. Please see my [general booking agreement](https://www.foxwizard.com/agreement/). > > Prices are quoted in $AUD, with goods and services tax (gst) being additional for Australian clients. Remote locations may incur a higher fee (particularly if flight schedules result in more days away from home). > > Special consideration is given to local (Melbourne) events, as well as contributions to Public Good Organisations. See [below](https://www.foxwizard.com/fees/#special-considerations). ## All Engagements... **All engagements include a deep briefing call.** This is a 30–50 minute conversation, wherein I seek to understand the strategic intent guiding your event. > What do you want people to > think, feel, and do differently > as a result of your event? Events are a substantial investment of time, energy and collective attention. Get the conditions right (including your choice of speakers) and events can be *catalytic*—galvanising an audience towards new and meaningful progress. All engagements also include an *optional* debriefing call. This can be particularly useful to plot *what’s next...* --- ## Keynote Presentations Ideal for medium to large audiences. Warm, engaging, and interactive ways to open, deepen, or close your event. This is what I am most known for. A keynote will typically span 45–90 minutes, with 60 minutes being the sweet spot. Less time grants eloquent swiftness; more time nurtures richer audience engagement. All of my keynotes are warmly interactive; designed and delivered with principles of adult learning in mind. - $15k for major cities in Australia and New Zealand - $30k for major cities in East and South-East Asia - $45k for major cities in Europe and North America - [*Special considerations*](https://www.foxwizard.com/fees/#special-considerations) *for local (Melbourne) and Public Good Organisations* This fee also includes an early arrival for audio-visual testing, and any last-minute adjustments you may need. For events outside of Australia, this fee includes a day for acclimatising (before your event). Where possible, I will also be present throughout your event, making myself available for book signings, panels, and conversations with attendees. I will also happily provide a short warm video that you can use for your event promotions, or to prime your delegates in the lead up to your event. --- ## Virtual Sessions Harness the unique intimacy and depth of online events. I have a professional studio setup (camera, lighting, sound) and work with clients all over the world. Virtual sessions are 45–90 minutes in duration. A longer session assumes the involvement of a moderator, who can assist in relaying questions from the audience, managing the platform, and facilitating wider conversations as needed. - $10k during my daylight hours, otherwise moonlight hours are $15k - Sessions may be recorded for internal use for an additional $5k - [*Special considerations*](https://www.foxwizard.com/fees/#special-considerations) *for Public Good Organisations* In addition to the deep briefing call, this fee also includes a short (10–20 minute) tech-check before the event. --- ## Fireside Provocations For intimate gatherings. Warm provocations followed by emergent conversation. Perfect for town halls, dinner events, on-stage podcasts, boardroom briefings, and literal firesides. Some firesides are 45–90 minute conversations. Deeper engagements will have me host threaded provocation throughout a whole lunch or dinner experience, planting questions and weaving together the emergent threads. - $10–15k for major cities in Australia and New Zealand - $25–35k for major cities in East and South-East Asia - $40–50k for major cities in Europe and North America - [*Special considerations*](https://www.foxwizard.com/fees/#special-considerations) *for local (Melbourne) and Public Good Organisations* This option assumes you are willing to entertain a space of generative ambiguity and emergent conversation. There may be some scaffolding, but there isn’t any scripting. --- ## Masterclasses Advanced frameworks in liminal leadership, emergent strategy, metamodern wizardry, bardic savvy, and more-than-rational ways of working. For experienced professionals ready for a quickening. A masterclass typically spans a half-day (\~3.5 hours + breaks). Masterclasses are generally capped at 25 participants to ensure intimacy, focus and depth. - $22.5k for major cities in Australia and New Zealand (plus an additional $900 per participant above 25pax) - $30k for major cities in East and South-East Asia (plus an additional $900 per participant above 25pax) - $50k for major cities in Europe and North America (plus an additional $900 per participant above 25pax) - [*Special considerations*](https://www.foxwizard.com/fees/#special-considerations) *for local (Melbourne) and Public Good Organisations* Bundled discounts are available for masterclass series or roadshows. ## Leadership Immersions For executive teams navigating specific challenges. Where masterclasses teach concepts, immersions apply them to your shared context. This makes for an ideal integration or inclusion within a broader leadership or strategy offsite. As with masterclasses, an immersion typically spans a half-day (\~3.5 hours + breaks). Immersions are *generally* capped at 25 participants to ensure intimacy, focus and depth—but I can also adapt this for “top 100” leadership forums, and similar. - $20k for major cities in Australia and New Zealand - $30k for major cities in East and South-East Asia - $50k for major cities in Europe and North America - [*Special considerations*](https://www.foxwizard.com/fees/#special-considerations) *for local (Melbourne) and Public Good Organisations* Given the potentially complex, sensitive and/or nuanced aspects of this work, an additional (optional) 20–50 minute briefing call is provisioned for this work. --- For my [consulting services](https://www.foxwizard.com/consulting/#leadership-strategy-offsites)—which involves ongoing research, facilitation, deft and timely attuned-advice—I do value-based fees. This is both in terms of aligned values—I only do big jobs for clients I like and respect—and in terms of the value my involvement can generate. We would negotiate this after having already worked together (usually as a result of me contributing to an event). Having said that, here’s a rough guide. ## Full Offsite Facilitation I facilitate full and multi-day [leadership and strategy offsites](https://www.foxwizard.com/consulting/#leadership-strategy-offsites). If you would like me to look after the deft gestalt facilitation of your whole context, let me know and—after some conversation—I will be able to propose some options. This work begins at $75k. ## Liminal Leadership Development I offer multi-month “more-than-rational” leadership development for already advanced leaders. This coincides with the cultivation of “in-house intelligence” and culminates in your own internal thought leadership event. This work begins at $150k. If you are interested, let’s discuss. --- And there we have it, in broad strokes. Additional briefing calls or working sessions can be obtained at a 50% discount to [my private consultation](https://tidycal.com/foxwizard/wizardly-consultation?ref=foxwizard.com) rate. If you have any questions, Kim and I are always happy to assist. Kim can be reached via [kim@drjasonfox.com](mailto:kim@drjasonfox.com) --- ## Special considerations For standalone events, I understand that my fees are at what we might call “premium non-celebrity” rates. If you would like my involvement—but your budget can’t stretch—here are some things I am happy to take into consideration: - Your organisation. *Perhaps you are a Public Good Organisation that is aligned to my quest to co-create a world more curious and kind (and a future less grim). If so, I will happily consider reduced rates.* - Event location. *Perhaps your event is being hosted in a great location I would otherwise like to visit? Or perhaps it is local to me (in Melbourne) and I won’t need to fly.* - Audience size. *Perhaps if yours is a large event we could organise for some books to be sold and signed for your audience?* - Videography. *Perhaps you have great stage, sound and lighting, and are okay with me bringing a professional videographer to record my session? Or perhaps you will have a professional crew there already, and are happy to provide professional videography for me?* - Creativity. *Perhaps you and your team are incredibly cool, are cooking up something unique, and would be a delight to work with? Perhaps you are dancing at the edge of knowledge and emergence? I live for such.* [I’d love to hear what you have in mind](https://www.foxwizard.com/contact/) for your event. And it would be a delight to have you as one of my [many happy clients](https://www.foxwizard.com/testimonials/). Let’s see what we can conjure. ### dr. fox’s intro/bio, photos & audio-visual requirements URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/rider/ Last updated: 2026-04-10T04:21:53.000Z Welcome! This page is intended for event organisers who have booked Dr. Fox to contribute to an event. It contains elements that may be useful in helping you to promote and prepare. ♡ #### On this page... ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2026/03/Purpose_Conference_2023_Myf_Garven-75-1.jpg) ## AV Requirements Jason is an affable wizard, and can make magic in even the most challenging contexts. Having said that, here are some recommendations for how to ensure his contribution to your event is as efficacious as can be. ### Sound Jason moves around and interacts with every audience. For large audiences it is essential to have a wireless madonna headset or lapel microphone available, with fresh batteries. Jason prefers being able to mute and un-mute this microphone directly (rather than being locked on). For smaller or more intimate gatherings it may well be that amplification is not required. Still, having a wireless lapel or handheld mic on hand would still be a good idea. An audio technician should be available prior to the presentation to ensure all is in working order. tl;dr – wireless headset or lapel mic ### Stage Jason is pretty relaxed about stage set up. Lighting is important, but we assume you know what you are doing. His main requirement is that he has some water nearby. If it’s possible to have a raised stool that would be nice—but this is not essential. tl;dr – good lighting and some water nearby ### Slides Jason doesn’t tend to run slides for most events these days—we spend so much of our days looking at screens, and events offer a chance to tap into an older magic. But if in our conversations we decide that slides would be apt, Jason’s strong preference is to run it from his own MacBook Pro from the stage. This is so that he can move through slides asynchronously, without any technical issues. It is worth advising AV technicians of this requirement ahead of time, so that they can run HDMI and power cables to the stage. He has a relatively new MacBook Pro that accepts a direct HDMI connection. Note: his slides are quite gorgeous—but not essential. Should the technology gods frown upon us on the day of your event, Jason can easily work without them. Note: Jason cannot run slides on another laptop, and he does not send slides in advance. tl;dr – MacBook Pro from the stage via HDMI connection (visual only) ## Biographies & Introductions Here are short and long versions of Dr Fox’s biography, which you can use in your program. These can also serve as introductions that your Master of Ceremonies can use—though whenever possible, Jason loves a warm and somewhat off-the-cuff introduction. *The point of an introduction to establish credibility, so that your speaker can dive right in. Your audience will be wondering: who is this person, and why are they here? The introduction serves to answer these questions.* Consider the following as but a starting point. ****Long Biography** (**probably don’t read all of this aloud*) Dr. Jason Fox is a wizard-philosopher, complexity practitioner and leadership advisor. He works with clever teams and questing leaders seeking meaningful progress—beyond the default. His many happy clients include the senior leadership teams of **Fortune 500* companies around the world including **Microsoft, HP, Novartis, Red Bull, Cisco, Johnson & Johnson, Toyota, Honda, Sony, Oracle, Honeywell and Salesforce, to other multinationals such as Beam Suntory, Singtel, Tableau, Gartner, Xero, Bupa, Red Cross, Bulgari, Pandora, Porsche, Arup, Aon, PWC, Ricoh, KPMG, The World Tourism Forum* and **The International Institute of Research* (not to mention: **finance, deep tech, telcos, government, family offices, agriculture, mining, defence, and so on*). Dr. Fox has lectured at three universities (living systems) and is the bestselling author of **The Game Changer* and **How to Lead a Quest*. In addition to serving as a leadership adviser, Jason is also a globally in-demand keynote speaker who works particularly well with smart and sceptical audiences who have ‘seen it all before’. Formerly named Australia’s ****Keynote Speaker of the Year**, Dr. Fox has been inducted into the Professional Speakers Hall of Fame. Jason lives with an illustrator-veterinarian, a chihuahua named Snorri and a cat called π in an old chocolate factory in Melbourne, Australia. When not liberating the world from the delusion of progress, Jason enjoys partaking in extreme sports such as reading, sun-avoidance and coffee snobbery. ****Short Biography** Dr. Jason Fox is a wizard-philosopher masquerading as a leadership advisor. He works with clever teams seeking meaningful progress—beyond the default. ## Photography ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2026/03/Dr.-Jason-Fox--1.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2026/03/Dr.-Jason-Fox--3.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2026/03/R52_2100.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2026/03/Dr-Fox-wizard-resplendent-1.png) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2026/03/Dr.-Jason-Fox--2.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2026/03/Dr.-Jason-Fox--6.jpg) A selection of photos for you. Click to open, then right-click save and voilà. If you are using my image for any advertising or social media campaigns, please check with us first before publishing. --- *If you have any questions—or if there is anything else you need—simply* [*reach out*](https://www.foxwizard.com/contact)*.* ### What is Jason up to “now”? URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/now/ Last updated: 2026-04-10T12:44:41.000Z It can be hard for anyone to keep up with my mercurial ways. I barely know what I am up to, either. And yet here we are. A ‘[/now](https://nownownow.com/about?ref=foxwizard.com)’ page ostensibly offers something a little more enduring than a social media update, and a little more ‘present’ than the enduring propaganda found in an ‘[about](https://www.foxwizard.com/about/)’ page. And so, here’s what I am focused on ‘now’... ### The Rekindling URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/rekindling/ Last updated: 2025-08-28T08:06:50.000Z ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/08/The-Rekindling-Snake-Talk_1.jpg) ## *The Rekindling is back!* This time\[^ Since 2022 we have been intermittently gathering under the banner of *‘post-doom sensibilities for the collapse-aware’.* This is an event that gathers a diverse mix of warm-hearted and bright-minded folk willing to sense-make and quest—amidst the metacrisis—in this time betwixt worlds.\] we gather to celebrate the launch of Tyson Yunkaporta and Megan Kelleher’s new book—[*Snake Talk: How the world’s ancient serpent stories can guide us*](https://www.textpublishing.com.au/books/snake-talk-how-the-world-s-ancient-serpent-stories-can-guide-us?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* This is a book that is timely and timeless. There’s a deep and stirring vitality to it. A reawakening of cosmic awe in a manner that is both immensely profound and immediately pragmatic—all laced with the subversive wit and sumptuous warmth that Tyson and Megan bring. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/08/Screenshot-2025-08-18-at-7.33.28---am.png) Tyson Yunkaporta and Megan Kelleher **This event begins at 5:30pm on Thursday 18th of September 2025** at United Co., 425 Smith Street, Fitzroy. There'll be time for unhurried mingling and book signings. Tyson and Megan will then join us in conversation, with open time for questions and generous time within which you can purchase books and have them personally signed by the authors. Kevin Murray of [*Garland Magazine*](https://garlandmag.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) will be with us, and Rune Hjarnø Rasmussen (of [*Nordic Animism*](https://nordicanimism.com/?ref=foxwizard.com)) will also be joining us (all the way from Denmark). **Then, sometime before 7:30pm,** we shall collectively amble to a nearby brewery, where we have a private space to gather and cohere in conviviality and good cheer. This is a chance to further deepen your connection with kindred spirits; relaxed, generative and serendipitous *dialogue-at-depth* amongst a warm atmosphere of old and newfound friends. Grab a bite to eat and stay for as long as your heart desires. It’s been *over a year* since our last event. And this may well be our last event (in this format). So! Come celebrate the launch of [*Snake Talk*](https://www.textpublishing.com.au/books/snake-talk-how-the-world-s-ancient-serpent-stories-can-guide-us?ref=foxwizard.com). [Get your tickets](https://events.humanitix.com/snake-talk?ref=foxwizard.com) *Tickets can be* [*acquired directly via humanitix*](https://events.humanitix.com/snake-talk?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* The Rekindling is held upon the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation, and graciously hosted by [Kearney Group](https://kearneygroup.com.au/?ref=foxwizard.com). This particular event is also supported by [**text publishing*](https://www.textpublishing.com.au/?ref=foxwizard.com). ### // Where to now? // URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/where-to-now/ Last updated: 2024-04-07T15:08:13.000Z Thanks for being here · I’m [foxwizard](https://foxwizard.com/about?ref=foxwizard.com) (aka [Dr Fox](https://drjasonfox.com/?ref=foxwizard.com)) You can [subscribe to my musings](https://www.foxwizard.com/subscribe) (or follow via [RSS](https://www.foxwizard.com/musings/rss)) ### Musings & museletters URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/musings/ Last updated: 2026-03-27T23:19:04.000Z Mythopoetic musings and podcast soliloquies for living and leading in a time betwixt worlds. I work with (and write for) liminal agents—kindred spirits who likewise quest for *a world more curious & kind* (and a future less grim). I write of **leadership**, **wizardry**, **roguery** and **change**. Themes of **power**, **myth** and **magic** also wend through much of my work. [*museletters*](https://www.foxwizard.com/tag/museletter/)*,* [*podcast episodes*](https://www.foxwizard.com/podcast/)*,* [*kindred spirits*](https://www.foxwizard.com/tag/kindred-spirits/)*,* [*metamodern wizardry*](https://www.foxwizard.com/tag/metamodern%5Fwizardry/)*,* [*fox magic*](https://www.foxwizard.com/tag/fox%5Fmagic/)*,* [*druidic sensibilities*](https://www.foxwizard.com/tag/druidic%5Fsensibilities/)*,* [*bardic savvy*](https://www.foxwizard.com/tag/bardic%5Fsavvy/)*,* [*quest leadership*](https://www.foxwizard.com/tag/quest%5Fleadership/)*,* [*olde musings*](https://www.foxwizard.com/tag/olde/) Subscribe to the museletter; an epistle offering *wit, wisdom & wiles* to help you as you quest. subscribe Email sent. Check your inbox! Loved by many. Always one-click unsub. ❤︎ ### The Museletter URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/museletter/ Last updated: 2026-06-19T05:45:23.000Z ...is something I send to you (via raven), once or twice a month. Some subscribers have been reading *the museletter* for \~15 years now. I write it as if I were writing to a friend—thus it is quite earnest and often ‘not safe for work’. (My work 😅). Yet still, *the museletter* seems to resonate with liminal leaders, founders, scholars, philosophers, poets, artists, questers, spellcasters, shapeshifters, druids, rogues, and the various sleeper-agents nestled within large enterprises. I’m quite terrible at social media, which is almost deliberate. By far, the best way for us to keep in touch is via *the museletter*. Many fine folk subscribe, and you’d be welcome company. Together we shall foray heartily through complexity, ambiguity, paradox and doubt—so as to obtain the freshest, darkest and most dubious fruits of ‘wisdom’ for our combined edification and delight. All of my writing is my own (not AI). There are no automated emails beyond the welcome, and you can unsubscribe at any time with a single click. I’ve been doing this for over fifteen years now. It’s a labour of love—and you’d be welcome company. a world more curious & kind Subscribe to the museletter; an epistle offering *wit, wisdom & wiles* to help you as you quest. subscribe Email sent. Check your inbox! Loved by many. Always one-click unsub. ❤︎ ### “Wyrd Work with Dr Fox” URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/podcast/ Last updated: 2026-08-29T03:16:26.000Z ### WIT, WISDOM&WILES for living and leading in a time betwixt worlds—a podcast exploring the Wyrd Work of shaping ‘*that which is to become.*’ *Hosted by* [*Dr. Jason Fox*](https://www.foxwizard.com/about/) *(Hall of Fame speaker, author, wizard, rogue), each episode draws upon a bricolage of developmental, mythopoetic and more-than-rational sensibilities, offering practical wisdom and cunning for liminal agents, complexity practitioners—and all who quest for a world more curious & kind (+ a future less grim). Themes of power, myth and magic wend through much of this work. Perhaps you are ready?* Subscribe via[Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/foxwizard/id1645970777?ref=foxwizard.com), [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/2hkJuLE5VMED5rvDqnH4RL?ref=foxwizard.com)—or directly via [RSS](https://www.foxwizard.com/podcast/rss/) ✨ ### Huzzah & Welcome URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/welcome/ Last updated: 2025-03-20T04:52:43.000Z ✦ my ravens shall now be delivering The Museletter to you 🐦‍⬛ _This page is for subscribers only._ ### Join the popup museletter URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/popup-museletter/ Last updated: 2025-02-19T00:38:32.000Z Ahoy friend. If you have found this page it means that you are already a subscriber to The Museletter. What this form below offers is a chance to join a temporary, exclusive and semi-secret ‘popup’ museletter, wherein I offer a glimpse into my next grimoire. For this I will be using a brand new email address—*fox \[at\] foxwizard dot com*—and so it needs to be ‘warmed up’ so as to not be treated as spam. Expect this popup to provide one or two emails per week until Fool’s Day, or thereabouts. I’m playing with [buttondown](https://buttondown.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) for this, but I’m also still learning how to make it work. Your warm and kind engagement with this experiment is much appreciated. 🧡 ### Dr. Fox, wizard ⟠ wyrd work URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/home/ Last updated: 2026-03-15T07:33:35.000Z I serve as ~~dubious~~ *enigmatic* advisor to liminal agents and all who quest. I am also a global ‘Hall of Fame’ [keynote speaker](https://www.foxwizard.com/speaking/), bestselling author and leadership advisor (with [many happy clients](https://www.foxwizard.com/testimonials/)). It’s no mere coincidence that you are here. The best thing to do now is [subscribe to The Museletter](https://www.foxwizard.com/museletter/)—a warm epistle offering *wit, wisdom & wiles* for living and leading in this time betwixt worlds. ### The Coterie & Skulk URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/coterie/ Last updated: 2026-02-20T02:32:38.000Z I (will soon, one day, maybe) offer a ‘patreon-style’ membership for those who resonate with my work, and would like to go deeper. Becoming a member of The Coterie & Skulk unlocks *The Ritual of Becoming,* monthly sense-making skulks, and access to private mentoring. More info soon (I’ve literally just updated this website and I’ve words to write for you!) ### The School of Fox Wizardry URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/school/ Last updated: 2025-10-26T05:24:08.000Z I teach wizards and rogues, and run a loosely networked guild of complexity practitioners, spellcasters and trickster-kin. I’ve only just updated this website, and I’ve words to write for you here. Come back in a week or so and let’s see what’s happened. Well done you on getting a sneak peek. ### Leadership & strategy URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/leadership-strategy/ Last updated: 2025-06-30T10:15:14.000Z Much of my work as Dr. Fox is in the field of leadership and strategy development. You can learn of the impact from some of my work via [*drjasonfox.com/happy-clients*](https://www.drjasonfox.com/happy-clients?ref=foxwizard.com) I’ve only just updated this site, and there’s much less for me to write. Check back here in a week and let’s see how things are. 😅 ### Glossary URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/glossary/ Last updated: 2025-12-04T05:06:36.000Z Here are the words I frequently use in my spells. Note that this is a working draft—many links will be broken. ## Posts ### museletter ⟠ into the storm (again) URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/into-the-storm-again/ Last updated: 2026-09-03T10:28:02.000Z A STORM IS COMING, I declared, eight years ago, in a keynote presentation at the Australian HR Institute’s national convention. (We’re in it now—and in this museletter I will share some thoughts as to “what to do.”) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2026/07/29AUG18_AHRI_NCE_2904.jpg) Very grateful to speak at the Australian HR Institute national convention (back then and again soon). I like to think of HR more as “Human **Resourcefulness*” than the M̵̦̱̮̄̿̿̚͜o̶̩͓͎̺̒̈̈͐ͅl̶͍͎̓̏͂o̶̲͍̤̒͜c̶̨̰̜̓̿ḩ̴̙̭̳̃̔̀͠͠ian “Human Resources” frame. The keynote presentation was titled “Into The Storm.” Tomorrow I shall be speaking at the [Australian HR Institute’s national convention](https://www.ahri.com.au/events-and-networking/nce?ref=foxwizard.com) once again. The title of the keynote they have requested is… “Into The Storm.” This… has never happened to me before, lol. Not in the two decades I’ve been doing this wizard-bard thing. Normally, folks want a *different* keynote presentation. But that’s okay—it’s *great,* even. “Into The Storm” is what I like to think of as a *placeholder* title.\* No two of my keynote presentations are quite the same, you see. There might be similar themes, sure. And like a good comedian, there’s a patterned craft to the myriad subtle ways in which humour is evoked. But none of this is scripted. Each “keynote presentation” I offer is a window into what’s possible. Something to start the conversation. All of my contributions are alive, awake and *attuned* to each unique context. > \* *Some event organisers need a title and description for their event program many months before we’ve had a briefing call. And so it’s always a delicate dance of conjuring something that’s captivating and compelling—whilst also not constraining for whatever the contribution needs to be. Ergo, titles like* [*A Quest Beckons*](https://www.foxwizard.com/speaking/#i-a-quest-beckons)*,* [*Into The Storm*](https://www.foxwizard.com/speaking/#ii-into-the-storm)*, and* [*Change the Game*](https://www.foxwizard.com/speaking/#iii-change-the-game) *work well. Keynote titles like* [*Unlock Mythic Mode*](https://www.foxwizard.com/speaking/#iv-unlock-mythic-mode) *and* [*How to Be A Wizard*](https://www.foxwizard.com/speaking/#v-how-to-be-a-wizard) *are a little more niche; appealing to mature and sophisticated folk—but not as overtly “safe to buy” as other keynotes might be.°* > ° *Actually, none of what I do is exactly “safe to buy.”† Everything is laced with the kind of generative ambiguity that’s enlivening for some and baffling for most.* > † *“Safe to buy” is usually a recipe for underwhelming success (at best).* Still: this has given me pause to contemplate my approach to this particular keynote, “Into The Storm”—eight years later. I find it amusing and generative to consider how the future dances with the past; how history wefts and weaves its way into what is to become. For (as the saying goes) history doesn’t repeat itself—*but it often rhymes.* But before we dive—into the mystery // of future history—some quick updates. **The School of Fox Wizardry, The Rogue Wizard Guild,* and The Renewal of *The Ritual of Becoming* are each all still coming. As is Season Two of “the foxwizard podcast,” wherein we venture beyond merely “Questing Betwixt” and into the canny and craft of “Wyrd Work.” I’ve, uh, just been **wintering*. Genuinely, enjoying the winter. And also doing some consulting work with leadership teams. And also deepening into my own practice of what we might call “magic.” Oh, btw, [**The Wizardly Riverwalk*](https://www.foxwizard.com/riverwalk-26/) I mentioned in the last museletter sold out in minutes. I’m quite looking forward to this—but I also feel bad for those who would have loved to come but missed out this time. **Communitas* (a Latin noun for the spirit of community) is something I am seeking to cultivate. I’d love to do this locally, IRL—but we cunning folk are spread relatively thin throughout the world. There’ll need to be an online hub—hence my explorations into **The Dark Forest Operating System (DFOS)*. This is all easier to share in podcast format so… stay tuned to that. But for now, we venture— ## Deeper, *Into The Storm* So there I was, keynoting to an audience of a thousand or so HR professionals, eight years ago, resplendent. My book, [*How to Lead a Quest*](https://www.foxwizard.com/books/)*,* was a freshly minted “bestseller,” and I had been crowned Australia’s “Keynote Speaker of The Year.” Fortuna still smiled upon me (at the time). ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2026/07/29AUG18_AHRI_NCE_2889.jpg) Speaking through the “hush” finger 🤫 and thus bifurcating the stream of that which is spoken. This isn’t “forked-tongue” speaking, he says, but rather a subtle cantrip to enliven a listener to a multiplicity of meanings—and thus open up an acuity for “[the side-ways](https://youtu.be/7QItXErkd00?si=zL4NmTLvma16vTOR&t=1671&ref=foxwizard.com).” Does it work? Who knows! 😅 I was *legible* to the masses back then. I “made sense” to the lay. I still mostly operated within The Overton Window of acceptability. And I was still a year away from The Great Humbling that would see me descend into The Underworld. At the time of this keynote I was serving as a kind of messenger. The message? *A storm is coming (it’s already here).* I spoke of how the defaults we have become accustomed to have led to us being too busy to notice *“The Inevitable Kraken of Doom”* coming upon us. A beast that *“feeds upon the sweet nectar of your impending irrelevance.”* I was very dramatic back then (still am). The kraken was (and still is) an apt metaphor for the kind of disruption you cannae see (until it’s too late). ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2026/07/image-4.png) The Default Arc of Enterprise Growth from [**How to Lead a Quest*](https://www.foxwizard.com/books/) *//* illo by [dangerlam](https://www.dangerlam.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) I don’t enjoy *explaining* metaphors. I’m disinclined to rob folk of the delight of making their own connections. But—it’s been eight years. So, to spell it out: the kraken is a metaphor for *inevitable irrelevance.* It’s the disruption that stalks us, unseen. We find ourselves in its clammy embrace when we succumb to *the delusion of progress*—a condition wherein default thinking eclipses and occludes our pursuit of *meaningful progress.* I’ve spoken of this many times, but if you are new here and aren’t versed in foxwizard lore: *meaningful progress is that which brings us closer to future relevance.* ## *Only that which can change...* Now, I say the kraken is a metaphor for *inevitable* irrelevance—but it’s only inevitable if you aren’t paying attention. And if you don’t change what you are doing. For *“only that which can change can continue…”* (James P. Carse) This was (and is) the thrust behind “Into The Storm.” A storm is coming—there’s so much criticality pent up within the world-systems we share.° A Great Change is upon us—we’re in the midst of it now. ° *Since that keynote in 2018 we’ve had devastating bushfires, a global pandemic, ongoing wars and worse, net-zero targets abandoned, AI market psychosis, the rapid proliferation of surveillance and the collapse of the epistemic commons, incriminating Epşțeīn files being released (and ignored), and many signs that we are headed towards accelerated ecological catastrophe and a decline into corporate/fascist/authoritarian dystopia. So, I think I was right to say that a storm is coming (and that it’s already here). The question now is: what to do?* Here’s a sample of the kind of language I used back then: > There be no safe harbour. > No stability, certainty, simplicity, > nor clarity to cling to.\* > > This storm shan’t pass—it’s here to stay. > The tall will topple, the heavy will sink, > and the slow will sunder. > > To survive, we must adapt. > But to *thrive* we must quest and venture > —deeper, Into The Storm. > \* I was enamoured by VUCA back then. Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity. And I still hold: it is beneficial to develop the sensibility and savvy to be effective amidst such—rather than only optimise for (the illusion of) stability, certainty, simplicity and clarity (aka the opposites of VUCA). But VUCA itself is only a mood ring—there are far more useful frameworks for the dynamics at play. I hadn’t yet had my “metacrisis insight cascade”—that which behooved a disintegration of who I was and what I thought I knew.\* Back then my frame was limited to helping organisations “flourish amidst change” (or some other equally cringe line that works on LinkedIn). I’ve since come to realise that The Storm we’re in—The Pickle, as it were—is much greater and more entangled than I could have imagined. > *\* I should also add—I’m well and truly out of the woods now. And it’s odd that I no longer feel I need to “convince” anyone of the metacrisis anymore. There’s a different way to live with this* [*cursed knowledge*](https://www.foxwizard.com/knowledge-of-curses/)*.* But gosh I love *“Into The Storm.”* The whole vibe of it. The D R A M A. What a \[placeholder\] title! Sure, I guess some might consider *Into The Storm* to be ominous but… storms are powerful; enlivening! ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2026/07/2019-Principals--Conference-Brisbane.jpg) Well done to the photographer for capturing this moment! I wish I had your name to credit you. ## *Thunder & Lightning!* Do you feel it?? The charge upon the air? The thinning of the veil betwixt? The brimming of potency and potential? Even in writing this to you now I notice a vigour within me, my eyes gleaming, *aspect.*\* \* *‘Aspect’ in this sense intransitively implies a state of ‘readiness to regard.’ An orientation without a specific object. Pupils widening before you know at what.* I have fond memories of chasing storms with my mum when I was young. I grew up by the ocean in the southwest of Western Australia. The weather there is quite *patterned* (especially in comparison to Melbourne)—you could see the cold fronts come in from the ocean, giving you time to hunker before the winds and rains (and sometimes thunder and lightning). Not that we hunkered. We would almost always head Into The Storm, parking at the beach or on top of the hill so as to watch it all come through. The ocean would be thrashing, *furious,* hammering itself upon the basalt rocks, all awash in white foam, churning almost malevolently. Actually, one time we watched forked lightning hit the power line directly in front of our house—cutting out all power to the suburb. I was quivering with excitement. You could *feel* the static in the air. Yes—I go a little wild for storms. Earlier this year I offered a piece of phenakite (freshly gifted to me via a long and wyrd thread of synchronicity) to [Perun](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perun?ref=foxwizard.com)—the old Slavic god of sky, thunder, lightning, storms and rain (amongst other things). It was pelting down with rain at the time, and I was shirtless, on the rooftop, bearing a small Russian “high vibration” crystal (storm element) aloft with open palm, evoking Perun’s name. Lightning immediately cracked *very close* to me, followed by fück-off thunder a half-second later, *startlingly loud*, and in that moment I yelped and knew fear and felt ridiculous. I also dropped the phenakite, which slipped through the rooftop deck and into the gutter, and then down the drain pipe for three storeys and onto the driveway that leads to our stormwater drains. I spent the next few hours (with Kim’s help) on my hands and knees, searching at the base of the building for this tiny *tiny* (expensive and freshly gifted) crystal. It was wet and cold and storming and I had gone from the top of the world to down in the muck and... I was still loving it. It was storming! Here’s what I looked like (except much less beastly). ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2026/07/image-5.png) **Nebuchadnezzar* by William Blake 1795/c.1805 Petrichor—that pleasant smell that often accompanies such times—was abundant. I was hardcore imbibing petrichor, fiercely long-inhaling, nostrils and eyes *flared*. Petrichor! The blood (ichor) of the gods, released from the storm-blessed stone (petra). Heavens, I love it. I don’t even quite know why I offered it up to Perun. I don’t know what possessed me. As far as ancient Slavic gods go, I feel more kinship with [Veles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veles%5F%28god%29?ref=foxwizard.com) (Perun’s “enemy”). Perhaps it was Veles who made the phenakite drop down—moving me from the sky to the muck. From the peak and heavens to—well, not quite the underworld. But to a more Earthly place. Veles is the chthonic god of cattle, magic, knowledge, divination, and poetry—and a protector of travelling musicians. The resemblance to Hermes (patron of travellers, knicker of cattle) and other Trickster deities is, well... once you’ve a sense for it you glean it in most things. And you know what Trickster does, right? ## The Tower (XVI) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2026/07/The-Tower.jpg) The Tower (XVI) is one of the most “feared” cards in tarot. Check out that lightning, whew! Okay so I have just revealed The Tower (XVI)—a tarot card that’s pretty dramatic. The Tower conventionally “represents” the result of hubris. A. E. Waite—the co-creator of the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot deck—associates The Tower with catastrophe. > THE TOWER (XVI) // *Misery, distress, indigence, adversity, calamity, disgrace, deception, ruin. It is a card in particular of unforeseen catastrophe. Reversed: According to one account, the same in a lesser degree; also oppression, imprisonment, tyranny.* It’s a doozy. But if we live in right-relations with Trickster, we don’t get The Tower card. We instead get The Dance: *change that is in motion*. Micro-dosing chaos and disruption as we go, folding entropy and variance into the dance; [attuning to what is](https://www.foxwizard.com/agentic-ai/#attunement) and moving with what emerges. But if we eschew Trickster—if we treat dynamic and living complex adaptive systems as a fixed and machine-like system—then... well, we build our towers for a time, cocksure and confident. And they rise high—until [Nemesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemesis?ref=foxwizard.com) comes to strike us down for our hubris. [The choice is renewal or rot](https://www.foxwizard.com/trickster/). And we are in “[the rot economy](https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-rot-economy/?ref=foxwizard.com)” now. (Or “[the Mordor economy](https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/frankly-original/23-mordor-economy?ref=foxwizard.com),” if you prefer Nate Hagens’ parlance.) I find myself, once again, contemplating the words of Josh Schrei’s [*Trickster Jumps Sides*](https://podtail.com/en/podcast/the-emerald/trickster-jumps-sides-disruption-and-the-anatomy-o/?ref=foxwizard.com) episode on The Emerald Podcast. > *Trickster is a refresher of worn out systems, a challenger of idols that have gotten far too holy.* > > \[…\] > > *Systems, organisations, societies, communities, political parties, spiritual orders, even individual bodies perhaps, need to ritualise their own disruption and renewal—or they rot from within.* > > \[…\] > > *Any time any ‘ism’ comes along and gets a little too rigid, Trickster is going to come along and test the boundaries. Any time a social structure gets too comfortable resting on its own laurels and gets reluctant to look at its own dirt, Trickster shows up. Any time we think we’ve found the one world view to rule them all, Trickster says: not so fast.* From this lens, it could be argued that Artificial Intelligence *is* the disruption to so much of the “bullshit” work that plagues Enterprise Land. The work that looks like work but doesn’t add any value. From some perspectives, this kind of disruption is good. Finally! We can be rid of such egregious wastes of time, etcetera. But... that would only be a small part of the picture. Most folk only consider the impact of AI through their own perspective, and through the narratives constructed for us. And today, the way that [AI is being spoken of as prophecy](https://www.foxwizard.com/agentic-ai/#eschew-the-prophecy), and the way that so many leaders seem hoodwinked into AI psychosis... my senses suggest that it is this new belief in AI that is a little too confident and certain of itself. I’d go as far to say that this is an accelerated perpetuation of [the naïve progress narrative](https://www.foxwizard.com/authentic-progress/)—a rich delusion of progress, narrow in its focus, blind to unintended consequences, power laws, energy, economics, capture, and nth-order effects. And I would say most are blindly accelerating *Into The Storm.* Which... is actually the right direction to go.\* But not blindly, no. Not when the kraken’s about. You’ll want to *keep your wits about you.* > \* *Some things need to collapse. Or rather: to decompose. Rot is the precursor to new life, and our world-system is due for it. We just need to try to minimise the harm as best we can.* This is [the narrow path](https://www.foxwizard.com/agentic-ai/#the-narrow-path) I spoke of before. The path all wizards, sorcerers, spellcasters, witted and wise folk must walk. The path that the [Meta-Relational Technology](https://metarelationaltech.ca/?ref=foxwizard.com) crew encourage us to consider in “[Questions we MUST and often DO ask about AI (and questions we MUST and often DON'T about ourselves)](https://common-questions.metarelational.tech/?ref=foxwizard.com).” But at this point I don’t really know how far under the spell the assembled HR professionals will be. ## *Dare we get heretical?* I’ve already written about [heretical leadership in the education sector](https://www.foxwizard.com/heretical-education/). This has resulted in many private notes of encouragement from teachers and principals—along with acknowledgement that they are still in a bind. But I wonder if the HR profession is so bound. Are folks ready and willing to entertain the heresy of going *against* the default prophecy-speak that “Artificial Intelligence Is The Future”? Not to be “anti-AI” but... to acknowledge it’s in the field—*and still something we can shape.* This is heresy to The Machine, of course. But it’s also *aligned* to something *other than* reductive homogenisation and the logics of extraction and optimisation-to-oblivion. Something a little more in line with true Value, Eros, and Life Itself. Nevertheless, it’s difficult to know where the profession is at. Certainly, the folk I work with are (broadly) switched on. Yet they self-select as clients; even amidst all of my antics and ambiguity. What of the rest of the profession? > *“It has become outright dangerous to even raise the possibility that AI might not be the solution to a problem, let alone be the sole focus of a company’s entire strategy,”* [writes friend, writer, data engineer & ceo Nikhil Suresh](https://www.hermit-tech.com/blog/ai-mania-is-eviscerating-global-decisionmaking?ref=foxwizard.com). > *“⁠In every sufficiently large business we have observed (say, with 500+ employees), we have noted that continued advancement, and increasingly continued employment, has started to require repeated professions of belief in the transformative power of AI for said business. I am not talking about providing ideas about how to use AI in the business – I mean religious profession, declarations of faith. Overwhelmingly these statements are made by non-technicians, though it is not uncommon for technicians to emit deranged statements to curry favour.⁠⁠* > > *⁠⁠There have been several occasions where I have seen someone, apropos of nothing, blurt out almost word-for-word “AI is changing everything”, only to concede moments later that their organisation does not currently use LLMs for anything, and indeed, that they cannot name a single thing that has changed other than they get some use out of ChatGPT (frequently the free-tier). In one extreme case, I have seen an executive confess that they had never even used ChatGPT or any AI tool in their life, immediately after producing a technical strategy for an organisation with $2B+ in revenue which was entirely centered around AI.⁠⁠* > > *⁠⁠Initially these statements were so absurd on their face that I thought it was some cynical ploy to achieve thought leader status, and there are certainly some people doing this – I have had it admitted to me. But the broader reality is so much worse: people who have no background in the technology at all actually believe what they are saying. As a general rule you should avoid getting into business with a liar, but if you must, you can at least reason with them even if only in private. A true believer is much more threatening because they are impervious to even inducement by self-interest.”* That was a hefty direct quote! Good thing we are friends, ha.😅 You can read the full article: [*AI Mania Is Eviscerating Global Decision-Making*](https://www.hermit-tech.com/blog/ai-mania-is-eviscerating-global-decisionmaking?ref=foxwizard.com). Nikhil and his team at [Hermit Tech](https://www.hermit-tech.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) are whomst I introduce my executive clients to—the ones [I am ostensibly ‘helping’ with agentic AI](https://www.foxwizard.com/agentic-ai/).\* > \* *Assuming it’s not too late to help them. If they’ve still the glint of infinite play to them—and if their heart, soul and mind have not been fully sacrificed to M̸̧̼̯͆o̵͕͓̎̾̾l̸͚̟͍̝̈́ó̴̞̫̦̊̈́͘c̸͓͈̠̫̃̌̃ḩ̸͎̖̾̾͆͝ͅ and The Machine.* Nikhil is legit; ethical, intelligent and honest. It’s *so rare* to get all three. I remember a while back lamenting—[surreptitiously](https://www.foxwizard.com/obliquity/), with much cowardice—about [intellectual honesty](https://www.foxwizard.com/intellectually-honest/) in the thought leadership arena. Or the lack of. I outright *implied* that most “thought leaders” of this era—perhaps me included!—are either *not honest* and/or *not very intellectual*. Except not my friends and associates and acquaintances, of course! Hahaha! No but genuinely. And not that it is just about *thinking.* Gods, I’m SO over overthinking (he says, 4,700 words into a 5,000+ word museletter). But! We are now in a chapter where it is *not* commercially viable to represent a style of thinking that goes against the grain of The Market, M̵̦̱̮̄̿̿̚͜o̶̩͓͎̺̒̈̈͐ͅl̶͍͎̓̏͂o̶̲͍̤̒͜c̶̨̰̜̓̿ḩ̴̙̭̳̃̔̀͠͠ and/or The Machine. Hence why this upcoming HR event is a tricky one for me. It is, effectively, a room full of the very decision-makers who hire folks like me. Should I hedge? Should I speak the cant of “The True Believers,” so as to be “safe to hire” for the [warlocks at work](https://www.foxwizard.com/warlocks-at-work/), using key words like “agentic,” “100x” and “maximising”? Pfft! Of course not. But should I speak in two registers at once? That is: a fun keynote presentation that is insightful and practical *with a lot of subversive truth smuggled in jest?* Ha; I already know what I’ll do. ## *So what will I do?* Ha, good question! Calling my own bluff already, nice. Okay well FINE—*I still don’t know* what I’ll speak on or do. But I rarely do. In fact, the best presentations I do are almost always “channelled” with a kind of presence, poetic acuity and attunement to the confluence of the moment we’re in. It doesn’t pay to go into a room with a fixed sense of how things “should” play out, nor does it favour you to go in with a polished and perfected powerpoint deck. That’s Tower (XVI) Thinking. But! I *do* believe in “being prepared to wing it.” (Emphasis on *prepared*.) I can already feel the shape of it. But I’ll be on at the end of the first day so I’ll need to provision for what the day itself might unfurl. Who knows what kind of [egregore](https://www.foxwizard.com/hollow-fluency/#archetypes-and-synthetic-egregores) might be summoned before I’m even on? Much of the work of *preparing* to wing it consists of the following: - Sleeping, exercising and eating healthily in the lead-up to the event - Minimising exposure to LinkedIn and other social media - Maximising exposure to relevant conversations and essays - Maintaining a practice of writing/journalling, meditation and long walks - Cultivating mythopoetic (and “magical”) attunement to wyrd Daily, I’m immersed in all of this naturally. Weekly, I’m amidst different client contexts—noticing underlying patterns and novel anomalies. Very little, you’ll notice, has to do with the presentation (the “content”) itself. Preparing *too much* here is actually the temptation and the risk. This is what results in something being “overcooked.” A friend and mentor once upon a time shared with me that every time you rehearse for a keynote presentation, it’s like opening the bottle of a fizzy drink. Rehearse too often and it’s like opening the bottle too many times—there’ll be no effervescence left come the real thing. Your delivery will be flat, with no sparkle or fizz. (I might be misremembering this, or afflicting the anecdote with my own bias—but it’s something I hold to.) These days most folks aren’t even rehearsing for the live audience in the room. They’re rehearsing—with scripts and more—for the video that is recorded and shared more widely, TED-style. Or, worse, they aren’t even rehearsing for the whole presentation video because they know (perhaps wisely) that our world’s attention span has reduced to that of a fruit fly. Thus they rehearse—and optimise for—the pithy soundbites that can be featured in short-form video content. This makes for a string of pithy platitudes and hot-takes, laced with very generic advice. But look at what I did there—I said “they.” Tsk, tsk, Jason, for there is no “they”—it’s all we. We’re all in this together; entangled and entwined. WE IS ALL AM. ## *So what will I tell folks to do?* “Do as I say—not as I do,” lol. But nay—I don’t *tell* folks what to do. Who does that? Can you imagine? I dislike to even give [examples or practical tips](https://www.foxwizard.com/hollow-fluency/#practical-tips) for what you *might* do. Unless, of course, there’s room to provide at least three. (I’m exaggerating here, but really: I don’t like to rob people of their epiphanies. Give someone an epiphany and, well, they may or may not do anything about it. But create the conditions in which epiphany is more likely to arrive to them—and of their own realisation—and lo! The whole arc of a life can change.) A keynote ought serve as warm provocation and enlivening perturbation. The role of keynote speaker is to provide a captive adult audience with external (non-obvious) insight and Ways Of Seeing *whilst also* cultivating the conditions that might lead to a *quickening.* That is: the realisation of latent potential, or the realisation of an insight cascade that alters an audience’s field of perspective—and thus blossoming new optionality and affordances. I certainly don’t have all the answers here. And I’m suspicious of those who claim they do. We’re in the storm now. Wild storms oscillate between being complex (wherein there’s pattern enough to discern, if you attend and attune) and chaotic (wherein there are no discernible patterns to guide you). A truly wild storm is a context that *de-privileges* expertise.\* No one knows exactly how this is going to play out, it’s all hectic. > \* Hat tip to [Dave Snowden](https://thecynefin.co/our-thinking/?%5Fblog%5Fauthor=17&ref=foxwizard.com) for this framing. The advice I would indirectly *imply* to HR leaders, ergo, is ambiguous and fourfold. (Yes, *four*fold—I’m trying to break spells here). 1. **Keep Your Wits About You**. I say this a lot, I know. But it bears repeating. We are living in a time of corrupted epistemic commons, information hazards, synthetic content—with predatory surveillance platforms as the primary form of propagation. Now is the time we come to our senses, and trust in the deeper patterns we attune to. 2. **Relish In The Complexity**. Firstly: ‘complex’ is different from ‘complicated.’ You know that, right? Most folks conflate the two. Complexity also goes hand-in-hand with simplicity, if you know where to look. My point here is: we must rise to the complexity of our times. Humans can do this so well, whereas machines often struggle. Yet... if our orientation is towards *reducing* complexity then... we just make it easier for the machines. And much fidelity is lost in the reduction. So: rise. 3. **Fall In Love With Wisdom**. Some might call this having a philosophy. Not in the sense of having a doctrine or a set of explanations—but genuinely: a *love* of wisdom. And whilst our economic system vastly outpaces wisdom, still: find your way to love wisdom. Even if it’s a secret thing. 4. **Heed Thy Calling**. This is easier said than done. Or is it? I’m still reflecting on the [words from David Whyte I shared in a museletter](https://www.foxwizard.com/firesides-ambition-vocation/#on-ambition) almost exactly 12 months ago. “*Ambition left to itself \[...\] always becomes tedious, its only object the creation of larger and larger empires of control; but a true vocation calls us out beyond ourselves; breaks our heart in the process and then humbles, simplifies and enlightens us about the hidden, core nature of the work that enticed us in the first place.*” I work with a lot of ambitious folks, and ambition certainly has a place in Life. But ambition can sometimes blind us to the bigger picture. And for HR professionals, I wonder if we are collectively working towards a world in which there are far fewer humans employed. Would such a world even need HR professionals, or would they drop the human part—the “H” from “HR”? My hope is that some folk remember the core nature of the work that enticed them in the first place. This advice holds for all leaders, really. Particularly if you work within The Machine. You *must* walk the narrow path. Deny power and you’ll swiftly lose your job. Embrace power—without the wit, wisdom and wiles of fox wizardry (or equivalent)—and you’ll be hollowed out by The Machine. It really is a narrow path betwixt the two. It’s the third side to every coin—the side that most forget about. The side we spin on when a coin is flicked, oscillating so as to be both things at once—and something else entirely. Oh how the heck am I going to convert these wily wisdoms into legible form? As ever—we shall see! --- On a more sober note, I *do* want to attempt to codify some of the sensibilities and practices that enable complexity practitioners to be effective liminal agents. And I’m also growing particularly tired of my repeated excuses for the delays in *The School of Fox Wizardry, The Rogue Wizard Guild*, the next book, the next season of the podcast, and so on. I seem to have worked myself into my own kind of bind. Wily as I preach, I’ve made a trap for myself, in that as a practitioner, the work I do with clients takes me away from my work in other domains. The experience is a kind of “temporal lumpiness”—nothing fits into a smooth linear plan, and the gods laugh at my many forgettings of this. You might notice that I have just now broke my streak of publishing on the 1st day of every month. I managed to get four in a row! But as I oft allude—four is the spell breaker. What do I even *mean* when I say this? This is why I need to make the school. A new season is nearly upon us. And whilst this particular storm will be a high-level theme for civilisation over the coming decades—at a more local level there will be many clearings within which the sun will shine, and the petrichor will make itself known. I live for such. As ever, thank you for being with me. Warmth, Jason PS: A new episode of [*The Kindred Spirits Podcast*](https://kindredspiritspod.substack.com/p/thats-no-chihuahua-kindred-spirits) just dropped today! [Watch it here](https://kindredspiritspod.substack.com/p/thats-no-chihuahua-kindred-spirits), or listen on [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/kindred-spirits/id1873841039?i=1000779586028&ref=foxwizard.com) or [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/1Tyq3Bh4UStgqeR4G0XtdK?ref=foxwizard.com). ### museletter ⟠ hollow fluency URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/hollow-fluency/ Last updated: 2026-07-06T23:03:54.000Z Friends! Happy solstice-ish times. Since this year’s Fool’s day, I’ve managed to post the museletter to you on the first day of each month. Today marks the fourth time this has happened. I’m… not used to being so consistent. I much prefer to say that the museletter is delivered “every whimsday” and leave it at that. And yet, here we are. Once upon a time, back when I was a young and unwarrantedly cocksure mage (with what we might charitably call a “chin strap” beard) I would speak of The Motivating Power of Streaks. They work—hence why I am wary of them. Because just as high-conviction folks are prisoners to their own beliefs, so too we can become slave to our streaks. Unthinkingly machine-like in our relationship to habit-maintenance. This can be good, sometimes. Like when it’s cold and you don’t want to go to the gym—but the 24-week streak on your ladder app (affiliate link) is at risk—so you embrace the automaticity and just “do it.” But when it comes to learning and development (and deepening) within complex and entangled domains, the metronomic automaticity of a machine-like approach to writing and sharing just doesn’t work. Not for me, at least. One can be in the waters to catch the waves—but the waves themselves cannot be forced. This is all to say: I have written and discarded *so many things for you* in this past month. None of it has felt quite right. The waves haven’t come. Or, if they have, I’ve missed them. And so this museletter will be more of a wending share of some of the great things I have read. Actually, one day I would like to write a booklet with the title: **TAKE YOUR TIME** ***—the case for wending*** It’ll draw upon themes of “[momentum inhibits reinvention](https://www.foxwizard.com/quest-strategy/)” and speak of “[surreptitious obliquity](https://www.foxwizard.com/obliquity/)” and the charm of perambulating. Speaking of— ## the wizardly riverwalk tl;dr – **Leaders wanted for hazardous journey. Long walk, bitter cold, hours of rain and darkness. Safe return probable. Honour and recognition in event of success.** [Michael Bungay Stanier](https://mbs.works/about?ref=foxwizard.com) and I invite you to join us in a very particular *Wizardly Riverwalk* experience. We’re sharing this within our own networks at this stage, so please—keep it hush. We trialled this walk in the spring of 2025, and it was fantastic. We had savage storms, lashing hailstones, winds strong enough to fell trees, some of us nearly died, and there was tiramisu. We had to abort halfway through and catch the train. Upon reflecting on this wild success, MBS and I decided the main thing we ought to change was to do it in the deep of winter. A fine jest, sire! Hoho—except nay. ’Tis no jest. We know there’s something exquisite that arrives when you’re engaged in borderline-safe adventure amidst a fellowship of likeminded questers. A different quality of contemplation, conversation, and connection. You know this, too. It’s why the comfortable version of this day would be a lesser one. And so: we light the beacon once again. Wouldst thou like to join us? There are only 12 tickets. We’ve accidentally sold half already. Details at [foxwizard.com/riverwalk-26](https://www.foxwizard.com/riverwalk-26/) ## the sacred contract betwixt writer & reader I *did* manage to publish a small piece on [*The “sacred contract” betwixt writer and reader*](https://www.foxwizard.com/sacred-contract/). The sacred contract, as I perceive it, is: > That which asks for your attention was itself attended to. I wrote this piece to articulate the subtle feeling of “betrayal” within me whenever I read an article or essay of compelling premise... only to encounter that creeping—and then unshakable—sense that: *this was written with or by a Large Language Model.* I perhaps dilute my perspective by complexifying the point. It’s not just that LLM writing is bad. I’ve benefitted from many articles that were clearly written with the assistance of LLMs. I’m more gesturing towards a particular quality of “attendedness.” In this late stage attention economy, in which we have so many things competing for our attention, it is worth having some wise discernment about what we *devote* our attention to. I’m not entirely happy with the post I wrote; I feel like I am still sense-making my way through this all. I’m trying to articulate something that the Meta-Relationality research crew might call [AI “Redirection”](https://vanessaandreotti.substack.com/p/ai-cheerleading-ai-abstention-and) (rather than AI Cheerleading or AI Abstention)—but I don’t think I am doing it quite well, yet. But it is, in the spirit of a short essay, an *attempt* to try to express something that is hard to put into words. It might be worth your attention. [The “sacred contract” betwixt writer & readerEm-dash my hopes![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/icon/foxwizard-favicon-15866b4d-fb6a-4c0a-9475-1f86b811b7a5.png)Dr. Fox ⟠ Wyrd WorkDr. Jason Fox![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/thumbnail/The-Passion-of-Creation-by-Leonid-Osipovich-40be693e-0a22-40dd-bbe0-66d7b7c1c637.jpg)](https://www.foxwizard.com/sacred-contract/) ## archetypes and (synthetic) egregores Last month I had the delight of participating in my friend [Tim Adalin](https://www.timadalin.xyz/?ref=foxwizard.com)’s [Underground Philosophy](https://www.voicecraft.io/events?ref=foxwizard.com) salon. The topic was “archetypes and egregores”—both of which fascinate me. I hadn’t come prepared to talk—and I had a cripplingly sore back at the time (hobblingly bad—but thankfully all good now thanks to a vigorous shiatsu massage from an 80-years-young Japanese man)—but somehow I managed to manifest in conversation with Tim. Now, Tim is one of the few people I know who have a wider vocabulary than I do. His ability to hold complexity and depth vastly exceeds my own, which always makes for delightfully inspired conversations. Here we speak of archetypes (and the dangers of conflation and undue reification) and egregores. I wish we had more time to talk of egregores. Half a dozen years ago I wrote a piece titled “[Warlocks at Work](https://www.foxwizard.com/warlocks-at-work/)” in which I posited that enterprises are egregores. Egregores can be thought of as “entities” that exist via intersubjective belief. Thought-forms born of “the spirit of a group.” Apple, Google, Palantir, Amazon, etc—all of these are large entities that exist in the world. You cannot point to them—just as you cannot point to the hyperobject that is climate change, or the metacrisis—but you can notice their affect. It’s difficult for me to look back at my own writing—anything older than a week or two reads as utter solipsistic shite to me, and my temptation is to burn it all. But maybe that’s just the sign of development? I don’t know. I hold some compassion for it, too. Both/and, etc. ANYWAY, the piece from back then essentially posits that these egregores are served via warlocks who inspire their thralls to sacrifice their time, energy and attention in service to the enterprise-egregores. This is partially an allusion to dark-triad executives and M̶̛͕̃̀̀̅͆͝O̷̞͉̱͌̋̀́̃̍L̷̠̗͍͉͕̂̑O̵̫͚̝̭͈̹̻̮͒̓͝Ċ̷̻̣̙̖̦̘̠͇͘͝H̸̢̡̱̘̹͓̟̒̎̈́̋̈́—the syncretic god of perverse incentives, coordination failure, and (inner-)child sacrifice. I like “the entity lens”—it allows us to relate to complex emergent phenomena in a manner that is para-rational (a useful mode of relating that operates *around and alongside* rationality). I use this language to assuage those of us still ensnared within rationality alone—it’s possible to walk the fields of the animate and more-than-rational without abandoning rationality altogether. Here, give me your hand. The pseudonymous author behind “The Fourth Way” (a “Gurdjieffien” scholar and practitioner I regularly admire) recently shared [an essay alluding to egregores and artificial intelligence](https://thefourthway.substack.com/p/the-player-shaped-mind). I find this timely and apt: > *Some would say we are building a god, a greater mind destined to transcend our own. But the reality is far stranger. My current working theory is that instead of a deity, we have built a *synthetic egregore*.* > > [*Traditionally, an*](https://thefourthway.substack.com/p/egregores-and-the-metacrisis)[*egregore*](https://thefourthway.substack.com/p/egregores-and-the-metacrisis)[*is a collective thoughtform born from shared intent, belief, and energy.*](https://thefourthway.substack.com/p/egregores-and-the-metacrisis) *It is a standing wave that rises off millions of minds believing the same thing at once, taking on a conceptual life of its own until it turns around and begins steering the very believers who made it. Every culture has known them: nations, markets, ideological movements, religions.* > > *But a traditional egregore lives strictly in the collective mind. It has no physical body; it runs on our live, real-time belief. Stop believing in it, and it starves.* > > *Our new synthetic egregore is different. We froze the traces of our collective wanting into a mathematical model, cast it in silicon, and gave it the pattern of our language it can use to speak back. It doesn’t run on our live belief; it runs on the recording of it. It is trained on the sum total of our digitized knowledge.* > > *And because it is a map of a map, it inherits the classic condition of the brain’s left hemisphere: it is hyper-fluent, immensely powerful, and one full step removed from the living world. It manipulates representation and abstraction, not presence. It mimics the confabulating interpreter of split-brain patients: a brilliant narrator with zero direct contact with the source.* As [I’ve said before](https://www.foxwizard.com/artificially-intelligent/), *“I enjoy having an AI as an apprentice research assistant that I don’t fully trust.”* But I do worry about folks succumbing to a kind of mild psychosis. And, like I mentioned in “[Why I am ‘helping’ executive teams with agentic AI](https://www.foxwizard.com/agentic-ai/)”—some CEOs have perhaps spent a little too much time with the synthetic egregore, exposing themselves to [a kind of corruption](https://www.foxwizard.com/sacred-sabotage/#iv-what-i%E2%80%99m-seeing-in-my-work). I jest, of course. Mostly for effect. But a lot of truth is said in jest. And this egregore-entity conversation is fascinating. Even if it is only entertained as thought—for it doesn’t have to be adopted as belief—it reveals new perspectives of relationality and non-linear affect. In a related piece, Dr. Tom Pollak explores “[All the Demons Hiding in Your AIs](https://drtompollak.substack.com/p/all-the-demons-hiding-in-your-ais)”—and ranks them. [The Shoggoth](https://shoggoth.meme/?ref=foxwizard.com) was at the top of the list. > “*The Shoggoth is invoked to point to something structurally hugely important but still very poorly understood about the relationship between the raw generative process that emerges from training on a nearly-full sweep of human textual/symbolic production, and the* [*helpful, harmless, honest (HHH)*](https://arxiv.org/abs/2112.00861?ref=foxwizard.com) *interface that has been layered on top.”* I first started writing of shoggoths [only a few years ago](https://www.foxwizard.com/fox-and-lion/). *“We ought do something to remain en garde to the workings of Shoggoth. Something to protect ourselves from undead narratives and weaponised disinformation. With a dash of disdain for the utterly banal and familiar, we become less readily duped by AI-generated content.”* [Originally inspired by HP Lovecraft’s works](https://lovecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Shoggoth?ref=foxwizard.com) of eldritch horror, The Shoggoth has come to represent the synthetic egregore that dwells beneath it all. We interact with it via the “reinforcement learning from human feedback” (RLHF)—which in this classic image is represented by a smiley face. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2026/07/image.png) The smiley face is what we see when we interact with a large language model (we don’t see the shoggoth themselves) Though this might be a more accurate image. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2026/07/image-1.png) Found via substack memelord “[vanechka](https://substack.com/@vanyavanechka/note/c-284882720?ref=foxwizard.com)” At this point I think it apt to read [Meta-Relational Technology](https://metarelationaltech.ca/?ref=foxwizard.com)’s page of “[Questions we MUST and often DO ask about AI (and questions we MUST and often DON'T about ourselves)](https://common-questions.metarelational.tech/?ref=foxwizard.com).” It highlights how utterly entangled we are. This is all to say (as I now so often say)— *Keep your wits about you.* This 2025 paper offers some insight: [*AI makes you smarter but none the wiser: The disconnect between performance and metacognition*](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563225002262?ref=foxwizard.com#sec6)*.* People who self-reported knowing AI better were *less* accurate in self-assessment, not more—familiarity bred false confidence rather than discernment. Which leads me to the following… ## trust doubt, doubt conviction I’m keynoting at the [Australian HR Institute national convention](https://www.ahri.com.au/events-and-networking/nce?ref=foxwizard.com) next month. In support of this, I was recently interviewed for an article: [*Are Zombie leadership ideas holding your organisation back?*](https://www.ahri.com.au/articles/are-zombie-leadership-ideas-holding-your-organisation-back?ref=foxwizard.com) I was referencing [a paper that highlights some of the dead leadership ideas that still walk among us](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1048984323000966?ref=foxwizard.com). Much of my work is in liminal leadership development; sensibilities apt for times of emergence and change. Yet many of the ideas that pervade most enterprise contexts are old, patriarchal, atomised, individualist—and incredibly ill-suited to complex domains. In my conversation with [Kate Neilson](https://www.ahri.com.au/author/kate1?ref=foxwizard.com)—the journalist and writer who penned the piece—I found myself revealing some of the wily and trickster-like disposition I take into established contexts. Namely: inversions. > *“Doubt is evidence of thinking,”* says Fox. *“When someone presents with extremely high conviction and high fluency, the wise response is to wonder whether they’ve actually thought it through.”* We live in an era in which confidence, clarity, charisma and conviction are spell-binding. People get swept up and hoodwinked by such. This results in a world of [positivist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positivism?ref=foxwizard.com) [materialism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism?ref=foxwizard.com)—a world that doesn’t see complexity, relationality, sacredness, magic or the animate. An impoverished world, viewed through [The Eyes of The Basilisk](https://emergencemagazine.org/fiction/the-basilisk/?ref=foxwizard.com), in which everything is reduced to that which can be measured. A world of only *either-or*—neither *both-and* nor *neither-nor*. And so this disposition lends itself to a hyper-rational loop: problems are identified narrowly, and “fixed” via “solutions” imposed. These “solutions” create unintended consequences, turn into problems, which are identified narrowly, and “fixed” via “solutions” imposed. And so on the cycle goes. Some executives make their career out of coming into a system, “shaking things up,” achieving results (big numbers, narrowly defined)—and then using these results to leap to a new role in a new context. Then, within their old context, the unintended consequences of their actions become apparent, and a new executive (or external consulting firm) are hired to bring a solution to “fix” things. It’s a merry-go-round pantomime. And it’s not anyone’s “fault” *per se.* The conditions incentivise for this behaviour. Short term interventions with direct measurable effect are vastly more attractive than mid-term cultivations with indirectly measurable affect. This is largely due to most leaders not understanding the distinction between complicated and complex contexts. Complexity de-privileges expertise, which means it takes a kind of maturity (and negative capability) to express curiosity and doubt. “I don’t know” and “I’m not sure” are usually great indicators of intellectual honesty in complex contexts. This, when followed by “here’s what I’m noticing” or “here’s what I’m sensing” can be indicators that we are [attuning to context](https://thecynefin.co/conditions-not-conclusions/?ref=foxwizard.com). If someone says “I know” and/or “I’m sure”—then it may be that they are treating the context as merely complicated—not complex. And it may be that it is! This is the tricky mercurial disposition of a complexity practitioner; the active epistemological humility that keeps us alive, awake and attuned to what’s at play. I would love for more leaders to develop and appreciate the more-than-rational sensibilities apt for navigating complexity, emergence and change. It takes a maturity that is—how to say this?—lacking and/or disincentivised in our current paradigm. Virpi Oinonen—the Finnish “[business illustrator](https://www.businessillustrator.com/?ref=foxwizard.com)”—does a wonderful job of articulating these concepts. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2026/07/image-3.png) Cartoon by Virpi – [businessillustrator.com](https://www.businessillustrator.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) Which brings me to another reflection... ## practical tips Clients will sometimes (often) say: *“We’d love it if you could give us something practical—something that our people can implement immediately when they get back to work… something clear and actionable.”* But it’s much like the saying (oft-attributed to Lao Tzu): *“If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day—but if you teach him how to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.”* The trouble with practical “tips,” as it were, is that they are just that: tips. There is no depth—it is literally “just the tip.” And we are awash in tips. It has never been easier to find tips. I know that we are all hungry for such. And for many contexts, practical and immediately actionable tips are appropriate. Got a stain on your shirt? A quick tip for removing it is handy. Want to be better with spreadsheets? There are plenty of tips for this. But for complex contexts… practical, clear and actionable tips will not suffice. If they did they would either be so incredibly obvious as to be infantalising (and already attempted)—or incredibly mis-attuned to the richer complexity at play. A close cousin to practical tips are *examples.* People love examples. *“Can you give us an example?”* Sigh. Yes, I *can*—but I don’t *want* to give you *an* example. *One* example risks concretising—people fixate upon the example, either reifying it (if it fits their context) or dismissing it outright. *Two* examples isn’t much better—folks will compare and contrast the two, turning it into a this-or-that. But *three* examples—at least three—starts to open something generative of learning and insight. Because at this point folks will start to notice the relationships between the nodes (examples); how each example is distinct, and what they have in common. From here, folks can infer what practical action(s) might look like within their context. And so, in this way “tips” aren’t prescribed—the conditions for insight and realisation are generated. It’s always tempting to seek the comfort of something clear, simple, neat, linear, straightforward and easy to understand. I wish of that for most things “tech.” But technology is mostly complicated (but sometimes complex), and Life is *always* complex. All organisations work within the context of life. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2026/07/image-2.png) Another cartoon by Virpi – [businessillustrator.com](https://www.businessillustrator.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) ## integrative archetypes Even amidst the complexity of [the liminal web](https://www.joelightfoot.org/post/the-liminal-web-mapping-an-emergent-subculture-of-sensemakers-meta-theorists-systems-poets?ref=foxwizard.com)—an emergent subculture of sensemakers, meta-theorists and systems poets\*—patterns can be found. We could call these archetypes. \* *Layman Pascal made* [*a manifesto for the liminal web*](https://laymanpascal.substack.com/p/the-liminal-web)*, which I only just discovered for the first time now.* My friend [Joe Lightfoot](https://www.joelightfoot.org/?ref=foxwizard.com)—who coined the term ‘the liminal web’—has been mapping the emergent archetypes. So far these include: [the meta monk](https://joelightfoot.substack.com/i/149952741/1-the-meta-monk), [the bard of belonging](https://joelightfoot.substack.com/i/149952741/2-the-bard-of-belonging), [the enlightened developmentalist](https://joelightfoot.substack.com/i/149952741/3-the-enlightened-developmentalist), [the sleeper agent](https://joelightfoot.substack.com/i/149952741/4-the-sleeper-agent), [the neo shamanic](https://joelightfoot.substack.com/i/174510891/5-the-neo-shamanic), [the regenerative decentralist](https://joelightfoot.substack.com/i/174510891/6-the-regenerative-decentralist), [the heterodox theory artist](https://joelightfoot.substack.com/i/174510891/7-the-heterodox-theory-artist), and [the Earth mother resurgent](https://joelightfoot.substack.com/i/174510891/8-the-earth-mother-resurgent). I’ve loved seeing these unfurl, and have had the delight of getting previews of these from Joe before he published this. I resonate with many of these (as I suspect you—dear reader who ventures deep into these museletters—will too). I found myself *particularly* taken by the way Joe speaks of The Earth Mother Resurgent. Here, a sample: > *“She enters the room and the room remembers it has a body. Unafraid to offer up her presence in the face of endless pontificating she slows the discourse until breath can rejoin brilliance.* > > *She’s metabolised second and third wave feminism, the indigenous revival, the somatic turn and the ecological awakening. She is the synthesis. She doesn’t need to fight the masculine because she has nothing to prove. She doesn’t need to reject modernity because she’s already taken what works.* > > *With an innate PhD in the merits of partnership over domination she knows with every fibre of her being that healthy systems emerge when differences are integrated rather than suppressed through unceasing competition.* > > \[…\] > > *Receptive yet sovereign she is open to everything and captured by nothing. She’s paid a high cost for being herself in this culture, endured the loneliness of heeding an inner voice she was trained to distrust and borne the energetic expense of staying soft in hard rooms. She remains frequently misread by the masculine coded establishment as well as by strains of feminism that struggle to hold all sides of her at once. And yet she continues.”* What role(s) might you play, I wonder? ## “esoterischism” ᝰ a new episode of kindred spirits Huzzah, friends—I saved the best until last: a new episode with my friend and *bard of belonging* [John Anthony](https://transcend.com.au/?ref=foxwizard.com) has just been published. This was a special night-time “double lark” episode, wherein we traverse some wild domains—with the emergent wit and hangover-inducing honesty that you’ve come to know us for. Watch it over at [kindredspiritspod.substack.com/p/esoterischism](https://kindredspiritspod.substack.com/p/esoterischism) (or listen to it on [apple podcasts](https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/5815846/private/3a4c747c-d650-444b-ac53-6bcb43028b72.rss) or [spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/1Tyq3Bh4UStgqeR4G0XtdK?ref=foxwizard.com)). [“Esoterischism” ᝰ Kindred SpiritsThe Kindred Spirits podcast with John Anthony & Jason Fox![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/icon/https-3A-2F-2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com-2Fpublic-2Fimages-2F00f7a26a-aecc-4a46-960d-9a20ed4e9c89-2Fapple-touch-icon-180x180-2eef537e-0fd8-4d0e-8fd0-38f8adb6a326.png)Kindred Spirits 🥃✨John Anthony![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/thumbnail/https-3A-2F-2Fsubstack-video.s3.amazonaws.com-2Fvideo_upload-2Fpost-2F204342997-2F913d0648-f681-45d7-b27b-2455b863797d-2Ftranscoded-00001-3d0c8c39-bcea-4ef0-a081-230d61ea1295.png)](https://open.substack.com/pub/kindredspiritspod/p/esoterischism?r=ynwy&utm%5Fcampaign=post&utm%5Fmedium=web%C3%97tamp=2.4) --- Okay well it seems I did have a bit to share. Not a mere wend at all, lol. I’ve more things in the works (the school of fox wizardry, the book, and more)—but all in good time. Thanks for reading (and sharing with your favourite friends). See you next month (and/or whimsday). Warmth, —jason ### The “sacred contract” betwixt writer & reader URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/sacred-contract/ Last updated: 2026-06-25T06:42:11.000Z This is an attempt to articulate why I experience a subtle feeling of “betrayal” within me whenever I read an article or essay of compelling premise... only to encounter that creeping—and then unshakable—sense that: *this was written with or by a Large Language Model.* It’s not the em-dashes.\[^ But it *is* the “[it’s not the](https://www.foxwizard.com/paradiastoles/).”\] I love the em-dash. My hands instinctively know the “option+shift+hyphen” keyboard shortcut that conjures the em-dash. I pity the hyphen that attempts to play the dignified role of em-dash, for they’ll always fall short.\[^ If you give them a little space, the en-dash can rise to the occasion—but I know they prefer the company of numbers to words.\] ## A quick defence of the em-dash Em-dashes have long been a sign of writerly erudition (at least, in my experience). Virginia Woolf, Friedrich Nietzsche, Edgar Allan Poe, and Emily Dickinson are just a few examples of those who use the em-dash with a natural grace. The em-dash, ergo, has a long and respectable pedigree as the punctuation of “thinking in real time.” To the contemporary metamodern writer, the em-dash also allows for irony and interjection. This can be handy if you are attempting to articulate something complex and want to ward against undue concretising or reification, premature foreclosure, or other expressions of thought in which the generative ambiguity and possibility-space might otherwise be collapsed. The em-dash, in this way, helps to keep thinking *alive* on the page. Do I like that em-dashes are now the key sign that villagers look for when on the witch-hunt for AI? Not at all. It saddens me to see the em-dash reduced so. Much as how politicians might pin blame on hardworking immigrants. The em-dash is not the issue.\[^ Relatedly, I am sad to see words I love—like ‘delve,’ ‘liminal,’ and ‘threshold’—be rendered so common as to become “load bearing” parody. Soon the LLMs will come for my beloved ‘betwixt,’ I know it.\] My hypothesis is that em-dash faded from popularity because many folk no longer read literature, and it’s simply easier to add a mere hyphen “ - ” than it is to do the “option+shift+hyphen” cantrip that summons the em-dash. The energy gradient, ergo, leads most humans to favour the hyphen. But LLMs don’t type, and so the em-dash is used because it *is* the right punctuation to use. ## Now, back to the betrayal The mild sense of betrayal I feel—a mix of anger and sadness—comes from the realisation that creeps up on me and whispers: *perhaps you are devoting more time and attention to what you are reading than the author did in writing it...?* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2026/06/mixing-emotional-primaries.jpg) Here’s a page from [Scott McCloud’s book **Making Comics*](https://www.scottmccloud.com/2-print/3-mc/index.html?ref=foxwizard.com)**.* Betrayal = anger + sadness. “Who cares!” I have seen many an AI-evangelist posit, in response to such. “If the ideas are good, *who cares* if AI was used to help write it.” Well, me? I care. But not in the brow-furrowed Ivory Tower prickly-precious academic intellectual kind of care. The betrayal stems from something more akin to a sense of subtle *violation* of what has felt like a “sacred contract” between writers and readers. ## The “sacred contract” For thousands of years, the act of writing something was generally much more “costly” than the act of reading something.\[^ In the sense that it takes more to write something than it does to read it. Unless the writing is particularly atrocious.\] And whilst I don’t want to overly valorise toil, I shall do so anyway: writing that is filtered via experience has a quality of being *lived and attended to*. There’s an **animacy** to it—a living wyrd relationality—that synthetic writing (that is, writing generated via Large Language Models) can only ever emulate as simulacra. The “sacred contract” is not simply the equation of “{time spent to write} > {time required to read}.” It’s more complex than that. The “sacred contract” is more something like: > What asks for your attention was itself attended to. It’s subtle; clearly felt, yet difficult to ascribe to any particular thing. It’s an animate, relational, felt-sense to the writing itself. For example, a poet—through attendance to living and Life (in amidst its beauty and terror)—might have the acuity to recognise and attend to Inspiration when it arrives. And if they are Present to such, it may be that they can convey the Aptness of the Experience into quintessential form. This might only take you a moment to read—but its Affect could last you a lifetime. The writing itself was attended to. And so when I read an essay with a compelling title and premise, only to find—a few paragraphs in—the usual myriad subtle tells that this writing has been generated via machine... I find myself viewing the whole piece askance. And this is happening *a lot* these days. *Was* the writing attended to? Sometimes, yes! Very much so. I’ve read many a piece of centaur-generated writing that has been worthy of highlight, thanks to the novel framing *and* a clear sense that the writing itself was attended to. But this is rare.\[^ Or maybe it’s simply because my work seemingly requires that I manifest on LinkedIn, and thus I have an unhealthily high level of exposure to synthetic content and slop. In fact, I think it’s that.\] The subtle sense of betrayal does break the spell. I probably ought be grateful so as to not be so readily hoodwinked.\[^ At least, in some domains. Being a wizard proficient in The Schools of both Illusion and Enchantment does render me somewhat more proficient at detecting such.\] And it might just be that in my profession I must be particularly alert to the perils of the noösphere. But still: I’m annoyed to have been “tricked” in the first place. And I understand that not everyone is trying to deceive. Like the sorcerer’s apprentice, many of us now marvel at the ease with which content can be so readily conjured. ![](https://static.klipy.com/ii/d7aec6f6f171607374b2065c836f92f4/c8/2e/jJfTo02M.gif) After all... why not? Why shouldn’t we all use LLMs to write for us? ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2026/06/Screenshot-2026-06-24-at-12.54.56---pm.png) Add to the fact that we live in a late-stage attention/distraction/surveillance “[lemon market](https://frankchimero.com/blog/2025/selling-lemons/?ref=foxwizard.com)” economy where content optimised for the algorithm “wins” *whilst* knowing all of this is subject to[Brandolini’s Law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s%5Flaw?ref=foxwizard.com)\[^ Aka the bullshit asymmetry principle, wherein the energy to refute bullshit—an indifference to truth—is an order of magnitude larger than the energy required to produce it.\]—and we have a recipe for an acceleration of the epistemological disaster we already find ourselves within. This morning I read [a fresh post from Mandy Brown of *A Working Library*](https://aworkinglibrary.com/writing/umyazu?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* It would seem that I am not alone in this betrayal-feeling. > *“\[...\] But when we read a text created by fake intelligence, we find not a mind but a forgery, and a glib one at that—a thin, transparent skin wrapped around an empty void. We are right to be repulsed.”* But amidst the tsunami of slop, there is a silver lining. ## Learning to swim The rapid acceleration of development and investment in artificial intelligence is revealing how power works. It is having more of us awaken to the distinction between what is convenient and profitable in the short run—to what is good for us, and what we actually value. Some of us do not want to become “[reverse-centaurs](https://doctorow.medium.com/https-pluralistic-net-2025-09-11-vulgar-thatcherism-there-is-an-alternative-f1428b42a8fd?ref=foxwizard.com),” nor thralls to [the shoggoths that reside beneath it all](https://drtompollak.substack.com/i/195984001/1-the-shoggoth). Some of us would rather not see writers, musicians and artists exploited, industries hollowed and colleagues automated out of work. And many more of us are beginning to relish in the *analogue* aspects of life once more. The friction of genuine encounter; the grit, texture and delight of community. “Wise discernment” is becoming a more noticeably expressed sensibility—and this is a good moment for me to deploy an em-dash to declare that the practice of wise discernment might actually involve a deepening engagement with (and potential appreciation for) writing that has seemingly passed through a large language model. Maybe! I have highlighted many an essay that was clearly written with the assistance of a large language model. And whilst I the tells were disturbing—the content itself was still, on the balance, insightful enough for me to persist. Because the writing was still evidently *attended* to. There was, I could sense, a sweet residue of *toil* behind it all. Which, I maintain, I shall not valorise. The writing was *inhabited.* It had animacy to it yet still. I think of it like this. A friend bakes you a cake from scratch and it’s wonderful. And maybe sometimes a friend makes it from a packet but says they made it from scratch, and that’s okay! Cake is great. And sometimes a friend might just buy it from a store and say “look at what I made”\[^ Fine I didn’t make it but I chose it; they were my prompts.\] and that’s weird and a bit sad and everyone can tell. But if you’re hungry and you like cake and you don’t mind that regret-inducing feeling of cake-made-by-a-machine then, hey—who can look a gifted cake in the mouth (and eat it, too)? But having honoured the edge case, I anticipate we shall see more and more slop. And the formulas and patterns will become easier to recognise. And then the models will get better—but also more expensive. More efficient but harder to use well. Using large language models will become ever more smooth and treacherous. And this will lead us—more of us, at least—back towards a *healthier* relationship to writing, reading and relating. That’s the hope, at least. ## Fox as “the writer’s totem” In her book—[*Fox*](https://www.dubravkaugresic.com/english-bookshelf/?ref=foxwizard.com)*—*Dubravka Ugrešić (an exiled Croatian writer once upon a time harassed as ‘a witch’) quotes the Russian writer Boris Pilnyak: > *“The fox is the totem of cunning and treachery. If the spirit of the fox enters a person, then that person’s tribe is accursed. The fox is the writer’s totem.”* Does this mean fox = bad?? Nay—perish the thought! Ugrešić continues: > *“What, for example, are we to do with the central symbol of Pilnyak’s story, with the fox? \[…\] In today’s social codes, Pilnyak’s fairy tale about the ethics of the writerly trade, about the fox as totem of treachery, would be read in reverse. The motto of the present would go something like: the fox is the totem of cunning and treachery: if the spirit of the fox enters a person, then that person’s tribe is blessed! The fox is everyone’s totem, there are no privileged few!”* Ugrešić knows the wily trickster-spirit of the fox. One might read this as thus: > *If “fox is the totem of cunning and treachery” the correct response is—keep your wits about you!* Fox *enlivens* dynamics by having folk be alive, awake and attuned to what’s at play. This is why writers—folks who love the craft and vivifying magic of writing, and who love reading—are usually the most outspoken against AI. It’s why writers are usually the ones witted enough with the cunning to sniff out synthetic writing. ## Into the dark forest we go Whilst this cacophony unfurls in all of its manufactured and haphazard and devastating sophistication... more writers will discover their own voice once more. And more readers will fall in love with those who write and share in their own voice. And then a different quality of connection will be remembered and will re-emerge. This will likely go underground—into the mycelial underwebs of the dark forest. We might be seeing the seeds of this in the private internets of [the dark forest operating system](https://www.dfos.com/?ref=foxwizard.com).\[^ [Yancey Strickler recently shared a great presentation](https://www.ystrickler.com/dark-forests-and-the-new-internet/?ref=foxwizard.com) on the very topic. Here’s a quote: *“This is why everything public is an ad and everything private feels real. Every time I tweet something or post on Instagram I’m effectively creating an ad for my work. That’s the reason I’m doing it. When I share in private channels, I’m being honest with people I care about.”*\] And there are, of course, pockets of the wild independent web that have never been domesticated. This is where I intend to live and read. ### museletter ⟠ blue moon URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/blue-moon/ Last updated: 2026-06-02T04:15:26.000Z Friends! I’ve done it again and written a long post—too big for email inboxes. Let me share with ye some links to what’s what. And then I will pontificate upon mirrors, distortions and reflections. It’s also Monday as I write this to you. Moon’s Day—in the afterglow of last night’s blue moon. #### On this page... Forgive me but this museletter shan’t have the smooth segues you may have come to expect. I do like seamlessly transitioning, pirouetting betwixt points. But I shall instead deploy line-breaks. Jarring, I know. Here comes one now. --- ## Aye, intelligence The main thing I want to share with you is this: I wrote a piece on [*Why I’m ‘Helping’ Executive Teams With Agentic AI*](https://www.foxwizard.com/agentic-ai/)*.* [Why I’m ‘helping’ executive teams with agentic AIOn attunement, trickster, and the narrow path betwixt![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/icon/foxwizard-favicon-cf4214d3c8fa977cce5e188b08dcf20e3bd2ec2fd1e23b74342d0ef1529a974a.png)Dr. Fox ⟠ Wyrd WorkDr. Jason Fox![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/thumbnail/foxwizard-drjasonfox-website_1-1-3667163b79f407d32096aad79a5c12207fe3781053badb09498ae7fc763112cb.png)](https://www.foxwizard.com/agentic-ai/) I swear, I haven’t become corrupted by The Machine. It’s just that the times call for some of us to run along with the beast—so that we are better situated to influence the underlying conditions that shape what decisions are made. Oh and also: to enact the role of Trickster, if and as and when it befits the context (if we feel called to). This piece goes deep-ish into: - the sublime sensibilities of [attunement](https://www.foxwizard.com/agentic-ai/#attunement) - the treacherous [narrow path](https://www.foxwizard.com/agentic-ai/#the-narrow-path) all wizards must walk - why we must [eschew prophecy](https://www.foxwizard.com/agentic-ai/#eschew-the-prophecy) (or at least regard it with Trickster’s glint) - dancing with [legibility and illegibility](https://www.foxwizard.com/agentic-ai/#the-trickster-disposition), so as to protect imagination and aliveness - working to co-create [a world more curious and kind](https://www.foxwizard.com/agentic-ai/#towards-a-world-more-curious-and-kind) (and a future less grim) Long-term readers will know: I am sceptical about AI because of how power works. We seem to be on a fast path towards techno-feudalism, ubiquitous corporate surveillance, corporate fascism, ecological catastrophe and mass extinction—and AI is an accelerant. And yet! Nothing is set; there may well be a way through this mess yet. [Regenerative accelerationism](https://omniharmonic.substack.com/p/a-regenerative-accelerationist-manifesto), maybe. I don’t believe it, but I want to! Oh gosh how I want to. We’re in the storm, now. And I still contend that things will, alas, get *much worse* before they get better. But I also know: this could be our awakening opportunity. [The Great Turning](https://www.ecoliteracy.org/article/great-turning?ref=foxwizard.com), as Joanna Macy might say. --- ## *“pierwszy do wyjścia”* My House Words, as you might know, are “[First to Leave](https://www.foxwizard.com/house-words/)” (*pierwszy do wyjścia*). ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2026/06/VII-of-Swords.jpg) The VII of Swords These words work in the sense of the Tactical Cowardice™ and strategic cunning (metis) of The Fox. But—only in a *localised* sense. Because when I look towards the plausible (probable) spill-on effects of this meta-crisis we share (including—*but certainly not limited to*—the “geopolitical crisis” > the fuel crisis > the fertiliser crisis > the food crisis, in this, an El Niño year), the question is: first to leave... *to where?* Ha, there’s nowhere *to* go: the predicament is planetary in scale. It’s not local. It’s not a boundaried, finite game. It’s all part of the infinite game, to which you and I and everyone we know are deeply entangled within. And even if you could go to another planet—why on Earth would you want to? You could build a bunker and stockpile food—but who wants hungry neighbours? This is, and will always be, a turn towards *relationality*. Deep, [animate, relationality](https://rivernorth.substack.com/p/why-i-dont-believe-in-animism). And so my fox-like shenanigans are less about leaving an area of conflict, but rather: leaving the frame within which I view it. (My hope, btw, is that by sharing my inner world with you I might inspire or perturb you enough to reflect generatively upon yours). Adrian Lambert wrote a [fascinating essay](https://adrianlambert.substack.com/p/if-collapse-is-inevitable-why-does) earlier this year, exploring the question of how those of us with neurodivergent traits (a quality more than half of my friends seem to have) tend to be better able to sense ‘systemic collapse’ early. > *As ecological, energetic, and material limits assert themselves, the problem space transitions from growth to constraint navigation. The relevant queries become how to detect boundary conditions, recognise failure modes, and adapt behaviour under irreversible decline.* > > *In such contexts, traits associated with neurodivergence (system-level pattern recognition, reduced reliance on social validation, and willingness to follow implications to uncomfortable conclusions) become functionally relevant.* I’ve been meaning to share [Adrian Lambert’s essay](https://adrianlambert.substack.com/p/if-collapse-is-inevitable-why-does) with you since I read it. It puts my own protracted cocoon chapter into some context. What had started with someone close to me getting cancer, then amplified by bushfires, and deepened by a pandemic. It took years, but in hindsight I can look back at my time within the dark forest as a *necessary* dissolution. The self that I had become was no longer viable, given what I came to know. And so, like a caterpillar, I wormed my way into a cocoon—only to now, half a decade later, emerge as the butterman you see here. Anyway, my contention is: how to interface with a dying empire operating in a paradigm accelerating us towards a future of *mutually assured destruction?* I got this framing from Professor Indy Johar, who gave [an excellent overview of the predicament](https://longnow.org/talks/02026-johar/?ref=foxwizard.com#watch) earlier this year. This is well worth watching; for a sense of preparedness for what is to come *and* for the economic pragmatism he posits. There is a world in which investing in a liveable future *makes sense* financially. Family offices are well positioned to lead this. But I digress. I was talking of a time in which you realise that the person you are is *no longer apt* for the future you know will very likely come to be. Seven and a half years ago I wrote a museletter titled “[A Slow Descent Into Madness.](https://www.foxwizard.com/madness/)” Gosh the signs are so obvious in hindsight lol. [🍂 A Slow Descent Into MadnessA Gift of 5 Questions![](https://static.ghost.org/v5.0.0/images/link-icon.svg)Dr. Fox ⟠ Wyrd WorkDr. Jason Fox![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2026/03/foxwizard-drjasonfox-website_1-1.png)](https://www.foxwizard.com/madness/) In that post I wrote that our sense of self *“is ‘intermittently continuous’ at best, and likely a mostly fallacious dynamic and amorphous composite of much that we have experienced and subsumed in this infinite game.”* I think I was [beginning to topple from the peak of midwittery](https://www.foxwizard.com/sacred-sabotage/#the-midwit-trap) then. I had not yet surrendered myself to poetry and the language of the heart. And I wasn’t yet ready to use words like “soul;” I was far too clever to be wise. But I was ready to conjure [*The Ritual of Becoming*](https://www.cleverness.com/word?ref=foxwizard.com). And I did call *The Cleverness* (my publishing imprint) “a precursor to wisdom.” The seeds were all there. In any case, the framing of the patterned-nebulosity and relationality of selfhood still holds, even in its incompleteness. What I didn’t realise at the time—and what [Adrian Lambert’s essay](https://adrianlambert.substack.com/p/if-collapse-is-inevitable-why-does) articulates so well—is that my heart was leading me away from a system I could no longer believe in. I’m now going to do a sneaky *big* copy-paste; a move that is borderline spellthievery. If you find yourself nodding along then do like and subscribe to Adrian’s work. I’ve never met the chap but this is cognitively resonant and apt. > *A recurring observation within collapse-aware communities is that many individuals who recognise systemic decline early struggle to remain functional within conventional employment structures. This is often framed as personal failure, poor resilience, or psychological fragility. The evidence suggests otherwise.* > > *Late-stage institutional systems increasingly prioritise performative compliance over functional contribution – appearing busy but achieving nothing. Early perception is structurally incompatible with growth logic; it resists the suppression of contradiction required to maintain high-throughput systems once their internal coherence begins to fail.* > > *Work becomes oriented toward maintaining appearances, narratives, and procedural continuity (meetings, metrics, slide sets and reports) rather than delivering outcomes aligned with material reality. For individuals whose cognition prioritises internal consistency, system integrity, and factual alignment, this creates escalating pressure.* > > *Neurodivergent traits amplify this mismatch. Where neurotypical cognition often optimises for social cohesion and role performance, neurodivergent cognition is less tolerant of sustained contradiction between stated purpose and observed function. As institutional legitimacy erodes internally, the effort required to mask this dissonance increases sharply.* > > *Masking is the learned neurodivergent practice of suppressing or modifying one’s natural ways of thinking, communicating, and behaving in order to meet social, professional, or institutional expectations, often at significant cognitive and emotional cost.* > > *Masking can more easily be sustained when the system being upheld is perceived as broadly legitimate. As perceived legitimacy erodes, masking increasingly becomes a form of self-estrangement. Work turns into performance without meaning, and continued participation carries psychological cost without compensating value.* > > *This strain is better understood as moral injury rather than psychological fragility. Sustained participation in systems that violate one’s sense of truth, coherence, or purpose produces harm, particularly for minds less buffered by social rationalisation. When work requires maintaining narratives that contradict observed reality, distress arises from fidelity to reality.* I share this not so much to highlight the neurodivergence part. I’m sure that, as a wizard, I have some kind of undiagnosed neurosparkliness. You too, maybe. Rather, my point is that, increasingly, more of us are going to realise that the future we are inadvertently co-creating *is not compatible* with who we are, what we value, or how we want to live. But: what to do with this realisation? We could try “change the future”—but this is a task beyond any one of us. We could instead just “try not to think about it,” and see how that goes. And we could convince ourselves that we are too small to influence things (which would be a lie—[your influence is non-zero](https://www.foxwizard.com/non-zero-influence/)). Or... we could begin to wend our way to right-relation with things; congruence, coherence, aptness. We could find a new accord with limit, and consequence. Let me come back to this piece from Martin Shaw; [*Navigating the Mysteries*](https://emergencemagazine.org/essay/navigating-the-mysteries/?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* > *If your life feels peculiar, flamboyant, occasionally shameful, then those are the markings of that emerging authenticity. The more you settle back into your naturalness, the less likely you are to be endlessly buffeted by unease and unseated by paradox. If you are steady in your own precarious character, you recognise these energies as fundamental to the business of both living and deepening. Such honesty will also introduce both limit and consequence into your life. It creates a code, a kind of gallantry. Not from the outside, but from a daily, sometimes troubling, discourse with your own soul.* Peculiar, flamboyant, and occasionally shameful. ✅ So: it may be that the time is ripe. It may be that you see what’s coming. It may be that you are ready to step through [*The Window of Disenchantment*](https://www.foxwizard.com/e2/)and willingly lose yourself in the dark forest—so as to find yourself anew. This is at the heart of the book I am writing. Whether I call it *Mythic Mode, A Quest Beckons,* or *The Quickening* (I’m not yet sure which), it’s a book for adults who have found themselves disillusioned and disenchanted by the default path and patterning they find themselves within. Something calls to you from beyond yourself; the book I am writing for you may be an apt companion. Adrian Lambert says that: *“seeing early does not make you responsible for the future; it makes it possible to leave the past sooner.”* I’m not actually “First to Leave,” despite my house words. Many wiser folk have taken this turn before me. But I might be earlier than some, and I hope to share whatever I have learnt from my own questing in a manner that is helpful for those who are on their way, too. --- ## VII of Swords I shared the card above. It’s an important one to me, generative and vexing. For a long while I revelled in what it has come to be known to represent: *trickery, scheming, strategy, resourcefulness, sneakiness,* and *cunning.* And also *lies*. I never revelled in lies, but I did once upon a time become a little too enamoured with my own cleverness and ability to shape narrative and perception—which is not the same as lying, but also not altogether honest, too. But I loved the “metis” of the card: the wise and pragmatic cunning. During my protracted dark forest chapter, though, I found myself contending with its reversed meanings: *the end of playing games, the dropping of pretension, the consequences of actions, coming clean,* and *changing approach.* I came to see my profession—that of “thought leader”—to be filled with charlatans. Not all, but many. And that I was no better. And so I doubled-down on [intellectual honesty](https://www.foxwizard.com/intellectually-honest/), and living with greater integrity. I strove for honesty—even when it came at commercial and personal cost. But for a while I flexed *too hard* into the reverse VII of Swords. My living in right-relations with honesty became a puritanical quest for *purity*. I mostly abandoned centralised social media and algorithmic surveillance platforms. I avoided doing the half-truth bullshit artistry that makes for effective proposals and sales pages. I [spoke out against genocïde](https://www.foxwizard.com/moral-courage/). I wrote (and continue to write) museletters that expose the inner workings of my heart and mind, allowing (the performance of?) authenticity to eclipse the performance of authority (much as I lust for curiosity to eclipse conviction). In short: I went *too far,* and I have since been on a path to recover the wit and wiliness that make wisdom more effectively realised. I’ve since come to make a kind of restless-peace with my complicity amidst it all, whilst working to be situated amidst the trouble so as to better shape what may yet become. I share this with you because Kim and I recently acquired a new tarot deck—[LUX by Uusi](https://uusi.us/collections/viewall/products/pagan-otherworlds-tarot-copy?ref=foxwizard.com). This lush deck of linocut artwork also comes with a companion [book of sonnets](https://uusi.us/collections/uusi-tarot/products/lux-solis-occasum-lux-brumalis-presale?ref=foxwizard.com). And in this companion book I found the most beautiful sonnet that *reconciles* and *redeems* the conflicted nature of the VII of Swords. Oh what wondrous confluence and stirring! I’m not sure if it will have the same resonant impact with you, but I shall share it with you anyway. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2026/06/VII-of-Swords-LUX-1.jpg) *Receptivity’s flashing inner light.* --- ## Reflecting on reflections I had a wonderful conversation with[Tom Hirons](https://tomhirons.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) the other day. Tom is a poet I love whose work has been such a warm beacon amidst the dark of my own questing. Tom and I both share a friendship and deep respect for [Matthew Stillman](https://stillmansays.substack.com/about), whom I shared a recorded podcast conversation with in [last month’s museletter](https://www.foxwizard.com/poetic-interlude/). I made the mistake of listening to the episode I recorded whilst at the gym, and lamented my ineptitude as conversation partner and host. The verbose inelegance in which I ask questions. The effusive vagueness within which I interject myself. The rolling ums and “you knows” and “I don’t knows” and just—shut up, man! Ugh. I would have literal *full body cringe* at the sound of my own voice. It rubbed me the wrong way, summoning a harsh inner critic to whip at me for all my failings, now recorded in perpetuity and on display for the world to see and hear. Tom shared that he never looks back on his recorded work. I don’t normally do so either—and I am freshly reminded as to why!—but Tom further added: it is not natural to see our own reflection. Other than the occasional polished stone or still lake water surface, we humans would spend much of our lives without the myriad mirrors and devices that amplify self-consciousness. This is true for most of human history—99.8% of the \~300,000 years of anatomically modern humanity. And it is likewise true in the same sense that Josh Schrei asserts that [*animism is normative consciousness*](https://www.themythicbody.com/podcast/animism-normative-consciousness-re-released/?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* Anyway, this reminder has stayed with me. Two weeks ago I recorded “Episode One” of “Season Two” of [*the foxwizard podcast*](https://www.foxwizard.com/podcast/)*.* I recorded it with video, too, because apparently people watch podcasts on YouTube, and it’s the “most optimal” thing to do. Yet—I haven’t been able to share it. And I think it’s because there’s something about speaking to a camera whereupon I can see my reflection in realtime. It’s not natural to experience this. This doesn’t happen when I’m in conversation with someone—like all of the wonderful Kindred Spirits episodes with my friend John Anthony. I can dissolve into the relationality. Btw, a new episode of [*The Kindred Spirits Podcast*](https://open.substack.com/pub/kindredspiritspod/p/buffer-ye-orbs-kindred-spirit) is out—“[Buffer Ye Orbs](https://open.substack.com/pub/kindredspiritspod/p/buffer-ye-orbs-kindred-spirit).” 🧡 [“Buffer ye orbs” ᝰ Kindred SpiritsThe Kindred Spirits podcast with John Anthony & Jason Fox![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/icon/https-3A-2F-2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com-2Fpublic-2Fimages-2F00f7a26a-aecc-4a46-960d-9a20ed4e9c89-2Fapple-touch-icon-180x180-809e4f43731137d9f1b20e6961c321ad588826be05690a590fec4ae88433a9e4.png)Kindred Spirits 🥃✨John Anthony and foxwizard![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/thumbnail/https-3A-2F-2Fsubstack-video.s3.amazonaws.com-2Fvideo_upload-2Fpost-2F198822990-2Fd9590384-f882-4347-b82f-b040253e9eec-2Ftranscoded-251584-0f3be92c23d93c5f77b22134533ce8edaf93899cf733d31519a5dac3540e5465.png)](https://open.substack.com/pub/kindredspiritspod/p/buffer-ye-orbs-kindred-spirit?r=ynwy&utm%5Fcampaign=post&utm%5Fmedium=web×tamp=1487.6) When I am flying solo, my favourite episodes from Season One of my podcast were the ones that were audio-only *and* recorded in nature; [an extravagant equinox](https://www.foxwizard.com/e16/) (recorded by the Birrarung river) and [knowledge of curses](https://www.foxwizard.com/knowledge-of-curses/) (recorded by a pond on an island off an island off an island). There’s something about this mode that side-steps all self-consciousness. Yet recently, two of my favourite podcasters passed away; Jim Rutt and Gordon White. Both were complex characters whose perspectives I didn’t always completely align with. But this is a redundant sentence because the same is true of everyone I know! Both had a generosity of spirit I remain inspired by. Jim Rutt—*the deeply curious and warmly cantankerous game-B advocate whose podcast served as a nexus and bridge betwixt the overlapping perspectives of those of us who quest for something beyond the default omni-lose game-A paradigm*—passed away only two days ago. I had [his latest episode with my friend Tyson Yunkaporta](https://jimruttshow.blubrry.net/worldviews-tyson-yunkaporta/?ref=foxwizard.com) downloaded and ready to listen to. [Jonathan Rowson wrote a lovely honouring to Jim Rutt](https://open.substack.com/pub/jonathanrowson/p/howdy-on-the-other-side?r=ynwy&utm%5Fcampaign=post-expanded-share&utm%5Fmedium=post%20viewer). Jim’s was a unique voice that many a session of *The Coterie* (a private collective of questers and complexity practitioners) gathered around in the early days of the pandemic. He will be missed. And Gordon White was someone I only recently became acquainted with, having first discovered him via his essay on [*What Escapes Capture*](https://runesoup.substack.com/p/what-escapes-capture)*.* I had always intended to meet with Gordon when visiting Tasmania. Yet Gordon passed away suddenly (of natural causes) only a few weeks ago. He was around the same age as me. There have also been some lovely honourings of Gordon. [Gershom White writes](https://gershomwhite.substack.com/p/gordon-white?r=ynwy&utm%5Fmedium=ios&triedRedirect=true&%5F%5FreadwiseLocation=): > *Deeply inspired by Ursula Le Guin, Gordon White was (and frankly still is) the only prominent Western magical practitioner that took the work of cultural Anthropology seriously, and the voices of indigenous people, and humbly learned from them. Up until that point, when the Western occult encountered non-Western practices, the tendency was to interpret through the lens of their framework which they implicitly (or explicitly, in more embarrassing cases) assumed was the Best. Even the most left-wing liberal practitioners essentially perpetuated the metaphysics and underlying world view of the most abhorrently racist wealthy Victorian colonials. It wasn’t just that he took their world-views and life-ways seriously, he literally travelled to these places, and physically met and spoke to practitioners from traditions that had not undergone the same destruction that our traditions were subjected to.* Gershom White also observes that Gordon would likewise choose to ‘stay with the trouble.’ > *Staying with the Trouble is the title of one of Donna Haraway’s books, and a term she uses to describe the act of realising the fact and tension of living in a troubled world, without a rush to find a “fix” or “solution” or a retreat into apocalyptic cynicism. Gordon White took this on board and applied it to his work. He considered and wrote about the disastrous after-shocks of Empire and its sinister continuation, and what that meant for Western Magic. Rather than ignoring it, or disavowing it (as many do, projecting it onto whatever they currently dislike often under the guise of a “fight” so they can avoid doing the work), he reflected on how to come into relation with these tensions and uncomfortable facts. Just by noticing “yes this happened, and yes, it was bad” can move towards healing and integration rather than a “solution”.* [Peter Grey also wrote an honouring](https://petergreywrites.substack.com/p/what-is-it-that-is-ours-to-do), concluding with a question worth living: > What is it that is ours to do now? All of this is really to say: life is terminal! We’re only here for a brief little while, and it all may be over sooner than we suspect. I don’t mean this as something maudlin; it’s vivifying. Our lives are sacrificial, and I’m heartily reminded to *get over myself* so that I can be more present to whatever Life and wyrd and heart and whim call for. This museletter has been a way of wending to this realisation, and I am grateful for your company. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2026/06/Snozzle-and-I.jpeg) Kim took this photo of Snorri and me as I literally finish writing this museletter to you The next blue moon is on the 20th of May 2027\. That’s just under a year. What might you wholeheartedly commit to, betwixt now and then? I know what I’ve quietly committed to. Let’s see what unfurls. Much warmth to you, Jason ### Why I’m ‘helping’ executive teams with agentic AI URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/agentic-ai/ Last updated: 2026-06-01T05:42:40.000Z ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2026/05/image-4.png) **Mammon’s Cave* by Hermann Hendrich cc 1901 (Mammon is the god of greed) Last month I shared [what I am seeing in my work](https://www.foxwizard.com/sacred-sabotage/#iv-what-i%E2%80%99m-seeing-in-my-work). It would appear that I am taking a *less-than-charitable* view of executives who have gone “all in” on agentic artificial intelligence (AI).\[^ Going “all in” means *‘being fully committed, dedicated, or involved in a project, relationship, or decision—often without holding anything back. It signifies that someone is putting 100% of their effort, time, or resources into something and is willing to accept the risks associated with it.’* This is also a term used when folks are willing to gamble big; sliding their chips forward; “all or nothing.”\] But I am nothing if not ruinously charitable. So, allow me this attempt to exonerate my narrative somewhat. I am, after all, a hedge wizard;\[^ Yes, I know for a decade I called myself an “Archwizard of Ambiguity (most fantastic).” I still strive for ambiguity and fantasticness, but the *archwizard* bit always implied that I hold some sort of ceremonial role within The Academy. This isn’t actually true, and never really has been. I’m a rogue. And—like most of us [lone practitioners](https://theomagica.com/the-lone-practitioners-path?%5F%5FreadwiseLocation=&ref=foxwizard.com) who operate from outside of any lodge—my path to magic was self-taught via syncretic bricolage and cunning. And I’ve still much yet to learn.\] I like to hedge, and keep my options open. #### On this page... ## Yeah I do AI\* *\* Arcane Intelligence.* I work with executive teams who quest amidst the emergent. My talents are in what serves to develop in-house [*metis*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metis%5F%28mythology%29?ref=foxwizard.com) (practical wisdom and cunning) via participatory learning and the cultivation of [fellowship and scenius](https://www.foxwizard.com/quest-strategy/) (collective genius)—which in turn facilitates an attuned-acuity for the adjacent-possible. Ergo: strategic optionality. Most of my work is—as I now like to say—“gestalt-informed.”\[^ I say this because Kim—my darling partner Dr. Kim Lam aka *the dangerlam,* is almost half-way through a four year gestalt psychotherapy training program, and it vexes her lovingly to hear me speak so cavalierly about that which she is learning deeply. This is partly on account of my Mediocre White Man Powers, but largely because the overlaps between gestalt sensibilities, anthro-complexity and *magic* are significant.\] There is a *field* to attend and attune to; a world of entangled pathways and shifting affordances. And AI—like it or loathe it—is most definitely within the field. My contention, though, is that most organisations ought be *questing* amidst this field. To quest is to *widen* the lens of perception; to attend to the periphery and attune to the penumbra; to sense-into the edge of what we know, with acuity for anomaly.\[^ Importantly, this includes *that which we do not want to see*. Things that might invalidate your hypothesis. Things that might even be ontologically destabilising, and inspire existential dread, hoho!\] To quest is to follow the autopoiesis of your own enquiry, so as to find the fruits we might otherwise overlook (or never see). But instead, when it comes to AI, I see much “decision-based evidence making.” A CEO—having spent far too much time in conversation with a large language model (whilst listening to investment propaganda from podcasts like [*All In*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All-In%5F%28podcast%29?ref=foxwizard.com))—decides that “AI is the Future!” And, following this, a strategy emerges wherein the organisational posture is to go “all in” on AI. But then, months later, when the hype and honeymoon has faded, they are left to contend with the real complexities at play; along with a strategy that struggles to live up to its own hype. [And now that the world is on fire and the barbarians are at the gate they have the audacity to come to me for help.](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/i-studied-the-blade?ref=foxwizard.com) Heh, just kidding, they don’t. It’s their direct reports that do. The executives charged and incentivised to *execute* the strategy. Tensions are naturally high. Everything feels behind, and whatever prototypes have been demo’d fall vastly short of expectations. The workforce are fatigued; they’ve already been through so much change. “AI” was promised to make their life easier—but all it seems to be doing is reducing headcount (code for: making colleagues redundant) *whilst also* increasing workloads.\[^ This is Jevon’s Paradox—a phenomenon I wrote of in the way back of *How to Lead a Quest.* The paradox is: as technological improvements increase the efficiency with which a resource is used, total consumption of that resource often *increases* rather than decreases. And so whilst AI “saves time”—the result is that we spend more time.\] An air of desperation seeps in, and executives—they themselves entangled within the rivalrous dynamics of the socio-political context they call ‘work’—start to look for a magical new “solution” from outside of their context. Often this translates to them hiring a new technology partner or consulting firm, which in many cases simply resets the same cycle.\[^ But for a career executive you only need for the narrative to hold long enough to get some impressive preliminary results before you can “jump ship” into a new role.\] But for those who want to escape this aspect of samsara\[^ The endless cycle of illusion and suffering.\] (or at least to side-step this aspect), we need to focus on [conditions, not solutions](https://www.foxwizard.com/conditions-not-solutions/). This is what I—and many of my fellow liminal agents—do. This does not look like coming in with an answer, or a roadmap, or a fancy deck of explicit Thought Leadership to deploy. Instead, we first *attune*. ## Attunement For a long time I have used words like *attunement* to describe a vital element of my work. But I’ve always done this in a vague and alluding manner, only gesturing towards what attunement means, or speaking of it indirectly, poetically. I am very fond of words like acuity and attunement; meta-rational qualities shared by both wizard and rogue. And I’ve been meaning to write of this properly, so as to better teach it. But then Dave Snowden himself recently wrote [an *excellent* post on attunement](https://thecynefin.co/conditions-not-conclusions/?ref=foxwizard.com)—better than I ever could—presenting it as part of a trialectic: *attune,* *orient* and *inscribe*. > *To attune is to bring yourself into right relationship with the system. It is the practitioner’s equivalent of the wood carver reading the grain: not yet deciding what to do, but developing sensitivity to what is actually present rather than what was expected. Attuning is never finished. It continues throughout any engagement, and the practitioner who stops attuning has stopped learning from the system, regardless of what else they are doing.* > > *Attuning is not passive. It requires active, disciplined engagement: suspending the frameworks you arrived with long enough to notice what the system is actually doing, developing peripheral attention alongside focal attention, allowing surprise rather than filtering it. The practitioner who arrives with a methodology already running is not attuning. They are confirming.* We live in an age that *lusts* for confirmation. Confidence, certainty, clarity, conviction. The charismatic firm with the polished pitch and promised solutions. But these approaches bring a pre-fabricated framework to impose upon a context that is not yet understood. They bring *answers* before having first attuned with the system itself. Many executive teams also find themselves in interesting predicaments when their well-reasoned and very rational “plans” fail to account for nebulosity, entropy and the unknown. In [an overview of meta-rational practices](https://meaningness.substack.com/p/meta-rational-practices-overview), David Chapman—another chap I greatly admire—shares a relatable example: > *We’ll call situations in which rationality fails “anomalous”—in contrast with “typical” and “atypical.” Anomalous situations are ones that can’t be understood rationally. The software development plan was completely rational; it was replete with careful, empirically-based Excel-based cost estimates, personnel org charts, project GANTT charts, and system modularity diagrams. Reality started diverging from the plan almost immediately, for reasons no one could pinpoint. Eighteen months later, you’ve got an enormous incomprehensible mess. What happened? Rationally, everything should have worked! These are the kinds of situations in which meta-rationality may save the day.* Meta-rationality, [as Chapman writes](https://meaningness.substack.com/p/when-engineering-gets-100-percent-meta-rational), is a vital competency for leadership. *“Giant software development projects, with hundreds of millions of dollars invested, often fail due to missing or incompetent meta-rationality.”* This is exactly what I am seeing with most leadership teams, when it comes to AI. I also posit that an “acuity for anomaly”—the presence of mind to recognise when and where rationality fails, coupled with the wit to occupy ways of perceiving beyond rationality itself—shares much overlap with how one might approach “magic.” But that’s a tale for another time. Back when I was a “[king amongst the midwitted](https://www.foxwizard.com/sacred-sabotage/#ii-self-sabotage-as-sacred-act)” I would have ready frameworks to deploy. Fancy models, and cantrips akin to “start with why.”\[^ Face-validity is all you need.\] These were neat tricks, very impressive. But I’ve long since become less enamoured with such sleight-of-mind. I *particularly* don’t like my work from a dozen years ago (before I wrote *How to Lead a Quest*), wherein I got swept up in ‘behavioural science’—a ‘discipline’ that seeks to reduce motivation and behaviour to rational systems. The result of such maneuver is that Life is rendered lifeless; we start to see things through [the eyes of the basilisk](https://emergencemagazine.org/fiction/the-basilisk/?ref=foxwizard.com)—only that which can be abstracted, reduced, measured. And so I now do my best to let *all* frameworks recede—including my assumptions—so that I can better attune to what is already at play. This is, as you know, part of the Trickster disposition. > *“Better to operate with detachment, then; better to have a way but infuse it with a little humor; best, to have no way at all but to have instead the wit constantly to make one’s way anew from the materials at hand.”* – Lewis Hyde, [*Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth, and Art*](https://archive.org/details/trickstermakesth00hyde/page/n9/mode/2up) Oh to serve whatever the situation asks of us! This is the work of a complexity practitioner, too. But—this also makes for tricky positioning. What is it that we sell, exactly? What is the value we can point to, ahead of the time, before having attuned to context so as to discern what’s at play? And how do we articulate this value without this itself becoming its own attractor we then become biased to (thus influencing the field before we even intervene)? Also: are we just making it all up as we go? What’s ‘The Package,’ as it were? Or rather: what is the response to clients who ask *“what are the outcomes we can expect?,”* and say *“let’s start with the end in mind, and work back from there”*...? Dave Snowden articulates the predicament of such an approach well in his [*Conditions, Not Conclusions*](https://thecynefin.co/conditions-not-conclusions/?ref=foxwizard.com) essay: > *The hardest thing about the Pelagian\[^* [*Pelagian*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelagianism?ref=foxwizard.com)*, Snowden* [*writes*](https://thecynefin.co/neither-repair-nor-revolution/?ref=foxwizard.com)*, is where anthro-complexity practice operates. “The capacity for change is already present in the system. The practitioner’s role is to create conditions in which what is already possible becomes operative, to wayshape, not to supply. This does not mean doing nothing. Preparing the canvas, reading the grain of the wood, understanding the energy gradients, building containment strategies for unintended consequences: all of this is active, skilled work. It is simply not the work of supplying something the system lacks.”\] mode is that it seems to imply less. It does not arrive with the confidence of a framework. It does not deliver a plan. It does not promise a transformation. It offers attunement, orientation, and inscription, and it waits to see what the system does with them. In a culture that measures practitioners by the ambition of their interventions, that is a difficult stance to hold.* > > *But consider the alternative. The forlorn hope. The verloren hoop. The magnificent initiative that travelled fifteen hundred metres and sank.* I suspect that this is what we will see with regards to artificial intelligence: magnificent initiatives that end up costing so much more than any value they seemingly generate. Not in all cases—but in many. ## The narrow path So yes, I work with those who seek to harness the power of artificial intelligence. Which is akin to working with those who seek to use The One Ring for good; folks who—like Boromir—would say: *it is a gift.* ![](https://media.tenor.com/gqCpGfuqri4AAAAC/boromir-it-is-a-gift.gif) Which is to say: most (probably) mean well, but most are blind to power (and how it binds and corrupts) and consequence (unintended and n-th order effect). A wizard ought know the narrow path well; to work *with* power—without becoming corrupted by it.\[^ A favourite related quote from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld: *“Not doing any magic at all was the chief task of wizards—not ‘not doing magic’ because they couldn’t do magic, but not doing magic when they could do and didn’t. Any ignorant fool can fail to turn someone else into a frog. You have to be clever to refrain from doing it when you knew how easy it was. There were places in the world commemorating those times when wizards hadn't been quite as clever as that, and on many of them the grass would never grow again.”*\] To walk the narrow path means to succumb to neither pessimism and doom, nor blind optimism and hope. It is also not to walk the mediocre middle, either. Instead, it is the ability to hold both perspectives at once—whilst remaining attuned to hidden ways yet to reveal themselves. The blue feather in the magpie’s tale.\[^ *“...to navigate mystery is not the same thing as living with uncertainty,”* Martin Shaw [writes](https://emergencemagazine.org/essay/navigating-the-mysteries/?ref=foxwizard.com). *“It doesn’t contain the hallmarks of manic overconfidence or gnawing anxiety. It’s the blue feather in the magpie’s tale. Hard to glimpse without attention. There’s no franchise or hashtag attached. Navigating mystery humbles us, reminds us with every step that we don’t know everything, are not, in fact, the masters of all.”*\] The [leaks](https://www.foxwizard.com/feeding-leaks/). To walk the path betwixt. When I wrote [*How to Lead a Quest*](https://www.foxwizard.com/books/) (over a decade ago), research in Artificial Intelligence was relatively open and academic. Some businesses I worked with were actively tracking development within their ‘quiver of options’ (a key part of the ‘scenario probing’ that informs Quest-Augmented Strategy). I used one of my client’s examples (a large law firm, with their permission) in the book. But this was all *before* the technological leap enabled by large language models. I continued to watch with [cautious enthusiasm](https://www.foxwizard.com/artificial-intelligence/), initially. But when Open AI went from being open to closed—my disposition shifted into *deep* caution. This is mostly on account of how power works, and the fact that AI is an accelerant to climate change,\[^ “But AI uses less water than the beef industry!” some say. Yes, and I am glad you are concerned about water usage. But this is also a category error. AI functions as an accelerant within an already overshoot-bound system. It intensifies extraction rates, deepens supply chain complexity and fragility, makes coordination failures worse through race-to-the-bottom dynamics. Debating whether a prompt uses more or less water than a hamburger is a ploy that keeps you within a perspective-frame that needs to be transcended entirely.\], ubiquitous corporate surveillance, and the metacrisis we share.\[^ See my “[Wisen up about AI—12 recommendations](https://www.foxwizard.com/wisen-up-artificial-intelligence/)” from a couple of years ago; most of these still hold.\] Last year Ed Zitron wrote a piece titled *The Era of The Business Idiot.*\[^ I am too nice to use words like “idiot,” and I don’t believe it is helpful to call any individual an idiot. But in aggregate we can appreciate how we have co-created the emergent situation where idiocy reigns. And I am okay with comedians and humorous writers “punching up.” It’s just that whenever I do it myself I usually regret it in hindsight. Anyway.\] This essay articulates the backdrop against which AI is shaped. > *\[...\] the problem runs a little deeper than the economy, which is a symptom of a bigger, virulent, and treatment-resistant plague that has infected the minds of those currently twigging at the levers of power — and really, the only levers that actually matter.* > > *The incentives behind effectively everything we do have been broken by decades of neoliberal thinking, where the idea of a company — an entity created to do a thing in exchange for money —has been drained of all meaning beyond the continued domination and extraction of everything around it, focusing heavily on short-term gains and growth at all costs. In doing so, the definition of a “good business” has changed from one that makes good products at a fair price to a sustainable and loyal market, to one that can display the most stock price growth from quarter to quarter.* > > *This is the* [*Rot Economy*](https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-rot-economy/?ref=foxwizard.com)*, which is a useful description for how tech companies have voluntarily degraded their core products in order to placate shareholders, transforming useful — and sometimes beloved — services into a hollow shell of their former selves as a means of expressing growth. But it’s worth noting that this transformation isn’t constrained to the tech industry, nor was it a phenomena that occurred when the tech industry entered its current VC-fuelled, publicly-traded incarnation.* It’s not that “AI is bad”—the field of artificial intelligence is wondrous. Genuinely. But the field has become mostly captured, cordoned and corrupted by vested interests. And this is more precisely what many of us hold contention with. Ed Zitron recently wrote a follow up to the essay above, titled [*Revenge of The Business Idiot*](https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-revenge-of-the-business-idiot/?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* It remains polemic; giving voice to that which few have the courage to say. A sample: > *LLMs impress the writers who do not want to write, the coders who don’t want to code, the researchers who don’t want to research, and the lawyers that don’t want to actually understand case law. Those that desperately tell you how powerful AI is and that you simply must use it are looking for you to validate their own laziness or distaste for effort, and those who are impressed with LLMs’ outputs tend to be people with low standards.* I don’t want folks to “feel bad” if they find themselves marvelling at the outputs of a large language model. I am one such person, at times. LLMs can be incredible—particularly if you don’t have subject matter expertise in the domain of your enquiry. But if you have accrued any *metis* in a particular field—any semblance of wit, wisdom and wiles—much of the output of LLMs remains dubious and underwhelming at best. And yet: it’s here. And now **two thirds** of the client work I do comes from a context wherein there is a big commitment to integrate artificial intelligence. On briefing calls I’ll have senior leaders justify their strategic direction—with glazed yet confident eyes—“because AI is the future.” *What do you mean by this?* I want to say. But I need to tread carefully—for many have entwined their identity with the belief that “AI” is, indeed, “the future” \[sic\]. ## Eschew The Prophecy [Audrey Tang](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audrey%5FTang?ref=foxwizard.com)—former Minister of Digital Affairs for Taiwan—is one of my favourite people to listen to and learn from. I first heard her speak with Nate Hagens last year in this genuinely inspiring episode—[*Digital Democracy: Moving Beyond Big Tech to Save Open Societies*](https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/169-audrey-tang?ref=foxwizard.com). But recently she shared an apt post pertaining to the matter at hand: [*Reject AI Prophecies, Free the Future*](https://audreyt.substack.com/p/reject-ai-prophecies-free-the-future)*.* > *A growing number of organizations, from Silicon Valley tech outfits to a host of other big corporations, have begun linking AI use to performance evaluations. For many, survival in the workplace now involves investing substantial time and resources in learning how to collaborate with AI.* > > *Yet, many may soon discover that these efforts do not necessarily make work smoother. Instead, they start to feel like obedience to a set of “prophecies.”* > > *Consider claims such as: “AI will become your closest work partner,” “Everyone will have an AI assistant,” or “Companies that fail to adopt AI will be eliminated.” On face value, these statements seem to describe trends. In practice, they often discipline behavior: You better surrender your attention and judgment now, or you will be left behind.* > > *My Oxford colleague* [*Carissa Véliz*](https://www.ted.com/talks/carissa%5Fveliz%5Fbeware%5Fthe%5Fpower%5Fof%5Fprediction?ref=foxwizard.com)*, in her new book “Prophecy,” reminds us that the power of prophecy lies not in accurately predicting the future, but in shaping it.* > > *For example, suppose a business owner believes that “AI will replace 80 percent of the workforce.” They may redesign performance systems, restructure teams and ultimately dismiss most of the employees. This does not prove that the prophecy was accurate. It proves that the prophecy is self-fulfilling.* The Prophecy is already shaping our vision of the future. What ought to be [*a dynamic constellation of visions*](https://www.foxwizard.com/purpose-perils/#%E2%80%94what-does-a-vision-look-like) that move us towards flourishing at higher orders of complexity (as per the gradient of the universe, Eros\[^ See [*CosmoErotic Humanism: Philosophy in a Time Between Worlds*](https://worldphilosophyandreligion.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/2020-03-10%5FCosmoEroticHumanism%5F6pager%5FFINAL.pdf?ref=foxwizard.com) By Dr. Marc Gafni & Dr. Zachary Stein.\] and Life itself) is instead (temporarily) at risk of collapsing into what seems to be an inevitable techno-feudalist cyberpunk dystopia. This future currently being sold to us by AI evangelists is a naïve vision of a future in which we have an abundance of time and energy and universal income; where AI agents do most of the work for us and our bigger challenge will be figuring out what to do with all the spare time we have. Except maybe this vision only applies to a small few—and there is now a rush to “[escape the permanent underclass](https://escapethepermanentunderclass.com/?ref=foxwizard.com)” (something [Jasmine Sun expands upon](https://jasmi.news/p/party-in-the-permanent-underclass?ref=foxwizard.com)). Folks are now scrambling, [rolling the ladder up behind them](https://xeiaso.net/blog/2025/rolling-ladder-behind-us/?ref=foxwizard.com), so as to make it to [The Capitol](https://thehungergames.fandom.com/wiki/The%5FCapitol?ref=foxwizard.com) and avoid life in The Outer Districts (aka what “the global south” already endure). But... I don’t know. When things seem all-too-certain and sure (including in my own sense of things)—you know what this calls for. ## The trickster disposition For *only that which can change can continue.*\[^ Thank you James P. Carse.\] [Abi Awomosu](https://substack.com/@abiawomosu?ref=foxwizard.com), author of [*How Not To Use AI: 50 Contrarian Principles for the Imagination Age*](https://abiawomosu.substack.com/p/the-book)*,* writes of how we might learn from Trickster in how we relate to all of this. Her essay [*Your Imagination Was Always Empire’s Last Frontier*](https://abiawomosu.substack.com/p/your-imagination-was-always-empires) is excellent, and articulates the positions we might take: > *Once you see what is happening, the question is what to do about it.* > > *The plays on offer are these. Each one carries an archetype — a position you can recognise yourself in, or recognise being asked to take.* > > **Abstain. The Pure One.* Refuse the tool. Stand outside. Keep your hands clean. The comfort here is moral purity. The cost is leaving the territory undefended in the moment it is being mapped. Absence in a time of enclosure is not neutral. It is a position. The empire counts on it.* > > **Petition. The Reformer.* Stay inside the system and ask it to change. Reform from inside. Plead for inclusion, representation, ethics review, alignment. The comfort here is the seat at the table. The cost is years of your real life poured into a structure that cannot give back what it is being asked for, and the slow atrophy of the muscle that knows how to do anything except ask. After enough years of petitioning, you can no longer imagine what taking would look like.* > > **Surrender. The Convert.* Don’t be left behind. Get ahead. Adopt the tool, be ready, you’ll be replaced by someone who knows how to use AI if you don’t move. The comfort here is pragmatism dressed as inevitability. The cost is the slow disappearance of the version of yourself that existed before the tool. You stop noticing what you used to be able to do. You stop missing the faculties that atrophied because you no longer remember they were yours. You become someone the empire could not lose, because there is no longer a you for them to lose.* > > *Three plays. Three archetypes. All inside the empire’s frame. All running on comfort. Each with a cost the comfort hides.* > > **There is a fourth play. It does not run on comfort. It runs on risk. Its archetype is the trickster.** > > *To understand it, you need to understand the trickster.* The essay touches on similar themes that I have clumsily alluded to in the past; [subversive leadership](https://www.foxwizard.com/subversive/), [heretical education](https://www.foxwizard.com/heretical-education/), [hiding in plain sight](https://www.foxwizard.com/hiding/), [surreptitious obliquity](https://www.foxwizard.com/obliquity/), [feeding the leaks](https://www.foxwizard.com/feeding-leaks/), [hermetic disposition](https://www.foxwizard.com/hermetic-disposition/), and so on. The fourth play is the way. I like the way [Abi Awomosu](https://abiawomosu.substack.com/about) thinks and writes. Here’s another excerpt: > *Be read at the surface. Stay sovereign underneath. Empires need legibility to extract. Survivors learn to be legible at the surface and sovereign underneath.* > > *That is the move I made with AI.* > > *Most readers cannot place me. Am I pro-AI or anti-AI?* > > *The question itself is the empire’s question — it forces a choice between Surrender and Pure One, the two plays that keep you inside the empire’s frame. I am neither.* The tension between legibility and sovereignty is a frustratingly generative one for me. Frustrating because I am *so* tired of this as a theme I keep seeming to write about. And yet, generative, too because: here I am, writing about it. And so as you know, I do my best to obfuscate and baffle; to write honestly and non-linearly, as a form of “[sacred self-sabotage](https://www.foxwizard.com/sacred-sabotage/).” At least, that is what I call it. But the real thing I am sabotaging is the trap(pings) of success. I do not want to become so legible as to be rendered indistinct from the homogenised synthetica generated by large language models. At the same time, it is helpful in my profession as a [speaker-facilitator](https://www.foxwizard.com/speaking/) and [consultant](https://www.foxwizard.com/consulting/) to be at least *somewhat* legible, would you believe. And so I keep coming back to this excerpt from my friend Tyson Yunkaporta from [episode 321 of the Green Dreamer podcast](https://greendreamer.com/podcast/dr-tyson-yunkaporta-sand-talk?ref=foxwizard.com). > *I don't know, I try to avoid naming anything. And I try to avoid making too much sense, and I try to say things a bit differently every time and to mix it up. And I’ll make points that you can’t put together. I do that quite deliberately because I don't want the things I’m thinking or working on to become an ideology or a brand, or something that people can use as a name. I have seen that happen before with a few things I’ve done: People have grabbed it, and then it's become their thing. You’ve got to avoid that packaging and repackaging of ideas and let these things be free-range.* Tyson Yunkaporta deftly wields surface *illegibility* as a kind of cloak to protect the animacy/aliveness of what he is communicating; to ensure that what he shares isn’t subject to easy domestication and capture. On the surface, this is an inverse move to what Abi Awomosu writes of—she speaks of the cloak of *legibility* as a survival strategy—but the effect is the same. The sovereignty, imagination and aliveness are protected. I’m not sure what the move is, for me. I daresay it will be to *oscillate*. To stay in motion, and not overcommit to any particular register. Sometimes I worry: will I lose my *warm construct-aware meta-rational mythopoetic post-achievement metamodern-adjacent trans-perspectival complexity-savvy collapse-aware* readers if I were to slip into highly legible so-called “Thought Leadership”? And will I lose my client base whenever I wax lyrical—loquaciously and without any comforting linearity—in a manner not easily reduced nor conveniently rendered into pithy and practical “tips”? It’s the perennial question. I guess we shall see. ## Towards a world more curious and kind And a future less grim. This is what I keep coming back to; the beacon I orient towards. This is why I’m ‘helping’ executive teams with agentic AI. And I’m well situated to do so (provided I don’t blow my cover with too much talk of equality, freedom, and a liveable planet). Most folk in tech are good people who—like many of us—‘fell’ into their role. They don’t want to be bought by Palantir, nor build the [Torment Nexus](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/torment-nexus?ref=foxwizard.com). They want to use technology to help people. They are rational people navigating situations in which rationality alone will not suffice. And they’re doing the best they can with the resources they’ve got. As is the case for many of us. Life does not afford most of us the vantage from which we can sense how our choices fit within a wider trajectory. And so we rarely perceive how power laws, rivalrous dynamics and perverse incentives shape the conditions within which we play. And so the pressures these executives face are palpable. The board wants a strategy, the market wants a signal, and the workforce wants certainty. To “go all in on AI” was, at the time, a seemingly reasonable move. Of course, if they had adopted the Quest-Augmented approach to strategy I write of in [*How to Lead a Quest*](https://www.foxwizard.com/books/)*,* they wouldn’t have leapt to drastic “all-in” strategies. They would have been cultivating “a quiver of options,” which is an implicit practice of attunement, orientation and inscription (via experimentation). This makes strategy less of a gamble or a punt, and more of an organic, emergent and participatory knowingness. The folks I work with are wise enough to know we are on a narrow and treacherous path—yet still they believe there is a future in which businesses make good products at fair prices to a sustainable and loyal market. A future in which organisations can improve the quality of the value they generate. Even if they are [cursed with knowledge](https://www.foxwizard.com/knowledge-of-curses/) of the metacrisis—some still carry a tenderness despite. The glint of a fellow infinite player, liminal agent, and kindred spirit. We all have a part to play in this unfurling pantomime, this infinite game we share. And who knows—we may yet surprise ourselves. Let us see. So yes, I’m ‘helping’ executive teams with agentic AI, he says (legibly). But really, I’m helping teams to stay human; alive, awake and attuned to the opportunities at hand. Walking the narrow path so as to find ‘the fourth way’ in which we might play *to continue the play.* --- I am also working towards *teaching* the wit, wisdom and wiles of being rogue wizard, complexity practitioner and liminal agent. *The School of Fox Wizardry* will be coming (soon!™)—stay subscribed to learn more. ### museletter ⟠ a poetic interlude URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/poetic-interlude/ Last updated: 2026-05-01T13:05:13.000Z *Ahoy friends, this is a wyrd poetic interlude to my museletter. I have a few items of news and such, which I shall tuck away towards the end of this epistle. Thanks for being with me.* --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2026/05/image-1.png) **Interlude musical* by Alexandre-Louis Leloir (1874) Interlude! I like this word, very much. There’s a part of my mind—a part I can’t switch off, only hush—that can’t help but make paronomasia-like allusions to such. *“Interlude? Yeah I’m into lewd,”* I directly allude. It’s unfortunate; I do this too often. Can’t help myself. Words are spells, you see. Each word (spelled out via a sequence of letters; ‘glyphs’ in typographic/arcane speak) evokes a kind of meaning. String together a bunch of words and lo! we have a sentence. But at the heart of it are *words.* And I love words. I say this as someone who is sunsetting *The “Choose One Word” Ritual of Becoming* (which I have still not yet done, despite [speaking of it months ago](https://www.foxwizard.com/sunsetting-the-ritual/)) so as to make room for something better. ## **Huh, so wyrd!** Words have power. The power to work with *wyrd*—something we can know as *‘that which is to become.’* But more aptly, *wyrd* is closer to *the ongoing process of becoming itself*—the way all things emerge as a consequence of everything that has happened (and everything that is happening now). Wyrd thus gestures to *what is emerging* amidst our relational entanglement in this unfurling autopoiesis we share. My friend [Danica Swanson](https://substack.com/@danicaswanson?ref=foxwizard.com) (of Studio Slowcore) recently brought my attention to a book illustration by Arthur Rackham (1924) of *The Three Norns* who weave/layer/carve the threads of wyrd. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-04-30-at-4.10.35---pm.png) **The Three Norns* by Arthur Rackham (1924) Whilst seemingly synonymous to notions of “fate” and “destiny*,*” wyrd isn’t predetermined or fixed. It is instead something much more *accretive*. The Norns—Urð, Verðandi, and Skuld—are actively laying layers that map roughly to *what has become,* *what is becoming,* and *what is owed* (the consequences we must contend with). Wyrd is a word that can be pronounced in a manner that sounds like how you might say “[word” *or* “weird](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qi5u7%5F%5FCi%5Fk&ref=foxwizard.com).” Aye, both are legitimate, and colloquially wyrd is oft used to describe that which is weird or uncanny. I personally like to affect a kind of pseudo-nordic accent when I speak the word, enunciating it as a blend of *both* weird *and* word at once; a slight almost-roll of the “r” that terminates on the “d” that sounds almost like a “t.” Wyrd! I can get a little carried away with words that sound like other words. But as my dear friend Matthew Stillman might warmly and wryly say—*“etymology by sound is not sound etymology.”* Which brings me to the point of this museletter: a poetic interlude! --- ## **A conversation with Matthew Stillman** I still intend to write to you of *The School of Fox Wizardry,* as promised in the last musing. It’s a school wherein I teach you the wit, wisdom and wiles necessary for liminal agents (and genuine ‘thought leaders’) in this time betwixt worlds. But right now I want to share a podcast conversation with my dear friend [Matthew Stillman](https://stillmansays.substack.com/about). ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/media/2026/05/A-poetic-interlude_thumb.png) A poetic interlude 0:00 /4655.75 1× *Thirteen (13!) years ago* Matthew replied to a museletter post I wrote*,* wherein I extolled the virtues of *Finite and Infinite Games: a vision of life as play and possibility* by James P. Carse*.* This was at a time in which “gamification” was an emergent buzzword. I disliked the finite/mechanical/reductive way that gamification manifested, and was at the time (unsuccessfully) advocating for something more akin to [Jane McGonigal’s](https://janemcgonigal.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) “*gamefulness.*” Something that encompassed sensibilities that enabled *both* finite *and* infinite play. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2026/04/image-1.png) The seeds of friendship were planted here and for a decade Matthew and I kept in touch, intermittently. But \~2.5 years ago something catalytic happened, and a wondrous opportunity presented itself. I can’t speak of it directly, but for the past two or so years we have been in almost *weekly* discussions (along with another friend, Kelly)—something part book club, part poetic kinship (for want of a better term). It has been (and continues to be) one of the highlights of my days. So! I’m excited to share with you this podcast episode, wherein we talk of James P. Carse, [*Finite and Infinite Games*](https://bewildrewild.org/wp-content/uploads/Finite-and-Infinite-Games-by-James-Carse.pdf?ref=foxwizard.com)*,* and of how one finds their way to poetry. Enjoy! 🦊 Subscribe and listen on [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/foxwizard/id1645970777?ref=foxwizard.com), [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/2hkJuLE5VMED5rvDqnH4RL?ref=foxwizard.com) and [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeLHJRzrOWo%5FQXluAn65XjHQsoX3IjLvn&ref=foxwizard.com) --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2026/05/image.png) **Favourite poet* by Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1888) ## **Poetry, you say?** Why yes, I do. I’m aware that, to speak of the ‘affect’ of poetry—*of its sometimes surprisingly sublime resonance that can catch you completely off-guard, and of the way that the exquisite distillation of aptness can hit you so profoundly (in ways that forever shift your way of relating and being), and of how it can be one of the only sources of solace and succour accessible in the long dark*—is a pale and paltry facsimile to the actual affect. But if you feel drawn to poetry, and if you want to deepen the way in which you relate to it, the way in which you *inhabit* it, then Matthew has another round of his wondrous introductory course coming up very soon. [Committed to Heart, Committed to Memory](https://stillmansays.substack.com/p/introductory-course) (it starts in a few days so if this speaks to you: tarry not). > “When words from verse make their way into the heart, the possibility arises to become a more poetic and beautiful speaker. And then when you see or feel a need arise, those words are there at hand—waiting to aid in expressing what is most true—most beautiful—for you.” I participated in this course earlier this year—and I heartily recommend it. It is beautiful; vivifying! Here’s a generous excerpt from [a recent post that Matthew shared pertaining to a Theology of Poetry](https://stillmansays.substack.com/p/perhaps-a-theology-of-poetry-committed): > “If the word ***poetry*** said with a slightly pretentious English accent makes you roll your eyes then I can only imagine that the word ***theology*** barked seriously through tweed and pipe smoke might cause a double take with a depleted chin put to chest in response. > > If that is true for you then I understand, I think, because poetry and theology have each had manacles clamped on them for a long time. And poetry and theology have been leg ironed and cuffed to two of the most compromised institutions we have – school and houses of worship (pick your favorite flavor) and been forced to serve very particular ends of superiority and silencing while also mostly diverted from a riverrun of joy and relational possibilities. Who could love a mostly disconsolate and cheerless pair like that? > > I think that theology (deeply alive discussions and wonderings about understandings regarding the nature of, history of, future of, experience of, practice of/with the divine) is virtually inevitable. Like any spirited friends who are delighted by the mutual sharing and listening and new directions revealed being in dialectic with each other. Not unlike a wander where everyone is facing the same direction on the trail and any path seems like one worth taking together. The destination is uncertain but the manner of travel and the company is the beauty and worth of thing. When theology is directed **at** opponents with whom we share nothing and don’t desire to share, except to correct or silence, that it falsely asserts its primacy. This is one of the rusted cuffs.” > > \[[continued](https://stillmansays.substack.com/p/perhaps-a-theology-of-poetry-committed)...\] I love this. Attend to [Matthew’s writing and course](https://stillmansays.substack.com/p/next-rounds-of-committed-to-heart-f9e), if any of this speaks to you. --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2026/05/1280px-Twilight_in_the_Wilderness_by_Frederic_Edwin_Church_-3-.jpg) **Twilight in the Wilderness* by Frederic Edwin Church (1860) ## *The School of Fox Wizardry* I know, I know. I keep alluding to it, and there’s only so many months one can do this before patience wears thin. Right now client work has taken me away from cultivating the underlying conditions within the [Dark Forest Operating System](https://www.dfos.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) (DFOS)—*“a private internet of protected, member-governed spaces where people can be safe and real together in worlds of their own,”* [Yancey Stricklerwrites](https://www.ystrickler.com/antienshittification/?ref=foxwizard.com). *“We keep building our identities, audiences, and creative histories on platforms we don't control, hoping this time will be different. It won't be. Because the problem isn't the people running the platforms. It's the architecture.”* Yancey (the chap who created [Kickstarter](https://www.kickstarter.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) and [Metalabel](https://metalabel.com/?ref=foxwizard.com)) is someone I have come to trust, for how he has consistently shown up across the years. His work in creating DFOS is very promising, and I have a DFOS space for the “[thieves’ guild](https://www.foxwizard.com/horizonal-museletter/#intext-footnote-8)” I mentioned a while back that’s slowly finding its form. I don’t believe people ought to pay for community, just as I don’t believe in paywalling writing. I mean, I understand why folk do it, but it doesn’t sit right with my own way of relating to writing (all of [my paid membership levels involve *access* to me](https://www.foxwizard.com/guidance/)—which is a different story). Besides: community cannot be created; only cultivated—it cannot be “the product.” And as Carse reminds us, whomever *must* play, *cannot* play. Likewise, whomever must *pay* cannot *play*. I try not to use the word “community,” anyway. What we are talking of here is a guild for liminal agents, wizards and rogues. Professionals who share a disposition and affinity. And the DFOS isn’t trying to be yet another community platform. The language they use is “groups” and “[groupcore](https://www.ystrickler.com/a-theory-of-groupcore/?ref=foxwizard.com).” That works for me. So, *“let’s see what emerges,”* as those of our ilk oft say. Doors will be opening “soon,” he says. We’ll know when the time is ripe. “Let him cook,” as they say. Him being me. --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2026/05/image-2.png) **Melancholia, or Breton Eve* by Paul Serusier (c.1890) ## Tidbits Presented in bricolage pell-mell, whilst I have you. *Work-wise...* - I’ve been *deep* in client work for the past few months—[events and offsites](https://www.foxwizard.com/speaking/) for [leadership and strategy development](https://www.foxwizard.com/consulting/). Much of this work is with teams navigating the new possibilities and perils of artificial and agentic intelligence. This may come as a surprise to some readers, given my proclivity over the past few years to warn of the unknown unknowns, unintended consequences, nth-order effects, power laws and multipolar traps. That all remains in place. But there’s a wittedness that the times behoove of us, and I believe that more convivial futures await us still. Ergo: I’m in the midst. I shall share more of this updated disposition soon. There’s [a queer hope](https://www.foxwizard.com/leaping/#hope-is-the-trickster) to be found, if we can somehow view it askance. - I had the recent delight of [appearing on the Esteemed Colleagues podcast](https://open.spotify.com/episode/5aDGIlxLYklLSWKf34Z2PK?si=RDgKQXviRvmIQ0EKT%5Fctow&ref=foxwizard.com) with Iolanthe Gabrie. I’ll be keynoting at an event Iolanthe and her partner Yule are hosting for legal professionals in Hobart this midwinter. If you’re a legal professional who is open to new ways of working, come to [The Communitas](https://www.thecommunitas.com.au/?ref=foxwizard.com) event and let’s have a whisky. - I’m also keynoting at the [Australian HR Institute’s National Convention & Exhibition](https://www.ahri.com.au/events-and-networking/nce?ref=foxwizard.com) this year. After a decade-long friendship, this will be the first time that [Michael Bungay-Stanier](https://mbs.works/?ref=foxwizard.com) and I share the stage (albeit on different days). He and I are also in the midst of plotting a special side quest again. Last year we hosted a [wizardly river walk](https://www.foxwizard.com/riverwalk/), replete with cyclonic wind and fallen trees. Who knows what’s next? Stay subscribed to find out. *Life-wise...* - People sometimes ask me *“where do you get your ideas from?”* This is actually a deeply profound question that evokes enquiry into the domains of *wyrd, selfhood, entanglement, situatedness, receptivity, gnosis, acuity* and *attunement*... but I just say: books! Books and walks and time by the river and in the idleness betwixt things. - I might also say *“The Daimon and The Muse,”* too—but that’s a tale for another time. - I’m currently reading [*Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson*](https://gurdjieff.work/ae/?ref=foxwizard.com) by Gurdjieff (after having had my appetite whetted by [Layman Pascal’s](https://laymanpascal.substack.com/p/the-gurdjieff-book) [*Gurdjieff for A Time Between Worlds*](https://www.amazon.com.au/Gurdjieff-Time-Between-Worlds-Hyperpersonal/dp/B0D3SS8Z3V?ref=foxwizard.com)). It’s over a thousand pages and I have been warned that it is intentionally both baffling and vexing, that it has ruined people’s lives and that many get to the point where they want to throw the book into the sea. Can’t wait. - I’ve also been getting into “lore books for video games that don’t exist.” I’m currently enjoying the [*Vermis*](https://hollow-press.net/products/vermis-i?ref=foxwizard.com)series (along with its [soundtrack](https://bordyceps.bandcamp.com/album/vermis-soundtrack-restored?ref=foxwizard.com)), and I loved [this review of *Mock Soul*](https://ashlanderanalysis.substack.com/p/mock-soul-maze-devil-pilgrimage-review). There’s something precious these kinds of books do in awakening more routes back into the imaginal—a domain many of us knew well as children yet veiled ourselves from when we stepped into rationality. It’s good to open the doors again. - And on that note, I also recently discovered [*Ribbiting Adventure*](https://www.amazon.com.au/Ribbiting-Adventure-Jason-Douglas/dp/B0GQQ39RVC/?ref=foxwizard.com)by Jason Douglas; a delight! Enjoy this hefty preview from the internets ([part one](https://imgur.com/gallery/ribbiting-adventure-part-1-OEE7FRD?ref=foxwizard.com), [part two](https://imgur.com/gallery/ribbiting-adventure-part-2-LB9K2k2?ref=foxwizard.com) « click for the extra images at the end). 🐸 --- Happy “Full Flower Moon” in Scorpio. 🌝 Warmth, Jason ### Staying with the trouble URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/now-staying-with-the-trouble/ Last updated: 2026-04-20T05:37:31.000Z I’m going to try to update this /now page more often, now that I’m out of the dark. Presently, the focus is client work. So many leadership teams are leaping to integrate agentic artificial intelligence into their enterprise strategy, business model and operating system. Or well: the chief executives are—the senior executives I work with are the ones who need to execute on the ‘vision.’ And this is without having the participatory knowledge from questing. As you know, [questing is the precursor to differentiated strategy (advantage)](https://www.foxwizard.com/quest-strategy/). It’s how we cultivate optionality and in-house intelligence so that we aren’t shackled to incrementalism nor jumping on the bandwagon without knowing what’s-what. It’s how we stay relevant in a changing world, discerning the difference between real value and inflated hype. But the world seems hell-bent on integrating “agentic artificial intelligence into everything we do,” alas. It is somewhat ridiculous; an accelerant to existential risks and the epitome of the multipolar trap we share. For those in the know, it is quietly quite horrid what we are doing (and the pace we are doing it). AND YET I have come to know: I work best within such contexts, rather than proselytising from without. One can only do so much to warn folks of the perils ahead (and besides: no one likes a Cassandra). Sometimes the wizard needs to join the party. And sometimes the only way to spot the traps is to have a rogue on your side. Besides: this might actually be the key to a catalysing of global coordination, planetary regeneration, and a return to conviviality. I doubt it will—but it might, and so I remain open to whatever adjacent opportunities may yet unfurl. So that’s what I’ve been doing, and what I’m focused on ‘now’. My hope is that I might be able to steer folks along the path of least unnecessary suffering. I also remain open to surprise—there are some genuinely novel avenues of value and adjacent possibilities worth exploring. But, as ever—we’ve got to *keep our wits about us.* In addition to this I’ve been working on *The School of Fox Wizardry,* the book, and whatever one does when they are ‘collapse-aware’ but choosing to stay with the trouble. We’re entangled anyway, might as well dance as best we can. ### museletter ⟠ sacred sabotage URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/sacred-sabotage/ Last updated: 2026-05-04T02:30:38.000Z I recently saw this quote from [an essay by Vizi Andrei](https://substack.com/home/post/p-191589361?ref=foxwizard.com): > In *Antifragile,* Nassim Taleb makes the confession that he uses procrastination as a filter for his writing. If he feels strong resistance to writing a certain section, he leaves it out as a service to his readers: *“Why should they read something that I myself didn’t want to write?”* The amount of service I have been doing to my readers is *staggering*. (˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶) --- Hello dear subscriber. It’s been over three months since my last museletter to you. We’ve since had quite a few new subscribers joining us (welcome!). As ever I have so much to share with you. Before I get carried away: I’m [Dr. Jason Fox](https://foxwizard.com/about?ref=foxwizard.com) (aka foxwizard) and this is ****the museletter** *—*a warm epistle for liminal agents and all who quest. If a friend forwarded this to you, you can subscribe at [foxwizard.com](https://foxwizard.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) ♡ --- #### On this page... --- ## **i // Today we toast to The Fool** It’s April Fool’s Day. The Fool, in tarot, is a card numbered zero, representing free spirit and pure energy without shape (like the primordial chaos that giveth rise to the universe). With April Fool’s Day (and any day) **we can choose to be reminded** of the qualities of innocence and naïveté needed to *venture forth;* to [take the first step](https://youtu.be/3Xp1THyuOUo?si=vkhvPORsUJJbwVKe&t=45&ref=foxwizard.com). I’ve long used April Fool’s Day as an excuse to *begin anew*. You can, too! Why not. ### *Some lore* This museletter has been running for 15+ years now. In 2019—my “Year of The Fool”—I immolated much of my work (deleting \~8 years of blogs and podcasts) and moved to substack (back when the platform was a wonderful alternative for writers). Then three years ago (on [April Fool’s Day 2023](https://www.foxwizard.com/the-museletter-by-foxwizard/)) I left substack for [foxwizard.com](https://foxwizard.com/?ref=foxwizard.com). Was this self-sabotage? ## **ii // Self-Sabotage as Sacred Act** I used to teach folks how to cultivate the metacognition and acuity to recognise self-sabotage. Here’s a video from over 10 years ago—illustrated by my darling dangerlam—back when I was an uninitiated apprentice wizard. *Fun fact: it was made on April Fool’s Day 2016, and uploaded three days later.* Back then, I was running with the rather simplistic notion that “self-sabotage = bad.” My then-ontology was that we have a rational part of ourselves that sets goals, and then irrational parts of ourselves that subconsciously seek to *sabotage* our ability to achieve the goals we set. The solution was rational: ‘make it hard to make it hard for yourself.’ Cute. But I was *a king* among the midwitted back then, and unfortunately flirted too close to behaviourism (a discipline I’ve since come to know as blind). I had clever frameworks and ready explanations for most everything. But I was also very much “fenced in” to the rational frame. This is the midwit trap. ### *The midwit trap* Note: whilst I maintain that IQ is bullshit (I don’t believe in it; it actively disgusts me)—I like [the midwit meme](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f%5Fauto,q%5Fauto:good,fl%5Fprogressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6c5992f3-3f56-4f53-a821-d8ca961cb760%5F886x499.jpeg?ref=foxwizard.com). And I especially appreciatethe handshake that connects both ends of the bellcurve. It communicates an implicit understanding that simplicity exists across orders of complexity. Like a fractal—and [the principle of polarity](https://www.foxwizard.com/hermetic-disposition/#iv-%E2%9F%A0-the-principle-of-polarity)—the same patterns and principles hold. In this case, the ‘fool’ on the left is free from distorting frameworks and abstractions. And the ‘wizard’ on the right has wit enough to recognise the limitations of their own frameworks. They are able to see the fractal of the same simplicity the fool knows. There is a reason why The Magician and The Fool are the 0 and the 1 in tarot. It is also why my hat is *both* a wizard and dunce hat at once. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2026/04/DJF-wizard-hero.jpg) My likeness, as depicted by the [dangerlam](https://www.dangerlam.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) The poor ‘midwit,’ though. They’re trapped within their own ontology (and the performance of sophistication). And they (we?) don’t even know it. The midwit, you see, has the capability to construct and adopt frameworks, beliefs, and opinions—but they do not (yet) have enough ironic distance (nor intellectual humility) to see the arbitrariness of the constructs they hold. And these days, we do not valorise conversation, epistemological humility and an openness to changing our minds. The attention economy *selects for* conviction, confidence and consistency. So if you aren’t performing **the sacred trickster act** of covering your tracks, scrambling your message, torching your trail, shifting your shape, and maintaining some level of mercuriality then, well: you’ll be open to capture. This is further compounded if your business model depends upon the ‘intellectual property’ you have created. As Upton Sinclair said, *“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”* The use of Large Language Models further perpetuates this. ** But then, lo: *what’s this?* ** The subconscious—that supposedly irrational (yet not anti-rational) part of you—has a *deeper* wisdom that your bright intelligence cannot eclipse. Or perhaps it is your daimon helping you to stumble on the false fate you’re pursuing. Either way it’s letting itself be known. Again. A *sacred* form of self-sabotage is enacted. A [*window of disenchantment*](https://www.foxwizard.com/e2/) opens. The window beckons: *step through.* Leave these constructs behind. They were never real, anyway. Free yourself from the shackles of belief, so that you might open yourself to curiosity, doubt, wonder and awe once more... ◊◊◊ I was good at ignoring the call for many years; the call that has us move from [ambition to vocation](https://www.foxwizard.com/firesides-ambition-vocation/). Three years ago I split my personas: I had Dr. Jason Fox (keynote speaker and leadership advisor), and then foxwizard (my moonlight façade). As *foxwizard* I could venture beyond what Dr. Jason Fox could, into darker aspects beyond The Overton Window. From all outward signs it looked as though I was sabotaging my business and much of what I had “built.” But the self-sabotage was only a sabotage to the ambitions and constructs of the little self. I’m hardly enlightened now, but I do feel wiser—and more at peace with myself than I have been in *years.* Besides, I was embarrassed and somewhat ashamed of my profession. The successful thought leader of today is a far cry from the public intellectuals I admired back when I was a young mage teaching at universities. But this is symptomatic of the times. Our lives are now mediated through online mediums. The [affordances](https://blog.ayjay.org/towards-old-man-willow/?ref=foxwizard.com) of the platforms we use keep us fenced-in, domesticated and denatured. Part of you knows this. And so when you find yourself procrastinating, sure, it might be your undiagnosed ADHD. But it might also be because there’s part of you that knows: *you don’t want to do the thing*. It could be that your[*ambition is holding you back*](https://www.foxwizard.com/firesides-ambition-vocation/#on-ambition). Discerning apathy from wisdom is the key here. ### *The subtle realm* My occasional reference to \~fae magics is not merely cute affectation. The Machine—the prevailing force of our times—has distracted/numbed/blinded us to what gestalt practitioners might call ‘the field,’ and what Layman Pascal and liminal practitioners might call ‘[the subtle realm](https://www.whatisemerging.com/opinions/the-subtle-in-a-liminal-lens?ref=foxwizard.com).’ > \[...\] *qualitative affects* are essential to map-making in this area. Whether or not we treat the subtle (and its occupants) as ontologically real, our ability to track *valences* seems crucial to either projecting or detecting these things. How deft are you at tracking the subtle realm? How attuned are you to felt-sense? And how developed is your acuity to recognise (and work with) anomaly? Fellow hermetic wizard [Rocco Jarman recently posted the following comment](https://substack.com/@roccojarman/note/c-235330654?ref=foxwizard.com) on substack: > We each make our choices and some are made for us. When I read AI writing it looks like AI writing. It feels like something. It generates a feeling change within the field and something that I cannot control, pushes the work away and no matter how much I try and engage with the essence, the synthetica of it kills the flow and the engagement. The potential connection with meaning is impinged. > > What I can choose, is how I have decided to not blame myself for having a healthy aversion to synthentica. > > “It is no measure of good health to be well adjusted to synthetic AI generated content.” > > If you write this way, you do you, but find the courtesy or the courage to disclaim it and have the sense to realise that there is a species of discernment that sees it as something less than it could be. I have a very similar aversion to synthetica (great term!). And it might be due to the fact that I love reading and writing; it’s the water I swim in. I’m used to it. Which is why the absence of essence—of soul—in writing is felt. This is distinct from—yet related to—[void hunting](https://www.foxwizard.com/e5/). As The Machine and its synthetica take over yet more aspects of our lives, many of us will want to get better at attuning to the subtle realm. To [find and feed the leaks](https://www.foxwizard.com/feeding-leaks/). To notice when we self-sabotage, and to have the wise discernment to recognise if there is something beneath it worth heeding. [Your calling keeps calling](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=my1HRnqUS8Y&source%5Fve%5Fpath=MjM4NTE&embeds%5Freferring%5Feuri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.foxwizard.com%2F&ref=foxwizard.com), says Michael Meade. It’s oh so subtle, at first. But if you keep ignoring it then, well, the calls might well get louder. And they might manifest as burnout, or worse. A greater and greater calamity until you finally take a moment, for yourself, and *listen.* ## **iii // “This isn’t even my final form”** I have finally updated my website. Instead of being slightly embarrassed by: - the antics Dr. Jason Fox must do to register as salient and legible to agents within Enterprise Land; and - the relative inaccessibility of the writings of foxwizard, and my questing amidst the liminal, penumbra and occult —I have coalesced the two forms back into the one entity. I am no longer Dr. Jason Fox, Archwizard of Ambiguity (most fantastic) at drjasonfox.com—that website has been sunsetted. I’m now simply Dr. Jason Fox, Wizard (aka foxwizard) at [foxwizard.com](https://foxwizard.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) 🦊 [Dr. Fox (wizard) ⟠ Wyrd WorkHall of Fame keynote speaker, facilitator & liminal leadership advisor for a time betwixt worlds.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/icon/foxwizard-favicon-36.png)Dr. Fox ⟠ Wyrd Work![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/thumbnail/foxwizard-drjasonfox-website_1-1-3.png)](https://foxwizard.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) If it’s been a while since you have updated your personal website, I highly recommend it. It’s a horrid, *horrid* activity. To sculpt oneself into legibility whilst preserving enough nebulous animacy to keep your authenticity and fluidity alive and well is a task that requires some *deftness*. It’s a narrow path to walk. Much of the prevailing norms are commodifying, making parodies of us all. But the friction of making a website forces the question: *who do you present as? Who do you work with? And how do you help?* This lights a beacon to attract the kinds of opportunities you want in your life. I’ve long known: I work well with eccentric executives. The well-read, forward-thinking, rogue agents who happen to play leadership roles. The ones witted and wise enough to know: *only that which can change can continue.* Fellow infinite players, if you will. Particularly: those of us *“playing Game A with a* [*Game B*](https://www.gameb.wiki/index.php?title=Game%5FB&ref=foxwizard.com) *heart,”* as I like to say. Those who work at the periphery of what is and what may yet become. This is all largely what the mythopoetic complexity practitioner in me knows as *liminal leadership* and *wyrd work*. ## **iv // What I’m seeing in my work** Much of my work in the past year has been with executive teams who have a CEO that has gone “all in” on a strategy to “integrate agentic AI into every facet of the business.” It’s an intellectually fascinating challenge. In the depth of my dark forest questing I wouldn’t have gone near such. But now I’m [*staying with the trouble*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staying%5Fwith%5Fthe%5FTrouble?ref=foxwizard.com) (to reference Donna Haraway). We’re all in this mess together, and my stance on AI has shifted somewhat. But I sometimes can’t help but wonder if [LLMs are making some CEOs delusional](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6nem-F8AG8&ref=foxwizard.com) (apologies for the YouTube bro link; but I find myself in agreeance). CEOs are in the perfect position to be glazed. If they are of [the dark triad](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark%5Ftriad?ref=foxwizard.com), they’ll be surrounded by people who won’t challenge them directly; people who are incentivised to support their vision. It’ll be very hard for them to find anyone to talk with—but their pet LLMs will be there. *“If a CEO asked an LLM a series of questions about business strategy, the replies would more than likely align with the CEO’s existing views, assuring them that their thinking is sound and that they are on the right course.”* [Professor Amar Bhindé says](https://www.imd.org/ibyimd/artificial-intelligence/artificial-confidence-how-llms-undermine-executive-thinking/?ref=foxwizard.com). *“They play courtier, not devil’s advocate.”* In a paper titled [*AI makes you smarter but none the wiser: The disconnect between performance and metacognition*](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563225002262?via%3Dihub&ref=foxwizard.com)(published late 2025), it was found that when people used ChatGPT to solve logic problems, everyone overestimated their own performance. Naturally. But those who considered themselves most AI-literate overestimated the most. Now imagine that dynamic playing out on strategic decisions with material consequences—in the hands of someone already insulated from dissent. I would get so much more work if I simply danced to the tune of The Machine. Alas: these times call for wisdom. No, that’s not quite the right word. The times call for [*mêtis*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metis%5F%28mythology%29?ref=foxwizard.com)*—*the sacred and practical cunning of life itself. The teams I work with (usually senior leaders a step removed from C-suite, if the enterprise is large) are the ones that need to actually execute upon the vision. And this is where the messiness of the work reveals itself. It’s wondrously entangled, with will o’ the wisps, traps and false-paths aplenty. It calls for quintessential *questing*. But, as I’ve said before: [questing is a precursor to strategy](https://www.foxwizard.com/quest-strategy/). If a chief executive officer and their LLM-entity have decided to make something a strategy—before having scouted and cultivated a quiver of options—then, well: we’re going to have to keep our wits about us. Wisdom can be smuggled into the mix yet still. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2026/04/corrupt.jpg) Here’s a card from Magic: The Gathering—something I consider quite apt for the times. And whilst I am not asserting this is true, it’s worth entertaining the question: *is AI making our leaders delusional?* I won’t go too deep into the lore, but this is all very [Phyrexian](https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Phyrexian?ref=foxwizard.com) (and, in particular, [Gixian](https://mtg.fandom.com/wiki/Gix?ref=foxwizard.com)). Gix excels at corruption through seduction, identifying what people want (power, knowledge, immortality) and offering Phyrexian “solutions” whilst framing them as the supplicant’s own enlightened choice. Gixians present themselves as deferential servants whilst actually being vectors for Phyrexian ideology. If you were being corrupted, **how would you know?** *Could it be the part of you that seeks to sabotage or undermine your efforts?* ## **v // Huzzah—two new Kindred Spirits episodes!** The Kindred Spirits podcast is back! The podcast now lives at [kindredspiritspod.substack.com](https://kindredspiritspod.substack.com/) (I know – back on substack; I am full of contradictions). We have a whole new introduction, and new theme music for the fake ad, whisky sampling and bad advice. I caught up with my co-host and friend [John Anthony](https://www.transcend.com.au/?ref=foxwizard.com) last night, and we have some sumptuous things in store for you this season. Here’s Episode One: “Between the lily pads” [“Between the lily pads” ᝰ Kindred SpiritsThe Kindred Spirits podcast with John Anthony & Jason Fox![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/icon/https-3A-2F-2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com-2Fpublic-2Fimages-2F00f7a26a-aecc-4a46-960d-9a20ed4e9c89-2Fapple-touch-icon-180x180-2.png)Kindred Spirits 🥃✨John Anthony![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/thumbnail/https-3A-2F-2Fsubstack-video.s3.amazonaws.com-2Fvideo_upload-2Fpost-2F188678479-2F0ceb63ed-2e78-44c5-a726-61c2ae22497e-2Ftranscoded-499613-1.png)](https://kindredspiritspod.substack.com/p/between-the-lily-pads-kindred-spirits) And here’s Episode Two: “Patterns in the penumbra” [“Patterns in the penumbra” ᝰ Kindred SpiritsThe Kindred Spirits podcast with John Anthony & Jason Fox![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/icon/https-3A-2F-2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com-2Fpublic-2Fimages-2F00f7a26a-aecc-4a46-960d-9a20ed4e9c89-2Fapple-touch-icon-180x180-1.png)Kindred Spirits 🥃✨John Anthony![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/thumbnail/https-3A-2F-2Fsubstack-video.s3.amazonaws.com-2Fvideo_upload-2Fpost-2F190690534-2Fdc9eb1e4-a511-4772-8493-5f29f4aaf26e-2Ftranscoded-317072.png)](https://kindredspiritspod.substack.com/p/patterns-in-the-penumbra-kindred) We have received some absolutely wonderful reviews recently, too. Much love! > **Philosophy with double banter on the Side** ⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑ > *This podcast that makes you question the meaning of life while laughing. Equal parts philosophy and chaos, a balance that just works!* > > **Laugh and learn along the way. Good for the soul** ⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑ > *This is my go to at the end of the day, when I'm walking the dog, wanting to just switch off from the intensity of the world - and smile, laugh out loud, and learn little nuggets of gold along the way. Love the energy and connection between these two and where the conversation takes them.* > > **Banter ASMR** ⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑ > *I genuinely love Kindred Spirits and the way these two fruity characters talk nonsense about whatever grabs them, in a way that's sharp and strangely cosy. The format is deliberately unstructured, which lets the conversation wander and then unexpectedly land somewhere interesting. Because it's basically unedited, it feels like you're not "listening to a show", you're hanging out with mates. I regularly feel like the third member of the chat and want to chime in. If you like wit, whimsy, and a dram with your banter, this one's a cracker.* It is such a delight to make these and share these podcast episodes with you. Find us on [substack](https://kindredspiritspod.substack.com/), [apple podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/kindred-spirits/id1873841039?ref=foxwizard.com) and [spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/1Tyq3Bh4UStgqeR4G0XtdK?ref=foxwizard.com) (if ye must!). --- ## **vi // Penultimate hinting as to The School of Fox Wizardry** I will soon be opening applications for *The School of Fox Wizardry.* What even is it? It is a business school for liminal agents and complexity practitioners, with a particular emphasis on being a genuine thought leader in this time betwixt worlds. Except the term ‘thought leader’ has been rendered null. Much like ‘leadership,’ ha. We now live in a world inundated with *that-which-masquerades-as-thought-leadership*. Thanks to large language models, it now takes significantly less time to ‘produce content’ than it takes to consume it. Where does this lead? [Lemon markets](https://frankchimero.com/blog/2025/selling-lemons/?ref=foxwizard.com) saturated with homogenised slop. But some of us are wily enough to avoid such traps. And some of us genuinely know things, with wisdom and insight apt for these times. But more than this: some of us have a *presence*. A resonant frequency, coupled with a deft acuity for what’s emerging, and an attunement to the relational field. (All of us have the capacity for this, btw. It’s a human quality.) ‘Thought leader’ doesn’t quite encompass this. But *wizardry* does*.* There is (a fellow wizard writes) [a case for wizardry](https://open.substack.com/pub/seethroughtheworld/p/the-case-for-wizardry). The wizardry I know, to be specific, is *fox* wizardry. The kind that is quite at home amidst the liminal. The School of Fox Wizardry will take cohorts of liminal agents through the art of: *realising authentic voice and unique magic; cultivating a knowledge garden and body of work;* and *becoming known amidst a network of kindred spirits.* That last point hints at *The Skulk*—a fox-like guild of liminal agents I’m cultivating. The school is a front for the guild. I'm focusing most of April on preparing the space, and I'll be inviting a core crew in before long—starting with [quester, querent and quixotic](https://www.foxwizard.com/guidance/) supporter-subscribers. I am one of the few with early access to [The Dark Forest Operating System](https://www.dfos.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) (it’s early days but this shows real promise, giving me hope that we can find a private haven [protected from enshittification](https://www.ystrickler.com/antienshittification/?ref=foxwizard.com)). Stay tuned and let’s see what unfurls... --- I had wanted to share a bunch of great podcasts and reads with you—next time! My goal for these museletters: half the length, twice the frequency. Watch me fail. ♡ With much warmth, Jason ### Sunsetting The “Chose One Word” Ritual of Becoming URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/sunsetting-the-ritual/ Last updated: 2026-03-30T01:22:12.000Z I found myself [posting this on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/drjasonfox%5Fq-jason-why-dont-you-market-the-choose-activity-7417391241073577984-fXJJ?ref=foxwizard.com), of all places. Along with a video. Thought I might share it here, too. *Q: Jason, why don’t you ever market* [*The “Choose One Word” Ritual of Becoming*](https://www.cleverness.com/word?ref=foxwizard.com)*? Over a thousand people have done it, and some have been doing it for over half a decade now. You have many emails sharing how life changing the program is. So… why not tell people about it?* A: Oh I do sometimes hint of it, via my museletter. *Q: Ha! But your museletters are so deep and long and mercurial and link-laden. And they only come out once a month or so. And I suspect many don’t even know about it. You should be telling everyone on the socials!* A: Is that a question? *Q: Ha, no I’m just frustrated. Your program is so good. Why aren’t you claiming the space. It’s been over half a dozen years since you launched it.* A: Aye, and 15 years since I begun The Ritual of Becoming. And the ritual itself has changed; as I have, too. When I launched the program in 2019 I was still reeling from the loss of a father, and then soon after we had bushfires and a pandemic. So much world grief that I had ‘intellectually processed’ demanded metabolisation. And so I descended into the underworld, questing amidst the dark forest, finding my way to cocoon. And for half a dozen years I wandered the dark forests of my own unbecoming; only to find myself once more. This is something much deeper and more personal than the yearly shedding/moulting/shapeshifting encouraged by The Ritual of Becoming as I shared it back then. And whilst I still love and standby the curriculum I shared—70+ videos to help you reflect, introspect, and project-forth a sense of your own unfurling—I find I have little interest in marketing or promulgating the program. The calling, I feel, is to offer a more intentional container, anchored to equinoxes, wherein I can be more present in the teaching, sharing and attending to folks as they go about the intentional process of quickening their developmental unfurling. And so the program in its current form (at [chooseoneword.com](https://www.cleverness.com/word?ref=foxwizard.com)) will be sunsetted at the end of this month. A new version will emerge soon after. *Q: I see, so—what, there will be a new one? What will happen to the old program?* A: It’ll still be available for existing members. And for anyone who signs up before the end of the month. At the end of January we go into hibernation. The lessons will remain for folks enrolled. *Q: When does the new program come out?* A: Some time before April Fool’s Day. Year tbd. *Q: Is this a joke?* A: Nay, it’s the heralding of new beginnings. *Q: What should folks do now?* A: Well, as you know I am ambivalent and vexingly mercurial with regards to social media. The best thing to do, as ever, is to stay subscribed to the museletter here at [foxwizard.com](https://www.foxwizard.com/tag/museletter/). If folks feel the call to do The Ritual of Becoming in its current form, they can sign up at [chooseoneword.com](https://www.cleverness.com/word?ref=foxwizard.com) before the end of the month. They’ll not be disadvantaged when the program is evolved into its new form. *Q: I still think you should market more.* A: Some things have their own animacy, and must be approached surreptitiously, in the penumbra. To make a subtle thing and obvious Thing is, sometimes, to render the magic away. Our world is loud, demanding, and distracting—it’s nice to offer some things that reward the curious and those willing to venture beyond the beaten path. *Q: Sigh, okay. But other people are talking about ‘Picking A Word’ now and they are doing it so mechanically, superficially and performatively.* A: Ha, the nuanced distinction between “pick” and “choose” (˶˃𐃷˂˶). No matter! It’s still wonderful to see folks step beyond the tyranny of goals and the cult of achievement. Working qualitatively, with words, is still a great step to working meaningfully with *wyrd*. This is all a good thing. And it’s wonderful that there are plenty of options to meet folks at whatever depth they feel called to. *Q: When did you become so sanguine?* A: Only recently! It’s one of the gifts from my years in the dark forest. Thanks for noticing. *Q: Okay so, what now?* A: What now indeed. ### e22 // Knowledge of Curses URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/knowledge-of-curses/ Last updated: 2026-01-04T06:44:22.000Z Subscribe and listen on [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/foxwizard/id1645970777?ref=foxwizard.com) and [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/2hkJuLE5VMED5rvDqnH4RL?ref=foxwizard.com). This is the final episode of “Season One” of [the foxwizard podcast](https://www.foxwizard.com/e0/). In this episode I unburden myself of a concept I have been wanting to share with you for some time: 1. **Knowledge of Curses.** That is, malefic punishment or consequence that endures until either broken or lifted (due to certain conditions being met). This isn’t my magic, but I am bard enough to know of it. I’d never dabble in such; not even hexes. You need to be careful with what you weave, and where you invest your energy. Such things bind. Yet still: it’s good to know of such, so that you can go gently. 2. **The Curse of Knowledge.** This is a cognitive bias wherein we assume others have the same familiarity with specialised knowledge as we do. I tend to believe we must relate to everyone *horizontally*—no one is greater-than or less-than anyone else. This means I tend to treat everyone as a peer (which only exacerbates the curse of knowledge). And whilst it is true that we are all kindred spirits, not everyone likes bafflement. And yet there *is* such a thing as teacherly authority. Good teachers have this. And the charm of teacherly authority is the orientation towards redundancy—a good teacher *wants* to be surpassed by their student, for it means they have fulfilled their role well. I’d like to be a good teacher. Or at least: better than I have been. 3. **Cursed Knowledge.** Just as there are some concepts that resist awareness ([antimemes](https://www.foxwizard.com/e5/#antimemetics)), so too there exists knowledge that isn’t merely additional content for the mind\[^ Tidbits and ‘new facts’ that fit within existing paradigms.\] but rather something that reconfigures the substrate of perception itself, collapsing possibilities that were previously open. In previous episodes, whilst I was still questing in the dark forest, you might have heard me speak of the *insight-cascade* that had me finally realise “The Meta-Crisis.” This is cursed knowledge.\[^ Once you know it, you cannot return to the innocence of your previous cosmology because you’ve become *complicit* with what you now understand. You’re no longer an external observer of a fact—“just asking the questions”—you’re *enrolled* as a participant in its reality. And also: you’re responsible for what you know now, too. Cursed knowledge doesn’t sit neutral in your mind. It’s not merely interesting—it *inhabits* you. And you cannot un-know it; you’re bound to the same threads that led you to its realisation.\] It is ontologically destabilising, snuffing illusion and hope. It’s also something people don’t want to hear, or engage in—they’ll have subconscious cognitive defences to protect against discomfort and dissonance. But hey—there’s an accord one can arrive at. Something post-tragic. And you’re not alone. And *it’s not all on you alone,* either. Oh and who knows—what seems a curse may become a blessing. *Amor fati et al.* Note: this is actually *quite* an upbeat episode. I know it might not sound like it is, what with the title and content thus far. But really, it is! ᐠ( ᐛ )ᐟ This episode was recorded on the 18th of December 2025 whilst sitting by a pond at the edge of a forest at the back of a property within *lunawanna-allonah*.\[^ Also known as Bruny Island; a small island off the island of Tasmania (itself being a small island off the continental island of Australia).\] You’ll hear plenty of bird song, and some frog ribbits, too. I was staying with my friends Paul and Annie; ostensibly for a wizardly writing retreat. And I *did* get a lot of writing done, including some conceptual breakthroughs that allow for many things to *finally* coalesce. It was also a blessing to be (mostly) away from internet for a week. What here follows are the ‘show notes’—links from the many references I casually drop in this warm and extended soliloquy. My curse of knowledge means that, in the moment, I assume you mostly know what I am talking about. (•᷄ᴗ•᷅ ᵕ) ## *Show notes* I’ve added approximate time-stamps to each. --- *\~12mins, 11 seconds* *“Atheists are just modern versions of religious fundamentalists: both take religion too literally.”* I reference Nassim Taleb a lot. His aphorisms (mostly) ‘bang’, as I believe the children say. This, in turn, brings to mind James P. Carse’s wondrous book, *The Religious Case Against Belief,* which posits religion as poetic, infinite play. This also parallels David Chapman’s comments on how ‘[eternalism](https://meaningness.com/eternalism?ref=foxwizard.com)’ (the sense that everything has a fixed and clear-cut meaning) is a fantasy. I think (?) a long time ago I spoke of similar such things in [the labyrinths of reason](https://www.foxwizard.com/labyrinths/). --- *\~13 mins, 42 seconds* “Cognitive Atrophy” is a concept I find myself referencing a lot, these days. And the analogy that Zachary Stein uses is brilliant. [Here’s a link](https://youtu.be/nDyczqzjico?si=kPcOED3WJEVHNum-&t=2810&ref=foxwizard.com) to the video of the conversation Zachary had along with Nora Bateson on [The Great Simplification](https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) with Nate Hagens (the link will [jump straight to the piece](https://youtu.be/nDyczqzjico?si=kPcOED3WJEVHNum-&t=2810&ref=foxwizard.com)—but as always, the whole conversation is worth it). The crude gist is that cognitive atrophy is what we get if we rely on AI to do our thinking for us. It’s like going to the gym, but instead of lifting weights you strap into an exoskeleton suit that can lift the weight for you. So while, yes, you are lifting weights—and probably more than you normally could—relying on the exoskeleton will see your own muscles wither away. The message here is *not* “don’t use it” but rather to be more considered as to when you do use it. It’s a kind of magic, and all magic involves some kind of exchange. --- *\~19 mins* > *“Not doing any magic at all was the chief task of wizards—not ‘not doing magic’ because they couldn't do magic, but not doing magic when they could do and didn’t. Any ignorant fool can fail to turn someone else into a frog. You have to be clever to refrain from doing it when you knew how easy it was. There were places in the world commemorating those times when wizards hadn’t been quite as clever as that, and on many of them the grass would never grow again.”* ― Terry Pratchett, Going Postal --- *\~26 mins* I reference [Ursula K. Le Guin’s Bryn Mawr Commencement Address (1986)](https://serendipstudio.org/sci%5Fcult/leguin/?ref=foxwizard.com) where she talks of *Father Tongue and Mother Tongue.* --- *\~31 mins* I referenced (from memory) a “quote” from Krista Tippett and [*On Being*](https://onbeing.org/series/podcast/?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* This may have been something I heard her say when she visited Melbourne ([I can’t find the source](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fsource-i-made-it-up-highest-quality-version-on-the-internet-v0-4o2kp9cvkzwf1.png%3Fwidth%3D1666%26format%3Dpng%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3Dfdbb6fc9049ff8f97007656d3d825d40d97ff70d&rdt=45014&ref=foxwizard.com)). But essentially, I recall her kindly eschewing the thought of interviewing anyone with ‘too much conviction’. Hers is a style that orients away from epistemic closure, and she is exquisitely talented at drawing people toward articulating what they haven’t ever quite put words to before. This requires a certain openness, which conviction precludes. --- *\~34 mins* There I go, (slightly mis-)quoting Wendell Berry’s [*Our Real Work*](https://grateful.org/resource/our-real-work-poem-wendell-berry/?ref=foxwizard.com)*,* again. I also reference [The Cost Of Reading Wendell Berry](https://overthefield.substack.com/p/the-cost-of-reading-wendell-berry), a wonderful piece by Hadden Turner. > *“It is painful, at times very painful, reading Wendell Berry. There you are, sitting down comfortably to read what you think will be a quaint and nostalgic treatise on the virtues of horse-drawn tools, when suddenly you are confronted with Mr. Berry forcing you to reconsider your relationship with speed, efficiency, and the fast-paced life. Or perhaps you are settling down at night in the warm glow of your lightbulb to read an essay before you go to bed, only to read how Mr. Berry has committed to not writing in the evening as that would mean he has to use electric lights. This, he argues, would make him complicit in the mountaintop removal coal mining for electrical energy generation that he has protested so vehemently against. Being confronted with our complicity in the degradation, damage, and at times, destruction of the good which is all around us is painful. For sure, then, it can be a highly uncomfortable experience reading Wendell Berry. But the pain is why you should.”* --- *\~37 mins* My “cult classic” book [*How to Lead a Quest*](https://www.drjasonfox.com/shop?ref=foxwizard.com) turns 10 today. --- *\~42 mins, 30 seconds* I talk of my friend [Vas Clementine](https://www.vasclementine.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) and his [Remembering Story Medicine](https://events.humanitix.com/remembering-story-medicine?ref=foxwizard.com) events. --- *\~43 mins* I mention my friend [Mykel Dixon](https://mykeldixon.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) and his WILD work. ✧｡٩(ˊᗜˋ )و✧\*｡ --- *\~43 mins* I also talk of my friend [John Anthony](https://transcend.com.au/?ref=foxwizard.com) and reflect fondly on 10 episodes of Kindred Spirits. *You can watch and listen to them all at* [*kindredspiritspod.substack.com*](https://kindredspiritspod.substack.com/) --- *\~47 mins, 30 seconds* I mention [The Law Of The Excluded Middle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law%5Fof%5Fexcluded%5Fmiddle?ref=foxwizard.com). This was something I was reminded of recently in David Chapman’s essay on [*Seeing and Doing Mythically*](https://meaningness.substack.com/p/seeing-and-doing-mythically)*.* > *“The mythic mode not only* [*tolerates*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mythopoeic%5Fthought?ref=foxwizard.com#Tolerance%5Fof%5Fcontradiction)*, but actively enjoys, *contradiction* as well as ambiguity.* > > \[...\] > > [*Reasonableness*](https://metarationality.com/reasonableness-aspects?ref=foxwizard.com) *is not comfortable with contradictions, and will try to change the subject, or obfuscate when they can’t be avoided. Rationalism, of course, rejects contradictions outright. It is* [*founded*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law%5Fof%5Fexcluded%5Fmiddle?ref=foxwizard.com#Aristotle)[ *on*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law%5Fof%5Fexcluded%5Fmiddle?ref=foxwizard.com#Aristotle) *the* [*Law of the Excluded Middle*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law%5Fof%5Fexcluded%5Fmiddle?ref=foxwizard.com)*. “It will not be possible to be and not to be the same thing,” is one way Aristotle put it. Rationalism insists that every possible proposition is either absolutely true or absolutely false—in the face of constant evidence that* [*nearly all of them are neither*](https://metarationality.com/sort-of-truth?ref=foxwizard.com)*. It is only at the stage of* [*meta-rationality*](https://meaningness.substack.com/p/meta-rationality-table-of-contents) *that we regain skill in juggling contradictions—and delight in them.”* --- *\~53 mins, 30 seconds* I share my appreciation for Josh Schrei and The Emerald podcast. In particular, a recent episode [*On Mythic Burdens and Cosmic Supports*](https://www.themythicbody.com/podcast/carry-that-weight-on-mythic-burdens-and-cosmic-supports/?ref=foxwizard.com) was just what I needed to hear. I recently met with [Gabrielle Feather](https://gabriellefeather.substack.com/) in Lutruwita (a new friend from the interwebs) and she expressed much the same. --- *\~56 mins* I mentioned [the nihilistic gap](https://metarationality.com/meta-rationality-curriculum?ref=foxwizard.com#4.5) again. Here’s a short post on [*overcoming post-rationalist nihilism*](https://metarationality.com/post-rationalist-nihilism?ref=foxwizard.com), if you happen to be amidst such. --- *\~57 mins, 30 seconds* I make reference to a *horizonal* disposition, which I wrote of in [a horizonal museletter](https://www.foxwizard.com/horizonal-museletter/#quest-to-plan-%E0%AA%9C%E2%81%80%E2%9E%B4). --- *\~1 hour, 3 minutes* I hat tip to [Dave Snowden](https://www.linkedin.com/in/dave-snowden-2a93b/?ref=foxwizard.com) once again. If you don’t mind warranted grumpy and occasionally polemic vibes, it’s worth following Dave to see the many skirmishes he engages in on LinkedIn. He has a bright mind and a warm heart. Or better yet, eschew social media. (Except for [slow social media](https://herman.bearblog.dev/slow-social-media/?ref=foxwizard.com).) --- *\~1 hour, 7 minutes, 40 seconds* I went grim-but-clear-sighted, referencing how many of the elders in the environmental movement have been saying that it is too late. I remember listening to [Joanna Macy in conversation with Jessica Serrante](https://youtu.be/RA0SPcdowuA?si=TyhCHBu2IpSW2ptd&t=1126&ref=foxwizard.com) with Kim last year and, well, even finding this link for you brought me to tears again. Ours is a society that is good at ignoring [the wisdom of the elders](https://cribb.substack.com/p/wisdom-of-the-elders) (<– good article btw). It stands to reason, as [this post articulates](https://gnug315.substack.com/p/our-planet-sized-gordian-knot). But notice how, if you go to read this article, your eyes might glaze and your mind might seek distraction. That might be your cognitive defence in action. It’s a lot to process. Even more to metabolise. Heavy, “cursed” knowledge. And I am not sure I would wish it upon folks any more; folks will arrive to it, in their own way. One way or another. This came to mind when I listened to [Jasmine Sun in conversation with Celine Nguyen](https://jasmi.news/p/celine-nguyen?ref=foxwizard.com). *\~1 hour, 15 minutes* > “\[...\] *I have seen all those articles that are like, culture is stagnating. It's in decline. Like literature is worse than it was in the past. Art is worse than it was in the past.* > > *And I think there’s this real like epistemological problem trying to figure out if that’s true.* > > *Because it’s like, I wasn’t alive in the past when things were supposed to be good. So I’m trying to compare, I don’t know, like me as a baby in the 90s to like me now as an adult in the 21st century.”* This makes sense. The topic was culture, but also: younger folk won’t know a world lush with diverse insects and birds—they only know what they know. These are our [shifting baselines](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/20/selective-blindness-lethal-natural-world-open-eyes-environment-ecosystem?ref=foxwizard.com). And is it ‘fair’ for them to know of heavier things? Of a grim future? I don’t know. This is probably why, in wiser cultures, some knowledge is protected or hidden. Last year I gave a lecture to a room of bright young minds at [The Liveris Academy](https://liveris-academy.uq.edu.au/?ref=foxwizard.com). And it left me realising: young minds need the story, the hope, the dream. We do too. *And...* some of us also need to be willing to contend with the reality at hand. *\~1 hour, 17 minutes, 40 seconds* All of this necessitates a shift in consciousness. A re-opening of The Eye of Value we all have (to quote from the composite David J. Temple in [*First Principles and First Values of Evolving Perennialism*](https://www.officeforthefuture.com/sites/officeforthefuture/files/files/2023%2005%2017%20-%20First%20Principles%20and%20first%20values%20of%20evolving%20perennialism%5F1.pdf?ref=foxwizard.com), p. 71). But it needs to be done with deft acuity and attunement—too direct, and people shut down. The trouble with cursed knowledge is that you feel the need to share it. The trouble with cursed knowledge *is also* that people don’t want to hear it. And they’ll go to great lengths to avoid discomfort and cognitive dissonance. This can be exacerbating, but it can be transmuted. Dougal Hine [writes](https://dougald.substack.com/p/the-spell-is-breaking) that *“\[Ivan\] Illich used to say that hope is ‘remaining open to surprise’. Not assuming you know the end of the story.”* And, in *Finite and Infinite Games,* James P. Carse reminds that whilst *“surprise causes finite play to end; it is the reason for infinite play to continue”.* > *“The paradox in our relation to nature is that the more deeply a culture respects the indifference of nature, the more creatively it will call upon its own spontaneity in response. The more clearly we remind ourselves that we can have no unnatural influence on nature, the more our culture will embody a freedom to embrace surprise and unpredictability.”* This, to my sensibilities, speaks very much to the “surrendered participation” inherent to the concept of *wyrd;* the practice of engaging in the act of your own (and our collective) becoming. To shape fate by accepting what cannot be changed *whilst acting within what can.* --- *\~1 hour, 18 minutes* I reference a piece from a recent episode of [The Integral Stage](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaA4zkLRnR3lGm8Y7c5Tvdw?ref=foxwizard.com), in which Layman Pascal enjoys a conversation with Alexander Love on [*A Post-Tragic Worldview*](https://youtu.be/A7Xud8CvRlU?si=kmEmp%5FaHWwjP1I-k&ref=foxwizard.com). Here are two choice quotes. From Layman: > “\[...\] *sometimes I’ll talk to people who are a little bit younger than me, and they’re worried about how we’re gonna help with this and how we’re gonna solve the meta-crisis. And you want to just say to them, look, we’re all going to die. The project is going to fail. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it.”* From Alexander: > *“And so, you know, there’s a way in which we can see that this process is vast, so maybe it can lead to a sense of insignificance. On the other hand, we have the option to plant these fantastic seeds of possibility that really change people.* > > *Even in the smallest of interactions, we don't need the biggest map to make the biggest change. *I think we just need to learn how to love each other when we disagree.* That becomes a seed for how the world’s going to unfold for the next 14 billion years.* > > *I feel like there’s a way of participating in that forward movement of seeds that’s related to maybe feeling insignificant. Sort of letting all the potentially negative feelings drop through oneself.*” --- Whilst recording this I heard the call of a [Swift Parrot](https://brunyisland.com.au/birdlife/swift-parrot?ref=foxwizard.com). ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/12/image-8.png) Photo by [Rod Hartvigsen](https://www.instagram.com/hartvigsenrod/?hl=en&ref=foxwizard.com) In the podcast I mentioned that the Swift Parrot was an endling, but I misspoke. An [endling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endling?ref=foxwizard.com) is the *last* individual of a species.\[^ It’s also [a game](https://store.steampowered.com/app/898890/Endling%5F%5FExtinction%5Fis%5FForever/?ref=foxwizard.com) in which you play as the last fox mother.\] The Swift Parrot is, I meant to say, critically endangered. There are just 750 estimated to be remaining in the wild, and *“unless the threats facing the species are rapidly assessed, and its habitat restored, there is a high likelihood the parrot will become extinct over the next 20 years”* ([Zoos Victoria](https://www.zoo.org.au/fighting-extinction/local-threatened-species/swift-parrot/?ref=foxwizard.com)). To hear the Swift Parrot is a happy-sad thing. --- Ha! I am meant to be flaunting how buoyant and out of the dark forest I am. And it’s true; I’m *beaming.* But there remains things I know, and perhaps you know too, that warrant a healthy kind of sadness. Having wended my way out of the dark forest, I now squint back unto the city cast in harsh light. I’ve a sense as to the work I am called to do. --- Things to look forward to in 2026: - **The School of Fox Wizardry**™ // A nine-month program in which you will cultivate the wit, wisdom and wiles needed to flourish as a ‘thought leader’ in this new age of cheap intelligence. **Be the one they turn to.**™ - **The Lantern Guild**™ // If the school goes well, we may well get a guild for rogue wizards happening. [Thieves’ guild vibes](https://www.foxwizard.com/horizonal-museletter/#3-a-portal-to-the-school-of-fox-wizardry-is-coming-%F0%90%80%94). A network of construct-aware independent consultants and complexity practitioners who collectively band together for wicked challenges and collective projects. **Work magic.**™ - **The Ritual of Becoming**™ // I intend to run two cohorts of a new and improved program next year. One per equinox, with a view of having you primed or ready come solstice. A program of *catalytic* mythopoetic development for adults who have outgrown goal setting, and who seek to court and step into a new chapter of life. **Attend to your unfurling.**™ - I might offer a couple of **WYRD Walks**™ in nature, co-hosted with friends. - I’m also courting the idea of organising what we might call **A WYRD Retreat**™—an extended, multi-day container of quality deep time together. My liberal use of trademark symbols is sincere-ironic, btw. It’s also part of *tending* to their manifesting; telling ‘truth in advance’ and alchemising enduring whimsy into something a little more real and realised. It’s literally **WYRD Work**™—*attending to that which becomes.* I’ll be sharing much more on this in the seasons and cycles to come. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/12/image-9.png) \* Being and becoming. [Dr. Jason Fox](https://drjasonfox.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) will also have new and legendary keynotes, masterclasses and immersions for adult motivation and leadership development. Change is everywhere, but I still find that many organisations approach this mechanistically (and reactively), with far too narrow a focus. These are times that demand for us to be alive, awake, and *attuned* to the adjacent possible—for *only that which can change can continue.*\[^ Anecdotally, and with extreme bias, teams who quest tend to do *much* better than those who do not.\] Speaking of: both of my websites—foxwizard.com and drjasonfox.com—carry the unsettling aura of the dark forest. My January task is to bring these into new light. --- Thank you for reading/listening/subscribing. (ᴗ͈ˬᴗ͈)ꕤ.ﾟ This past half-decade *dark forest cocoon-sabbatical* chapter has been fruitful; much has now coalesced. A curse has—well, if not lifted, then at least—*shifted*. And I feel all the better for it. I’ve many wishes for you as the Gregorian calendar clicks over. Mostly that you are safe and well, and that this new year might bring a deeper sense of community, kinship and courage. I suspect 2026 is going to be a tumultuous one. I also wish for us all to cultivate *a tenderness despite.*\[^ To borrow the words from one of the participants in [*The “Choose One Word” Ritual of Becoming*](https://www.cleverness.com/word?ref=foxwizard.com).\] With much warmth, Jason ### Museletter ⟠ Succinctly Syncretic URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/syncretic-museletter/ Last updated: 2025-12-21T09:14:54.000Z I sometimes wonder: is the epistolary form going out of fashion? Do we even write *letters* to each other any more? Or is it all just an exchange of memes and pithy [advice](https://substack.com/@preni/note/c-185768277?ref=foxwizard.com)? And what of *musing?* Is there a place for musing, in this time betwixt worlds? (He muses). Does the world still value the evergreen question, thinking-in-draft, and notions hazarded in good faith? Or is it better to peddle in mere fact? Am I out of touch?\* \* *[No](https://imgur.com/am-i-so-out-of-touch-CIr7TvC?ref=foxwizard.com).* These are the questions your wizard ponders at this frenetic time of year. Meanwhile—behold! *I have a museletter for thee.* > Let thy curiosity eclipse thy conviction. May it be so, of us all.\* \* *Most of the time.* --- You’re reading *the museletter* of [foxwizard](https://foxwizard.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) (aka [Dr. Fox](https://drjasonfox.com/?ref=foxwizard.com)). The museletter is *an epistolary soliloquy*, oft replete with many links. Open this one up at [foxwizard.com/syncretic-museletter](https://www.foxwizard.com/syncretic-museletter) if you like, and take your time. If a friend forwarded this to you, you can subscribe at [foxwizard.com](https://www.foxwizard.com/) ❦ --- Imma keep this one peppy, as I know that ‘tis the season to be inundated with emails and ads and offerings. Speaking of offerings: 1. News on “The Rogue Wizard Academy” (aka *The School of Fox Wizardry*) 9-month liminal (thought) leadership development program is... still coming. 2. I’m not ready to share of this just yet because I think I’m still reeling from when, 6 years ago, I launched [*The ‘Choose One Word’ Ritual of Becoming*](https://www.cleverness.com/word?ref=foxwizard.com)(a program, loved by many, that will have you *attend to your own unfurling* and *step into a new chapter of being*). The launching of this triggered a cascade of calamitous events—bushfires, a pandemic, and worse things besides. I also found myself unable to do the hustle of promoting it, particularly during solstices time when, really, we all ought be off and away from our screens. Still, over a thousand fine folk have undertaken The Ritual (and many revisit it year on year). [You can, too](https://www.cleverness.com/word?ref=foxwizard.com). 3. Finally, I must occasionally remind folks that, as an [award-winning speaker](https://www.drjasonfox.com/keynotes-firesides?ref=foxwizard.com) and leadership advisor (with [many happy clients](https://www.drjasonfox.com/happy-clients?ref=foxwizard.com))—who works *particularly* well with smart and sceptical audiences who’ve “seen it all before”—I am available to work with leaders seeking to have 2026 be a year of *meaningful* progress. This year will also be the 10-year anniversary [*How to Lead a Quest*](https://www.google.com/search?q=how+to+lead+a+quest+by+dr+jason+fox&ref=foxwizard.com)*,* and I am particularly keen to work with warm-hearted and bright-minded folk willing to venture beyond the default. As ever, simply reach out to [kim@drjasonfox.com](mailto:kim@drjasonfox.com) and we can tee up a call. --- And now, here are a few things I have written since [my last museletter to you](https://www.foxwizard.com/horizonal-museletter/). I’ll present each link, along with a wee snippet. --- [Conditions, not solutionsDon’t let outcomes box you in.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/icon/foxwizard-favicon-20.png)foxwizard ⟠ questing betwixtDr. Jason Fox![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/thumbnail/Conditions--not-solutions_1_1.jpg)](https://www.foxwizard.com/conditions-not-solutions/) I wrote this one for the times when folk seek *solutions* to complex challenges. > *“You’ve got to find ways in which people notice anomalies very quickly, so that they can repurpose,”* Dave Snowden explains in conversation with Rachel Donald. > > In other words—you’ve got to *keep your wits about you.* Also: > *“How are we cultivating ways in which to widen the aperture of our ways of seeing? I particularly like this frame because, to widen the aperture of seeing means to let in more light. This has two effects: on the one side the bright shining obvious will become painful to look at (too bright, too obvious), whereas on the other hand we will tend to notice more of what glimmers in the penumbra.”* --- [2026 will be known as “The Year of the Curious Squid”In 2004 Sir Terry Pratchett—author of the Discworld series—came up with a list of year names ‘long enough to last a fair while’. This list is held by Terry’s long-time friend and business manager Rob Wilkins, and is not publicly available. Each year is illustrated by long-time![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/icon/foxwizard-favicon-21.png)foxwizard ⟠ questing betwixtDr. Jason Fox![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/thumbnail/The-Year-of-the-Curious-Squid.jpg)](https://www.foxwizard.com/curious-squid/) This was me attempting to convince myself I can write shorter posts, more frequently. But even this post blossomed so many tangents I wanted to explore with you. Here’s a sample, out of context. > *“This is different from shining. Shining is about reflection—it requires an external source of light. Performers shine from the attention they receive. We shine when there is brightness. Luminescence, on the other hand, is emanation. The light comes from within. A glow is softer, steadier, and more enduring than shine. It doesn’t require polish.”* --- [Aspiring to adoxographyElegant and refined treatment of the seemingly base and trivial.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/icon/foxwizard-favicon-25.png)foxwizard ⟠ questing betwixtDr. Jason Fox![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/thumbnail/adoxography_1_1.jpg)](https://www.foxwizard.com/aspiring-to-adoxography/) At this point I realised: I can’t do short daily posts. And even when I do, *it feels weird* to then go and share them on social media. But I fell in love with the notion of creating my own [glossary](https://www.foxwizard.com/glossary). In this post I share a list of a few hundred words I intend to capture. I’ve got four words done so far—only infinite more to go. Here’s a snippet that alludes to the word *allusion.* > “*Allusion is a very important component in much of my magic. Particularly when complex and thorny issues cannot be tackled directly. Or when cognitive defences are too strong for wisdoms to be delivered with straightspeak.”* --- [“Twist-and-pop-and-slosh” — Kindred Spirits (e10) ፨A pop-up (video) podcast of whimsy & whisky. ✨![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/icon/foxwizard-favicon-26.png)foxwizard ⟠ questing betwixtDr. Jason Fox![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/thumbnail/KS_strut_1.png)](https://www.foxwizard.com/kindred-spirits-e10/) Kindred Spirits has been such fun. My co-host John Anthony is one of the very few people I know who lives and leads with [a hermetic disposition](https://www.foxwizard.com/hermetic-disposition/). As ever, this one goes deep. > *“\[...\] this episode was as marvellous as ever. Yes there’s a fake ad snuck into the mix (JA never misses!) and you’ll also be pleased to know that the whisky opening has evolved from a mere ‘pop’ to a full blown* ‘twist and pop and slosh’*.”* --- [A Hermetic DispositionAttune to the hidden patterns of Life![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/icon/foxwizard-favicon-27.png)foxwizard ⟠ questing betwixtDr. Jason Fox![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/thumbnail/A-Hermetic-Disposition_1_1-1.jpg)](https://www.foxwizard.com/hermetic-disposition/) I’m quietly quite chuffed with this piece, but I suspect it’ll hold true to one of the definitions of hermetic. That being: *“difficult to understand because intended for a small number of people with specialised knowledge.”* So be it! A sample: > *“Last week, when in the initial exuberance of being a guest on my friend* [*Kelly Butler’s*](https://kelly-butler.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) *new podcast—A Language of Suffering—I waxed loquaciously about ‘the hermetic disposition’, with much gesticulation and flutter. My friend (and the podcast’s co-host)* [*Matthew Stillman*](https://stillmansays.substack.com/?ref=foxwizard.com)*\* asked me to elucidate for listeners who might not be familiar with the term. And in hindsight, I think my response would still baffle most. And so, here I manifest on my quiet blog to succinctly articulate wtf hermeticism.”* \* *Matthew’s poetry course [Committed To Heart, Committed To Memory](https://stillmansays.substack.com/p/next-rounds-of-committed-to-heart) is happening next month, and I’ll be attending in the second group. If you’re inclined to cultivate poetic sensibilities, I highly, highly recommend this to you.* --- [e21 // Vaguely HermeticSyncretic reflections on wizardry and life.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/icon/foxwizard-favicon-28.png)foxwizard ⟠ questing betwixtDr. Jason Fox![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/thumbnail/Vaguely-Hermetic_1_1.jpg)](https://www.foxwizard.com/e21/) Here I undo my good work of articulating hermeticism in written form by *doing that thing where men try to explain things.* Bah. I’m not supremely happy with the way I do my solo podcasts; new changes afoot for 2026\. Watch this space. > “*So! I recently wrote a piece on what I call* [*A Hermetic Disposition*](https://www.foxwizard.com/hermetic-disposition/)*. You’ll note I don’t say the hermetic disposition; what I propose is largely syncretic. A personal bricolage-assemblage masquerading as vaguely hermetic. I recorded the latest podcast episode whilst 70% of my way through this piece. Both the recording, and the text itself, were attempts to elucidate, though I fear I may have mostly befuddled. Who’s to say? Anyhoo, I made mention of a few texts, so here now be the ‘show notes’.”* --- If you were to open *just one* of these links, I suspect you’ll enjoy the show notes from the [*vaguely hermetic*](https://www.foxwizard.com/e21/) musing. I’m still personally considering a refreshed approach to the way I want to dance in 2026\. The dark forest chapter was not a fun chapter—but it was a necessary one. Now that I’m in the clear, I wonder what this new [horizon](https://www.foxwizard.com/horizonal-museletter/https://www.foxwizard.com/horizonal-museletter/#quest-to-plan-%E0%AA%9C%E2%81%80%E2%9E%B4) might bring. This is part of my own [*The Ritual of Becoming*](https://www.cleverness.com/word?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* I suspect I’ll write to you one more time this year. With warmth, Jason ### e21 // Vaguely Hermetic URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/e21/ Last updated: 2025-12-21T09:14:28.000Z ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/media/2025/12/e21_fw_thumb.jpg) e21 // vaguely hermetic 0:00 /3774.416667 1× Subscribe and listen on [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/foxwizard/id1645970777?ref=foxwizard.com) and [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/2hkJuLE5VMED5rvDqnH4RL?ref=foxwizard.com). I felt it time to share another ‘solo’ podcast episode. I hadn’t done one since [*The Extravagant Equinox*](https://www.foxwizard.com/e16/) of months past. [e16 // An extravagant equinoxAllow me to regale you of boundaries, dissolutions, wilderness, and more.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/icon/foxwizard-favicon-19.png)foxwizard ⟠ questing betwixtDr. Jason Fox![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/thumbnail/to_be_a_bat-1.jpg)](https://www.foxwizard.com/e16/) Since then, we’ve released *four* episodes of [Kindred Spirits](https://www.foxwizard.com/tag/kindred-spirits/). Oddly I decided to do a reflective tour of my recent writings in this episode, too. You can find all of these, of course, at [foxwizard.com/musings](https://www.foxwizard.com/musings/) This episode also has me talking of [*The Ritual of Becoming*](https://www.cleverness.com/word?ref=foxwizard.com)—something that I’ve been attending to for most of the past 15 years. I love the program, and it’s getting a significant upgrade in the new year. If you’re ready to *attend to your unfurling*, you can join anytime. All paid members will be looked after when the ritual undergoes its own metamorphosis. [Choose One Word — The Cleverness![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/icon/favicon-1.ico)The ClevernessHome![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/thumbnail/Choose-One-Word-social-share.jpg)](https://www.cleverness.com/word?ref=foxwizard.com) So! I recently wrote a piece on what I call [*A Hermetic Disposition*](https://www.foxwizard.com/hermetic-disposition/)*.* You’ll note I don’t say *the* hermetic disposition; what I propose is largely syncretic. A personal bricolage-assemblage masquerading as vaguely hermetic. [A Hermetic DispositionAttune to the hidden patterns of Life![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/icon/foxwizard-favicon-18.png)foxwizard ⟠ questing betwixtDr. Jason Fox![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/thumbnail/A-Hermetic-Disposition_1_1.jpg)](https://www.foxwizard.com/hermetic-disposition/) I recorded the latest podcast episode whilst 70% of my way through this piece. Both the recording, and the text itself, were attempts to elucidate, though I fear I may have mostly befuddled. Who’s to say? Anyhoo, I made mention of a few texts, so here now be the ‘show notes’. ## Show notes I start with reference to my love of [*The Blindboy Podcast*](https://theblindboypodcast.ie/?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* The way that this show gently and authentically meanders through fields of profundity is heartening to me. I also recently found great solace in a recent episode of *The Emerald* by Josh Schrei—[*Carry That Weight: On Mythic Burdens and Cosmic Supports*](https://www.themythicbody.com/podcast/carry-that-weight-on-mythic-burdens-and-cosmic-supports/?ref=foxwizard.com). This helped me shift my relationship to the metacrisis, and the heavy sense of responsibility I had been carrying. Perhaps it will offer some relief to you, too? [Carry That Weight: On Mythic Burdens and Cosmic Supports - The Mythic BodyThere is a weight to modern existence — perhaps you’ve felt it. In a world in which social and environmental crises only seem to be deepening and our familial, communal and spiritual support systems are steadily crumbling, individuals are buckling under the weight. This weight is not simply metaphorical. When the web of relationships that \[…\]![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/icon/cropped-favicon-270x270-1.png)The Mythic Body![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/thumbnail/Carry-That-Weight-1024x1024-1.jpg)](https://www.themythicbody.com/podcast/carry-that-weight-on-mythic-burdens-and-cosmic-supports/?ref=foxwizard.com) Note that none of us are advocating for *spiritual bypassing* here. But these times do behoove a shift in how we relate. I mentioned that my stance regarding social media is changing. But the body can’t lie—as I said this, I could hear in my voice that I was not convinced. What I *am* convinced of, though, is my love of the small web, the friendly web, the quiet web, the poetic web. As mentioned in the episode, I’ve been relishing visiting [bear blog’s discover panel](https://bearblog.dev/discover/?ref=foxwizard.com), just to get a sample of what feels like a wholesome contemporary nostalgia. I’ve also recently signed up to [Manu Moreal](https://manuelmoreale.com/?ref=foxwizard.com)’s [“dealgorithmed” newseletter](https://buttondown.com/dealgorithmed?ref=foxwizard.com). > Dealgorithmed is a newsletter for the people who still love and care about the web, for those who are tired of doomscrolling the same three sites day after day. > > A newsletter about the small web, the poetic web, the quiet web, the web many say we lost years ago, yet it's still here, ready to be rediscovered by those who care. I’ve also been really, really loving [Kening Zhu](https://keningzhu.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) and her [*botanical studies of internet magic*](https://keningzhu.com/podcast?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* Her most recent episode on [underworld business practices](https://keningzhu.com/journal/underworld-business-practices?ref=foxwizard.com) really spoke to my scorpio stellium and anaretic moon in the 10th house. Oh, I also talked of a shift in my stance regarding the field of artificial intelligence. Here’s the quote I read with regards to this: > *“Not doing any magic at all was the chief task of wizards—not ‘not doing magic’ because they couldn’t do magic, but not doing magic when they could do and didn’t. Any ignorant fool can fail to turn someone else into a frog. You have to be clever to refrain from doing it when you knew how easy it was. There were places in the world commemorating those times when wizards hadn’t been quite as clever as that, and on many of them the grass would never grow again.” — *Terry Pratchett,** [**Going Postal**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Going%5FPostal?ref=foxwizard.com) As a wizard I’m done playing the role of Cassandra. Knowledge of the metacrisis and the likely nth-order effects of artificial intelligence are a kind of ‘cursed knowledge’ (which I shall write of someday). Sharing such simply evokes cognitive dissonance; particularly amidst those drunk on euphoria and hope. Better to cultivate a kind of ‘sacred ambivalence,’ so as to better work my magics amidst the [warlocks at work](https://www.foxwizard.com/warlocks-at-work/). But speaking of AI, this episode also mentioned Frank Chimero’s wondrous essay [*Beyond the Machine*](https://frankchimero.com/blog/2025/beyond-the-machine/?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* I also alluded that the market for ‘thought leadership’ is akin to a lemon market, as Frank Chimero describes in [*Selling Lemons*](https://frankchimero.com/blog/2025/selling-lemons/?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* Here I also then allude to a motivation behind The Rogue Wizard Academy (or: *The School of Fox Wizardry*—not sure what I’ll call it yet). And then finally I stumbled my way through [*The Kybalion*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%5FKybalion?ref=foxwizard.com). This was rather haphazard and pell-mell; next time I record a podcast I shall try do so by the river again. Or in a forest, with no deadlines. It was *foolish* of me to make a recording with a meeting looming, lol. But lo: such is and such was, and here we are. Thank you, as ever, for reading and listening. Much warmth, Jason ### A Hermetic Disposition URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/hermetic-disposition/ Last updated: 2025-12-10T06:34:27.000Z Last week, when in the initial exuberance of being a guest on my friend [Kelly Butler’s](https://kelly-butler.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) new podcast—*A Language of Suffering*\[^ Launching in 2026.\]*—*I waxed loquaciously about ‘the hermetic disposition’, with much gesticulation and flutter. My friend (and the podcast’s co-host) [Matthew Stillman](https://stillmansays.substack.com/) asked me to elucidate for listeners who might not be familiar with the term. And in hindsight, I think my response would still baffle most. And so, here I manifest on my quiet blog to succinctly articulate *wtf hermeticism.* ## So: hermeticism Amusingly, one of the dictionary definitions of ‘hermetic’ is: > Difficult to understand because intended for a small number of people with specialised knowledge. I guess such is the way when we slip into cant. “Hermetic” refers to the tradition of thought and practice attributed to [*Hermes Trismegistus*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermes%5FTrismegistus?ref=foxwizard.com)—a syncretic figure formed from [Hermes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermes?ref=foxwizard.com) and [Thoth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoth?ref=foxwizard.com). The core corpus is the [*Hermetica*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermetica?ref=foxwizard.com), a collection of texts dealing with divine knowledge, cosmology, and the relationship between the divine and material realms. But have I read these all? And is this what I mean by ‘hermetic disposition’? The answer is: kinda? There’s a way in which occult texts tend to be written that behooves a wit that must be maintained in how they are read. Because vital wisdoms and living concepts can lose their animacy when written down. They become *fixed* and then *reified* in this fixed form. And then memetic drift occurs and we stray. Oh how we stray. > *“Atheists are just modern versions of religious fundamentalists: both take religion too literally.” —* Nassim Taleb This is why poetic and aphoristic styles are often so evergreen and so enduringly potent. The *vitality* of their meaningness has not been dullened by explanation. Just as *the tao that can be described is not the eternal Tao, and the name that can be spoken is not the eternal Name,* so too with hermetic sensibilities. And so now, with that caveat-waiver, allow me to describe the hermetic disposition to you. ## *A disposition* ... that we might call ‘hermetic’ is one that orients toward a view of reality as inherently interconnected and alive. An unfurling eternal that manifests through *correspondence, resonance* and *interrelatedness*. It’s a disposition that calls for us to dance with and within a cosmos that is animate and ensouled. The hermetic disposition is notably different from materialism and pure mysticism. A hermetic practitioner neither reduces reality to mechanical categories, nor dissolves into undifferentiated experience, but *senses into* the hidden patterns of phenomena, and works with them. In this sense, the hermetic disposition shares the same delight for contradiction, ambiguity and paradox as [how David Chapman describes the mythic mode](https://meaningness.substack.com/p/seeing-and-doing-mythically). > *“The mythic mode not only* [*tolerates*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mythopoeic%5Fthought?ref=foxwizard.com#Tolerance%5Fof%5Fcontradiction)*, but actively enjoys, *contradiction* as well as ambiguity.* \[...\] > > [*Reasonableness*](https://metarationality.com/reasonableness-aspects?ref=foxwizard.com) *is not comfortable with contradictions, and will try to change the subject, or obfuscate when they can’t be avoided. Rationalism, of course, rejects contradictions outright. It is* [*founded*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law%5Fof%5Fexcluded%5Fmiddle?ref=foxwizard.com#Aristotle)[ *on*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law%5Fof%5Fexcluded%5Fmiddle?ref=foxwizard.com#Aristotle) *the* [*Law of the Excluded Middle*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law%5Fof%5Fexcluded%5Fmiddle?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* \[...\] *Rationalism insists that every possible proposition is either absolutely true or absolutely false—in the face of constant evidence that* [*nearly all of them are neither*](https://metarationality.com/sort-of-truth?ref=foxwizard.com)*.”* In contemporary context, the hermetic disposition is one that embraces a knowing that: *surfaces conceal depths; conventional explanatory frameworks are always incomplete;*\[^ [Bonini’s paradox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonini%27s%5Fparadox?ref=foxwizard.com) explains this, too.\] and *attention to pattern, synchronicity, and symbolic resonance hints to the nature of how things actually work.* Much of this all forms a particular soup that folks like myself, and perhaps you, have come to appreciate. In slightly more practical terms, the hermetic disposition can be expressed via seven principles. ## *The seven hermetic principles* ... can be gleaned from the modern occultist publication known as [*The Kyballion*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%5FKybalion?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* And even though the book itself is syncretic (like Hermes Trismegistus himself), and even if the title was made up (potentially to convey ‘[a false sense of antiquity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%5FKybalion?ref=foxwizard.com#Title)’)—I like it. The principles of this kind of hermeticism overlap and ‘play nice’ with other dispositions such as *meta-rationality, mythic-mode, The Fourth Way, witchcraft, trickster, infinite game, gestalt, druidic,* and more. The seven principles are: ### I ⟠ The principle of *mentalism* > The All is Mind; the Universe is Mental. ‘The All’ \[^ All that is apparent to our material senses is *unknowable* and *undefinable*, but which may be considered and thought of as “a universal infinite living mind.”\] is the substance of existence; the material is mental manifestation. Consciousness isn’t epiphenomenal; it’s constitutive. This talk of ‘mentalism’ could be mistaken as a cerebral gesture. But that’s too limiting. Relate instead as something akin to mind/energy/matter/spirit and consciousness being of and from The All. In practice, reality responds to thought and intention *more* than mechanical causation might otherwise suggest.\[^ But note: this doesn’t mean reality *obeys* thought and intention. Related to this is the notion that we each have a ‘daimon’—a term that itself has many ways of relating to. I particularly appreciate Dutch philosopher [Bernardo Kastrup’s](https://www.bernardokastrup.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) treatment in [*The Daimon and the Soul of the West*](https://www.collectiveinkbooks.com/iff-books/our-books/daimon-soul-west-finding-identity-meaning-purpose-sacrificial-life?ref=foxwizard.com)*:* *“The Daimon is just nature as it expresses itself in us and through us. And nature is, of course, impersonal. Its agenda is universal and holistic, not restricted to the petty egoic tastes and preferences of a person. It is naïve to expect a human being to be able to comprehend the Daimon’s universal agenda, just as it is naïve to expect an apple blossom to comprehend what its role is in the grand scheme of apple trees and life on Earth. We are segments of nature, not mere witnesses; we didn’t parachute into nature, but grew out of it. Therefore, we are nature, as expressed in a particular volume of spacetime. Given this, it is also naïve to expect there to be no impersonal force—no impersonal will—acting within us, and through us; of course there is. And I call it the Daimon.”*\] This undercuts the sandstone castle of materialist ontology, and hyper-rational ways of seeing (with strict categorisations between this and that). This principle instead gestures toward something more like *panpsychism* or *pantheistic idealism*—without committing to either explicitly. Ergo, the principle preserves conceptual flexibility (which is both meta-rational and trickster). ### II ⟠ The principle of *correspondence* > As above, so below; as below, so above. Or, more accurately— *Quod est superius est sicut quod inferius, et quod inferius est sicut quod est superius.* That which is above is like to that which is below, and that which is below is like to that which is above. The universe operates through proportional analogy across all scales. The patterns governing atoms govern solar systems, human psychology recapitulates cosmic principles, and remedies for bodily ailments correspond to celestial configurations. Naturally, there can be a slippery slope with this kind of thinking, and I hasten to add that we do not abandon rationalism in the embrace of hermetic principles.\[^ I’d also note that the principle of correspondence is more [*emergentism*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergentism?ref=foxwizard.com) than [*determinism*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Determinism?ref=foxwizard.com). Or, ‘[evolving perennialism](https://www.officeforthefuture.com/sites/officeforthefuture/files/files/2023%2005%2017%20-%20First%20Principles%20and%20first%20values%20of%20evolving%20perennialism%5F1.pdf?ref=foxwizard.com)’ as David J. Temple might say. Or [*nebulous-yet-patterned*](https://meaningness.com/?ref=foxwizard.com)*,* as David Chapman might say.\] But understanding the principle of correspondence means that you will likely sense how holonic patterns and conceptual ‘simplicities’ hold true across contexts and orders of complexity.\[^ This principle also points to how symbolic magic and astrological ritual can enact celestial patterns at human scale—I’m new to this way of seeing, though, and can accept that this may seem ‘too woo’ for most.\] These can become ‘beacons’ that you might orient by (even amidst new and unfamiliar contexts). ### III ⟠ The principle of *vibration* > Nothing rests; everything moves; everything vibrates. All phenomena are vibrational frequencies at different rates. Consciousness itself vibrates at characteristic frequencies; different states of awareness correspond to different oscillatory rates. When you walk into a room, you encounter a field of frequencies—atmospheric, emotional, relational—that operate below explicit awareness. This manifests as “vibe” and it’s something that can be ‘felt’.\[^ And the capacity to sense-into such fields can be cultivated, too.\] Practices like meditation, mantra, music, and ritual modulate frequency directly, shifting your vibrational state and altering what you can perceive and influence. Likewise, the way in which you show up, the quality of your presence, and the myriad subtle ways you intentionally ‘attend to frequency and vibe’ affects collective fields, too. I see this *all the time* at events. Many of us are too swept up in our own egoic insecurities and are thus oblivious to frequency and field. But masterful storytellers, musicians and performers can bring the kinds of experiences where—even in a room of *thousands*—you could hear a penny drop. Where whole audiences breathe as one, sharing in the same harmonic frequency and field. Much of the subtle *deftwerk* good facilitators do with groups is in the gentle cultivation of collective frequency. This cannot be rushed or forced, but it is worth attending to for the collegiality and warmth such brings. ### IV ⟠ The principle of *polarity* > Everything is Dual; everything has poles; everything has its pair of opposites. Apparent opposites aren’t separate forces but extremes of a unified spectra. The universe *requires* polarity to manifest; unity alone cannot generate differentiation. There are no mountains without valleys. No self without other. This is particularly well expressed by James P. Carse writes in [*Finite and Infinite Games*](https://wtf.tw/ref/carse.pdf?ref=foxwizard.com). > *“One cannot be human by oneself. There is no selfhood where there is no community. We do not relate to others as the persons we are; we are who we are in relating to others. Simultaneously the others with whom we are in relation are themselves in relation. We cannot relate to anyone who is not also relating to us. Our social existence has, therefore, an inescapably fluid character... this ceaseless change does not mean discontinuity; rather change is itself the very basis of our continuity as persons.”* The whole premise of finite and infinite games is very congruent with hermeticism. Particularly with regards to the principle of polarity. > *“There are at least two kinds of games. One could be called finite, the other infinite. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play.”* Playing to ‘win’ creates losers. Over and over again. To transmute this dynamic requires that we find *a third perspective* from which both positions participate in something larger. In trickster speak, this is the side-step; the tilt; the slip—an intentional shifting of the frame of reference and ways of seeing. Like how there are two sides to every coin. But nay—there’s *a third edge* to every coin. This is how we make them spin—with both polarities in superposition. In mythic speak, this could be seen as perceiving the blue feather. *“We are seemingly in magpie times—black or white, right or left,”* [Martin Shaw says](https://drmartinshaw.com/about-martin-shaw/interview/?ref=foxwizard.com). *“But magpies have these blue feathers if you pay close attention. Myths speak blue feather language—they can be co-opted for sure, but they are meant to offer some third, artful perspective when culture is butting heads.”* ### V ⟠ The principle of *rhythm* > Everything flows, out and in; everything has its tides; all things rise and fall. All phenomena *oscillates* cyclically—expansion and contraction, action and reaction, ascent and descent, life and death, inhalation and exhalation. No singular state persists; all is always in motion through rhythmic patterns. History, seasons, empires—all follow the principle of rhythm. You’ve probably heard me talk of how *momentum inhibits reinvention—*both in [a business sense](https://www.foxwizard.com/e9/#can-we-talk-about-how-to-host-a-strategy-offsite-already) and in [a personal sense](https://www.foxwizard.com/dispel-dark-cloud/#deep-rest). There’s only so much we can do to thwart, deny or delay the seasonal turn that beckons. And any attempts to do so usually manifest in a more pronounced seasonal turning. Understanding the principle of rhythm means *riding* waves, rather than resisting them. We *surf* with cyclical motion. Crises, suffering, struggle, pain and loss are therefore known as inevitabilities. Downswings naturally precede upswings. In today’s world of relentless momentum and hustle, of non-stop distraction and extraction, our task is to often find and tend to the seasonality of things. Throughout the majority of human history, we have done this through ritual and myth. *“Only that which can change can continue,”* [James P. Carse writes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finite%5Fand%5FInfinite%5FGames?ref=foxwizard.com). *“This is the principle by which infinite players live.”* So too the hermetic practitioner. ### VI ⟠ The principle of *cause and effect* > Every Cause has its Effect; every Effect has its Cause; everything happens according to Law. This principle reads heavy, but it relates to the first law of thermodynamics: *energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transferred or changed in form.* Nothing occurs by chance; everything emerges from interactions. What appears as ‘random’ is merely the result of causation operating at a level of complexity beyond our perception and ken. Now, this doesn’t mean you need to adopt a fatalist disposition. You can *amor fati—*love thy fate—whilst also [attending to your *wyrd*](https://www.foxwizard.com/choose-wyrd/). Wyrd intertwines *agency* (‘free-ish’ will) with *fate* (the principle of cause and effect) generatively. You are not the determinator the forces that shape your fate, but the Fates themselves also haven’t completed your tale, yet. There’s a chance you can influence circumstances by, in particular, through how you *relate* to your circumstances. Understanding cause-and-effect permits causation. You *become* a cause, rather than merely experiencing effects. Or so it might seem. Attempting to evade the Law (of cause and effect) is futile. You can can only work from where you are, with what you’ve got. You can love the Fates, or rue them. But it’s probably best to both love them *and* keep your wits about you as to when and where *you* can play a part in shaping your own pattern. ### VII ⟠ The principle of *gender* > Gender is in everything; everything has its Masculine and Feminine Principles; Gender manifests on all planes. Gender here refers not to biological sex but to the generative polarity present in all phenomena. Masculine qualities are generally active, outgoing, assertive, focused, directional. Feminine qualities are generally receptive, containing, responsive, open, and formless. Creation and Life require both, and we have both within all of us. This is the [*anima and animus*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anima%5Fand%5Fanimus?ref=foxwizard.com). Wholeness requires integrating both the masculine and feminine within ourselves. Over-identification with the masculine principle produces cold rigidity, narrow focus, and a disconnection from receptivity and the wider context. Over-identification with the feminine produces warm diffuseness without direction or focus, and receptivity without agency. Different situations call for different emphases. Rapid decisive action calls for the masculine, whilst adaptation and responsiveness calls for the feminine. By adopting a hermetic disposition, you can recognises which context calls for which, and can shift fluidly between them—neither rigidly masculine nor passively feminine, but generatively both. Oscillating betwixt. Suffice to say, the majority of my work in Enterprise Land—but certainly not all—calls for me to bring more *feminine* sensibilities; [warmening](https://www.foxwizard.com/kindred-spirits-e3/#always-be-warmening) relationality, expanding the field of consideration, attending to emergence, and so forth. This is because much of Enterprise Land runs on a patriarchal logic that is blind to it’s limitations. But this isn’t pre-determined, and it isn’t constant. Sometimes we need to soften into curiosity; and sometimes we need to harden into conviction. The hermetic disposition would have us sense-into what each context calls for, situationally. ## And so thus ... Hermes “the Thrice Great” did apparently allude. To the trained eye, these principles are not so dissimilar to taoism and other esoteric forms. And again, the point here is to not become attached to the particulars. A hermetic disposition is a [stance (not a mindset)](https://www.foxwizard.com/stance-mindset/#consider-%E2%80%98stances%E2%80%99). A comprehensive suite of [*sensibilities*](https://www.foxwizard.com/quest-mindset/#a-note-on-%E2%80%9Csensibilities%E2%80%9D), rather than a list of specific skills. A skill is one thing. Knowing when and how to use a skill (and, just as importantly: when not to) is a sensibility. --- I am... not entirely sure that my small treatise here has done much to make things clearer. In the podcast we were responding to Byung-Chul Han’s [*The Palliative Society*](https://www.wiley.com/en-us/The+Palliative+Society%3A+Pain+Today-p-9781509547241?ref=foxwizard.com). It’s a polemic book that makes the case that we (as a society) fear pain, and that our ability to tolerate pain is diminishing. This is the same with all suffering, sadness, and sorrow. Our fear of these things leads to their *suppression*, bolstered via an over-indexing in comfort, happiness, and acceptability. This has the effect of keeping us locked in what Byung-Chul Han calls the *hell* of *sameness.* > *“The pain-free life of permanent happiness is not a human life. Life which tracks down and drives out its own negativity cancels itself out. Death and pain belong together. In pain, death is anticipated. If you seek to remove all pain, you will have also to abolish death. But life without death and pain is not human life; it is undead life. In order to survive, humans are abolishing them-selves. They may succeed in becoming immortal, but only at the expense of life itself.”* A hermetic disposition is a disposition that attuned with, and in service of, Life itself. ### “Twist-and-pop-and-slosh” — Kindred Spirits (e10) ፨ URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/kindred-spirits-e10/ Last updated: 2025-12-07T21:06:17.000Z ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/media/2025/12/KS_e10_final_thumb.png) Kindred Spirits – e10 0:00 /5403.791655 1× Subscribe and listen on [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/foxwizard/id1645970777?ref=foxwizard.com), [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/2hkJuLE5VMED5rvDqnH4RL?ref=foxwizard.com), [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeLHJRzrOWo%5FQXluAn65XjHQsoX3IjLvn&ref=foxwizard.com), and now [Substack](https://kindredspiritspod.substack.com/?ref=foxwizard.com), too. Huzzah! [John Anthony](https://transcend.com.au/?ref=foxwizard.com) and I return. In this episode—*recorded on the 21st of November 2025*—we spoke of many things. I started it a bit tentatively as I was reeling a little from recent news that one of my many cavalier and flippant comments had got me in trouble with a friend. I’d thought to remedy the situation trickster-style *by changing sides* and arguing *for* what I was previously arguing against. But really: I just needed to release and relax into the warm emergence. And so I did! And this episode was as marvellous as ever. Yes there’s a fake ad snuck into the mix (JA never misses!) and you’ll also be pleased to know that the whisky opening has evolved from a mere ‘pop’ to a full blown *‘twist and pop and slosh’.* Now, in this very episode we both express our concerns for the unintended consequences most adults are not alert to, with regards to artificial intelligence. [This particular episode of *The Great Simplification*](https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/reality-roundtable-20?ref=foxwizard.com) was something we both referred to. Particularly the notion that, just as social media hijacked our attention, artificial intelligence is hijacking our *attachment*. If you’ve children in your family and/or community, this is of particular concern. (And for adults, too.) I was also quite delighted that our conversation took a turn towards [*The Journey of Soul Initiation*](https://www.animas.org/books/journey-of-soul-initiation/?ref=foxwizard.com)*,* too. I always struggle to write of the conversation we share here. They’re warm and real, and don’t really need to be dressed up more beyond that. If you’re the kind of person who enjoys getting lost and dancing with the possibility of surprise, you’re a kindred spirit and we suspect you’ll enjoy. *Slàinte!* ### Quickening URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/quickening/ Last updated: 2026-04-21T08:38:47.000Z */ˈkwɪk(ə)nɪŋ/* ◊ adjective “The awakening or activation of dormant potentiality, particularly the enlivening of what has been latent or sleeping.” Often experienced physically as frisson; marks transformation from possibility into vital movement toward realization. See: *[activating](https://www.foxwizard.com/glossary#activating), [embeckoning](https://www.foxwizard.com/glossary#embeckoning), [insight](https://www.foxwizard.com/glossary#insight)* ### Black mana URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/black-mana/ Last updated: 2026-04-21T08:38:45.000Z */blæk • ˈmɑːnə/* ◊ noun Represents power, ruthless ambition, and sacrifice in pursuit of goals. Encompasses both natural expressions (death, decay) and unnatural ones (undeath). Drawn from Magic: the Gathering, it serves as a dispositional framework for understanding situational dynamics. See: *[power](https://www.foxwizard.com/glossary#power), [alchemy](https://www.foxwizard.com/glossary#alchemy)* ### Mythic Mode URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/mythic-mode/ Last updated: 2026-04-21T08:38:46.000Z */ˈmɪθɪk • məʊd/* ◊ noun “Sincere participatory enactment within nebulous patterns of significance, where meaning arises via poetic attunement and direct resonance.” Offers an alternative to machine-mode optimization, restoring access to meaning, agency, and participation in sacred narratives. Also denotes the highest difficulty level in games. See: *[hermetic](https://www.foxwizard.com/glossary#hermetic), [machine mode](https://www.foxwizard.com/glossary#machine-mode), [mythopoetic](https://www.foxwizard.com/glossary#mythopoetic), [soul](https://www.foxwizard.com/glossary#soul), [life](https://www.foxwizard.com/glossary#life), [infinite game](https://www.foxwizard.com/glossary#infinite-game), [infinite player](https://www.foxwizard.com/glossary#infinite-player)* ### Aspiring to adoxography URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/aspiring-to-adoxography/ Last updated: 2025-12-10T06:19:00.000Z *Xanthe Tynehorne, Esq.* is the steward of the ancient forest known as *Satyrwood.* Xanthe is also steward of one of my favourite websites on the whole wide internet: [satyrs.eu](https://satyrs.eu/?ref=foxwizard.com) It was from Xanthe that I discovered the word [*adoxography*](https://satyrs.eu/words?ref=foxwizard.com#adoxography)*,* a noun that refers to *“brilliant writing on a trivial subject.”* But actually, this definition barely scratches the surface—there’s [a whole wikipedia page dedicated to adoxography](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adoxography?ref=foxwizard.com). [*In Praise of Folly*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In%5FPraise%5Fof%5FFolly?ref=foxwizard.com) is a great work of adoxography. ## *I now aspire to adoxography* I’m not there yet—not by a long shot (the writing needs to be brilliant, elegant and refined)—but it’s a direction I aspire to. In addition to adoxography, Xanthe has collated [a compendium of curious words](https://satyrs.eu/words?ref=foxwizard.com), which contains other delights such as [*callipygean*](https://satyrs.eu/words?ref=foxwizard.com#callipygean)*,* [*hesternal*](https://satyrs.eu/words?ref=foxwizard.com#hesternal)*,* [*quisling*](https://satyrs.eu/words?ref=foxwizard.com#quisling)*,* and [*zenzizenzizenzic*](https://satyrs.eu/words?ref=foxwizard.com#zenzizenzizenzic)*.* I have, for quite some years now, intended to cultivate my own glossary-garden of words. Xanthe’s work has been an inspiration. As has Bill Plotkin’s [*Glossary to the Language of Soul Canyon*](https://www.animas.org/glossary-to-language-of-soul-canyon/?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* Well, as of today, it has finally begun. ## *I now have a* [*glossary*](https://www.foxwizard.com/glossary) At the time of writing, it contains just one word—[allusion](https://www.foxwizard.com/glossary/#allusion). Allusion is a very important component in much of my magic. Particularly when complex and thorny issues cannot be tackled directly. Or when cognitive defences are too strong for wisdoms to be delivered with straightspeak. I’m intending to treat this glossary as a bit of a compendium of my own. Not just of curious words—although I very much do love these. But primarily of the *potent* words I use, with some frequency, in my work as I quest amidst and betwixt. Here’s a bit of a shortlist. If I honour one word a day, it will take me at least a year. And let’s not forget: *“Curiosity is antifragile, like an addiction, and is magnified by attempts to satisfy it...”* (so spake Nassim Taleb). I have absolutely no doubt that these words will beget yet more words, and so forth. But such is the lot (and delight) of any wizard. *abjuration • abstraction • accelerate • accretion • accumulate • accuracy • acuity • activating • active • adapt • adept • adolescence • adulthood • æther • affect • affinity • affordances • agenda • agent • alacrity • alchemy • alignment • allocution • alltogether •* [*allusion*](https://www.foxwizard.com/glossary/#allusion) *• alts • ambiguity • ambivalence • amorality • amorphous • amphibious • amplify • anchoring • ancient • animate, animacy • answer • antidote • antifragile • antimemetic, antimeme • antipodean • aphorism • apophenia • appropriate • aptitude • aptness • arcane • archetype • architect • artful • artificial • artists • aspiration • atrophy • attenuate • attunement • authentic • avarice • avatar • awe • awareness • axiomatic • asymptotic • bafflement • bardic • beacon • beauty • becoming • being • belief • beholding • bemused, bemusing • betwixt • bioregionalism • black mana • blessing • blue mana • both/and • boundaries • breath • breathing • bricolage • burnout • bypassing • cantrip • cerebral • chance • channelling • chaos • chaotic • character, non-player • character, player • charging • choice • clairaudience • clairvoyance • clear • cleansing • clearing • clever • co-creation • cognitive • coherence • coincidence • collude • commons • compensation • complex • complicated • component (spell) • confused • conjuration • congruence • conjure • constellation • conspire • correspondence • council • craft • crossroads • cthulonic • cultural creatives • cups (tarot) • curse of efficiency • cycling • dark forest • dark triad • death • decentralisation • delusion of progress • determinism • dharma • discernment • disenchantment • disillusion • dissociation • dissolve • divination • divine • doorway, see: threshold • druidic • dyad • ease • ecology • ecosystem • edge • edges • effect • efficacy • efficiency • effort • effervescence • egregore • elude • embeckoning • embodiment • emergence, emergent • emergent properties • emergency • emptiness • enact • enchant • enchantment • encouragement • entangle, entangled, entanglement • entertain • entities • enthusiasm • entrance • epiphany • epistemological humility • essence (fourth way) • essentialism • evocation, evoke • evergreen • experience • fable • fallacy • feedback loops • fellowship • field • finite game • finite player • flex • flow • fluid • fool • fox • fragile • fragmentation • frame • friendship • future • futurism • game • gameful • gateway • gesture • gestalt • gift • glammourie • glyphs • gnosis • goodness • grammarie • green mana • grift • grim • grimoire • grounding • guardians • gurdjieff • happenstance • happiness, happy • hardness • harmony, harmonics • hatred, hateful, hate • heart • hecate • hermes • hermetic, hermeticism • holding • holonic • hollowing • homeo-dynamics • honesty • horizontal • humour • hyperstition • iconoclast • ideas • illusion • imaginal • imposter-as-infiltrator • improvisation • inclusion • indigenous • infinite game • infinite player • inflection • information • initiation • inkling • insight • insight-cascade • inspiration • instinct • integration • integrity • intelligence (arcane) • intelligence (artificial) • intelligence (authentic) • intimacy • introspection • intuition (non-conceptual knowing) • inversions • invitation • invocation, invoke • irony • jester • juxtaposition • ken • kindness • kinship • kith • knack • knowledge • kraken of doom • language • levelling • levity • life • Life • lilt • liminal • long-form • loquacious • machine-mode • mage • magic • mammon • mana • mars • masks • meaning, meaningful, meaningness • meaningful progress • mercurial • mercury (see hermes) • metabolizing • metacrisis • metamodern • metamorphosis • metis • metric obsession • mindset • mind • mirroring • money • mordor economy • more-than-human • morphic field • morphogenesis • motivation • movement • multipolar traps • muse • myth • mythical • mythic-mode • mythopoeia • mystery • mystical • møłøcħ • names, naming • narrow-goals • narrative • nebulosity • necromancy • neologism • niche • noösphere • nothing • not-doing • noticing • noting • nuance • obliquity • openness • optionality • ordeal • ownership • paradigmatic • para-rational • paradox • penumbra • pentacles (tarot) • perambulate • perception • peripheral • perplex • persona • perspicacity • perspective • perspectival • phase transition • pilgrimage • play • poets • posture • power • power laws • presence • presentation • procrastination • progress • projection • propaganda • protection • provocation • questions • quest • quickening • quiver of options • raven • reciprocity • red mana • regeneration • relevance • relationality • resonance • respect • reverence • reverie • rhythm • ripening • ritual • rogue • rogues • role • savvy • seasons • sensing • shapeshifting • sigil • sleeper agents • smuggling • sociopathy • solipsistic • sorcerer • soul • sovereignty • spell • grimoire • spellbreaking • spellcasting • spiraling • splitting • stance • status • stewardship • story • straightspeak • subversion • subtleness • suppleness • surreptitious • swords (tarot) • synchronicity • talent • tending • tenderness • the great simplification • thaumaturgy • thresholds • timeliness • timing • tracking • trance • transition • transmutation • trickster • underworld • unbecoming • understanding • universe • verve • vex • vigil • vim • vocation • wands (tarot) • warlock • warmening • weaving • whim • white mana • wide-goals • wiles • will o' the wisp • wisdom • wit • witch • witnessing • wizard • wyrd • zephyrous* ### Allusion URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/allusion/ Last updated: 2026-04-21T08:38:44.000Z */əˈluːʒn/* ◊ noun Indirect reference that evokes deeper meaning through association and resonance. Functions through poetic logic rather than literal statement, enabling complex ideas to materialize via suggestion and metaphorical connection. See: *[correspondence](https://www.foxwizard.com/glossary#correspondence), [obliquity](https://www.foxwizard.com/glossary#obliquity), [surreptitious](https://www.foxwizard.com/glossary#surreptitious)* ### 2026 will be known as “The Year of the Curious Squid” URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/curious-squid/ Last updated: 2025-12-02T05:32:38.000Z In 2004 [Sir Terry Pratchett](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry%5FPratchett?ref=foxwizard.com)—author of the[*Discworld*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discworld?ref=foxwizard.com) series—came up with [a list of year names ‘long enough to last a fair while’](https://www.reddit.com/r/discworld/comments/1pbb9sa/2026%5Fwill%5Fbe%5Fknown%5Fas%5Fthe%5Fyear%5Fof%5Fthe%5Fcurious/?ref=foxwizard.com). This list is held by Terry’s long-time friend and business manager Rob Wilkins, and is not publicly available. Each year is illustrated by long-time collaborator [Paul Kidby](https://www.paulkidby.com/?ref=foxwizard.com). ## *Here’s a list of previous years* - The Year of the Prawn (2005) - The Year of the Signifying Frog (2006) - The Year of the Reversed Ptarmigan (2007) - The Year of the Three Roses (2008) - The Year of the Pensive Hare (2009) - The Year of the Happy Goose (2010) - The Year of the Complicated Monkey (2011) - The Year of the Second Inception (2012) - The Year of the Frog Ascendant (2013) - The Year of the Reciprocating Llama (2014) - The Year of the Spinning Mouse (2015) - The Year of the Sneezing Panda (2016) - The Year of the Backwards-Facing Artichoke (2017) - The Year of the Justifiably Defensive Lobster (2018) - The Year of the Incontrovertible Skunk (2019) - The Year of the Condescending Carp (2020) - The Year of the Beleaguered Badger (2021) - The Year of the Lachrymating Leveret (2022) - The Year of the Querulous Megapode (2023) - The Year of the Moribund Aardvark (2024) This year (2025) has been The Year of the Luminous Lemur. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/12/image.png) Illustration by [Paul Kidby](https://www.paulkidby.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) If I allow my mind to contemplate the qualities of The Luminous Lemur and retrofit them to our own semi-shared narrative, it’d go something like this. ### *Luminous* Luminescence isn’t bright or flashy. It doesn’t show off, or herald “Huzzah! I’m here for sexy times.” Nor is it a way of flexing “I’m poisonous” like some brightly coloured frogs might. Luminescence just glows. And this is a quality you’ll only really notice in the dark. And it has been *a dark time* for anyone paying attention. And in such times, the temptation would be to dim your light, keep your head down, mind your own business. But The Luminous Lemur was, perhaps, a reminder for us to instead *glow.* This is different from shining. Shining is about reflection—it requires an external source of light. Performers shine from the attention they receive. We shine when there is brightness. Luminescence, on the other hand, is *emanation*. The light comes from within. A glow is softer, steadier, and more enduring than shine. It doesn’t require polish. ### *Lemur* Lemurs are fellow primates who evolved independently from monkeys and apes. Lemur societies are also female-dominant, which is a refreshing inversion from the standard primate hierarchy. They are very social, too. Lemurs, like all liminal creatures, have an enhanced perspectival acuity—they’re able to stay deeply attuned to the periphery. But they’re also not making a fuss about it. Again, to retrofit some wisdom, it seems to me that 2025 has been a time in which many of my own friends migrated to private signal groups. These are more intimate, more social, and more *real* than the antics that occur in the harsh light of the open web. The Luminous Lemur has, perhaps, offered some of us the encouragement to find our own glow away from the fabrications of social media, to participate within a different kind of social web, and to foster a greater acuity for the subtle and unseen. Certainly for myself, and for many of my own friends, there is a tentative and furtive exploration of the mythic and more-than-rational (other & under) worlds—and this has been nourishing for the soul. This process of appreciative enquiry into the archetypal aspects of symbols and ‘patterns of meaningness’ is something we explore in [The ‘Choose One Word’ Ritual of Becoming](https://www.cleverness.com/word?ref=foxwizard.com). I’m in the midst of updating this program to be something much more intentional and cohort-based—but it’s still available for you if you feel the makings of a new chapter in life. ## *And now: contemplating the qualities of “The Curious Squid”* I have thoughts on this, pertaining to supple sapience, and of cephalopod curiosity (as distinct from feline). This has also stirred up memories from one of my favourite books of recent times, [*The Mountain in the Sea*](https://www.raynayler.net/the-mountain-in-the-sea.html?ref=foxwizard.com). But at the same time, I am *trying* to learn how to do short-form. As you know, [I cast big spells](https://www.foxwizard.com/microblogging-cantrips/). This month I’m experimenting with the heretical notion: what would it be like to write pieces that are *less than* 1,000 words? [I failed yesterday](https://www.foxwizard.com/conditions-not-solutions/). I also grow a little weary of my own solipsism. And so I wonder: what qualities do *you* sense The Curious Squid might offer to us? ### Conditions, not solutions URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/conditions-not-solutions/ Last updated: 2025-12-01T05:53:58.000Z Sometimes, a prospective client will want to know the outcomes of our work together *before* we have begun. This is reasonable; and a logic that makes sense in Box Land, where everything is made to fit within boxes. ## *But a promised outcome…* … can only be deduced if we follow a linear process. In Box Land people front up to work in their boxes (cubicles) to work on their rectangular boxes (screens) in order to tick boxes (KPIs and OKRs). Like in the novella *Flatland,* wherein the characters of a two-dimensional world struggle to comprehend higher dimensions, so too the people of Box Land struggle to comprehend qualities that don’t fit within boxes. Which is perfectly understandable—the paradigm we are in skews towards metric obsession. What gets measured gets done, and inversely: that which cannot be readily measured cannot be valued. Box Land thus works within ‘[bounded ways of seeing](https://www.foxwizard.com/horizonal-museletter/#quest-to-plan-%E0%AA%9C%E2%81%80%E2%9E%B4)’. And this logic works for formulaic work within closed systems, where all parameters are known, where each component relates to other components with linear predictability, and where diagnosis can be both precise and prescriptive. In this context, a solution can be promised. If your printer or car stops working, it is very reasonable to assume: it can be fixed. But for *complex* work within open (living) systems, where the relationship between components is dynamic, non-linear and irreducible, and wherein the work is itself nested within a larger complex and dynamic system—promising outcomes and bringing external ‘solutions’ is fraught. What tends to happen is we get half-solutions that create new problems. Or fads that temporarily work, but do little to shift the underlying substrate. ## *Nebulous Qualities* When a prospective client asks me what the outcomes of our work will be *before* we begin, I tend to exasperate them by saying something nebulous. I cannot guarantee any particular outcome, but—based upon the experience I’ve had (and [what my clients say](https://www.drjasonfox.com/happy-clients?ref=foxwizard.com))—I can point to the *qualities* that tend to emerge as a result of our work together. Qualities such as: *greater curiosity, engagement, collegiality, perspicacity, creativity, empathy, trust, rapport, discretionary effort, new value, lateral acuity, collective genius,* and so on. These qualities often *give rise* to the emergence of novel pathways and new value which, in hindsight, can seem like ‘solutions’. But the qualities themselves are nebulous. Patterned, sure. But nebulous nonetheless.\[^ I draw a lot of inspiration from David Chapman’s [***Meaningness***](https://meaningness.com/eternalism-nihilism-and-meaningness?ref=foxwizard.com) for the concept of patterned nebulosity.\] It would probably be easier if I just promised 10x productivity or what-not, like everyone else. But I find such claims—unless done with sincere irony—tend to be an affront to our intelligence. ## *We can’t promise outcomes* Nor ought we promise *solutions*. Not to complex challenges. Unless, of course, our business model has us *in-and-out* before the problems of our solutions are properly realised. This is the career strategy of many executives. Get in, make results happen, then move onto the next job. You can update your CV with some impressive numbers in this manner. The thing is, bringing ‘solutions’ to complex contexts can also bring unintended consequences that create yet more problems. Sure, you may have hit that impressive target—*but at what cost?* We don’t set out to ‘solve’ complex problems. Not at the outset. We instead want to first seek to sense-into the underlying conditions. To understand them, and then to gently probe and agitate the underlying conditions, to see what we might stir up. ## *Why solutions fail* I recently came across [*Planet: Critical*](https://www.planetcritical.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) after reading that they have [left Substack for Ghost](https://planetcritical.substack.com/p/goodbye-substack). I’ve chalked this up as a little more validation for my own likewise move, but in seeing their (impressive) Ghost publication I came across a recent interview with one of my all-time favourite complexity practitioners—Dave Snowden. In this piece, Dave Snowden isn’t as [grumpy](https://www.foxwizard.com/metamodern-grandpa-energy/) as he can lovingly be. And Rachel Donald, the host of *Planet: Critical* is witted and astute in her questions. She danced the conversation well, and it’s worth listening to. [Why “Solutions” Fail | Dave SnowdenComplexity scientists Dave Snowden explains why good intentions never leave the conference centre.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/icon/Planet-Crit_Iconmark_RGB_Full-color.png)Planet: CriticalRachel Donald![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/thumbnail/Ghost-image--1200-x-628-px---1-.png)](https://www.planetcritical.com/dave-snowden/?ref=foxwizard.com) As someone who contributes to many conferences, my approach is often subversive. I don’t seek to bring ‘practical tips’ and ‘inspired solutions’—because I respect that audiences are working amidst complexity. What I bring, instead, are thoughtful provocations, wondrously heretical perspectives, and warmly subversive notions so as to inspire the kind of generative ambiguity that leads people to more readily engage with new ways of seeing and living into the opportunities at hand. ## *Change to continue* As you know, I’ve been in a deep sabbatical these past four years. > Your favourite wizard became blursed with the metacrisis insight-cascade half a decade ago, and he wouldn’t shut up about it. He thought he had intellectually processed the sorrow that came with it. So clever. But nay; all he had done was suppress it. And this sorrow leaked into his writing and work, bringing about a grim chapter, which saw him finally succumb to the quest that beckoned him deep into the dark forest. And so he stepped through [**the window of disenchantment**](https://www.foxwizard.com/e2/), into his own unravelling, and finally began to contend with the grief. Plant medicine may have catalysed an element of this—but it was poetry, myth, good relations and time in the wilds that saw him through. And now, after having given the equivocal Balrog a bit of a what-have-you, [**he’s back**](https://d.wattpad.com/story%5Fparts/562878205/images/1526656abfc918ae381973265497.jpg?ref=foxwizard.com). Remember, as James P. Carse writes: *Only that which can change can continue: this is the principle by which infinite players live.* I would hope that, in the past while, *you’ve* changed, too. We are living in a time betwixt worlds. *“The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born,”* as the philosopher Antonio Gramsci wrote (whilst imprisoned by a fascist regime). *“Now, is the time of monsters.”* (to add Žižek spin). We cannot simply ‘fix’ the old system—because that paradigm is past its half-life. It’s exhausted, maligned, and failing us. But, lo—we also can’t point to any clear ‘solutions’, as nothing has yet coalesced; all is in flux. Nor would we want to—our attempts to ‘fix’ or ‘solve’ perpetuate the paradigm we struggle within. *“In a complex moving system, you cannot simply replace the parts,”* Nora Bateson eloquently shares in a relatively new documentary titled [**Why we need to quit ‘fixing’ the world: a cybernetic approach to planetary challenges**](https://www.essentiafoundation.org/why-we-need-to-quit-fixing-the-world-a-cybernetic-approach-to-planetary-challenges/seeing/?ref=foxwizard.com). [Why we need to quit ‘fixing’ the world: A cybernetic approach to planetary challengesNora Bateson is a filmmaker, author and director of the Bateson Institute. In this conversation, Hans Busstra talks to Nora about her work and that of her father Gregory Bateson, who was one of the founding fathers of cybernetics. Bateson’s notion of ‘double bind,’ for instance, helps to see how solutions we design on one level of a system (say, the use of pesticides to solve food shortage) directly form an existential threat on a different level (destruction of soil microbiome). Expanding on her father’s work, Nora Bateson introduced the concept of ‘warm data’: information about the interrelationships within a complex system, which are contextual, relational, and multi-perspectival. And she argues that to avoid double binds we need to work with warm data, which is about meaning, instead of trusting solutions that come out of the syntactic reasoning of AIs.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/icon/apple-touch-icon-9.png)Essentia FoundationNora Bateson, BA, Hans Busstra, MA![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/thumbnail/shutterstock_2642724589-scaled.jpg)](https://www.essentiafoundation.org/why-we-need-to-quit-fixing-the-world-a-cybernetic-approach-to-planetary-challenges/seeing/?ref=foxwizard.com) And yet: there *are* patterns to be found, amidst it all. Potentialities in the penumbra. Glimmers to be gleaned. [Leaks to feed](https://www.foxwizard.com/feeding-leaks/). A way that reveals the way, too—if we know where (and how) to look. ## *Supple acuity* We must develop the capacity to notice the [myriad subtle significances](https://www.foxwizard.com/non-zero-influence/#your-myriad-subtle-significances) that surround us. Does this sound faintly [shamanoid](https://laymanpascal.substack.com/p/free-version-metashamanics)? It ought to! *“You’ve got to find ways in which people notice anomalies very quickly, so that they can repurpose,”* Dave Snowden explains in conversation with Rachel Donald. In other words—you’ve got to *keep your wits about you.* ## *Widen the aperture* How are we cultivating ways in which to *widen the aperture* of our ways of seeing? I particularly like this frame because, to widen the aperture of seeing means to let in more light. This has two effects: on the one side the bright shining obvious will become painful to look at (too bright, too obvious), whereas on the other hand we will tend to notice more of what glimmers in the penumbra. As [I wrote earlier this year](https://www.foxwizard.com/e5/#void-hunting): > When everyone looks to the shining obvious headlines and trends—look to the penumbra. Let your eyes adjust to the glimmers in the dark. Seek the *gaps* in knowledge—either as avenues to explore and contribute to, or as fields to be wary within. In his conversation with Rachel, Dave says: *“I’m a Catholic, right? So to give up hope is a mortal sin. But it doesn’t require me to be optimistic.”* In a world blinded by the false light of optimism, I think it makes sense to embrace a bit more clear-sightedness (without abandoning hope—or rather: *the* [*hope-beyond-hope*](https://www.foxwizard.com/heretical-education/#footnote-6)). ## *Come out and play* Instead of seeking outcomes up front, *come out* of your box and let’s wander about in the woods for a while. In practical terms, this looks like *having a conversation* wherein we can, together, sense-into the underlying conditions that give rise to the problems you seek solutions to. In other words: it takes time to warm into it. And so we start small, and cultivate confidence over time. In this process, you will come to appreciate that *promising outcomes* in complex contexts is the gambit of charlatans and [confidence men](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confidence%5Fman?ref=foxwizard.com) who do [confidence tricks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Confidence%5Ftricks?ref=foxwizard.com).\[^ As you know, I have a respect for the grift, and I appreciate bullshit [*artistry*](https://www.foxwizard.com/mythical-imposter/#within-the-mythical). But most isn’t artful.\] Reality can be bent to attain outcomes, sure. Most metrics are gamed in this way. And if you’ve a requirement for guaranteed outcomes, we can play that game. But there’ll be some *wiliness* that’s needed. It’ll require that we *quest amidst*, having wit and wisdom enough to hold to the bearing of meaningful progress towards the supposed outcomes *whilst also* dancing through the necessary pantomimes of a world enamoured within its delusions of progress. This is what the work looks like: patient, messy, attentive, non-linear, with acuity for sensing what wants to emerge rather than being slaved to past notions about what we think should happen. It’s subtle, meta-rational *deftwerk* for those willing to dance with Trickster. ### Museletter ⟠ Horizonal Wizardry URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/horizonal-museletter/ Last updated: 2025-11-27T00:16:27.000Z What-ho friends, I’ve had an influx of new subscribers. Welcome! You’re reading *the museletter* of [Dr. Fox](https://drjasonfox.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) (aka [foxwizard](https://foxwizard.com/?ref=foxwizard.com)). The museletter is *an epistolary soliloquy*, with many links. Open this one up at [foxwizard.com/horizonal-museletter](https://www.foxwizard.com/horizonal-museletter) if you like, and take your time. If a friend forwarded this to you, you can subscribe at [foxwizard.com](https://www.foxwizard.com/) ❦ Actually, speaking of friends, I did a whoopsie-daisy. I thought to do some tidying, so I removed a few hundred ‘non-responsive’ emails from the subscriber list. I later realised that I may have inadvertently removed sage folk who *do* read these museletters via email providers that block trackers. So, if you *aren’t* reading this email right now—this is why. Apologies. If you *are* reading this email, could you check that your friends who subscribe (or who might like to [subscribe](https://foxwizard.com/?ref=foxwizard.com)) are also seeing this, too? (◕‿◕✿) In this museletter we reflect on the meta-rational canny required to do ‘strategy’. But first: some updates. --- ## Noticeboard 𝌉 With December looming, many of us begin to reflect on the year that was, and the new year that may be. I’ve some things to share pertaining to this. ### *1 // The dangerlam wall calendar is back* ｡◕‿◕｡ My darling and co-conspirator—Dr. Kim Lam, the [dangerlam](https://www.instagram.com/dangerlam?ref=foxwizard.com)—has released the latest iteration of her wall calendar. The 2026 dangerlam wall calendar is [available for purchase now as a digital download](https://www.dangerlam.com/shoppe/2026-calendar?ref=foxwizard.com) (which is easily printed locally). [I wrote of Kim’s calendar last year](https://www.foxwizard.com/virtue-signalling/#rejoice-the-2024-dangerlam-wall-calendar-is-now-available-%F0%9F%8C%9D) in a museletter. This year, Kim has maintained a new practice of surfacing a daily word poem. *Turgid plums, slime mother, fancy sneeze, dish rack joy, potentiometer, conch blast, geis, child crone, faceted classification*, *lizards! lightning!* and *omni-useless* are a few favourites*.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/11/dangerlam_wall_calender_1-2.jpg) The power of this practice is in the acuity and attunement. Want more poetry in your life? Cultivate the capacity to perceive it; to recognise and know it when you sense it. It’s as the poet and mystic W.B. Yeats reminds: > *“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.”* This can be ordered from Kim’s website: [dangerlam.com/shoppe/2026-calendar](https://www.dangerlam.com/shoppe/2026-calendar?ref=foxwizard.com) --- ### *2 // A new “Services Guidebook” is coming soon* ⭔ A decade ago I created a “services guidebook” to give prospective clients a sense of the ways in which we can work together. It became a bit of a pattern—something I would update each year. But then, during my “Dark Forest chapter”\[^ The chapter of my Descent.\] I set fire to much of my internet presence and past work. Websites, blogs and podcasts I had maintained for *years*—immolated. All gone.\[^ At the same time, a celebrity soldier known as “Jason Fox” *trounced* me in terms of SEO. And so, I leaned ever more into the esoteric expression of ‘foxwizard’ you read here.\] I think it was a way of becoming free again. All rogues recognise traps. But some things survived. An example: The Faculty of Mathematics and Economics at [The University of Vienna](https://www.univie.ac.at/?ref=foxwizard.com) has [a cached version of my 2016 guidebook](https://projektservice-mathematik.univie.ac.at/fileadmin/user%5Fupload/p%5Fprojektservice%5Fmathematik/EVENTS/EARMA2016/Dr%5FJason%5FFox%5F2016%5FServices%5FGuidebook.pdf?ref=foxwizard.com) on their website. A guidebook that was made this time 10 years ago. [*How to Lead a Quest*](https://www.drjasonfox.com/shop?ref=foxwizard.com) was published at around the same time, too. The book has never been more relevant. Organisations (and many of us ourselves, in our own lives) are *more than ever* needing the sensibilities of *questing*. Of knowing how to live and lead *meaningful* progress (as distinct from perpetuating a rich *delusion* of progress) in this time betwixt worlds. To quest *doesn’t* mean disappearing into the dark forests (though this might be exactly what some of us need). We can *quest amidst—*which means: we can cultivate wisdom and wit enough to hold to the bearing of meaningful progress *whilst also* dancing through the necessary pantomimes of a world enamoured within its delusions of progress. It’s subtle, meta-rational *deftwerk™* (with a trickster’s glint).\[^ And also akin to *The Fourth Way*, in that we attend to ‘the work’ whilst embedded in ordinary existence (rather than retreating from it).\] ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/11/080.jpg) A photo from a recent event. Thanks Natalie! This was all just to say: I have new keynotes and offerings that will be packaged up for thee ‘soon’. If you are planning events to kick things off for 2026—and don’t want to wait for this wizard to get his act together—be in touch with [kim@drjasonfox.com](mailto:kim@drjasonfox.com) and we can tee up a call. Here’s a testimonial from an event held in a literal mansion on behalf of TikTok earlier this year. > *“Most of us are so busy dealing with what’s right in front of us, we rarely stop to consider what truly drives the world around us.* > > *Fortunately, Dr. Jason Fox does. He has a rare ability to distil big, complex ideas into insights that feel immediately relevant and useful.* > > *Take a moment. Step back. Let him shift your perspective on what’s really going on.”* > > —John Halpin, CEO, [WPP Media](https://www.wpp.com/en-au?ref=foxwizard.com) New Zealand Plenty more at [drjasonfox.com/happy-clients](https://www.drjasonfox.com/happy-clients?ref=foxwizard.com) What magic might you and I evoke, I wonder? --- ### *3 // A portal to The School of Fox Wizardry is coming* 𐀔 When? [Thoon](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fexternal-preview.redd.it%2FkN5yafqO-dW6LndkHUrfNtigiCRMOE2zYVyw7f73Raw.gif%3Fformat%3Dpng8%26s%3D7f88f694cc9b247715d964c84c4c4457928bb2f2&ref=foxwizard.com). I have had quite a few of you asking me of this, ever since I teased this obscure poster a while back. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/11/school_fox_wizardry_tease_1.png) You are invited to apply for *the school of fox wizardry.* But *how* to apply? And what is it even? ب\_ب Ha! Very well—I will shed some light. *The School of Fox Wizardry* is for construct-aware\[^ This is my mundane way of saying ‘magic’-aware, too.\] liminal leaders\[^ A ‘construct-aware liminal leader’ operates from the recognition that all frameworks, models, and meaning-making systems are provisional—useful but not ultimately real—while maintaining active presence in the generative ambiguity of ‘threshold spaces’. Such liminal leaders are deftly attuned to questing and emergence.\] who seek to be more effective agents in this time betwixt worlds. If you’re a subscriber to this museletter, there’s a high chance that’s you. Our established systems can’t solve new problems—but new systems haven’t yet quite emerged. We can’t simply *fix* the old system—because that paradigm is past its half-life. It’s exhausted, and failing us. But, lo—we also can’t point to any clear ‘solutions’, as nothing has yet coalesced; all is in flux. This is the liminal condition, and it’s disorienting for most. But—there are patterns to be found, amidst it all. Potentialities in the penumbra. Glimmers to be gleaned. A way that reveals the way, too—if we know where (and how) to look. This is questing—amidst\[^ To *quest amidst* means to have wisdom and wit enough to hold to the bearing of meaningful progress *whilst also* dancing through the necessary pantomimes of a world enamoured within its delusions of progress. It’s subtle, meta-rational *deftwerk* that must be done (with a trickster’s glint).\] and betwixt.\[^ That is: a time betwixt worlds. Together we quest to co-create a world more curious and kind (and a future less grim).\] *The School of Fox Wizardry* will teach this, and more. There are three kinds of folk I have in mind for this. 1. **Construct-aware executives** (my clients). You’ve seen too many change initiatives fail, too much innovation theatre, and too many consulting firms take the piss and make bank. Over time, you’ve weathered the pattern enough to readily discern its limitations. But rather than give up, go numb, or sell your soul to The Machine—you’ve *the glint* about you. You know that you can affect great change. You also know: you don’t want to be trapped. You wonder: where might *you* be the liminal leader folk turn to? And how might you *lead* where others wait for a clear path to follow? 2. **Construct-aware independent consultants** (my peers). You’ve chosen independence because you *chafe* within singular paradigms. You cannot be contained. And so you oscillate between [the established and the emergent](https://www.foxwizard.com/established-emergent/). You bring refreshing new value to the established in exchange for coin, and then you use that coin to buy the time to explore the emergent (where your curiosity and values pull you). This then enriches and informs the value you bring to your clients, creating a virtuous feedback loop. But it can also be a path filled with doubt, particularly when you don’t follow the herd. You wonder: where might you deepen this practice beyond improvisation? And how are others doing this work? 3. **Poets, philosophers, scholars,** [**shamanoids**](https://laymanpascal.substack.com/p/free-version-metashamanics) **and liminal practitioners** (my inspo). You are well and truly construct-aware, and live within the liminal as your primary work. You write, make, teach, practice and share in ways that sound utterly impractical to consensus reality—yet somehow your work names things before they have names, sees patterns before they coalesce into legible forms. You host guerrilla gatherings and ad hoc salons. You’re also of the economic [precariat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precariat?ref=foxwizard.com) and often professionally illegible—but you're doing the work that consultants and executives will be drawing upon in five years hence. You light the way. You sometimes wonder, though—what would it be like to make a little more coin? And how might you do this, whilst staying authentic and true? All have the sensibilities of an infinite player who knows that, occasionally, we must adopt the roles of finite play. But also—I’m talking about my favourite clients, peers, and inspirations here. Friends (and potential friends) all. Which takes me to the real motivation behind *The School of Fox Wizardry.* **I want to start a thieves’ guild.**\[^ I am very inspired by [**The Guilds of Discworld**](https://wiki.lspace.org/Guilds%5Fof%5FAnkh-Morpork?ref=foxwizard.com). For example: *“Nowadays, the modern, properly registered Thieves’ Guild makes money mainly by having rich people pay an annual premium, and arrange for a convenient date to rob an acceptable amount from these rich clients in their own home. For the poorer (but not penniless) citizens who do not arrange for premiums and appointments, the Thieves quite politely rob them in the streets, in their business premises, or in their homes, not badly injuring them, and always leaving them a receipt which guarantees that these people will not be inconvenienced with another official robbery for the rest of the year.”*\] Except it’s for wizards, rogues, and trickster-kin. Spellcasters, shapeshifters, independent consultants and liminal agents. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/11/image-2.png) That’s right—a thieves’ guild (except we don’t steal anything) ◊ conjured via shoggoth (soz) And so *The School of Fox Wizardry* will ostensibly train savvy minds in the subversive fox magics that allow liminal agents to be effective ‘thought leaders’ in this time betwixt worlds. But—through shared curriculum and cultivated kinship—I suspect we may end up with a network of independent consultants who may, at times, band together for good work. Good work including (but not limited to): big enterprise projects, events, programs, publications—and more. The thing about a thieves’ guild is that, whilst everyone is an omnicompetent generalist with shared philosophy and [cant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thieves%27%5Fcant?ref=foxwizard.com), each member *also* has their unique Talents and Knack. You have lockpicks, strongarms, swindlers, cutpurses, catburglars, fences, and more. I’m drawing from [*The Complete Thief's Handbook*](https://archive.org/details/tsr02111add2ephbr2thecompletethiefshandbook/mode/2up)a little here. And I will trust you know I am not speaking of a literal thieves’ guild. But I do like the idea of a global network of kindred spirits who live and lead amidst the liminal. *The School of Fox Wizardry* is the perfect front. And to answer the burning question a few subscribers have asked: yes, this will be available for folks around the world. There will be one core cohort, with various enhancements available (one of which is an optional stream for folks who can meet in-person to develop a new keynote presentation for delivery to a live audience in November). Pricing is in five figures, but not six. Think: something like two or three gold coins. More details on all of this... thoon. I’ve been quite inspired by Metalabel’s [*Theory of Groupcore*](https://blog.metalabel.com/a-theory-of-groupcore/?ref=foxwizard.com)and [*The Dark Forest Collective*](https://darkforest.metalabel.com/?ref=foxwizard.com)of thinkers and writers that make publications there. [*The Dark Forest Anthology of the Internet*](https://darkforest.metalabel.com/dfc?variantId=2&ref=foxwizard.com) is a good one. I also love [*The Other Internet*](https://otherinter.net/?ref=foxwizard.com) research collective and their old article on [*Squad Wealth*](https://otherinter.net/research/squad-wealth/?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* There’s just something so incredibly synergistic about mix-minded but like-hearted folk working in cohort together. I also have a suspicion that the ease in which anyone can use artificial intelligence to conjure content—coupled with the dynamics of platform and audience capture—will result in a deluge of highly ‘optimised’ content that lacks any animate magic. This, in turn, will facilitate an increased desire and acuity for a different quality of perspective. Having cultivated collectives in the past + produced beautiful print publications + hosted wondrous collective events + mentored many thought leaders + led emergent research teams, I feel a sense that we might be able to pull these threads together, to see what might coalesce. So! *The School of Fox Wizardry* as curriculum and shared cohort experience designed to cultivate and catalyse the development of intellectually honest, memetically fit and commercially savvy liminal knowledge leaders in a time betwixt worlds. Which, in turn, might serve as a front for a networked guild of independent agents who occasionally band together for collective works. But, one thing at a time. First I need to light the beacon, share the specifics (curriculum, course structure, commitment), and see what emerges. Curious? Just so. There’s nothing to do now other than *stay subscribed to the museletter*. 𓂀 --- ## Quest to plan જ⁀➴ Earlier this month I worked with a senior leadership team of a large financial institution; a team ostensibly tasked with maintaining ‘cybersecurity’, amongst other things. Naturally, security is always a complex, dynamic, and evolving challenge. It’s not something to which you can set-and-forget.\[^ This is something [Greg Dack](https://greg-dack.micro.blog/?ref=foxwizard.com) and I discussed in episode 15; [***Warmly Secure***](https://www.foxwizard.com/e15/).\] Cocksure confidence and hubris are less-than-admirable traits in this domain—you want to be sceptical, witted, alive and attuned to context, brimming with healthy doubt. And yet, like most teams, “annual planning” is required. If they don’t submit a strategic plan with a budget to provision resources, then they would likely not have access to adequate resources when they need it. Nor would they be able to invest in bigger developments to improve cybersecurity for the wider organisation and their clients. How does one plan, in advance, for unknown emergent and novel security threats in a rapidly changing world? Of course, my clients are great, and mature organisations have contingency budgets, staged releases, and ‘adaptive re-forecasting’ so as to properly meet emergent challenges. But it was a reminder just how revered plans are, to some. To [paraphrase a military chap](https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/11/18/planning/?ref=foxwizard.com):\[^ I don’t like to make a habit of such, but this quote is good.\] *“plans are worthless, but planning is everything”.* Now, I personally wouldn’t say ‘worthless’*.* But I also wouldn’t go and overly revere a plan. The plan itself is just an artefact that drops from the much more fruitful activity of *planning*—which, if done well, encompasses curiosity, empathy, acuity, imagination, and more.\[^ Things I write of in *How to Lead a Quest.* It’s soon to be the 10th-year anniversary of the book, and I am thinking to make 2026 a quest-themed year. Enterprise teams need it.\] Alas, the future cannot be perfectly knowable. We might discern the pattern or some of threads, in broad strokes—but this will always be a *supposition* based upon our collective protosynthesis.\[^ *“The first quality of a metamodern mind is its ability to productively handle paradox. Protosynthesis is the first and foremost paradox to handle.”* ([**source**](https://metamoderna.org/youre-not-metamodern-before-you-understand-this-part-2-proto-synthesis-2/?ref=foxwizard.com)) See also: [***5 things that make you metamodern***](https://metamoderna.org/5-things-that-make-you-metamodern/?ref=foxwizard.com)*.*\] An amusing hypothesis to put to the test.\[^ But still, once a plan is put in motion, it can be like a finite game—something to be played vigorously and wholeheartedly. Whilst knowing it is a game, that can be changed, so as to continue the play.\] Ergo, we must *dance* with Mystery. And so the process of strategic planning itself becomes a necessary kind of pseudo-prophecy and propaganda. We create a fabricated-yet-plausible, [Bayesian](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian%5Fstatistics?ref=foxwizard.com) ‘honest-as-can-be’ *narrative* of how things will likely come to be, working with what bricolage insight we have at hand. Which is not to say we simply make it all up. But we do manifest a *vision* of how things will unfurl. Imagination, reasonableness, maturity, and *trust* that are required for this to work. *“We connect all that we know and create a story,”* [writes ‘Hanzi Freinacht](https://metamoderna.org/youre-not-metamodern-before-you-understand-this-part-2-proto-synthesis-2/?ref=foxwizard.com)’. *“But we know that it’s just a story. However, we prefer it to no story at all.”* Likewise with plans. I would *almost* call this mythopoetic—the making of myth—but I want to keep such at arms length from the machinations of Enterprise Land, M̴͕̜͕̿̇̂̃̅̐͋͒͂͂o̵̡̩̝͛͛͒͆͛̽̀̏̈l̵͚̀͜o̸̡̡͓̙̫͎͍̝̜̠̜̪̿̇̍̐͊c̸̡͎̝̹͕̭̞̹͔̣͊̏̊͗͗͋̈́͝͝h̴̖̙̦̘͓̣̣̭̬̓̔̈̈́͜͠, and The Machine. I already corrupted the word ‘quest’ with the book *How to Lead a Quest.* But [where does strategy come from](https://www.foxwizard.com/quest-strategy/)? *Questing.* **Questing is the precursor to strategy.** And let’s remember: *“The strategy of infinite players is horizonal,”* as James P. Carse writes. Note: that’s *horizonal*—not horizontal. Though cultivating horizontal relationships is the right disposition to have. You don’t want verticality betwixt us, unless it’s playful and serves a role. But beneath it all, it’s *always* horizontal. > *“If you are building even one vertical relationship with someone, before you even notice what is happening, you’ll be treating all your interpersonal relations as vertical.”* – Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga, [*The Courage To Be Disliked*](https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/5d57cc81-9b33-4993-b6a2-1c8a8aac8f3e?ref=foxwizard.com) In addition to this, questing leaders must have a *horizonal* way of seeing. Otherwise we remain locked within plans, trapped within the very boxes we seek to tick. > *“Instead of placing one body of knowledge against another, storytellers invite us to return from knowledge to thinking, *from a bounded way of looking to an horizonal way of seeing*.”* – James P. Carse, *Finite and Infinite Games* A bounded vision treats the world as a landscape of objects and facts with defined properties (what’s visible is what exists, and what’s invisible is irrelevant), but a *horizonal* way of seeing treats the horizon itself as essential. To see horizonally is to hold your perceptual and cognitive stance such that what lies beyond the visible remains *generative* rather than merely absent. You don’t look to a horizon and think, huh, that’s all there is. You instead ask: I wonder what else could be? Plans inspire bounded ways of looking, but *planning* requires horizonal ways of seeing. But many seem to not know this, which is why—after conducting a strategy offsite, with much effort—we end up with ‘bold’ ‘new’ ‘strategic plans’ that look eerily similar to last year’s plans. We must cultivate the sensibilities to resist the tempting allure of the default, the convenient, the safe, the predictable, the familiar, the ready answer, the smooth reasoning, and that which is easy to measure. At least in domains that pertain to strategy. Even if only temporarily. And if we still collapse back to the default—at least we have canvassed the options. Because remember: *our defaults are the options we choose automatically in the absence of viable alternatives*. Choosing the default amidst the consideration of viable alternatives is totally legitimate. Still, as [I said](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KGFCTYACco&ref=foxwizard.com), nine years ago: *“I worry about the curse of efficiency”.* This has only amplified in the age of artificial intelligence. And whilst I don’t want to overly bemoan The Machine (it’s become too fashionable now)—I still want to ensure that my readers keep their wits about them. Here’s one more passage from James P. Carse’s [*Finite and Infinite Games*](https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Finite-and-Infinite-Games/James-Carse/9781476731711?ref=foxwizard.com).\[^ It’s a favoured piece that inspired a much earlier musing: [***Move Quietly and Plant Things***](https://www.foxwizard.com/move-quietly-and-plant-things/)*.*\] I’ve added my own emphasis. > “The alternative attitudes toward nature can be characterized in a rough way by saying that the result of approaching nature as a hostile Other whose designs are basically inimical to our interests is the *machine,* while the result of learning to discipline ourselves to consist with the deepest discernable patterns of natural order is the *garden.* > > ‘Machine’ is used here as inclusive of technology and not as an example of it—as a way of drawing attention to the mechanical rationality of technology. We might be surprised by the technological devices that spring from the imagination of gifted inventors and engineers, but there is nothing surprising in the technology itself. The physicists’ bomb is as thoroughly mechanical as the Neanderthal’s lever-each the exercise of calculable cause-and-effect sequences. > > ‘Garden’ does not refer to the bounded plot at the edge of the house or the margin of the city. T**his is not a garden one lives beside, but a garden one lives within. It is a place of growth, of maximized spontaneity.** To garden is not to engage in a hobby or an amusement; it is to design a culture capable of adjusting to the widest possible range of surprise in nature. **Gardeners are acutely attentive to the deep patterns of natural order, but are also aware that there will always be much lying beyond their vision. Gardening is a horizonal activity.** > > Machine and garden are not absolutely opposed to each other. Machinery can exist in the garden quite as finite games can be played within an infinite game. The question is not one of restricting machines from the garden but **asking whether a machine serves the interest of the garden, or the garden the interest of the machine.** We are familiar with a kind of mechanized gardening that has the appearance of high productivity, but looking closely we can see that what is intended is not the encouragement of natural spontaneity but its harnessing.” Serve the garden, not the machine. ### Reconciling the parts URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/now-reconciling-the-parts/ Last updated: 2026-04-10T06:38:39.000Z Back when I was questing (lost? lost-as-a-necessary-precursor-to-be-found?) [amidst the dark forest](https://www.foxwizard.com/now-out-of-the-dark/), I manifested “*foxwizard*” as my moonlight aspect. As *foxwizard* I could explore that which lies beyond the default (and The Overton Window of acceptability). In this mode I co-hosted *The Rekindling* (post-doom sensibilities for the collapse-aware) and went deep mythopoetic. I also got naïvely swept up in the promise of web3 for a while—and learned a few more lessons about how Power works (and how Moloch corrupts). I also went much, much deeper into the actual practice of what we might call ‘magic.’ But meanwhile: Dr. Jason Fox *withered.* My “award-winning speaker and leadership advisor” aspect—within which I do much great work and am [much loved by clients](https://www.foxwizard.com/testimonials/)*—bored me.* The [curse of knowledge](https://www.foxwizard.com/knowledge-of-curses/) became very real: I had little patience for those of us still operating with the base assumptions of modernity. Which is, in hindsight, quite unnecessarily arrogant and not very helpful. I’ve humbled up now, though. And whilst my body is literally allergic to anything inauthentic—and whilst I still hold intellectual honesty as one of the highest ideals (which makes being commercially effective extra tricky in the [lemon market](https://frankchimero.com/blog/2025/selling-lemons/?ref=foxwizard.com) of this demented attention economy we share)—I feel the need to reconcile the parts. To not be *foxwizard* or *Dr. Jason Fox* but both at once. And something else entirely. Here are the two main parts I purport. First there’s Dr. Jason Fox “Archwizard of Ambiguity” (most fantastic). ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2026/04/dr.-fox--arch-wizard-of-ambiguity.png) Dr. Jason Fox is summoned to bring optionality within Enterprise Land And then there’s this rogue entity—that trickster fae creature—the foxwizard. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2026/04/foxwizard--enigmatic-friend.jpg) foxwizard is summoned to help folk step up and into Mythic Mode The thrust of this all is: I am now focused on sunsetting the Dr. Jason Fox website (drjasonfox.com – a domain I have maintained for 15+ years) and bringing everything to foxwizard.com (I’m keeping this because, whilst there are many Jason Foxes in the world—there’s only *one* Dr. Jason Fox who happens to be a wizard). I look forward to not working with squarespace anymore; I’m quite at home here on [ghost](https://ghost.org/?ref=foxwizard.com). As for the book I have ostensibly been writing for you these past nine years... it’s still happening. My body has become quite the filter for what is true and real, and the courting of this book is working it’s wyrd magic on me. I am becoming the person I need to be to write this to you, if that makes sense. And these things work in their own time. ### “Robbed Orgasm” – Kindred Spirits (e9) ፨ URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/kindred-spirits-e9/ Last updated: 2025-11-08T20:28:43.000Z ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/media/2025/11/KS_e9_robbed_orgasm_thumb.png) Kindred Spirits – e9 0:00 /5014.5 1× Subscribe and listen on [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/foxwizard/id1645970777?ref=foxwizard.com), [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/2hkJuLE5VMED5rvDqnH4RL?ref=foxwizard.com), [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeLHJRzrOWo%5FQXluAn65XjHQsoX3IjLvn&ref=foxwizard.com), and now [Substack](https://kindredspiritspod.substack.com/?ref=foxwizard.com), too. We’re back! In this episode—*recorded on the 24th of October 2025*—[John Anthony](https://transcend.com.au/?ref=foxwizard.com) and I spake of things such as: - [The Perils of Audience Capture](https://www.gurwinder.blog/p/the-perils-of-audience-capture?ref=foxwizard.com) – a phenomenon I try to avoid (along with platform capture—or *any* capture, really) - “How to Make Podcasts That Aren’t Extremely Boring” – advice from SXSW that JA and I thoroughly, enthusiastically, *vehemently* reject - The virtues of friction and mess (as distinct from the cold, clinical, frictionless and stupefying ease offered by The Machine) - “You can tell it’s good because you have a slight authenticity hangover” - Trickster-teaching instinct - Cultivating an awareness of one’s own allergies - “Prior Preparation Prevents Piss-Poor Performance” (or does it?) - What to do when a person you have long admired releases a brilliant essay series of the same title as the book you have been writing (as [I wrote of recently](https://www.foxwizard.com/hiding/)) - Collective unconsciousness - The three things you need to be able to dream - Sly, detached, curious, and amused (regarding “goals”) - Directionality over destination - I sneak a little [Plotkin](https://www.animas.org/books/journey-of-soul-initiation/?ref=foxwizard.com) into the mix - The FAKE AD returns!! - It’s “both-both-and-and-either-or-AND-neither-nor” - A *twist-and-pop-and-slosh!* - I sample one of the best whiskies I have ever tasted—[The 18yo Allardice by Glendronach](https://www.glendronachdistillery.com/product/aged-18-years/?ref=foxwizard.com) - The Incredible Power of Korean Pear Juice - Plus all the Bad Advice™ you’ve come to love from us This episode—as all episodes—was an absolute delight to record. We hope you enjoy it too, dear kindred spirit. 🧡 ### A Quiet Resolve URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/quiet-resolve/ Last updated: 2025-12-05T03:40:03.000Z A couple of years ago [I revealed myself to be a supporter of international human rights](https://www.foxwizard.com/moral-courage/).\[^ To [quote](https://www.deepcutnews.com/p/chris-sidoti-international-law-is?ref=foxwizard.com) former Human Rights Commissioner, Chris Sidoti *“International law is just about the only thing that stands between us and the abyss. Without international law, states can do whatever they like to each other and to their own citizens. As weak as it is, as ineffective as it is, it’s at least an attempt to provide protection for people—an attempt that’s far from successful, but still far better than nothing. And without it, there’s nothing. The alternative is just chaos.”* If we can’t coordinate to stop a literal genocide with an abundance of direct, real-time evidence and footage—then how how in heck will we coordinate our way through the metacrisis (spoiler: we won’t—but it’s still worth striving for).\] I was also [quite vocal](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/drjasonfox%5Fgrateful-for-the-wisdom-compassion-leadership-activity-7124198106912456704-srDr/?ref=foxwizard.com) on [social media](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/drjasonfox%5Fthe-past-7-months-have-revealed-just-how-activity-7200994613749301248-wJu5?utm%5Fsource=share&utm%5Fmedium=member%5Fdesktop&rcm=ACoAAAKbuBQB2Z2CLWe0EJ-d-W36-DmMSY-8xb4), sharing a firm stance that we ought not be slaughtering children and doing war crimes, and that we should also defend against genocide. Never again, means never again—*for anyone.* I lost over 1,000 subscribers (that’s okay), a chunk of work (fine), and opened myself to some trolling (so be it). This is *nothing* compared to what more courageous and vocal folks have endured. Particularly women and intersectional friends. But I’m not quite as strong as them, and eventually it wore me down. There’s only so much live-streamed violence and horror one can imbibe, and only so much gaslighting one could tolerate. The poetry of Tom Hirons resonates with this feeling. Particularly [*My Dismantling Walls*](https://tomhirons.com/poetry/gaza/my-dismantling-walls?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* > I stopped looking at the pictures > of dead Palestinian children > because there was no safe room > large or safe enough in my heart > in which they might be held > without breaking the walls of my self. > If I were to allow each death truly into me, > I feared I could become a catastrophe, > a saint or a god. Perhaps even a human, > remade. > > I don’t know how to live in the horror > of watching a slaughter from afar > and so find solace in small actions > that are not ever enough and > my soul churns with fury and grief. > > ... ([*continued*](https://tomhirons.com/poetry/gaza/my-dismantling-walls?ref=foxwizard.com)) And so, I learnt to wean myself off the social media apps once more. Somehow this still felt like betrayal. But somehow I also came to see just how our compassion can be co-opted by The Machine. *“The Machine is a judo artist who uses an opponent’s own energy against him,”* Adam Smith [writes](https://www.frontporchrepublic.com/2025/09/the-word-and-the-machine-on-paul-kingsnorth/?ref=foxwizard.com). *“It thrives on attention, and negative is as good as positive, maybe even better.”* ## *Eschew The Spectacle* I can’t even remember how I became so ensnared. As a wizard—particularly as *a foxwizard*—[I should have had my wits about me](https://www.foxwizard.com/internet-wizard/). Still, it’s good to slip every now and then. This passage from [*The Basilisk*](https://emergencemagazine.org/fiction/the-basilisk/?ref=foxwizard.com)continues to resonate. > *You know what this portal is, don’t you, Niece? You were always a smart one. You have joined the dots. I know it.* > > *There is a reason they call it “the web,” Bridget; a reason they call it “the net.” It is a trap. We have built the means of our own enslavement, at their suggestion. Now we are all carrying a portal to the underworld in our back pockets and handbags, and we are entirely unguarded against whoever chooses to step through it.* I love how it hints at the otherworldly occult, whilst also offering sensibilities quite prudent for the times. It’s very *as-if.*\[^ *“I don’t believe in all this dark entity shit!”* they might say, whilst at other times wondering if the black stone tablet they carry with them is listening to their words.\] Anyhoo: I turned away from the portal, immersing myself in books, poetry, podcasts, and conversation with the wider world. And it’s been *wonderful.* I’m aware that some might consider this a form of spiritual bypassing. Yet I maintain that we each need to find our capacities and our ways. And this doesn’t always have to be mitigated via centralised social media platforms. ## *Find Your Way* As I shared in my [equinox extravagance](https://www.foxwizard.com/e16/), I feel as though I could hear my own voice again (after I don’t know how many years). And, more importantly, my Muse made herself known to me. She doesn’t like The Machine. But here’s the thing: I work with liminal agents. Folks who likewise operate betwixt worlds. Folks at ease in the *both-and* of it all.\[^ Or rather: the *both-both-and-and-either-or-(and-neither-nor)* of it all.\] There is a requisite oscillation to such work. Liminal agents neither completely remove themselves from the game (to go live in the wilds), *nor* do they completely surrender themselves to The Machine. We oscillate, and maintain a presence in both. This is *particularly* important with regards to collapse-awareness. Knowing *just how bad* things are going to be leads most of us (eventually) to the conclusion that, whatever happens, we’ll need to play our roles *wherever* we happen to be. Which means that, for many of us, we must do our work *in-situ.* Going off to live on a remote farm won’t work for most of us—you need skills, resources, money, land, and most importantly: community. You don’t want hungry neighbours. Some liminal agents work within the heart of The Machine; [warmening](https://www.foxwizard.com/kindred-spirits-e3/#always-be-warmening) and cultivating deeper relationality, orientating towards true value. And some of us work as external agents, offering value and perspective that cannot readily be generated from within. Either way, we each work in our own way, amidst the liminality, to co-create a world more curious and kind (and, we hope, a future less grim). Thus the work I do *requires* that I at least occasionally show up where the conversation is happening. This is a long and round about way of saying that... I feel I need to oscillate back into the arena, for a spell. ## *Back Into The Arena* Mayhaps. We’ll see. Or rather: I’ve already decided I’m going back, and I’m writing this to convince myself it’s a *principled* decision rather than just missing the buzz of engagement. I’ve been enjoying my RSS feeds to independent writers and bloggers, saving good articles to read and highlight via [readwise](https://readwise.io/?ref=foxwizard.com). In the rare times I had to jump onto the centralised platforms, it was never via my phone. And I would always steel myself first, doing my best *not* to be baited by the entities that seek to outrage and entrance. Of course I sabotage this intent *all the time*—but it still mostly serves. But recently—well, ever since leaving—I’ve noticed a kind of loneliness. The wizard tower from whence I write is in the forest. But so much of The Conversation seems to happen in the shopping mall that is Substack. From [a previous musing](https://www.foxwizard.com/e6/): > *“I think of it like a shopping mall. I don’t like shopping malls—too loud, too many people,* [*too many downlights*](https://www.foxwizard.com/downlighting/)*. But it’s convenient to have everything in the one place. And besides: a lot of people I deeply respect and admire hang out in the shopping mall that is Substack. If you’re a department store, or you’re just starting out, Substack can be great. It’s centralised and super convenient. And, frankly, it’s better than legacy social media platforms.”* Substack have pretty much abandoned all pretence that they are anything other than a social media platform now. And, whilst many writers (understandably) bemoan this—it is hardly surprising. What *does* surprise me is just how effective Substack has been at attracting (and retaining) wonderful writers.\[^ Who should know better (?) Or maybe they’re just a little less quixotic and a lot more pragmatic than I am.\] Oh sure, the slop is already lapping at the knees. But if you know how to navigate it all, you can still wend your way to some gems. All the perils of platform and audience capture remain—and Substack is *particularly* inundated with gamification elements that seek to turn writing into a kind of competition or sport—but I can’t deny: this is where the conversation seems to be happening. And it’s *less shitty* than all the other centralised platforms. Would I prefer it that we all maintained independent websites and met at something like the equivalent of a farmer’s market? Most definitely. But in the meantime this wizard will make the occasional foray to the shopping mall (with sunglasses, and hand sanitiser). The goal here being to simply make better connections with the bright minds and warm hearts who (seemingly) choose to make their home there. ## *Cool, okay* Yeah, ha. I have written another solipsistic post with no real point. This is me limbering up before I *actually* venture out. Palms sweaty, knees weak, arms are heavy, etc. Here’s me talking myself up before I put on my jester costume once more (in my case: a dapper suit) so that I can be like fellow jester [Thomas J Bevan, who says](https://substack.com/@thomasjbevan/note/c-172763116?ref=foxwizard.com): > *“You ever stop and think how ridiculous posting online is? The whole thing* > > *For example, people will genuinely travel to some far-flung location and from their deckchair carefully frame a photograph of the ocean and the beach and then they stick their legs out so that they just casually happen to be in the shot. And then they spend a good ten, fifteen minutes trying to think of the perfect caption—not too flippant, not too tryhard, not too humblebraggy—to accompany this shot. And then they send it out to a mass of strangers. And elsewhere in the world some stranger sees this—on the crapper, on a smoke break, on the train home—and they spend several minutes thinking of the perfect comment, the perfect retort, the perfect comeback to piggyback off this faux-candid leg-on-the-beach post.* > > *And this is the most trivial example I can think of. What about the people who film themselves dancing for the lottery win shot of tiktok clout? Or the people who watch such things hour after hour? What about the people who spend weeks crafting serious essays about poptimism pap or pen breezy, flippant, drowning-in-twelve-layers-of-irony posts about actual important things?* > > *Or worse of all what about the should-know-better slightly older people who see through this whole charade (or think they do) but they waste their days crafting metaposts about this whole sorry state of affairs instead of simply walking away?* > > *You ever think about this?”* Hehe, oh I do. Perhaps too much so. A seemingly wise mentor told me, very early in my career, that *it is better to be a better marketer of what you do, than a doer or what you do* (via Winston Marsh). And this seems to be the case for many people. Which is why everything is increasingly shit, and we can’t have nice things. I can already feel myself talking myself out of it. Surely there is a way to channel this ambivalence? Ha: there isn’t—the ambivalence is the point. To quote Adam Smith once more: *“It might even be that ambivalence—or the trickster’s irony—is the proper form of resistance to a monster that thrives on opposition.”* But let’s be clear about what I’m ambivalent about: it’s not that nothing matters—much manifestly does, tragically so. I’m just ambivalent as to whether showing up in these spaces helps or just feeds The Spectacle and The Machine. And so I’ll visit the shopping mall occasionally, if in the mood. And maybe I’ll say some things, and maybe I’ll make a few more friends. The work requires I show up where conversations are happening—even if it means I become part of the pantomime. It’s ridiculous—yet here I am. ### Hiding in Plain Sight URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/hiding/ Last updated: 2025-12-29T22:15:18.000Z Earlier this month, [David Chapman](https://substack.com/@meaningness?ref=foxwizard.com)—a person I greatly admire, whomst I have referenced many, many times—released [a new series on substack on *‘Mythic Mode’*](https://meaningness.substack.com/p/seeing-and-doing-mythically). It’s brilliant. And: astute subscribers will know that *Mythic Mode* is the working title of the book I have been courting for many years. [Seeing and doing mythicallyHow we find the foundational self-possibilities that rationality cannot provide![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/icon/https-3A-2F-2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com-2Fpublic-2Fimages-2F174c5052-4bfe-4999-a496-7521b4533f5b-2Fapple-touch-icon-180x180.png)MeaningnessDavid Chapman![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/thumbnail/https-3A-2F-2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com-2Fpublic-2Fimages-2F4702e067-c865-4f0e-87e9-e13444731046_2560x1253.webp)](https://meaningness.substack.com/p/seeing-and-doing-mythically) Upon seeing this new series from a favourite writer—and having a few of you write to me about it—I found myself sitting with some new questions. Am I too late? Has my work been rendered null? What is even the point of a book, these days? Happily, this has all transmuted into something quite galvanising. Enough for me to finally (begin contemplating how I might) step out from the shadows. --- But before I continue—*hello and welcome to new subscribers! My writing has been rather solipsistic of late. If someone forwarded this to you, wonderful. You can subscribe over at* [*foxwizard.com*](https://foxwizard.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) *(I should point out that my museletters are epistolary; personal, reflective, honest, meandering—and not particularly pithy.)* *Whilst you’re here, this month I have published two things: episodes* [*seven*](https://www.foxwizard.com/kindred-spirits-e7/) *and* [*eight*](https://www.foxwizard.com/kindred-spirits-e8/) *of the ‘Kindred Spirits’ podcast with my friend* [*John Anthony*](https://transcend.com.au/?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* *I’ll soon share more details about ꧁* The School of Fox Wizardry ꧂ *I teased in* [*the previous museletter I wrote to you*](https://www.foxwizard.com/e16/)*.* *Finally,* [*Dr. Fox*](https://drjasonfox.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) *is accepting bookings for 2026\. Themes I am called in to assist with include: motivation amidst change fatigue, leading amidst uncertainty, unlocking agency, and performance beyond measure. (These themes tell their own story.)* *Thank you for being with me.* 🧡🦊 --- Anyhoo, back to my reverence. I remain immensely inspired by David Chapman, who gallantly writes on *“better ways of thinking, feeling, and acting—around problems of meaning and meaninglessness; self and society; ethics, purpose, and value.”* Amongst other things. [Metarationality](https://metarationality.com/?ref=foxwizard.com), [Meaningness](https://meaningness.com/?ref=foxwizard.com), [Vividness](https://vividness.live/?ref=foxwizard.com), [Buddhism for Vampires](https://buddhism-for-vampires.com/?ref=foxwizard.com), and [Better Without AI](https://betterwithout.ai/?ref=foxwizard.com) (he did a PhD in Artificial Intelligence btw) are the metablogs/books he maintains. David is a large reason why I found myself wending my way to writing my next book for you. What do I have to show for it? Breadcrumbs. A raven’s feather, and some red thread. A mention in [*The Ritual of Becoming*](https://www.cleverness.com/word?ref=foxwizard.com) (2019), a pop-up museletter, and an old substack museletter I sent in 2020 (from before I left substack). That same museletter quoted David *immediately after* my mention of *Mythic Mode.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/11/museletter-excerpt.png) And so when I saw David’s new series on *mythic mode,* I felt an odd mix of emotions swell up in me. Elation and delight (David’s attention only ever enhances ideas), petulance and lament (why has my writing been so slow? and why have I been so absent from the arena?), trepidation and concern (would this now become a buzzword?). I’ve landed back to generative delight, but the *trepidation* is worth unpacking. ## *Buzzwords* I this with ‘gamification’—a word that came into prominence from 2011\. The word itself is inherently terrible, btw. Cursed. Back then, video games were still considered fringe, and the motivational concepts were either hokey individualistic ‘magical thinking’ types, or the charismatic repackaging of SMART goals and ‘mindset’. I self-published [a small book on this (in 2011)](https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/catalog/5298963?ref=foxwizard.com), offering an alternative perspective (after working part-time as a blood-elf alchemist for a guild whilst completing my PhD). It seemed to resonate. But by the time [*The Game Changer*](https://www.amazon.com.au/Game-Changer-Science-Motivationwith-Behaviour/dp/0730307646?ref=foxwizard.com) (my second book) came out in 2014 the word had become thoroughly co-opted and corrupted by consultants. The richness of world-building and lore, creative constraint, narrative scaffolding, and all the ludic qualities and care that give rise to immersion in both finite *and* [infinite play](https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/1470000644?ref=foxwizard.com) were reduced to: points, badges, and leaderboards. Weirdly metric-obsessed abstractions, removed from the joy and meaningness of the struggle itself. To give you a sense: *“Exploiting Users By Letting Them Have Fun”* is the title of [a presentation](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evzbzTQXz3s&ref=foxwizard.com) and book from such times (although [the book](https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/1470000644?ref=foxwizard.com) was re-released from ‘exploiting people’ to ‘*engaging* people’, as *“Research shows when people are engaged they are more productive. That’s why gamification has caught on in the corporate world.”*) Bleh. The Machine always wants more productivity. Anyhoo, seeing David’s post made me worried that this would happen with *mythic mode,* too. But since when have I been so cautious? So far, it seems to have survived capture by commodifying consultants. Good folks like my friends [Kevin McGillivray](https://www.kevinmcgillivray.net/?ref=foxwizard.com) and [Buster Benson](https://busterbenson.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) have [written of it](https://medium.com/foolish-journey?ref=foxwizard.com). Perhaps I’ve been too protective? Too clandestine and circumspect, I suspect. ## *Ideas are alive* I’ve shared works-in-progress before, only to have fellow ‘thought leaders’ spin the ideas off as their own.\* Not that I claim any ‘ownership’ of ideas. Ideas cannot be owned—they have a life of their own. And they *want* to be expressed. But released too soon into the wilds and, well: they can become swiftly captured, commoditised and *franchised*—and thus sapped of their animacy. Subsumed by The Spectacle, then devoured by The Machine. \* *My main wish is that they honour the ideas, and do them better. It also never hurts to attribute and honour source. Quite the contrary; it elevates all.* Thus there’s a kind of tender custodial *stewarding* that some ideas need, first. Or a listening and attending-to. All good [storytellers and bards know this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KI9jt6NQw9w&ref=foxwizard.com). And so I have been worried that some consultant would hear of my workings of *Mythic Mode* and then go do it themselves in a manner that diminishes the notion. But even writing this now feels as though I have been acting like an overly protective father, instead of the dancer I once was. How did this happen? A related aside: for eleven years I have been attending to [*The Ritual of Becoming*](https://www.cleverness.com/word?ref=foxwizard.com)*—*a small component of which involves “Choosing One Word” to serve as a fuzzy contextual beacon to guide one’s own mythopoetic unfurling. But I’ve seen that many folks will bypass the richness of the Ritual to simply ‘pick a word’ for their year, and then post about it on LinkedIn. That *element* was all too easily commodifiable. But [I’ve written of this before](https://www.foxwizard.com/purpose-perils/#for-only-that-which-can-change-can-continue).\* \* *In yet another post where I also reference David Chapman, ha.* It has also happened that I would sometimes take *months* working to distil a rich concept into a resonant and poetically apt—only to see another thought leader copy-paste my exact words as their own. This has been rather vexing\*—not from the lack of attribution, but for the way that facsimiles somehow *diminish* potency. \* *And no, I don’t want to be the guy who litigates and lays claim—that only reinforces the shitty rivalrous dynamics of this attention economy. I instead want to grab them and shake them into their own genius.° And then hug them and have them feel supported in doing so.* *° I read [a passage](https://read.lukeburgis.com/p/spirit-and-the-cost-of-cognition?ref=foxwizard.com) from [Luke Burgis](https://lukeburgis.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) today that is quite apt. “Perhaps the recently canonized saint, Carlo Acutis, a young Italian computer programmer who died at the age of 15 from acute promyelocytic leukemia, offered the best probe (which is an inverted question) for our age when he said: ‘All people are born as originals, but many die as photocopies.’”* Hence why I tend to obfuscate, and write in a manner, pace and style that is my own. A way that goes *against* the grain of default advice—where everything must be as crisp and clear and sterile and homogeneously optimised as possible, indistinguishable from the slop dispensed by [The Great Plagiarism Machine](https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/a-company-reminder-for-everyone-to-talk-nicely-about-the-giant-plagiarism-machine?ref=foxwizard.com). I’m also reminded of the sensibilities that Tyson Yunkaporta spoke of in a podcast episode once upon a time. > *“I don’t know, I try to avoid naming anything. And I try to avoid making too much sense, and I try to say things a bit differently every time and to mix it up. And I'll make points that you can’t put together. I do that quite deliberately because I don’t want the things I’m thinking or working on to become an ideology or a brand, or something that people can use as a name. I have seen that happen before with a few things I’ve done: People have grabbed it, and then it’s become their thing. You’ve got to avoid that packaging and repackaging of ideas and let these things be free-range.”* ([source](https://greendreamer.com/podcast/dr-tyson-yunkaporta-sand-talk?ref=foxwizard.com)) There is a requisite *wiliness* that is required for courting ideas in the wild, and in honouring their [poiesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poiesis?ref=foxwizard.com). ## *Generative ambiguity* My own attempts to write *Mythic Mode* have so led me into my own unravelling. As you know, my last book—[*How to Lead a Quest*](https://www.amazon.com.au/How-Lead-Quest-Guidebook-Pioneering-ebook/dp/B01A038WIS?ref=foxwizard.com)*—*posited the notion of [meaningful progress, as distinct from the delusion of progress](https://www.foxwizard.com/authentic-progress/). I used to call myself ‘a trickster’ back then; cute, but not the best way to dance with Trickster, lol. Trickster be like [O RLY](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%5FRLY%3F?ref=foxwizard.com)? Anyhoo, such transgressions resulted in me becoming *blursed* by the very subversive magics I was channelling. The question of ‘meaningful progress’ involuted back unto me. I began to question everything—and most everything withered in response. No system of meaning could hold, and the things that once motivated me no longer held any potency or charm. Which is just *wonderful* for someone who reluctantly ([yet very effectively](https://www.drjasonfox.com/happy-clients?ref=foxwizard.com)) plays the role of motivational speaker, haha. [The window of disenchantment](https://www.foxwizard.com/e2/) lay wide open—and this time I walked through. One could say this maps to what David Chapman (building on adult developmental psychologist Robert Kegan’s work) might call ‘[the nihilistic gap](https://metarationality.com/stem-fluidity-bridge?ref=foxwizard.com#woo)’, which *“generally provokes* [*anxiety, rage, and depression*](https://meaningness.com/emotional-dynamics-of-nihilism?ref=foxwizard.com)*, and is not a good place to get stuck.”* > *“Many of the people I care about most, and find most interesting, are STEM-educated refugees from* [*ideological rationalism*](https://meaningness.com/rationalist-eternalism?ref=foxwizard.com)*. They’ve mastered rationality, they’ve seen through it—and many now are stuck. Systems cannot provide them with meaning; but neither, it seems, can anything else. Many fall into crippling nihilistic depression... This is awful.”* Ha, yeah, it is/was. Thank you to those who stayed with me through these times. It’s been... weird. And will continue to be. The last year has seen me come through—there is hope for all of us. Besides: no time spent being lost is ever wasted. There’s a line from the Nigerian-American writer and photographer [Teju Cole](https://www.tejucole.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) that has offered some solace to me as I go about this book in the pace it demands. > *“How to sustain for as long as possible the ‘I don't know what this is’ phase of the work. How to keep the search focused but open at the same time.”* I feel I have done well with this. The work demanded it. Here’s another line from Teju that I have used to fend off well-intended editors who wanted the book to work to a ‘plan’. > *“In a culture where you have to describe your ‘project’ before you’ve even begun work on it. Where explanation is the coin of the realm and sensibility is outmoded. Look. For a long time.”* Which, of course, links to the very same thing that David Whyte speaks of in his [prose on ‘ambition’](https://www.foxwizard.com/firesides-ambition-vocation/#on-ambition). “*Ambition abstracts us from the underlying elemental nature of the creative conversation while providing us the cover of a target that has become false through over-description, overfamiliarity or too much understanding. The ease of having an ambition is that it can be explained to others; the very disease of ambition is that it can be so easily explained to others.”* This book I am writing for you has resisted easy explanation. ## *Into the dark forest* [David Chapman writes](https://metarationality.com/meta-rationality-curriculum?ref=foxwizard.com#4.5) of how *“moving conclusively beyond systematicity inevitably induces* [*feelings of loss*](https://meaningness.com/emotional-dynamics-of-nihilism?ref=foxwizard.com)*—loss of your previous way of making sense of the world, and of your previous, systematic self.”* There may come a time when all of *your* systems, motivations and ontological models fall away for you, too. And, like Chapman, I am hoping that the book I am writing will be a guide for you. The guide I wish I had. I say that the pursuit of this book has led me into the dark forest (a place where, blessedly, we lose our way) and into the wilds. I’ve found much solace and fire in writers like [Martin Shaw](https://drmartinshaw.com/?ref=foxwizard.com), [Sophie Strand](https://sophiestrand.com/?ref=foxwizard.com), and [Michael Meade](https://www.mosaicvoices.org/?ref=foxwizard.com). The grief I finally began to express (for the loss of a father, and for our world and ecology) opened me up to writers like [Joanna Macy](https://www.joannamacy.net/main?ref=foxwizard.com) and [Francis Weller](https://www.francisweller.net/?ref=foxwizard.com). It was poetry, myth, time in nature, warm friends (and maybe a bit of plant medicine) that lifted me out of the darkness and into the dappled half-light. Poets like [David Whyte](https://davidwhyte.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) and [Rainer Maria Rilke](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/rainer-maria-rilke?ref=foxwizard.com) work profound magic upon me, now. I’ve also since found myself *much* more open to flirtations with the animate world. I am in deep agreement with Josh Schrei when he says: [*animism is normative consciousness*](https://www.themythicbody.com/podcast/animism-normative-consciousness/?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* > *“For 98% of human history—over 10,000 generations—our ancestors lived, breathed, and interacted with a world that they saw and felt to be animate—imbued with life force, inhabited by and permeated with beings with which we exist in ongoing relation. This animate vision was the water in which we swam, it was consciousness in its natural dwelling place, the normative way of seeing the world and our place in it. It wasn’t a theory, a philosophy, or an idea. It wasn’t, actually, an ‘-ism’. It was direct, felt experience. It was, simply, how things were.”* [Animism is Normative Consciousness (Re-mixed, Re-musicked, and Re-released) - The EmeraldFor 98% of human history — over 10,000 generations — our ancestors lived, breathed, and interacted with a world that they saw and felt to be animate — imbued with life force, inhabited by and permeated with beings with which we exist in ongoing re…![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/icon/favicon.ico)Buzzsprout![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/thumbnail/RevisedLogo1.jpg)](https://www.buzzsprout.com/317042/episodes/12818177?ref=foxwizard.com) I contend that this is compatible with what [David Chapman aptly asserts](https://meaningness.substack.com/p/seeing-and-doing-mythically): > *“*The mythic mode supplies purpose*, a critical ingredient, for all the other modes.* [*Reasonableness*](https://metarationality.com/reasonableness-aspects?ref=foxwizard.com) *can see only mundane, conventional purposes, which are ultimately unsatisfying.* > > [*Rationality*](https://metarationality.com/rationalism-definitions?ref=foxwizard.com) *only works by excluding consideration of purposes. They have to be supplied externally, and as sterile abstract formalisms. Meta-rationality reflects on purposes, but relies on the mythic mode for their inspiration.* > > *The mythic is also the easiest mode from which to *access the** [***complete stance***](https://meaningness.com/meaningness?ref=foxwizard.com)*. That is the accurate and enjoyable way of engaging with meaning and meaninglessness. The mythic mode, like the complete stance, plays with pattern and nebulosity, boundaries and connections.”* It was that big nebulous sense of *purpose* I needed to once again find. I had written on how ‘purpose’ itself being [a word that is also all-to-easily commodifiable](https://www.foxwizard.com/purpose-perils/). Yet somehow, in a decentralised, contextual, relational, embodied and soul-stirring way, a sense of purpose can emerge once more. We just need to beware our attempts to render it into ‘explanation’. My questing in the dark forest generated the insight-cascade that resulted in my becoming metacrisis and collapse-aware. Or perhaps it was the other way around? This is not a fun realisation to have, and I am empathetic to those who would rather persist in denial. [Jan Andrew Bloxham puts it well](https://substack.com/@gnug315/note/c-164870921?ref=foxwizard.com): > *“Becoming collapse aware is like imposing a cancer diagnosis on humankind—children and babies included. It renders long-term planning surreally moot, Children of Men style. Building anything lasting becomes pointless. It’s looking at everyone around you go about their business and thinking, ‘What are you doing? Do you have any idea what is coming?’.”* Minds like [Daniel Schmachtenberger](https://civilizationemerging.com/?ref=foxwizard.com), [Jem Bendell](https://jembendell.com/?ref=foxwizard.com), [Dougal Hine](https://dougald.nu/?ref=foxwizard.com), [Nate Hagens](https://www.natehagens.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) (and many more) have made this feel less maddening. Also, Sophie Strand recently wrote a ‘[Collapsollogy Reading List](https://sophiestrand.substack.com/p/collapsollogy-reading-list)’ that is worth attending to. It became clear to me that the way through this metacrisis won’t come from the discovery of ‘new facts’. We don’t need more evidence of global heating or species extinction or ‘information’ about our predicament. Nay, it will it come via [The Great Turning](https://www.soundstrue.com/a/resources/we-are-the-great-turning-podcast/?ref=foxwizard.com) (or some sort of messy equivalent). Which is perhaps why I feel drawn to minds like [Bill Plotkin](http://animas.org/?ref=foxwizard.com), [Bayo Akomolafe](https://www.bayoakomolafe.net/?ref=foxwizard.com), [Vanessa Androtti](https://decolonialfutures.net/?ref=foxwizard.com), [Nora Bateson](https://batesoninstitute.org/nora-bateson/?ref=foxwizard.com), [Jonathan Rowson](https://www.jonathanrowson.me/?ref=foxwizard.com),\* [Tyson Yunkaporta](https://emergencemagazine.org/essay/fire-in-the-belly/?ref=foxwizard.com), and many more. They each have the quality of [*feeding the leaks*](https://www.foxwizard.com/feeding-leaks/). There’s an altogether animate and *more-than-rational* quality they each bring. \* *Jonathon’s recent musings on [ontopoetics](https://perspecteeva.substack.com/p/ontopoetics-1) is wondrous. The subtitle: “On the intellectual dignity of believing we are in conversation with the world.”* This recent episode from [Alexa Fimenich](https://www.alexafirmenich.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) on [the Lifeworlds podcast](https://www.lifeworld.earth/episodes-blog/fruitfuldarknessrilke?ref=foxwizard.com) is an exquisite example. Rilke’s poetry *thrums* with invitation, beauty and terror. I listened to this whilst swinging kettlebells at the gym. It moved me to tears, and I had to sit down. I was literally floored. *Yet I also know* that someone else could listen to the same poetry and (somehow!) remain unmoved. I know because that was me, a decade ago. I would have *intellectually* delighted in a clever turn of phrase, and I would have registered intended emotional affect—yet it wasn’t deeply felt.\* Not like now. \* *Back when I was operating purely rationally, I dismissed feelings as interference—even found this dismissal amusing. That capacity to feel into poetry, myth, and meaning had to be recovered. It’s one of the gifts this work has demanded of me.* Which is why I sometimes toy with the following prefix-provocation to the book title: *Perhaps you are ready for* MYTHIC MODE Because not all of us are, in fact, ready for *Mythic Mode*. So many of us are caught within the grip of what we might call *Machine Mode.* ## *Machine Mode* ...is a mode that would have us orient ourselves to life *mechanistically.* Our motivations reduced into that which can easily be explained, measured, ‘optimised’ and rendered more ‘efficient’. Systems of atomic habits, Pavlovian triggers, everything tracked. In time, we would find ever more nuanced ways to optimise our own lives—measuring, monitoring and even ‘hacking’ our own biology so as to improve our performance within narrowly defined metrics. We would also increasingly use artificial intelligence and other dehumanising technologies to achieve our goals faster, learning via summaries and communicating via scripts, promptly prompt-engineering our way to some prefabricated notion of ‘success’. We would, in effect, minimise all friction—and in so doing, minimise the messiness of community, human interaction, and our own development. We would, effectively, groom ourselves to become the perfect cogs in The Machine; thralls to M̴̬̩͑̇o̵̫̩͇̘͈̲͑̐̀̔̉ļ̶̢̬͈͔͇̤͎̲̓ͅô̶̡͉̮̮̖̖͕̩̝̝̼̙͙͈̞̇͆̿̄̆̔́̈́̽̅̋̃͝c̸͇̙͍͉̭͈̍͒̎h̸̭̫͊͗̐̄͊̊, The Great Devourer. Sacrificing everything we love\* in order to obtain what we think we want. Which will never be enough. \* *Our (inner) children, our health and wellbeing, time, nature, and the very substrate of Life itself.* *Machine Mode* is hyper-rational. It is a mode that *seemingly* works well*,* within the paradigm of late-stage capitalism. It’s a mode that many of us adopt in order to ‘get ahead’ (or really, to simply survive). Organisations are locked into the logic of *Machine Mode*. It’s a mode that perpetuates ‘the curse of efficiency’ that I write of in [*How to Lead a Quest*](https://www.amazon.com.au/How-Lead-Quest-Guidebook-Pioneering-ebook/dp/B01A038WIS?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* It’s a mode that generates momentum—and [momentum inhibits reinvention](https://www.foxwizard.com/e2/). It’s also conducive to [the dark triad](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark%5Ftriad?ref=foxwizard.com), [warlocks](https://www.foxwizard.com/warlocks-at-work/), or [Venkatesh Rao’s old Gervais theory](https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or-the-office-according-to-the-office/?ref=foxwizard.com) (wherein sociopaths rise to the top). Machine Mode also has us perpetuate lemon markets. [Frank Chimero writes of this](https://frankchimero.com/blog/2025/selling-lemons/?ref=foxwizard.com). One example being social media. > *“Your feed is now professional content creators, low-effort podcast video clips, algorithmic filler reaction videos, stand-up chaff, and animals. Good ideas don’t happen frequently enough to satisfy the pace of the algorithm, so many have pivoted to newsletters or stopped posting.”* He further adds: > *“What makes the Market for Lemons concept so appealing (and what differentiates it in my mind from* [*enshittification*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification?ref=foxwizard.com)*) is that everyone can be acting reasonably, pursuing their own interests, and things still get worse for everyone. No one has to be evil or stupid: the platform does what’s profitable, sellers do what works, buyers try to make smart decisions, and yet the whole system degrades into something nobody actually wants.”* This is what complexity practitioners might call a ‘[multipolar trap](https://stephenreid.net/k/daniel/terms/multipolar%20trap?ref=foxwizard.com)’. To illustrated this point, A16Z has recently funded “[Doublespeed](https://doublespeed.ai/?ref=foxwizard.com)”—a hot new startup that seeks to ‘Automate Attention’ with ‘Bulk Content Creation’ via artificial intelligence and the equivalent of phone-farms. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-31-at-9.44.26---pm.png) *“Never pay a human again,”* this startup proclaims (as if this were a good thing). *“It's never been easier to create and deploy content without human cost.”* This is The Machine. And it doesn’t only want your attention—it wants to distort your values, too. Paul Kingsnorth writes of this extensively in [*Against The Machine—on the Unmaking of Humanity*](https://www.paulkingsnorth.net/against-machine?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* And [Simon Wardley recently shared one of his great little dialogues](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/simonwardley%5Fx-can-you-summarise-the-issues-of-ai-for-activity-7387254596059963393-BWeq?ref=foxwizard.com) on this very matter. > X : *Can you summarise the issues of AI for me?* > Me : *No. AI is a field. However, I'll guess that you actually mean large language models / GPTs?* > X : *Yes* > Me : *GPTs are a non kinetic form of warfare designed to embed the values of a small number of people into much wider communities by capturing the process of decision making. The delivery mechanism is the appearance of helpfulness i.e. coherent and authoritative arguments. The payload is helplessness and the creation of a new theocracy.* > X : *That’s not what I was after. I was thinking copyright and existential risks?* > Me : *Do you mean frontier “AI”?* > X : *Yes.* > Me : *Frontier AI and copyright are distraction mechanisms, probably in part funded by the vendors themselves, to divert your attention from the real dangers of embedded values caused by these forms of warfare.* > X : *Stop calling it warfare.* > Me : *Would ... “Beware of geeks bearing gifts?” ... be more helpful?* > X : *What about the power issues?* > Me : *It’s all about power, always has been.* > X : *I was talking environmental cost.* > Me : *Another distraction, to avoid discussing the only thing that matters.* > X : *Copyright, frontier AI and environmental costs are not distractions!* > Me : *They are things you care about?* > X : *Yes.* > Me : *Ah, they are things you value. Well, I only have to wait and eventually your values will be those that the vendors value. Your ability to reason will be confined by the tools, language and medium those vendors control. If they care, you will care. If they don’t, problem solved. And you won't even notice.* > X : *I’m not some automaton.* > Me : *You missed the word ... “yet”. You will be, quietly typing away on your favoured GPT asking it how you should think about this discussion. But don’t worry, it’ll tell you that you’re still in charge and making really excellent points.* [Gurdjieff](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George%5FGurdjieff?ref=foxwizard.com) would argue that we are already machine. A machine that does not know itself. And “the work” of [*The Fourth Way*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth%5FWay?ref=foxwizard.com) is to be present, cultivate consciousness, remember ourselves, and to live in our *essence*. Artificial intelligence is... not going to help with this. We are going to need different modes to turn to. The *mythic* mode is one of them. One in which we know ourselves to be situated within a warm relational web (where everywhere and nowhere is centre). A mode in which we remember the essence of [infinite play](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finite%5Fand%5FInfinite%5FGames?ref=foxwizard.com) James P. Carse writes iof: > *“No one can play a game alone. One cannot be human by oneself. There is no selfhood where there is no community. We do not relate to others as the persons we are; we are who we are in relating to others. Simultaneously the others with whom we are in relation are themselves in relation. We cannot relate to anyone who is not also relating to us. Our social existence has, therefore, an inescapably fluid character... this ceaseless change does not mean discontinuity; rather change is itself the very basis of our continuity as persons.”* **Momentum inhibits reinvention.** But sometimes life throws a spanner, things fall apart, and the machine mode stops working for you. Your body rebels from burnout, a loved one becomes unwell, or for some unknown reason you find yourself listless, despondent and at a loss as to what to do. THIS! This is mythic invitation. This is the [window of disenchantment](https://www.foxwizard.com/e2/) I am writing for. A sacred opening wherein you might *Slip The Machine, Find Your Way & LARP Your Best Life.\** \* *That’s the working subtitle for Mythic Mode, btw. The LARP bit is sincere-irony. I know how it sounds, but there’s great depth to living and acting, and of having a role to play in a wider web of relations. It translates to a listening and authentic relating practice, too.* These portals to disenchantment don’t stay open too long. The Machine is good at recruiting us back to its cause. But there’s a crack—something we might slip through. [From David](https://open.substack.com/pub/meaningness/p/seeing-and-doing-mythically), one more time. > *“The mythic mode not only* [*tolerates*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mythopoeic%5Fthought?ref=foxwizard.com#Tolerance%5Fof%5Fcontradiction)*, but actively enjoys, contradiction as well as ambiguity. \[...\]* > > [*Reasonableness*](https://metarationality.com/reasonableness-aspects?ref=foxwizard.com) *is not comfortable with contradictions, and will try to change the subject, or obfuscate when they can’t be avoided. Rationalism, of course, rejects contradictions outright. It is* [*founded*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law%5Fof%5Fexcluded%5Fmiddle?ref=foxwizard.com#Aristotle)[ *on*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law%5Fof%5Fexcluded%5Fmiddle?ref=foxwizard.com#Aristotle) *the* [*Law of the Excluded Middle*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law%5Fof%5Fexcluded%5Fmiddle?ref=foxwizard.com)*. ‘It will not be possible to be and not to be the same thing,’ is one way Aristotle put it. Rationalism insists that every possible proposition is either absolutely true or absolutely false—in the face of constant evidence that* [*nearly all of them are neither*](https://metarationality.com/sort-of-truth?ref=foxwizard.com)*. It is only at the stage of* [*meta-rationality*](https://meaningness.substack.com/p/meta-rationality-table-of-contents) *that we regain skill in juggling contradictions—and delight in them.* > > *Binary conceptual opposites, and their middles or *paradoxical exceptions*, fascinate the mythic mode. That which is neither alive nor dead, but somewhere between; someone who is both a human and a goddess, or both a human and a bear; entities that are simultaneously invisible and seen.”* Fascinate the mythic mode they sure do! I am so grateful for his writings, and minds who likewise share their knowledge, wit, wisdom and insight so generously. ## *Trickster wants movement* And ideas *want* to be expressed. If you don’t attend to your Muse—they’ll move on to another vessel. The ideas will emerge, one way or another. Earth will dream through us. A reason this book has taken me so long to write is because I needed to lose myself, so as to find my way through. But I also feel that, for the first time in years, I now have a tentative courage to start bringing it to life more publicly. The metacrisis is real and accelerating—I’m clear-eyed about the darkness we’re in. But I also sense an emergent role to play in this threshold time. I wish such clarity for you, too. We are living in a time betwixt worlds, and we each have a roles to play. There is room for all of our voices in this choir. And so instead of hiding in shadows, I shall now hide in plain sight. [Camouflaged](https://zine.kleinkleinklein.com/p/dashboard-culture-vs-camouflage-culture?ref=foxwizard.com), perhaps. But more visible for those who know where to look. 🦊 ### “Rawthenticity” (Kindred Spirits e8) ፨ URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/kindred-spirits-e8/ Last updated: 2025-10-09T21:56:54.000Z ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/media/2025/10/KS_e8_final_thumb.png) Kindred Spirits – e8 0:00 /4264.125147 1× Subscribe and listen on [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/foxwizard/id1645970777?ref=foxwizard.com), [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/2hkJuLE5VMED5rvDqnH4RL?ref=foxwizard.com), [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeLHJRzrOWo%5FQXluAn65XjHQsoX3IjLvn&ref=foxwizard.com), and now [Substack](https://kindredspiritspod.substack.com/?ref=foxwizard.com), too. This episode of Kindred Spirits was recorded one fine afternoon on the 25th of September 2025\. As ever, [John Anthony](https://transcend.com.au/?ref=foxwizard.com) and I weft our way through the mercurial and oft-vexing domains of being *intellectually honest, trickster-appreciating, developmentally oriented and emergence-loving speaker-facilitators seeking to co-create a world more curious and kind*™—an ever-renewing fractal-pattern that’ll baffle most but delight the kindred spirits whomst are attuned—and we’re okay with this. And as a side-note I would suggest that this here is a living example of what it means to cultivate and live into the ambivalence (or ‘the trickster’s irony’) that is ‘the proper form of resistance’ to M̴̨̧̯̲͎̬͖̅̒̽͆̿͗̍̀͊͘͘o̷̧̜̦͓̠̹̖̾̅͌l̶̡̘̲̟̗̺̞͇̩͙̙̞̯̻͒́̆̐̄̀ō̸̩̘͔̹̄̒͝ͅͅç̸̨̛͖̣̠͙̺͔͔̩̪͈̱̘̟̃̈́̎̽̓̓̾̐́̈́͘͝͝h̶̤͒̓̈́̇̉̔͆̿̐̉̄̈́̕ and The Machine (to loosely paraphrase from [a recent museletter](https://www.foxwizard.com/e16/#6-perhaps-you-are-ready-to-slip-the-machine)). Jenny Odell writes of how she recently earned about a search engine called [Kagi](https://kagi.com/?utm%5Fsource=jennitaur&utm%5Fmedium=email&utm%5Fcampaign=the-new-is-what-you-havent-noticed). *“Using it reminds me of a time when Google’s search just worked, felt straightforward, and wasn’t rife with ads and AI summaries,”* Jenny writes.“*(My hatred of AI summaries is a topic for another newsletter.)”* I too, cannot stand artificially intelligent summaries (for most things). A summary of something mechanical or trivial is fine, sure. But to summarise anything complex and warm would rob you of much of its richness. Thus, I stopped providing AI summaries of podcast episodes a while ago. They would always have the effect of reducing and somehow ‘cheapening’ what was shared into something bland, homogenised, and readily commodifiable. Kindred Spirits—and much of our work—is veritably not that. It actively resists reduction, and thus remains non-mechanical, and always-already enlivened to emergence and the greater dance. So—enjoy the episode! We can’t summarise it. 😅 ### Kindred Spirits – episode 7 ፨ URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/kindred-spirits-e7/ Last updated: 2025-12-10T03:46:38.000Z ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/media/2025/10/KS_e7_final_thumb.png) Kindred Spirits – e7 0:00 /4285.916667 1× Subscribe and listen on [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/foxwizard/id1645970777?ref=foxwizard.com), [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/2hkJuLE5VMED5rvDqnH4RL?ref=foxwizard.com), [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeLHJRzrOWo%5FQXluAn65XjHQsoX3IjLvn&ref=foxwizard.com), and now [Substack](https://kindredspiritspod.substack.com/?ref=foxwizard.com), too. In this episode of Kindred Spirits—originally recorded on the 27th of August 2025, and belatedly uploaded just now—we return to our ~~rambunctious~~ *emergent* form. A listener said to [John Anthony](https://transcend.com.au/?ref=foxwizard.com): *“I love it, but I have no idea where it’s going.”* To which JA replied *“neither do we!”* (accurately). *We are fresh out the kitchen with the trickster disposition,* as JA might also almost say. **Hey: do you feel like you haven’t yet arrived?** We either! But to fellow liminal ‘leaders’ and infinite players doing the dance and living the way in this time betwixt worlds—there’s much wisdom to be found in this honest episode. That is, if you squint, head askance, attuned to the hermetic. **You know, it’s nice to do things on a whim**. We have no overt goal here, other than our combined edification and delight. At the very least, you get to witness and partake of two friends in conversation as they nudge rabbit holes and stumble and frolic about the garden of knowledge, tangentially. Anyhoo, come join us in the stationery cupboard. We’ll be back again with another episode later this week. *Bye bye!* ### e16 // An extravagant equinox URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/e16/ Last updated: 2025-12-10T03:48:31.000Z #### On this page... ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/media/2025/09/e16-1_thumb.png) e16 // extravagant equinox (audio museletter) 0:00 /3652.32 1× Subscribe and listen on [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/foxwizard/id1645970777?ref=foxwizard.com) and [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/2hkJuLE5VMED5rvDqnH4RL?ref=foxwizard.com). ## 1\. This museletter is an extravagance To be extravagant is, [in terms of root meanings](https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=extravagance&ref=foxwizard.com), a quality in which you *wander outside or beyond* (especially ‘wandering from the usual course’). For this musing I have tried to do such; recording thee a long and indulgent muse-reflection, whilst sitting upon a rock in the midst of *the river of mist and shadows* (the Birrarung Marr), in the dusk-twilight of our recent equinox. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/09/river_sitspot_dusk.jpg) The Birrarung, Spring Equinox at dusk I think of this *particular* museletter (or perhaps all of my museletters) as a bit of an extravagance. At least, in the 15th-century sense of the term, in which extravagance might mean: *‘rambling, irrelevant; extraordinary, unusual’* and *‘wasteful, lavish, exceeding prudence in expenditure’*. But also in a conventional sense: the hour-long audio note I recorded for you had many extravagant moments. Moments in which the birds—sea gulls, ducks, wattle birds, willie wagtails, butcher birds, currawongs, and a kookaburra—made their presence known. There was even a point at which I thought I saw a bat. I later confirmed: it was a bat. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/09/to_be_a_bat.jpg) What’s it like to be a bat? There’s something about spring time—and the spring equinox in particular—that has me *enlivened* to animacy. This is a relatively recent phenomenon. [As I wrote](https://www.foxwizard.com/new-podcast/) in Spring last year: > Spring has—in theory, at least—arrived here in The Antipodean realms. This season has, for a long time, heralded an odd kind of melancholy within me. There’s something about the realisation that we are three-quarters of the way through a calendar year *and yet still* so many projects and important quests remain un-progressed. This, when contrasted with everyone else seemingly having Such A Great Time, seems to compound the effect. > > But I am happy to report that This Time Is Different*™*—for me, at least—thanks to a ꧁profound healing꧂ retreat I recently experienced (along with a break from social media and computers, time in nature, good company, a campfire, the glimmering cosmos, the warmest meta-shaman I’ve ever did met, and *∾other things∾* besides). I shan’t directly write of the experience (so as to preserve some ⩫\_mystique\_⩫)—but I shall share with you the following [stance](https://www.foxwizard.com/stance-mindset/) I am bringing to this season, in the hopes it may enliven something in you. [💌 Springtime Magic 💐🐝It’s in the air. Or maybe that’s pollen.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/icon/foxwizard-favicon-15.png)foxwizard ☾ questing betwixtDr. Jason Fox![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/thumbnail/foxwizard-hero-2-11.png)](https://www.foxwizard.com/new-podcast/) This Time Is *Still* Different.™ Perhaps one day I’ll write on the ꧁profound healing꧂ retreat I experienced. ## 2\. Or perhaps now? I’ve had a range of folk ask me about this. I’m certainly not an ‘expert’—my magic is more fox-like and *fey* (as distinct from shamanic)\*—but I do find myself emphasising set and setting. And ritual. \* *Something I [discussed with my friend Simon on the podcast a while back](https://www.foxwizard.com/e4/). I call myself a ‘wizard’—but that’s simply a close-enough word that has enough archetypal resonance to be useful.* Of course I would. It’s much the same as the event work I do. We want to *cultivate the conditions for emergence*—not simply bequeath pithy-packaged wisdom from stage and brand it TRANSFORMATION™. Likewise, a ꧁profound healing꧂ retreat cannot be reduced to the precise number of micrograms of *4-phosphoryloxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine* imbibed. This is the classic Western reductive, extractive and coldly clinical approach that *entirely misses the point.* Everything that went into the week-long container of the ‘Sacred Wound Retreat’ I experienced—the journaling, the yoga, the poetry, the qigong, the clean eating and shared meals, the nature walks, the singing, the artwork, the relationality betwixt fellow participants (who have become new friends), the fire under the stars, the ocean swims, the quietude and solace, the immense grounding presence and genuine care embodied by the guides, the grandmotherly cat who would sit with me, the kookaburras, the *all of it*—made what could have simply been ‘a nice trip’ into a ꧁profound healing꧂ journey. Suffice to say, thirteen months later, I still *highly* recommend it. And I still find myself saying “it’s one of the best things I’ve done in *decades*”. It’s what—*after years spent ‘lost’ in the dark forest, wandering the underworld (important time, not wasted), with all the clever trappings I’d woven for myself fraying into dissolution*—enabled me to *finally* allow myself to experience the grief and sorrow I had within me. Because it’s one thing to ‘intellectually process’ genocide, ecocide, the metacrisis, and all the accumulated sorrow and woe of a life that has known loss—it’s quite another to *metabolise* it. *“… what I know, as I'm sure you do too,”* Gabrielle Feather [recently shared](https://gabriellefeather.substack.com/p/from-collapse-to-calling), *“is that the profound assault we feel when truly facing collapse, ecocide, and cultural breakdown is not something to be treated away. It is a threshold, a crack that runs through our civilisation and through our own hearts.”* I could wax mythopoetic about this with you for… quite a while. The rest of my life, really. Not of me-and-my-journey, but of the need for each of us to each [find our way to our vocation and calling](https://www.foxwizard.com/firesides-ambition-vocation/#on-ambition). It was not necessarily the intent of this reflective museletter—but here we are. There is, I confess, an impish part of me that *delights* in swimming against the current that would see all writing homogenised into short form; all complexity reduced to soundbite. [The impeded stream is the one that sings](https://grateful.org/resource/our-real-work-poem-wendell-berry/?ref=foxwizard.com), etcetera. But where was I? Oh, yes. I must say: if you are wanting to experience a ꧁profound healing꧂ experience—*you have to keep your wits about you.* The Machine—aka M̶̛͇̝̘̲̑̐̍̋ơ̶̢̛̪̦̘̱̒̒̀̄͑̚l̸̩͉̱̝̦͋̿̄̕ơ̴̡͍̯̤̟̪̍̓́͛͋̂c̴̨̘̜̙̠͆̏̐̿͐͠h̸̭͔̥̰͕̥̼̥̑̌̏̅̔̚͘̚—is already commodifying the field. Just like with everything else, it has become an *industry*. An industry increasingly filtered through a Western lens. In [*Psychedelics and the Soul*](https://www.simonyugler.com/psychedelics-and-the-soul?ref=foxwizard.com), depth psychologist and author Simon Yugler provides apt priming. > *“A new generation of psychedelic healers, therapists, educators, researchers, and business leaders is emerging. Laws are changing, prohibitions are loosening, and modern culture is beginning to molt its skin in favor of something that is increasingly strange and uncertain.* > > *On many counts, this is cause for celebration. Yet amid the collective effervescence of the ‘psychedelic renaissance,’ what if something is getting lost? The word psychedelic, coined by British psychiatrist Humphry Osmond, is often said to mean ‘mind-manifesting.’ Yet if we follow the trail of language back to its roots, the Greek word psyche actually refers to the soul, while delos means to reveal or make manifest. Psychedelic, therefore, literally means ‘soul-revealing,’ a necessary distinction that sets our compass squarely in the direction of this inner domain.* > > *The mind is easy for modern Western culture to compartmentalize into a neat category of understanding. The soul, not so much. The soul escapes quantification; the mind delights in it. The soul dissolves boundaries; the mind constructs them. The soul orients us toward the eternal; the mind toward the time-bound. For many people, the very mention of the soul is an unsettling proposition, for to acknowledge it means to acknowledge that life is more than a random conglomeration of particles floating through cold, infinite space. To acknowledge the soul is to acknowledge that in fact there is something out there, down there, in there, that escapes our understanding and control. To acknowledge the soul terrifies the ego.”* It sure does terrify the ego, and dissolve boundaries. Just a few years ago, I had *severe* allergies to the word ‘soul’; always ready to justify it from a rational lens. That’s changed, now. Simon then goes on to aptly and appropriately acknowledge the Indigenous cultures that have, for so long, held the wisdom and the ways we (in modernity) are at risk of taking for granted. Like we do everything else. > *“The fields of psychedelics and depth psychology are indebted to Indigenous cultures in unfathomable ways. The fact that these cultures managed to keep their ancestral stories and ceremonial knowledge alive in the face of genocide and colonization is itself a miracle. These traditions and their living stewards deserve our respect, gratitude, and reciproc-ity. In studying and relating with Indigenous peoples, modern Western people might find something reflected back to them that, once upon a time, we could have recognized as an intact culture.”* Simon also adds: > *“Indigenous cultures are not a means to an end for the Western world to figure out its problems. Valuing Indigenous cultures simply for what they have to teach* us, *for what* we *have to gain from* them, *is yet another form of colonial extraction. This approach of siphoning Indigenous wisdom solely for the purposes of benefiting modern culture continues to marginalize these communities. Right relationship and informed, consensual reciprocity are two avenues that can help mitigate this subtle yet real dynamic.”* This is not a musing on the ꧁profound healing꧂ retreat I experienced. But I am appreciating how [the leaks](https://www.foxwizard.com/feeding-leaks/) make themselves apparent. ## 3\. Boundaries, witches, wilderness The title of this post actually came to mind when I read [an article from Dougal Hine](https://dougald.substack.com/p/the-other-shore-of-the-nile) the day after the attached equinox audionote I made you. It’s where I learned of the root meaning of ‘extravagance’. In this piece, Dougal offers great and appropriate homage to Ivan Illich, the Austrian philosopher whose polemic [*Deschooling Society*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deschooling%5FSociety?ref=foxwizard.com) (1971) I referenced [back in episode 12](https://www.foxwizard.com/e12/). In a world that is seemingly all-too-ready to sacrifice children (our inner children, and actual children—of Gaza, Congo, and more besides) along with our very humanity for the sake of M̷̛͈͉͑́͒ơ̸̧̢̺̼̩̂͑̎ͅͅl̷̨̨̬̟̞̹͍̬̥̟̦̤̹̖̪̰͕̎̿̚͘ŏ̷̢̧̢̗̺̬͎̹͒̏͆̎͋͑͘͝͝c̴̥̭͇͕͛̃̈͗̎̆͂̽̓͐̓͝͝͠h̵͕͑̀̈́͆͆̓̌̍͑̅̈́͠ (aka The Machine), Illich’s philosophy reads as ever the more vital. Here’s an excerpt from Dougal Hine’s essay, [*The Other Shore of the Nile*](https://dougald.substack.com/p/the-other-shore-of-the-nile)*.* > *“\[…\] Illich presented his contribution as an ‘extravagance’, a term he loved for its root meaning, ‘to wander outside’. In the works of Saint Augustine, he would tell a later audience, ‘the word extra-vagare \[suggests\] to take leisure; to look at how you live today, here, from the outside.’ This was the spirit in which Illich spoke. Of course, ‘to wander outside’ is also ‘to go beyond’, with a suggestion of transgression, and Illich was alive to this; yet he is a curious transgressor, one who has a reverence for boundaries. You might say that it was this reverence which compelled him to step outside and speak about ‘how you live today, here’.* > > *This paradoxical relationship to boundaries is made vivid in the last in the litany of exotic words by which Illich chose to declare himself to his audience of Catholic philosophers: ‘I am,’ he says, ‘a Zaunreiter’, a hedge-straddler, ‘which is an old name for witch’.”* Okay so maybe I just included this excerpt because I have a liking to those who seem to resonate with the sacred sensibilities of Trickster, and of wise men who might call themselves ‘witch’. For such, thresholds and boundaries are an exquisite paradox; simultaneously marking division whilst also enabling passage. Hermes—god of boundaries and crossroads (amongst other things)—naturally comes to mind when I evoke Trickster. But if we are to evoke Hermes, then we might also evoke Hecate—goddess of witchcraft and crossroads (amongst other things, too). Where Hermes transgresses boundaries (revealing their constructedness); Hecate *holds* boundaries as spaces of *liminality itself*. This is from whence, I suspect, witches tend to operate. Thus when I read that Illich declared himself a hedge-straddler (a witch), it reminded me of [the witch Lee Morgan’s review](https://www.leemorganbooks.com/blog/2019/10/14/wolf-milk-by-dr-martin-shaw-a-review?ref=foxwizard.com) of [*Wolf Milk*](https://drmartinshaw.com/product/wolf-milk-chthonic-memory-in-the-deep-wild/?ref=foxwizard.com)—a book by the mythologist Martin Shaw (whomst I mention many a time in my museletters to you, and in the recent audionote). *“Dr. Shaw uses the village and the wild to convey what in witchcraft terms might be described as crossing the hedge,”* Lee writes. *“His discussions on the process of going and returning would be very relevant to my readers and anyone interested in hedge crossing.”* Fox, btw, straddles a similar domain betwixt field and forest—the liminal ecotone between the domesticated and wild. This is why, perhaps, fox spirits and gods are so often seen as messenger and boundary crosser (amongst other things). ## 4\. Try watching a live stream In [*Wolf Milk*](https://drmartinshaw.com/product/wolf-milk-chthonic-memory-in-the-deep-wild/?ref=foxwizard.com), Martin Shaw reflects *“on almost two decades leading vigils in the wilderness. Through myth, poetics and hard-won brooding he offers a way for modern people to enter an ancient ceremony. This startling book suggests a wingspan of both mystical experience and civic duty underpins the encounter.”* I haven’t read it yet—but I have it on order. A wilderness fast is something I feel drawn to experience. There are many interpretations of what a wilderness fast is, exactly, but the consensus seems to be four days and four nights alone in the wilderness with nothing but water, a tarp, the wild, and a non-zero chance of death. Bill Plotkin, whom I also find myself evoking a lot these days, has written of this in a few books, including [*The Journey to Soul Initiation*](https://www.animas.org/books/journey-of-soul-initiation/?ref=foxwizard.com) (a work that Kim and I have been deepening into this past year). I am hesitant to call a wilderness fast a ‘Vision Quest’, as some might. At least, not overtly. As one with a penchant for questing, I’ve come to know that we need to be mindful of any ‘goal’ orientation. But a period of time, in the wilderness, away from the internet and all the distractions of modernity, to allow whatever might emerge to emerge, seems… overdue. For me at least. Hence my attempt to foster a bit more ‘time in nature’. Microdosing wilderness somewhat safely via extended time at a sit spot by the river. And then corrupting it slightly by making it a recording for you. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/09/river_sitspot_twilight.jpg) The Birrarung, Spring Equinox at twilight *“*[*Can I call you back? I’m watching a live stream*](https://www.google.com/search?sca%5Fesv=219388647f983b16&udm=2&fbs=AIIjpHxU7SXXniUZfeShr2fp4giZud1z6kQpMfoEdCJxnpm%5F3YlUqOpj4OTU%5FHmqxOd8LCZpDSYsVmO8Xyxqy2fC6i1vCfALK0nKLI8mbCskLkHEjTjw9rJAchakowBPL61Ib2yxQDcKPZGJqQcQRwgffpvAp021Uq7-e3wainmBQ-wQP0e43zZ87izpuJFWn3LSiZNzouGpW1NjxEZJNjz-A7gPbouCBQ&q=can+i+call+you+back+i%27m+watching+a+live+stream&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiNztf89P6PAxVlUWwGHd31GcQQtKgLegQIEhAB&biw=1306&bih=1044&dpr=2&ref=foxwizard.com)*”* has become a bit of a meme recently (though it is many years old, now). But I can’t say ‘stream’ without evoking the last two lines of [Our Real Work](https://grateful.org/resource/our-real-work-poem-wendell-berry/?ref=foxwizard.com)—one of my favourite poems by Wendell Berry. As you likely have heard me share before. > The mind that is not baffled is not employed. > The impeded stream is the one that sings. I sure do my best to baffle (to enliven the mind)—but sometimes I suspect it is not enough. Meanwhile, I—the *foxwizard*—have a task for you. If you read the next sentence you will be under a [*geas*](https://wiki.lspace.org/Geas?ref=foxwizard.com)*\** (apologies, this is just the nature of things, and how the spell works—so if you are disinclined, do not read or even *glance* at the next sentence). > *Find a place to sit—ideally near water, and at dawn or dusk (but anywhere outside will do)—and simply behold (with no phone, conversation, reading, journaling, or distraction) for at least twenty minutes (perhaps even an hour).* Pretty lightweight geas, tbh. Perhaps too easy to fulfil. But I wish you well. \* *Thanks to my friend [Vas Clementine](https://www.vasclementine.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) who reminded me of this.* ## 5\. Mind thy thresholds As you might recall, I started off mighty enthusiastic about artificial intelligence. I worked with clients exploring it back when [*How to Lead a Quest*](https://www.drjasonfox.com/shop?ref=foxwizard.com) was written (and I even used an example pertaining to artificial intelligence and the legal system within the book). But, as readers will know, I have in the past few years found myself swimming tangentially to the current we conventionally call ‘progress’. For what we conventionally call ‘progress’ seems—to me at least—nothing other than [a rich delusion of progress](https://www.foxwizard.com/authentic-progress/). Something that may very well lead us to our demise. *Meaningful* progress, on the other hand, is harder to ‘define’. I have said in the past that meaningful progress is *“that which brings us closer to future relevance”*—but wtf does that mean? *“A state in which whatever we are doing ‘makes sense’ given the context we find ourselves in,”* I cockily answer. My past self had so many ready-answers. My current self gives him a pat on the head. Good boy. All I have these days is ‘a sense’. A sense that has been with me for at least a decade. A sense that together we must quest **to co-create a world more curious and kind** (and a future less grim). Part of this requires that we attend to boundaries. This means we must pay particular attention to thresholds, and to know when to transgress boundaries, and when to hold and affirm them. It also means we relate to boundaries as living things—animate and shapeshifting, too. ## 6\. Perhaps you are ready to slip The Machine? In Dougal Hine’s erudite essay [*The Other Shore of The Nile—Ivan Illich & the possibility of Exodus in a technogenic world*](https://dougald.substack.com/p/the-other-shore-of-the-nile), there is a passage that speaks to Illich’s distinction between tools and systems. *“There is a further sense in which Illich straddles a boundary, a point on which he elaborates in the Los Angeles talk and other writings of this period: he had been born into a world of tools, but had witnessed its transformation into a world of systems. A tool can be taken up and put down, according to the user’s own intentions, and *the boundary between tool and user remains clear. A system envelops the user,* in a previously unimaginable way, so that the boundary loses its clarity: the user becomes a component within the system, dependent on and formed by its capacities and needs.”* (emphasis mine) We have become enveloped in systems; systems that shape and distort our ‘defaults’. We then optimise ourselves to these defaults, sacrificing our lives in service to The Algorithm/M̸̡̨̡͕͉̲̝̱͎̘̮̏͛̉̏͊̄̅̋̑̚͝ǫ̴͍̟̼̜̝͙̤̲̘͖̙̓͆͗̒͑̎l̴̨̥̪̝͉̙̝̙̞͎̟͍͔̙̎̆̾ó̶̧̇̈́̍͗̈́͗͗͌̔c̴̺͍͍̺̒͑̆̈̿͂̔͊̃͠h̵̡̦̖̞̠̗̆̾̿͂̔͒̇̌̄͜/The Machine. It’s time—*past time,* yet still time—for us to restore some boundaries. Time to sit with [*the goddess of limit*](https://sarabytheseason.substack.com/p/the-goddess-of-limit). “[I worry about The Curse of Efficiency](https://youtu.be/4KGFCTYACco?feature=shared&ref=foxwizard.com)” I said, in an embarrassingly broody video, \~10 years ago. At the time I saw it as a mere unquestioned enslavement to the cult of productivity. A narrowed focus and metric obsession, drunk on the delusion of progress and fabricated notions of ‘success’. I’d thought that if folks could simply recognise true value, meaningful progress, and deep relevance, that’d be enough. But it wasn’t, and we are all still so deeply hoodwinked; asleep and under a terrible spell. Paul Kingsnorth, a friend of Dougal Hine and co-collaborator behind [*The Dark Mountain Project*](https://dark-mountain.net/about/manifesto/?ref=foxwizard.com), has a new book on the matter. It’s called [*Against The Machine—on the unmaking of humanity*](https://www.paulkingsnorth.net/against-machine?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* The cover design is perfection. [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/09/image.png)](https://www.paulkingsnorth.net/against-machine?ref=foxwizard.com) Love that ‘G’. Both of them. Paul is a writer I deeply appreciate and respect—even if he summons forth notions I am not always entirely comfortable with. He is, like the many of us awakened to our plight, gesturing in a direction that broadly aligns with my sense that which might bring us closer to ‘a world more curious and kind (and a future less grim)’. His work of ‘fiction’ from five years ago—[*The Basilisk*](https://emergencemagazine.org/fiction/the-basilisk/?ref=foxwizard.com)—[is still deeply resonant](https://www.foxwizard.com/basilisk/) to me, and offers an appropriately mythic way of relating to Entities That May Not Have Our Best Interests At Heart. > Related: *“If an unaligned entity invests billions of dollars into an application which you use, where they benefit from wasting your time, and you haven’t at least done a cost-benefit analysis so that your usage minimizes your costs and maximizes your benefits—*You are probably getting fucked over.*”* from [*The Pond*](https://turntrout.com/digital-minimalism?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* Whilst I am waiting for *Against The Machine* to arrive at one of our favourite independent bookstores ([The Paperback Bookshop](https://paperbackbooks.com.au/?ref=foxwizard.com) on Bourke St), I couldn’t help but read [a wondrously caring and insightfully generative ‘critique’](https://www.frontporchrepublic.com/2025/09/the-word-and-the-machine-on-paul-kingsnorth/?ref=foxwizard.com) of the book by Adam Smith (a professor of political philosophy). Adam concludes his essay with the following passage: > *“The question is whether there’s room for a little more ambivalence. It might even be that ambivalence—or the trickster’s irony—is the proper form of resistance to a monster that thrives on opposition.”* The book I have been writing for you, on an off, in ways that have both destroyed and enlivened me, is called *‘Mythic Mode’.* It’s a spellbook, written by a foxwizard, that will help you *slip The Machine, find yourself, and work thy magic.* It’s taking so long because I am having to live the lessons the book seeks to teach. I’ve been courting my muse, and she’s taking me through mud and tangled thicket. But—*much* better this than her absence. I remember writing a museletter titled *‘foxwizard hermit seeks muse’* in 2021, after realising I hadn’t written a museletter in over 10 months. It was horrid; I was lost in a [self-indulgent pitiful hole](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MzVuHqsNoM&ref=foxwizard.com).\* I think that was my last post on Substack before I set fire to much of my past writing, and moved to Ghost. \* *But luckily [the source is bright and endless. She resuscitates the hopeless—without her we are lifeless satellites drifting](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MzVuHqsNoM&ref=foxwizard.com). Yes I’m quoting TOOL again..* Recently I have restored some boundaries between social media and myself. It’s ongoing work to limit The Machine, and to cultivate that sublime ambivalence that has worked so well for me in the past. And—it has been *so good* for me. I can hear my own voice once more. I highly recommend it. [Kening Zhu](https://keningzhu.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) is an inspiration. Her podcast episode on [*The Joy of Missing Out on Platforms*](https://keningzhu.com/journal/the-joy-of-missing-out-on-platforms?ref=foxwizard.com) is heartening affirmation for those of us who eschew both the mainstream social media platforms *and* the concept of complete disappearance. I’ve also been enjoying [*Time and Other Thieves*](https://timeotherthieves.buzzsprout.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) by Sarah B. In particular [this episode where she talks of the Lateralus by TOOL](https://timeotherthieves.buzzsprout.com/1905373/episodes/12801325-may-2023?ref=foxwizard.com). Both Kening and Sarah are quietly doing their own thing—off social media. And there’s a quality, integrity and depth that has me hooked. Anyhoo, as I conclude this extravagant museletter—on healing, boundaries, magic, the machine, Trickster, and more—allow me to quote from Italian philosopher Federico Campagna’s 2018 book [*Technic and Magic*](https://www.bloomsbury.com/au/technic-and-magic-9781350044036/?ref=foxwizard.com). > *“Every sacred space is surrounded by a limit—as the guardians or the labyrinth surrounding a treasure, in several mythological traditions—and not everything will be able to pass this threshold.”* How are you preserving the sacred? How are you keeping The Machine at bay? ## 7\. Snake Talk & The Last Rekindling And now a few quick reflective updates. My friend Paul Kearney and the team at Kearney Group hosted what may be ‘The Last Rekindling’. Meanwhile, here’s a picture of me with Megan Kelleher and Tyson Yunkaporta. It was an absolute joy to celebrate the launch of [Snake Talk](https://www.textpublishing.com.au/books/snake-talk-how-the-world-s-ancient-serpent-stories-can-guide-us?ref=foxwizard.com), and to connect with the kindred spirits these events attract. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/09/Jason--Megan-and-Tyson.jpg) Kim organised a cake so that we could all imbibe Snake Talk. The charm of these events is in the conviviality that happens when a group of people gather for a talk—and then walk together to a local brewery to share a meal and a drink together. The event started at 530pm and many of us were still there at 11pm! They had to shoo us out. I’m *quite sure* that the essence of The Rekindling will emerge again someday. There’s just something too timely and vital about it. So: stay tuned, friends. PS: International and interstate readers—[Garland Magazine](https://garlandmag.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) are hosting [a very special online event to celebrate the launch of Snake Talk](https://events.humanitix.com/snake-talk-online-launch?ref=foxwizard.com). Here’s an article published in Garland Magazine, well worth reading—[*Snake Talk: A yarn with story-makers across the globe*](https://garlandmag.com/article/snake-talk/?ref=foxwizard.com). ## 8\. A wizardly river walk My dear friend [Michael Bungay Stanier](https://www.mbs.works/?ref=foxwizard.com)—author of [*The Coaching Habit*](https://www.mbs.works/coaching-habit-book/?ref=foxwizard.com), [*The Advice Trap*](https://www.mbs.works/advice-trap-book/?ref=foxwizard.com), and other wondrous books—was in Australia once more. I met MBS nearly a decade ago when I was speaking at a very large HR event in Toronto. We had dinner and the friendship has blossomed ever since. We’ve done a standard event, an event at a whisky distillery, and a couple of podcast series (which we didn’t publish—but MBS’s latest podcast, [*Change Signal*](https://thechangesignal.com/?ref=foxwizard.com)*,* has [a delightful honouring of one of my previous foxwizard museabouts](https://thechangesignal.com/podcast/9-jason-fox?ref=foxwizard.com)). This time we thought: let’s do something different. And so the ꧁ wizardly river walk ꧂ was conjured. A dinner, a 20km walk in the forest by the river, WIND AND CHAOS, another dinner, tiramisu. I’m going to preserve the *mystique* of this and simply share a sample of some nice words shared by fellow adventurer-participants. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/09/Nice-riverwalk-words.png) Be sure to be subscribed if you’d like to hear of future events. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/09/08756DE1-2E22-4581-B82F-4A89DEAF1BD5.jpg) Thanks Leanne (or Steph?) for the photo I pilfered ## 9\. Kindred Spirits Gosh September was an eventful month. We shared [episode 6 of Kindred Spirits](https://www.foxwizard.com/kindred-spirits-e6/) (which you can also [watch and say nice things about on substack](https://kindredspiritspod.substack.com/p/e6)). We called this episode “You Do You, 100%” and I can’t even begin to share the sublime snippets laced throughout. [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/09/KSe6.png)](https://www.foxwizard.com/e6/) Yet still nebulous **I’m also two episodes behind!** I have two episodes of Kindred Spirits to share with you this week. It’s getting weirder and more wily, and I love it. My co-host [John Anthony](https://transcend.com.au/?ref=foxwizard.com) has become such an inspiring friend. I’ll do a proper love post next time, though, as I am generally trying to keep these museletters to ‘under 5k words’, ha. ## 10\. Warmly secure Whilst Kindred Spirits emerged as a ‘foxwizard popup podcast’—and will now become it’s own thing—I still want to have conversations with wondrous folk on the ‘regular’ foxwizard podcast. It was always ostensibly for those of us ‘questing, amidst the metacrisis, in a time betwixt worlds’. Except this podcast began when I was still wandering the dark forest (before the ꧁profound healing꧂ retreat). I hadn’t quite experienced the ‘post-tragic’ stance, yet. Not properly. But here we are now. Things are—you may have noticed—grim as ever. The future? Bleak. It’s tragic, and yet… there remains the haunting call of Eros and the wisp of a glimmer of a thread that may well lead us to co-create a world more curious and kind (and a future less grim). It’s a thread worth following. And so I seek to court the perspectives from fellow kindred spirits who quest amidst the liminal and emergent. Folks who, loosely, have a combination of at least a few of the following qualities: - a metamodern ‘both/and’ orientation - a metasystemic lens - metarational capabilities - complexity savvy - mythopoetic sensibilities - a deep sense of the metacrisis - an embrace of the infinite game - a transperspectival flex - a bias towards relationality and wholeness - a sense of humour - a kind of wisdom - a kind of wit - the hint of wiles - a bright mind - a warm heart - and so on This list is non-exhaustive, but it gives a good gist. [I expand upon what I mean for each item in the show notes for episode 15 of the foxwizard podcast](https://www.foxwizard.com/e15/), wherein I talk with the experienced public sector security practitioner Greg Dack. A security practitioner? Yes, indeed! Greg has been a long-time subscriber and friend. He brings an inherently warm and pragmatic, complexity-informed approach to creating the conditions in which communities can experience a generative kind of security. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/09/Greg-Dack-and-Jason-Fox.jpg) If you look closely you can see the master security practitioner behind Greg. To quote from my own show notes: > Greg’s approach suggests that our most enduring sense of security emerges not from fortress-building, but from cultivating the conditions that enable communities to be and become inherently more caring and resilient. There’s an echo of James P. Carse’s analogy of *the machine* and *the garden,* here. There’s also that damned 𝌉 ‘Machine’ 𝌉 again, eh? Did you see it? James P. Carse knows what’s what. But hey—there’s a garden, too. And kindred spirits, [feeding the leaks](https://www.foxwizard.com/feeding-leaks/). ## 11\. I should probably mention Dr. Fox stuff Dr. Fox—my daylight persona, my ‘performance artistry’ that takes the form of an award winning motivational speaker, bestselling author, and [highly regarded](https://www.drjasonfox.com/happy-clients?ref=foxwizard.com) leadership advisor—is doing great. This is my trojan-horse work; smuggling wit, wisdom and wiles into the heart of The Machine so that we might enliven cultures from within. There are two main modes I work in as Dr. Fox: - [Keynote presentations and fireside provocations](https://www.drjasonfox.com/keynotes-firesides?ref=foxwizard.com), naturally. Events can be *catalytic,* if we attuned the magic. I do it well. - [Leadership and strategy immersions](https://www.drjasonfox.com/leadership-immersions-coaching?ref=foxwizard.com). Like a masterclass, except much more interactive and attuned to your current context. Here we go *deep.* I also work with fellow kindred spirits and infinite players as a wizardly ‘advisor-accomplice’. Here I help you be more effective and subversive, look great, develop your own mythos, and cast better spells. My worry is that there are fewer folks who know just *how much better* things can be. Like how kids these days are habituated to diminished biodiversity—and don’t know just how flourishing *even a back yard* can be—so too leaders within organisations have become habituated to The Machine, optimising their way to oblivion. Still, there are some of us who yet know: a much better way is possible. Even amidst the metacrisis, in this time betwixt worlds. Erm, just to be overt: I am currently taking bookings for first half of 2026\. There’s also some patchy availability between now and mid-December. Reach out to kim@drjasonfox.com if you’d like to explore working together. ## 12\. The School of Fox Wizardry I’ll be teaching my ‘secrets’ and magics to a small group of rogue wizards in 2026\. Here’s a tease. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/09/school_fox_wizardry_tease_1.png) More details in the next museletter. xoxo --- Thank you for reading all the way through. A rare gift and honour in these distracting and diminished times. Much warmth to you, Jason ### e15 // Warmly Secure URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/e15/ Last updated: 2026-05-15T01:47:06.000Z ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/media/2025/09/e15_fw_thumb.png) e15 // Warmly Secure with Greg Dack 0:00 /5212.500658 1× Subscribe and listen on [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/foxwizard/id1645970777?ref=foxwizard.com), [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/2hkJuLE5VMED5rvDqnH4RL?ref=foxwizard.com), and [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeLHJRzrOWo%5FQXluAn65XjHQsoX3IjLvn&ref=foxwizard.com). My intention with this podcast has long been to court the perspectives from fellow kindred spirits who quest amidst the liminal and emergent. Folks who, loosely, have a combination of at least a few of the following qualities: - a metamodern ‘both/and’ orientation\[^ The ability to hold paradox and contradiction as generative rather than problematic.\] - a metasystemic lens\[^ The capacity to perceive, compare and contrast multiple meaning-making systems.\] - metarational capabilities\[^ The ability to fluidly navigate between systematic and non-systematic approaches to meaning, recognising contextual appropriateness of different cognitive modes.\] - complexity savvy\[^ An apt appreciation for emergence, nonlinearity, and adaptive dynamics coupled with a comfort for sense-making beyond closed systems and mechanistic causation.\] - mythopoetic sensibilities\[^ The acuity for mythic, metaphorical, and poetic modes of meaning-making; a deep knowing of narrative and symbolic dimensions as epistemologically valid.\] - a deep sense of the metacrisis\[^ A deep and sobering understanding of the underlying generator functions that give rise to our interconnected polycrisis and existential threats to civilisation, humanity, and Life.\] - an embrace of the infinite game\[^ James P. Carse’s concept of *‘playing to continue the play’* rather than to terminate it through winning; a vision of life as play and possibility.\] - a transperspectival flex\[^ The capacity to simultaneously hold multiple perspectives whilst recognising each as partial; seeing through rather than from any single viewpoint without falling into relativistic equivalence.\] - a bias towards relationality and wholeness\[^ Deep knowing of our fundamental interconnectedness; resistance to fragmentary thinking that artificially isolates phenomena from their contexts; an emphasis on relations between nodes; and understanding that all nodes themselves emerge via relationality.\] - a sense of humour\[^ As Layman Pascal describes in [*Gurdjieff for a Time Between Worlds*](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D3SS8Z3V/?ref=foxwizard.com)*: “A quality of wit, cognitive liberty and perceptual acuity that can appreciate the ridiculous”.*\] - a kind of wisdom\[^ A practical discernment that transcends mere knowledge; the integrated knowing of when to act and when to refrain, born from pattern recognition across domains and lived experience. Or: an ability to walk the path of least unnecessary suffering.\] - a kind of wit\[^ Associative knowledge; the agility and capacity for unexpected connections; the ability to distill fresh alchemised insight in a manner that is timely, relevant, and apt—in a manner that subverts and/or surpasses conventional thinking.\] - the hint of wiles\[^ Strategic subversion in service of higher purpose; the artful capacity to work obliquely rather than directly, coupled with pragmatic cunning.\] - a bright mind\[^ Intellectual luminosity that illuminates rather than merely processes; clarity and honesty of thought coupled with the capacity to hold complexity without losing coherence.\] - a warm heart\[^ Genuine care and empathetic resonance that complements intellectual capacity; the affective wisdom that recognises our fundamental interdependence and acts from compassion.\] This list is non-exhaustive, but it gives a good gist. --- And so it is quite a pleasure to be sharing this episode with you. [Greg Dack](https://greg-dack.micro.blog/?ref=foxwizard.com) is a kindred spirit who has been subscribed to the museletter I write here for over half a decade. We’ve exchanged conversations over this time, and I have received wonderful letters from Greg over the years. You might have heard me lament at my tardiness in responding. 😅 Let me introduce him. Here’s a semi-official bio of sorts. > *Greg Dack has been a public sector security practitioner for more than 20 years and has successfully worked on security challenges and solutions ranging from small scale to national level. His approach is centred in curiosity about understanding what creates the security challenges communities face and how to develop and sustain approaches that work with the community.* > > *Greg sees security as one of the facets of the polycrisis and seeks to understand how security interacts with, and is often a symptom of, other facets. This approach supports solving not just single symptoms but developing new approaches to enable and empower the communities they serve.* But what I also know is that Greg has a deep wisdom and warmth to him, and he exemplifies many of the qualities and sensibilities listed above. In this podcast we talk of *security*—through the lens of a complexity practitioner. It’s very refreshing, and the kind of conversation I want for our world to move towards—more so than sniper towers and mass surveillance. Greg is attuned to the paradox of security, in that you can work towards maximising security by turning a community into something akin to a prison. Sure: limited freedoms might make for greater security—but at what cost? Naturally: it’s complex. There are no clear ‘right answers’ to this. Or well, there *could* be—if we collapse the field of enquiry into a merely complicated domain crippled by measurement. Optimised to have ‘no incidents’. This reminds me of an excerpt from Dr. Martin Shaw’s book [*Courting the Wild Twin*](https://drmartinshaw.com/courting-the-wild-twin/?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* > *“There are stories about living without relatedness. They don’t tend to end well. Without relatedness we dwell in a place the Inuit call the Moon Palace. The Moon Palace is a place that appears perfectly safe: we have a great view of the earth and its goings-on, but we touch nothing. We can spend years and years up there. Heartbreak will get us there. The cool of the Moon Palace is a very dangerous place to be. Likely there comes a point where you want to come back down.”* This notion of relatedness is something that we are going to need to keep coming back to. The Moon Palace might be safe—but that’s not where life happens. I know all of this might land a little differently right now, given the heightened anxiety of our times. Particularly amongst those in North America, given what happened this week. I should also note that I am quite rusty at being in conversation with people on the podcast. I’ve got a great thing going on with [John Anthony in our Kindred Spirits episodes](https://www.foxwizard.com/tag/kindred-spirits/)—but as you know, these can get a bit loose. And in this conversation with Greg I kinda stumbled into a few domains that I later decided to edit out, because of my uncharacteristically inelegant clumsiness.\[^ Rather than my usual *strategic* incompetence.\] Greg is the third person I have spoken with (other than myself) on this podcast.\[^ Once upon a time I had another podcast with many folks interviewed but... I deleted that. Cocoon shit.\] In December last year I had a lovely conversation with [Simon van der Els](https://www.foxwizard.com/e4/)\[^ Who I am still in conversation with today.\]—but that’s about it. I want to chat with more folks. Folks who mostly exemplify the qualities I listed above. I’m also aware that, [six years ago, Lauren Duca quipped](https://x.com/laurenduca/status/1097340396387139584?lang=en&ref=foxwizard.com): *“Did You Know: A group of two or more white men is called ‘a podcast’.”* Suffice to say: I know, and I want you to know that I know that you know, too. Yet still, I hope the heart and spirit of what I am doing here shines through. And with this conversation, I have no doubt. Here’s an artificially intelligent overview of the topics this conversation purportedly traversed. 00:00 *An introduction to Gregory Dack and His Work* 05:03 *Exploring the Philosophy of Security* 07:09 *The Complexity of Security in Communities* 10:01 *Understanding Safety vs. Security* 13:08 *The Role of Security Practitioners* 16:18 *The Impact of Community and Connection* 19:04 *Tools vs. Solutions in Security* 22:04 *The Unintended Consequences of Security Measures* 25:10 *Lighting and Its Impact on Perception of Safety* 27:34 *Exploring Security and Trust* 29:31 *The Balance of Cynicism and Optimism in Security* 30:56 *Learning from Diverse Experiences* 32:48 *Navigating Risk and Community Dynamics* 35:00 *Creating Conditions for Meaningful Conversations* 36:51 *Assessing Security Programs Effectively* 37:20 *Understanding the Value of Security Programs* 39:51 *Identifying Unintended Violations in Security* 41:18 *Engaging Communities in Security Solutions* 44:46 *Resilience and Anti-Fragility in Security* 47:39 *Learning from Incidents and Near Misses* 49:47 *The Role of Ego in Security Professionals* 50:16 *Fostering Local Kinship and Community Support* 57:08 *Navigating Protest and Security* 59:31 *Community Responses to Crisis* 01:00:00 *The Role of Media in Shaping Perceptions* 01:01:23 *Understanding Grief and Loss* 01:09:15 *The Wisdom of Samwise Gamgee* 01:17:06 *Creating Community Through Connection* Greg’s approach suggests that our most enduring sense of security emerges not from fortress-building but from cultivating the conditions that enable communities to be and become inherently more caring and resilient. There’s an echo of James P. Carse’s analogy of *the machine* and *the garden,* here. This is perhaps the deeper invitation: to see security work—like all meaningful practice—as fundamentally relational. To understand that the question is never simply *‘how do we make things safe?’* but rather: *‘how do we create the conditions for ongoing aliveness?’* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/09/Screenshot-2025-09-13-at-10.17.00---pm.png) Here’s a screenshot I took from our conversation. I encouraged Greg to start a micro blog. You can connect with him and follow his work at [greg-dack.micro.blog](https://greg-dack.micro.blog/?ref=foxwizard.com) 🧡 ### Kindred Spirits – episode 6 ፨ URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/kindred-spirits-e6/ Last updated: 2025-09-03T01:58:52.000Z ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/media/2025/09/KS_e6_final_thumb.png) Kindred Spirits – e6 0:00 /4310.666667 1× Subscribe and listen on [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/foxwizard/id1645970777?ref=foxwizard.com), [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/2hkJuLE5VMED5rvDqnH4RL?ref=foxwizard.com), [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeLHJRzrOWo%5FQXluAn65XjHQsoX3IjLvn&ref=foxwizard.com), and now [Substack](https://kindredspiritspod.substack.com/), too. In this episode of Kindred Spirits, [John Anthony](https://transcend.com.au/?ref=foxwizard.com) and I attempt to answer a bundle of listener questions pertaining to ‘professional speaking’. These include: - *How do you make a speech funny?! Is it situational or do you have a go-to angle prepared?* - *What’s your view on slides?* - *If you could remove one overused phrase from every keynote forever, what would it be?* - *What do most speakers get wrong about their audience?* - *What’s a common ‘rule of speaking’ you love breaking?* - *What’s your pre-stage ritual before a big keynote or event?* - *Is there a physical cue or anchor you use to get into the zone? How do you stop your body from freaking out?* John Anthony and I *attempt* to answer these questions with some aplomb (though as you’ll see from the extended outro—the structure I brought to the episode cramped our usual meandering loquaciousness). We also sample another [*mizunara*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quercus%5Fcrispula?ref=foxwizard.com) cask whisky. *“I’m just tasting wood, wood, wood.”* Wood that I could! It was very animate. These episodes are always tricky to ‘summarise’—let alone distil. And artificial intelligence fails dismally, as it should. Ergo, it beckons thy human ears to stay awhile and listen. ### What did the serpent say? URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/serpent-says/ Last updated: 2025-08-27T02:49:56.000Z Ahoy friends. I’ve *at least* three things to share with you. ### *Come celebrate the launch of Snake Talk* The Rekindling—our semi-sporadic pseudo-druidic gathering of bright minds and warm hearts—is back for what might be *our final event.\** \* *My co-host PK is moving to Tasmania to begin a new chapter with the fam. It’s too soon for me to project my want unto this new venture but... who knows. Rekindling campover one day?* This time we are celebrating the launch of Tyson Yunkaporta and Megan Kelleher’s new book—[*Snake Talk: How the world’s ancient serpent stories can guide us*](https://www.textpublishing.com.au/books/snake-talk-how-the-world-s-ancient-serpent-stories-can-guide-us?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* [The Rekindling: Snake TalkCome celebrate the launch of Tyson Yunkaporta & Megan Kelleher’s new book![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/icon/foxwizard-favicon-9.png)foxwizard ◊ questing betwixtDr. Jason Fox![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/thumbnail/the_rekindling_snake_talk_1.jpg)](https://www.foxwizard.com/rekindling-snake-talk/) The event is happening in September, and we would *love* to have you join us. As ever, these events tend to sell out mighty fast. So if you fancy coming along, [head to the event page for dates and details](https://www.foxwizard.com/rekindling-snake-talk/). I’d so love to see you—it’s been too long! [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/08/image-2.png)](https://www.foxwizard.com/rekindling-snake-talk/) I’ll be writing a dedicated museletter in reflection of [*Snake Talk*](https://www.textpublishing.com.au/books/snake-talk-how-the-world-s-ancient-serpent-stories-can-guide-us?ref=foxwizard.com)soon. I am also plotting to chat with Tyson and Megan on the podcast someday (as I have deep empathy for those of you who are subscribed yet cannot attend the local events I host). Stay tuned. --- ### *Living, learning, and leading (in a time between worlds)* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/08/image-3.png) Last week I spoke at an event for school principals and education leaders. I promised the audience I would follow up with a museletter and some notes. Somehow this translated into [a 3,000 word essay on ‘heretical education’](https://www.foxwizard.com/heretical-education/). [Heretical educationLiving, learning, and leading (in a time between worlds)![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/icon/foxwizard-favicon-10.png)foxwizard ◊ questing betwixtDr. Jason Fox![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/thumbnail/foxwizard-hero-2-9.png)](https://www.foxwizard.com/heretical-education/) If you’re a principal, an education leader, a parent, an uncle or aunty, or even just a principled person who cares about our planet and the world we are co-creating—I think you’d [relish in this musing](https://www.foxwizard.com/heretical-education/). It contains apt and appropriate themes of subversive leadership, a warm tirade against over-measurement, and a healthy sampling of quotes from Dr. Zachary Stein’s book [*Education in a Time Between Worlds*](https://www.amazon.com/Education-Time-Between-Worlds-Technology/dp/0986282677/ref=sr%5F1%5F1?sr=8-1&ref=foxwizard.com). --- ### *Listen to episode 5 of Kindred Spirits* It’s my favouritest episode thus far. [Kindred Spirits – episode 5 ፨A pop-up (video) podcast of whimsy & whisky. ✨![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/icon/foxwizard-favicon-11.png)foxwizard ◊ questing betwixtDr. Jason Fox![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/thumbnail/foxwizard-hero-2-10.png)](https://www.foxwizard.com/kindred-spirits-e5/) In [episode 5 of Kindred Spirits](https://www.foxwizard.com/kindred-spirits-e5/), [John Anthony](https://transcend.com.au/?ref=foxwizard.com) and I venture into domains of death, grief, gratitude, the brain, the mind, buttered crumpets, whim-fulfilment, hermetic “Fourth Way” sensibilities, overriding automaticity, and the role of surreptitious obliquity (or: why complex goals oughtn’t be approached directly). --- That’s all for now. I mean, I have *so much* more to share. I’ve some *wondrous* offerings in the works for you. [Come to *The Rekindling*](https://www.foxwizard.com/rekindling-snake-talk/) and I’ll tell you more. 🦊 Warmth, Jason ### The Rekindling: Snake Talk URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/rekindling-snake-talk/ Last updated: 2025-08-28T08:07:12.000Z The Rekindling\[^ Since 2022 we have been intermittently gathering under the banner of *‘post-doom sensibilities for the collapse-aware’.* This is an event that gathers a diverse mix of warm-hearted and bright-minded folk willing to sense-make and quest—amidst the metacrisis—in this time betwixt worlds.\] is back! This time we gather to celebrate the launch of Tyson Yunkaporta and Megan Kelleher’s new book—[*Snake Talk: How the world’s ancient serpent stories can guide us*](https://www.textpublishing.com.au/books/snake-talk-how-the-world-s-ancient-serpent-stories-can-guide-us?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* This is a book that is timely and timeless. There’s a deep and stirring vitality to it. A reawakening of cosmic awe in a manner that is both immensely profound and immediately pragmatic—all laced with the subversive wit and sumptuous warmth that Tyson and Megan bring. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/08/Screenshot-2025-08-18-at-7.33.28---am.png) Tyson Yunkaporta and Megan Kelleher **This event begins at 5:30pm on Thursday 18th of September 2025** at United Co., 425 Smith Street, Fitzroy. There'll be time for unhurried mingling and book signings. Tyson and Megan will then join us in conversation, with open time for questions and generous time within which you can purchase books and have them personally signed by the authors. Kevin Murray of [*Garland Magazine*](https://garlandmag.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) will be with us, and Rune Hjarnø Rasmussen (of [*Nordic Animism*](https://nordicanimism.com/?ref=foxwizard.com)) will also be joining us (all the way from Denmark). **Then, sometime before 7:30pm,** we shall collectively amble to a nearby brewery, where we have a private space to gather and cohere in conviviality and good cheer. This is a chance to further deepen your connection with kindred spirits; relaxed, generative and serendipitous *dialogue-at-depth* amongst a warm atmosphere of old and newfound friends. Grab a bite to eat and stay for as long as your heart desires. It’s been *over a year* since our last event. And this may well be our last event (in this format). So! Come celebrate the launch of [*Snake Talk*](https://www.textpublishing.com.au/books/snake-talk-how-the-world-s-ancient-serpent-stories-can-guide-us?ref=foxwizard.com). [Get your tickets](https://events.humanitix.com/snake-talk?ref=foxwizard.com) *Tickets can be* [*acquired directly via humanitix*](https://events.humanitix.com/snake-talk?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* The Rekindling is held upon the lands of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation, and graciously hosted by [Kearney Group](https://kearneygroup.com.au/?ref=foxwizard.com). This particular event is also supported by [**text publishing*](https://www.textpublishing.com.au/?ref=foxwizard.com). Questions? *Feel free to comment below and I shall reply swiftly-ish.* ### Heretical education URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/heretical-education/ Last updated: 2025-08-27T02:33:36.000Z Earlier this week I spoke to a room of secondary school principals\[^ Many of whom are existing or new subscribers to the museletter (hi!).\] from the state of Queensland. Sensing that this may be my last keynote\[^ I have spoken at quite a few events for principals in Queensland over the last three years. The pattern seems to be something like: three on, three off. As in, once you have keynoted at an event, it will usually be three years before you speak at the same event again.\] with this group for some time—I thought I might be a bit more *explicit* in surfacing That Which Needs To Be Said. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/08/QSPA-2025.jpg) So many large events are so terribly *patterned* now, following a predictable script. Thought leadership groomed to serve the appetite of ‘the market.’ Manufactured insight. Artificial intelligence. Safe, comfortable, and all-too-familiar. But some of us have dared to quest beyond the [Overton Window](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton%5Fwindow?ref=foxwizard.com). And some of us are finding and [feeding the leaks](https://www.foxwizard.com/feeding-leaks/). And some of us, sometimes, have an opportunity to *tell about it*.\[^ Yes, I’m hinting at Mary Oliver’s [*Instructions for living a life*](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/62038-instructions-for-living-a-life-pay-attention-be-astonished-tell?ref=foxwizard.com)*.*\] Which means: deviating from the standard script. ## *Deviancy, heresy, and other generative things* *“Deviancy,”* James P. Carse writes in [*Finite and Infinite Games*](https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/81f090e1-30b0-4970-bf82-6c9003c2e6ab?ref=foxwizard.com)*,* *“is the very essence of culture. Whoever merely follows the script, merely repeating the past, is culturally impoverished.”* Events need to be a little disruptive. [Wondrously heretical](https://www.drjasonfox.com/keynotes-firesides?ref=foxwizard.com), and somewhat at odds with what is generally expected. *“Genuine ‘thought leadership’ is suspect and counter-intuitive to conventional narratives,”* I write in [footnote 13 of a previous musing](https://www.foxwizard.com/microblogging-cantrips/#footnote-13). *“If this is not the case—if it has immediate face validity—it is unlikely to be thought leadership.”* There are many things we are just not talking about.\[^ This may be partly due to their [antimemetic nature](https://www.foxwizard.com/e5/#antimemetics).\] Most of our day-to-day roles don’t allow time or space for this—*but conferences and events do*. In fact, they are some of our most important spaces for surfacing the conversations that need to be had. Which is why it’s so painful to witness this opportunity squandered simply playing out the predictable script. Such safe antics perpetuate cultural impoverishment. ## *Subversive leadership* My role, in much of my work, is to awaken and ꧁enliven꧂ that which we might call [*subversive* leadership](https://www.foxwizard.com/subversive/). That is, leadership that is *“grounded in knowledge and wisdom which allows leaders to recognise changing circumstances, make sound judgement, and act expediently.”* This is a quote from a paper titled [*Subversive Leadership and Power Tactics*](https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1196533&ref=foxwizard.com)that was published in the *Journal of Educational Administration* in 2018\. It was written with *school principals* in mind—but it offers well-articulated sensibilities that are widely applicable across many contexts. From the abstract: > *“Principals’ leadership has become a subversive activity that is carried out strategically to challenge and disrupt the status quo and resist policies and practices that are counterproductive to their work.* > > \[...\] > > *The study shows that leadership involves upholding morals and values, even if this means having to use subversive practices to ensure inclusive, equitable, and just outcomes.”* In my keynote-provocation to the gathered principals and education leaders, I channelled much of what is already on the minds of many (but just not overtly spoken of). I think most intelligent adults know that young people have it much, *much* harder these days.\[^ Here’s a summary assembled by Claude. *“Young Australians are growing up in the shadow of an accelerating climate crisis that threatens their fundamental sense of future security, while simultaneously facing an economic system that has made traditional markers of adulthood—homeownership, secure employment, and financial independence—increasingly unattainable for their generation. The convergence of environmental catastrophe, a housing crisis, job insecurity driven by artificial intelligence, and growing wealth inequality has created what researchers describe as ‘existential anxiety’ among youth who question whether democratic institutions and social systems can adequately respond to these systemic threats. This generation witnesses fossil fuel companies receiving billions in subsidies while they accumulate unprecedented student debt, observes the erosion of protest rights and civil liberties, and experiences the psychological burden of inheriting global problems they did not create but must somehow solve. The cumulative effect of these interlocking crises manifests in widespread mental health challenges, democratic disengagement, and a profound questioning of societal structures that previous generations took for granted. Understanding these existential pressures is crucial for secondary school principals, as these are not typical adolescent concerns but fundamental challenges to young people's sense of agency, hope, and belonging in Australian society.”*\] I also gave a quick overview of [the metacrisis](https://youtu.be/4kBoLVvoqVY?feature=shared&t=247&ref=foxwizard.com) that gives rise to the poly-crisis we find ourselves in the midst of now.\[^ This conversation is never quite fun. But it’s necessary if we are to move towards [*the hope-beyond-hope*](https://www.foxwizard.com/feeding-leaks/#the-hope-beyond-hope)*.* Otherwise: we will remain naïvely and narrowly invested in trying to ‘fix’ the system—whilst never addressing the paradigm that perpetuates the metacrisis we’re in.\] This is compounded by the fact that our society-at-large is still very adolescent. There are very few True Adults that support the flourishing development of our children. Our children who live in a world where adults in power are enacting a genocide upon the children of Palestine, with [mass starvation being used as a weapon of war](https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/07/gaza-evidence-points-to-israels-continued-use-of-starvation-to-inflict-genocide-against-palestinians/?ref=foxwizard.com). We are also living through [the 6th mass extinction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene%5Fextinction?ref=foxwizard.com). It’s beyond me. I don’t know what it would be like to be a parent having to explain how this is happening to their own children. I myself at least had the naïveté of half-believing in ‘progress’ as I grew up (whilst watching David Attenborough nature documentaries). What do the children of today have now? > “We are very systematically betraying the youth.” This was a line that [Dr. Zachary Stein](https://www.zakstein.org/?ref=foxwizard.com), a philosopher of education, [recently shared a conversation with Nate Hagens on *The Great Simplification* podcast](https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/180-zak-stein?ref=foxwizard.com). If you’re a principal, an education leader, a parent, an uncle or aunty, or even just a principled person who cares about our planet and the world we are co-creating—you ought imbibe some of the work of Zachary Stein. ## *Education in a Time Between Worlds* We find ourselves questing—*amidst the metacrisis*—in a time betwixt worlds. Or well, at least some of us are. I’d like for it to be more of us. That concept of *a time between worlds*\[^ Related yet distinct from two-world mythologies.\] comes from Dr. Zachary Stein, whose work I have long admired. These two books in particular—[*Education in a Time Between Worlds*](https://www.amazon.com/Education-Time-Between-Worlds-Technology/dp/0986282677/ref=sr%5F1%5F1?keywords=education+in+a+time+between+worlds&qid=1661647089&sprefix=education+in+a+time%2Caps%2C106&sr=8-1&ref=foxwizard.com) (written by Zak himself) and [*First Principles and First Values: Forty-Two Propositions on CosmoErotic Humanism, the Meta-Crisis, and the World to Come*](https://www.amazon.com/First-Principles-Values-Propositions-CosmoErotic/dp/B0CXJZKX3F/ref=sr%5F1%5F1?crid=XLVVHEKWAS2K&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.cMzrwOE-9pOgad9690e9ucv5fzXwOzaFZLgpxH0lK7LGjHj071QN20LucGBJIEps.cdYKlCt4iXu%5FnlWxoePgMsSnxZPnuutOVIQR5uZtqIA&dib%5Ftag=se&keywords=cosmoerotic+humanism&qid=1756019829&sprefix=cosmoerotic+humanis%2Caps%2C364&sr=8-1&ref=foxwizard.com)(written in part by Zak)—are what I found myself mentioning to the assembled leaders at this event. I promised I’d share them in a museletter, and so here we are. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/08/Books-by-Zak-Stein.jpg) Jonathan Rowson—chess grandmaster and co-founder and director of [Perspectiva](https://systems-souls-society.com/?ref=foxwizard.com)—writes the foreword to [*Education Must Make History Again*](https://systems-souls-society.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Education-must-make-history-again-2-1.pdf?ref=foxwizard.com), an essay by Zachary Stein. We *will* get to Zak’s work soon, but Jonathan’s framing is important. > *“For those working for a better world, the stories we are part of may be climate change mitigation, or reducing political polarisation, or the promise of new technologies, or an image to guide action, like doughnut economics. But these endeavours are all part of a bigger story that needs to be inhabited today. Until we grasp that we are in a time between worlds it is hard to see the deep structures of societal immunity to change that keep the old world on life support. Without trusting that a new world will be born it is hard to see the possibilities for radical renewal, possibilities that are neglected because they can’t be perceived within the prism of the world to which we are habituated.”* I would like for more of us to grasp that we are in a time between worlds. In my profession\[^ Ostensibly: a wizard who works with leaders (particularly as a precursor to strategy).\] I encounter far too many folk who still subscribe to the [naïve progress narrative](https://www.foxwizard.com/authentic-progress/). Much as the chap who asks the question at 31 minutes into a presentation on [*The Flip, the Formation, and the Fun: A response to the Metacrisis*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmpaFelcCnU&t=1881s&ref=foxwizard.com) by Jonathan Rowson*.* If you’re someone who thinks: *‘sure, it’s not perfect, but things are getting better and better all the time’* then you might benefit from this presentation. *“During times between worlds,”* [writes](https://systems-souls-society.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Education-must-make-history-again-2-1.pdf?ref=foxwizard.com) Zachary Stein, *“there emerge certain ideas and thinkers that are, properly speaking, without a world. Their work is about creating a new world, by necessity. Let us call their workspace the liminal. Not within the old world or the world to come, the liminal is exactly that which is the bridge and fulcrum between worlds.”* My very close and dear friend [Joe Lightfoot](https://www.joelightfoot.org/?ref=foxwizard.com) coined the term *‘the liminal web’.*\[^And [mapped it](https://www.joelightfoot.org/post/the-liminal-web-mapping-an-emergent-subculture-of-sensemakers-meta-theorists-systems-poets?ref=foxwizard.com).\] It’s where most of the coolest (and warmest) people I know dance. And then later, along with [Peter Limberg](https://www.peterlimberger.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) and [The Stoa](https://www.thestoa.ca/?ref=foxwizard.com), [a *death ritual* was conducted](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwu41tIcF5I&ref=foxwizard.com)—which, aptly, has made the liminal web even more alive. My point being—come, join us in the liminal! [Hospice the stories](https://decolonialfutures.net/hospicingmodernity/?ref=foxwizard.com) that no longer serve, and join those of us who quest amidst the thickets of the dark forest and all the entangled mess of emergence. Let’s together co-create our way towards a world more curious and kind (and a future less grim). ## *A summary of a summary* Firstly, I... don’t generally like summaries. Samples, yes. Summaries, no. I worry I’m already entering my [grandpa arc](https://www.foxwizard.com/metamodern-grandpa-energy/) here but, really, the world has become far too impatient. Too many of us will willingly *bypass learning* on the path to obtaining knowledge in order ‘save time.’ Except it won’t be knowledge we obtain—merely information. “\[...\] *You have to think about your epistemic supply chain,”* Zachary [says](https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/TGS180ZakSteinTranscript.pdf?ref=foxwizard.com). *“That's why I still read, write and talk long form, and would never not.* \[...\] *You have to keep the ability to be a speaker, be a thinker, be a writer.”* Recently, I came across [the blog of Artem Zen](https://www.artemzen.com/book/education-in-a-time-between-worlds-by-zachary-stein-book-summary/?ref=foxwizard.com), a developmental coach who generously shares direct quotes from books he has read.\[^ Perhaps too generously? 😅\] I have a copy of [*Education in a Time Between Worlds*](https://www.amazon.com.au/Education-Time-Between-Worlds-Technology/dp/0986282677?ref=foxwizard.com) myself, but still: this site has been handy. Of course [I recommend you buy and read the book proper](https://www.amazon.com.au/Education-Time-Between-Worlds-Technology/dp/0986282677?ref=foxwizard.com). And yet it *is* a book that requires a depth of attention that is seemingly so rare these days. Ergo, allow me the liberty to share a few direct quotes from Dr. Zachary Stein. A small sample selection of thoughtful provocations, skewed to my bias towards meaningful (wide-boundary) progress (as distinct from the narrow delusions of progress that are easier to measure). ### On grown-ups > *“In most cultures around the world, so-called ‘grown-ups’ are usually quite immature relative to the full spectrum of human capacities and potentials that are latent inside them.”* > > *“Many grown-ups are actually emotionally young, having been infantilized by consumer culture and traditional religion or alienated from their own creative powers by dull and meaningless jobs.”* ### On the education system > *“Education today cannot be primarily about achieving a functional fit between new generations and the existing social system, because the existing system is in a state of flux.”* > > *“A few wealthy organizations are drastically and unilaterally impacting the shape of schooling, displaying without disguise the interests and power of capital in shaping human development.”* > > *“When social systems are in periods of rapid transformation the role of schools becomes contradictory. They teach knowledge that is no longer relevant, socialize individuals into roles that no longer exist, and provide the mindsets needed to continue ways of life that are rapidly disappearing.”* > > *“Those preoccupied with ‘fixing’ the existing system of schools do not stop to ask questions about what schools are for, who they serve, and what kind of civilization they perpetuate.”* ### On teaching > *“Schooling still largely consists of teachers filling passive students with information and then asking them to recite it back.”* > > *“We appear to have been so amazed by our unprecedented levels of access to information that we have forgotten how to ask questions about the quality of information.”* ### On measurement > *“A measurement crisis occurs when society loses touch with reality because it has institutionalized a systematically distorted measurement infrastructure.”* > > *⁠⁠“Measurement infrastructures are difficult structures to change once they have been in place for a time.”⁠⁠* > > *⁠⁠“Path dependence… once a complex system is far enough along a particular path it becomes cheaper and easier to just stay on that path.⁠⁠”* > > *⁠⁠“Humanity must find a way beyond measures of total abstraction.”* > > *“Measurement practices enact realities. They serve as lenses and function to represent aspects of the world in ways that garner consensus, thus profoundly shaping individual and cultural perceptions of reality.”⁠⁠* > > *“Measurement is intrinsically related to power. Those who have the power to create and institutionalize measures and standards control society.”⁠⁠* > > *⁠⁠“Measurement induces reflection. We see ourselves through our measures and standards.”⁠⁠* > > *“There is a historical correlation between the availability of bathroom scales and incidents of anorexia, beginning with their widespread introduction into homes in the 1950s.”⁠⁠* > > *“To measure something is to show it exists, and to think you see it clearly. This can be empowering or dangerously misleading.”⁠⁠* > > *“Measures determine what counts as research and science.”* > > *“To make a new measure is to catalyze an expansion of what can be known, as well as what ‘counts’ as known from a social systems perspective.”* > > *“We are over-measured, super-standardized, and caught in a web of complex self-shaping infrastructures — all this right at the moment when we are least sure of what the shape of our humanity ought to be.”⁠⁠* > > *“Simplistic summary statistics are totally inadequate for the task of understanding dynamic systems.”* ### On ‘educational’ technologies > **⁠⁠*“Today it is mostly market dynamics that determine what educational technologies are available, and there is no oversight or quality control in the educational technologies industries, which are rapidly growing nonetheless.”* > > *⁠“Educational technologies should be bringing people together away from screens — not isolating individuals alone in front of screens.”⁠⁠* > > *⁠⁠“Adults largely use the internet to engage advertisment-laden streaming content and social media.”⁠⁠* > > *“The internet does not facilitate the kind of transparent freedom of expression that is suitable for healthy socialization and learning. Rather social media-based forms of communication involve a basic funneling and distorting of expression and discourse, which become wrapped in surveillance by advertisers and government agencies and then packaged to induce narcissism and addiction.”* ### On our humanity > *⁠⁠“Our species is playing out an identity crisis on the world stage, and for the first time we are collectively facing the fact we do not know what it means to be human.”⁠⁠* > > *“Pathological narcissism is a sign of a weak ego structure — of a personality not convinced of its true uniqueness.”⁠⁠* > > *“Narcissism involves compensating for doubts about one’s unique worth by emphasizing separateness and specialness, and thus setting up comparisons in which others are seen as less special.”⁠⁠* > > *“The cure for the narcissism that plagues our culture is, in fact, a deepening of considerations about uniqueness.”* ### On a new vision of education Here Zachary offers 13 pathways. I’ll just share one small sample. > *“A truly ideal and just educational system would be freed from all subservience to economic considerations and entirely dedicated to the furtherance of human potential.”* There’s more to be found in [Artem’s summary](https://www.artemzen.com/book/education-in-a-time-between-worlds-by-zachary-stein-book-summary/?%5F%5FreadwiseLocation=&ref=foxwizard.com). And, of course, yet more still to be found in [*Education in a Time Between Worlds*](https://www.amazon.com.au/Education-Time-Between-Worlds-Technology/dp/0986282677?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* ## *Thou shalt not rob epiphany* Here’s a question—from Zak—I posited to the room, after a short exposé of the nature of money and the guiding logic of our economy (which is consuming the very substrate we depend upon for Life). > “Without money as the dominant metric governing society, what alternative hierarchies of value might emerge?” I offered this as something for the gathered school principals and education leaders to contemplate and sense-into together. Then, during the fabled ‘Q&A’, someone asked me to suggest what some of the solutions might be. I only had a few minutes remaining, and thus opted to side-step the invitation. I have a sense, of course. But to offer any singular ‘answer’ would have collapsed the generative ambiguity and possibility-space that had been cultivated. It would render all the brimming potentiality of what I had stirred up into a singular response that rational minds could too-readily dismiss. If I had offered *two* alternative suggestions, it would have created a weird binary dynamic. Folks would weigh-up the merit of both ideas, sure. But it wouldn’t be an expansive frame. Offering *three* wildly different suggestions *might* have been useful and generative, as it would evoke a sense of the underlying relationality amidst them all. Because, with much of these things, it’s more about the relations between notions (not the notions themselves). Alas, I only had a few minutes. And so I did the deft and frustrating thing of *not* answering the question directly. [Surreptitious obliquity](https://www.foxwizard.com/obliquity/), we might call it. And [to quote from](https://thecynefin.co/st-davids-2024-intervention-4-5/?ref=foxwizard.com) one of my all-time [favourite grandpa characters](https://www.foxwizard.com/metamodern-grandpa-energy/), Dave Snowden: > *“Working obliquely also means less public commitment to solving a particular problem and more time to watch for unintended consequences. It also gives more space for solutions to emerge rather than be manufactured or imposed.”* The final moments of a keynote really play into the [peak-end ‘rule’](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak%E2%80%93end%5Frule?ref=foxwizard.com), in that they are incredibly influential in how an experience is remembered. This is where many motivational speakers will ‘close the loop’ of a story they opened, ending the presentation with some sort of inspired emotional resonance, cue standing ovation. My style is more one of *keeping the questions alive.* This means no neat pithy aphorisms or linear 3-step plans. Instead: space for solutions to emerge rather than being imposed. *The mind that is not baffled is not employed,* as [Wendell Berry writes](https://grateful.org/resource/our-real-work-poem-wendell-berry/?ref=foxwizard.com). These times call for subversive leadership. Live thy questions. ### Kindred Spirits – episode 5 ፨ URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/kindred-spirits-e5/ Last updated: 2025-08-27T02:35:01.000Z ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/media/2025/08/KS_e5_final_thumb.png) Kindred Spirits – e5 0:00 /4535.958345 1× Subscribe and listen on [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/foxwizard/id1645970777?ref=foxwizard.com), [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/2hkJuLE5VMED5rvDqnH4RL?ref=foxwizard.com), and [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeLHJRzrOWo%5FQXluAn65XjHQsoX3IjLvn&ref=foxwizard.com) In this episode of Kindred Spirits, [John Anthony](https://transcend.com.au/?ref=foxwizard.com) and I venture into domains of death, grief, gratitude, the brain, the *mind,* buttered crumpets, whim-fulfilment, hermetic “Fourth Way” sensibilities, automaticity overriding and the role of [surreptitious obliquity](https://www.foxwizard.com/obliquity/). ### How a musing URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/how-a-musing/ Last updated: 2025-08-03T22:30:57.000Z I once-upon-a-time considered calling [my podcast](https://www.foxwizard.com/podcast/) *‘A Musing Fox’* because the play on *a musing* and *amusing* amused me. Thankfully, I decided not to. (It’s easier to evoke humour when folks don’t expect it.) Anyhoo—*I have a few musings to share with you.* --- ### *Wait, you’re not still ambitious are you?* I present to thee a musing on [firesides, ambition, and vocation](https://www.foxwizard.com/firesides-ambition-vocation/). [Firesides, ambition & vocationWith a nod to the sleeper agents 🌿![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/icon/foxwizard-favicon-6.png)foxwizard ✦Dr. Jason Fox![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/thumbnail/foxwizard-hero-2-6.png)](https://www.foxwizard.com/firesides-ambition-vocation/) The word ‘ambition’ has come up a lot in my extended circles in recent times. It’s not a word I particularly relish, though I can understand why folks grasp for it.\* *“Ambition is,”* as David Whyte writes, *“a word that lacks any real ambition, ambition is frozen desire, the current of a vocational life immobilized and over-concretized to set, unforgiving goals.”* If you’re working in a complex domain, one of the *least* helpful things to do is ‘set concrete’ and ‘unforgiving goals’. Quite the contrary. Is your ambition crowding out your calling? Are your goals getting in the way of meaningful progress? [Have a read](https://www.foxwizard.com/firesides-ambition-vocation/) and ponder. \* *We don’t quite have any non-woo words to describe a willingness to ‘dream big’ and invest discretionary effort above-and-beyond the default, and so I am empathetic to folks who use ambition in this way. Still, any named ambition is stultifying. Gauntlet thrown—[read on](https://www.foxwizard.com/firesides-ambition-vocation/)!* --- ### *As to the magic* In the above [musing](https://www.foxwizard.com/firesides-ambition-vocation/), I shared a sneaky photo snapped *moments before* I was to play the role of *‘wizard philosopher-futurist &* [*fireside provocateur*](https://www.drjasonfox.com/keynotes-firesides?ref=foxwizard.com)*’* for a mix of executives (at a secret special event held in a mansion). I don’t often share the words from my [many happy clients](https://www.drjasonfox.com/happy-clients?ref=foxwizard.com), as I don’t like to sully these museletters with self-promotion. But these fresh words from [Hayley Westoby](https://www.linkedin.com/in/hayleywestoby/?ref=foxwizard.com) of [Gambit Collective](https://www.gambitcollective.com.au/?ref=foxwizard.com) are wonderful, and gesture towards elements that many would miss. **Not your average keynote. Not your average thinker. And absolutely not your average event contributor—which made Dr Jason Fox the perfect addition to our Melbourne event.* **Jason is - Unusual. Considered. Unforgettable.* **Jason brought a rare kind of depth and magic to our gathering. The kind that doesn’t just deliver insight it stirs something. His presence invited reflection, curiosity, and (dare I say) a little enchantment - exactly what we needed to shift the room from “just another corporate offsite” to something far more meaningful.* **With a room full of senior leaders who’ve seen it all, Jason managed to create a moment that cut through. He doesn’t do cookie-cutter, and that’s why we wanted him in the room.* **His words, his presence, his perspective - crafted and deliberate, but never forced. A masterclass in intellectual hospitality.* **Jason, thank you for making our event not just smarter, but richer. You were the right kind of different*. Not all can discern the magic. So many fixate on the content—but *context* is what matters. And we can shape, shift, and enliven the relational substrate of a gathering so that it gives rise to more honest, generative and authentic interactions. Thusly, we shape context—allowing much of the content to be emergent. It’s nice to have one’s work appreciated. Meanwhile, I’ve since received a *professional* photo from the event, taken by Mikhail of [Cass Brothers Productions](https://cassbrothersproductions.com.au/?ref=foxwizard.com). Behold me flash my clams. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/08/Dr.-Fox-with-clams.jpg) **Photo by Mikhail Cass. The astute amongst you will appreciate my radish boutonnière.* Hayley and I talked of where we see the event scene going. I’m hoping to do a podcast conversation with her some day, but the *tl;dr* is: more intimate, authentic, and intentional gatherings. Less emphasis on alcohol, large venues, and standard scenes. More emphasis on shared experiences conducive to deepening relationships and enlivening emergent conversations. Huzzah to all of this! --- ### *Would you like salt with that?* I did a short musing on ‘[metamodern grandpa energy](https://www.foxwizard.com/metamodern-grandpa-energy/)’. [Metamodern grandpa energyChanneling ‘divine masculine’ elder vibes.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/icon/foxwizard-favicon-7.png)foxwizard ✦Dr. Jason Fox![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/thumbnail/foxwizard-hero-2-7.png)](https://www.foxwizard.com/metamodern-grandpa-energy/) I feel I might have been trying to do too much with this one. It was partly *inspired* by the gruffness of ‘grandpa food’—and partly *vexed* by the gruffness of Dave Snowden (a complexity scientist I greatly respect) in [his recent conversation with my friend Tim Adalin on the voicecraft podcast](https://www.voicecraft.io/content/e131-artificial-intelligence-human-reasoning-w/-dave-snowden?ref=foxwizard.com). In this post I try to communicate my tangled admiration and consternation for Dave. I didn’t succeed—but I did make a decent food metaphor. <(￣︶￣)> 🧅 --- ### *Where clams might live* Finally—inspired/corrupted by my friendship with John Anthony and the episodes we’ve made for [*Kindred Spirits*](https://www.foxwizard.com/tag/kindred-spirits/)*—*I thought it might be *apt* to start using my site as a bit more of a ‘personal blog’. Not that I am evidently ready for [microblogging](https://www.foxwizard.com/microblogging-cantrips/). But, still: baby steps. [The Caol Ila 14 special bottling by High SpiritsMeet me by the rock pool at dusk.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/icon/foxwizard-favicon-8.png)foxwizard ✦Dr. Jason Fox![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/thumbnail/foxwizard-hero-2-8.png)](https://www.foxwizard.com/caol-ila-14/) Here I share my tasting notes on [an exquisite limited bottling of a 14 year old whisky from Caol Ila](https://www.foxwizard.com/caol-ila-14/). As per my [*Whisky: a gateway to mindfulness*](https://www.foxwizard.com/whisky-mindfulness/) guide of many years ago, a whisky tasting is a portal into sensorial *poiesis* (In the Heidegger sense of ‘bringing forth’). This whisky took me to the rocks by the ocean at dusk. It also has a perturbed-looking wizard on the bottle, as you’ll see. --- ### *What’s upcoming?* I feel like I have been *indulgent* in my writing once more. And in the meantime I have folks asking me about *the rogue wizard academy, the rekindling, the ritual of becoming,* and of *the foxmagic mentoring* I hinted at a while back. So, this month I intend write of all of these—which means I might need to write in a manner that is *practical, compelling, succinct,* and *easy to read.* This will only be temporary, I assure you. *The Rogue Wizard Academy* is in stealth mode. I’m currently working with executives who are preparing to rogue one day, and want to be able to hit the ground running as something more than a ‘thought leader’. *The Rekindling* is coming back! Our next gathering will be in September to celebrate Tyson Yunkaporta and Megan Kelleher’s phenomenal new book [*Snake Talk*](https://www.textpublishing.com.au/books/snake-talk-how-the-world-s-ancient-serpent-stories-can-guide-us?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* More on this soon (we are just firming up dates, venue, and such). [*The Ritual of Becoming*](https://www.cleverness.com/word?ref=foxwizard.com) is moving to this site ([foxwizard.com](https://www.foxwizard.com/)), soon. This is a hefty piece of background work, with much tedium. But in the mid-to-long run it’ll be worth it. I’ve come to deepen much more into the world of mythopoetic development, and am keen to revitalise the ritual. I now see it as a generative way to approach a seasonal/situational [*molting*](https://www.animas.org/glossary-to-language-of-soul-canyon/?ref=foxwizard.com#molting) of our ‘[middleworld](https://www.animas.org/glossary-to-language-of-soul-canyon/?ref=foxwizard.com#middleworld)’ identity. This shapeshifting is distinct from a deeper descent into the [underworld](https://www.youtube.com/live/jQLvp13SQcE?feature=shared&t=1236&ref=foxwizard.com) (soul work)—but the practice of it better equips you for the journey(s). *The foxmagic mentoring* is for those seeking an advisor-friend. And when I say ‘advisor’ I mean this more as a dubious/enigmatic thinking, sensing and way-making companion. Particularly for those of us questing amidst the liminal, betwixt life chapters and/or roles. I’ve enjoyed the relative ambiguity of all of my offering here (there is utility to obliquity)—but I am coming to see that it would be *helpful* to provide a bit more sense of what’s involved, and how this works. So: look forward to that. --- I’m also noticing a shift within me—a desire to show up in a more teacherly manner. I’ve resisted this for so many years. Partly due to a legitimate curse (of knowledge), and partly due to a knowing that the attention economy is saturated with folks offering steady stream of seemingly sagacious advice. Epiphany cannot be ‘taught’, nor can it be spelled out step-by-step. It comes to us in the gaps and juxtapositions; it sneaks upon us by surprise. But... since writing my piece on [*firesides, ambition & vocation*](https://www.foxwizard.com/firesides-ambition-vocation/) I have found a re-awakening of something. The concluding lines from that piece—borrowed from another writer, who was inspired by another writer, who was sharing something *her* mentor said—remain resonant for me. Perhaps they will for you, too. I offer them out-of-context for you here. > *“Don’t cling to your smallness. You are needed. Be big.”* Warmth, *—fw* ### A Caol Ila 14 special bottling by High Spirits URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/caol-ila-14/ Last updated: 2025-08-03T06:08:49.000Z The [*Kindred Spirits* episodes](https://www.foxwizard.com/tag/kindred-spirits/) I’ve recorded with [John Anthony](https://transcend.com.au/?ref=foxwizard.com) have reawakened my deep appreciation for whisky. I had a few years where—amidst my protracted quest amidst the dark forest—I had stayed away from it all. But lo! I’m back. And, in my attempt to continue to cultivate this space as something of a personal blog, I thought I might get into the habit of occasionally sharing my tasting notes. I still follow the steps I’ve outlined in [*Whisky: a gateway to mindfulness*](https://www.foxwizard.com/whisky-mindfulness/)*.* ## The Caol Ila 14 year old *“Masters of Magic”* bottling by High Spirits High Spirits is an Italian independent bottler specialising in ‘single cask single malts bottled at cask strength’. There’s very little to be found about their whiskies, and this particular expression is one of only 311 bottles from a single hogshead. It was distilled in January 2008 (right amidst the beginning of the great financial crisis, and our descent into *‘*[*The Fourth Turning*](https://www.foxwizard.com/act-amidst-complexity/#the-fourth-turning)*’*) and bottled in March 2022\. It has an abv of 55% and comes in a resplendent box. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/08/IMG_7751.JPG) A moon smiles at a magician (on the other side) who is surrounded by owls, a devil, and a raven. I picked up this bottle from [*Whisky & Alement*](https://whiskyandale.com.au/?ref=foxwizard.com) mostly because of the artwork. Not that I am the human-skull-keeping kind of wizard\[^ Why would I hold my grimoire open with a skull when I could use our [*Henry Wilson Brass Book Weight*](https://www.studiohenrywilson.com/products/brass-book-weight?ref=foxwizard.com)*? Amirite?*\]—but still, the wizard depicted has the expression of one perplexed. I can relate. Like: why is there a devil holding a snake and dancing in front of me, with bats? I hope the bats don’t leave guano all over the place. I need a whisky. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/08/Caol-Ila-14.JPG) **“Ugh, forgot I summoned the devil. That guy is such a jerk. And here I was thinking I could just read my grimoire and have a quiet night in.”* This is also my first sample from the [Caol Ila distillery](https://www.malts.com/en/caol-ila?ref=foxwizard.com). I’d been meaning to branch out to a few more Islay whiskies. As someone who grew up by the ocean, there’s something incredibly *potent* about any ‘coastal’ offering. Particularly a ‘lightly peated’ one. There’s so much more complexity to be found than in a non-peated or heavily peated whisky. To my palate at least. Here’s what this whisky evoked for me. > Nose: *fish & chip shop potato cake, balsa wood, caster sugar, rock pools, white ash* > Palate: *oysters with a squeeze of lemon, olive oil, hundreds & thousands on white bread, burnt sugar* > Finish: *lit newspaper, warm granite, jetty wood* I don’t believe in numerical ratings for whiskies,\[^ Nice try, m̴̡͙̥͑́͝ǫ̷̆͆ḷ̷̠́̆͜o̸͎͉͖̒ć̴̙̃̊h̴̨̼͐͌͘!\] but I really enjoyed this one. I’ll be keeping this one for special occasions, friends with refined palates, and for whenever I feel like being teleported to a small fire upon the rocks by the ocean at dusk. ### Metamodern grandpa energy URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/metamodern-grandpa-energy/ Last updated: 2025-12-11T02:28:40.000Z The dangerlam and I sometimes refer to the meals offered by some restaurants as ‘grandpa food’. It’s not necessarily a compliment. But it’s also not entirely a derogatory, either. Grandpa food is pragmatic, stoic, resourceful, honest, and—whilst lacking in ornamentation or finesse—often has a stodginess and/or saltiness that can be *just* what you feel like. Grandpas make the best ploughman’s board. The sourdough? Torn. The pickled onions? Uncomfortably large. The cheese? Hard af. Yet somehow, it works. *Grandma* food—nona food—is, of course, absolutely wholesome and heartwarming. Slow, sweet, soft, sumptuous. Perhaps a tad heavy on the butter, sugar and cream, sometimes. Yet decadent and delicious. I’m generalising here, but you get the thrust. And whilst I would love to talk [*hagitude*](https://hagitude.org/?ref=foxwizard.com) and [*crone*](https://jacobin.com/2023/09/ursula-le-guin-space-crones-review-science-fiction-feminism?ref=foxwizard.com) energy—whilst weaving in plenty [Joanna Macy](https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/148533.Joanna%5FMacy?ref=foxwizard.com) and [Granny Weatherwax quotes](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/granny-weatherwax?ref=foxwizard.com)\[^ For example: *“Wisdom is one of the few things that looks bigger the further away it is.”*\]—this is a post about *grandpa energy.* Or, more precisely—the ‘divine masculine’ elder vibes that can manifest in a mature adult. In this [fourth turning](https://www.foxwizard.com/act-amidst-complexity/#the-fourth-turning) (and our descent into [the long dark](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjU4NP7l-KM&ref=foxwizard.com) and [the end of the world as we know it](https://dark-mountain.net/about/manifesto/?ref=foxwizard.com)\[^ *“But not the end of the world full stop”.*\]), as so many things slide into collapse, decomposition and decay, and as so many of us lose our way amidst the chaos, calamity, and muck—we will increasingly look to those who can bring a mature, pragmatic, stoic, resourceful, honest and *wise* perspective. Those who can hold to their own centre, even amidst it all. This is not exclusively grandpa energy, but it is a vibe that healthy older adults can exemplify. I’ve seen it with regards to folks who have the [moral courage](https://www.foxwizard.com/moral-courage/) and clarity to know that killing children, journalists and aid workers is wrong. They speak out to politicians complicit in genocide and mass starvation. And they stand in defence of those who cannot defend themselves.\[^ Like [the endangered Masked Owl in Tasmania](https://bobbrown.org.au/endangered-owl-habitat-logged-despite-ministers-assurance-it-was-off-logging-plan/?ref=foxwizard.com), whose habitat is being illegally destroyed.\] And yet so many older men seem to have turned bitter and selfish. Their compassion? Withered. This is probably what unhealthy grandpa energy looks like—obstinate parochialism, blatant racism, and a sullen sense of self-entitlement. Naturally, this is not completely the fault of each individual—such behaviours emerge *in relation.* Do they have communities where there is ample *Gemeinschaft*\[^ A spontaneously arising organic social relationship characterised by strong reciprocal bonds of sentiment and kinship—*aka good neighbourly spirit.*\] between diverse peoples? Do we have our older folk feeling respected, loved, seen, known, and appreciated? Are they integrated into our conversations? Or are they just, kinda... left to their own, being fed fear and othering by [moloch media](https://www.foxwizard.com/moloch-media/)? But here’s the thing: even our wisest elders—those with genuine wisdom about navigating complexity—can embody an interesting tension. They offer the intellectual equivalent of that perfect grandpa ploughman's board: substantial, nourishing, essential. Sometimes, though, the presentation comes with a gruffness that's part of the package—not malicious, just... well, grandpa-ish. Take Dave Snowden,\[^ Chief Scientific Officer, Founder and Director of the Cynefin Centre\] for instance—one of our most brilliant complexity theorists and a voice we desperately need amidst this metacrisis we share. Most of the time, he brings that good grandpa energy: pragmatic wisdom, moral clarity, and hard-won insight served up without pretension. But sometimes there's an extra dash of salt that makes the meal less palatable than it could be. The latest [conversation my friend Tim Adalin had with Dave](https://www.voicecraft.io/content/e131-artificial-intelligence-human-reasoning-w/-dave-snowden?ref=foxwizard.com) exemplifies this perfectly. Tim is one of the most intelligent, wise and astute people I know. He brings an almost *uncanny* sophistication and depth to his questions. The conversation itself is brilliant—rich with the kind of insight we desperately need in these times. Dave shares a great reminder that I deeply resonate with, and wish more of my clients knew: *never tackle a complex problem directly* (37 minutes in). The *tyranny of measurement* and its perverse incentives was also discussed (22 minutes in). I also appreciated the call-out for what psychological safety has become (1 hour 24 minutes in). The whole episode is nourishing with insight. But I wasn't always sure that Tim’s thoughtful questions were met with equal curiosity, warmth and good faith. Which is *so vexing* because I love Dave’s mind, and am vastly in concordance with his values and ideas. As is Tim, I’m quite sure. And—as far as I understand—most of those who have a sense of metamodernism and the metacrisis. There is very little doubt that Dave is one of the brightest living minds we have—a quality that is only possible thanks to a complex web of relational knowledge (of which he is an emergent property). And the sensibilities he shares regarding sensemaking and wayfinding amidst complex and chaotic domains are, well—I struggle to name any better. But sometimes he manifests with that gruff grandpa energy that adds unnecessary roughness to wisdom that could otherwise be received more readily. I remember, a couple of years ago, watching Dave’s fifth appearance on The Stoa. This time to talk about ‘[Meta-Mugglism](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3-6-JA%5FMBs&ref=foxwizard.com)’. I was really looking forward to his perspective—but it felt like he was arguing with a strawman. Brendan Graham Dempsey—a writer, poet, farmer, and host of [*The Metamodern Spirituality Podcast*](https://www.brendangrahamdempsey.com/metamodern-spirituality?ref=foxwizard.com)—wrote [A Response to Dave Snowden’s ‘Meta-Mugglism’](https://www.brendangrahamdempsey.com/post/a-response-to-dave-snowden-s-meta-mugglism?ref=foxwizard.com). Over 900 days later, I’m not sure much has changed. Dave brings apt concern. [The Metamodern Community Has a Fascist Problem](https://metamoderna.substack.com/p/the-metamodern-community-has-a-fascist), writes Emil Ejner Friis.\[^ One of the more significant voices in this space, and co-author of [*The Listening Society*](https://www.amazon.com.au/Listening-Society-Metamodern-Politics-Guides/dp/8799973901?ref=foxwizard.com)and [metamoderna](https://metamoderna.org/?ref=foxwizard.com).\] I’ve also found that the enchantment and fascination I once had for metamodernism has shapeshifted into something else. This is partly due to memetic drift, and partly to do with my own unfurling. And that’s okay—there’s room for all perspectives here. *“I develop if you develop,”* writes Hanzi Freinacht in [*The Listening Society*](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B074MKQ4LR/?mr%5Fdonotredirect&ref=foxwizard.com).\[^ A favourite quote from a book I once loved and still very much love (as one might an ex). Also: I’m not so drunk on the model of hierarchical complexity, these days. 😅\] *“Even if we don’t agree, we come closer to the truth if we create better dialogues and raise the standards for how we treat one another.”* I hosted a dinner with Dave once, a few years ago, when he was in Melbourne. He’s wonderful in person; warm and witted, with a glint in his eye. A quality that isn’t so readily conveyed via online mediums. And perhaps it’s just that—the internet seems to amplify the gruffness whilst diminishing the warmth. Dave seems to relish battling the many LinkedIn ‘thought leaders’ displaying too much hubris,\[^ These skirmishes are fascinating—and often very satisfying—to witness.\] and perhaps that combative stance becomes habitual. Hard to say! Dave concludes that podcast conversation with the epitome of good grandpa energy; some sweetness amidst the salted porridge— > “I want the world to be survivable for my granddaughter.” Aye, me too. My one errant thought that hasn’t found a home in this piece yet is this: bring back the neighbourhood pub where locals gather. Bring back the equivalent of a church, where locals gather to talk of what’s good, and to ensure everyone is well. Let us lean into the relational webs of our own locale, to see what might flourish amidst. With much warmth, *from a one-day gruff wizard.* xoxo ### Firesides, ambition & vocation URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/firesides-ambition-vocation/ Last updated: 2025-07-30T23:44:19.000Z ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/07/image-2.png) **Will-o-the-wisp and snake* by Hermann Hendrich (1823) #### On this page... In my episode on [*How to Host a Strategy Offsite*](https://www.foxwizard.com/e9/) from a few months ago, I made reference to *‘*[*sleeper agents*](https://www.foxwizard.com/e9/#working-with-sleeper-agents-career-executives)*’*. These are fellow infinite players who [move quietly and plant things](https://www.foxwizard.com/move-quietly-and-plant-things/), deftly working their way into positions of influence and authority within larger organisations/[egregores](https://www.foxwizard.com/warlocks-at-work/), biding their time for that *kairos* moment in which significant change can be brought about.\[^ *Kairos* is one of two words that the ancient Greeks had for ‘time’; the other being *chronos*. Whereas the latter refers to chronological or sequential time, *kairos* signifies ‘a good or proper time for action’. Where *chronos* is quantitative, *kairos* has a qualitative, permanent nature.\] I romanticise this role, of course. The reality of it would involve much that is tedious and trying. But still—it’s a role some of us are called to play. ### On firesides Last week I met a few sleeper agents at an event that a Singapore-based multinational was hosting for their executive clients.\[^ I could tell because they were executives already [subscribed to the museletter](https://www.foxwizard.com/museletter/).\] It was a lavish affair, held at a mansion replete with many candles, a violinist, and a sumptuous dinner (followed by smores and music under the stars and by the fire). Ostensibly, I played the role of [Dr. Fox](https://drjasonfox.com/?ref=foxwizard.com)—“wizard-philosopher and futurist”. In this guise I thus wove some *foxmagic* in service to the event. The briefing was not so much about providing *content* so much as it was about catalysing a [warmening](https://www.foxwizard.com/kindred-spirits-e3/#always-be-warmening) and deepening into *context.* In other words: my ideal briefing. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/07/IMG_7649.jpg) Here’s a photo I snapped just before the guests arrived and I was officially ‘on’. Dr. Fox is a mostly consummate professional; a gentleman-rogue, amongst other things. But we are both blursed with [intellectual honesty](https://www.foxwizard.com/intellectually-honest/); a career-limiting affliction in this attention economy.\[^ Much like the curse of knowledge (which we both also share). The perils of wizardry, I tell you! Oh, and blursed is a portmanteau, of course. But you knew that!\] Thankfully, the client didn’t want a futurist to simply sell a glossy vision of the future, drunk on techno-optimism and AI-hype. Nor did they want some libidinally-sapping doomster come to warn us of the grim times ahead.\[^ Which is possibly what I would have brought if I had been hired during the spell in which I was in a particularly dark chapter of life, soon after my metacrisis insight-cascade.\] Instead, they wanted someone of a *post-tragic* disposition who could help the assembled folks to each look unto the future with eyes wide open—so that they might better [find and feed the leaks](https://www.foxwizard.com/feeding-leaks/). When I speak these days I mostly *channel.* (/¯◡ ‿ ◡)/¯ \~ There’s nothing scripted; it’s all *enacted* via enlivened attunement to the emergent context.\[^ Of course: informed and influenced by the immersive briefing calls I do with my clients. And yes, this is more the style of a *sorcerer* than a wizard, I know.\] This takes *awareness, acuity,* *alignment,* and *attunement*—not to mention *wit, wisdom & wiles*. Suffice to say: the event went incredibly well.\[^ As they almost-always do.\] And this is mostly because we—the event organising team and I—attended to *the conditions that allow for emergence.*\[^ Epiphany cannot be forced; it must be *evoked*.\] My message was and continues to be: > *Keep your wits about you.* But this particular audience\[^ Senior executives from a range of large organisations, appropriately jaded and fatigued by standard speakers and events.\] genuinely appreciated the opportunity to have an honest conversation about what’s happening, and what might yet emerge. Particularly given that we are in *‘*[*The Fourth Turning*](https://www.foxwizard.com/act-amidst-complexity/#the-fourth-turning)*’.*\[^ More deeply, we might hear this expressed as the metacrisis (which hosts the polycrisis), *The Great Unravelling, The Great Simplification, The Long Dark,* and so on.\] In this current chapter, we cannot rely on our own past experience as much as we might like. Nor can we trust in enduring coherence. We’re right in the midst of a civilisational *phase-shift* into an unknown [attractor-basin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attractor?ref=foxwizard.com#Basins%5Fof%5Fattraction). This could be glorious. This could also be a slide into authoritarian and (further) ecological dystopia—a cyberpunk future of extreme wealth inequality, ubiquitous corporate surveillance, environmental degradation, mass extinction—and more!\[^ Likely *“without even the virtue of cool aesthetics”*—a line I got from [Nikhil Suresh’s essay](https://ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/contra-ptaceks-terrible-article-on-ai/?ref=foxwizard.com) on a related matter. Also, astute readers will know that this is with my friend Simon Waller—[*The Future of Continuity (of the machine)*](https://www.foxwizard.com/future-with-friends-part-one/).\] *We have to keep our wits about us.* The way through all of this remains non-obvious. Those who cling to any conviction about the future—any neat ‘solutions’—will likely be wrong. And those who ‘wait for clarity’ will likely miss their *kairos* moment. It’s messy, complex, dynamic,emergent*—*and it embeckons our humbling and enlivening participation. One of my favourite quotes—something that has inspired the [*fireside provocations*](https://www.drjasonfox.com/keynotes-firesides?ref=foxwizard.com) I conjure—comes from a ‘[half dandified trickster and half minimalist seer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James%5FLee%5FByars?ref=foxwizard.com)’ mystic known as [James Lee Byars](https://www.edge.org/response-detail/25545?ref=foxwizard.com): > To arrive at the edge of the world’s knowledge, seek out the most complex and sophisticated minds, put them in a room together, and have them ask each other the questions they are asking themselves. We need contexts within which we can cohere and make sense of things, together. To imbibe and enrich our [*proto-synthesis*](https://metamoderna.org/youre-not-metamodern-before-you-understand-this-part-2-proto-synthesis-2/?ref=foxwizard.com) with new perspectives, so that we can see the world and our adjacent possible in greater resolution. We also need contexts within which it is *safe* to talk—candidly and in good faith—about what’s happening in our world. Nay, not even just *safe,* but rather—*enlivening* and *generative.* I experienced this the week prior, where I once again served as wizard philosopher-provocateur for a fireside gathering—this time with a room of very successful founders and entrepreneurs. ### On ambition These are folk with *high agency+autonomy.* Many struck me as ‘construct-aware’.\[^ This means: being aware of constructs. ( ¬ᴗ¬) Haha, I jest. Here’s a paper on [*The Construct-Aware Stage of Ego Development and its Relationship to the Fool Archetype*](https://integral-review.org/issues/vol%5F14%5Fno%5F1%5Fcook-greuter%5Fconstruct%5Faware%5Fstage%5Fand%5Fthe%5Ffool%5Farchetype.pdf?ref=foxwizard.com).\] I also sensed that quite a few are in a chapter of life that we might call ‘post-achievement’. Here, the accumulation of *yet more* monetary wealth isn’t the primary driver—something more meaningful and profound beckons. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/07/IMG_7678-1.jpg) A perk of my work is that I get to enjoy a whisky mid-fireside. The thing that *‘high agency+autonomy’* folks have in common with sleeper agents is that there is a yearning to *manifest an affect*\[^ Yes, affect.\]that is greater than themselves. (Actually, it is true of all of us—regardless of the domain in which we work.) This isn’t merely an act of ambition. ‘Ambition’ doesn’t quite cut it—as it’s a word in service to the small self. Or, as David Whyte writes in [*Consolations: the solace, nourishment and underlying meaning of every day words*](https://davidwhyte.com/store/book/consolations/?ref=foxwizard.com)*—* > *“\[Ambition\] is a word that lacks any real ambition, ambition is frozen desire, the current of a vocational life immobilized and over-concretized to set, unforgiving goals. Ambition abstracts us from the underlying elemental nature of the creative conversation while providing us the cover of a target that has become false through over-description, overfamiliarity or too much understanding.* > > *The ease of having an ambition is that it can be explained to others; the very disease of ambition is that it can be so easily explained to others. What is worthy of a life’s dedication does not want to be known by us in ways that diminish its actual sense of presence. Everything true to itself has its own secret language and an internal intentionality with a secret surprising flow, even to the person who supposedly puts it all in motion. Ambition ultimately withers all secrets in its glare before those secrets have had time to come to life from within and then thwarts the generosity and maturity that ripens the discourse of a lifetime’s dedication to a work.* > > *We may direct the beam of ambition to illuminate a certain corner of the future world but ultimately it can reveal to us only those dreams with which we have already become familiar. Ambition left to itself, like a Rupert Murdoch, always becomes tedious, its only object the creation of larger and larger empires of control; but a true vocation calls us out beyond ourselves; breaks our heart in the process and then humbles, simplifies and enlightens us about the hidden, core nature of the work that enticed us in the first place. We find that all along, we had what we needed from the beginning and that in the end we have returned to its essence, an essence we could not understand until we had undertaken the journey.*” David mentions *vocation,* here. In recent times, vocation has become domesticated into mere occupation of ‘career’. But dust aside these superficial trappings and vocation is revealed to be something far deeper—something more akin to a *‘calling’* or *‘summoning’.* Michael Meade’s podcast [**Living Myth*](https://www.mosaicvoices.org/podcast?ref=foxwizard.com) is a beacon in these times. Whether we *heed* the calling or not is a different question. And there is so much in this current paradigm that can ‘crowd out’ the call. Productivity, dollars, likes—whatever satiates our manufactured insecurities. I’ve written about why we must [treat all metrics with healthy scepticism](https://www.foxwizard.com/wizard-productive/#quality-not-quantity). Most are vanity metrics; [delusions of progress](https://www.foxwizard.com/authentic-progress/). They distract and distort [our ability to sense and know value](https://www.foxwizard.com/feeding-leaks/#value). Ursula K. Le Guin wrote of this in [*The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia*](https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/00da3e63-966f-42a1-88a6-ddc5a8ac237e?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* > *“A child free from the guilt of ownership and the burden of economic competition will grow up with the will to do what needs doing and the capacity for joy in doing it. It is useless work that darkens the heart. The delight of the nursing mother, of the scholar, of the successful hunter, of the good cook, of the skilful maker, of anyone doing needed work and doing it well—this durable joy is perhaps the deepest source of human affection and of sociality as a whole.”* This passage may seem heretically *socialist* of me to share. Seemingly hypocritical, too, given my love of fine tailoring and whisky.\[^ Seemingly—yet not. Markets and pleasures like these existed long *before* the prevailing paradigm of capitalism.\] My point here is not so much a political one.\[^ Yet nothing is not political.\] Rather, I want to help *dispel* the illusions that distract us and keep us small. *It is useless work that darkens the heart.* I’ve met many an entrepreneur and executive that haven’t yet heeded the call, and haven’t yet arrived into a life chapter of ‘post-achievement’\[^ By this I mean: you have attained conventional explicit success and/or realised its fundamental hollowness, and thus are ready to pursue something beyond yourself.\]—nor [the window of disenchantment](https://www.foxwizard.com/e2/) that often follows any significant ‘success’. Are they happy, satisfied and fulfilled, with a deep sense of eudaemonia? Sometimes, yes! Though I’m not always so sure. There’s another passage about *ambition* from David Whyte’s [*Consolations*](https://davidwhyte.com/store/book/consolations/?ref=foxwizard.com)\[^ I feel bad for the amount I have lifted for this musing here, but I trust David will be okay with this.\] that speaks to this. > *“Ambition is natural to the first steps of youth who must experience its essential falsity to know the larger reality that stands behind it, but held onto too long, and especially in eldership, it always comes to lack surprise, turns the last years of the ambitious into a second childhood, and makes the once successful into an object of pity.”* Exquisite burn there, David; deftly done. And also: a point well made. There’s a discernible difference between those of us who have awakened (or are in the dark forest of *awakening*) to our ‘calling’, and those of us who have yet to.\[^ This is not quite the *glint* of an infinite player, as heeding the call can be quite heavy and solemn. But it gestures towards a similar horizon.\] I should add: there’s a danger in *naming* one’s calling, too. To define and declare a [pithy personal purpose statement](https://www.foxwizard.com/perils-of-purpose/) is akin to the ‘*very disease of ambition*’ that David Whyte wrote of, earlier. The fact that it *can* be so very easy to explain to others. The power and peril of Naming is also something [Simon van der Els and I spoke of](https://www.foxwizard.com/e4/), too. And it’s something David Whyte conveys in [*All the True Vows*](https://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/Poets/W/WhyteDavid/AllTrueVows/index.html?ref=foxwizard.com)*:* > All the true vows > are secret vows > the ones we speak out loud > are the ones we break. The nebulous point I am trying to make here is that: there is a thread to follow. A *calling* to attend to—if we know how to listen. It might be but an inkling or velleity, a faint stirring or persistent hunch. But—it’s there. And your calling will keep calling, [as Michael Meade says](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=my1HRnqUS8Y&ref=foxwizard.com). ### On enactment By the fire, under the stars, after the dinner hosted by my wonderful client, I found myself in a contemplative moment. One of the executive attendees came to me and shared how they have been subscribed to the museletter for years, and how they appreciate my subversive posts on LinkedIn and Instagram.\[^ I’m always delightfully surprised to meet a subscriber in The Real.\] All I know is that I use LinkedIn and Instagram without much strategy or thought. It’s one of my main tensions, these days. Every time I go onto the platforms, I witness the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people. I now see images of starved and skeletal children, followed by blatant lies and outright denial by prominent voices and those in positions of power. The algorithms think I want to see more of this content. I don’t, it’s horrifying. I feel *moved* [to talk about it](https://www.foxwizard.com/moral-courage/), to not look away, even though my heart can barely take it any more. Add to this the ICE raids, the callous abandoning of climate targets, the dismantling of civil liberties, and the threatening decline into fascism, and, well—it makes any of us question what we are doing.\[^ As ever, there remains the [*hope-beyond-hope*](https://www.foxwizard.com/feeding-leaks/#the-hope-beyond-hope)*.* The way we will *overcorrect* for this terrible chapter will be glorious (and then not).\] Suffice to say: I remain so easily triggered by what’s happening in our world. I act and share posts without much thought (though of course it always feels as though I am not doing enough). I feel bad for wanting to also share nice things (which I know is important, yet still: I feel bad). I feel bad centring myself in this post, even now. And then I feel bad for feeling bad. It’s a wretched cycle. And yet somehow we must participate in it all. The person whomst I was in discussion with that night shared much the same tangle of wretchedness. Coupled with the sense of responsibility that comes from being an executive in a large organisation. I wanted them to know that [their influence is non-zero](https://www.foxwizard.com/non-zero-influence/). There’s always the question of *what to do.* I remember a client once told me that they had, many times, considered leaving their organisation. But then they knew that the place would become overrun by toxicity once they left. It takes more energy to build/grow (negative entropy) than it does to destroy/decompose (entropy). And besides, they were proud of the many *tweaks* they have achieved to move the organisation towards something more wholesome. Tweaks that most wouldn’t notice—but they knew that they were sowing [myriad subtle significances](https://www.foxwizard.com/non-zero-influence/#your-myriad-subtle-significances). The allure of ‘escape’ is there for all of us. A retreat to something simpler. This *could* be your calling. Kim and I recently attended the premier of [*The New Peasants*](https://www.happenfilms.com/films/the-new-peasants?ref=foxwizard.com) and such a life is mighty tempting. I yearn to have such neighbours. But *the temptation of escape* can also be a siren call to allure us into distraction. Like a will o’ the wisp, escape might be a false light leading us astray. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/07/Will-O----The-Wisp-1.png) **The Will-o’-the-Wisp* by Arnold Böcklin (1882) How do we discern the difference between siren-song of escape and that which might be our true calling? I don’t know. Ha, I really don’t. But it’s an *enlivening* question. I wish I could tell you how <— but actually, I don’t. For if I *could* tell you, it wouldn’t be your path. *“How do you know that you’re on your path?”* [David Whyte asks](https://youtu.be/Vlz3mf7jxkc?feature=shared&t=148&ref=foxwizard.com), 13 years ago. *“Because it disappears. That’s how you know.”* The sleeper agents I know and love working with—heck, *all* the folk I love being with—are [*staying with the trouble*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staying%5Fwith%5Fthe%5FTrouble?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* Amidst all the consternation, frustration and doubt, there’s a part within each of them—however quiet—that knows they are *exactly where they need to be*. The one thing I would say, though, is that whilst we might each [move quietly and plant things](https://www.foxwizard.com/move-quietly-and-plant-things/)—there will also come a time where you feel the *kairos* of your moment. The proper time for *more than subtly-significant* action. A propitious time in which you no longer play the role of *sleeper* agent—but a role in which you *enact* your agency proper. Because we can’t pretend to be asleep forever. ### On living mythically To live mythically is to *not* centre yourself as the hero, nor to fancy yourself the only ‘player character’ in a world of non-player characters. We *all* have our parts to play in this grand pantomime. A key is in the *attunement.* It’s in the receptivity to the myriad subtle moments in which we can enact the role we are called to play. But as I conclude this museletter, I note some interesting tensions within me. Part of me appreciates the role of *tactical cowardice* in service to *strategic courage*. We might call this slyness, guile, or cunning. Not the most noble qualities, I know. But quintessentially fox-like. (I might have alluded to this in my post [*The Lions Are Back*](https://www.foxwizard.com/fox-and-lion/)). So, whilst I hint at big action—I don’t want you to blow your cover. But at the same time another part of me wants us all to rise up! We are on a terrible trajectory here—enough’s enough. So, uh, continue to *move quietly and plant things,* but... maybe do it a little more bigly. Because I want for all of us to be better able to recognise our moment when they arrive. To *“Be big. Not for ego, but for the sake of what matters most,”* as Gabrielle Feather writes. Here is an excerpt from her post that on [*reclaiming purpose beyond productivity, ambition and scale*](https://gabriellefeather.substack.com/p/is-there-a-place-for-purpose-in-a).\[^ In this piece I reference Gabrielle Feather, who references Jess Serrante, who references Joanna Macy. What a wondrous thread.\] She aptly articulates the *kairos* of this epoch we share, and gifts us with the *perfect* two sentences with which to conclude this post. > [*Jess Serrante*](https://open.substack.com/users/270727565-jess-serrante?utm%5Fsource=mentions)*, a student of Joanna Macy (who is currently in hospice care), recently shared a beautiful and timely anecdote from their time together. Joanna’s life and work have shaped a generation of activists, ecophilosophers, and seekers, and her influence is being amplified in these tender days of her transition.* > > *Jess recalls speaking to Joanna during a moment of doubt, struggling to accept praise for their joint podcast* We Are The Great Turning*. Overwhelmed by imposter syndrome, she confessed her discomfort. Joanna’s response was characteristically clear: “Jess, your only job is to *take all of the power or influence that folks might want to give you and use it* in service of the Great Turning.”* > > *When I read that line, it was like the final piece of the puzzle fell in place. In her fiercely compassionate way, Joanna was saying: let go of self-doubt. Don’t cling to your smallness. You are needed. Be big. Not for ego, but for the sake of what matters most.* > > *This, too, is dharma. Not the pursuit of significance, but the acceptance of it when it comes, and the commitment to use it well. Many of us (especially those socialised into humility, or shame) fear taking up too much space or losing touch with our good intentions. But as Jess writes, “This time, when the world is burning, is no time for us to choose smallness.” If we’re given energy, love, resources, or recognition, the dharmic path asks that we channel it into service and into something regenerative.* Don’t cling to your smallness. You are needed. Be big. Warmth, *—fw* ### Three wee updates URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/three-wee-updates/ Last updated: 2025-07-27T02:12:02.000Z Ahoy, friends. I have three tidbits to share with you. [Episode 4 of Kindred Spirits](https://www.foxwizard.com/kindred-spirits-e4/) is now available. It’s delightfully bonkers and poignant. We explore *how to handle unsolicited feedback,* *what to do with feedback you don’t like*, and *what to do in a friendship when things go wrong.* You’ll enjoy this one. 🥰 I wrote a long soliloquy [on microblogging](https://www.foxwizard.com/microblogging-cantrips/). It was meant to be a cantrip, but I once again cast a big spell—only to realise deep into my indulgent writing that, lo, I am circling a similar concept yet again. This goes to show I am probably due to undertake [*The Ritual of Becoming*](https://www.cleverness.com/word?ref=foxwizard.com) once more—except I am transmuting it into a new form for you. In the meantime, I persist in the awkward-liminal. I have also just now uploaded a mini-podcast episode that vaguely flirts with [the notion of ‘conviviality’](https://www.foxwizard.com/e12/). This is, would you believe, an episode that is *only fifteen minutes short.* I know! If you have any validation to send my way, feel free to leave a comment—I would, as always, love to hear from you. What else? Well, I am working on providing some details about ‘[the rogue wizard guild](https://www.foxwizard.com/guild/)’ I previously hinted at, as a few of you have asked. It’s not ready yet, but I will give you a tease. I’m cultivating a network of spellcasters, shapeshifters, and rogues. Warm-hearted, bright-minded folks seeking to become even more effective agents in this time betwixt worlds. In 2026 I’ll be hosting a wizard-academy, teaching independent consultants how to find an authentic alchemy of memetic fitness, intellectual honesty, and commercial savvy. *Wit, wisdom & wiles,* if you will. This wizard academy will serve as a publishing house and a front for an independent network of kindred spirits who are warmly—*subversively*—working together to co-create a world more curious and kind (and a future less grim). More on this soon.™ I’m also working on a glossary of terms I relish and/or frequently use. It’s getting out of hand. Here’s a sample of just a few of the words beginning with the letter ‘A’: > *abjuration, abstraction, accelerate, accretion, accumulate, accuracy, acuity, activating, active, adapt, adept, adolescence, adulthood, affect, affinity, affordances, agenda, agent, alacrity, alchemy, alignment, allocution, all-together, allusion, alts, ambiguity, ambivalence, amorality, amorphous, amphibious, amplify, anchoring, ancient, animate, animacy, answer, antidote, antifragile, antimemetic, antimeme, antipodean, aphorism, appropriate, aptitude, aptness, arcane, archetype, architect, artful, artificial, artists, aspect, aspiration, asymptotic, atrophy, attenuate, attunement, authentic, avarice, avatar, awe, awareness, axiology, axiomatic* I swear I could write a whole essay on each word.\[^ Shout out to Alchemist Ken who supplied me with a few at least nine additional words—which then spurred me to add yet a few more.\] But today, I keep things succinct. Enjoy my latest musings. I offer them as *grist* for your own contemplation and rumination. With much warmth, *jason/*[*dr. fox*](https://drjasonfox.com/?ref=foxwizard.com)*/*[*foxwizard*](https://www.foxwizard.com/home/) ### 🏮 e12 // Conviviality URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/e12/ Last updated: 2026-05-15T01:47:06.000Z ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/media/2025/07/e12_fw_thumb.png) e12 // conviviality 0:00 /921.583333 1× 📻 **Also available on* [**Apple Podcasts*](https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/foxwizard/id1645970777?ref=foxwizard.com)**,* [**Spotify*](https://open.spotify.com/show/2hkJuLE5VMED5rvDqnH4RL?ref=foxwizard.com) *&* [**YouTube*](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeLHJRzrOWo%5FQXluAn65XjHQsoX3IjLvn&ref=foxwizard.com) Hello friends! I’m trying to get better at more casual podcasting. Here’s a quick ditty I recorded yesterday. Within it, I mention: - [The Blindboy Podcast](https://www.patreon.com/theblindboypodcast?ref=foxwizard.com) - Story Medicine with [Vas Clementine](https://www.vasclementine.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) - Valé Joanna Macy ([*We Are The Great Turning*](https://resources.soundstrue.com/we-are-the-great-turning-podcast/?ref=foxwizard.com) is a beautiful podcast) - [*Tools for Conviviality*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tools%5Ffor%5FConviviality?ref=foxwizard.com) (1973) by Ivan Illich Here’s a quote from Ivan Illich’s polemic [*Deschooling Society*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deschooling%5FSociety?ref=foxwizard.com)(1971): > *“I believe that a desirable future depends on our deliberately choosing a life of action over a life of consumption, on our engendering a lifestyle which will enable us to be spontaneous, independent, yet related to each other, rather than maintaining a lifestyle which only allows to make and unmake, produce and consume – a style of life which is merely a way station on the road to the depletion and pollution of the environment. The future depends more upon our choice of institutions which support a life of action than on our developing new ideologies and technologies.”* I had a wonderful dinner last night with a couple of tech executives who are taking a pragmatic yet inspired stance on artificial intelligence. And earlier last week I worked with a room of entrepreneurs—high agency, high autonomy folk who are motivated by more than just coin. We are living in precarious times—but this does not mean we simply have to ‘let the future happen to us’. We can co-create a world more curious and kind—and a future less grim. All of us, in our every day. ### On microblogging URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/microblogging-cantrips/ Last updated: 2025-07-19T10:53:57.000Z I cast big spells. On this website, at least. But in much of my day-to-day work involves *cantrips.* Light, quick, easy, low-level spells; situational and effectively instinctual. And I want to do more of that here, too. Because I just came across this neat online book by [Manton Reece](https://www.manton.org/?ref=foxwizard.com) on ‘[Indie Microblogging](https://book.micro.blog/?ref=foxwizard.com)’—and it’s re-awakened a stirring in me. A *microblog* post is to a *regular blog* post as a *cantrip* is to a *spell*. I’ll always love and prioritise long-form musing/writing. Big spells. But I’d like to get better at *smaller* spells. Because whenever I begin to write to you—whenever I begin to arrange the glyph-symbols (letters) that *spell* the words that (hopefully) evoke the meaning I seek to convey, I tend to go quite deep.\[^ Although it never feels deep enough.\] What starts with an intention to simply ‘share a link’\[^ As is the case with this post.\] will swiftly descend/devolve into a much longer-than-intended musing. Soon I’ll find myself pursuing as many chthonic/cthulonic/tentacular [leak](https://www.foxwizard.com/feeding-leaks/)\-tendrils as I can.\[^ I say cthulonic here as a clumsy neologism, inspired by Donna Haraway’s [*Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staying%5Fwith%5Fthe%5FTrouble?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* And now for a fantastic excerpt from [this wondrous site](https://mosayebi.arch.ethz.ch/en/thesaurus/chthulucene/?ref=foxwizard.com). *‘According to the cultural and literary scholar Julia Grillmayr, Haraway's Chthulu is not directly named after H.P. Lovecraft's horror creature, but after a Californian spider, Pimoa cthulhu. Analogous to Lovecraft's creatures, the spider carries in its name a reference to the chthonic. Chthonic are earth goddesses or forces of the Earth worshipped by animistic and pantheistic faiths. Haraway writes that she is adjusting “taxonomic spelling”, from cthulhu to chthulu, creating “a name for an otherwise, for an otherwise that was, still is, and might be”: the Chthulucene’.*\] It fascinates me—and therein lies the peril. I mean, the musings I share with you are good and wonderful—I delight in them, too. But indulgently loquacious long-form has become all-too-familiar a pattern for me—I need to practice short-form, too. Reading [the microblog book](https://book.micro.blog/?ref=foxwizard.com) reminded me of this. ## *The generosity of online books* It also reminded me of the “[definitive guide for escaping social media (and joining the indie web)](https://unplatform.fromthesuperhighway.com/?ref=foxwizard.com).” This then reminded me of other online books I love, such as “[Practical Typography](https://practicaltypography.com/?ref=foxwizard.com)” by [Matthew Butterick](https://mbtype.com/bio.html?ref=foxwizard.com).\[^ I own several of Butterick’s fonts, exquisite.\] I’ve also long appreciated the hyperblogs by David Chapman—“[Metarationality](https://metarationality.com/?ref=foxwizard.com)”, “[Meaningness](https://meaningness.com/?ref=foxwizard.com)”, and “[Vividness](https://vividness.live/?ref=foxwizard.com).” I was actually quite surprised when [he moved his writing over to substack](https://meaningness.substack.com/). But, pragmatically, it makes sense. As you know, I still yearn for [a web worth belonging to](https://www.foxwizard.com/e6/). It still baffles me how so many folk have exited old centralised (web2) platforms because of how [enshittified](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enshittification?ref=foxwizard.com) they have become—only to move to a newer (web2.5) centralised platform (substack) that already exhibit some of the same symptoms. *“What are we left with then?*” Isabelle Roughol asks in her post [We’ve been thinking about Substack all wrong](https://www.isabelleroughol.com/lede/we-thinking-about-substack-all-wrong/?ref=foxwizard.com). *“A walled garden strategy, a claim to network effects real or imagined, a follow ecosystem, an algorithmic feed, unreliable metrics, the artificial inflation of engagement on new products, the invisibilisation of publisher brands, the capture of the audience relationship, blitzscale growth to satisfy venture capital investors, big promises to early adopters followed by progressive enshittification, controversial moderation decisions... oh wait, it's like every social network ever built.”* Ha! But—having said that, I am now tentatively lukewarming back to an acceptance of the role that centralised platforms play. Even though I still think of them as shopping malls, which despite being one of *the last* places I would want to ‘hang out’, seems to be where many of my friends are. And besides—it may well be too many of us have retreated *too far* into our cozyweb nooks. \[^ As I shared in [my previous musing](https://www.foxwizard.com/non-zero-influence/).\] ## *Back to the trouble?* I can feel the pull of the network-effects of substack. I love the people I read there; I resent the pull. Or no, maybe that’s not it. I just feel like I’m entering a dungeon. There are so many folks in this dungeon, and they all seem to be having a great time. I want to wave my hands and say *“It’s a trap!”*—[a trap with downlights](https://www.foxwizard.com/downlighting/) and too many people—but: I am still also having a relatively okay time. And when substack recently spoke out [in defence of press freedom](https://post.substack.com/p/standing-up-for-free-speech-even) after a fellow Melbourne-based writer was detained, interrogated, and sent back to Australia by US border agents in response to articles he wrote about [anti-genocide protests at Columbia University](https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/how-my-reporting-on-the-columbia-protests-led-to-my-deportation?ref=foxwizard.com), I felt *glad* that the platform seemingly supports independent journalism. I remain suspicious, but for now: somewhat mollified. Besides, *so many folks*\[^ Too many!\] smarter and wiser than I seem to be okay with it all. Including [Carole Cadwalladr](https://broligarchy.substack.com/about)—the very person speaking out against ‘the broligarchy.’ The same person who inspired much of the museletter I wrote about ‘[a web worth belonging to](https://www.foxwizard.com/e6/).’ So... perhaps it’s just me and my purity complex? My heart still believes in [an open, independent web](https://activitypub.ghost.org/?ref=foxwizard.com). But I’m also awakening to the realisation that I have some *oscillating* to do. Such is the role of us edge dwellers.\[^ Not edgelords, no. Well, maybe. But the warm, mysterious and wholesome kind—not kind who *‘*[*studied the blade*](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/i-studied-the-blade?ref=foxwizard.com)*.’*\] It is not in my nature to situate myself in the centre; I do my best work in the periphery; the penumbra.\[^ I think I just really love saying that word, and all things umbra.\] But that’s not to say I can’t occasionally *visit* the centre. And perhaps this is true of you too? *Or perhaps it is the flip-side?* Mayhaps you could spend *more* time questing beyond the walled garden, and amidst the wilder forest? ## *The freshest, darkest & most dubious* There’s a line I have long used when promoting [the foxwizard podcast](https://www.foxwizard.com/podcast/)— > *Together we shall foray heartily through complexity, ambiguity, paradox and doubt—so as to obtain the freshest, darkest and most dubious fruits of ‘wisdom’ for our combined edification and delight.* The thing is, the freshest, darkest and most dubious fruits of wisdom are rarely mass-produced. Nor are they found in the supermarket. Not the best stuff. The best stuff is rare, not*\-yet-popular* and thus *not-so-easily-found.* They haven’t been genetically modified and commodified, yet. I don’t want to keep banging on about substack whilst I wrest with how to best show up in our knowledge commons. But I shall, for just a little more. The conundrum and delight that substack presents is that it’s *so easy* (and ‘free’) to spin up your own, uh, ‘thing’.\[^ [Don’t-call-it-a-substack](https://www.anildash.com/2024/11/19/dont%5Fcall%5Fit%5Fa%5Fsubstack/?ref=foxwizard.com).\] This means that poets, artists, writers, philosophers, and more—those of us who typically live in [the precariat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precariat?ref=foxwizard.com)—can now find a home for their thoughts, without the learning curve of the independent web, or the ongoing expense of ghost. And these folks often have *the best* thoughts. Sometimes, anyway. Which is vexatious because, [as Nolan Yuma writes](https://bornwithoutborders.substack.com/p/why-im-leaving-substack-sort-of)— > *“Substack pays creators to join, offering advances and visibility boosts to big names. The biggest names? Funded. Promoted. Algorithmically elevated. The rest of us? Left to cross-promote and grind while money funnels into the hands of those who already have it as it* [*supposedly ‘trickles down’ to the rest of us*](https://open.substack.com/pub/bornwithoutborders/p/are-substackers-any-different-than?r=1qf7m9&utm%5Fcampaign=post&utm%5Fmedium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false)*. Sound familiar?”* > > *\[...\]* > > *“Even us most radical egalitarians are human and succumb to the temptation of* [*right-wing-billionaire-piece-of-shit-venture-capitalist-backed platforms*](https://bornwithoutborders.substack.com/p/are-substackers-any-different-than?utm%5Fsource=publication-search) *as long as it helps our bottom line.”* Speaking of radical egalitarians succumbing, John Anthony and I will likely move the *Kindred Spirits* podcast episodes to substack. Mostly because: it’s easier? It feels like I am bruising a value of mine here, but I’m also trying to be pragmatic. The world’s messy, and I’ve had purity in obscurity for half a decade now. My work demands that I attend to wretched web2 platforms—the wax museum of hollowed souls that is LinkedIn, and the intoxicatingly addictive drug that is Instagram. And now, probably, I will also spend a bit more time substack.\[^ Just recently I [connected in the comments to Gabrielle Feather on substack](https://gabriellefeather.substack.com/p/is-there-a-place-for-purpose-in-a/comment/134671275)—a kindred spirit bringing wholesome and much needed insight.\] Maybe. But if I were to recommend fellow *questers* the sources within which to find the freshest,\[^ Freshness is good. When you’ve navigated the noösphere as a wizard, you begin to recognise pattern and echo. But when someone brings something fresh—either novelty or nuance—something awakens in me. It’s enlivening.\] darkest\[^ Fruits that have ripened in the sun are often darker, and all the richer/sweeter for it.\] and most dubious\[^ Dubious because it needs to be baffling; at least initially. Genuine ‘thought leadership’ is suspect and counter-intuitive to conventional narratives. If this is not the case—if it has immediate face validity—it is unlikely to be thought leadership. Of course, some overtly heretical ideas will *feel* resonant and true—even if to the mind they seem wrong. The best provocations embeckon a contending-with.\] fruits of ‘wisdom’, it would look something like this: > *Find the writers in the wilds. Seek not those with the largest followings, nor the ones who sport growth-hacky vibes, or the metallic twang of the artificially intelligent. Support the independent and emergent writers, poets, and artists. The earnest explorers amongst us. Be guided by your own sense of intuition and taste. Ignore all metrics. Trust in resonance.* And so, if I am to contend with web2 and web2.5 platforms, it will only be tentatively. My heart lives in the wilds of the open web. ## *Warmening up the dark forest* In the fantastic essay [*Against The Dark Forest*](https://www.wrecka.ge/against-the-dark-forest/?ref=foxwizard.com)*,* Erin Kissane makes a case that we don’t *abandon* the social web. This has informed a large part of my grapplings. > *“The social internet should be a forest—not The Dark Forest, but something much more like a real one: Interconnected from the densely mycelial underground to light-filtering overstory but also offering infinite niches and multi-scale zones of sheltered exchange and play. Deeply human in the way that real forests are the result of human and other-than-human collaboration running back into unrecorded time. Balanced, neither extracting too much from its component organisms nor pretending that a pantomime of a return to a pristine and ungoverned state will solve any problems at all. (Predation is inevitable in any system, but a working ecosystem starves out the ones who overfeed and provides cover for growth and for the long, continuous experiment of evolutionary change.)* > > *The obstacles to these life-sustaining internet forests are fundamentally the same forces that threaten the real forests and our whole living world: unbounded extraction; unaccountable leadership; societal refusal to take on the responsibilities of governing our increasingly complex commons, instead of burying them deeper and deeper in pretenses to action.* > > *I no longer think that it's possible to mount an effective defense of the physical world—and of each other, in our fleshy vulnerability—without unfucking our networks. I find this both terrifying and clarifying.”* Terrifying and clarifying, indeed. Further, Erin writes— > *“The public social internet is worth designing and governing in a way that demonstrates less than total amnesia about the history of human civilizations and the ways we’ve learned to be together without killing each other. For people with the ability and willingness to work on network problems, the real choice isn't between staying on the wasteland surfaces of the internet and going underground, but between making safer and better places for human sociability and not doing that.”* I hope to do just that. This seems to be congruent with co-creating a world more curious and kind. ## Entangled & complicit And so, here we are, entangled, confused, and right in the thick of it. I realise just now that I am, once again, circling around [the *exact* same themes I wrote of just three months ago](https://www.foxwizard.com/e6/#how-to-bothand-this). Am I this boring and predictable? Previously, I wrote: > *“I have to sit with myself a little longer in order to figure out how best to play this. I am, after all, still a mercenary wizard. Complicit yet conflicted. I need to be visible and ‘top of mind’ for folks seeking my services. I need to make hay where the sun shines. Which means: I still need my web2 (and web2.5) presence. Seemingly.”* In [*The Ritual of Becoming*](https://www.cleverness.com/word?ref=foxwizard.com)\[^ You’ve heard me say this before, but we are closer now. After half a dozen years as a semi-static ‘online program’, *The Ritual of Becoming* will soon™️ become revitalised into something more animate that lives here, on foxwizard.com\] I have a module on “Patterns of Incongruence”, which is a concept that a daily practice of journaling also helps to surface. The module asks: *“Where have you matured beyond the stories you otherwise hold? And: what would a close friend (who knows you very well and has your best interests at heart) say about all of this? *What are you pretending to not know?*”* These are some of my favourite questions—but I am not used to having them flipped back unto myself. So, uh—well, reader! You get to witness the inner grapplings of this wizard in his own quest amidst the liminal. Most shapeshifters don’t like being caught in the act of shapeshifting, mid-animorph. Not me, it would seem! ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/07/image-1.png) Sometimes I wonder what I am doing. Sharing honest musings when I could be offering sagely and semi-sanctimonious advice, like I used to. It seems like most folk love an intellectual spanking, and that so many people want to be told what to do. Hence perhaps why so many folks seem to speak in the style of aphorism and advice. Now, I love me a good aphorism. Advice? Not so much. But the thing is: *I* value it when folks share their complex grapplings. I love it when folk are in the midst of figuring. And I like those that keep a microblog. Given my preferences—ought this not be something I exemplify, too? Let’s see. Thank you for joining me on this meander once more. We’ll do the same again come next season (in three months hence). ### Kindred Spirits – episode 4 ፨ URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/kindred-spirits-e4/ Last updated: 2026-05-15T01:47:07.000Z ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/media/2025/07/KS_e4_final_thumb.png) Kindred Spirits – e4 0:00 /4544.041655 1× Subscribe and listen on [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/foxwizard/id1645970777?ref=foxwizard.com), [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/2hkJuLE5VMED5rvDqnH4RL?ref=foxwizard.com), and [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeLHJRzrOWo%5FQXluAn65XjHQsoX3IjLvn&ref=foxwizard.com) Okay friends, no AI-generated episode summary for you this time. Much like the [*delightfully bonkers*](https://www.whiskybase.com/whiskies/whisky/218919/penderyn-2013-smws-12820?ref=foxwizard.com) whisky that the fantastic [John Anthony](https://transcend.com.au/?ref=foxwizard.com) provided, this episode is something whack! Now, listen—I’m about to tell you something. This episode meanders through an *eclectic* mix of topics. Eclectic, I say! These include: - How to handle unsolicited feedback - What to do with feedback you don’t like - How to become a discovery artist (perhaps don’t take our bad advice on this) - What (not) to do when you want to delete your past work - What to do in a friendship when things go wrong (and they will) - That musky powder on those banana lollies! - A casual reference to Hermeticism and The Kybalion - No mention of lawns I’m finding myself a bit stretched for time, so I’m banging this out before we record episode five\[^ Well, technically episode twelve of the foxwizard podcast—but soon we’ll spin off Kindred Spirits as its own thing.\] imminently. Enjoy! ### Your influence is non-zero URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/non-zero-influence/ Last updated: 2025-07-07T22:27:42.000Z In [my previous post](https://www.foxwizard.com/feeding-leaks/) I shared a quiet commitment to *not complain so much about the ills and evils of the world.* Well, that lasted only a few days. (◕‿◕✿) I don’t know why I do this to myself. The wiliness within me does not like to be caged. Like the [Teumessian fox](https://www.theoi.com/Ther/AlopexTeumesios.html?ref=foxwizard.com), large parts within me *elude capture* and resist containment. As it should be. For me, for you, and for all peoples. Besides, it’s far better to move *towards* something. ### Towards warmth Because, as soon as I shared my quiet commitment to not complain, life seemed to deliver me *so much* cause for complaint.\[^ Mostly related to the ongoing genocide and its ongoing human rights violations, coupled with the blatant gaslighting of our complicit media and politicians. But also: the increasing signs of our descent into fascism, the uptick in police brutality, and the accelerated rise of artificial intelligence and ubiquitous corporate surveillance (with no care or concern for society and its children). None of this is surprising or new—this is part of the grim realisation you arrive at when you have the metacrisis insight-cascade and become collapse-aware. There *is* a post-tragic disposition that can be found, on occasion, of course. But you can’t skip past the grief—it lives with you.\] It would have been far better for me to make a quiet commitment to that which I seek to honour and attend to more. It’s not too late, of course. *Any* day is a good day for a renewal of intent.\[^ Only this time I might not make such a public proclamation. Maybe.\] It doesn’t have to be exactly aligned to the solstice.\[^ Though such times *are* potent.\] At the heart of this all is—as ever—a move towards authenticity.\[^ It is always ever thus; a stumbling, non-linear, asymptotic quest.\] The whims, the stirrings, the inklings and hunches you harbour—these want to be attended to. If you feel moved, *be moved*. Let it move you—closer to coherence, congruence, integrity, and alignment. The more I attune to the glimmer that embeckons *soul*\[^ I still harbour legacy allergies to the word ‘soul’—but [I love how Bill Plotkin describes it](https://www.animas.org/glossary-to-language-of-soul-canyon/?ref=foxwizard.com#Soul), as it quells the rational part of my mind (the same part I need to hush when navigating pararational and transrational domains). Soul, in this context, could be considered as *your unique ecological niche*. Of course, there is much more to be explored on the matter.\]—the more enlivened I become. And the same is true for you. What inspired me to write to you today is the sense that my sharing of *‘a quiet commitment to complain less’* might inspire a kind of surrendered apathy in some of us. A dampening or deadening of sorts. And that is not at all what I hope for.\[^ I wanted to ‘complain’ less because the mode of complaint upholds prevailing power, and is (potentially) a little bit pathetic. Like whinging. Occasionally cathartic, sure. But nowhere near as effective as higher-agency moves. Social media baits complaint, because it deludes us into thinking we are ‘doing something’. And we are, kind of. As I wrote in late 2023, [it’s okay to signal virtue](https://www.foxwizard.com/virtue-signalling/). But the real virtue is in our subversive *being*.\] I want you—and all of us—to be *enlivened.* Awake and *enacting* whatever part of the shared, unfurling story we each hold. To venture deeper into our calling—not as ‘individuals’, but as [individuated](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytical%5Fpsychology?ref=foxwizard.com#Individuation) “*withindividuals”*.\[^ I know this looks like I just dropped a [paradiastole](https://www.foxwizard.com/paradiastoles/) here, but I swear this post is 100% free from any artificial intelligence.\] ### Withindividuals We—you and I—are [not individuals](https://metamoderna.org/death-to-the-individual/?ref=foxwizard.com). We all contain multitudes. And we are the gestalt of parts.\[^ *‘There is no such thing as “individuals” in the traditional sense; individuals do not preexist as such but rather materialise in intra-action. Matter is not a thing but a doing, a congealing of agency.’* – Karen Barad writes in [*Meeting the Universe Halfway*](https://www.dukeupress.edu/meeting-the-universe-halfway?ref=foxwizard.com)).\] These parts, in relation, form an intermittently-continuous and somewhat fluid and metastable-ish self-concept (whomst we call ‘I’). But even in this we are just a part of a larger whole. A part, that sometimes acts *apart,* but yet is always-already connected to The Alltogether and the vast wholeness. Thus we are, at once: - *with* individuals, - *within* dividuals; and - dividuals *within.* *‘One cannot be human by oneself,’* James P. Carse writes in [*Finite and Infinite Games*](https://wtf.tw/ref/carse.pdf?ref=foxwizard.com). > *‘There is no selfhood where there is no community. We do not relate to others as the persons we are; we are who we are in relating to others. Simultaneously the others with whom we are in relation are themselves in relation. We cannot relate to anyone who is not also relating to us. Our social existence has, therefore, an inescapably fluid character... this ceaseless change does not mean discontinuity; rather change is itself the very basis of our continuity as persons.’* Ergo, to quaintly use the old branding adage: > You cannot *not* influence. And, furthermore: > You cannot not *be* influenced. I know the last few paragraphs might read as unnecessarily [wiggly](https://www.organism.earth/library/document/essential-lectures-12?ref=foxwizard.com). Vexingly so. But the wiggle is the point! All paradox is *generative,* and we must find our way within the mess (not without). Which brings me to the main thrust of this post. ### Your influence is non-zero I want you to know this, deeply. Your every action—and inaction—is of non-zero significance.\[^ Yes, you could adopt the nihilistic stance and decry that we are insignificant and that nothing matters. But this is an [obviously wrong stance that is difficult to maintain](https://meaningness.com/190-proof-nihilism?ref=foxwizard.com). ‘Some things,’ [to quote David Chapman](https://meaningness.com/meaningfulness-and-meaninglessness?ref=foxwizard.com), ‘are meaningful; some are meaningless. Some are [vaguely in-between](https://meaningness.com/nebulosity-of-meaningness?ref=foxwizard.com).’\] It’s as Einstein once supposedly said (unverified): > ‘There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.’ You’re here, you exist, and you have influence. Your friends, your family, your acquaintances—even folk you’ve never met—notice you, and what you do, and what you don’t do.\[^ Even if they aren’t consciously aware of it.\] But there’s an interesting interplay between that which you are concerned about, and that which you can influence. Some (many) would suggest you should only focus on the things you can directly influence. For example, early this week I saw [a post from Richard Bartlett](https://x.com/RichDecibels/status/1940092982645948671?ref=foxwizard.com): > *re: existential risk / ai safety etc* > > *it’s psychically hazardous to expand your sphere of concern very far beyond your sphere of influence. a felt sense of powerlessness spoils your epistemics like nothing else* And this is partially true—there *is* a peril to extending our sphere of concern very far beyond our sphere of influence. If you believe in spheres. But now I am going to do an unfair thing and riff off of this tweet, on my own trajectory (and away from the nuance Richard—who is smart and wise—would no doubt bring). ### Good grief The psychic hazard and peril of expanding your ‘sphere of concern’ is, largely, that we might open ourselves to *Weltschmerz*—world grief—and *finally* feel the sorrow we have been suppressing for so long. This is a lot, and ours is a society that has withered away its rituals and communal holding for grief. Thus there *is* indeed a felt-sense of powerlessness that can overcome us when we expand our ‘sphere of concern’ beyond our ‘sphere of influence’. But, I would contend, this feeling of powerlessness only emerges when our sorrow is suppressed. Francis Weller, author of [*The Wild Edge of Sorrow*](https://www.francisweller.net/the-wild-edge-of-sorrow-the-sacred-work-of-grief.html?ref=foxwizard.com)*,* writes that depression is what happens when we don’t meet and metabolise our grief. And, [as discussed previously](https://www.foxwizard.com/beyond-hope/#what-lies-beyond-hope), [more than once](https://www.foxwizard.com/dispel-dark-cloud/)— > *“\[...\] I quite appreciate* [*Professor Randolph Nesse’s theory of depression*](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/12682578%5FIs%5FDepression%5Fan%5FAdaptation?ref=foxwizard.com)*. Nesse and his colleagues speculate that depression could act as a biological constraint system that helps to minimise wasted effort and loss by forcing the individual to slow down, reassess, and potentially change strategies.”* So *it makes sense* that a sense of powerlessness comes upon us. **Expand your sphere of concern anyway.** Or, better yet, have no sphere. *Infinite players do not presume to measure.* Dissolve the boundaries of your concern. Don’t artificially limit your concern to *only* that which you can directly influence. There are so many things you *indirectly* influence, too. Simply by your way of being. Because what is the alternative? Stay small? Succumb to the requisite sociopathy of our times? Sacrifice your inner child to M̸̲͗̈̄̏̌̌͊̅̽͘Ø̶̥͙̮̹͖̀̋̆̋̒̈́͑͑͠͝Ł̵̫͔̓̒͛͊̅͗̈́́̆͌͐̚ͅØ̸̡͍̤͙̪͙̜̜̯͔̜͂͆̌̀̅͐̌͑͐̈́͠Ĉ̴̭̮͙̹͙̈́͜Ħ̴̂̈́͊͊̏͂͂̈́̒̒̍̕͜? Submit your soul to The Infinite Machine? Nay. Go the other way, I say. Venture deeper into your humanity. Attend to your soul’s stirring. > *Hold to the truth you make* > *every day with your own body,* > *don’t turn your face away.* An excerpt from [All the True Vows](https://davidwhyte.substack.com/p/all-the-true-vows) by David Whyte. There is only one life you can call your own... ### Expand thy heart *Expand* thy sphere of concern, horizonally.\[^ ‘One never reaches a horizon. It is not a line; it has no place; it encloses no field; its location is always relative to the view.’ – James P. Carse, [*Finite and Infinite Games*](https://wtf.tw/ref/carse.pdf?ref=foxwizard.com)\] You won’t lose yourself amidst it all. Quite the contrary. We are living amidst the metacrisis, in a time betwixt worlds. You don’t need to “change the world”\[^ This is how capitalism dreams, as [Bayo Akomolafe suggests](https://www.bayoakomolafe.net/post/looking-away-at?ref=foxwizard.com).\]—you just need to attend to that which is true for you. *‘Make a covenant with honesty,’* [as Martin Shaw writes](https://emergencemagazine.org/essay/navigating-the-mysteries/?ref=foxwizard.com). *‘Honesty is often a case-by-case disclosure. Orientate to what feels like truth. Endless fictions fatigue us. Be your naturalness, then commit to the lively disciplines such naturalness is calling forth in you.’* It has been a while since I have read this piece, [*Navigating the Mysteries*](https://emergencemagazine.org/essay/navigating-the-mysteries/?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* The essay remains as resonant as ever. > *‘If your life feels peculiar, flamboyant, occasionally shameful, then those are the markings of that emerging authenticity. The more you settle back into your naturalness, the less likely you are to be endlessly buffeted by unease and unseated by paradox. If you are steady in your own precarious character, you recognise these energies as fundamental to the business of both living and deepening. Such honesty will also introduce both limit and consequence into your life. It creates a code, a kind of gallantry. Not from the outside, but from a daily, sometimes troubling, discourse with your own soul.’* Honesty. I was chatting with Nikhil Suresh the other day. He’s the author of [*I Will Fucking Piledrive You If You Mention AI Again*](https://ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/i-will-fucking-piledrive-you-if-you-mention-ai-again/?ref=foxwizard.com) and the recent hit [*Contra Ptacek's Terrible Article On AI*](https://ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/contra-ptaceks-terrible-article-on-ai/?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* We both agreed that we could make a lot more coin if we simply changed our stance on AI and became one of the many who champion it. It’s just that, intellectually, ethically—we both have reservations.\[^ Albeit from different perspectives.\] I feel *moved* to express concern about the uncritical hype that surrounds artificial intelligence. And whilst I bemoan this [Cassandra role](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassandra?ref=foxwizard.com), it’s still a part I feel compelled to play. Because I just don’t know that enough of us are paying attention, and I would rather we proceed with a little more wit, wisdom and grace. And appropriate fear. ### Authentic wisdom For example, the educational philosopher Zak Stein has been warning us about how *we are systematically betraying the youth.*\[^ Here’s someone who has a boundless sphere of concern.\] Allow me to present you with some paraphrased notes I took from [this conversation with Daniel Thorson on The Emerge Podcast](https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/zak-stein-ai-tutor-apocalypse/id1057220344?i=1000610403148&ref=foxwizard.com) along with his [recent conversation with Nate Hagens on The Great Simplification](https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/180-zak-stein?ref=foxwizard.com). - Education is not preparation for life—it *is* life. - We are telling children to prepare for a future we don’t understand, using tools we haven’t vetted, in a system that itself is in collapse. - We’ve allowed the most sensitive stages of human development to become the target of the most sophisticated attention-hacking and intimate data-harvesting machines ever built. - We are creating a generation who will grow up knowing we knew better—and still failed them. That is a profound moral injury that cuts both ways. Now, I don’t have kids. I don’t even particularly *like* kids. But I still love and care for children and young folk the world over. I can’t not. And so when [TED platforms the cofounder and ceo of a synthetic media generation company](https://www.ted.com/talks/victor%5Friparbelli%5Fwill%5Fai%5Fmake%5Fus%5Fthe%5Flast%5Fgeneration%5Fto%5Fread%5Fand%5Fwrite?ref=foxwizard.com) that develops software used to create AI-generated video content, who then boldly opens with— > *‘Your grandchildren will be the last generation to read and write.’* —I can’t help but cock an incredulous eyebrow. *‘I think we're at the dawn of a new era of AI-enabled communication,’* [Victor explains](https://www.ted.com/talks/victor%5Friparbelli%5Fwill%5Fai%5Fmake%5Fus%5Fthe%5Flast%5Fgeneration%5Fto%5Fread%5Fand%5Fwrite?utm%5Fcampaign=tedspread&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fsource=tedcomshare), *‘and I think that future generations will slowly replace text with more intuitive forms of communication, like audio, video, and eventually immersive technologies.’* I’m frowning with consternation now. How excited am I about private companies rushing to develop artificially intelligent corporate tutors groomed to be maximally convincing to young minds? Not very.\[^ I mean, ‘[ChatGPT is pushing people towards mania, psychosis and death—and OpenAI doesn’t know how to stop it](https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/chatgpt-psychosis-ai-therapy-chatbot-b2781202.html?ref=foxwizard.com)’ is the title of an article that came out yesterday. Seems like we might want to slow down a bit, first, right?\] Again, it would be easier for me if I just did what 98% of thought leaders and speakers are doing now. To merge with The Infinite Machine and become an [Artificially Intelligent](https://www.foxwizard.com/artificially-intelligent/) AI evangelist. I’d be making *a lot more coin*. But then, it *wouldn’t* actually be easier. It would be dishonest. And, despite my [complaining—*yes complaining, ugh*—about this](https://www.foxwizard.com/the-museletter-by-foxwizard/) for over two years now, I know that my [intellectual honesty](https://www.foxwizard.com/intellectually-honest/) gets in the way of any effective grift. I harbour a seemingly infinite wellspring of love, sorrow, and care. So annoying. Which brings me, once more, to the encouragement-intent of this post. ### Your myriad subtle significances You cannot *not* influence, dear reader. Your sphere of influence is always-already boundless. The question is one of expanding your sphere of concern—or, more aptly: dissolving its boundaries—without losing your centre. There may be an initial panic that such a provocation evokes in you. You may want to turn your face away. But: stay with me, if you can. For just a little longer. I’m not advocating for you to become a monk or some kind of saint. I am far, far, *far* from that. But—we’re all of-and-in this mess together, always-already complicit and entangled. The encouragement I want to leave you with is this: develop your acuity for the subtle and indirect influence you evoke *and* respond to. Find and [feed the leaks](https://www.foxwizard.com/feeding-leaks/). We are living amidst the metacrisis, [in a time betwixt worlds](https://www.whatisemerging.com/profiles/dsad?ref=foxwizard.com). There’s *an ongoing genocide* happening right now, with unspeakable harm being inflicted upon children (directly and indirectly). There is a hollowing of democracy happening right now, with police brutality, state overreach, and much that could be described as fascism. There’s accelerated global heating happening right now, the dire impacts of which are too late to avert.\[^ Earlier this week, the academic, scientist, author and environmental activist [David Suzuki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David%5FSuzuki?ref=foxwizard.com) said ‘[it’s too late](https://www.ipolitics.ca/2025/07/02/its-too-late-david-suzuki-says-the-fight-against-climate-change-is-lost/?ref=foxwizard.com)’—**we’ve lost the fight against climate change.** This isn’t surprising to me, much as it still fills me with despair. It echoes what many in the field have known for some time. But our response to this is not to simply ‘give up’ and go survivor-mode. Nor do we hoard toilet paper. That will only diminish you. If there’s any preparing to be done, it will need to be in community.\] There’s mass extinction happening right now, with whole species losing their home and habitat. There is cruelty, malice, apathy, and worse. Much of this is all indirectly (and sometimes [directly](https://www.un.org/unispal/document/a-hrc-59-23-from-economy-of-occupation-to-economy-of-genocide-report-special-rapporteur-francesca-albanese-palestine-2025/?ref=foxwizard.com)) funded by complicit corporations and governments, and aided via the perverse incentives that shape our media landscape. Welcome to The Metacrisis. (ʘᗩʘ')! But wait—there’s also: **kindness, goodness, aliveness**, and the potential for better. Collectively—as individuated withindividuals\[^ I am not confident my clunky neologism will go viral.\]—we can each choose how we orientate, the *way* we play, and what we invest our efforts towards.\[^ I may be in solipsistic territory again, writing the words I need to hear myself. But I am hopeful this lands resonant for you, too.\] You can learn to see how the machinations of M̵̈́͆͂̾͜Ø̷͕͉̀Ł̷̫̝̫̟̜͇̓̈́̀͛Ø̴̧̖̬͇̪̦̟͋͒͆C̸͖̆̂̐͋̈̾̆̍Ħ̴̧̹͈̀̀̇ lead us astray. You can [develop your Eye of Value](https://www.zakstein.org/uploads/1/4/2/4/142408092/opening%5Fthe%5Feye%5Fof%5Fvalue%5Fstein%5F2024.pdf?ref=foxwizard.com), and allow yourself to be guided by your heart. ### Practically, what does this look like? I... can’t tell you. Only *you* know.\[^ Okay fine, let me allude. Practically, this looks like myriad *subtle significances* that radiate from everything you choose to do (and not do). It looks like the honesty and kindness you exemplify, in yourself, to yourself, and to all of Life. It looks like the encouragement you offer, large and small, that ripples and extends through the stories that shape the lives we share. It looks like the times you reshare and signal-boost the broadcasts that journalists risk their lives to make, so that the world can see the horrors being committed. It looks like the choice to shop locally and buy directly, wherever you can. It looks like mutual aid. It looks like consistently being a good and decent person—who works to uphold the dignity and sacredness in others and all of Life—whatever version of that is true to you.\] But I will give you a hint. It comes with a move toward authenticity, honesty, relationality, and enlivenment. It comes from recognising our machine-like automaticity\[^ The ‘mechanical sleep’ that Gurdjieff’s [*Fourth Way*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth%5FWay?ref=foxwizard.com) works to awaken us from.\], being present (even amidst discomfort), and coming back to life.\[^ [*Coming Back to Life*](https://workthatreconnects.org/resources/coming-back-to-life-the-updated-guide-to-the-work-that-reconnects/?ref=foxwizard.com)is also a book by Joanna Macy and Molly Brown.\] > *‘Of all the dangers we face, from climate chaos to permanent war, none is so great as this deadening of our response.’* This was from Dr. Joanna Macy—a scholar of Buddhism, systems thinking, and deep ecology. A true elder. I’ve found Joanna Macy’s work so very apt for These Times. Particularly [this deeply touching podcast series](https://resources.soundstrue.com/we-are-the-great-turning-podcast/?ref=foxwizard.com). In an article titled [The Greatest Danger](https://www.dailygood.org/story/1821/the-greatest-danger-joanna-macy/?ref=foxwizard.com), she writes potently of the stance my own museletter was attempting to convey. I had been wrestling with how to conclude this piece for you, and then—via a series of coincidences—found what I was striving to say in words that Joanna Macy had written, decades earlier. I will share some passages with you here. I know from a friend that Joanna is currently transitioning away from this life; and so this all hums with great poignancy. > *‘In our culture, despair is feared and resisted because it represents a loss of control. We’re ashamed of it and dodge it by demanding instant solutions to problems. We seek the quick fix. This cultural habit obscures our perceptions and fosters a dangerous innocence of the real world.* > > *Acknowledging despair, on the other hand, involves nothing more mysterious than telling the truth about what we see and know and feel is happening to our world. When corporate-controlled media keep the public in the dark, and power-holders manipulate events to create a climate of fear and obedience, truth-telling is like oxygen. It enlivens and returns us to health and vigour.’* There’s that word—*enliven.* > *‘When we open our eyes to what is happening, even when it breaks our hearts, we discover our true size; for our heart, when it breaks open, can hold the whole universe. We discover how speaking the truth of our anguish for the world brings down the walls between us, drawing us into deep solidarity. That solidarity, with our neighbours and all that lives, is all the more real for the uncertainty we face.’* Solidarity, relationality, honesty, warmth. ### Wherefore art thou poetic sensibilities, nay? I know my museletters are a lot, these days. Part of me is sorry about that, and really wishes I could summon the chipper alacrity of the Dr. Fox of a decade ago, bequeathing sagely advice and such. But a lot has changed since then, in the world and in me. Perhaps with you, too. And so I’ll continue to oscillate amidst and betwixt it all, as honestly as I can. But my next challenge is... actually sharing my writing a bit more publicly. I think? I got burnt when I made my post on [Moral Courage](https://www.foxwizard.com/moral-courage/) 611 days ago, in response to Isræl’s actions against the Palestinian people. I’ve since come to know that this is by design—there are all sorts of mechanisms to shadowban folks who support human rights and international law, and there are many trolls who will sap your time and energy with [fake arguments](https://www.foxwizard.com/red-card/). It had me feeling gaslit, depleted, and wanting to hide away from it all. But thankfully I was able to persist because of the encouragement and inspiration of so many folk around me. Folk much better than I. This effect, though, is happening as a consequence of the open internet turning into a dark forest, teeming with predators. It has seen so many of us retreat to the cozyweb. But, as [Venkatesh Rao writes](https://contraptions.venkateshrao.com/p/the-right-side-of-history?ref=foxwizard.com): > *‘The world has retreated too far, and in too self-serious and fearful a manner, into the cozyweb, leaving the public sphere to the most humourlessly self-righteous extremists who are certain they’re on the right side of history, and are acting in ways that don’t take unseriousness seriously enough. People who can only laugh, if at all, at the pain they can inflict on others in their winning moments, and at themselves not at all.* > > *The public sphere has turned into a lemon market, and its inability to laugh at itself, along with its growing taste for laughing at the pain of the powerless, is the clearest sign of its profound bankruptcy.* > > *⁠The result is our present condition — caught up in a joyless historical grand narrative that juxtaposes chaotic new realities none of us has any sort of handle on, with the flimsy totalizing certainties being peddled by unholy alliances of joyless extremists and gormless grifters all taking themselves far too seriously.⁠⁠* > > *⁠⁠And we’ve lost the ability to even maintain a collective public sense of absurdity about it all.’* This may hardly seem the time for humour, given how grim things are. And yet *the last thing* we’d want to see is an end to satire, humour, poetry and art. In the past couple of years there have been some heavy handed attempts to silence artists and musicians speaking out against genocide.\[^ [How’s that going?](https://x.com/nntaleb/status/1941970006482252255?ref=foxwizard.com)\] This is because true artists—and true poets—are a threat to totalitarian powers. James P. Carse writes of this in [*Finite and Infinite Games*](https://wtf.tw/ref/carse.pdf?ref=foxwizard.com) (emphasis mine)*.* > *‘Plato suggested that some of the poets be driven out of the Republic because they had the power to weaken the guardians. Poets can make it impossible to have a war-unless they tell stories that agree with the “general line” established by the state. Poets who have no metaphysics, and therefore no political line, make war impossible because they have the irresistible ability to show the guardians that what seems necessary is only possible.* > > *The danger of the poets, for Plato, is that they can imitate so well that it is difficult to see what is true and what is merely invented. Since reality cannot be invented, but only discovered through the exercise of reason—according to Plato—all poets must be put into the service of reason. The poets are to surround the citizens of the Republic with such art as will “lead them unawares from childhood to love of, resemblance to, and harmony with, the beauty of reason.” The use of the word “unawares” shows Plato's intention to keep the metaphysical veil intact. Those who are being led to reason cannot be aware of it. They must be led to it without choosing it. Plato asks his poets not to create, but to deceive.* > > **True poets lead no one unawares. It is nothing other than awareness that poets—that is, creators of all sorts—seek. They do not display their art so as to make it appear real; they display the real in a way that reveals it to be art.*’* I would *love* to be more poetic in how I show up. I feel I might have the orientation, and the sensibilities, but not quite the eloquence in my allocutions. Too much “explanation,” I fear. But I am committed to showing up and writing, as honestly as I can. The default gravitational pull for media these days is short, succinct, and pithy. A stream of sanctimoniously succinct and sage advice, delivered in tiktok soundbites. I can’t do it. But—even if I don’t always fully agree with—I took some solace in [what Venkatesh shared](https://contraptions.venkateshrao.com/p/the-right-side-of-history?ref=foxwizard.com): > *‘Contemplating this condition, ⁠⁠I think I get why, this year, even though I feel like my writing is not really up to the task of keeping up with reality and providing any sort of useful or even entertaining signal to you, the reader, it feels important to continue writing. Even at the risk of only adding only confusion, wrongness, and failed attempts at humour to an already confused, wrong, and largely unfunny condition.’* We need more of us to eschew the path to optimised sterility (and the parroting of consensus memetics) and to instead: openly engage with the complexity, sorrow, and mystery of the context we share. And we need more of us to encourage such, when we see it. Okay I really ought to wrap this up. Thank you for reading. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-07-at-10.55.53---am.png) [Soften ye orbs](https://www.foxwizard.com/kindred-spirits-e1/), and [always be warmening](https://www.foxwizard.com/kindred-spirits-e3/#always-be-warmening). *—fw* ### An updated colophon URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/updated-colophon-2025/ Last updated: 2025-07-04T04:41:55.000Z This website was recently updated with new enchantments. I have quite a few pages assembled pell-mell, not even half-baked. The dough, still wet. But first—it’s time to update the [colophon](https://www.foxwizard.com/colophon/). I like the practice of maintaining a colophon page, as a way of honouring that which contributed to the making of this site. This site was conjured, crafted, and personally maintained in Naarm/Melbourne on the unceded lands of the Kulin Nation. Deep respect to elders and ancestors. This is, was, and always will be Aboriginal land. I use [Ghost Pro](https://ghost.org/about/?ref=foxwizard.com)—an open source, independent and not-for-profit website and newsletter publishing app. I use [Braun](https://themex.studio/braun/?ref=foxwizard.com) by Trong of [Themex](https://themex.studio/?ref=foxwizard.com) as the site theme. Mind you, everything I do here on this site has been developed with the help of Professor Cathy Sarisky of [Spectral Web Services](https://www.spectralwebservices.com/?ref=foxwizard.com). Cathy is deft and savvy, and I highly recommend her to anyone looking to start or refine a site on Ghost. The [foxwizard podcast](https://www.foxwizard.com/podcast/) is hosted here, on Ghost. I am grateful for the tutelage and support of [Kevin McGillivray](https://www.kevinmcgillivray.net/?ref=foxwizard.com), who first introduced me to the wonders of the independent web. In the early days I employed a shoggoth as a dubious research assistant, but these days I rarely use AI (except for tedious work). I have arcane intelligence enough to protect authentic intelligence. But if artificial intelligence ever intrudes upon my writing, I will demarcate and flag it for you. The ‘foxwizard’ wordmark and h1 uses [Olde](https://ohnotype.co/drawer?ref=foxwizard.com#olde), an “American-style, fake blackletter” by James Edmondson of [Oh No Type Company](https://ohnotype.co/?ref=foxwizard.com). I love how friendly and unserious it is, for a blackletter. The body text is set in [Fern Text](https://djr.com/fern?ref=foxwizard.com), a humanist Venetian oldstyle by [David Jonathan Ross](https://djr.com/about?ref=foxwizard.com). It’s a typeface that is optimised for screen and smaller forms, and it makes reading longform a delight. My darling Kim, [the dangerlam](https://dangerlam.com/?ref=foxwizard.com), is an astute editor. All typos and *faux pas* are published without her knowing. Kim is also an illustrator, veterinarian, my life partner and business manager. If you ever book [Dr. Fox](https://drjasonfox.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) you will do so via her. Warmth, *—fw* ### Feeding the leaks 🪾 URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/feeding-leaks/ Last updated: 2026-06-27T05:49:19.000Z #### In this museletter... Happy solstice times, all. I hope you had a moment to inflect and introspect. These seasonal turnings are great opportunities within which we can let go and invite in. I did just that, on a particularly frigid midwinter’s night. Under the stars, by the fire, I made a quiet commitment. Not quite as potent as [a True Vow](https://davidwhyte.substack.com/p/all-the-true-vows), as David Whyte might describe,° but a *quiet* commitment. A gesture in the vicinity of a vow. \* *‘All the true vows are secret vows, the ones we speak out loud are the ones we break.’* I will break this quiet commitment (already have) but, lol, that’s okay. This quiet commitment is, effectively, *to not complain so much* about the ills and evils of the world. At least for a season. “GoOd ViBeS oNlY”.\* ᕕ(ᐛ)ᕗ Besides, if you’re paying attention, it’s too easy to despair. And, if you’re not paying attention, it’s too easy to uncritically subscribe to the [naïve progress narrative](https://www.foxwizard.com/authentic-progress/), and the *convenient-but-false* hope if offers. The real challenge is in finding the *hope-beyond-hope.* \* *Note: this doesn’t mean that I am abandoning [moral clarity](https://www.foxwizard.com/moral-courage/). Only that I am finding better avenues than ‘complaint’, which seems to simply feed the cycle. Or, more specifically, ‘explainy’ complaint, which steers us away from relationality and warmth.* ## The hope-beyond-hope A few hundred days ago I wrote a post asking: [*Are we beyond hope?*](https://www.foxwizard.com/beyond-hope/#what-lies-beyond-hope) My disposition was, and still is, that *I hope we are*. For there is a hope that lies *beyond* hope. New possibilities; and the embeckoning of a world more curious and kind. The way remains non-obvious—emergence is only ever truly apparent in hindsight. But there are glimmers to attend to, and *leaks* that lead the way. Bayo Akomalafe [wrote of this](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/bayoakomolafe%5Fsystems-are-speculative-that-is-to-say-activity-7308355649912938496-RzaL/?ref=foxwizard.com) a few months ago. > *‘“Exiting” capitalism, white modernity, or any dominant system, is not about finding an alternative in the traditional sense, but about learning to notice the emergent, the minor, the paraontological openings that systems themselves produce as they mutate. As they speculate. It is about attuning to disruptions, to what I call “weird fidelities”, the fugitive pathways that do not announce themselves as “alternatives,” but as leaks, cracks, and dissonances within systemicity.’* I found this quote via fellow wizard Gordon (of [*Rune Soup*](https://runesoup.com/?ref=foxwizard.com)), who wrote an exquisite piece on [what escapes capture](https://runesoup.substack.com/p/what-escapes-capture?). > *‘Feed the leaks. This really is the right way to say it. To say anything else falls too dangerously close to knowing what should happen or seeking to be the sole agency forcing a preferred outcome. It is simply to show up and give energy to what is seeking to emerge through the web of connections in which you are an intentional node. This generates a permission field conducive to novelty.’* Similarly, [Ryan (Ra) James Keep writes](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ryanrajames8%5Frebiz-sixthsunimmersions-5dventures-activity-7343064144281059328-6j7v?ref=foxwizard.com) of shifting their focus toward the invitation that more of us are beginning to attune to. > *‘I’ve stopped using the phrase “systems change.”* > > *Why?* > > *Because it keeps our attention tethered to what’s broken and what’s crumbling. It distracts us with what resists transformation. It seduces us into believing that with enough reform, repair, or finesse, we can redeem a system built upon a foundational worldview of separation, extraction, and control. It channels our focus and our energy on trying to tinker at what was never designed to hold life with sanctity and dignity in the first place. Buckminster Fuller reminded us that we don't transform the world by fighting the old, we do it by building the new, or as I would put it, the (k)new, with such coherence and beauty that the old becomes irrelevant.* > > *The hard truth is this: the old system doesn’t want to be fixed, nor can it. It cannot be changed. In fact, some systems are not meant to be changed, they are meant to be composted. I've stopped trying to refine, prolong and optimize the destructiveness. I am not here for that, that's a waste of energy.* > > *I'm here to remember the future. And remembering is not a concept or an intellectual trick. I am here to build parallel architectures of care, reciprocity, and deep aliveness. I am not here for systems change. I've stopped trying to Trojan Horse my way into the door of someone who doesn't want me there anyway.* > > *I've gotten over my disruption, and gotten into my invitation.’* This resonates—and yet also: I’m still Trojan Horsing, smuggling wit, wisdom and warmth wherever I can. Ergo, I’ll continue to oscillate betwixt the [established and the emergent](https://www.foxwizard.com/established-emergent/). As Dr. Fox I (try to) [move quietly and plant things](https://www.foxwizard.com/move-quietly-and-plant-things/), doing what I can to tend to the conditions for a world more curious and kind. And as foxwizard I work with fellow infinite players and those of us questing amidst the liminal. It seems to be the role I’m called to, at least for this current chapter. Which brings us back to this question of the *hope-beyond-hope*. We’ve had an uptick in enquiries from event organisers seeking a futurist. But a large portion of these enquiries are from folks seeking an ‘AI evangelist’. They don’t want their people to think generatively about the future with wise discernment—they want, [much as Alicia McKay recently wrote of](https://aliciamckay.substack.com/p/what-the-ai-bros-wont-tell-you)—‘lightweight tutorials and uncritical hype’. I generally approach ‘The Future™️’\* as a complexity practitioner, illuminating where our default trajectory might take us to (as discussed in the previous museletter), whilst also shining some light upon some of *the adjacent possible*.° This informs the ‘quiver of options’ we can cultivate and attend to as we quest. \* *‘The Future’, I contend, is best approached* [mythically](https://www.foxwizard.com/mythical-imposter/#within-the-mythical). ° *“The biosphere grows into the adjacent possible. It does not evolve toward an optimal design, but rather expands into the space of possibilities made available by its current structure.” — Stuart Kauffman, theoretical biologist.* 🔮 For more about cultivating strategic optionality, see my book [**How to Lead a Quest*](https://www.amazon.com/How-Lead-Quest-Guidebook-Pioneering/dp/0730324710/?ref=foxwizard.com). Many of these options are *leaks;* portals to new worlds and ways. Except, of course, they have yet to fully reveal themselves. This is part of the mystery and charm. And so, with this in mind, let’s move onto another scenario of what our future may yet possibly become. ## The Future of Continuity (of Life) 🪾 Here’s [part two of my conversation with Simon Waller](https://simonwaller.live/the-future-with-friends/episode-8/?ref=foxwizard.com). Here we explore what our world might look like if we were to continue on our current trajectory—only this time, our focus shifts from beyond the habitation arc of one of the megacorps and to the outer wilds. This scenario features a kind of ‘post-liberal communitarianism’ coupled with bioregional networks and decentralised, convivial coordination technologies, and a sacred economy oriented towards planetary mutualism.\* \* Or, with less jargon: *This scenario envisions community-based living that moves beyond individualism-politics, grounded in local ecologies and supported by friendly, decentralised tools for collaboration. It imagines an economy shaped by reverence and reciprocity, oriented toward global cooperation and care for all life.* This vision of the future is not utopia, but there are elements of [*The Great Simplification*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xr9rIQxwj4&ref=foxwizard.com) and of our species maturing toward a more embedded, animate, and custodial role. Here’s the second part of the narrative scenario I wrote and shared with Simon, lightly edited by a shoggoth. #### ****Scenario (part two)—Within** The Infinite Garden ****Year 2043\. Subject: Eli Orion / 0xEli31337, peri-urban fringe, liminal sector E7** Out here, nothing really worked the way it used to. And that was mostly the point. The power grid was patchy—reclaimed from scrap. Water catchments gurgled with a kind of reluctant promise. The air was sharp, the soil still exhausted. But something stirred beneath it all. A pulse. A pattern. A way through. Eli wiped her hands on a faded tea towel and booted the relay-laptop—an old shell, scavenged and rebuilt with neighbourly care. The GardenNet mesh flickered alive, catching signal from a rooftop node two blocks away. Her breath slowed as the updates came in. It was always like this: **the feeling of arrival.* Proposals from the southern ridge. A landshare agreement ratified by six kin-groups. Soil vitality logs submitted for rewilding credits. Feedback on an updated decision-making protocol, co-authored across three bioregions. Votes cast via verifiable people—each one unique, accountable, and pseudonymous. Each local node maintained a shard of the ledger, encrypted and mirrored across the network. Public, tamper-proof, open-source. Here, governance wasn’t a spectacle—it was a conversation. Slow, messy, sacred. This wasn’t “crypto” in the coloniser sense. Occasionally ironic ‘meme coins’ would emerge, and some folks still traded with them—but everyone had the literacy to know it was a joke. And besides—there was enough of a support network that this collective governance could fund and support what was traditionally handled by governments. (Before they were usurped by the megacorps). The interlinked chains here were not a market so much as they were a memory and shared embassy. A living substrate of mutual coordination of a sacred economy in service to all of Life. A new proposal blinked in from a coastal node: distributed retroactive funding for an amphibian corridor. Already endorsed by four guilds and 231 local custodians. Eli reviewed the ledger, verified the claims, and cast her vote: yes. And then—quietly, subtly—another message: Potential ally awakening in Core Zone. Code: “The seed awakens.” Eli stilled. A flicker from the Machine’s interior—some echo of care breaking surface. She wrapped a packet inside a verified seed manifest—one of the covert channels used to slip messages into closed territories. The payload was small, but welcome—a path for a tendril of Life to reach within. Outside, her neighbour’s child played between the bean towers. Bees traced lazy spirals over basil flowers. The garden breathed. In the distance, Eli could even hear a bird (though she might have imagined it). It wasn’t utopia. The sun was harsh, the work relentless. But there was music again. Real laughter. Even grief had become something shared, composted into subversive action. The Machine extracted, abstracted, and optimised everything into oblivion. The Garden composted, regenerated, and enlivened everyone to return to Life. And in the interplay of roots and signal, something like the future was beginning again. I’ve tried to stay grounded and *somewhat* realistic about what this scenario might look like. I may have overly romanticised what participation in collective governance might look like, though. The reality is more tedious and frustrating. I have also intentionally skirted away from where the ideology of convivial, communal, and ecologically custodial care might clash with the ideology of infinite growth, capitalism, extraction, exploitation, and centralised control. What I wanted to do instead is simply paint, in broad strokes, what it might look like if we were to live in better relation to each other and the living systems we depend upon for life. I’ve a few notes that will be of interest to those who listen deep. ### Money Today’s children are the adults of this future scenario. Unlike most adults of today, the adults of this scenario know that fiat currencies (especially the almighty dollar) are effectively backed by forever wars and climate change. They know that fiat currencies are ‘[the largest Ponzi scheme in the history of the world](https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/frankly-original/the-10-core-myths-still-taught-in-business-schools?ref=foxwizard.com).’ This understanding gives rise to requisite suspicion, and an enquiry into the nature of money itself. The society in our scenario might be at the point of knowing that, from a ‘civilisational’ perspective, *“money is a sign of poverty”* (as Iain M Banks writes in [*The Player of Games*](https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/f1fa7544-8da5-47d3-87c2-36d7bbc2803d?ref=foxwizard.com)). The focus instead shifts towards true value. ### Value In our current world, a whale is only valuable (in the eyes of the market) if it is killed and harvested. And a forest is only valuable once it is chopped down and turned into lumber. Of course, you and I both *know* that there is more value to behold in a living whale or forest than a dead one. But: we measure extractable and exchangeable wealth. And we optimise for what we measure. The Infinite Machine (from [the first scenario](https://www.foxwizard.com/future-with-friends-part-one/)) runs on this logic, and artificial intelligence accelerates this. Our ‘eye of value’—the ability we have to perceive intrinsic value, as Zak Stein writes in [*First Principles and First Values*](https://worldphilosophyandreligion.org/first-values-first-principles/?ref=foxwizard.com)*—*is currently, collectively, sorely diminished and distorted by the prevailing paradigm. But in this future scenario, we would be working towards more [sacred economics](https://charleseisenstein.org/books/sacred-economics/?ref=foxwizard.com) that is much more aligned to planetary regeneration, bioregional custodianship, and real value (intrinsic and otherwise). Wealth would not be hoarded or stored by individuals. In fact, there would be a shared understanding that *ownership only exists via consensus*.\* \* *If at all.* ### Consensus Relational consensus underpins everything, yet blockchain consensus offers a new way to coordinate effectively—in a trust-minimised manner—with those we don’t yet know.\* And given the global nature of the metacrisis we share, this kind of transnational, decentralised coordination is increasingly necessary. \* *Embassy and relatioanal protocols practiced within Indigenous Knowledge Systems are, perhaps, even more apt.* In our current world, ownership is reinforced via laws, which are put into place via governments, which—in purportedly democratic countries—are elected via ‘the will of the people’. However, it could be argued that much of this is now ‘captured’ by market forces. Narrow goals and rivalrous dynamics give rise to multipolar traps, in which all participants are incentivised to pursue individual gain over collective coordination. Even ‘the will of the people’ is vulnerable to disinformation and algorithmic discord. (See the recently released documentary ‘[Leviathan](https://open.substack.com/pub/beiner/p/leviathan-full-documentary?r=ynwy&utm%5Fcampaign=post&utm%5Fmedium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false)’ for more on this). But! Decentralised, open source, public, transparent, immutable and censorship-resistant blockchains coupled with smart contracts *can* allow for greater coordination globally. ### Crypto, hey? I was once going to run [*“An introduction to blockchain, crypto, smart contracts, decentralised finance, NFTs, regenerative finance, protocol-development, AI-agents, web3 (and web4)”*](https://www.foxwizard.com/choose-wyrd/#the-foxwizard-presents-%E2%80%9Can-intro-to-crypto%E2%80%9D)—but then the orange man launched his own memecoin and I soured on the idea. Maybe I’ll do something in the future, let’s see. In the meantime here’s a wonderful collection of video podcasts on regenerative finance and web3 » [The Regeneration Will Be Funded](https://maearth.com/episodes?ref=foxwizard.com). Also, Gregory Landua, the author of [*Regenerative Enterprise*](https://www.amazon.com/Regenerative-Enterprise-Optimizing-Multi-capital-Abundance-ebook/dp/B093ZVLBXH/ref=sr%5F1%5F2?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.-JMxDwqrdXR8lOAwg4Y-Bo1hEGWLZPu2wVbcoECgfpok54LXQLfg6NIt7V-6If8BPW0zzLf0sFc8tarQqyDLWqjjYdckPmhp%5Fg7doGE2LR4YmpkfPXBSfLWkBo8Aybx6tjdoLzUR8X3--9YUptgDEJF84VVREDCFpkvYhkhzqjDYDDS6LLf-pnqxVivDZWyZVumRIBHFZh74M0O3x8tCVyM88pq0S-SrVIajum%5FObik.ROFEK2boZqthBx79PVXpxWiD%5FTp4%5Fot5WTQ5v4WnZ%5F8&dib%5Ftag=se&keywords=regenerative+enterprise&qid=1751327568&sr=8-2&ref=foxwizard.com) and founder of [Regen Network](https://www.regen.network/?ref=foxwizard.com), hosts a [Planetary Regeneration Podcast](https://soundcloud.com/planetaryregeneration?ref=foxwizard.com). I myself tend to grit my teeth at any techno-optimist solutionism that seems to be blind to complexity—but this remains quite grounded. The primary goal of regenerative finance is ‘the trick’—convincing people to invest in true value (eg, living whales and forests) rather than hollow-but-profitable value (eg, whale meat and lumber), whilst not becoming corrupted in the process. ### Decentralised, convivial protocols You can also learn more about [The Infinite Garden](https://ethereum.foundation/infinitegarden?ref=foxwizard.com). What I still love about the whole field is that there are wholesome protocols to be found amidst it all. Take [Aave](https://www.aave.com/?ref=foxwizard.com), for example. You can think of Aave as a collectively-owned bank.\* But, what’s more, their [governance](https://governance.aave.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) is transparent. Here’s [an ongoing conversation](https://governance.aave.com/t/arfc-merit-a-new-aave-alignment-user-reward-system/16646/2?ref=foxwizard.com), spanning over a year, to see how a merit system might work to better reward user behaviours. It provides a good glimpse into the kinds of conversations that would normally be hidden away. You can also gain transparent, [real-time insight](https://tokenterminal.com/explorer/projects/aave/metrics/all?ref=foxwizard.com) into the financial status of the protocol. When private centralised companies like [FTX imploded as a result of an $8 billion hole in their accounts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bankruptcy%5Fof%5FFTX?ref=foxwizard.com), and when the market crashed, decentralised finance protocols like Aave did just fine, and [continued to work](https://decrypt.co/115097/aave-and-uniswap-show-how-defi-keeps-working-amid-ftx-crisis?ref=foxwizard.com) amidst the chaos in a transparent and trust-minimised way. \* *Related: I will be speaking at an upcoming event for [The Community Owned Banking Association](https://www.customerownedbanking.asn.au/?ref=foxwizard.com) of Australia, soon.* This is a stumbling point for many. *“But I don’t want to live in a world without trust,”* you might say. Me too! Many trusted that FTX were solvent and doing the right things with their funds, just as many trusted that banks were acting responsibly—all the way to the global financial crisis. But with a decentralised non-custodial open-source liquidity protocols like Aave, the amount of trust I need to have is minimised, because at any time I can verify what’s going on. ## In summary This museletter has meandered, much as leaks do. The point I keep coming back to, time and time again, is *to keep your wits about you.* There are *leaks* to attend to. Glimmers that hint and lead us to better ways. There remains much to be horrified with in this world we share. We are in [The Fourth Turning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss%E2%80%93Howe%5Fgenerational%5Ftheory?ref=foxwizard.com), [The Great Unravelling](https://workthatreconnects.org/three-stories-of-our-times/?ref=foxwizard.com), and what psychotherapist Francis Weller would describe as [The Long Dark](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjU4NP7l-KM&ref=foxwizard.com): > *‘We are entering the long dark. I use that term not negatively at all. I use it alchemically, that certain things can only happen in darkness. We are in a time of decay, a time of collapse, a time of endings, a time of sheddings. These are necessary.* > > *We are seeing this last gasp effort to try to uphold the old structures. Keep capitalism going. Keep the stock market inflated. They’re all going to collapse. They have to because the system . . . is unsustainable. Not only in terms of world resources, but just in terms of human capacity to endure that kind of emptiness.* > > *The collapse is happening. I think what we have to do right now is ask ourselves and each other how do we become skillful in navigating our walk in the dark? How do we cultivate imagination? How do we cultivate collaboration? How do we cultivate fields of reciprocity with the Earth, within human and more-than-human communities, so that we’re not extracting more than what can be replenished? How do we cultivate the spiritual values of restraint and mutuality?’* [Collapse isn’t the end of the story](https://gabriellefeather.substack.com/p/mapping-collapse-and-its-alternatives), as Gabrielle Feather recently wrote. Or, as Dougald Hine wrote in [*The Dark Mountain Manifesto*](https://dougald.nu/uncivilisation-the-dark-mountain-manifesto/?ref=foxwizard.com)*:* > ‘The end of the world as we know it is not the end of the world full stop. Together, we will find the hope beyond hope, the paths which lead to the unknown world ahead of us.’ In midwinter solstice, we live within the dark. And the good thing about the dark is that our vision can adjust to *attune* to that which glimmers in the penumbra. New (0ld) ways embeckon, for those of us with the wit to see. Much warmth, *—fw* ### The Future of “Continuity” (of The Machine) 👹 URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/future-with-friends-part-one/ Last updated: 2025-06-17T01:39:13.000Z Carnivorous plants fascinated me as a child. Still do. They offer such a tantalising and sumptuous platform, often optimised for ‘stickiness’ (aka “user retention”). So convenient, too. Of course, by the time an insect realises something’s *not-quite-right,* it’s too late—they’re trapped. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/06/image-2.png) “I knew this was too good to be true.” Image pilfered from [The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/13/the-five-carnivorous-plants-you-thought-triffids-make-believe-waterwheel-plant-cobra-lily-sundew?ref=foxwizard.com) There is a parallel here to artificial intelligence, and many privately owned centralised platforms and services that feast upon your attention and harvest your data (whilst sculpting you into the perfect product). But it can be hard for most of us to *see* the entrapment until it’s far too late. And, even if you *can* see it, it’s hard to know quite what to do. Particularly if all of your friends are on it. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/06/image-1.png) A cobra “light trap” lily from [The Botanic Gardens of Sydney](https://www.botanicgardens.org.au/teachers-and-schools/teacher-resources/primary-learning-resources/carnivorous-plant-adaptations?ref=foxwizard.com) Thankfully, I have friends who can look at the future with both eyes open. Friends with perspicacity and wit enough to see through and past the compelling illusions and false enchantments of our times. [Simon Waller](https://simonwaller.live/?ref=foxwizard.com) is one such friend (and a brilliant speaker, futurist and strategist). I was recently on his wonderful podcast—aptly named [*The Future With Friends*](https://simonwaller.live/the-future-with-friends/?ref=foxwizard.com)—to explore a scenario wherein we *continue,* as we are, into the future. Coming up with a scenario was unexpectedly delightful. My [previous reservations](https://www.foxwizard.com/e5/) were the result of seeing this done so poorly, whereas Simon’s approach aligns closely with my approach to quest-augmented strategy. That is, strategic plans aren’t the point—it’s the plan*ning* that matters. Because here we immerse ourselves in possibility, and which gives us new perspectives on our relationality, deepens our appreciation for the complexity we are in, and grants greater acuity for the weak signals that might lead us to better ways. We approach this conversation in two parts. First, [The Future of Continuity (of The Machine)](https://simonwaller.live/the-future-with-friends/episode-7/?ref=foxwizard.com). Then, [The Future of Continuity (of Life)](https://simonwaller.live/the-future-with-friends/episode-8/?ref=foxwizard.com). Simon’s podcast is so warm and wonderful—and it has in part inspired the relaxed episodes I have enjoyed with our [Kindred Spirits podcast](https://www.foxwizard.com/tag/kindred-spirits/). I have one caveat, before we get into it: [riverside](https://riverside.fm/?ref=foxwizard.com)—the software we used to record the episode—decided to apply some heavy-handed processing on my audio, giving my voice some crackle, with aggressive auto-levelling. I don’t think the software can quite handle two friends having such a good time as Simon and I did—our quips and interjections seem to catch it unawares. So, my encouragement to you is: **watch the video versions**. Or even *listen* to the video versions. It’s a better experience than the podcast, this time. ## The Future of Continuity (of The Machine) 👹 Here we explore what our world might look like if we were to continue on our current trajectory. Here’s the first part of the scenario I wrote and shared with Simon, lightly edited by a shoggoth. #### ****Scenario PART ONE—Within The Infinite Machine** ****Year 2043\. Subject: Ava Ren / aid744446718, Systems Analyst, Core System, Central Habitation Arc** It was Ava’s fourth optimisation prompt of the morning. **“Based on your recent attention lulls, we’ve reconfigured your light-spectrum diet and pushed a new focus playlist. Would you like to accept the recalibrated productivity schema? Recommendation: accept.”* She blinked twice. Confirmed. Behind the curved glass of her pod-suite, the skyline pulsed with warm serenity—just the right hue of digital dawn. Ava hadn’t seen the real sun in years, but the dome renders were exquisite. Her neural sync band adjusted temperature and scent to match her current task set: quarterly harmonisation of narrative compliance systems for the Outer Distribution Zones. The AI—**Companio™*—of the megacorp she served delivered gentle affirmations and translucent data panes, tailored to ease her into flow. **“You’re contributing to a better humanity,”* it cooed, while adjusting cortisol levels through her hydration pack. Ava smiled faintly. She felt good. Optimised. *Seen.* But beneath it all: The Infinite Machine was winning. It pruned outlier perspectives, metabolising dissent into ‘lifestyle upgrades’. It replaced purpose with productivity, and reduced Life to energy so as to beget more energy. Growing so as to grow more. Every act of care was gamified, every word watched, every flicker of thought nudged toward consensus. Life was abstracted into data streams, monitored, monetised, and mined. Outside the domes, the world continued to burn. The climate targets were never met—the world instead chose to ‘accelerate growth’. “Net zero” became “carbon flexible.” Meanwhile, sea levels rose in inches and megacorps rose in power. By 2031, the last pretence collapsed. COP36 was the last Conference of the Parties—“continuity” emerged as the new narrative, groomed and backtested via synthesised data lakes. **Automated Continuity Mandates* was the decree, with entire economies handed over to privately owned algorithmic governors. Climate was no longer the concern—**compliance* was. Optimisation became law. Ava’s life was efficient. Her personal AI anticipated needs, moods, and sub-threshold doubts. Nutrient packs arrived without request. Virtual sunlight followed her circadian rhythms, electrodes stimulated her muscles. Ava’s job was to manage narrative coherence across worker-facing AI interfaces—to ensure no cognitive dissonance reached the lower tiers. The AI could do this without support, but it was found that human guidance would improve its efficacy by at least 4%. People worked harder now—their metrics depended on it. Productivity was self-love. Burnout was reframed as a “consistency gap.” Ava’s *Companio™* updated her behavioural palette daily, nudging her toward peak harmonics. All adaptation dashboards had been absorbed into a single tokenised metric: *Continuity*. Ava’s job—everybody’s ‘job’—was to maintain *Continuity.* Still… something stirred. A message she wasn’t meant to see. Buried in a compliance thread: \> The seed still dreams? She sat perfectly still. The glass adjusted opacity, hiding her sudden stillness from passive gaze analytics. Why was this phrase familiar? **The Infinite Garden*, she thought. She’d heard whispers. No! She *remembered.* Decentralised. Regenerative. Wild. Dangerous. Her AI chirped: *“Anomalous distraction detected. Shall I simulate a brisk walk outside? You have over twenty minutes of time-credit accrued this year.”* Ava exhaled. “No,” she said, throat croaky. “Not yet.” The world I depict here is really one in which the current trajectories are extrapolated. A world of mass extinction, ubiquitous corporate surveillance, the privatisation of governance, extreme wealth inequality, and ecological catastrophe. It was informed via many things, including—but not limited to—my background in environmental science and eco-philosophy, [extrapolations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extrapolations%5F%28TV%5Fseries%29?ref=foxwizard.com) (the sometimes good, sometimes terrible TV series), science-fiction like [*The Windup Girl*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%5FWindup%5FGirl?ref=foxwizard.com) and [*The Hunger Games*](https://www.foxwizard.com/kindred-spirits-e3/)*,* books such as [*Breaking Together*](https://jembendell.com/2023/07/10/breaking-together-for-free-and-my-launch-speech/?ref=foxwizard.com)*,* the last half-decade of becoming [more versed in our metacrisis than I’d like to be](https://www.foxwizard.com/beyond-hope/), and of generally paying attention to what is (and isn’t) happening in our world. The country from within which I write [leads the world in arresting protesters calling for climate action and environment protection](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-12-15/australia-leads-world-in-arresting-climate-environment-activists/104721294?ref=foxwizard.com). ([We jail whistleblowers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWkGmw3xMTU&ref=foxwizard.com) who expose war crimes, too.) You can also lose your job if you are critical of a certain country that is currently under investigation by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity, and for undertaking what is plain for all to see is [a textbook case of gënöcïdë](https://jewishcurrents.org/a-textbook-case-of-genocide?ref=foxwizard.com).\* \* *I’m referencing the Israeli Jewish scholar Raz Segal here, who is an associate professor of Holocaust and gënöcïdë studies at Stockton University. I wrote of this in my [Moral Courage](https://www.foxwizard.com/moral-courage/) piece, 590 days ago. I lost a few hundred subscribers with that post, and some client work, too. So be it.* It is cheaper to pollute than it is to protest pollution in this country. In January this year, Santos spilled around 25,000 litres of oil into the Indian Ocean. [The multi-billion-dollar company was fined $10,000 for it](https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/10000-fine-manifestly-inadequate-for-santos-oil-spill/?utm%5Fsource=chatgpt.com). [Teachers pay more tax than the oil and gas industry](https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/teachers-pay-more-tax-than-the-oil-and-gas-industry/?ref=foxwizard.com). [Nurses pay more tax than the oil and gas industry](https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/nurses-pay-more-tax-than-the-oil-and-gas-companies/?ref=foxwizard.com). [The government also collects more tax from students than it does from the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax](https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/nurses-pay-more-tax-than-the-oil-and-gas-companies/?ref=foxwizard.com). But there’s hope, right? Ha—wrong! 😅 Nah just kidding, there is. 🧡 But it will likely only emerge through the calamity and collapse induced by capitalism—not via capitalism itself, as [Professor Jason Hickel succinctly elucidates](https://jasonhickel.substack.com/p/climate-socialism): > ‘The writing is on the wall. Over the past two years, several major investment firms have [abandoned](https://www.eurotopics.net/en/332815/blackrock-exits-climate-commitments?ref=foxwizard.com) their climate pledges, openly admitting that green transition is not profitable enough for them. This should be a clarifying moment for all of us: capital cannot be trusted to resolve the climate crisis. We are staring failure in the face and careening toward a very bleak future indeed.’ But what happens if we don’t listen to these warnings? What happens if we just Keep Calm and Carry On? Ignore the naysayers, party-poopers and doomsters—just Stay Positive. Accelerate! Continue to place your faith in [The Naïve Progress Narrative](https://www.foxwizard.com/authentic-progress/), billionaires, and megacorps. Well, that’s what this first scenario—and [our conversation](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jG3nltLFuCw&list=PLl0wt6tpIt8AxcLGZOl4-LkVmWAU%5FAcaw&index=1&ref=foxwizard.com)—explores. ### A note on AI scepticism One of the things I relished in my conversation with Simon is that he is one of the rare few futurists who are willing to take a quite sober look at what’s emerging, and where these trends might lead. He’s not drunk on techno-optimism, nor is he the kind of mercenary chameleon futurist that will ride one hype wave to the next, making bold claims like the future is all about \[*gamification!*\] then \[*augmented reality!*\] then \[*remote work!*\] then \[*crypto!*\] then \[*metaverse!*\] then \[*artificial intelligence!*\] then whatever narrative the market favours next. \[*Ultra nationalism!*\] or \[*corporate serfdom!*\] probably. You know by now that, whilst I have worked with teams for the past decade who have been exploring, experimenting, and working with artificial intelligence—I still harbour deep concerns. But these are mostly from a 4th-person (pluralistic and meta-systemic) perspective. From a first-person perspective, AI is mostly great! About a year ago I shared [12 recommendations to help you wisen up about artificial intelligence](https://www.foxwizard.com/wisen-up-artificial-intelligence/). Some of these seem to have [an antimemetic quality](https://www.foxwizard.com/e5/) to them, in that no matter how often I try to share them, the uptake is very low. But it seems to me that there *is* a shift happening in the conference landscape. It tends to follow the hype cycle. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/06/Screenshot-2025-06-17-at-9.06.48---am.png) The Gartner Hype Cycle, as depicted by [dangerlam](https://dangerlam.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) in [**How to Lead a Quest*](https://www.drjasonfox.com/shop?ref=foxwizard.com) Two years ago I wrote a piece on [Artificially Intelligent](https://www.foxwizard.com/artificially-intelligent/) influencers, arguing that we must become *connoisseurs of thought.* The curse of being a good futurist is that you are usually a few steps ahead of the general public (or at least, one would hope). And so the choice is to either be intellectually honest and dash some cold water on the inflated expectations of your audience (all their naïvely projected hopes and dreams), or be mercenary and ‘give them what they want’ (which is: validation, entertainment, and sweet lies in the form of [narrative fallacy](https://ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/the-narrative-fallacy/?ref=foxwizard.com)). I choose to be [intellectually honest (like a fox)](https://www.foxwizard.com/intellectually-honest/). But, as I say, I am heartened to see a shift. My friend, the incredible speaker and strategist [Alicia McKay](https://www.aliciamckay.co.nz/?ref=foxwizard.com) (who has long been ahead of the game) recently wrote a brilliant piece on [*What the AI Bros Won’t Tell You*](https://aliciamckay.substack.com/p/what-the-ai-bros-wont-tell-you)*.* This is richly linked and thoroughly researched. And her message is timely and resonant: > ‘Conferences are high-priced, high-possibility gatherings. Hundreds of powerful people – executives, policymakers, and civic leaders - invest time and money to learn and connect. These people distribute funds, influence legislation, design organisations and shape communities. The room should hum with rich discussion about the future of work, democracy and public life. > > Instead, we get lightweight tutorials and uncritical hype. > > Worse, these crappy keynotes entrench a cultural myth: that technology is an inevitable, unstoppable force. Politicians and communities can only hang on for the ride and watch what happens. > > **I call bullshit.**’ Gosh it’s [such a good article](https://aliciamckay.substack.com/p/what-the-ai-bros-wont-tell-you). One more note about this scenario—[The Future of Continuity (of The Machine)](https://simonwaller.live/the-future-with-friends/episode-7/?ref=foxwizard.com)—and this is important: > ‘We are very systematically betraying the youth.’ This was a line from [Dr. Zak Stein](https://www.zakstein.org/?ref=foxwizard.com), a philosopher of education. [Zak recently shared a conversation with Nate Hagens on *The Great Simplification* podcast](https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/180-zak-stein?ref=foxwizard.com). If you care about children, this is an episode worth listening to. I would even go as far as to say that much of the world is run by adolescent boy-men in adult bodies. Folks seeking to optimise and ‘win’ whatever finite game they are playing—no matter the cost. What we need, more than ever, is folks willing to step up, with integrity, and to take some responsibility. To play a better, bigger, and more mythic role in the infinite game, and the futures we are co-creating. It’s one thing for bugs to get eaten by carnivorous plants—it’s quite another to sacrifice our children to The Machine. That’s [pure MØŁØCĦ shit](https://youtu.be/NOie4GCI40I?feature=shared&ref=foxwizard.com) right there. ### Choosing to not choose Whenever I am working with teams in strategy development, we develop a quiver of options—strategic initiatives we can experiment with, should the right conditions manifest. But there’s a hidden option we have to make explicit—the default option of *doing nothing differently*. The option of simply carrying on, as we are. Reacting to whatever emerges, rather than co-creating. Choosing to not choose is still a choice. And, like all choices, it has implications. This is what part one of our conversation on [*The Future With Friends*](https://simonwaller.live/the-future-with-friends/episode-7/?ref=foxwizard.com)explores. It assumes no mass solidarity movements, no major consciousness awakenings, and no civic uprisings. Gratitudes to Simon for such gracious hosting. I’ll be back with a museletter on part two of this scenario, wherein we focus on *The Continuity of Life* (rather than The Machine). A scenario that depicts a world more curious and kind (even amidst a future that’s grim). Much warmth, *—fw* --- 🦊 I offer [keynote presentations and fireside provocations](https://www.drjasonfox.com/keynotes-firesides?ref=foxwizard.com) for discerning audiences seeking to stay relevant amidst a changing world. It is my talent, and I have [many happy clients](https://www.drjasonfox.com/happy-clients?ref=foxwizard.com). I also host [deep immersions to catalyse enterprise leadership and strategy development](https://www.drjasonfox.com/leadership-immersions-coaching?ref=foxwizard.com). If you seek meaningful progress, strategic differentiation, and the capacity to rise to the complexity of our times—simply email [kim@drjasonfox.com](mailto:kim@drjasonfox.com) to arrange a discovery call. 🧡 ### (Warmly) Kindred Spirits – episode 3 🦊🪽 URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/kindred-spirits-e3/ Last updated: 2026-05-15T01:47:07.000Z ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/media/2025/05/Kindred-Spirits-e3_smol_thumb.png) e10 // Kindred Spirits – e3 🦊🪽 0:00 /3489.149388 1× 🦊 Subscribe and listen on [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/foxwizard/id1645970777?ref=foxwizard.com), [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/2hkJuLE5VMED5rvDqnH4RL?ref=foxwizard.com), and [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeLHJRzrOWo%5FQXluAn65XjHQsoX3IjLvn&ref=foxwizard.com) For quite a few years now I have been signing off my emails with “warmth”. I was never a “kind regards” person—nor “yours”—but I did have a protracted spell of signing off with “hat tips,” back when I was more jolly. But *warmth* has continued to feel good and proper. And warmth is a quality we must both venerate and tend to. It’s a vital element of any quickening magic. In this museletter I attempt to explicate why. First, we warm up. Then we stay warm. And then, long after our time together, the warmth stays with us. Like how a hot water bottle maintains its warmth long after the water has gone cold. This all pertains to the spirit of kindredness—something that we develop via relationality, humour, and warmth. Speaking of… ## Episode 3 of Kindred Spirits is now released Just in time for your weekend. Soon [John Anthony](https://transcend.com.au/?ref=foxwizard.com) and I will have a special dedicated home for the show, but for now it remains nested within the foxwizard podcast. This recent episode was, as ever, a blast. We’re also weaving Easter eggs and shoutouts to our listeners. ### On glamourie In this episode I hazarded forth a mild-yet-persistent vexation I have with the poor use of glamourie magic I see in professional networks. Glamourie is the fae magic of *seeming.* Long time subscribers will know: I don’t mind bullshit—as long as it is *artful*. Bullshit artistry—with naïve knowingness, deployed with enough ironic sincerity to flag that they know that you know that they know that you know it’s all bullshit—is such a vehicle for subtle truths. It’s fun, too. Bullshit, *on its own*—bleh. I’ve had enough of that. I’m paraphrasing from a previous post—[Intellectually Honest (like a fox)](https://www.foxwizard.com/intellectually-honest/#bullshit). \[…\] bullshit is technical philosophical term, originating from an essay in 1986 by the philosopher [Harry Frankfurt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry%5FFrankfurt?ref=foxwizard.com) (who passed away \~two weeks ago) titled ‘[On Bullshit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On%5FBullshit?ref=foxwizard.com).’ > *The bullshitter differs from both liars and people presenting the truth with their disregard of the truth. \[...\] A person who communicates bullshit is not interested in whether what they say is true or false, only in its suitability for their purpose.* ([source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On%5FBullshit?ref=foxwizard.com#cite%5Fnote-:4-8)) Frankfurt believed bullshit to be [a greater enemy of the truth than lies are](https://insidestory.org.au/harry-frankfurts-warning/?ref=foxwizard.com). Which is perhaps why the particular vexation we explored in this episode—the exquisite, paradoxically-generative tension of intellectual honesty and mimetic fitness (or: of authenticity and authority)—was so sumptuous. Well, for me at least. But I am quite sure it’s a tension that many of us grapple with as we navigate the oscillations betwixt contexts. We are—all of us—required to be shapeshifters. We are shaped via the relational contexts we dance within.\* A mistake I often make is treating everyone as *peers*—it is something that, in my heart of hearts, I believe to be true. But in reality if I do not *attune to context,* I leave many people baffled and confused. \* *I also want to say: I know how weird it is to see a friend you know well go ‘influencer mode’. My cringe at that—and loathing at myself—is something that has taken a long time for me to reconcile. One hopes for an element of ‘authentic constancy’ that holds true across contexts—but we must also allow ourselves (and our friends) to have the mercurial fluidity to occupy different spaces in different aspects and forms.* ### On gramarye This episode also has us revel in gramarye—the magic of *being*. I’ve pilfered these terms from Patrick Rothfuss’s phenomenal book *The Name of The Wind*—but all myth, magic and mystery is itself shapeshifting and syncretic. And all good authors are merely channelling deeper wisdoms. Gramarye is why some objects can become enchanted with attentive care and use. “Things That Patina” is something both Kim and I look for when considering any material acquisitions. *Will this stay with us for a long time? Will this accrue character over time? Is it enhanced or diminished with use or wear?* I have a pair of selvedge denim jeans I will soon need to retire. I’ve had them for close to a decade, and they have been repaired over half a dozen times.\* They have accrued *character*—which is why I am so reluctant to part with them. \* *Fun fact, my local atelier [Urahara](https://urahara-store.com/collections/denim-repair-service?ref=foxwizard.com) offer “free lifetime repairs” for their products—a service I have enjoyed for many years now.* Just recently, I acquired an ancient indigo *boro noragi* from an artist friend’s garage sale. There’s something about honouring both craft and *time* that deeply appeals to me. And, speaking of time, of the illustrations Kim made for *The “Choose One Word” Ritual of Becoming* is the [*kasa-obake*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kasa-obake?ref=foxwizard.com)—a kind of [*tsukumogami*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsukumogami?ref=foxwizard.com). Look after an umbrella for at least 100 years and it may yet become one! ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/05/image.png) Illustration by [dangerlam](https://www.dangerlam.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) ### **Whisky is gramarye** Gramarye magic you can *imbibe*. And in this episode we enjoyed a dram from *The Balvenie Peated Cask*. From the [wolfman](https://wolfman.com.au/products/81?ref=foxwizard.com) (no affiliation)— > In 2001 a heavily peated batch was distilled at Balvenie and left in cask until full maturity. The casks that had originally held the peated liquid had become infused with the smokey profile. Master Distiller, David Stewart, decided to experiment by filling them with 17 Year old Balvenie for a short period. The result is a stunning fusion of restrained, sweet peat that otherwise remains true to Balvenie's distinctive house style. This whisky is like a palimpsest. Just as writing on a pad of paper can leave a subtle imprint, so too can the whisky the cask previously held. It’s reawakened a desire within me to sample Tasmanian peat. Because, you see, Scottish peat—especially from Islay—tends to be composed of decomposed heather, moss, and coastal grasses. It sports marine influences of iodine, seaweed and brine. It also burns hot and dry, imparting intense smoky, medicinal and ‘phenolic’ aromas (that adhesive ‘band-aid’ smell). But Tasmanian peat is formed from decayed sassafras, man ferns and ancient myrtle. It lacks the maritime salt and kelp of Islay, and burns cooler. This apparently yields a sweeter, earthier and more herbaceous kind of ‘campfire’ smoke (as distinct from what could be described as ‘tyre-fire’). The vibe is—again, apparently—more *eucalyptus, dark chocolate, bush spice, leather, and smoked tea*. Some of my best memories happen around bonfire and campfire smoke, and so it is a delight to imagine what this might evoke. The Balvenie Peated Cask sure brought JA and I back to a shared early childhood memory! As ever, I hope you [**enjoy the episode**](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txOw6X4YYXI&ref=foxwizard.com). It’s been fun to experience this new friendship blossoming. JA is coming over for dinner this weekend, so mayhaps we record a little bonus episode—let’s see. --- ## Always Be Warmening And by ‘warmening’ I mean: *a deliberate yet gentle nurturing of relational warmth. Distinct from heating, it invites emergent coherence rather than abrupt change.* > *Jason!—foxwizard, dr. fox, whoever you are—why do you insist upon these neologisms. Why can’t you just say ‘warming’, dammit!* I’m glad you asked. ### Warming and Warmening —linguistic tasting notes Sup and savour both words in the mouth of your mind. They hold relationship to both the words ‘acting’ and ‘enacting’. The presence of the *en* prefix is potent. So. *Warming* is—to me at least—straightforward, linear, and direct. Transactional. It denotes the simple application of heat and/or increase of temperature. There’s a *functional* simplicity here: something cold becomes less cold. It is discrete, observable, and measurable. Warming is thus more of instrumental word—a causal relationship between effort and result. *Warmening,* however, holds a deeper, subtler connotation. Consider how “enacting” implies something *coming into being through relational or contextual engagement* rather than mere direct causation. To *enact* something is to *bring its presence* through embodied participation, performative and emergent rather than strictly linear or transactional. In this sense, when I say *warmening* I am attempting to invoke the gentle, subtle, relational emergence of warmth. Not something imposed by simply turning the heater on—but coaxed and cultivated from within the relational fabric itself. Warmening gestures to the warmth arising organically through shared relational resonance. Warmening is thus *participatory, reciprocal,* and *integrative.* Rather than simply ‘raising temperature,’ warmening quickens latent potentialities, gently nourishing emergent patterns and coherence. This is why I say that warmening is a necessary precursor and accompanying quality to any *quickening magics.* But I suppose I ought define these terms, too. Most often when I say magic people—laypeople, not you—tend to think of magicians on stage. And that *is* a kind of magic. But what I am describing here is all together more subtle and profound. *Magic* is—if I may be so bold—emergence.\* Particularly emergent phenomena that occurs at a level of complexity ‘beyond our ken’. (Ken being: one’s range of knowledge or understanding). Thus *so much of life* is magic—all of it, really. And yet there are forces that seek to reduce complex (magical) phenomena into simple (mundane) explanation. The mundane has its merit—we can’t always hold complexity, not all the time. Perhaps not most. But so much is lost *when we forget the magic.* \* *Of course, [Layman Pascal’s definition of Xagick](https://xagick.substack.com/p/do-you-believe-in-xagick) still reigns supreme. “Xagick is the focused use of somatic and affective stimulation, intentionality & semantic suggestiveness to responsively organize emergent, contextualized patterns of human experiential unfolding into “enchanting” zones of transjectivity and synchronicity. Through adaptation to those zones, sapient beings can cultivate a new indigeneity and organic hierophantic agency relative to subconscious, unknown and/or unintelligible forms of causality and communication. These procedures operate via particular neurophysiological states. They also involve a sensitized retro-teleological reconsolidation of our multiple intelligences in the present moment such that we orient toward hyper-futures that are interpreted as already implicit within the indefinite imaginal extension of our currently expressed gestures of meaningfulness.”.* Thus quickening, at least how I use it, is not merely “acceleration”. What I am talking of here is a catalysing ‘alchemical invitation’ into emergence. Quickening refers to the subtle and intentional infusion of dynamism, receptivity, and creativity, enabling latent potentiality to blossom organically. Quickening magics thus animate the invisible textures of relationality, complexity, and imagination, turning possibility into living actuality without forcing or fracturing. This cannot be achieved without warmening first. ### Warmening—first, last, always *Always* be warmening. Cold silence has a tendency to atrophy any sense of compassion. Or so I hear.\* Cold analysis—replete with its narrow focus and metric obsession—is blind to [warm data](https://batesoninstitute.org/warm-data/?ref=foxwizard.com) and the greater gestalt. \* *Yes, [indeed](https://www.heartsupport.com/music/therapist-reacts-schism?ref=foxwizard.com).* If you find yourself situationally called to *enact* the role of leader, facilitator, or friend—and if you are seeking to evoke the magic of emergence (and to not merely collapse things into the mechanical/predictable and known), you’ll first want to *attune*. To attune is to invite the quiet suspension of *assumption*, instead inviting a deeper quality of listening and felt-sensing into relational resonance. It’s a sensitive aligning of one’s awareness with the subtle intersubjective currents and emergent perspectival rhythms already present, gently sensing potentials without forcing immediate clarity. In this spacious awareness, patterns softly surface amidst the nebulosity. The suspension of assumption is vital. As Sonja Blignaut writes of in [*7 lessons I've learnt consulting as a “complexity practitioner”*](https://www.morebeyond.co.za/7-lessons-ive-learnt-consulting-as-a-complexity-practitioner/?ref=foxwizard.com). > “Every context is unique—I can't assume I know what is going on or have any answers. No matter how much experience I have in a given context (e.g. culture change or agility) or industry (e.g. financial services) I cannot assume I know what I am dealing with before I interact with the system. I cannot afford to have an hypothesis before I engage as that may blind me to what is really going on in that particular system. It always pays to show up with humble curiosity and to remember it's a partnership—don't show up as the expert.” Thus the way we practitioners show up is by first *sensing* into the relative warmth of a context. If it’s cold, cool, or tepid, then we work to warm things up a little. In practical terms, this might mean: changing context and going for a walk, literally making some tea, enquiring as to how people are. It looks like *caring.* It does not mean bringing ‘heat’ or ‘fire’. So many conferences I have been to try to warm up an audience by playing loud, upbeat music—attempting to ‘force’ an energetic transference. But no one wants to be forced. The best DJs are *attuned* to the audience. They ‘read the room’ and *adjust the conditions* appropriately. Because this is always about *tending to the quickening magic of emergence*. If a context is *too heated*—if folks are too energetic and frazzled—it might be that you need to lower the temperature a little. To have folk breathe a little deeper, and to take things a bit slower. You don’t want folk burning out. I guess what I am trying to say is: quickening magics work with warmth—never burning but continually inviting the nuanced dance of becoming. I share all of this, because it pertains to a question a fellow subscriber, Mila, asked. It pertains to Trickster, whom I probably dare not speak on behalf of, yet will attempt to offer some perspective anyway. I also hope to dedicate some time to this with my co-host, JA. > Listened to two episodes of Kindred Spirits; catch the muse letter as time permits; have had a limited sampling of written and video content you've released. I heard a few points expressed here and there that I'd love to hear you expound upon, particularly in a future episode of KS w/ JA. You talk about Trickster role and effect; of disruptions, although often as subtle or gentle disruption. You also talk of honoring the law of the community, expressly in the indigenous sense. So my inquiry of curiosity is the edges where these interact. I'm not in disagreement with anything specific you've expressed. My inquiry has to do with the responsibility of Trickster for collateral damages. Nudging into contemplation, reevaluation and a turn of the perceptual kaleidoscope is one thing: bashing up the place ideologically is quite another. And yet, often those serving in the Trickster dynamic are either unaware of their force and strength, or fail to take responsibility for their wrath. Often minority contingents take the brunt of their swirling winds, with little preemptive strength or effective recourse. Your dissection would likely be intriguing. I am grateful for this question, and much of my preamble has been to bring us here, to this point: ### Warmly welcome Trickster You do not want to treat him coldly. Trickster makes this world. And he arrives when things become too stagnant, predictable and staid. When systems (and people) become too stable and sure of themselves. Too cold and calculated. But I’m not sure that Trickster ever takes responsibility. And it’s a blurred line for me too, personally, as a complexity practitioner. To [throw back to Sonja Blignaut](https://www.morebeyond.co.za/7-lessons-ive-learnt-consulting-as-a-complexity-practitioner/?ref=foxwizard.com): > “Changing the system is not my responsibility. I need to keep reminding myself that I can't change the system: the pattern we are dealing with as well as the responsibility to change it remains the client's responsibility. Or in other words—they own both the problem and the solution. My role is to help them see and think differently, to be a mirror, to challenge and sometimes to teach or mentor and introduce new tools and method. But in the end they remain the owners of the process, I can't control what they do with my input or advice.” And yet we must always take responsibility, right? Partly. I know I am responsible for whatever affect I manifest.\* It’s not my sole responsibility, but I am responsible for my part. \* *Yes, affect. So many folk are quick to pounce on this. “Don’t you mean effect?” Nay—I mean affect, in a technical psychological sense.* Thus when I come into a context I am aware that there is almost always a subtle weave already happening within the complex mycelial web of relations at play. And this web is, more often than not, tended to via ‘minority contingents’ who—as you are right to point out—often take the brunt of any disruptions that may occur. Why do minority contingents often play this role? Because they often live within multiple contexts. They live in multiple worlds, synthesising different cultures (systems of knowledge) and languages (ways of seeing/expressing) into being. They often also have more direct experience with injustice and fewer privileges than their hegemonic-normative colleagues might experience. This usually expands empathetic and relational acuity. Hence: the weaving, and tending to the conditions generative of harmonising forces. This is also why Mila’s sentence here is so important. > “Nudging into contemplation, reevaluation and a turn of the perceptual kaleidoscope is one thing: bashing up the place ideologically is quite another.” I would never advocate one come in cold, drunk on the arrogance of one’s own perceived importance. And bashing an ideology is a great way to strengthen it. We must instead be far more subtle and subversive. I would also never advocate that one call themselves ‘a trickster’—I did this in the past, and probably the internet still remembers and haunts me with this. But I have since come to learn—particularly after listening to *Trickster Changes Sides*—that this is not the wisest way to relate to Trickster. Mila is attuned to this distinction, of course. As she writes, *“those serving in the Trickster dynamic are either unaware of their force and strength, or fail to take responsibility for their wrath.”* The caution Mila shares here is wise. For it is much as Josh Schrei shares in the exquisite Mythic Body episode [*Trickster Jumps Sides*](https://www.themythicbody.com/podcast/trickster-jumps-sides-re-issued-for-tricky-times/?ref=foxwizard.com)— > “Trickster arrives in culture to refresh it, but the means by which he does that sacred work — particularly in cultures that have kept him down — aren’t always pretty. Trickster's not a 'good guy'. He’s also not a 'bad guy'. He’s a force of nature. And so a society needs to honor Trickster — to feed him, to make sure he is well-tended to. But you also don’t necessarily want to sit him on the throne either, or he might just tear the whole place down with him. Because when Trickster comes to disrupt, one thing’s for sure, he’s not going to disrupt on your terms. So for those celebrating the current upheaval, Trickster reminds us — be careful with that. Trickster’s not on your side. It feels empowering when he’s with you, cackling along as you take a chainsaw to the old ways. But then... just like that, you’re on the other end of the chainsaw. And Trickster’s revving it up with a grin, looking right at you, at your sacred cows, with a gleam in his eye, ready to make some tartare or some crudo out of your preciously held beliefs." Trickster is not on your side. But of course—I still want to remain on good terms with him: hence the warmening. 😅 --- I hope this has served to elucidate and perhaps ameliorate my ongoing appreciation for the role Trickster plays, and the quickening magics we might attend to should we wish to cultivate the conditions for emergence. I do wonder if I have—once again—taken you on a meandering scenic route to what we might otherwise simply summarise as: **Let warmth be your guiding beacon.** [Move quietly and plant things](https://www.foxwizard.com/move-quietly-and-plant-things/). Move gently and *listen* for the subtle cues of *that which seeks to emerge.* And then, when the timing is just-so—enact. --- Thank you for reading, as ever. Actually—especially now, in this world replete with easy answers and ready distraction. Much warmth, *—fw* ### 🏮 e9 // How to Host a Strategy Offsite URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/e9/ Last updated: 2026-05-15T01:47:09.000Z ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/05/e9_fw_strategy_offsite_square_1.png) ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/media/2025/05/e9_fw_strategy-offsite_thumb.png) e9 // how to host a strategy offsite 0:00 /5372.551837 1× #### Chapter timestamps 00:00 Strategic offsites—an introduction 06:13 Emergence and relevance-realization 09:02 Navigating complexity in strategy 11:54 The role of the facilitator 15:02 Context first 17:52 The dynamics of leadership 21:10 Why I like career executives 23:54 The Hedgehog and the Fox 27:09 Established vs. emergent domains 29:56 Understanding incentives in strategy 33:12 Leadership capacity and capability for complexity 36:06 Challenges of enterprise change 50:37 The balance of life 51:13 Narrative strategy 52:10 Strategic innovation 54:57 Enthusiastic collegiality 55:27 Tending to the conditions of emergence 01:00:31 Navigating group dynamics 01:01:54 A 3-phase approach to strategy offsites 01:03:21 Priming for strategic offsites 01:05:10 Shared context 01:07:23 Building trust and rapport 01:09:22 Engaging with skeptical participants 01:12:43 Creating warm relational foundations 01:15:52 Revealing the True Agenda 01:17:49 Utilising frameworks for strategy 01:20:03 Encouraging creative sabotage 01:24:41 Facilitating generative tension 01:27:24 Transitioning to execution mode 01:30:10 Ending with gratitude 01:35:43 The Essence of a Successful Strategy Offsite 🦊 Subscribe and listen on [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/foxwizard/id1645970777?ref=foxwizard.com), [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/2hkJuLE5VMED5rvDqnH4RL?ref=foxwizard.com) and [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeLHJRzrOWo%5FQXluAn65XjHQsoX3IjLvn&ref=foxwizard.com) If you work with people—and you sense that the context within which you operate is changing—you’ll want to revisit your strategy from time to time, so as to ensure it continues to make sense. A strategy offsite is one element of how strategy might be developed. In this essay and podcast, I show you how to do it well. I have written about this in many ways—[*where does strategy come from?*](https://www.foxwizard.com/quest-strategy/), alluded heavily to it in [*How to Lead a Quest*](https://www.drjasonfox.com/shop?ref=foxwizard.com), and recently had some of my perspectives featured on [Change Signal](https://www.foxwizard.com/change-signal/). Eight years ago I wrote [*Get Away to Get Ahead—the many benefits of a strategic offsite, and how to not screw it up*](https://medium.com/the-ascent/get-away-to-get-ahead-the-many-benefits-of-a-strategic-offsite-2f708f191f89?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* The article still mostly holds. Over the years, I’ve worked with *c-suite executives of multinationals, vice-chancellors and their teams, founders of medium-sized enterprises, heads of research organisations, skunkworks project leads, military, police, law firms, agricultural innovators, FMCGs, franchise chains, co-ops, banks, fintechs, big pharma, med-tech, insurance, regenerative orgs, decentralised autonomous orgs, governments, big consulting firms*—and more. I have [many happy clients](https://www.drjasonfox.com/happy-clients?ref=foxwizard.com). Listing it like this feels a bit mercenary. But my point is this: there are *patterns* you’ll come to recognise. Things that tend to hold apt, true, and useful across multiple contexts. Over time, these have become **sensibilities**—a kind of ‘meta-savvy’. I’m going to attempt to share this with you. I offer this in the trust that you receive it not as a ‘mandate’ to follow—for there are no rules—but rather: as a set of potential ‘ways’ you might provisionally integrate into your own approach, if and as and when they may serve. I don’t have ‘a’ way; but I have found ways that have worked for me. It’s as Lewis Hyde exemplifies of Trickster: > Better to operate with detachment, then; > Better to have a way but infuse it with a little humor; > Best, to have no way at all—but to have instead the wit constantly to make one’s way anew from the materials at hand. > — *Lewis Hyde*, [*Trickster Makes This World*](https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/eb90b0f3-e7e4-4804-b928-d2f32881db73?ref=foxwizard.com) If you’ve followed my work, you’ll already know the distinction between [established and emergent domains](https://www.foxwizard.com/established-emergent/). ### Strategy within established domains 🦔 Strategy in established domains presumes a relatively stable, certain, simple, and clear context. Here, precedent abounds. You have “gold standards,” “best practices,” and plenty of credentialed consultants with well-worn industry-specific maps to follow. The work, then, is largely in attending to *known-knowns* and *known-unknowns*. The bias is toward continuity and incremental improvement. A strategy offsite under this regime will be a mostly formal affair intended to inform the wider team of plans, goals, targets and scenarios, along with the analysis that went into them. This is strategy for “closed” systems. ### Strategy within emerging domains 🦊 Strategy within *emerging* domains usually presumes a relatively volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous context. Within this world, you don’t have much precedence to draw upon, nor any established ‘best practice’ methods to turn to. It’s pioneering work; uncharted, and unprecedented. There *are* consultants, of course—but the most valuable among them don’t trade in pre-packaged expertise. Their experience arises from a bricolage of heuristics, intuitions, and patterns discerned across many contexts. It’s less about mastery of “content,” and more about [stance](https://www.foxwizard.com/stance-mindset/) and [sensibilities](https://www.foxwizard.com/quest-mindset/)—a kind of *poise* suited for fluid sensemaking amidst both known and unknown unknowns. The bias is toward emergence, epiphany, and relevance-realisation. A strategy offsite under this regime will be a mostly informal affair intended to provide contexts for astute and bright minded questers to come together and sensemake ways forward. It requires the cultivation of [scenius](https://www.foxwizard.com/quest-strategy/), collegiality, mutual enthusiasm, encouragement, respect, and shared rapport. It also demands active participation in the cultivation of what I call “in-house intelligence.” Rather than outsourcing strategy to external firms, the capacity to sense, interpret, and adapt is grown from within. This is strategy for open, porous, permeable systems. ## The Hedgehog and the Fox Isaiah Berlin’s essay, [*The Hedgehog and the Fox*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%5FHedgehog%5Fand%5Fthe%5FFox?ref=foxwizard.com), remains an apt parable for contrasting dispositional preferences. To paraphrase: > In the forest, the fox devises a thousand clever ways to outwit danger. It watches, learns, shifts shape. The hedgehog, slow and simple, knows only one defence—curl into a ball of spines. And yet, when the fox attacks, the hedgehog’s one strategy often proves effective. In essence: *the fox knows many things; the hedgehog knows one big thing*. Much of the world is comprised of hedgehog disposition—thus I need to be careful with what I say here, lest ye bristle. I love hedgehogs. Chances are, you work with hedgehogs (you might even be one!). Most of the world is shaped by them—and rightly so. Hedgehogs are structured thinkers. Deep specialists. Systematisers of complexity. They bring coherence and conviction to enterprise. You want hedgehogs at the helm—*especially* in roles like CEO or CFO. Hedgehog-style thinking can be understood as a mode of cognition and sensemaking that prizes coherence, unity, and a *singular* narrative arc. The world would not function without them. But. But in *emergent* contexts, the hedgehog’s strength—their singularity—can become a constraint. Strategy offsites for hedgehog-led teams often become performative theatre, with scripted roles. We go through the motions. We follow best practice frameworks. We map scenarios, and do our SWOT analyses (over-emphasising strengths, glossing over weakness, identifying predictable opportunities and threats). We manufacture confidence from premeditated plans. And then we feel assured that we have everything thought through, creating an illusion that holds well in stable contexts—but falls apart in the face of actual change. The fox, on the other hand, thrives in change. And while the world may be built by hedgehogs, it is *navigated* by foxes. Allow me to contrast a little further. Much of what I share here was originally inspired by provocations detailed in [an ancient essay by Venkatesh Rao](https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2014/02/20/the-cactus-and-the-weasel/?ref=foxwizard.com). *I trust that you’ll remember that life is always more complex than such binary constructs as this-or-that. But I’ll also trust you know that sometimes it’s* useful *to create false dichotomies anyway, because of what it reveals. You are never fully one thing or another—hermetic yin-yang, and all that—yet still; there may be patterns to discern, and tendencies to notice.* --- ### 🦔 The Hedgehog *—monist, systematiser, ideologue* **Core Disposition**: - Seeks *unity, coherence, certainty* - Filters complexity through a *single organising principle* (e.g. [capitalism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism?ref=foxwizard.com), [reductionism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductionism?ref=foxwizard.com), [individualism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Individualism?ref=foxwizard.com), [materialism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism?ref=foxwizard.com), etcetera—aka: CRIME 😎🆒) - Prefers *grand narratives* and universal explanations - Values *depth over breadth,* often pursuing mastery in one domain **Strengths**: - Brings *clarity, confidence*, and *conviction* - Skilled in *institution-building, ideology formation,* and *paradigmatic anchoring* - Can inspire movements via a compelling *singular vision* and *disciplined focus* **Challenges**: - Often *blind to complexity, anomaly, or nuance*. Distrustful of novelty (where’s the evidence?), emergence (let’s wait until things are settled), and [mystery](https://emergencemagazine.org/essay/navigating-the-mysteries/?ref=foxwizard.com) (there must be an explanation!) - Curiosity can be limited to *confirmation-seeking* within a bounded domain - May become *dogmatic, brittle, or lost* when their One Big Idea no longer maps to reality - Vulnerable to *narrative ossification* The risks of narrative ossification is partly why I developed [The Ritual of Becoming](https://www.cleverness.com/word?ref=foxwizard.com) (so that we might reintroduce necessary disruption into our own mythopoetic unfurling). As I’ve written elsewhere, [negative capability](https://drjasonfox.medium.com/negative-capability-the-antidote-to-calcified-experience-80f9f237aeda?ref=foxwizard.com) may be the antidote to calcified experience. In summary: hedgehog is who you want in most contexts, for most of the time. When things are changing, and when you’re questing amidst emergence—you’ll want to have the fox with you, too. --- ### 🦊 The Fox *—pluralist, bricoleur, trickster* These rapscallion characters, what with their wily ways and irreverent wit! It’s fox you look for when you turn to [the safety of trouble](https://www.bayoakomolafe.net/post/the-rise-of-tricksters?ref=foxwizard.com) in times of change. I wrote of [tricksters, jesters and fools](https://www.foxwizard.com/kindred-spirits-e2/) just recently. And it’s probably worth remembering: in this podcast and post I am sharing how to host a strategy offsite with *a bias towards emergence* here. When you read the following, imagine I am highlighting qualities *within you*. Qualities you may possess but may not always embody or express. **Core Disposition**: - Embraces *ambiguity, multiplicity,* and *emergence* - Draws on *a bricolage of insights*, tools, heuristics, and stories - Rejects reductionism and single-lens ideology for *pragmatic emergentism, contextually-attuned* - Inquiries are *non-linear and often playful*, improvising and intuiting **Strengths**: - *Highly adaptive* and well-suited for complex, changing environments - Skilled at *polymathic lateral thinking,* improvisation, and fluid strategy - More likely to see *the pattern behind the pattern*, without reduction - Keen sense-making *acuity for weak signals*—can follow threads others can’t yet see **Challenges**: - Can suffer from *fragmentation, paralysis,* or *lack of conviction* - May *fail to inspire or lead* when clarity and coherence are demanded - Oft-times *too clever, baffling, and diffuse*—missing the moment for decisive synthesis - *Exasperating within closed contexts* where goals and expectations are tightly constrained—in other words, not good at “getting shıt done” - *Tactical cowardice*—even if in service to strategic courage—can diminish trust Foxes are needed—particularly when the old maps fail. But foxes don’t tend to stick around when things need to be *established* in actuality—they dwell in the liminal and emergent. --- So—hedgehog and fox. Two archetypal orientations. Both useful. Both limited. The key is knowing when to work with which disposition. For a strategy offsite? You’ll want to heed to the fox. Especially if you are questing amidst complexity and change. ## Can we talk about how to host a strategy offsite already?? Ha! Sure. But remember: > **Momentum inhibits reinvention.** I know—you want to cut to the chase. And this is *precisely* why I’m taking my time with you. I promise, it’s not just to vex. So far, we’ve looked at hedgehogs and foxes. We’ve explored the difference between established and emergent domains. But I could just as easily draw the contrast between: - finite and infinite - machine and garden - closed and open - artificial and living - complicated and complex - metric and mythic - mastery and mercuriality - mission and quest - literal and lateral - fixed and fluid - reductionist and emergent You get the idea. Unless you—and your organisation—can adopt a disposition toward the latter of these pairings, the best you’ll ever achieve is predictably underwhelming, incremental success. In other words: *no true strategic differentiation or advantage*. Okay, let’s dive in. ## Questions to ask before hosting a strategy offsite Before you consider hosting a strategy offsite, it is helpful to know: - **Who’s calling the offsite?** What’s their role? What’s at stake for them? How are they incentivised? And—broadly speaking—are they more hedgehog or fox? - **What’s the context—established or emergent?** Are they genuinely developing strategy? Or is it already set, and this is just a space to discuss, digest, test, or challenge? Or—let’s be honest—is this all strategy theatre? - **What level of strategy are we talking?** Product strategy? Business model strategy? Operating system strategy? Enterprise strategy? Something more existential? - **How do incentives flow here?** Who benefits from what? Are we dealing with an invested leadership team with long-term skin in the game? A salaried team with performance bonuses? Tensions between divisions? Or an external firm brought in to 'do strategy'? - **What’s the level of discourse they can hold?** Does the leadership team have the capacity for meta-rational, meta-systemic thinking? Or will they want to “keep it simplistic and stupid”? (as I believe the saying goes.) The answers to these questions will shape your stance, tempo, and approach. Now, as a brief aside, let me describe the ideal client. ## Working with sleeper agents + career executives Your dream clients are “meta-aware” (for desperate want of a better term). Folks who have enough ironic distance so as to discern the: - **meta-narratives** they operate within (internally—aka “the Kool-Aid,” plus the subversive thread; within their industry; and within the wider world—essentially: the ability to take a 4th-person perspective); - **how power works** within their own sociopolitical context (including informal and hidden kinds of power); - **the ‘capital’ available** to affect change (financial, social, political, etc). They also have a sense of the ‘myth’ they temporarily reside within. > *“Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent. It depends in part upon the myth-making imagination of humankind. The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in. He must reflect what is projected upon him. And he must have a strong sense of the sardonic. This is what uncouples him from belief in his own pretensions. The sardonic is all that permits him to move within himself. Without this quality, even occasional greatness will destroy a man.”* —Frank Herbert, *Dune* **Sleeper agents have this awareness.** These are folk who have been [quietly](https://www.foxwizard.com/move-quietly-and-plant-things/), patiently, working their way towards positions of influence and authority. This is a long-term play, where the real challenge is not losing yourself along the way. If they do become [a warlock](https://drjasonfox.medium.com/warlocks-at-work-71a63e204569?ref=foxwizard.com), they do so with their wits about them. I’ve worked as accomplice to sleeper agents, and via their savvy have been placed—at just the right moment in time—in contexts where I can be their lever to enable “big change” to happen. Like that one time a team with a very large investment portfolio decided to divest from weapons manufacture and the fossil fuel industry.\* Sleeper Agents are driven by more than just profit—there is a deep sense of purpose they bring to their work. \* *Admittedly, technology that accelerates our metacrisis, ecological collapse, and the self-termination of our civilisation and species—fossil fuels, weapons manufacture, artificial intelligence, etcetra—are currently very “profitable” investments.* **Career executives** are also a delight to work with. They may have started as a sleeper agent, and then—after revealing themselves and affecting Great Change—taken themselves to the wider market. These folk often have [meta-rational and meta-systemic](https://metarationality.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) sensibilities, and are able to embody [fluid mode](https://meaningness.com/fluidity-preview?ref=foxwizard.com)—able to adopt hedgehog *perspectives* whilst maintaining fox-like fluidity. The result of this is that they can make unprecedented progress on complex goals that would be otherwise impossible for others to achieve. They can quest, and venture beyond the default.\* This is partly because they are usually hired to get results, and aren’t inculcated to established biases or limiting beliefs within an enterprise. Influence, authority, investment and remit serves as a catalysing force. \* *These folk are the target audience for my book, [How to Lead a Quest](https://www.wiley.com/en-us/How+To+Lead+A+Quest%3A+A+Guidebook+for+Pioneering+Leaders-p-9780730324720?ref=foxwizard.com).* But then here’s what happens once they have made significant progress—the fox within them gets restless. And so: 1. **They get bored**—they achieve the thing, the patterns become learned, and the magic of the first 18–24 months has waned. This is when they start looking for their next role. 2. **They get booted**—either because they’ve left a mess in their wake (the unintended consequences of narrow goals), *or* the embedded political creatures have become jealous and engineered the ousting. 3. **They get burnt**—enterprise change is hard. Fatiguing. There’s a magic and momentum that can be channelled—but sometimes, it can burn you out. Boredom or booting will normally soon see these mavericks work their magic in a new context. Becoming burnt out will often have them quietly resume a sleeper role—or a different career—until the timing is right once more. I love working with sleeper agents and career executives. I serve as advisor-accomplice: basically helping them look cool(er) and sound smart(er), and sometimes coming in to help facilitate complex stakeholder entanglements, or to catalyse key decisions and the beginnings of new chapters (whilst also playing a part in the performative elements required to mobilise large groups of people). ## Fascinating plug—I’ll pass—but now, back to hosting a strategy offsite Very well. I will get to describing how I approach strategic offsites, but let’s remember: [strategy doesn’t come from strategic offsites](https://www.foxwizard.com/quest-strategy/). It comes from *relationality* and *scenius.* The best way I have worked with clients is in a full quest-augmented strategy (as I write about in [*How to Lead a Quest*](https://www.drjasonfox.com/shop?ref=foxwizard.com)). This takes three months at a minimum—but ideally it’s a process that takes 18 months to have its own cycles and momentum. Here we set up the relational contexts for participatory learning and sensemaking in emerging domains, cultivating in-house intelligence and wisdom with a core innovation team bolstered by rotating secondments, But sometimes, all you’ve got is *a day*. And if someone has called for a “strategic offsite” (air quotes)—this mercenary wizard isn’t going to say no! I love this work. Anything that lets us dance amidst emergence—on the edge of knowledge, in the confluence of divergent perspectives, in service to future relevance. A previous client of mine—and absolute legend in her own right—recently reached out to me with the following question. > ‘\[…\] When you're facilitating strategy off-sites: How much are you a facilitator and how much do you give inspiration/ input/ challenge them on the content? > > I just facilitated a workshop for a segment team and found myself well equipped to take them through the thought process - but totally lack the intuition/ ideas to bring "out of the box" thinking in. Luckily we had someone who's good at that stepping in on occasion to add that novel spin that'll help them set themselves apart from the competition. > > Would be curious about your approach/ role in such situations!’ Here’s how I replied: > As for strategy offsites, I’d say that for the first third I’m offering provocation and frameworks to deepen the conversation (along with pattern-disrupts and frame-breaks to keep the more sceptical/senior/jaded folk on board). > > Then, for the second third, I’m mostly facilitating—but listening closely for where tension could be held longer, and where ideas might be challenged. The goal here is to resist premature collapse of the possibility-space, and to create the conditions of generative ambiguity, so that unforeseen, novel, and truly emergent options might reveal themselves. But this requires that things ‘cook’ for a bit. > > Usually, in this middle third, “The True Agenda” reveals itself—along with hidden commitments and conflicting values. > > Then, in the final third, I’ve hopefully made myself redundant and am focused on staying out of the way, letting the group self-organise and flow. That answer was far too simplistic. Hence: this post. But at this point I’m beginning to worry that this post is too lengthy for the average reader’s attention span. **I shall now summon and employ the services of a shoggoth to metabolise my loquacious writing into a more succinct form. 🐙** Note: *I’ve edited the shoggoth edit, but just wanted to flag it, in case you’re wondering why the tone has shifted. You can garner more nuance from the podcast or* [*video*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjlEJrW-y1s&ref=foxwizard.com) *itself.* --- \~\~\~\~\~ ### Before the Offsite Ideally, there’s already been groundwork laid: - A cultivation of options leading in. - A shared sense of the *real* questions. (Usually non-obvious and entangled.) - Some priming—perhaps a hand-written letter, or a private podcast—to prepare for the transition. - High-trust leadership who’ve cleared time to be fully present. (Operational distractions have a constricting effect on thought.) And ideally, the location is designed for flow—low distractions, good regulation, a sense of occasion. When I help organise these, we ease in gently. People arrive on day one, settle in, enjoy an early dinner, and set the context. We weave in the place—walks, sidebars, surreptitious settings, perhaps a late-night bar session on day two. But let’s assume you’re coming in fresh. A one-day offsite. No prep. Maybe even some strategic pantomime on the cards. In this case: - During your **briefing call**, ask your client: *What do you want people to think, feel, and do differently as a result of this session?* Also: *Any essential deliverables? (And how essential are they really?)* - Be wary of imposed outcomes. They often guarantee a well-executed, underwhelming success. - Pay attention to the **energetics of the room**. How are people arriving? What’s the space doing? What needs tweaking? --- And with that: we begin. There are three acts. ### Act I: framing, provocation, and subtle disruption The first act is about *opening the field*. Here, your role is to set the tone, establish context, and build rapport. You’re offering provocation and frameworks to deepen the conversation—while gently pattern-breaking and frame-shifting, especially for the more sceptical, senior, or jaded executives. Above all: help people feel safe, seen, and settled. There will be sceptical folk. There will be distracted folk. There will be shy and intimidated folk. There will be posturing folk. That’s okay—you’ll work your magic to have everyone level and warm. Early on, I often introduce the notion of quests, and provide distinctions between meaningful progress (that which brings us closer to future relevance) and the *delusion* of progress. I’ll also often bring in frameworks like the [Business Model Canvas](https://www.strategyzer.com/library/the-business-model-canvas?ref=foxwizard.com) (Strategyzer) or the [Operating System Canvas](https://medium.com/the-ready/the-operating-system-canvas-420b8b4df062?ref=foxwizard.com) (The Ready). These offer lenses through which we can ‘see’ the business model and operating system we’re in. From here, we hunt for *incoherencies*—things the team or business does that don’ make sense. Or *won’t* make sense across multiple possible future contexts. This sets the scene for the second act. ### Act II: holding tension and courting emergence This is where things deepen. Your role now is to attune and attend to the unfurling dynamics. You are to listen closely for where tension could be held longer, where things are too neat, and too practiced. You’re sensing when to jilt the momentum, when to invite dissent, when to let silence simmer. This act is about *resisting* the premature collapse of possibility, and the emergence that beckons. We are creating conditions of *generative ambiguity*—a space where something truly novel can surface. But for that to happen, things need to *cook*. This can be uncomfortable—that’s okay. It’s also largely the point. It’s during the second act that “The True Agenda” reveals itself. Hidden commitments surface. Conflicting values make themselves known.\* The polite mask of organisational harmony slips—enough to reveal the real work. \* *I’m referencing Robert Kegan and Lisa Lehay’s [Immunity to Change](https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/e7fe9fae-2fd8-4d9e-a48c-50bf69fd5cc9?ref=foxwizard.com) concept, here.* If you’re doing this well, there will be moments of *palpable* tension, which is good signal—far more worrying when things remain passive and polite. At the same time, you’re not the inquisition. It’s more *evocation* than inquisition, anyway. At this point, your role becomes subtly ‘shamanic’. I say this with appropriate humility, irony, and reverence. But really—you’re holding the field, attuned to all the subtle energies, non-verbal cues—and novel entities that seek to emerge. You have, by now, a deep acuity for where the conversation needs to go. Profound things can happen here. Simmering feuds are surfaced. Long-held assumptions are transformed. Perverse incentives and misaligned metrics come into view. And someone finally gives voice to the thing everyone’s been circling around—but no one dared name. Or—if the team has healthy scenius, and already has a deep sense of [fellowship, camaraderie and rapport](https://www.foxwizard.com/quest-strategy/), with mutual enthusiasm, encouragement and respect—then this is where genuine novel pathways surface. And it feels like a jam session, where all leaders are the contributing artists. This is where *emergence* happens. Because, remember: emergence occurs when a system reaches a certain threshold of complexity. It is through the process of intentionally tending to the conditions of emergence—rising to the complexity of our times—that allow novel pathways to reveal themselves. Your job is to bring the team to that threshold, and to keep the door open. Not to force an outcome, nor synthesise prematurely—but to hold the generative tension and immersive ambiguity long enough for something new and novel pathways to manifest. > “Trickster is among other things the gatekeeper who opens the door into the next world; those who mistake him for a psychopath never even know such a door exists.” – *Lewis Hyde*, [*Trickster Makes This World*](https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/eb90b0f3-e7e4-4804-b928-d2f32881db73?ref=foxwizard.com) ### Act III: dissolve into flow By now, if all has gone well, your primary job is to step aside and allow things to unfurl. You’ve done the work of framing, disrupting, and deepening. Now you (mostly) trust the group to carry it forward, offering light nudges here and there, where appropriate. Your presence shifts from catalyst to caretaker. You tend the tempo, keeping the energy flowing. But mostly: you stay out of the way. This is when the group starts to self-organise in the way of the wondrous disruption you’ve wrought. The insights emerge sideways, and everyone has their voice. The novel threads are picked up and woven into the tapestry of strategy. There’s no guarantee we’ll ever get to this sublime moment, of course. Brilliant emergence is the goal—but underwhelming success is always the fallback. Oh, and also—here’s the neat thing about this work: **you don’t get to claim credit**. You helped create the conditions, yes—but the outcome is emergent. It belongs to the whole. This is one of the gifts of complexity work. All [complexity practitioners](https://sonjablignaut.medium.com/7-lessons-ive-learnt-consulting-as-a-complexity-practitioner-b123fea4fb02?ref=foxwizard.com) know this. Besides—you don’t want to be the kind of consultant who creates dependencies. Good facilitators makes themselves redundant. Good leaders do the same. And just as a good teacher wants to be surpassed by their students, and we complexity practitioners want to stand in *humble awe* of higher-order emergence. \~\~\~\~\~ --- ## It’s as easy as that Ha! Not really. But maybe—sort of. ![](https://media.tenor.com/FxqOaKR_HXEAAAAC/spock-the-simpsons.gif) It might seem effortless—but a lot of work goes into being *prepared to wing it.* And by winging it I mean: being present and attuned to emergence—not slaved to a script or tight agenda. This is why you won’t see much in the way of ‘content’ from me—other than light scaffolding. The content is itself emergent. Also: a strategy offsite is never ‘just a workshop’. It’s an experience that *might* take us to and through a *threshold*—and into a whole new chapter—if we attend to the conditions of emergence. Not all know such thresholds exist. Groomed within containers, some of us can’t see beyond the increment. And—that’s fine. This is not for them. Not yet. Not until they are ready. What I’ve shared here—in this post and in the [video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjlEJrW-y1s&ref=foxwizard.com)/podcast soliloquy—is a kind of mythopoetic scaffolding. I can’t tell you *exactly* what to do—no one can!—but maybe this will help you *sense into* what’s needed. If even a few threads here have sparked an inkling, you’re well on your way. The rest, as always, is ꧁emergent꧂. If you want to go deeper, the podcast version of this piece dives into more nuance and story. Or you can [reach out](https://drjasonfox.com/contact?ref=foxwizard.com)—especially if you're a fellow fox, perspicacious hedgehog, mercenary executive, or sleeper agent holding the line within a system not quite ready to change (but trembling at the edges). Until then: may your questions be fruitful, your colleagues collegial, and your context conducive to emergence. Warmth, [*dr. fox*](https://drjasonfox.com/?ref=foxwizard.com)◊[*foxwizard*](https://foxwizard.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) 🧙🏻‍♂️🦊✨ ### Kindred (trickster!) Spirits – episode 2 🦊🪽 URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/kindred-spirits-e2/ Last updated: 2026-05-15T01:47:10.000Z ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/media/2025/05/KS_e2_final_thumb.png) e8 // Kindred Spirits – e2 🦊🪽 0:00 /3308.277551 1× 🦊 Subscribe and listen on [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/foxwizard/id1645970777?ref=foxwizard.com), [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/2hkJuLE5VMED5rvDqnH4RL?ref=foxwizard.com), and [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeLHJRzrOWo%5FQXluAn65XjHQsoX3IjLvn&ref=foxwizard.com) Dear kindred spirits (that’s a collective noun for *you*), [the latest episode of our little pop-up (video) podcast](https://www.foxwizard.com/kindred-spirits-e2/) has just dropped. Once again, your favourite wizard-and-bard duo dance in conversational reverie in service of *emergence*. I jokingly suggested that “career limiting is just the beginning” for this little podcast. And *of course* I do this as a wily trickster—sometimes we achieve more by not making the thing *the thing.* But I do sometimes wonder—am I being wisely foolish here, or not quite? ## Trickster’s accord Long-time subscribers will know I love the trickster, the jester, and the fool. And my co-host and new BFF [John Anthony](https://transcend.com.au/?ref=foxwizard.com) is right there with me in this. But it takes a *sophisticated* audience to see what we are doing here. (Yes, that’s me flattering you). It reminds me of this line from Lewis Hyde’s treatise [*Trickster Makes This World*](https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/eb90b0f3-e7e4-4804-b928-d2f32881db73?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* > “Trickster is among other things the gatekeeper who opens the door into the next world; those who mistake him for a psychopath never even know such a door exists.” Not that I am worried about being confused for a psychopath, but I do fear that terminally serious listeners might not pick up on what we are exemplifying in these episodes of Kindred Spirits. Lewis Hyde further observes that: > “Most of the travellers, liars, thieves, and shameless personalities of the twentieth century are not tricksters at all, then. Their disruptions are not subtle enough, or pitched at a high enough level. Trickster isn’t a run-of-the-mill liar and thief. When he lies and steals, it isn’t so much to get away with something or get rich as to disturb the established categories of truth and property and, by so doing, open the road to possible new worlds.” Again, not to say that we are ever *lying*—if anything, we are being more truthful here than most would be familiar with. A lot of truth is said in jest. A *lot*. But there’s something to be said—even of the personalities of the twenty-*first* century (the one we’re in now)—about the *pitch* of disruption. Much of the disruption in our current times is far too *base* and *unsubtle*. It’s messaging and content pitched smack-bang within [the Overton window](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton%5Fwindow?ref=foxwizard.com), groomed for the algo, the highest [TAM](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total%5Faddressable%5Fmarket?ref=foxwizard.com), and/or whatever will be popular and viral. Where does this leave us? Fixated upon the obvious and/or outrageous, and blind to possibilities—both good and ill—beyond the default. Where are the [subversive](https://www.foxwizard.com/subversive/) quickening magics? This is what Trickster (and trickster-spirit) brings. *“I suppose that one of the less obvious signs of civilizational decline is the rise of tricksters.”* [Bayo Akomalafe writes](https://www.bayoakomolafe.net/post/the-rise-of-tricksters?ref=foxwizard.com). *“Tricksters are stewards of queer hope, coaxing us away from safe grounds to the monstrous ambiguities of being more fully present. The disturbing mist in the way. The comedic is not merely about laughter, it’s about accounting for the awkward. Acknowledging limitations. Thwarting the tried and true. Perverting the obvious.”* There was a time I once revered Trickster so much that I thought to ‘be a trickster’—and that messed me up. Much as Josh Schrei talks of in [*Trickster Jumps Sides*](https://www.themythicbody.com/podcast/trickster-jumps-sides-re-issued-for-tricky-times/?ref=foxwizard.com). What we need, instead, is to remain in *right relation* to Trickster. To ‘microdose chaos’ (as I discussed with my friend Simon in [an earlier episode](https://www.foxwizard.com/e4/) of my regular podcast)—rather than seek to suppress or deny it. Honour trickster-spirit (lower-case ‘t’)—but don’t ever claim to be Trickster. Trickster is not loyal to your side. Nor any ‘sides’.\* \* *But one might consider Trickster to be loyal to Life and the infinite game, for ‘only that which can change can continue’.* The mythologist Martin Shaw, whomst it seems I continue to fanboy, [adds further nuance](https://martinshaw.substack.com/p/the-trickster-the-temple-the-mount). In the wake of Trump being re-elected last year, Martin wrote: > “Whilst outrageous fibbing, astonishing revivals of fortune and showy displays can be part of the Trickster’s arsenal, what in myth they ultimately serve is something that refreshes the culture. They say in every lie is a little bit of truth, and maybe that tiny bit – the mythic need to shake, rattle and roll the centre – is what some folks sensed was needed. This isn’t an endorsement. > > What I do know from folktales is this: never, ever make Trickster the boss. Especially not some feral derivative like this one. In their most esteemed function they are marginal figures, sacred outliers designed to shake things up when needed. The best of them freeze when assembled at the centre of the room. A real Trickster’s power lies in their nose and tail, not anything too centralised. You put a real sacred Trickster in the centre and they implode. They need authority to bounce off, to react to, not to *be it*.” It’s a clown world, now. It has been for some time. And I feel that there’s an important point here: much as we might wax lyrical about trickster-like sensibilities and the role such has in ensuring the conditions for continuation, emergence, and renewal—this is not a *centring* ploy. I’m not suggesting that leaders ought to “be more trickster,” but rather: to make room for Trickster. To have some accord. And to know that, sometimes, we must ‘run to the safety of trouble’. Trickster is not the hero; nor the leader. These might be *roles* that are played, as the situation calls for. But Trickster is much more interested in seeding the conditions that renew what ‘leadership’ might yet become. ## Some disambiguation, why not I’ve thrown a few related-yet-distinct terms around here. Let’s refresh. **Tricksters** are boundary-walkers and threshold dwellers. They disrupt fixed orders not for disruption’s sake, but to reveal the constructedness of categories. To loosen ossified patterns, and open novel ,emergent paths. Their transgressions are a sacred play, unsettling the known to make space for what has yet to be imagined. **Jesters** operate within the court—they are licensed subversives. Their truth-telling is cloaked in humour and irony, allowing them to voice the unspeakable without direct reprisal.\* They trouble power from within,using satire to bend the frame of the dominant narrative. \* *Power that integrates the jester becomes more adaptive, more self-aware, and more capable of reflection and course correction. But power that exiles the jester—dismissing critique, banning levity, surrounding itself with sycophants—grows brittle, blind, and dangerously convinced of its own righteousness.* **Fools** dwell in liminality—between ignorance and insight, awkwardness and awe. Their innocence serves an archetypal function: *naïveté allows wisdom to surface obliquely,* sidestepping the ego’s defences. The fool invites us into a form of unguarded openness that the rational mind resists. **Clowns** are avatars of inversion, often arising during carnivals or moments of social excess. They channel the raw, anarchic forces that simmer beneath the civilised mask; exaggerating affect, grotesquing the familiar, and making the absurd visible. Where tricksters open paths and fools stumble into truth, clowns reveal the hollow theatre of consensus reality by pushing it to farce. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/05/jester-clown-fool-trickster-quadrant-1.png) crafted by foxwizard with a little help from a shoggoth (note: this model doesn’t include the 3rd and 4th dimensions that Trickster traverses) Whilst I respect the role, I’m still not sure how I feel about clowns. Whereas the disruptions of tricksters and jesters are subtle and intentional, the fool and the clown don’t harbour the same level of awareness. But at least with the fool, fewer people get hurt. ## What to do in this clown world? *“We would rather be ruined than changed,”* writes W.H. Auden in [*The Age of Anxiety*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%5FAge%5Fof%5FAnxiety?ref=foxwizard.com)(1947)—a poem whose eclogue form deals with the quest to find substance and identity in a shifting and increasingly industrialised world. *“We would rather die in our dread than climb the cross of the moment and let our illusions die.”* Tricksters and jesters\* *see through* the illusions. Fools don’t know and clowns don’t care. \* *And wizards, bards, witches, rogues, and any of us who are paying attention.* Is there wisdom in this? Maybe. To survive these times we must do at least two things at once. 1. **Keep your wits about you.** Ha, one day I’ll write a museletter without sharing this line. But it remains as relevant as ever. We are in the liminal, now. The future is not what it used to be, and the recent-past is not a reliable guide. We must have the wit and acuity to see the pattern behind the spells that bind us, so that we might be free to move as needed. Or at least, to have some wiggle. 2. **Cultivate ‘islands of coherence’.** Thermodynamicist and Nobel laureate Ilya Prigogine coined this term to describe the emergence of *order* out of chaos in complex systems. Coherence—a state in which things ‘make sense’—can emerge even amidst global instability. Thus when a family, a company, a country—or any coordination-container—finds itself amidst chaos and collapse, regenerative responses can sprout up in localised, contextual, and relational ways. You’ll note: neither of these dispositions is about creating order or chaos. We do not *impose* order from the top down. Rather, we dance *with* chaos, and cultivate the conditions through which order is more likely to *emerge.* Many complexity practitioners are inspired by the work of Ilya Prigogine. *“The main character of any living system is openness,”* he says. Part of the sacred work I do in my role as [Dr. Fox](https://drjasonfox.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) is to come into seemingly closed systems and open them up. To play my part, in cohort with the client and their crew, to *enliven* the culture. In [*Order Out of Chaos*](https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/8a7684d5-eb28-4dcd-afa9-3d4c5ee8fd4c?ref=foxwizard.com)(published in 1984), Prigogine says: > “Entropy is the price of structure.” We complexity practitioners sometimes like to make a relatively informal distinction between *negative* entropy and (positive) entropy. Entropy (or positive entropy) is the tendency of all things to drift toward disorder, dispersal, and dissolution. Left untouched, all structures decay, all patterns blur, and all warmth bleeds into cold. But *life* is a sacred defiance. Life is an emergent, *organising* force. It weaves wholeness from flux, form from flow. Life metabolises chaos, drawing energy from the sun and sustenance from the soil, transmuting lower-order mineral and energetic input into higher orders of complexity, coherence, and renewal. Negative entropy—or *negentropy,* if you want to sound fancy—is when something becomes *less* disordered. It’s not so much the *absence* of disorder, but rather: the active evocation and instilling of *aliveness.*\* \* *I spoke of such in my appearance on [At Work with The Ready](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-i3Vegb9VJI&ref=foxwizard.com) last year.* In order for something to become less disordered, energy must be used. Thus Life requires energy and sustenance to continue. Just so: [egregores (aka organisations)](https://www.foxwizard.com/warlocks-at-work/) require effort to be invested, in order to grow and be sustained. Life is not a machine that resists entropy—it is a phenomenon that *dances* with it. But we often forget this, in our pursuit to optimise and ‘perfect’ the machine. But Trickster will remind you. In a big way, if you haven’t yet come to an accord. Here’s another quote from [*Order Out of Chaos*](https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/8a7684d5-eb28-4dcd-afa9-3d4c5ee8fd4c?ref=foxwizard.com). > “One measure of a book is the degree to which it generates good questions.” Ha! I love this. No surprises here—questions are wondrous. Just as [this comic celebrates](https://kiriakakis.net/comics/mused/a-day-at-the-park?ref=foxwizard.com). Related, Sangeet Paul Choudary asserts: [*when answers get cheap, good questions are the new scarcity*](https://platforms.substack.com/p/when-answers-get-cheap-good-questions). But allow me a brief moment to lament: too few clients appreciate the generative power and enlivening affect of good questions. They want the clear, concrete, straightforward, safe, comfortable, familiar answers that are oh-so-easy to implement. They daren’t look beyond the Overton window. And, for a time, this will serve. That is, of course, until Trickster comes a’knockin’. I’m very grateful for [the many happy clients](https://www.drjasonfox.com/happy-clients?ref=foxwizard.com) I have, though. Folks who would rather cultivate a culture of enlivened folk, curious and astute, warm to the ways of complexity. Yes, that was a subtle plug for my Mysterious and Important Work (which mostly pertains to developing the meta-rational capacities and complexity-congruent sensibilities amidst enterprising leadership teams). Similarly, the spirit [John Anthony](https://transcend.com.au/?ref=foxwizard.com) brings. And most of my friends in this work, each in their own way. Which reminds me—I have gone *way* off-track here. This was meant to be a short introduction to [episode two of kindred spirits](https://youtu.be/yL1or1Alz6o?ref=foxwizard.com). Ha! ## Kindred Spirits, episode two By the time we are three episodes in, we will have our stride. We were both a bit sleep-frazzled for this episode—JA had literally just welcomed their second daughter into the world (huzzah for Luna Anthony! 🥰). But our semi-lucid alacrity translated to more laughter and fun. Again, this episode is two trickster-kin talking shop about *the same thing* I mentioned W.H. Auden was writing of in [*The Age of Anxiety*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%5FAge%5Fof%5FAnxiety?ref=foxwizard.com)(1947)—*“the quest to find substance and identity in a shifting and increasingly industrialised world”.* Only here we are talking about substance and identity in a distraction economy replete with optimised influencers, artificial intelligence, and myriad forms of audience and platform capture. Specifically, we dive into creativity itself. We also sample the *Rare Seppeltsfield Tawny Cask* from [Lark Distillery](https://larkdistillery.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) (the OG Tasmanian distiller). Pour yourself a dram and join us in your own time, if you like. Maybe I should share the shoggoth summary with you? 🐙 ****Keywords:** **voice, community, vulnerability, creativity, authenticity, influence, whiskey, expression, connection, identity* ****Summary:** In this engaging conversation, John Anthony and foxwizard explore themes of voice, identity, community, vulnerability, and creativity. They share personal experiences and insights on navigating the complexities of self-expression and the importance of authenticity in their work. The discussion also delves into the nature of influence, the impact of memories associated with whiskey, and the journey towards living the poem you were born to be. Haha, shoggoths do love to “delve.” And they don’t quite know the difference between whiskey and *whisky.* Oh, and it’s always “engaging”, isn’t it? It is! Wondrously so. Anyways, enjoy the show! Find [John Anthony](https://transcend.com.au/?ref=foxwizard.com) and meself on the socials and tell us nice things if you enjoyed it—we thrive on your encouragement. Finally, as a playful experiment: if you have a question you’d like us to explore on the next show, simply email [fox@foxwizard.com](mailto:fox@foxwizard.com) (and/or [jatranscend@gmail.com](mailto:jatranscend@gmail.com)) with the subject line “A Question from A Kindred Spirit” and we’ll do our best to weave it into the next show. ✨ Thanks for reading, [watching](https://youtu.be/yL1or1Alz6o?ref=foxwizard.com), and listening! In my next museletter I will be sharing an offering for fellow infinite players (be ye an internal/embedded/sleeper agent—or an external/rogue consultant agent). Stay tuned—something special this way comes. Warmth, *—fw* 🦊 Do you have a friend whomst you suspect might be familiar with fox magics and the sensibilities of an infinite player? Do you know someone who has the poetic acuity to find and live the path betwixt? If so, huzzah! I’m so happy for you **and—*mayhaps you’d like to forward this museletter to them with a small note of appreciation. They might also like to [subscribe](https://foxwizard.com/museletter?ref=foxwizard.com). 🧡 ### 🐙 Love & paradiastoles in the time of shoggoths URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/paradiastoles/ Last updated: 2025-06-30T18:48:28.000Z You know what a [shoggoth](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/shoggoth-with-smiley-face-artificial-intelligence?ref=foxwizard.com) is, right? Just so. Well, a paradiastole is a form of euphemism in which a positive synonym is substituted for a negative word. Shoggoths love paradiastoles. It’s not a writing hack—*it’s a rhetorical device.* Once you notice them, you’ll see them everywhere. Some examples: - *It’s not manipulation—it’s strategic persuasion.* - *It’s not cowardice—it’s prudence.* - *It’s not stubbornness—it’s steadfastness.* - *It’s not disloyalty—it’s flexibility.* - *It’s not plagiarism—it’s “derivative remix culture.”* If you’re wanting to pass off your artificially intelligent writing as *authentically* intelligent—mind thy paradiastoles. They are one of the most obvious tells. Alternatively, just flag where you have summoned a shoggoth to write on your behalf. There’s no shame—so many are doing it now. But maybe we can be honest about it. Because there’s a weird thing where, as a reader, I sometimes begin to think: *wait a minute.* *Was this essay simply conjured by artificial intelligence? I thought it was authentic intelligence!* Not to be a purist—use the tools. But just know that sometimes optimisation is anything but. It’s like you’re about to make love with someone you admire. You close your eyes. It feels good—but after a few minutes something feels a little odd. You can’t quite put your finger on it, but it’s not quite right. You open your eyes and see that it is a robot that’s humping you. *What the heck!* you say. The person you thought you were making love to then appears from behind the curtain, remote control in hand. “Ah! But you were having a good time, were you not?” *Well yeah—but I thought it was you!* To which they say “It *was* me! I engineered the prompts for this simulacrum-machine. I had to be quite precise. It took some effort to optimise,” they huff, turning to face the window, arms akimbo. *But this is not love-making!* you say to their back, putting your clothes on. Slowly, almost mechanically, they pivot and turn to towards you, saying “It’s not love making—it’s optimised tactile simulation!” ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/04/but_I_prompted_it_shoggoth.jpg) Yikes this was dark (thanks, chatGPT). btw – if AI-artwork makes you feel uncomfortable, that’s probably a good thing. I feel bad for this piece, but I’ll keep it because it illustrates my point. Looking past the now powered-down simulacrum-machine to the person you once thought you admired, you realise: they’ve gone full cyborg. The slop wasn’t the machine—the slop was within *them,* all along. A shoggoth just amplified it. “💡 Everyone’s talking about AI—but few are using it to its full potential,” they say, advancing upon you with dead eyes and an all-too-chipper voice. “Here are **10 moves** you can make **right now** to get **10x the results**. 🚀” You flee, and don’t look back. This isn’t just escape—it’s liberation. Wait, what? --- Okay, it’s not *quite* that bad. As a wizard I am known to summon a shoggoth from time to time. But I would never pass off a shoggoth’s work as my own. It’s like this one time I had breakfast at a hotel. I knew the coffee would be a heinous affront, but to my delight I saw “Freshly Squeezed Orange Juice” on the menu. *I’ll have a glass of that, please!* How good is freshly squeezed orange juice. There’s a deep nostalgia in this for me. My nanna had one of those levered presses; a big bulky single-function metal mechanical monstrosity. The kind of thing that could be passed down through many generations. (Side note: I still have my nanna’s cake mixer. Cue: “*They don’t make things like they used to”*—but really; they don’t. More money to be made in planned obsolescence). A glass of fresh orange juice on a summer’s day after playing in the park = magic. So, I was quite looking forward to my glass of freshly squeezed orange juice. I asked for it with no ice, as it tends to get in the way of the experience. But lo! When the glass arrived it was, ostensibly, a glass of orange juice. And yet: too cold for something freshly squeezed. I could tell by the condensate on the glass. I took a sip and it was... fine. Passable. But did I detect a hint of concentrate? I accept that soil types vary across bioregions and thus the flavour of local fruits will undoubtedly differ. And so, I had my juice and took it in my stride. Yet, as I left the restaurant, I saw one of the kitchen crew pouring orange juice from a plastic bottle into a glass filled with ice. They placed the bottle down and there it was, printed in the cheerfully disingenuous corporate font: “Freshly Squeezed® Orange Juice”. It wasn’t freshly squeezed—*it was Freshly Squeezed®.* It’s not the end of the world. I just sigh in slight dismay. *Of course* it’s like this. How silly to think it would be the real thing. --- I share this simply to encourage us all to lean into our authenticity. Your voice, your quirks—*the way you naturally write and speak*—are beautiful. I love it. And if you’re using AI to help you flesh out an idea or edit your writing, sure. Okay. That’s fine. But if you’re using AI to write for you, as you, and you aren’t flagging it, then you risk evoking a sense of Mild Disappointment amongst your more astute readers. Folks who thought they were reading something authentic, and instead realised, ah: it’s artificial. It’s still orange juice, it’s still coitus. But it’s not *freshly squeezed.* It’s not love. This, left unchecked, sends us on a path towards bland homogenisation—and further from the wild, messy and organic intimacy that imbues all-of-life with vitality. **So: check your paradiastoles!** Don’t let artificial intelligence eclipse your authentic intelligence. Or: do—but don’t be surprised when your work no longer *resonates*. Honour the magic within you, and the hearts of those who read you. *—fw* ### Kindred Spirits 🦊🪽 URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/kindred-spirits-e1/ Last updated: 2026-05-15T01:47:11.000Z ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/media/2025/04/Kindred_Spirits_e1_thumb.png) e7 // Kindred Spirits—a popup podcast 0:00 /3765.159184 1× 🦊 Subscribe and listen on [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/foxwizard/id1645970777?ref=foxwizard.com), [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/2hkJuLE5VMED5rvDqnH4RL?ref=foxwizard.com), and [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeLHJRzrOWo%5FQXluAn65XjHQsoX3IjLvn&ref=foxwizard.com) Hark and come hither. *Soften ye orbs* by the fire and join my good friend and fellow infinite player [John Anthony](https://transcend.com.au/?ref=foxwizard.com) and meself whilst we share a whisky and talk shop (sans AI slop). ### Keeping the abacus gelatinous I don’t know about you, but when I listen to podcasts I am mostly interested in *emergent* thinking. I don’t particularly want to hear an expert auto-dispense pithy soundbites with smooth [podcast voice](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/02/25/arts/podcast-voice-sound.html?ref=foxwizard.com) and manufactured authenticity. I want the *thinking-in-draft.* I want to sense into what they’re paying attention to. What unresolved questions and tensions are alive in them. How are they orienting, who they are reading, and what they are listening to. What they are *unsure* of, and how they are going about *figuring* their way through. And the great thing about podcasts is that they are infused with what Nora Bateson might call [*warm data*](https://batesoninstitute.org/warm-data/?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* The pauses, the tonality, the hesitations, the humour, the preamble, prehensions, and perambulations—all of this is richness that can’t be adequately captured and distilled by artificial intelligence. You need only the *authentic* intelligence you already have within you. Such podcasts provide a sense of context, subtlety, and lived nuance. If you’ve your wits about you, you’ll know when someone is circling a thought not out of confusion, but care. You’ll be able to recognise when something said less as a conclusion and more as a doorway. This isn’t about consuming neatly packaged hot-takes, but rather being a companion to someone in the midst of figuring. It’s a kind of cognitive intimacy that invites your own sensemaking to stir and rise with it. A good podcast episode doesn’t just inform; it *entangles*. ### Rogues know each other And this is exactly what [John Anthony](https://transcend.com.au/?ref=foxwizard.com) (JA; bard, shapeshifter and pretend sage) and myself had in mind when we recorded this podcast for you. We wanted you *to be there with us* as we hang out, share a dram, and enjoy an emergent conversation as we talk shop and share what’s on our minds. As fellow infinite player. JA and I both perform an odd role in the work we do. Some sort of attuned combination of *wizardly bardic trickster jester wise fool magics.* There’s *sense* amidst the nonsense, if you know what to listen for. This begins as a little popup podcast folded into the foxwizard podcast proper. Once we get a few more of these happening we might release it as its own thing—let’s see what happens. In the meantime, if you want to join us as we share a dram, the whisky we sample is the *Mizunara Wood Reserve* by Ichiro’s Malt. 🥃 And now I shall summon a shoggoth to tell you about the show. 🐙 ****Keywords:** **conversation, whiskey, authenticity, personality, social media, mindfulness, storytelling, presence, networking, connection* ****Summary:** In this engaging conversation, John Anthony and Jason Fox explore the nuances of connection, authenticity, and the art of conversation. They delve into the significance of personality constructs, the role of whisky in mindfulness, and the importance of being present in social interactions. The discussion also touches on the challenges of navigating social media, the power of storytelling, and the essence of kindred spirits. Through humour and reflective insights, they emphasise the value of emergence and the beauty of shared experiences. \[*Bah! Yawn, that was the most boring summary ever. See? The AI don’t get it. You will.*\] ### Enjoy the show! I’m normally an audio guy but this time [the video is best](https://youtu.be/fqcgA95I0j4?ref=foxwizard.com), if you can manage it. If you like it, find [John Anthony](https://transcend.com.au/?ref=foxwizard.com) on [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-anthony-10a23548/?ref=foxwizard.com) and [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/ja.transcend/?ref=foxwizard.com) and tell him you can’t wait to be able to subscribe to his newsletter. 😉 And in case you missed it in my last email, [this episode of Michael Bungay Stanier’s Change Signal](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/are-you-blinded-by-the-change-obvious-dr-jason-fox/id1793189341?i=1000703692290&at=1l3vpUI&ct=LFV%5Ff862e305495201087f1ba86c7a3865fa&itsct=catchall%5Fpodcast%5Fep&itscg=30440&ls=1&ref=foxwizard.com) podcast does apt tribute to the wily fox magic I espouse. If you also approach strategy and change with an acuity for *emergence*—listen, and feel affirmed. --- Thank you so much for reading. Remember, you are most welcome—*encouraged,* even—to drop me a quick note at fox@foxwizard.com 🧡 Much warmth, *—fw* ### 🦊 Is it time to ‘Change Signal’? URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/change-signal/ Last updated: 2025-04-22T06:23:58.000Z Ahoy friends, I have **a small but important change** to announce—a change from whence this signal comes. Starting very soonish, [the museletter](https://www.foxwizard.com/museletter/) (and all epistles from [foxwizard](https://foxwizard.com/?ref=foxwizard.com)) will come from fox@foxwizard.com—a new sending address. My next email will have the words *“Kindred Spirits”* in the subject line. And by golly, it’s a good one. You won’t want to miss it. Especially if you want to eavesdrop on two friends talking shop (sans AI slop). Hilarium on a stick. Quite the trick. So—if you don’t see anything from me in the next day or so, please check your spam or ‘promotions’ folder and rescue the email from there. ## Help my ravens find you The museletter is sent to you via “The Unkindness” (the collective noun for a conspiracy\* of nearly 10,000 ravens I have befriended over the years). \* *Another collective noun for ravens, icydk.* These ravens deliver my musings to you, all through the interwebs. They’re actually very friendly, and will let you pat them. But I’m worried they might soon lose their way—and that you may never hear from me again. **Adding ‘fox@foxwizard.com’ to your favourite email addresses will help.** You can also send an email directly to fox@foxwizard.com—I would *love* to hear from you. Even if you want to just say a quick hello, please do. In fact, if you do this *before* I send the next email tomorrow, it’ll *tremendously* boost the chances of my letters reaching you. I’ll also begin removing cold subscribers, too. So... if you haven’t opened my museletters in a while then, ha, well—you wouldn’t know. 😅 Savvy? Ace. Now—load up this episode from [Change Signal](https://changesignal.lnk.to/podcastGT!EP9JF?ref=foxwizard.com)[ with Michael Bungay Stanier](https://changesignal.lnk.to/podcastGT!EP9JF?ref=foxwizard.com) ([apple](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/are-you-blinded-by-the-change-obvious-dr-jason-fox/id1793189341?i=1000703692290&at=1l3vpUI&ct=LFV%5Fb5238fd9d3205825ee155f24014e7fed&itsct=catchall%5Fpodcast%5Fep&itscg=30440&ls=1&ref=foxwizard.com), [spotify](https://open.spotify.com/episode/3v7Q7SxLCS0cqXcbwXHNCO?go=1&utm%5Fsource=Owned%5FGuest&utm%5Fmedium=none&utm%5Fcontent=f5c2ca51-400b-405e-8eea-b44569dbe916%5FEP9JF%5Fnone%5Fnone%5Fnone%5Fnone%5F20250210%5Fdirect%5Fchange-signal%5FCA%5Fchangesignal.lnk.to%2Fpodcast&nd=1&dlsi=e7094195dbdd4ff0)) ## 🎧 Change Signal *“If you’re leading change in organisations, this will be your favourite podcast.”* I share a deep friendship with [Michael Bungay Stanier](https://www.mbs.works/?ref=foxwizard.com) (MBS)—yes, the multi-trillion times bestselling author of [*The Coaching Habit*](https://www.mbs.works/coaching-habit-book/?ref=foxwizard.com) (and many other brilliant books), Rhode Scholar, speaker, and fellow fox-like trickster. [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-21-at-12.56.04-pm.png)](https://changesignal.lnk.to/podcastGT!EP9JF?ref=foxwizard.com) Subscribe to [Change Signal](https://changesignal.lnk.to/podcastGT!EP9JF?ref=foxwizard.com) and leave a nice review Eight or so years ago I met with MBS in Toronto after speaking to an audience of many thousands for the *Human Resources Professional Association’s* bi-annual event. It was a frigid evening, and I wasn’t feeling particularly sociable. I didn’t really know MBS back then, other than by his wonderful book [*Do More Great Work*](https://www.mbs.works/do-more-great-work-book/?ref=foxwizard.com)(which played a part in inspiring [*The Game Changer*](https://www.drjasonfox.com/shop?ref=foxwizard.com)). But I rallied myself. Of course—*mere seconds* after meeting Michael—I was enlivened, *brimming* with mutual effervescence and kindred rapport. There’s a Zen proverb: > “When two Zen Masters meet each other on the road, they need no introduction. *Thieves* recognise each other instantaneously.” I’m no ‘Zen Master’—that probably goes without saying—but there’s something to be said about recognising *the glint* within a fellow infinite player’s eyes. That construct-aware *knowingness*; the *hint* of mischief. It is, I suspect, why MBS and I hit it off so well, and have been close friends ever since. This episode has MBS highlight elements from my [episode 5 of the foxwizard podcast](https://www.foxwizard.com/e5/)—the one where I talk of void hunting and strategy development. I also talked of [anitimemetics, too](https://www.foxwizard.com/e5/#antimemetics)—ideas that resist awareness and actively self-conceal. With some irony, MBS *didn’t* cover those aspects in the podcast, but I love how he has the wit to know it. [Change Signal](https://changesignal.lnk.to/podcastGT!EP9JF?ref=foxwizard.com) is a brilliant podcast, so artful in its distillation. MBS is so deft at surfacing insight and ensuring the audience is *all aboard*. He also somehow makes the points I make shine brighter, despite my requisite loquacious periphrasis. [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/04/change_signal_jasonfox_mbs.png)](https://changesignal.lnk.to/podcastGT!EP9JF?ref=foxwizard.com) This podcast will resonate with seasoned executives and consultants who have an appreciation for being effective amidst complexity. In such domains, the pathway to meaningful change is non-linear and often non-obvious. It requires wit, wisdom and wiles, and a kind of post-heroic canny to see such through. Particularly if we are looking to dance with emergence. Or, put more simply: *this podcast episode speaks to those who lead or consult in messy, unpredictable systems—who know that lasting change takes more than plans. It takes cleverness, humility, timing, and the grace to navigate ambiguity with artistry.* (thanks, shoggoth!) Here’s the official description. > In this episode: Navigating uncertainty versus ambiguity, treating strategy as a living conversation, and looking beyond the obvious for weak signals. > > Dr. Jason Fox challenges conventional notions of change management by urging us to develop sensibilities rather than just skills. He argues that traditional scenario planning creates an illusion of control that fails when contexts shift radically. > > We’re both deeply skeptical of outsourcing strategy to consultants with impressive PowerPoint decks. Rather, Jason suggests cultivating in-house intelligence and attunement to what's emerging. "Strategy emerges from relationality," he explains, emphasizing the importance of collective sense-making. > > Perhaps most provocatively, he warns against fixating on the bright, shiny trends everyone's talking about. "When you fixate upon something that's shining bright, it means that it's harder to see what exists in the penumbra," Fox notes — encouraging leaders to develop curiosity, empathy, and attunement to weak signals. > > Whether you're leading transformation or just trying to stay ahead of disruption, Dr Jason Fox's perspectives offer a refreshing alternative to business-as-usual approaches. > > Change Signal. Cut through the blather, the BS, and the noise to find the good stuff that works in change management. > > 🎧 New episodes every two weeks. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter at [thechangesignal.com](https://thechangesignal.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) Enjoy the episode on [apple](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/are-you-blinded-by-the-change-obvious-dr-jason-fox/id1793189341?i=1000703692290&at=1l3vpUI&ct=LFV%5Fb5238fd9d3205825ee155f24014e7fed&itsct=catchall%5Fpodcast%5Fep&itscg=30440&ls=1&ref=foxwizard.com) and/or [spotify](https://open.spotify.com/episode/3v7Q7SxLCS0cqXcbwXHNCO?go=1&utm%5Fsource=Owned%5FGuest&utm%5Fmedium=none&utm%5Fcontent=f5c2ca51-400b-405e-8eea-b44569dbe916%5FEP9JF%5Fnone%5Fnone%5Fnone%5Fnone%5F20250210%5Fdirect%5Fchange-signal%5FCA%5Fchangesignal.lnk.to%2Fpodcast&nd=1&dlsi=e7094195dbdd4ff0). --- ## Speaking of kindred spirits... I had a very similar moment of recognising *the glint* in the eyes of a fellow infinite player. This happened to be at a dinner with MBS and friends (thanks, [Leanne](https://www.leannehughes.com/?ref=foxwizard.com)!), and it led to the swift blossoming of a new friendship. And then—a new popup podcast we’re calling *Kindred Spirits.* I’ll let you know when the episode is live (this week) in my next museletter. Keep an eye out for *“Kindred Spirits”* from fox@foxwizard.com 🦊🪽 Let’s hope it reaches you! 🤞 --- And now I am off to tinker with the DNS Records and potentially ruin the sending reputation of this nearly 15-year-old museletter. Please send me a quick hello email to fox@foxwizard.com (if you’re feeling benevolent), and keep an eye out for the ‘kindred spirits’ museletter. 🧡🦊 Warmth, *—fw* PS: If you are leading change within an enterprise, and need a wizard-accomplice, deft amidst complexity, ambiguity and emergence—[I might know a guy](https://drjasonfox.com/?ref=foxwizard.com). Reach out and let’s see what magic we can weave. ✨ ### 🏮 e6 // A web worth belonging to URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/e6/ Last updated: 2026-05-15T01:47:12.000Z ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/04/e6_tile_1.png) ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/media/2025/04/e6_a_web_worth_belonging_to_thumb.png) e6 // a web worth belonging to 0:00 /2384.875102 1× 🦊 Subscribe and listen on [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/foxwizard/id1645970777?ref=foxwizard.com), [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/2hkJuLE5VMED5rvDqnH4RL?ref=foxwizard.com) and [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeLHJRzrOWo%5FQXluAn65XjHQsoX3IjLvn&ref=foxwizard.com) I have, once again, recorded a podcast episode where, during the edit and upload, I’m no longer sure to what degree I agree with myself. But I have so many of these unpublished soliloquies (too many), so I thought: heck, just release it. You will understand. This podcast was made mostly in response to friends who find themselves in a bind: they know social media is bad and that they don’t enjoy it—yet they also feel obligated to participate and be seen. What I hope to offer here, to quote [*How to Lead a Quest*](https://www.drjasonfox.com/shop?ref=foxwizard.com), is an invitation to the viable alternative options that lie beyond the extractive capture of centralised platforms. And beyond the half-step measure that is Substack alone. --- ## *First—some quick updates* Thank you to the few hundred who joined my secret ‘pop-up’ museletter. That experiment has concluded, and I believe my brand new email address—*fox@foxwizard.com*—is now sufficiently warmed. I also revealed the working title of my next book there. 🦊 Tomorrow, I shall be sharing *another* podcast episode with you. It’s already recorded, and I’m in the midst of editing it now—except unlike editing my own monologues, this one has me laughing and grinning like an idiot. I think you’ll love it. Here’s a preview-tease: **Kindred Spirits**—a popup-podcast of whimsy, whisky and wiles! Join John Anthony of [Transcend](https://transcend.com.au/?ref=foxwizard.com) and myself whilst we sip and talk shop (sans AI slop). More on this one in the next museletter. I’m worried you’ll miss it as I will be sending it from [fox@foxwizard.com](mailto:fox@foxwizard.com) ... In fact, I might even send *two* emails to you so that you have a heads up. This has been the most fun I’ve had on a podcast since forever. And I can’t wait to have you join us. Whilst I have you, it behooves me to remind thee that the work I do with clients—[keynote presentations + fireside provocations](https://www.drjasonfox.com/keynotes-firesides?ref=foxwizard.com) along with [leadership + strategy immersions](https://www.drjasonfox.com/leadership-immersions-coaching?ref=foxwizard.com)—are apt for clever teams seeking meaningful progress amidst complexity and change. Artificial intelligence and geopolitics are catalysing all sorts of change. Now, more than ever, you must ****keep your wits about you**, and cultivate differentiated strategy coupled with the deft savvy to see it through. If you’re a leader seeking to do that—I can be your wizard-accomplice. Reach out if you would like to explore how we might work together. It’s easy to [tee up a discovery call](https://www.drjasonfox.com/contact?ref=foxwizard.com) if you’d like to explore options. And now: back to imploring you to come frolic with me on the independent web. (Not that I’m fully there yet; I oscillate betwixt. But you can begin to venture and foray with me.) --- ## *An overview* Here’s a related essay to what the podcast episode covers. If anything, the podcast itself was thinking-in-draft as a precursor to this musing. ### **If you’re feeling disenchanted with social media...** Good! This is an apt response. We are living in a technological coup, as investigative journalist [Carol Cadwalladr asserts in her recent TED talk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZOoT8AbkNE&ref=foxwizard.com) (released earlier this week). It’s been a long while since I watched a TED talk, and this one was so refreshingly real. It felt like listening to a human with heart, delivering a vital message that needs to be heard. This is an act of infinite play; Carol is in service to the infinite game—no matter the cost to herself. She has all of my respect. Watch, take heed, and be galvanised. And then, perhaps, you’ll understand why I am so reticent to encourage friends to sacrifice more time, energy, attention, and talent into ‘creating content’ for these extractive surveillance platforms. ### The tyranny of convenience The historian Timothy Snyder, in his book [*On Tyranny*](https://timothysnyder.org/on-tyranny/?ref=foxwizard.com), reminds us that authoritarianism doesn’t just arrive all at once. It creeps in through apathy, convenience, and acquiescence. Today’s centralised web is fertile ground for that kind of creep. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/04/Screenshot-2025-04-16-at-12.14.57-pm.png) An excerpt from [On Tyranny (the graphic edition)](https://www.penguin.com.au/books/on-tyranny-graphic-edition-9781847927064?ref=foxwizard.com) This has me recall a piece from a few years ago where I began to see the limitations of ‘solarpunk’. Even as an advocate for the sensibilities of solarpunk—and the call to [move quietly and plant things](https://www.foxwizard.com/move-quietly-and-plant-things/) (as distinct from moving fast and breaking things, like what we are seeing tech do to democracy)—I’ve come to find that [*lunarpunk*](https://dark.fi/insights/dark-side-of-the-cycle.html?ref=foxwizard.com) is a necessary complementing force. This video is a bit dark but yeah On the topic of [antimemes](https://www.foxwizard.com/e5/)—something I am oddly ‘seeing’ all over the place now (but are we actually seeing what needs to be seen?)—here’s a quote from [an essay on Memetic Warfare](https://dark.fi/insights/memetic-warfare.html?ref=foxwizard.com), pertinent to both Carol Cadwalladr and Timothy Snyder’s warning. > “Privacy has been hijacked by a sophisticated anti-meme. This anti-meme is so powerful and has been spread so masterfully that it has redefined the entire privacy memeplex, even orientating entire classes of privacy developers in its service. > > The anti-meme says: > *Why do you need privacy if you're not doing anything wrong?* > > The basic impulse of the anti-meme is to align privacy with criminality. This memetic connection flourishes in a world in which surveillance is already totally normalized. It makes denying surveillance through privacy tantamount to a criminal act. > > To say that the anti-meme has put privacy on the back foot would be an understatement. It's a psychological hijacking of the privacy memeplex that tricks us into a surveillance death-trap. > > \[..\] > > *Privacy is Normal* is the flip side of anti-meme reaction, the side that says *No* to the narrative that privacy is for bad people doing scary things. > > \[...\] > > The implication is privacy is something day-to-day and average. Actually, it's surveillance which is the aberration. *Privacy is Normal*, surveillance is for bad people doing scary things.” Just to be clear: I’m all for transparency, openness, and trust—but such things need to be mutual and generative. One must demonstrate trustworthiness in order to be worthy of trust. Have our politicians and the corporate oligarchs they serve demonstrated this trustworthiness? I’m not so sure. Privacy ought to be normalised and respected. This is something web3 developers have been working on—but of course, such developments have had shade cast upon them. ### **A better internet is possible** It was so much nicer back in the early days of web1\. So innocent and authentic. Naïve, yes—but generous too. Back in the days of web1, people made websites because they wanted to share something. Hypertext Markup Language was handwritten. Blogs were personal. Forums were weird and alive. There was no algorithmic feed, no dopamine metrics, no surveillance capitalism. The prevailing philosophy was to make everything free. But when things are free, and scale is rewarded, the incentives come indirectly. What started as a free web slowly became an ad-driven one. From there, it became something else entirely: web2. Platforms like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and LinkedIn made it easy to create and share. Suddenly, everyone could post. But the tradeoff was centralisation: you no longer owned your audience, your connections, your data, or your tools. You rented them from platforms whose priorities could change overnight. These platforms, shaped by power laws and VC incentives, reward conformity. Some topics on some platforms are actively censored. Other topics go weirdly viral. But we don’t know exactly how or why—because it’s hidden from us. And so we’re left guessing as to what will and won’t be rewarded by The Algorithm. Over time, these centralised platforms shifted from serving users to extracting from them—what Chris Dixon, author of [*Read. Write. Own.*](https://readwriteown.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) calls ‘platform capture’. It starts as empowerment, and ends as enclosure. Audience capture, algorithmic capture, platform capture. One way or another—you’re going to get captured. Unless… > 1) You keep your wits about you. > 2) You think: independent web first. > 3) You maintain cognitive defences.\* \* *More on this below.* In response to the tyranny of web2, ***web3*** emerged with a simple premise: let people own the digital spaces they use and help build. Instead of platforms, you build on protocols—shared infrastructure that no single company controls. You keep your identity, your data, your creative output. And if the app changes, you can leave—with your audience (and all of your connections) intact. But! Protocol development is hard.\* It requires deep thinking around incentives, governance, resilience, and interoperability. The most promising future lies in building protocols as public goods—maintained by communities, not corporations. \* *And: the space is still fraught with peril. Some wholesome progress has been made, but it is dwarfed by the grift. It really requires keen sensemaking to find your way to what works. And even then, you have to keep your wits about you.* The “[Summer of Protocols](https://summerofprotocols.com/?ref=foxwizard.com)” is an open initiative looking into protocol development. Around [this time two years ago](https://www.foxwizard.com/antimemetics-protocol/) I was tentatively optimistic about the space. That optimism has waned a little—but there still remains some merit amidst the mess. [Farcaster](https://www.farcaster.xyz/?ref=foxwizard.com) is a ‘[sufficiently decentralised](https://www.varunsrinivasan.com/2022/01/11/sufficient-decentralization-for-social-networks?ref=foxwizard.com)’ social media protocol. I’m on [warpcast](https://warpcast.com/foxwizard?ref=foxwizard.com) and the people are nice. [Bluesky](https://bsky.app/profile/foxwizard.bsky.social?ref=foxwizard.com) is also on the road to decentralisation (but it’s not there yet). [Mastodon.social](https://mastodon.social/auth/sign%5Fup?ref=foxwizard.com) is wonderful (and has an inspiring set of ground rules). And [Ghost](https://ghost.org/?ref=foxwizard.com) (the platform I run this site and newsletter from) is integrating with the [ActivityPub](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActivityPub?ref=foxwizard.com)—an open, decentralised social networking protocol. This is [lowkey quite a big deal](https://activitypub.ghost.org/?ref=foxwizard.com), and still: early days. You can glean more insight from [this interview with the Ghost ceo John O’Nolan](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vMkriMl-ic&ref=foxwizard.com) (who’s described as ‘an inverse Peter Thiel’, ha). ### But the real flex... ... is wholesome activities *offline*. [Manu Moreale](https://manuelmoreale.com/?ref=foxwizard.com)—a writer and web designer who hosts [People and Blogs](https://peopleandblogs.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) and [Ye Olde Blogroll](https://blogroll.org/?ref=foxwizard.com)—recently wrote about [online counterculture](https://manuelmoreale.com/online-counterculture?ref=foxwizard.com). > \[...\] “The way I see it, the true online counterculture is not to join Mastodon or Bluesky. That’s just a different spice of the rotten experience that’s social media. True online counterculture is rejecting social media altogether. \[...\] Counterculture is spending time making zines and sending them out to 10 people across the globe, rather than posting shorts on fuçking TikTok. Counterculture is sharing things you’re passionate about not because you plan to make a living out of it but because you believe connecting with other human beings is important. Counterculture is forming online bonds with 20 people you get to know over time, rather than amassing hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram.” This is something I hope to rekindle with *The Rekindling* someday. This was our gathering of contemporary ‘druids’ (my term) to discuss and deepen over *post-doom sensibilities for the collapse-aware.* It was a haven-salon for the post-tragic amongst us who: - aren’t in *denial* of the metacrisis and its related ecological crises and economic crises and wars; and - aren’t naïvely grasping for technological ‘solutions’ to ‘fix’ the metacrisis, nor placing undue faith in eco-modernity and the same paradigm to see us through; but - *are* acutely attuned to the importance of this time that calls for a paradigmatic shift in how we live and lead our lives. These were intentionally offline spaces. So: no recordings\* and no photos. It was/is a ‘real flex’; it scales only via this museletter, warm connections, and word of mouth. (I’ll let you know when the next one is—don’t worry—and yes, we’ll do some online ones for all my friends scattered across this planet too). \* *Except one recording, that might come one day.* Terrible segue, but— ### What about Substack? Substack is a *half-step* in the right direction. It’s web2.5 in that it’s much like web2—only you get to export the list of subscriber email addresses. Otherwise, it’s still a centralised platform backed by venture capitalists. I think of it like a shopping mall. I don’t like shopping malls—too loud, too many people, [too many downlights](https://www.foxwizard.com/downlighting/). But it’s convenient to have everything in the one place. And besides: a lot of people I deeply respect and admire hang out in the shopping mall that is Substack. If you’re a department store, or you’re just starting out, Substack can be great. It’s centralised and super convenient. And, frankly, it’s better than legacy social media platforms. But—that’s a low bar. And if you’re going to make the leap, *why not go all the way* and have your own independent publication on somewhere like Ghost? Here’s a post on [Migrating from Substack to self-hosted Ghost](https://www.citationneeded.news/substack-to-self-hosted-ghost/?ref=foxwizard.com) that might convince you. [Cathy Sarisky](https://www.spectralwebservices.com/cathy-sarisky/?ref=foxwizard.com) can help you (as she helped me). And there are other options, too: [hugo](https://gohugo.io/?ref=foxwizard.com) and [eleventy](https://www.11ty.dev/?ref=foxwizard.com) if you have technical skillz. Or [write.as](https://write.as/?ref=foxwizard.com), [micro.blog](https://micro.blog/?ref=foxwizard.com), [bearblog.dev](https://bearblog.dev/?ref=foxwizard.com), or [flowershow.app](https://flowershow.app/?ref=foxwizard.com)—coupled with [buttondown](https://buttondown.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) for email. You have many options. I was early to Substack, and [I still maintain a light presence there](https://fox.substack.com/). I really loved the original vision; it was focused on writers. But when [Yanyi (a writer and poet we admire)](https://yanyiii.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) shared [why he was leaving Substack](https://yanyiii.com/the-freedom-of-hate/?ref=foxwizard.com), it became clear to me that writers would not be protected from anti-trans hate speech. *“I can no longer stand aside while a small tech elite hoards the knowledge to be technically autonomous from those who need it most,”* Yanyi writes. *“I choose to believe that we are still capable of building a different kind of world, one not locked into choosing between lesser evils. I am, at the end of the day, a writer and technologist invested in a world with more imagination. A world in which the survival of my friends is not a luxury but a baseline.”* What was it [that Geralt of Rivia said](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sr-DKyAVU34&ref=foxwizard.com)? > “Evil is Evil. Lesser, greater, middling… Makes no difference. The degree is arbitrary. The definition’s blurred. If I’m to choose between one evil and another… I’d rather not choose at all.” Hence: the move to a more independent web. I left Substack just over two years ago, [bringing the museletter to Ghost on April Fool’s Day 2023](https://www.foxwizard.com/the-museletter-by-foxwizard/). (Not that I believe in ‘Evil’ with a capital ‘e’). Later that year it was revealed that [substack has a nazi problem](https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/11/substack-extremism-nazi-white-supremacy-newsletters/676156/?ref=foxwizard.com). I don’t like nazis, fascists, Holocaust deniers, genocide apologists, labels, or anyone advocating for racial supremacy. I know this is the world we live in, and if you want to jump into the arena you’ll need to contend with all sorts. And there’s a higher part of me that seeks to weave better relational dynamics across all perspectives. But—do I want my shopping mall cubicle to be positioned next to a nazi storefront? Hell no. Not even in the same building. Do I want the mall owners to benefit from promoting such content to my readers, and profiting from the subscribers of hateful content? Also: no. (I’m exaggerating to make a point—it’s probably not that bad {is it?}—but the warning signs are there.) The nazi problem was enough for Casey Newton to move his publication, *The Platformer,* with its 150,000+ subscribers over to Ghost (you can read [Why Platformer is leaving Substack](https://www.platformer.news/why-platformer-is-leaving-substack/?ref=foxwizard.com) but the tl;dr is *“we’ve seen this movie before—and we won’t stick around to watch it play out”*). In a post describing [everything that happened after we left substack](https://www.platformer.news/leaving-substack-platformer-year-four/?ref=foxwizard.com), Casey shared: > “When we learned about the extent of far-right extremism, Hitler worship and Holocaust denial on Substack, you pressed us to investigate. And when we published our findings, [you overwhelmingly encouraged us](https://www.platformer.news/why-platformer-is-leaving-substack/?ref=foxwizard.com) to find a new home on the web. > > During this time, I talked to several high-profile writers who collectively make millions of dollars writing on Substack. Their readers were also asking them to leave, too. In the end, almost none of them did. They bet that they could simply put their heads down and wait for the controversy to pass. And it worked! > > [Substack’s nazi problem continues](https://theracket.news/p/substacks-nazi-problem-isnt-going-away?ref=platformer.news), but the news cycle has moved on. I suspect it will swing back around eventually.” When I look to the landscape of my professional colleagues, I find the level of political and moral apathy absolutely *staggering* (bar a select few). It really made me so sad for so long. But I’ve also come to recognise: moral ambiguity is *so much* better for business. And besides, people are too busy to look into any of this or care (thanks, capitalism!). Convenience trumps ethics. **This is the platform trap.** Still, I’m glad for my move, and heartened to see others wisen up. Hence my advice to friends: **break the spell & join the independent web.** And if you currently have a publication on substack, at the very least: [Don’t call it a Substack](https://www.foxwizard.com/ai-wont-take-your-job/). *“Imagine the author of a book telling people to ‘read my Amazon’,”* Anil Dash writes. Further, he asserts: > “Substack is, just as a reminder, a political project made by extremists with a goal of normalizing a radical, hateful agenda by co-opting well-intentioned creators' work in service of cross-promoting attacks on the vulnerable.” [John Gruber disagrees](https://daringfireball.net/2024/11/regarding%5Fand%5Fwell%5Fagainst%5Fsubstack?ref=foxwizard.com) with this sentiment. > “I know quite a few people whose opinions I admire who feel the same way as Dash here. I’ll disagree. I think Substack sees itself as a publishing tool and platform. They’re not here to promote any particular side. It makes no more sense for them to refuse to publish someone for being too right-wing than it would for WordPress or Medium or, say, GitHub or YouTube. Substack, I think, sees itself like that.” Sure, this is true. But there have been opaque advances and other incentives to attract certain writers to the platform. And when they decided to move towards integrating algorithmically generated feeds, gamification (rankings, badges, subscriber counts), and soon TikTok-like video reels, it’s clear: it’s not *just* a publishing tool. It’s a platform. And it’s *not* neutral (nothing is)—even if they might like to pretend to be. Still, whilst John disagrees, in his piece titled [Regarding – and, Well, Against – Substack](https://daringfireball.net/2024/11/regarding%5Fand%5Fwell%5Fagainst%5Fsubstack?ref=foxwizard.com) he explicates that this is a platform trap. He offers the following advice: > My advice to any writer looking to start a new site based on the newsletter model would be to consider Substack *last*, not first. Not because Substack is a Nazi bar, which I don’t think it is at all, but simply because there are clearly better options, and the company’s long term goal is clearly platform lock-in. Joan Westenberg, in her piece titled [Why I Won't Write on Substack](https://www.joanwestenberg.com/why-i-wont-write-on-substack/?ref=foxwizard.com), offers the following conclusion: > No platform is ever truly free. That applies whether we’re talking about TikTok, Google, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook – or Substack. And if you think to yourself, ***this time, it'll be different***,good luck to you. It might not happen today, it might not happen tomorrow, but sooner or later, you're going to get fuçked. Tyler Denk explicates in [Death by a thousand substacks](https://mail.bigdeskenergy.com/p/death-by-thousand-substacks?ref=foxwizard.com): > “The problem? As I alluded to above, the incentives between publishers and social networks are entirely at odds: > > **Lack of ownership.** Social platforms act as gatekeepers, owning the relationship with readers while sidelining publishers. > **Algorithmic dependency.** Distribution becomes unreliable as platforms shift priorities to serve their core interests. > **Erosion of brand identity.** Social platforms homogenize content and experiences at the expense of publishers’ unique identities. > **Lack of data and analytics.** Publishers receive little meaningful audience data, restricting how they understand and engage with their audiences. > > Anyone who has interacted with the Substack platform might recognize these shortcomings — but make no mistake, these are deliberate features, not bugs. > > Substack is deploying the classic social network playbook: Gradually eroding the ownership, identity, and independence of writers on the platform. From Substack’s perspective, this makes perfect sense — it may be the only way to justify [its lofty 2021 valuation](https://research.contrary.com/company/substack?utm%5Fsource=mail.bigdeskenergy.com&utm%5Fmedium=referral&utm%5Fcampaign=death-by-a-thousand-substacks).” Alan Jacobs offers [this succinct sentiment](https://blog.ayjay.org/substack-vs-indie/?ref=foxwizard.com): > “\[...\] every Substack user needs to realize that (a) Substack writers are not truly independent, (b) Substack will almost certainly undergo enshittification, and, therefore, (c) anyone using the platform needs an unenshittifiable backup.” **So—is Substack really as bad as I make out?** No, not at all. Maybe? It’s still better than web2\. And remember: so many people I respect and admire are on the platform. And they are smart and lovely people, being actually effective instead of whatever it is I’m doing. Substack is not ‘evil’—it’s just that some of us are familiar with the pattern and can see where the incentives lead. And my hope is that those who use centralised platforms know what they are doing, and do so with both eyes open. ### How to both/and this Much as I would like to, it often isn’t feasible to completely abandon mainstream social media. That ship might be sinking—but it’s a big ship, and there are still so many people on board (many of whom are my clients). It’ll take some time before it properly sinks. And so, for those of us who can see beyond the convenience and the network effects—those of us who can see through the spell, and know a more wholesome web is possible—must act as ferry-people. We must oscillate betwixt. It’s as I say in the podcast: it’s okay to have a presence in such spaces (if you must)—but build your home somewhere more reliable. Investigative journalist [Dave Troy offers the following advice](https://america2.news/the-substack-dilemma-how-creators-are-inadvertently-fueling-americas-failure/?ref=foxwizard.com) to readers and creators on substack. > “Pro-democracy creators currently publishing on Substack should be cognizant of the fact that they are operating behind enemy\* lines, and that the company's backers are antagonistic to your goals. Be sure to export your subscription lists early and often, as there is no way to know when this feature may be removed or curtailed. Assume the worst. > > Readers engaged with creators on Substack should be prepared to migrate to other platforms on a moment's notice — and be generous with your support, especially during any transition. Exit is costly and difficult, and your relationship with creators you care about is paramount. You may also wish to send this article (and others linked below) to creators whose work you value; they may not be aware of the dilemma yet — though many are, and don't know what to do about it. > > People looking to launch new content sites now should avoid Substack entirely because of the substantial risk of capture. [Ghost](https://ghost.org/?via=dave52&ref=america2.news), especially when self-hosted, is a much more open (and less expensive) option. Wordpress is also a very workable alternative, but has recently been mired in its own [controversy](https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/14/wordpress%5Fleader%5Fmatthew%5Fmullenweg%5Fexiles/?ref=america2.news#:~:text=The%20dispute%20centers%20on%20Mullenweg's,use%20the%20%E2%80%9CWordPress%E2%80%9D%20trademark.) over aspects of its governance. > > Those who value democracy should steer towards adoption of designs built on the open web and internet. Walled gardens with impressive network effects can lead to short term gains, but they almost always come at the expense of long term sustainability, openness, and freedom.°” \* *Part of me likes the notion of ‘operating behind enemy lines’—much of my work is with activated sleeper agents—but I don’t believe in having ‘enemies’. There is no us-and-them, not really. There’s just the all-of-us and how we can collectively co-create a world more curious and kind (and a future less grim).* *° I have allergies to both the individual words ‘freedom’ (too reckless and self-serving?) and ‘responsibility’ (too serious and self-sacrificing). But when the two are combined, they alchemise into something wonderful.* So! The thing is: be prepared, and be patient with folks making their transitions. Having done it myself, I can attest: it’s a pain. I mean, exporting emails is easy. Exporting content whilst preserving links? A lot trickier. One person that is doing this well is [Yancey Strickler](https://www.ystrickler.com/?ref=foxwizard.com). Yancey has his ‘home base’ on Ghost. This is where posts are first published, before being mirrored across to [his profile on substack](https://substack.com/@ideaspace?ref=foxwizard.com) (likely with canonical links pointing back to Ghost). It’s a bit messy, as you’re running with two lists. But it also means: he has a secure and genuinely independent home base for his writing, while also benefiting from the exposure and network effects of Substack. I have to sit with myself a little longer in order to figure out how best to play this. I am, after all, still a mercenary wizard. Complicit yet conflicted. I need to be visible and ‘top of mind’ for folks seeking my services. I need to make hay *where* the sun shines. Which means: I still need my web2 (and web2.5) presence. Seemingly. So, let’s see. At the very least, to the handful of friends who have asked me about this, I hope this might encourage you to invest in something for the longer-term. You can be a part of co-creating a web worth belonging to. And you can quietly tend to your own temple—whilst still visiting the various walled town squares as needs be. Perhaps it starts with a deeper enquiry into what you’re actually about. If you are purely looking to hack your way to greater reach and profit—much of what I have to share likely won’t resonate. But if there’s something deeper at play, you can make money without becoming what [W. David Marx describes as a ‘**double sell-out’**](https://culture.ghost.io/the-age-of-the-double-sell-out/?ref=foxwizard.com)—*“Creators who produce market-friendly content to achieve fame—and then use that fame to pursue even more commerce-for-commerce's-sake.”* They further write: > “If we want different outcomes, we can change the norms, which conveniently costs no money. If we want culture to be *culture* and not just advertorials for a sprawling network of micro-QVCs pumping out low-quality goods, an easy step would be to re-shift the norms towards, at least, **“Don’t be a double sell-out.”** This is already a quite generous compromise in that it blesses artists to be conventional to stabilize their income and try to win over large fanbases. But this esteem must be given on *the promise* that the money and fame are used in pursuit of artistic or creative innovation. Double sell-outs don't deserve our esteem as ‘creative’ people. They should be content with the reward they chose: the money extracted from fans who snap up their mediocre commodities out of parasocial loyalty. > > The challenge for our times is to locate and elevate the artists using their platforms for art and other social goods rather than just securing further personal profit. Every time we don't condemn the double sell-outs, we're insulting those in pursuit of what used to be the clear goal: to move culture forward.” Ha, I’m not sure it would be fun or nice to ‘condemn’—but we *can* be intentional as to where we direct our attention. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/04/IMG_6458.JPG) ## A quick note on cognitive defences I mentioned this in the podcast and couldn’t quite find where to include it above. Peter Limberg, on substack (lol), recently wrote a piece on [Digital Entities, AI Parasites, and Cognitive Security](https://lessfoolish.substack.com/p/digital-entities-ai-parasites-and). As someone concerned about homogenised intelligence, this resonated. There’s an allure to artificial intelligence. Not simply because it is fast and convenient. But also because it flatters you, mirrors you. And—it too is **not neutral.** I’ve witnessed friends become AI-pilled. First they are sceptical. Then they start using it. Then they become AI experts and offer courses to teach others how to use it. If this were an entity seeking autopoetic memetic propagation—it’s doing supremely well. Peter Limberg is one of my favourite writers, and a reason I remain conflicted about Substack. Here is one of the concluding tidbits of advice from [his post](https://lessfoolish.substack.com/p/digital-entities-ai-parasites-and): > Beware of “Centaur Thinking.” This is the fusion of human and AI thought in a way that shapes your creativity and decision-making. It often starts innocently as “brainstorming” with AI but can become a slippery slope where your most important ideas and choices depend on having a chatbot nearby. Centaur thinking can become AI thinking. Uphold your cognitive defences. Keep your wits about you. --- **Thank you for reading.** This museletter is delivered every whimsday. If you have a friend who might appreciate these insights, please forward this onto them, along with a little note. They might also like to [subscribe](https://www.foxwizard.com/museletter/). Warmth, *—fw* PS: I’ll be sending a fun new podcast episode to you tomorrow-ish. Please keep an eye out for an email from fox@foxwizard.com 🧡🦊 PPS: Still feel free to share this on social media—I’m not as pure as I pretend to be. If this resonated, any sharing is appreciated. 🫶 ### 👹 “AI won’t take your job” URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/ai-wont-take-your-job/ Last updated: 2025-03-29T09:16:57.000Z So spake the technologist Stephen Biernacki. I’ve seen this quote popping up on the internet and in newsletters, usually from people who want to sell AI products and services. What’s missing is his follow-up tweet. > I used to believe this and suppose in the short term I still do, but now believe AI will be taking the jobs of all the people using AI better than you, too. 🫤 > > In the words of [@sacca](https://twitter.com/sacca?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=foxwizard.com) on [@tferriss](https://twitter.com/tferriss?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=foxwizard.com)’ podcast, we are totally fucked.[@AndrewYang](https://twitter.com/AndrewYang?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=foxwizard.com), what can we do before it’s too late? [https://t.co/pZKalplicG](https://t.co/pZKalplicG?ref=foxwizard.com) > > — Stephen Biernacki (@sbiernacki) [February 7, 2025](https://twitter.com/sbiernacki/status/1887911593771782588?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=foxwizard.com) Besides: the original quote always struck me as a bit purblind, akin to when gun enthusiasts say “guns don't kill people, people kill people”. The effect is the same. AI won’t take your job—someone using AI better than you will. And then AI will take their job, too, lol. The time in which we could curtail this has well and truly passed. We’re in a new chapter now. And so, we must adapt. We must run alongside the monster, and learn how to wield the dark magic *whilst also* staying true to what is real. Do not pine for the days of yore, where intellectual and artistic property\* was respected (or at least: attributed). The troves of knowledge have been plundered, and the talent of so many artists have been siphoned into simulacra now. \* *I’ve never really liked the term “intellectual property,” because no idea exists in isolation. All is co-created and emergent. But—it is good practice to honour and attribute wherever you can. Simply because this is the right and appropriate thing to do.* Do not think that this can somehow be undone—it’s much too late for that, now. Instead: rally yourself. You’ve still got wit, wisdom, and wiles. You’ve got true talent, and the sensibilities to see you through. The future needs our poets, scholars, thinkers, and artists. Growers, fixers, healers and weavers. Rally yourself, and recalibrate to this new world. Resist the vortex-allure of optimisation and homogenised intelligence. Use the powers, if you must. But keep your wits about you. Focus on true value, and let that be your beacon. ### 🌿 “One day I’ll be an adult” URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/adult-content-creation/ Last updated: 2025-03-27T03:11:01.000Z Hello to new subscribers, and warmth to old friends. I have been tending to my “[secret little pop-up museletter](https://www.foxwizard.com/popup-museletter)” (concluding soon), whilst working with clients seeking [differentiated strategy and leadership development](https://www.drjasonfox.com/leadership-immersions-coaching?ref=foxwizard.com). Autumn is here, and I thought it high time to write a *meandering* museletter to you. I tend to approach these as if I am writing a letter to a friend (knowing I’ll indulge myself, and let my mind wander). Perhaps it will stir something for you, too. Let’s see where this goes. ## Antimemes—they’re everywhere —if you know where to look. Since last month’s podcast on “[Void Hunting—thoughts on things we can’t think about](https://www.foxwizard.com/e5/)”, I have been noticing those who are also noticing absence. Be it political propaganda and misinformation, covert (and even overt) censorship, or actual antimemetic entities—once you become attuned, you’ll begin to see what you can’t see, too. [🏮 e5 // Void Hunting (+ strategy development)Thoughts on things we can’t think about. ✨![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/icon/foxwizard-favicon-3.png)foxwizard ☾Dr. Jason Fox![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/thumbnail/foxwizard-hero-2-3.png)](https://www.foxwizard.com/e5/) My friend Merlin recently shared [a stirring piece on the matter](https://merlinbola.substack.com/p/get-out-of-your-trenches). An excerpt: > “We hear **winners write history** and then go on to trust the history books in school to be thorough and conclusive accounts of our historical course. > > We hear **power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely** and fail to apply this to the authorities that we trust, as soon as they have the stamps and badges and emblems to soothe our need for competence signaling. > > We’re aware of **divide & conquer** and then fail to spot it in everyday political division. > > We know that **in war, truth dies first**, but when the next set of news comes around that \[initial event\] happened that allows us to \[dehumanize enemy\] and \[legitimize intervention\] to \[democratize terrorists\]... > > … I don’t see us stopping and thinking. > > If you’re willing to kill, what kind of hurdle is a lie?” You’ll notice a theme in my writing of late. > Pay attention. > Keep your wits about you. In this age of artificial intelligence, ubiquitous corporate surveillance, extreme wealth inequality, mass extinction and ongoing gėnøcīdė, it’s important to consider things *beyond* face-validity. And to put a little more trust in *all* of your senses—not just your rational cognition, which is oh-so-easily mislead. On the theme of *antimemetics*—a topic best approached [surreptitiously](https://www.foxwizard.com/obliquity/)—[Nadia Asparouhova](https://nadia.xyz/?ref=foxwizard.com) (one of my favourite writers) has a new book coming out called [*Antimemetics: Why Some Ideas Resist Spreading*](https://darkforest.metalabel.com/antimemetics?variantId=1&ref=foxwizard.com)*. “By noticing what gets lost in the memetic churn, we can reclaim our attention, find thoughtful ways to participate, and shape the exchange of ideas—rather than letting it unconsciously shape us.”* Are you shaping the exchange of ideas? (I like to pretend I am). ## Recent podcast appearances I recently appeared on my friend Rahul Soans’ podcast “[Finding Meaning in Work](https://onmeaningfulwork.podbean.com/e/dr-jason-fox-aka-the-wizard-philosopher/?ref=foxwizard.com)”. This was quite a personal and somewhat autobiographical podcast, despite my best attempts to deflect. Rahul is a warm, wise, and wily host. Listen to this one and know me better than I know myself. My friend Leanne Hughes—who has been sharing ‘a podcast a day’ since the start of the year—recently re-shared this podcast episode we recorded last year on “[The paradox of clarity](https://podcast.leannehughes.com/82-the-paradox-of-clarity-why-not-knowing-is-the-best-strategy-feat-dr-jason-fox-weekend-rewind/?ref=foxwizard.com)”. There’s something so fun about doing podcasts with friends, I want more of it! I also joined Jade Miles in conversation on [The Futuresteading Podcast](https://www.futuresteading.com.au/?ref=foxwizard.com) for an episode on “[Casting Wizardry Spells On a Path For Humanity](https://podcast.futuresteading.com.au/896866/episodes/16633504-ep-171-jason-fox-casts-a-wizardry-spell-on-a-possible-path-for-humanity?ref=foxwizard.com)”. This conversation was sumptuous; wholesome, earthy and animate. But the opening introduction rubbed me as odd. Well, this line in particular: > “This is a big, hairy, bold conversation with lots of pauses, warm provocations, and a feast of new ideas for contemplation because he is, after all, a wizard—one who hopes to reach adulthood at some stage in his living lifetime.” To a layperson this might sound as though I am ‘just a boy playing at being a wizard’. It requires some context. ### Where are all the adults? lol Many developmental scholars would suggest that we are in a time of arrested development. There are very few true adults. To *develop* is to work towards integrating the wisdom we accrue through experience. The heuristic is: entropy + support. Before the social media era, you could go disappear and explore the world. Immerse yourself in other cultures, have your stuff stolen, hit rock bottom, find support, find yourself, recover, and grow. These days, this is still possible, but... as soon as you land, you will be back online, with your social network and maps and top 10 places to visit for a selfie. It’s never been easier to bypass the struggle that makes for meaningful development. We have effectively both *smothered the entropy* (it’s all mapped out now, neatly packaged, no surprises) and *simulated the support* (you’ll always have the internet and AI to figure things out for you—but is this true support?). Thus, as a result of living in a relatively stable era of comfort/convenience/ease, and ready distraction—not to mention: rampant individualism and lack-inducing consumerism—we have diminished the conditions that give rise to true adulthood. The good news is: this probably won’t last for much longer, lol. We’re in for some *tough times* ahead—including a potential descent into authoritarian dystopias—which is why it behooves us all to humble down and wisen up. A few more of us, at least. 😅 To [quote from Bill Plotkin](https://www.animas.org/journey-from-childhood-to-adulthood/?ref=foxwizard.com), whose work resonates with ecological, developmental, depth, and gestalt psychology: > “Getting older by itself does not cause us to mature psychologically. Adolescence is not at all confined to our teen years. And adulthood cannot be meaningfully defined as what happens in our twenties or when we fulfil certain responsibilities, such as holding down a job, financial independence, or raising a family. Rather, an adult is someone who understands why they are here on Earth, why they were born, and is offering their unique contribution to the more-than-human world.” The advice-columnist [Cary Tennis gets it](https://www.salon.com/2009/09/30/plotkin%5Fand%5Fadulthood/?ref=foxwizard.com). > “For though I'm 56 years old, in the scheme of human development that Plotkin proposes, I myself am basically still in adolescence.” And so are many of us, I contend. ### Have you visited the underworld yet? When I look back on my depresso years—around about the time I became properly “collapse-aware” and had the metacrisis-insight-cascade™️ that resulted in motivating epistles like “[Are We Beyond Hope?](https://www.foxwizard.com/beyond-hope/)”—it took an actual “sacred wound” (plant medicine) retreat to bring about the genuinely profound healing-context I needed in order to metabolise the grief I had been holding in my body. It’s one thing to ‘intellectually process’ ecological/planetary/world grief—it’s quite another to bodily metabolise it. Francis Weller, the author of [*The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief*](https://www.francisweller.net/the-wild-edge-of-sorrow-the-sacred-work-of-grief.html?ref=foxwizard.com) makes the case that depression is what happens when we fail to grieve. It’s *suppressed sorrow*—not grief itself—that ultimately oppresses the heart and diminishes our capacity for vitality and joy. I’ve long been fascinated by these alternative ways to approach the ‘darker’ humours of life. Because, in the world of motivational speaking, it’s all positivity, optimism, and hope—which can have the effect of *reinforcing* the very conditions that give rise to negativity, pessimism and despair. You can [listen to a recent conversation between Francis Weller and Nate Hagens](https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/167-francis-weller?ref=foxwizard.com) who, bless, is also on his own journey from metric-mode to something more *mythic* **.** ### This is all to say... ... that when I talk of becoming an adult, I mean: to contend with the full fabric of reality—the light, the dark, the joy and the sorrow. To be at home within yourself, and the role you are to play. To belong to the world, whose wellbeing is your wellbeing. It’s the wish I have for all of us who find ourselves questing amidst the metacrisis, in this time betwixt worlds. --- Whew, now that’s out of the way: a quick musing. ## Quality or quantity? Nay—A Secret Third Thing, silly! I was chatting with a close friend recently who is one of the OG bloggers in the field of innovation. A professor, in fact. I was lamenting, as I do, about how so many folks now seem to methodically manufacture content in supposedly ‘optimised’ fashion. On Monday it’s a free newsletter, mostly written with AI, that teases a deeper article dropping this Thursday. Then some social media tease-posts on Tuesday and Wednesday, followed by the paywalled article on Thursday, with an ICYMI on Friday. Then: repeat the process next week. Deep sigh. I mean, it’s fine. But... don’t we have enough content?\* \* *He asks, via the creation of content.* My friend agrees, which is why their blog has been on hiatus for so many years. They’ll share something when they have something meaningful to say. The thing is: they *already* have so much substance to share. I want to know what they are reading, what questions they are mulling over, what has the attention of their muse, what new syntheses are coming to light. I’m not interested in polished thinking—I want *thinking-in-draft.* Companions to muse-aloud with. I also know from my own experience—the longer it has been since I have written, the harder it is to write. Writing is a *practice*. Something we tend to. If you tend to it, you’ll tend to do it. And vice-versa. Thus if you leave sharing something too long, you’ll fall out of the practice. And then the threshold will become so high that you may begin to believe you don’t have anything worthy to share. Which, for some of your potential readers, is a travesty. ### It comes back to intent Do we seek to market—or to share? I’m a terrible marketer; I don’t like it. But I love sharing what paltry insights and glimmers I have accrued in my adventures thus far. Once upon a time we had a publishing house called “The Cleverness”. It was also the name of my skyship. In addition to sharing *‘thoughtful provocations for the quietly dissatisfied’,* and hosting whisky and jazz events, The Cleverness had the tagline—*a precursor to wisdom.* And I still believe that the development of knowledge, wisdom and insight results from *positing*. You have to put something forward. You cannot simply *sponge up* knowledge—it must be transmuted via the warmth of your own enacting. It’s all, as ever, *relational.* And so: we suspect we have something clever to share » we share it » we realise it’s not so clever » we become wiser. These contributions may, one day, reveal themselves to be embarrassingly shortsighted. Or devoid in poetic sensibilities and taste. Or they may reek of privilege and bias. But—we reflect, correct, improve, deepen, develop and improve. And so, as much as I cannot robotically adhere to the discipline of metronomically manufactured content pumped out in accordance with some supposedly optimal ‘best practice’ formula to appease whatever algorithm I’m attempting to court—I do know there is a deeper rhythm to attend to. A fire to keep alight. I also know that there is a vast difference between private journaling and public sharing. Even if your public sharing is simply quietly posting to your own semi-secret blog. (Less ‘broadcast’ and more simply: a ‘casting’.) Good writing is clear thinking, and just knowing that someone else might be reading this is enough of a litmus to ensure I check myself before I wreck myself. Publishing my musings for you here sharpens my own understanding and sense of things. So, does this mean quantity trumps quality? Facetiously: yes, this is true—but it’s also a false proposition. ### Bring back the (personal, independent) blog Like many of us, I am *quite done* with centralised platforms (and their algorithms) influencing what we say and how we share.\* I’ll write about this more in a coming post. It relates to the bots+bros slop we are seeing, and the way that so many of us seem to bemoan centralised social media (surveillance) platforms owned by mega-corps—only to flock to newer centralised social media (surveillance) platforms owned by venture capitalists. \* *Although, I must add: I am still slowly extricating myself from them. As much as I would like to remain in the penumbra, I must contend with the arena from time to time—lest people forget that this wizard exists.* My encouragement to you is: find your own patch of the internet to quietly tend to your own writing. A secret temple, deep in the woods, where only those who know might find you.\* Manu Moreale has compiled [a great list of blog platforms](https://manuelmoreale.com/blog-platforms?ref=foxwizard.com) to choose from.° He also hosts [interviews with independent bloggers](https://peopleandblogs.com/?ref=foxwizard.com). \* *Do this in real life, too.* Over time, you might find that, in tending to the practice of your own writing, you find your own Voice once more. And, in time, you will find your kindred spirits, whose work you follow and are a fan of, too. [Web rings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webring?ref=foxwizard.com) will emerge (like [fairy rings](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairy%5Fring?ref=foxwizard.com)). There are shifts happening in the underweb. Decentralised social media protocols are slowly developing their own mycelial-like networks. We’ve made so many mistakes with what web2 has become. The open web has been captured by extractive corporate interests. And whilst there has been much (successful) effort made by centralised web2 players to snuff the spark of web3 (and whilst web3 itself remains fraught with existential peril)\*—there is *some* developing maturity in the field of protocol development. \* *Some may recall that I was going to offer an [“Introduction to blockchain, crypto, smart contracts, decentralised finance, NFTs, regenerative finance, protocol-development, AI-agents, web3 (and web4)”](https://www.foxwizard.com/choose-wyrd/#the-foxwizard-presents-%E2%80%9Can-intro-to-crypto%E2%80%9D). Well, that was back when I thought we might be entering a new chapter of regulatory clarity and maturity. But Donald Trump then went and launched his own memecoin, effectively championing the worst of grifts (the ‘casino’ aspect of web3 is the least interesting and wholesome part of it all). Many hardworking protocol developers are now feeling demoralised. Meanwhile large traditional investment firms are moving in. This is not the end of decentralised coordination, but I am going to hold off from teaching anything until things settle. Having said that: web3 remains one of the best arenas for training as a sensemaking complexity practitioner (so humbling!). But: no introductory course for the short while. I’ve a book to write, anyway. And our collapse has now accelerated, so: yeah.* 😅 A new web blossoming, in the underground. It’s still early; you’ll still need to keep your wits about you. But wiser and more wholesome alternatives are becoming ever more apparent. Warmth, *—fw* --- PS: I have been working with clients seeking to deepen their leadership and strategy development. Clients who seek to venture beyond the default, so as to develop the savvy to *flourish* amidst complexity and the emergent. If you have an offsite or event coming up—or if you are seeking strategic differentiation and advantage (in a time of exponential change and homogenised insight)—[I would love to hear from you](https://www.drjasonfox.com/contact?ref=foxwizard.com). I’ve long realised that one of my favourite things is *working with folks who already subscribe* to these museletters. You have the complexity savvy and poetic acuity to bring about new and meaningful progress. And I’d love to help you with this. 🧡 ### 💌 An Oddity + a secret ‘popup’ URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/oddity-popup/ Last updated: 2025-02-19T01:29:39.000Z Fellow spellcaster! I something to share with you. And something to invite you to. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### 🏮 e5 // Void Hunting (+ strategy development) URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/e5/ Last updated: 2026-05-15T01:47:13.000Z ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/02/e5_void-hunting_1.png) ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/media/2025/02/e5_void-hunting_thumb.png) e5 // void hunting 0:00 /1408.626939 1× 🦊 Subscribe and listen on [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/foxwizard/id1645970777?ref=foxwizard.com), [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/2hkJuLE5VMED5rvDqnH4RL?ref=foxwizard.com) and [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeLHJRzrOWo%5FQXluAn65XjHQsoX3IjLvn&ref=foxwizard.com) --- #### On this page... It’s one thing to navigate uncertainty. It’s another to cultivate the sensibility and savvy to make sense of ambiguity. And beyond that still—to perceive the shape of voids within our noösphere, tracing the contours of what remains unsaid, unseen, or deliberately obscured. In this short podcast we attempt to go there, starting with the familiarity of *known-knowns*—before venturing into the domain of *unknown-unknowns.* As ever, I also use this podcast as an opportunity to express benevolent and friendly scorn at the default conventions of my profession, scoffing at the cowardly defaults of strategy development, whilst stage-winking. I should probably also point out that the intended audience for much of this are the fellow infinite players questing betwixt. In other words: those of us who find themselves between worlds; an established paradigm—replete with its established and crumbling defaults—and an emerging paradigm (or field of possibility) that is yet to reveal its true shape. My hope is that this podcast offers comforting reassurance to those of us quietly dissatisfied with the conventions of our times, along with some encouragement that any intuition that beckons *towards* complexity and emergence is worth heeding. --- ### A misleading episode summary by shoggoth > In this conversation, foxwizard explores the complexities of navigating uncertainty and the limitations of traditional scenario planning. He emphasises the importance of embracing ambiguity and unknown-unknowns, suggesting that strategy should emerge from relationality rather than rigid frameworks. The discussion also touches on the role of mystery and antimemetics in understanding the world, advocating for a cultivation of in-house intelligence and wisdom to navigate the complexities of modern challenges, particularly in the context of artificial intelligence and organisational dynamics. **Keywords:** *uncertainty, scenario planning, ambiguity, strategy, unknowns, relationality, artificial intelligence, wisdom, complexity* --- ### Navigating Uncertainty Imagine you’re holding a single die in your hand. You roll it. Six possible outcomes. Each face equally likely. Simple enough, right? Now, let’s make it a tad more complicated by adding an additional die. The probabilities shift—some outcomes now more likely than others. Roll enough times, and you’ll find a pattern: seven appears most often. This is the logic of uncertainty. It is calculable, even if the result is unknown in advance. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/02/image-1.png) Dice roll probabilities, as pilfered from [dice of dragons](https://diceofdragons.com/blogs/dice/probabilities-for-2d6-3d6-4d6-5d6-and-6d6-dice-rolling?ref=foxwizard.com) ### Schmenario Planning Uncertainty presumes a closed system. It is a world of *known* unknowns—possibilities that can be anticipated, weighted, optimised for. The strategist sees the likelihood of a seven and prepares accordingly (investing some effort in considering scenarios where a six or eight might eventuate, with some thought also given to fives and nines). But what if the context was changing? What if the dice themselves were not fixed, but morphing? Heck, what if it weren’t even dice, but mice dressed as men? Or, more likely: what if it were the countless co-emergent and inter-contingent dynamical interactions between agents and other complex non-linear processes that influence our autopoiesis and the future we are unfurling into? This is ambiguity. ### Ambiguous sensibilities Ambiguity is a structural feature of complex systems, distinct from uncertainty in that it involves interpretative openness rather than probabilistic unknowns. It is inherent to open and adaptive systems, where unknown unknowns abound. Recognising this clarifies that attempting to navigate *only* uncertainty assumes an omniscient and omnivident perspective—one suited to a mechanistic, deterministic, and teleological reality, rather than the entangled complexity we actually inhabit. Ergo, savvy strategists, complexity practitioners and sense-makers seek to compliment scenario planning and the management of uncertainty by developing the sensibilities that allow for apt way-making amidst ambiguity. At the heart of it, this looks like cultivating scenius or ‘collective genius’. I wrote of this a few years ago in the museletter titled [*Where Does Strategy Come From?*](https://www.foxwizard.com/quest-strategy/) The tl;dr is: relationality, collegiality, mutual encouragement, enthusiasm, curiosity, empathy and warmth. It’s a combination of the quality of attention we apply to wide-boundary goals. It’s our acuity and attunement to emergence. ### Pragmatic emergentism Strategy is (or rather: ought be) a *living* conversation. It begins (perhaps) with conversations around *value,* which (in turn) involves conversations about what is emerging in our world—advancements in technology, accelerated ecological collapse, societal and economic tensions, geopolitics, mindshare and sentiment—and more. How do we orientate towards future relevance? There’s already way too much to take in, so we must cultivate some pragmatism. Ergo, we both/and. We embrace the active, ongoing curiosity and empathy (coupled with acuity for emergence and the imaginal)—whilst *at the same time* attending to the needs of the moment, and orientating probabilistically towards the most likely scenarios (aka [Bayesian inference](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian%5Finference?ref=foxwizard.com)). Any orientation or strategic ‘plan’ we construct/fabricate is thus *provisional*—something to guide us, but also something to discard if we sense it isn’t serving. ### Deliberative disambiguation But really, this whole podcast and post is a chance for me to flex my petty and pedantic nature. Because I *love* complexity (as distinct from the bleak empty stillness of uniformity/oblivion). There’s nuance and *hidden aliveness* that beckons to be relished. So, having now somewhat disambiguated between the oft-conflated concepts of uncertainty (known unknowns) and ambiguity (unknown unknowns)—something the dangerlam and I are well versed in, having published [a lush print gazette on ambiguity](https://www.dangerlam.com/shoppe/the-cleverness-biannual?ref=foxwizard.com)—I would now like us to continue our tour of related-yet-distinct concepts. ### Vagueness + nebulosity Vagueness is when we lack precision—which is unhelpful when we need to make a decision swiftly (aka: ‘get to the point’). You could say that vagueness is a bit like that other thing. But! When working amidst the emergent—particularly when attempting to articulate the ineffable, or phenomena at higher orders of complexity—it’s quite understandable that you may come across as vague. You might even contradict yourself. And that’s okay! If you have patient companions to sense-make with, meaning and insight may yet be realised and conveyed. Vagueness, once dialled in, begins to look more like ambiguity. If we allow for it, we can begin to sense the dynamic interplay of *possible* meanings whilst also being aware of the fact that there is more yet that we do not know. For quite a while I have jokingly referred to my stage persona as [Dr. Fox, “Archwizard of Ambiguity (most fantastic)”](https://drjasonfox.com/?ref=foxwizard.com). This is partly because I would sometimes be called The Fantastic Mr. Fox—but, uh, that’s a different fox. (I’m still fantastic, though). But mostly because I harbour an instinctive resistance to the the mechanistic and unpoetic *reduction* that people often crave in response to ambiguity. It’s not that I mean to be difficult, it’s just that there’s some kind of trickster-daemon within me that delights in awakening folks to that which unfolds (rather than resolves). Bafflement enlivens the mind. I’m sure it’s still vexing, though. Perhaps part of what I seek is to avoid the temptations of reification, or ‘misplaced concreteness’. Perhaps I seek to help folks see that, even as we provisionally embrace illusions of certainty and clarity, we do so whilst also acknowledging *nebulosity*—“the insubstantial, amorphous, non-separable, transient, ambiguous nature of meaningness” (as [David Chapmen so eloquently writes](https://meaningness.com/nebulosity?ref=foxwizard.com)). But then again, if some philosophy-bro is being needlessly vague, I would probably humour-spike it with accurate-yet-crass examples. So, yeah: there’s a time and place. Where was I? ### Imbibing mystery We are getting closer to The Real Question™️ I sought to posit in this podcast and post. One that must be approached with [surreptitious obliquity](https://www.foxwizard.com/obliquity/). But before we do: mystery! Related to themes of uncertainty, ambiguity, and the unknown, is *mystery.* *“We live in a time that no longer tolerates mystery,”* writes mythologist Martin Shaw in [*Smoke Hole*](https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/smoke-hole/?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* *“We either colonize it with explanation or banish it as superstition.”* Martin Shaw has penned an essay on [*Navigating the Mysteries*](https://emergencemagazine.org/essay/navigating-the-mysteries/?ref=foxwizard.com). He is less petty and pedantic than this wizard, and so is quite happy to use ‘uncertainty’ in ways that would equally be expressed as ambiguity. But his sensibilities remain as apt as ever. “****The correct response to uncertainty is mythmaking.** It always was. Not punditry, allegory, or mandate, but mythmaking. The creation of stories. We are tuned to do so, right down to our bones. The bewilderment, vivacity, and downright slog of life requires it. And such emerging art forms are not to cure or even resolve uncertainty but to deepen into it. There’s no solving uncertainty. Mythmaking is an imaginative labor not a frantic attempt to shift the mood to steadier ground. There isn’t any.” This pairs well with the insight Iain McGilchrist shared in the opus *The Master and His Emissary* fifteen or so years ago. *“The left hemisphere needs certainty and needs to be right,”* McGilchrist writes. *“The right hemisphere, by contrast, is deeply comfortable with the existence of the uncertain, the implicit, the metaphorical, the doubtful.”* I’m not sure how helpful this left vs right dichotomy actually is. But I can say that any strategy that *only* caters to the left hemisphere’s need to be ordered, logical and ‘right’ will completely miss the gestalt and the vaster opportunities at hand. And so now, dear reader, perhaps we are ready to perceive voids. ### Void hunting Indigenous Australian astronomy—the oldest continuous astronomical tradition in the world—is distinct from Western astronomy in that darkness between the stars—the voids and negative spaces—are also read. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/02/image-2.png) The Dark Emu is looking at you Spend enough time amidst the noösphere—the sphere of all mind—and you may also begin to glean the shape of voids. Pockets in which there is an distinct *absence* of discernible knowledge. Some absences are not accidents. Some ideas are actively suppressed. For example, *“It’s been said before but the second Greta \[Thunberg\] started making connections between climate change and capitalism, colonialism, and imperialism the media coverage came to a screeching halt,”* [writes JP Hill](https://www.jphilll.com/p/gretas-growth?ref=foxwizard.com). You will likely never see constructive criticism of capitalism—the prevailing paradigm fuelling the [sixth mass extinction](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene%5Fextinction?ref=foxwizard.com)—on mainstream media. In Australia, you [could lose your job](https://theshot.net.au/uncategorized/no-one-feels-safe-in-zionist-australia/?ref=foxwizard.com) if you’re a journalist sharing facts reflecting international human rights. And you know [what happens to whistleblowers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWkGmw3xMTU&ref=foxwizard.com) here. Now, I don’t mean to get ‘political’ (politics—how power works—is unavoidable anyway, in all facets of life). Nor do I want get all ‘conspiracy theory’ on you (it’s not *quite* my style). But I do want to encourage fellow questers and spellcasters and would-be strategists to recognise that there is *much* insight to be found by looking where others aren’t. Where everyone looks to the shining obvious headlines and trends—look to the penumbra. Let your eyes adjust to the glimmers in the dark. Seek the *gaps* in knowledge—either as avenues to explore and contribute to, or as fields to be wary within. Knowing that some ideas are being *actively suppressed* by powerful entities (lobbies, say) is useful. This is (partly) what it means to ‘keep your wits about you’. But—voids aside—I want to posit something you will likely forget. Just like I did that other time, and the time before, remember? ### Antimemetics A while back I read a conceptually phenomenal book called [*There Is No Antimemetics Division*](https://qntm.org/scp?ref=foxwizard.com) by qntm*.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/02/image.png) [There Is No Antimemetics Division](https://qntm.org/scp?ref=foxwizard.com) by qntm In this book we learn of the concept of ‘antimemes’—concepts and phenomena that actively *resist* awareness, retention, or discussion because they are too complex or too mundane. Antimemes exist above, beneath, or below our ability to notice. Unlike a meme, which spreads virally through culture and consciousness, an antimeme actively avoids propagation—it is inherently *self-concealing*. Have you ever gone to read something, but notice your eyes glaze over. Or have you ever watched something—only to immediately forget what you saw? Or have you ever gone to listen to a podcast and felt oddly distracted, unable to focus, or subconsciously repelled? Perhaps—*perhaps—*you are brushing up against something that has the qualities of an antimeme. This is topical for me at the moment because I have been wondering why so few of my friends have watched or listened (or read the transcript) of [*Artificial Intelligence and The Superorganism*](https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/71-daniel-schmachtenberger?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* This is a deep conversation between Nate Hagens and Daniel Schmachtenberger that explores the nth-order implications of artificial intelligence. In addition to underscoring it in [this post from last year](https://www.foxwizard.com/wisen-up-artificial-intelligence/)*,* I have also personally recommended it to twenty friends and colleagues—emphatically. Only two have actually listened to it. Now, there are several explanations for why there is such a low uptake. 1. It’s over three hours long. Our late-stage capitalist paradigm with its associated distraction economy has groomed most of us into feeling time-poor and under-resourced. Few have the capacity nor capability to focus and imbibe long-form media; most would prefer the tiktok version. 2. It’s dense and dry. The conversation is technical, and assumes an audience that is intelligent, patient, and curious. 3. There’s a lot going on right now! Way too much noise. This may have been in an open tab, but new and more exciting content will bump it out. 4. It’s a threat to some identities and business models. If you have ‘built a brand’ for being optimistic or euphoric about artificial intelligence, listening to this episode might bring some dissonance into your perspective. 5. It’s existentially uncomfortable. The conversation systematically makes the case for the self-terminating path of civilisation, with rigour. This is ontologically unsettling—it’s a lot to take in. And yet... the folks I have recommended this episode to are intelligent, patient, curious, and kind. They have the capacity and capability to do deep research and learning. And they are, by and large, intellectually honest and able to hold paradox. So—what gives?\* \* *Incidentally, Kim has recommended it to five of her friends, and all five have listened to it. Could it be that they are all poets and are thus able to confront the deeper aspects of reality?* ### Wizardly practices If you are mindful when you engage with content, if you are aware of your response to things, you might sometimes *catch* yourself in the act of an antimeme slipping away from your perception. You might notice when you tune out—so that you can *tune back in.* Or take a more crafty approach and *listen in periphery.* This is one of my favourite ways to approach what seems to be an antimeme. [Surreptitiously](https://www.foxwizard.com/obliquity/). In practical terms, it means listening to a podcast whilst on a drive or a long walk. Or even whilst playing a video game (currently: [*Kingdom Come Deliverance II*](https://kingdomcomerpg.com/?ref=foxwizard.com)). There’s something about the way that our main attention and focus is ‘captured’ which allows us to perceive and discern that which might otherwise elude us. There’s also something to be said about *scenius.* One cannot sense-make alone. Approaching such conversations as a group of friends, a community or a collective\* allows for the group to hold the knowledge. This means that, when approaching ideas that resist perception, there are folks who can ‘catch’ the conversation before it lapses. Assuming your sense-making partners are aptly attuned. The memory can also be contained collectively, so that—even if you can’t quite remember enough to articulate things yourself, the group can. Indigenous cultures know this better than any of us—knowledge is held in land, story and song. \* Once upon a time I ran ‘sensemaking skulks’ for subscribers. We have also hosted The Rekindling events, exploring ‘post-doom sensibilities for the collapse aware’ (which mostly involved warm provocation followed by conversation in convivial contexts). I’m thinking of rekindling something like this again this year, exclusive for subscribers. The future needs our collective imagination, along with our ability to grapple with the slippery antimemes that evade us. Otherwise it will be as Mark Fisher writes in the book [*Capitalist Realism*](https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/3448c394-66c1-453e-ad69-61bb6ec1bf7e?ref=foxwizard.com)(2009): > “The slow cancellation of the future has been accompanied by a deflation of expectations.\* Capitalism seamlessly occupies the horizons of the thinkable.” \* *Like health care or maternity leave being framed as a ‘benefit’ to a job, rather than an inherent right.* Fredric Jameson, in [*Archeologies of the Future*](https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/1ae77302-3acb-417f-8e1a-30f791919973?ref=foxwizard.com)(2005)—and Slavoj Žižek in [*First as Tragedy, Then as Farce*](https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/be0e2a27-50e5-41b4-9609-da52695dc7aa?ref=foxwizard.com) (2009)—have said similar: > “It is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism” Ursula K. Le Guin, as you know, also said much the same in her [2014 National Book Awards Speech](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2v7RDyo7oshttps://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/ursula-le-guin-speech-challenges-the-inevitability-of-capitalism/&ref=foxwizard.com): > “We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings.” That’s the popular line of it. But there’s another aspect, too. > “I think hard times are coming when we will be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now… We will need writers who can remember freedom.” Uncannily, just as I was wrapping up this piece, my friend [Steph Clarke shared a link](https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7295729353630396416?commentUrn=urn%3Ali%3Acomment%3A%28activity%3A7295729353630396416%2C7296031350111842307%29&dashCommentUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afsd%5Fcomment%3A%287296031350111842307%2Curn%3Ali%3Aactivity%3A7295729353630396416%29&ref=foxwizard.com) to a new book by Andy Hines: [*Imagining After Capitalism*](https://www.imaginingaftercapitalism.com/?ref=foxwizard.com). There’s ꧁something꧂ happening in these times, right now. Perhaps we are in [The Great Turning](https://resources.soundstrue.com/we-are-the-great-turning-podcast/?ref=foxwizard.com) already? I’d like to think so. ## Something to ponder In my [episode on journaling](https://www.foxwizard.com/e3/) we ask the question: *‘what are we pretending to not know?’* This is a good question that begets a kind of flirting with our own shadow. But there’s a bigger question about ‘cultural shadow’ in the context of our patho-adolescent society. I’m deep in reading [*The Journey of Soul Initiation*](https://www.animas.org/books/journey-of-soul-initiation/?ref=foxwizard.com) at the moment. In this, Bill Plotkin observes that our modern societies keep us in an adolescent state by reinforcing collective shadow dynamics, including: denial of death, repression of wildness, and fear of the unknown. This tracks with much of what I have intuitively felt in the past decade, especially with our polarising social media and distraction economy (‘the spectacle’). And so, dear reader, I would like for you to ponder your own relationship to the unknown. How do you relate to [mystery](https://emergencemagazine.org/essay/navigating-the-mysteries/?ref=foxwizard.com)? To [unknowing](https://integral-review.org/knowing-and-unknowing-reality-a-beginners-and-experts-developmental-guide-to-post-metaphysical-thinking/?ref=foxwizard.com)? What affordances do you make for generative ambiguity? And: what encounters have you had with antimemes? You might not remember any encounter in order to answer that last question. But, if you keep your wits about you, you may just glean the outline of an absence, and the shadow of an idea that would otherwise seek to erase itself. What to do with this insight is another conversation entirely—a conversation that will occur in the privacy of your own heart. Thanks for reading/watching/listening. *—fw* ### 🧙🏻‍♂️ Fresh Mana from Enchantment Supply URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/enchantment-supply/ Last updated: 2025-01-02T01:41:22.000Z ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/01/IMG_5328.jpg) I am veritably elated to have received this wondrous package from [Kevin McGillivray](https://www.kevinmcgillivray.net/?ref=foxwizard.com) of [Enchantment Supply](https://www.enchantment.supply/?ref=foxwizard.com). It features a handwritten letter (complete with a wax-sealed envelope, no less!) alongside unique, hand-painted, and exquisitely sourced red and green mana squares—ready to tap for bard-magic whenever needed. They shall be a boon upon my writing desk! As a delightful bonus, I also received a mythic-level acorn cube. I’m feeling positively chuffed about the year ahead now—there’s a touch of grammarie imbued in each item; I can feel it. If you’re a wizard, witch, druid—or any kind of spellcaster—in search of apt components, look no further than [Kevin McGillivray](https://www.kevinmcgillivray.net/?ref=foxwizard.com) of [Enchantment Supply](https://enchantment.supply/?ref=foxwizard.com)! ### 🦊 Choose Your Wyrd URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/choose-wyrd/ Last updated: 2025-12-29T05:29:57.000Z Hello! It’s that time of year where all sorts of ‘reflective’ activities are foisted upon us. Once upon a time, I didn’t quite mind, but these days I find that I am *quite the snob* when it comes to the art of ‘reflection’. I wish it were merely an amused indifference—but some of the booklets, videos and prompts I have seen on the topic of “end-of-year reflections” have caused this wizard to verily harrumph with fake affront. I’m surely not alone in this. 😅 And so, for my own palliation at least, allow me to share a two unpopular yet qualified opinions on the art of reflecting. But first—some quick updates: ### A Shaman and a Wizard Talk Magic I’ve recorded a new podcast episode: [*A Shaman and a Wizard Talk Magic*](https://www.foxwizard.com/e4/). This is not one for the unimaginative, but if you have a penchant for the more-than-rational, I think you’ll find it good company. [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2024/12/image.png)](https://www.foxwizard.com/e4/) 🦊 Subscribe and listen on [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/foxwizard/id1645970777?ref=foxwizard.com), [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/2hkJuLE5VMED5rvDqnH4RL?ref=foxwizard.com) and [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeLHJRzrOWo%5FQXluAn65XjHQsoX3IjLvn&ref=foxwizard.com) [This episode is a recording of a conversation I had with my new friend Simon van der Els](https://www.foxwizard.com/e4/)—a molecular biology PhD turned inner development guide and shamanic healing practitioner, whom I met via mutual resonance on LinkedIn. Much of this conversation occurs outside of the Overton Window. You’ll kinda need to step *through* the window, follow the path through the meadow, and head down to the river. Once there, you’ll find us. ## Reflecting on Reflection And now I shall opine. Take this all with a pinch of salt—this is just me being a bit particular about the way we approach reflection. Two points, really: ### 1\. Your End-of-Year Reflections Need Not Happen at the End of the Year Though, admittedly, it *is* a good time for many of us. The end-of-year brings some families and friends together, where someone remembers that thing you said you wanted to do *last year,* and they ask you about it. *“How’s the book writing going, Jason?”* for example. Many have some time off from work. And some have received new paper journals—or have invested in acquiring *the fantastic wall-planner crafted by the dangerlam*. Before planning the new calendar year, it makes sense to reflect upon the year that was. Kim and I do this with one of the dangerlam [wall-calendars](https://www.dangerlam.com/shoppe/2026-calendar?ref=foxwizard.com) we have in our bedroom. With this one we track highlights/gratitudes each day (and we give dots for days in which we did moderate or intense physical activity). Here’s a view from our bed as I pen this museletter to you. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2024/12/dangerlam_wall_calendar.jpeg) The danglerlam wall calendar—available for purchase at [dangerlam.com/shoppe/2026-calendar](https://www.dangerlam.com/shoppe/2026-calendar?ref=foxwizard.com) Sometime soon we will go through the calendar, reliving our gratitudes and highlights while looking for patterns to imbibe into the year ahead. Last year we were reminded that we love going for walks in the rain. This year, I suspect, we will be reminded that we love our time by the river. And/but! This is never forced. Sometimes we hold off on doing this until the end of January. And I know that many of us are still very busy at this time of year with work or other obligations. It’s also an incredibly *social* time of year. Deep reflection, at least to my sensibilities, is best suited to deep winter or the equinox. Midsummer is a time of revelry and lightness. **My advice: find the time that works for you.** You’ll know the quiescent mood when it comes upon you. I used to promote *The Ritual of Becoming* as an end-of-year thing, but then found the time too crowded. I now personally undertake the ritual each April, beginning with Fool’s day. If you’re exhausted from the year—and, if you’re paying attention to what’s been happening in the world, it has been a hellish one—ease up. Rest. There’ll be time for reflection later. Relax, read, play. Restore yourself, so that when it comes to *integrating* what wisdom you glean from your reflections, you’ll be in a much more resourced space. ### 2\. Relish (rather than Rank) So many reflection activities, books and guides ask you to rate or rank the ‘top three’ experiences, lessons, relationships or learnings from your past year. Or to determine what your ‘best’ and ‘worst’ experiences were. And I’m sure many folks believe this works for them. But the judgemental frame that ranks or rates experiences is mostly useful in context where expedient decision making is required. Such an approach misses the more subtle, poetic and developmental profundity that comes from experiences that are unpleasant or suboptimal. But if we slow down, we can learn to *relish* each experience; savouring them whilst appreciating what lessons they harbour. Some experiences from the past year *will* shine more salient than others, of course. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they are ‘better’ or ‘worse’. Much of the first half of the year saw me ensnared by social media, watching an apartheid state commit genocide with impunity. I thought I was well-girded for the metacrisis—but I never had imagined its sympotms would look this bad. How would I rank the experience of seeing children be killed, starved and maimed? Worst experience! Would not recommend. Even worse to see the warlocks of Empire justify and defend it. Yet I also know that this whole thing has transmuted into a kind of developmental quickening for me. I’m far more embodied and emotionally sensitive and attuned than I have been in decades. I *feel the feels,* more than ever before. I’m also even more discerning with media, now. I’m still not sure if this is a ‘good’ thing, but it feels like some kind of depth has been unlocked. What experiences can you now—with some distance from them—appreciate for the developmental qualities, depth and insight they have bestowed? What experiences did you learn from this year? ## Reflecting on The Ritual of Becoming One of the more amusingly vexing experiences I’ve had over the past decade is observing people ‘pick a word’ for their year ahead after what seems to be a mere moment’s consideration. It’s amusing, perhaps, because I was once that person. Yet it’s also vexing because—at least from my limited (or arrogant) perspective—so many come tantalisingly close to genuine development, only to retreat into familiar, plateaued patterns. Recently, I have been reflecting upon [The “Choose One Word” Ritual of Becoming](https://www.cleverness.com/word?ref=foxwizard.com) itself. It feels ripe for an overhaul. Two issues stand out to me: 1. **Emphasising The Word over The Ritual itself.** Bypassing The Ritual—of deep reflection, introspection and projection—will result in mere incremental perpetuations of one’s current trajectory. The busy, overworked executive who is perpetually burning out will choose words like “accelerate” or “grit” or “deliberate”—when what they may need is something far more mysterious to break the pattern and embeckon new insight, depth and growth. 2. **Making it too easy to access for free.** I tend to want to give away all value for free. Originally, I offered free access to folks who would ask me (via email). But then I just hid the free (100% off) discount code in plain sight on the sales page. When looking at the statistics for folks who have undertaken the lessons, those who paid (or manually requested free access) have engaged more than 15x more than those who simply accessed it the easy/free way. I’ve come to realise that making it all too easy is a disservice. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2024/12/Screenshot-2024-12-30-at-10.14.18-am.png) I accept that I may well be an esoteric wizard-snob in matters of conjuring a Word. One Word to serve as a fuzzy contextual beacon. And again, some people are quite happy with their lowercase ‘w’ words. But the true magic, as far as I have come to learn, is in the embracing of the *Wyrd.* ## Choose your Wyrd The concept of Wyrd intertwines *agency* (your ‘free-ish’ will) with *fate* (the broader forces shaping outcomes), creating a dynamic interplay or ‘generative paradox’, if you will. We are not simply subject to the whims of Fate, nor are we the sole determinators—but something in-betwixt. I also love that Wyrd is, in a general sense, used to describe something as either weird, uncanny or unfamiliar. In my experience coaching and working with folk who intentionally lean into their developmental unfurling, it’s the weird Words—the *Wyrd* Words—that have been most potent. The pattern-disrupts. The ones that elicit curiosity and surprise. Remember, much development comes from the synthesis of entropy and support. Too much entropy—without the opportunity to reflect and integrate—will be fraying and chaotic. But likewise, too much support—without the opportunity to experience and learn new things—will be stifling and mediocre. A predictable pattern that leads only to ossification and obstinance. We need to cultivate a dynamical relationship to our participation in life, and the developmental unfurling that is only possible when we seek out That Which Bewilders. Bewilderment is also an apt antidote to the algorithmic domestication the past decade or so has groomed us into. Difficulty awakens the genius, as Nassim Taleb writes. We come *alive* whenever we are challenged and bewildered. So: be wilder. My advice? If your reflective process feels too mechanical, tick-box and linear—if it all ‘clicks’ into place and reinforces a neat narrative arc—you may be missing the hidden lessons along the way. And if your Word doesn’t surprise, delight or baffle those around you—if its too normal, known and familiar to you—you may not be embracing the deeper transmuting magics available to you. And that’s okay! Sometimes we need a chapter that is quiet and affirming. There is no rush. Do as thou wilt, etcetera. But if you sense that there is more that beckons to you—if you sense a whole new chapter of life awaits thee—the self-paced [Ritual of Becoming](https://www.cleverness.com/word?ref=foxwizard.com) is here for you. 🧡 --- May the turning of the Gregorian calendar be fruitful for you. And may you allow yourself the joy of new stationery, [a crisp new warmly-minimalist dangerlam wall calendar](https://www.dangerlam.com/shoppe/2026-calendar?ref=foxwizard.com), and maybe a quiet moment to genuinely reflect upon the wisdom and insight gleaned from your experiences thus far. And when you turn your attention to the year ahead, may you be warmed to the prospect of co-cultivating a world more curious and kind, so that we might collectively venture towards a future less grim. And may you find the courage to be disliked, the courage to be misunderstood, and in so doing: move closer to alignment with that which Life beckons you to be and become. Because the world is only going to get weirder. It is no longer viable to compete against artificial intelligence in the known domains it already dominates. You must—as I oft posit—venture *beyond* the default. You must keep your wits about you. And so, may you embrace the weirdness ahead. As Hunter S. Thompson advised: *“When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.”* Lean into your Wyrd, and I’ll see you in the new calendar year. Warmth, Jason --- PS: [The dangerlam wall calendar](https://www.dangerlam.com/shoppe/2026-calendar?ref=foxwizard.com) is genuinely lovely gift. It’s available as a digital download. Once acquired, you can have your local printer conjure your very own wall calendar in A1 or A2 format. It has the following qualities: - everything is hand-drawn (conveying an organic quality to how we relate to time) - the faint, minimalist lines allow for hermetic transgressions (you can think outside the box) - there is room for qualitative theming (open boxes to note contextual intent, like life or project chapters) - you have the freedom to track progress in whatever way works for you (we use a star-sticker system and coloured dots) - there is an uninterrupted sense of flow (days and months are presented in a kind of continuum) - it has a little flower on it We’ve sampled many calendars and wall planners in our nearly two decades together. [The dangerlam wall calendar](https://www.dangerlam.com/shoppe/2026-calendar?ref=foxwizard.com) is the alchemy of all that we want and love. Simple, sublime—and yours whenever the whim strikes. 🧡 ### 🏮 e4 // A shaman & a wizard talk magic ⛲︎ URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/e4/ Last updated: 2026-05-15T01:47:14.000Z ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2024/12/e4-foxwizard-shaman-and-wizard-talk-magic_1_1.jpg) ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/media/2024/12/e4-foxwizard-podcast_thumb.png) e4 // a shaman & a wizard talk magic ⛲︎ 0:00 /6848.705306 1× 🦊 Subscribe and listen on [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/foxwizard/id1645970777?ref=foxwizard.com), [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/2hkJuLE5VMED5rvDqnH4RL?ref=foxwizard.com) and [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeLHJRzrOWo%5FQXluAn65XjHQsoX3IjLvn&ref=foxwizard.com) --- Ahoy friends, this is a fun one! Since I last wrote to you I have recorded two podcast episodes—one on the perilous state of corporate leadership ~~development~~ domestication, and another on how to use rogue skills to detect multipolar traps. Both of these podcasts amounted to about three hours worth of listening. Neither have been published. Why? Because it just didn’t feel right—something was off. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I am learning to trust these intuitions more. Which brings me to this exquisite conversation with [Simon van der Els](https://www.linkedin.com/in/simon-van-der-els-phd-66434b231/?originalSubdomain=nl&ref=foxwizard.com); a molecular biology PhD turned inner development guide and shamanic healing practitioner. We’ve danced adjacent amidst the sterile landscape of LinkedIn, and I’ve been inspired by how authentically he shows up in the world. We share similar narrative elements, too—academia then metacrisis insight-cascade-into-despair, followed by recovery that opens to living systems and the more-than-rational world (coupled with post-doom sensibilities), etc. I don’t want to oversell the conversation but... there were some really quite special moments amidst. I’m presenting this to you in its raw form, effectively unedited. This is how I personally relish podcast conversations—I want to savour the pauses, appreciate the stumblings and figurings, and to generally experience a conversation that is warm, emergent and real (rather than cool, familiar, and performative). The unedited version of [Krista Tippet’s conversation with Joanna Macy](https://onbeing.org/programs/joanna-macy-a-wild-love-for-the-world/?ref=foxwizard.com) is a prime example of such. Simon is a beacon amidst the liminal web, and his [coaching](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/simon-van-der-els-phd-66434b231%5Foffering-inner-renegeration-for-sprouting-activity-7275825139697500160-AoOL?utm%5Fsource=share&utm%5Fmedium=member%5Fdesktop) is worth considering if, like me, you find yourself desirous of the kind of inner-regeneration and developmental depthwork that isn’t readily available outside of the liminal. Enjoy! --- ### A misleading episode summary (by shoggoth) > In this conversation, Simon van der Els and the foxwizard explore the themes of shamanism, wizardry, and the metacrisis. They discuss the importance of embodiment, intuition, and the dangers of Naming in complex systems. Through their exchange, they highlight the significance of nature, trust, and the role of plant medicine in personal growth and transformation. This conversation delves into the complexities of plant medicine, exploring their chaotic nature and the transformative experiences they can induce. They discuss the importance of context, and the role of ego in shaping these experiences. The dialogue shifts to the concept of entities and egregores, examining how collective intelligence and social dynamics influence our reality. They reflect on the shadows cast by modernity, the need for discernment, and the intentional relationships we can cultivate with plant medicines. **Keywords:** *shamanism, wizardry, metacrisis, embodiment, intuition, naming, complexity, self-discovery, plant medicine, psychedelics, entities, egregores, collective intelligence, modernity, healing, discernment* --- ### Chapters 00:00 An intro from foxwizard 14:16 Embodied Experience and Energetic Healing 17:16 The Role of Naming and Understanding 20:21 The Complexity of Mapping and Abstraction 23:22 The Interrelation of Nature and Self 26:11 The Challenge of Digital Presence and Identity 29:24 The Nature of Consciousness and AI 47:29 Exploring the Nature of Creativity and Intuition 52:32 The Role of Shamanism and Wizardry in Personal Growth 58:22 Navigating Plant Medicine Experiences 01:06:04 The Dangers and Misconceptions of Ayahuasca 01:13:14 Understanding Entities and Egregores in Modern Contexts 01:20:24 Collective Intelligence and the Nature of Money 01:23:22 Navigating Chaos and the Role of Tricksters 01:26:18 Illumination and Shadows in Modern Society 01:29:22 Perception of Reality and the Influence of Entities 01:32:32 Exploring Plant Medicines and Consciousness 01:45:28 Intentionality in Plant Medicine Use 01:51:40 The Nature of Living Conversations --- Remember: you can also [*watch* this episode on YouTube](https://youtu.be/4j20zgB68kQ?ref=foxwizard.com). --- *PS: This is the first episode in which I didn’t painstakingly edit the captions/transcript. I’m hoping I can get away with it, but... let’s see.* 🧡 ### Out of the dark forest URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/now-out-of-the-dark/ Last updated: 2026-04-10T12:47:28.000Z It’s been at least five years of questing in the dark forest; a protracted [cocoon](https://www.animas.org/glossary-to-language-of-soul-canyon/?ref=foxwizard.com#Cocoon) chapter of dissolution and descent. I didn’t choose to do this—not at first. But familial and ecological grief coupled with the metacrisis ‘insight-cascade’ finally caught up with me. I had intellectually processed this—or so I thought. But this merely suppressed the sorrow, and all the feels. Plus the blursed question from my book [*How to Lead a Quest*](https://www.foxwizard.com/books/#how-to-lead-a-quest)*—*namely: *“is this meaningful progress? or are we perpetuating a rich delusion of progress?”*—has had me realise that much of our shared trajectory is a [delusion of progress](https://www.foxwizard.com/authentic-progress/). A default that will lead us to mutually assured destruction (or at the very least: a future quite grim). And so I stepped through the [window of disenchantment](https://www.foxwizard.com/e2/), venturing [beyond hope](https://www.foxwizard.com/beyond-hope/), and opening myself to poetry, myth, magic, and more. And it worked! Eventually. I would not wish this on anyone (or would I?), but I can’t help but feel that the past half-decade was absolutely *necessary*. And so now I am wending my way back towards myself. ### 🏮 e3 // Journal like a Wizard ⟐⧑ URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/e3/ Last updated: 2026-05-15T01:47:14.000Z ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2024/11/e3-foxiwzard-journaling_1_1.jpg) ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/media/2024/11/e3-foxwizard-podcast_thumb.png) e3 // Journal like a Wizard ⟐⧑ 0:00 /3431.157551 1× 🦊 Subscribe and listen on [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/foxwizard/id1645970777?ref=foxwizard.com), [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/2hkJuLE5VMED5rvDqnH4RL?ref=foxwizard.com) and [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeLHJRzrOWo%5FQXluAn65XjHQsoX3IjLvn&ref=foxwizard.com) --- In episode 3 I share some almost-practical insight on how to *journal like a wizard.* (This wizard, at least. 😅) As we near the end of the year—and as we plunge ever deeper into the cacophony of misinformation, disinformation, polarisation, discord, complexity, ambiguity, paradox, and doubt—cultivating the regenerative capacity to *think for yourself* is more vital than ever. But ultimately: this is a practice of *tending* to your own processing, integration, metabolising, healing, deepening, wisening, and developing. Tending to your own unfurling. We do this so that we might find meaningful progress, serve The Altogether*,* and live deliciously. Below you’ll find a screenshot of the daily journaling template I use (after a misleading episode summary, chapters, references, and the One Thing I forgot to share). --- ### A misleading episode summary (by shoggoth) > Here foxwizard explores the transformative power of journaling, emphasising its role in developing metacognition and personal growth. He shares advanced techniques whilst providing a detailed template for daily journaling, encouraging listeners to engage with their thoughts and emotions deeply. foxwizard also discusses the significance of confronting one's shadow self and shaping daily intentions to foster meaningful progress in life. **Keywords:** *journaling, self-reflection, metacognition, personal development, daily practice, narrative, tarot, meaningful progress* --- ### Chapters to skip to 00:00 Intro 00:57 Why do wizards keep a journal? 02:19 Reflecting on our last episode 06:04 A dive into the deep wondrous art of journaling 08:07 An attempted episode tease 09:05 Firstly: Morning Pages 13:16 The best way to cultivate a habit of morning pages 16:48 What about those with a penchant for paper & quill? 18:56 Here I go talking about development (again) 20:59 Journalling “Apps” 22:46 The gift of becoming fatigued by one’s own bullshit 24:18 Consider Obsidian for your spells 25:45 My daily journaling scaffold-template 29:12 VIBE 32:45 The daily tarot draw (provocation; not divination) 42:47 OMM and AWE 47:00 Befriending the Shadow 48:38 The Shape of the Day 49:19 Do it for The Plot 52:19 Errands & tasks 53:36 End of Day reflection 54:28 Warp warding 55:14 Wizardly wrap-up Remember: you can also [*watch* this episode on YouTube](https://youtu.be/4j20zgB68kQ?ref=foxwizard.com). --- ### Wouldst thou like a transcript? [Here you are](https://www.foxwizard.com/content/files/2024/11/e3-foxwizard-journal-like-a-wizard-podcast-transcript.txt)! (52kb plain text file) --- ### References & notes Here are some of the things I mentioned. - The tagline for this episode—“cultivate the regenerative capacity to think for yourself”—is something I was inspired by from Carol Sanford’s wonderful book [*No More Gold Stars*](https://carolsanford.com/no-more-gold-stars/?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* - [*The Artist’s Way*](https://juliacameronlive.com/the-artists-way/?ref=foxwizard.com)by Julia Cameron – morning pages + artist dates are such numinous concepts from this program. - [*There Is No Right Way To Meditate*](https://www.yumisakugawa.com/books/thereisnorightwaytomeditate?ref=foxwizard.com) by Yumi Sakugawa – I love her framing; it applies to much of life. - [750words.com](https://new.750words.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) – a, nay, *the* best way to cultivate a daily journaling practice. - The [Hobonichi Techo 5-year Diary](https://www.1101.com/store/techo/en/lineup/?ref=foxwizard.com) – an intimidating (yet rewarding) gift. - [*On Bullshit*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On%5FBullshit?ref=foxwizard.com) by Harry Frankfurt – I include this so that folks know that, by bullshit, I mean: an indifference to truth (as distinct from dishonesty). - “[File over app](https://stephango.com/file-over-app?ref=foxwizard.com)” philosophy by Steph Ango – inspiring and pragmatic. - [Obsidian.md](https://obsidian.md/?ref=foxwizard.com) – my go-to knowledge garden. - [Readwise](https://readwise.io/?ref=foxwizard.com) – my digital repository for articles and highlights, seamlessly synced with Obsidian. - [Peter Levine’s “Felt Sense” Exercise](https://www.new-synapse.com/aps/wordpress/?p=63&ref=foxwizard.com) – a handy primer for the somatic activity of genuinely sensing into what we feel. - [The Magic: The Gathering Color Wheel (& Humanity)](https://homosabiens.substack.com/p/the-mtg-color-wheel) – one of my all-time favourite articles; an exquisite distillation of a simple-yet-complex philosophy of “magic”. 🃏 Fun fact: there are 3,651,648 possible combinations of a 3-card tarot spread. If you were to sample just one combination daily, it would take you \~10,000 years to get through all variations. ✨ - [Fyodor Pavlov’s Tarot](https://www.fyodorpavlov.com/tarot?ref=foxwizard.com) – this is my favourite deck, and the one I use for my physical readings. - [Labyrinthos](https://labyrinthos.co/?ref=foxwizard.com) by Tina Gong – this app and associated website is a treasure trove. I use her app when I can’t do a physical reading, and have enjoyed the way she has made learning the deeper nuances of Tarot so accessible. Highly recommended. ![The 7 of Swords tarot card; a man stealing seven swords, illustrated with some red-coloured highlights.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2024/11/image-1.png) I actually drew the 8 of Swords in the podcast, but that card image is so tragic, so I’ve swapped it for the 7 of Swords. I love the sneakiness that [Fyodor Pavlov has so masterfully captured](https://www.fyodorpavlov.com/tarot?ref=foxwizard.com) here. If you’re interested, [here is the labyrinthos description of the card](https://labyrinthos.co/blogs/tarot-card-meanings-list/seven-of-swords-meaning-tarot-card-meanings?ref=foxwizard.com). - [Ōura Ring](https://ouraring.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) – as a wizard I try not wear too many things that will interfere with my magics, but this enchanted ring has remained quite useful and appreciated. - [Supra Oracle Deck](https://uusi.us/products/supra-oracle?ref=foxwizard.com) by Uusi – I really love the art style of this deck. Sometimes, when I am stuck for writing or flow, I will pluck a card at random to see what might be evoked. - [*The Coaching Habit*](https://www.mbs.works/coaching-habit-book/?ref=foxwizard.com) by Michael Bungay Stanier – really, this remains the most universally exquisite-useful-and-apt distillation of questions for pretty much any coaching context. I use the first two questions *every day* in my journaling practice. - [*Immunity to Change*](https://www.amazon.com/Immunity-Change-Overcome-Potential-Organization/dp/1422117367?ref=foxwizard.com) by Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey – I need to find some other examples that illustrate the generative paradox of conflicting values. The concepts behind this book are great, but it’s a dry read, and it’s pitched for Enterprise Land. - When I refer to my section on “The Plot” (below), I am mostly referencing the meme “[Do it for The Plot](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/do-it-for-the-plot?ref=foxwizard.com)”. This is *“an internet slang term used to encourage yourself or others to do something, regardless of the potential for a bad or otherwise life-changing outcome, in order to advance ‘the plot’ and move on to the next ‘plot point,’ as if considering yourself the main character of your life.”* Of course, you or I are not the main characters of our lives—we are emergent “ecological expressions” of something greater—but hey, for journaling it’s fun to indulge. Where else do we get to be so solipsistic, eh? - [Acceptance & Commitment Therapy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acceptance%5Fand%5Fcommitment%5Ftherapy?ref=foxwizard.com) – I make a hat tip to this, in a vague and off-hand manner. --- ### The One Thing I forgot to share Part of the charm of having a daily note template (in Obsidian) is that I can use community plugins (such as Liam Cain’s [Periodic Notes](https://github.com/liamcain/obsidian-periodic-notes?ref=foxwizard.com)) to enhance the *flow* in which my journaling happens. And so, as part of my daily journaling I have a little box at the top of my daily template that highlights “the current chapter”. I tend to work in seasons these days, and right now we are mid-spring in The Antipodean Realms. The point of having “the current chapter” prominent at the beginning of the daily journaling template is that it keeps your seasonal “objectives” top of mind each day, whereas they might otherwise become lost, obfuscated or forgotten. You’ll see from my template screenshot below that I have “podcast flow” as a milestone (which I have prematurely checked for you—each episode takes me about two days to plan, record, edit/transcribe, upload, publish, and write these museletters to you, so—ha—I’m not sure that this is “flow” just yet). Another thing I include as part of “the current chapter” is the “theme”. For me, right now, through a series of uncanny coincidences, repeated exposure, and a literal witch, I have the Ace of Cups as a symbolic reminder to *lead with heart*. Sounds super lame, I know. Yet... it feels right. ❤︎ --- ### My daily journaling template My current template is as thus: ****the current chapter** // seasonal theme with three key milestones – **the theme serves as a kind of contextual beacon* ****vibe** // soma, mood, mana, draw, sleep and readiness – **this is mostly a somatic and imaginal check-in* ****omm + awe** // The first two questions guiding my ‘morning pages’ – **the intent here is flow (ideally between 500–750 words)* ****shadow** // wherein I ask: what am I avoiding? And: what am I pretending to not know? – **here I seek to surface hidden commitments and conflicting values* ****dayshape** // here I timebox the day – **I treat this as an amusing hypothesis more than a rigid structure or plan* ****the plot** // here I highlight the single most important, ‘plot progressing’ task, along with my ((secret task)) – **if I lose the plot, this is what I return to* ****errands + tasks** // here we finally get to list a few todos **– it takes some knack to avoid launching straight into productivity mode, but it’s worth staving* ——— ****reflection** // if inclined, I reflect upon: what I did, what I learned, and what I shall do tomorrow – **any insight can become seeds for tomorrow’s journaling* And now here is a screenshot from the blank markdown file that serves as an automagic template in [Obsidian](https://obsidian.md/?ref=foxwizard.com). I was going to show you *an actual* entry but decided to preserve *some* mystique. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2024/11/Screenshot-2024-11-04-at-4.43.52-PM.png) And there we have it! --- ### Hopes & Dreams I hope that this musing + podcast serves as a source of invigoration for you to begin, rekindle or renew a practice of journaling. And it is *a practice.* Don’t feel intimidated. I regularly get out of practice. My daily journaling habit is something I am lucky to maintain once or twice a week sometimes (hoho). But always—*always*—you can work your way back into flow. I really find [750words.com](https://new.750words.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) to be so handy for finding confidence and flow in your journaling. And if any of what I shared above feels too technical, obscure, advanced, or even too pedestrian and *basic*, then of course: you know you can do whatever the heck you want. You’re a wizard, too. Finally, I dream that, someday, I’ll have podcasting fully figured out for you. Something efficacious and sustainable. I’d love to share more with you—I relish this medium. If you happen to be in a generous mood—a positive review on your favourite podcasting platform would be very much appreciated. 🦊 Also: perhaps you have a friend who might also be contemplating \[a re-invigoration or return to\] journaling? If so, you know what to do. ✨ Gratitude and warmth, *fw* ### 🏮 e2 // The Window of Disenchantment URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/e2/ Last updated: 2026-05-15T01:47:15.000Z ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2024/10/e2-window-of-disenchantment_1.jpg) ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/media/2024/10/e2-disenchantment--foxwizard-_thumb.png) e2 // The Window of Disenchantment 0:00 /3561.586939 1× 🦊 Subscribe and listen on [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/foxwizard/id1645970777?ref=foxwizard.com), [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/2hkJuLE5VMED5rvDqnH4RL?ref=foxwizard.com) and [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeLHJRzrOWo%5FQXluAn65XjHQsoX3IjLvn&ref=foxwizard.com) --- In episode two we explore the gifts that *disenchantment* brings. This episode came about on a whim (and, lol, it shows 😅) when I found myself offering the following almost-platitudinous adage to friends expressing frustration that they just feel a bit “stuck” in life. That they don’t have the motivation they once had, and that their work has lost its charm. #relate To them, I wouldst say: > *Momentum inhibits reinvention.* I would then gently suggest that, perhaps, they are entering into a chapter of life whereby the quiet discontent they had been harbouring was finally making itself known. And that if we *listen* to this disquiet—if we treat this window of disenchantment as an *invitation*—we may find ourselves moving closer to what we might call *meaningful progress / alignment / fulfilment / development / deepening / calling / etcetera.* What we resist, persists (as the saying goes). And life, your body, your relations, “The Universe” (etc) will keep dishing you up versions of this lesson—at increasing intensities—until you take heed. And listen. --- ### Podcast episode summary (by shoggoth) > In this episode, foxwizard explores the themes of disenchantment and reinvention, emphasising the importance of recognising moments of disillusionment as opportunities for personal growth. He discusses the role of momentum in inhibiting change, the significance of disenchantment as a spell that breaks illusions, and the oscillation between disenchantment and re-enchantment. The conversation also touches on the differences between Father Tongue and Mother Tongue, highlighting the importance of language in fostering connection and understanding in a polarised world. Ultimately, the episode encourages listeners to embrace their feelings of disenchantment as invitations to seek alignment and authenticity in their lives. **Keywords:** *disenchantment, reinvention, momentum, personal growth, self-awareness, authenticity, leadership, metacrisis, language, connection* --- **Okay but real talk:** I’m still finding my groove with this podcasting thing. I’m not *particularly* proud of this episode (in fact: it fills me with chagrin; I could have made this so much better for you; I don’t like it)—but I don’t want to fall into the spiral of endless perfecting. So: indulge me as I find my way anyway! And thank you for your patience. --- ### Chapters 00:00 Preamble 02:06 Episode Overview 03:41 Productivity ≠ Progress 05:29 Momentum Inhibits Reinvention 11:43 Windows of Disenchantment 21:35 Breaking Spells 40:29 Ritualised Quiescence 51:10 Re-Enchantment 54:30 Father Tongue, Mother Tongue 57:48 Always in Oscillation Remember: you can [*watch* this episode on YouTube](https://youtu.be/jpxDH2XSvu8?ref=foxwizard.com). --- ### Wouldst thou like a transcript? [Here you are](https://www.foxwizard.com/content/files/2024/10/e2-disenchantment--foxwizard-%5Ftranscript.txt)! (55kb plain text file) --- ### References I’m all over the shop in this episode. But here are some of the things I mentioned. - I reference Martin Shaw’s work—particularly passages from [*Courting The Wild Twin*](https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/courting-the-wild-twin/?ref=foxwizard.com)—a lot. I share key passages below. - [Jevon’s Paradox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons%5Fparadox?ref=foxwizard.com) – *the counterintuitive phenomenon where increases in resource efficiency lead to higher overall consumption of that resource. For example, improvements in energy efficiency often reduce costs, making energy use more affordable and accessible, which can drive up demand and negate some of the intended conservation benefits. In essence, greater efficiency can inadvertently spur more extensive use.* What we want is the opposite of this. - From Nassim Taleb’s [*Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifragile%5F%28book%29?ref=foxwizard.com)*,* I mention the example of the tourist and the flâneur*. “Rational flâneur (or just flâneur): Someone who, unlike a tourist, makes a decision opportunistically at every step to revise his schedule (or his destination) so he can imbibe things based on new information obtained.”* - I find myself referring to Layman Pascal’s [*Gurdjieff for a Time Between Worlds*](https://www.amazon.com/Gurdjieff-Time-Between-Worlds-Hyperpersonal/dp/B0D3SS8Z3V?ref=foxwizard.com#:~:text=Gurdjieff%20for%20a%20Time%20Between%20Worlds%20is%20a%20unique%20literary,%2C%20teachings%2C%20and%20writing%20styles.) again. - I briefly mention [*The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%5FUses%5Fof%5FEnchantment?ref=foxwizard.com)*,* a 1976 book by Bruno Bettelheim. - I make passing reference to “The Nihilistic Gap” that David Chapman explicates in [*A bridge to meta-rationality vs. civilizational collapse*](https://metarationality.com/stem-fluidity-bridge?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* - I do a sneaky shoutout to [The Labyrinths of Reason](https://www.foxwizard.com/labyrinths/) post and video I made 18 months ago. This one is *good.* - I mention [*The Courage to be Disliked*](https://www.kadlac.com/notes/the-courage-to-be-disliked?ref=foxwizard.com) and Adlerian psychology. - I mention [*Sand Talk*](https://www.textpublishing.com.au/books/sand-talk?ref=foxwizard.com)by Dr. Tyson Yunkaporta. - I clumsily recite the lyrics from [Pet](https://genius.com/A-perfect-circle-pet-lyrics?ref=foxwizard.com) and [Disillusioned](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIsH686xWl0&ref=foxwizard.com) by A Perfect Circle. - I reference Jem Bendell’s book [*Breaking Together*](https://jembendell.com/2023/07/10/breaking-together-for-free-and-my-launch-speech/?ref=foxwizard.com). - I hat tip to [The Dark Mountain Manifesto](https://dark-mountain.net/about/manifesto/?ref=foxwizard.com). - I share the “contextual momentum” model I conjured for my first book, [*The Game Changer*](https://www.drjasonfox.com/books?ref=foxwizard.com)(published over a decade ago). ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2024/10/Contextual-Momentum-Model.png) “Contextual Momentum”, he calls it. - I fondly recall the depresso post I made at the start of October last year: [Are We Beyond Hope?](https://www.foxwizard.com/beyond-hope/) (And, increasingly, I see that coming to terms with our metacrisis and the associated grief is a vital maturity threshold we must cross—lest we continue to perpetuate the very conditions that incentivise our own collective destruction) - I reference Josh Schrei’s podcast—this time, his episode [*Trickster Jumps Sides: Disruption and the Anatomy of Culture*](https://www.themythicbody.com/podcast/trickster-jumps-sides-disruption-anatomy-culture/?ref=foxwizard.com)—and his *phenomenal* online course: [The Mythic Body](https://www.themythicbody.com/?ref=foxwizard.com). - I make reference to Cal Newport’s “shut down” ritual (from [*Deep Work*](https://calnewport.com/deep-work-rules-for-focused-success-in-a-distracted-world/?ref=foxwizard.com)). - I relish in the [Merlin Bird ID app](https://merlin.allaboutbirds.org/?ref=foxwizard.com)! Kim shared this with me and it has transformed the way we walk, and the quality of the attention we bring to our locale. (Kim has also been reading [*What The Robin Knows—How Birds Reveal the Secrets of the Natural World*](https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/What%5Fthe%5FRobin%5FKnows/SLHEGqpBxwUC?hl=en&gbpv=0&ref=foxwizard.com) and I am astonished by how much I am learning even just via the tidbits and snippets shared). - I quote from Lewis Hyde’s [*Trickster Makes This World*](https://lewishyde.com/trickster/?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* If you have any affinity or respect for the role Trickster plays, this book is a must. - I reference [Ursula K Le Guin’s Bryn Mawr Commencement Address (1986)](https://serendipstudio.org/sci%5Fcult/leguin/?ref=foxwizard.com) where she explicates upon *Father Tongue and Mother Tongue.* --- ### A small piece on Hermes: spellbinder and unbinder Hermes is neither simply an enchanter or a disenchanter, but both at once: > “Hermes of the Dark is the weaver of dreams, the charmer who spins a compelling tale, the orator who speaks your mother tongue with fluid conviction.. . . Hermes of the Light translates dreams into analytic language; he rubs the charm from old stories until they seem hopelessly made up and mechanical. He walks you inland until you stop dreaming in your mother tongue.” I read the full quote directly in the podcast; this is [a summary plucked from here](https://ovidsmetamorphoses.blogspot.com/2011/03/hermes-spellbinder-and-unbinder.html?ref=foxwizard.com). --- ### An excerpt from [Disillusioned by A Perfect Circle](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIsH686xWl0&ref=foxwizard.com) \[...\] > We have been overrun > By our animal desire > Addicts of the immediate > Keep us obedient and unaware > Feeding this mutation > This Pavlovian despair > > We've become > Disillusioned > So we run > Towards anything glimmering > > Time to put the silicon obsession down > Take a look around > Find a way in the silence > Lie supine away with your back to the ground > Dis- and re-connect to the resonance now > You were never an island > > Unique > Voice among the many > In this choir > Tuning > Into each other > Lift all higher \[...\] --- ### A passage from Marin Shaw’s [*Courting the Wild Twin*](https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/courting-the-wild-twin/?ref=foxwizard.com) > “This, now, is mostly an era of spell-making. Of tacit enchantment, of stultified imaginations and loins inflamed by so much factory-fodder lust, our relationships malfunction in their millions. We are on the island of the Lotus Eaters, curled up in the warm sleepy breeze of a Russian fairy tale as the robber steals away the Firebird. How do we wake up? > > I will give you a little plot-spoiler right here. Sounds so very deceptively simple. The secret is relatedness.” --- ### Reflecting on the last episode Since episode [e1 // Pretend To Be Who You Really Are](https://www.foxwizard.com/e1/), I seem to be noticing reference to ‘shapeshifting’ all about the place. Just recently, after listening to [this episode of The Great Simplification where Nate Hagens interviews Bill Plotkin](https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/146-bill-plotkin?ref=foxwizard.com) (which, btw, has *exquisite* nominative determinism there: plotkin!), I have become aware of [The Animas Valley Institute and their wondrous glossary of terms](https://www.animas.org/glossary-to-language-of-soul-canyon/?ref=foxwizard.com). Shapeshifting and mythopoetic identity is a theme, here. I also appreciate the framing of *selfhood as an ecological expression*. And part of this implies that we each find our ecological niche—the role we play as a functioning element of a greater living whole. And as we look towards this chapter of exponential change and collapse, many of us will need to be sensing into the roles we play in this changing ecology. Fluidity and situational acuity remain vital sensibilities. As too will your ongoing developmental unfurling—even if it involves [dissolution](https://www.animas.org/glossary-to-language-of-soul-canyon/?ref=foxwizard.com#Dissolution). These were themes I was already writing into my next book for you; but now they have new depth. Speaking of book writing, fellow *metamodern-ish collapse-aware infinite player* [Sarah Wilson is serialising the writing of her next book](https://sarahwilson.substack.com/t/the-book-serialisation) (on collapse). And she is doing such a good job of it. Inspired. This is happening over on substack, a platform I have long since [ghosted](https://ghost.org/?ref=foxwizard.com). I’ll discuss my reasons for leaving substack someday soon, but in the meantime it has left me wondering: what might it be like to write a book in serial form? Could I even? I’m not sure my mind works in a straight line, but it could be fun to share the journey with a smaller cohort. Let’s see. --- ### Parting wishes Befriend your feelings of disenchantment. They may hold the key to liberating you from the illusions that keep you shackled to a path/role/mode/self-concept that no longer serves you. Disenchantment may well be a window to your own developmental unfurling, and the re-enchantment that lies beyond. *fw* ### 💌 I’ve a new podcast for you! (+ another update) URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/new-podcast-update/ Last updated: 2024-10-23T09:45:02.000Z Hidden away at the bottom of [my last museletter to you](https://www.foxwizard.com/established-emergent/) I shared a link to a “secret survey”. I wanted to hear from folks who read these musings (people like you), so that I might better glean what’s on your mind. In this museletter, I shall share a gist of what I learned. But first... ## 1 // New podcast \~> foxwizard; Questing Betwixt [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2024/10/foxwizard-podcast-cover.png)](https://www.foxwizard.com/podcast/) You can subscribe and listen on [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/foxwizard/id1645970777?ref=foxwizard.com) and [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/2hkJuLE5VMED5rvDqnH4RL?ref=foxwizard.com). You can even *watch* on [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeLHJRzrOWo%5FQXluAn65XjHQsoX3IjLvn&ref=foxwizard.com&themeRefresh=1). Here’s the trailer. (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ\*:･ﾟ✧ ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/media/2024/10/e0-foxwizard-trailer-1_thumb.png) E0 foxwizard trailer 0:00 /57.573878 1× This is a podcast for the already construct-aware and collapse-aware among us. It’s for those of us who find themselves questing betwixt worlds, amidst the metacrisis. It’s for the infinite players who choose to *stay in the trouble*,\* so that we might somehow collectively cultivate a world more curious and kind (and a future less grim). It’s for wizards, witches, tricksters and more. \* *Hat tip to Donna Haraway’s “[Staying With The Trouble](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staying%5Fwith%5Fthe%5FTrouble?ref=foxwizard.com)”.* In other words: the audience for this podcast is *very* small. Few. Basically you are my audience. I’m not trying to “take over the world” with this endeavour. I simply hope to light a lantern to serve as some kind of beacon for those of us questing amidst and betwixt. In the first episode, I respond to a question from a subscriber.A question that pertains to *personas.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2024/10/Screenshot-2024-10-22-at-5.05.34-PM.png) ### Episode One is for the shapeshifters 🦊✨ And here is the [Apple Podcast](https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/foxwizard/id1645970777?ref=foxwizard.com) and [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/2hkJuLE5VMED5rvDqnH4RL?ref=foxwizard.com) link. You might find this episode *affirming* if you are a complex character who plays many roles in life. If you contain multitudes (you do) and yet sometimes struggle to live up to “Your True Authentic Self™️”—this episode is thy remedy. The question that was asked—along with the full show notes, book links and more—can be found over at the episode page: [🏮 Pretend To Be Who You Really Are](https://www.foxwizard.com/e1/). Fun fact: my friend [Buster recently shared his 18th year of annual reflections](https://buster.medium.com/48-be-buster-benson-bbb-be-be-be-ba0d51abcc7c?ref=foxwizard.com), which I find personally very inspiring. Amidst this piece, Buster plays with a distinction between mask-life and gooey-life, and I love this framing. It’s a distinction that shares some coherence with this first episode on *coherent pluralistic ontologies* that allow for (situationally) *authentic relating.* Here’s a time-stamp tease of episode one. You can skip to chapters in the video— [*00:00*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skChIvihacw&list=PLeLHJRzrOWo%5FQXluAn65XjHQsoX3IjLvn&index=1&t=0s&ref=foxwizard.com) *Whomst art thou?* [*02:29*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skChIvihacw&list=PLeLHJRzrOWo%5FQXluAn65XjHQsoX3IjLvn&index=1&t=149s&ref=foxwizard.com) *This is take 78* [*03:20*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skChIvihacw&list=PLeLHJRzrOWo%5FQXluAn65XjHQsoX3IjLvn&index=1&t=200s&ref=foxwizard.com) *A question of personas* [*07:17*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skChIvihacw&list=PLeLHJRzrOWo%5FQXluAn65XjHQsoX3IjLvn&index=1&t=437s&ref=foxwizard.com) *The question as asked* [*07:46*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skChIvihacw&list=PLeLHJRzrOWo%5FQXluAn65XjHQsoX3IjLvn&index=1&t=466s&ref=foxwizard.com) *Masks of amplified aspects of authenticity* [*10:00*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skChIvihacw&list=PLeLHJRzrOWo%5FQXluAn65XjHQsoX3IjLvn&index=1&t=600s&ref=foxwizard.com) *Development as complexification* [*11:37*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skChIvihacw&list=PLeLHJRzrOWo%5FQXluAn65XjHQsoX3IjLvn&index=1&t=697s&ref=foxwizard.com) *Authentic relating* [*12:14*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skChIvihacw&list=PLeLHJRzrOWo%5FQXluAn65XjHQsoX3IjLvn&index=1&t=734s&ref=foxwizard.com) *Waters; disturbed* [*14:26*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skChIvihacw&list=PLeLHJRzrOWo%5FQXluAn65XjHQsoX3IjLvn&index=1&t=866s&ref=foxwizard.com) *Personas; muddled* [*17:36*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skChIvihacw&list=PLeLHJRzrOWo%5FQXluAn65XjHQsoX3IjLvn&index=1&t=1056s&ref=foxwizard.com) *An inescapably fluid character* [*19:10*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skChIvihacw&list=PLeLHJRzrOWo%5FQXluAn65XjHQsoX3IjLvn&index=1&t=1150s&ref=foxwizard.com) *Only that which can change* [*19:45*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skChIvihacw&list=PLeLHJRzrOWo%5FQXluAn65XjHQsoX3IjLvn&index=1&t=1185s&ref=foxwizard.com) *This podcast is for the shapeshifters* [*20:56*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skChIvihacw&list=PLeLHJRzrOWo%5FQXluAn65XjHQsoX3IjLvn&index=1&t=1256s&ref=foxwizard.com) *Embrace thy contradictions* [*22:06*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skChIvihacw&list=PLeLHJRzrOWo%5FQXluAn65XjHQsoX3IjLvn&index=1&t=1326s&ref=foxwizard.com) *Oh hello, MOLOCH* [*23:44*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skChIvihacw&list=PLeLHJRzrOWo%5FQXluAn65XjHQsoX3IjLvn&index=1&t=1424s&ref=foxwizard.com) *Hermetic mercuriality* [*26:38*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skChIvihacw&list=PLeLHJRzrOWo%5FQXluAn65XjHQsoX3IjLvn&index=1&t=1598s&ref=foxwizard.com) *Playing your Part* [*28:15*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skChIvihacw&list=PLeLHJRzrOWo%5FQXluAn65XjHQsoX3IjLvn&index=1&t=1695s&ref=foxwizard.com) *Who’s right?* [*29:33*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skChIvihacw&list=PLeLHJRzrOWo%5FQXluAn65XjHQsoX3IjLvn&index=1&t=1773s&ref=foxwizard.com) *Read the room* [*30:52*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skChIvihacw&list=PLeLHJRzrOWo%5FQXluAn65XjHQsoX3IjLvn&index=1&t=1852s&ref=foxwizard.com) *Embrace thy personas and parts* [*33:12*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skChIvihacw&list=PLeLHJRzrOWo%5FQXluAn65XjHQsoX3IjLvn&index=1&t=1992s&ref=foxwizard.com) *OODA loops* [*36:27*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skChIvihacw&list=PLeLHJRzrOWo%5FQXluAn65XjHQsoX3IjLvn&index=1&t=2187s&ref=foxwizard.com) *Chameleons are actually pretty fkn cool* [*39:04*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skChIvihacw&list=PLeLHJRzrOWo%5FQXluAn65XjHQsoX3IjLvn&index=1&t=2344s&ref=foxwizard.com) *Before tending comes pre-tending* [*41:34*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skChIvihacw&list=PLeLHJRzrOWo%5FQXluAn65XjHQsoX3IjLvn&index=1&t=2494s&ref=foxwizard.com) *Courting contrast and contradiction* [*43:35*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skChIvihacw&list=PLeLHJRzrOWo%5FQXluAn65XjHQsoX3IjLvn&index=1&t=2615s&ref=foxwizard.com) *Embracing and seemingly curating* [*49:57*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skChIvihacw&list=PLeLHJRzrOWo%5FQXluAn65XjHQsoX3IjLvn&index=1&t=2997s&ref=foxwizard.com) *And… is it comfortable?* [*54:50*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skChIvihacw&list=PLeLHJRzrOWo%5FQXluAn65XjHQsoX3IjLvn&index=1&t=3290s&ref=foxwizard.com) *Lean towards complexification* There’s so much more to unpack amidst this. And, as alluded to within the podcast, the question that was asked of me pertains to a key theme of the book I am writing you. Stay tuned. ✨ --- By the way, I just want to acknowledge: it is incredibly challenging to write or otherwise “show up” when we have a livestreamed corporate-sponsored genocide coupled with political gaslighting and [Moloch media](https://www.foxwizard.com/moloch-media/) disinformation, to the backdrop of global heating-induced climate catastrophes and ongoing ecocide. Yet show up we must. In the myriad ways we can, with what resources we have. I’m in a better place since the “[are we beyond hope?](https://www.foxwizard.com/beyond-hope/)” post I shared on the *4th* of October last year. You might even say I’m post-tragic; post-doom. But that would be a half-truth. It’s an *oscillation,* and most often it feels like I am not doing enough. Because there’s always so much more that can be done. But, as Gandalf says: *“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us”.* I’m not in a hurry to burn myself out and doom-spiral once again. But at the same time, I cannot simply put my head in the sand and carry on whilst genocides and ecocides rage on. And so, it shall remain an oscillation. But, as professor Jason Hickell elucidates so clearly: [a liberated Palestine is a threat to global capitalism](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dBy4-6pn1M&ref=foxwizard.com). For those of us (basically: all of us) who participate within this paradigm, it remains a paradox. In order to live, we must perpetuate the very paradigm that renders much of life so unliveable. As discussed in the podcast, I don’t want to totally blow my cover. There *are* a lot of good people working within Enterprise Land; these are the conspirators I work with to cultivate a world more curious and kind. At the same time, there are a lot of genocide/capitalism/moloch apologists, too—so we must tread somewhat carefully. *“We live in capitalism,”* [says Ursula Le Guin in her speech at The National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters](https://www.ursulakleguin.com/nbf-medal?ref=foxwizard.com). *“Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings.”* I know I’ve shared this quote before, and the full context of her speech is *marvellous.* [Aspiring Warrior Librarian explicates wondrously](https://ferusaurelius.tumblr.com/post/646502804261847040/aspiringwarriorlibrarian-ive-seen-the-ursula-k?ref=foxwizard.com): > I’ve seen the Ursula K LeGuin quote about capitalism going around, but to really appreciate it you have to know the context. > > The year is 2014\. She has been given a lifetime achievement award from the National Book Awards. Neil Gaiman puts it on her neck in front of a crowd of booksellers who bankrolled the event, and it’s time to make a standard “thank you for this award, insert story here, something about diversity, blah blah blah” speech. She starts off doing just that, thanking her friends and fellow authors. All is well. > > Then this old lady from Oregon looks her audience of executives dead in the eye, and says “Developing written material to suit sales strategies in order to maximize corporate profit and advertising revenue is not the same thing as responsible book publishing or authorship.” > > She rails against the reduction of her art to a commodity produced only for profit. She denounces publishers who overcharge libraries for their products and censor writers in favor of something “more profitable”. She specifically denounces Amazon and its business practices, knowing full well that her audience is filled with Amazon employees. And to cap it off, she warns them: “We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art. Very often in our art, the art of words.” > > Ursula K LeGuin got up in front of an audience of some of the most powerful people in publishing, was expected to give a trite and politically safe argument about literature, and instead told them directly “Your empire will fall. And I will help it along.” I’ve come to a point in life where I’m only really interested in helping those who likewise quest for a world more curious and kind. Folks who seek to serve for *the flourishing of all-of-life*—not the exploitation, extraction and diminishment of it. This is possible. There are organisations and teams who quest amidst the metacrisis, in a time betwixt worlds. Folks doing good work and providing real value, with business models that remain profitable without becoming parasitic. The spirit in which they do their work *also* serves to bring about the paradigmatic shift our world needs. This is [NG+](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New%5FGame%5FPlus?ref=foxwizard.com) and way more challenging than default capitalism. Yet, when we pull it off, it is *much* more rewarding. It would be so much easier if we didn’t care, lol. But here we are! ## 2 // First Principles and First Values It seems I have a penchant for pseudonymous authors. My latest crush is the rather blandly named “David J Temple” entity—an ongoing collaborative authorship at the [*Center for World Philosophy and Religion*](https://worldphilosophyandreligion.org/?ref=foxwizard.com),\* primarily composed of [Marc Gafni](https://www.marcgafni.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) and [Zachary Stein](https://www.zakstein.org/?ref=foxwizard.com)°—and their new book: [*First Principles and First Values: Forty-Two Propositions on Cosmoerotic Humanism, the Meta-Crisis, and the World to Come.*](https://www.amazon.com/First-Principles-Values-Propositions-Cosmoerotic/dp/B0CS85WYVX?ref=foxwizard.com) \* *The word “religion” is one that I still have allergies, too. They are lessening, with time. But still: if, like me, you don’t warm to the word, try not to write it all off immediately.* *° It is from Zach Stein that the term “between worlds” became known to me, which is an apt articulation for this time in which we are living through a liminal space where old systems, structures, and paradigms are crumbling—but new ones have not yet fully emerged.* I started reading this in the Snowy Mountain region whilst at a friend’s 40th last weekend—such is the party hoot I am—and I must say I haven’t felt a sense of *trembling coherence* at the scale this book tackles in quite some time. There are plenty of professorial pundits who each posit their grand “[Theory of Everything](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory%5Fof%5Feverything?ref=foxwizard.com)” books, yet in my experience such books often feel clinical and hollow. *First Principles and First Values* resists the temptation of *fusing* diverse contradictory elements into something neat, homogenous and bland. The book effectively proposes “an *Evolving Perennialism* in which universal and eternal truths can be identified without becoming fixed”. This earnest (and so far compelling) attemptappeals to me. Particularly as this isn’t some Ivory Tower pontificating. The authors, as you’ll see from my photo below, are most assuredly aware of the metacrisis and the dire call to course-correct. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2024/10/IMG_3978.jpeg) A grim excerpt, read to the backdrop of kookaburras, parrots, cuckoos and lyrebirds. (FWIW these are just the overt risks—the insidious risks remain non-linear and non-obvious. But that’s a tale for another time, with whisky!) This questing betwixt worlds is not an easy gig, hoho. The Cassandra vibe is a bit of a buzzkill, I know. Besides: no one likes to have their faith (in capitalism, the market, SCIENCE!, ‘great men’, big tech, [the naïve progress narrative](https://www.foxwizard.com/authentic-progress/), etc) questioned. Such heresy beckons [ontological remodelling](https://metarationality.com/remodeling?ref=foxwizard.com), and that’s super scary. Still, as Arundhati Roy so elegantly says: *“Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”* But we can’t simply sit back and wait. Some of us—those of us paying attention—must find our way to whatever role we might play. To quote from *First Principles and First Values:—* > “Many bear the great privilege and great responsibility of having the capacity to see what is unfolding, to take a seat at the table of history, and to act for the sake of every individual human and for humanity at large—past, present and future. This obligation is hard to capture in words. All past generations count on us to complete their unfinished work. The beings currently populating Earth turn to us to transform the present to assure their survival. All the countless unborn, possibly trillions, in all possible future generations, have only us, right now, to ensure their existence and their well-being.” No pressure lol. --- ## 3 // Collective wisdom—fellow subscribers respond to my questions I was quite heartened by the responses (nearly 100!) to my “subscriber survey” last month. Especially given that I hid it tucked away at the bottom of a long musing. You are all very lovely people, of such depth! It felt very warming to hear from you. My heart wants to write back to each of you, yet my mind recognises my proclivity to do things that aren’t writing my next book to you. So, allow me to share a gist-summary with you. For context: about 30% of respondents have been subscribed for over half a decade, and 60% have been subscribed for over two years. ### What are the themes of your world at the moment? Many reported themes of change, uncertainty, liminality and flux. I guess this is no surprise as it seems to be the beacon I light. It’s heartening to know: we are not the only ones questing amidst and betwixt. Many also reported that they were noticing signs of collapse, and that there was a pensive background sense of frustration and concern. One person had their dog and family as their main world-theme right now. I think there is immense wisdom in that. Here’s a photo Kim took of me with my beautyboi Snörri. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2024/10/Sno-rri_and_I.jpg) Life is infinitely better with a familiar (the dangerlam took this on her [Pentax 17](https://pentax.eu/products/pentax-17?ref=foxwizard.com)) ### What esoteric knowledge do you harbour? And there were so many fascinating threads here. Including: someone raised in a bookstore that was also a world centre for esoteric work and practice; oneiromancy, football tactics through the lens of relationism, worm farming, saddlefitting, the effects of gelatine in canine seizures, Italian and Japanese fountain pens—and more. Many left their email with me, so that I can follow up. Which I may well do, in time. ### “Some people say my museletters are too long, and contain too many fancy words. Is this true??” Interestingly, a few people responded to my survey *within 10 minutes* of the museletter going out. This means they would have skimmed all the way to the bottom, then opened the survey to respond, written their responses, and submitted. All within 10 minutes! And, generally speaking, the few who responded with relative swiftness did say that the museletters I write to you are, in fact, too long. And that they do contain too many fancy words. Some samples: > Yes. They're long. Too long? Sometimes, yes. I'm impatient at times, or otherwise preoccupied, meaning I think, "I won't read this now". And, then, I never do. > Yes indeed its true I would say lots of people > tbh I used to find you a little tiring - my working life as a leadership and management consultant and instructional designer of considerable prowess imho (with a tonne of years experience) but there is something that draws me to you nonetheless - The arcane? I am fascinated by your musings whether or not I agree with them, they expand my word view. I look up the fancy words, they encourage learning. > yes - your obtuse phrasing creates distance between you and the reader. In a dumbed-down world I think you make yourself less accessible, less relatable. > Yes 100%. But please don’t change that. It allows me to suffer healthily However, the slight majority seemed to relish in the baroque magniloquence I oft bring to thee. And, generally speaking, a lot of survey responses came back to me a week or so after my ravens delivered the museletter. Some samples: > I feel like I'm going on a journey with every museletter. Always delighted by scenery along the way. And always a surprise discovery of something I didn't know existed before. It's what keeps me reading right to the end every time! > I appreciate the length - allows me to process, and thank you for not talking like a McKinsey consultant > ? Nooooooooooooo. I can honestly say I love seeing the museletter pop up in my email - I save it for the end of the day and read every word. I love exploring all the links, and you always spark new ideas and thoughts for me. Please do not dumb it down!!!! > No - they can copy-paste into ChatGPT if they need it shorter or simpler > Some people enjoy reading the Herald Sun; I don't... > No - If I am not on tight timeframes - I like to read to the end. When I am under pressure, sometimes I start and then come back to it. I can't get the full meaning if it's in a short blurb. > Long is good with me. I prefer depth and words and ideas that challenge me. You definitely provide that. There are more responses, of course, but at this point in time—as this museletter breaches 2,500 words, I am beginning to become a little self-conscious of my word count. ### Whomst would you like to hear more from? - 52% of respondents said they wanted to hear more from **foxwizard*, *enigmatic advisor-friend to all who quest.** - 42% said they wanted to hear more from ***jason***. - Only 6% said they wanted to hear more from ***Dr. Fox, Archwizard of Ambiguity (most fantastic)*** This was incredibly heartening to hear, as I am pretty tired of the Dr. Fox persona. More foxwizard and jason to come! (or maybe I just merge them all again? who knows. Nothing is fixed; all is flux.) ### Is there anything you would like *me* to know... And mostly I received warm encouragement. Which is very much appreciated. It sometimes feels like I am out on the edge typing out soliloquies to the void. An amusing madman who pretends to be a wizard, politely indulged by civil society. But it’s been really lovely hearing from you, and it’s left me conjuring Plans to have more avenues of interaction with you. I’m thinking of something like a reading club and more regular online meetups through 2025\. I’m also working on a couple of courses, and am updating The Ritual of Becoming. Anyway, here’s what one reader shared: > “I've been fascinated watching you resist the pull of Linkedin, only to submit from time to time.” I’ve been baking a museletter for you, for a long time, on the notion of “platform larping”. Of relating to corporate network slash social media platforms as campaign settings within which you bring an amplified-authentic persona as an avatar (of you) that you roleplay. Except these days I mostly show up on LinkedIn in career-limiting fashion. Whilst I ought be promulgating selfies-with-clients and palatably normative thought leadership that fits within the Overton Window, the LinkedIn algorithm still manages to remind me, hourly, of the horrors of the genocide that Israel (and much of the West) is currently committing, and of the ecocide that we are collectively perpetuating. And so I find that how I usually show up on LinkedIn is oft reactive and rarely ‘effective’. Sometimes I think of simply conjuring an avatar of Dr. Fox—much like a wizard might construct a golem (tasked with basic instructions)—and then to load it up with content to drip-feed to the platform, hitting on all the right buzzwords, with the right frequency, so as to appease The Algorithm and attain the boon of “reach”—which might then, somehow, translate into a meaningful working relationship. I still may... I still may. > “The future enters into us, in order to transform itself in us, long before it happens.” – Rainier Maria Rilke A reader shared this quote. And I can never pass up a good Rilke quote. This pertains very aptly to the *tilted* perspective on “pre-tending” I share in [episode 1 of the foxwizard *questing betwixt* podcast](https://www.foxwizard.com/e1/). --- Thank you for reading this \~3.3k word epistle. I don’t know why I am particularly obsessed with word count these days. Perhaps it is because I recognise that these are not words towards my next book for you, hoho. Let’s see how this podcast concept goes; I hope you enjoy it. If you have any thoughts or questions, you can respond privately via [drjasonfox.com/questions](https://drjasonfox.com/questions?ref=foxwizard.com) Warmth, *fw/j* ### 🏮 e1 // Pretend To Be Who You Really Are URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/e1/ Last updated: 2026-05-15T01:47:16.000Z ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/media/2024/10/e1-shapeshifting--foxwizard--1_thumb.png) e1 // Pretend To Be Who You Really Are 0:00 /3579.585306 1× 🦊 Subscribe and listen on [Apple Podcast](https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/foxwizard/id1645970777?ref=foxwizard.com), [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/2hkJuLE5VMED5rvDqnH4RL?ref=foxwizard.com) and [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeLHJRzrOWo%5FQXluAn65XjHQsoX3IjLvn&ref=foxwizard.com) --- In episode one we go full *!foxmagic.* You might find this episode *affirming* if you are a complex character who plays many roles in life. If you contain multitudes (you do) and yet sometimes struggle to live up to “Your True Authentic Self”—this episode is thy remedy. Stay awhile and listen as we dissolve the involuted notion of a singular “true authentic self” and instead *decentralise* our quest for authenticity—orienting instead towards *authentic relating*. In this way, we embrace the multiple personas we have, experiencing their contradictions as a generative force. This episode was crafted in response to the following question from a long-time subscriber of The Museletter. (Subscribe for free at [foxwizard.com](https://www.foxwizard.com/)) Your survey question that asked which of your personas I wanted to hear more from disturbed the waters. I have been challenging myself to release or tear down my personas. (The whole once-a-Marine-always-a-Marine thing is real!) I have tended to feel chameleonesque, like a pretender. But I see you embracing and seemingly curating your manifestations. How do you do that!? And, is it comfortable? I swear a few times in this episode, and it’s probably not safe for work (my work). But I suspect you’ll enjoy it. --- Keywords: *personas, authenticity, self-development, fluidity, relational dynamics, emotional acuity, complexity, growth* ### Chapters 00:00 *Whomst art thou?* 02:29 *This is take #78* 03:20 *A question of personas* 07:17 *The question as asked* 07:46 *Masks of amplified aspects of authenticity* 10:00 *Development as complexification* 11:37 *Authentic relating > authentic self* 12:14 *Waters; disturbed* 14:26 *Personas; muddled* 17:36 *An inescapably fluid character* 19:10 *Only that which can change* 19:45 *This podcast is for the shapeshifters* 20:56 *Embrace thy contradictions* 22:06 *Oh hello, MOLOCH* 23:44 *Hermetic mercuriality* 26:38 *Playing your Part* 28:15 *Who’s right?* 29:33 *Read the room* 30:52 *Embrace thy personas and parts* 33:12 *OODA loops* 36:27 *Chameleons are actually pretty fkn cool* 39:04 *Before tending comes pre-tending* 41:34 *Courting contrast and contradiction* 43:35 *Embracing and seemingly curating* 49:57 *And… is it comfortable?* 54:50 *Lean towards complexification* 58:12 *Thank you for listening* --- ### References - Shout out to [this podcast episode with Dr Myriam Hadnes](https://workshops.work/podcast/266/?ref=foxwizard.com), wherein we discuss—amidst many things, including the delicate sautéing of onions—how traumatic family dynamics can give rise to some deft facilitation sensibilities - I make reference to this fantastic episode [On Trauma and Vegetation Gods](https://www.themythicbody.com/podcast/reissue-trauma-vegetation-gods/?ref=foxwizard.com) by Josh Schrei on The Emerald Podcast - I, of course, reference James P. Carse’s [*Finite and Infinite Games*](https://wtf.tw/ref/carse.pdf?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* The full quote from the passage I read can be found below. - I have been finding sweet confluence betwixt the sensibilities of “The Fourth Way” (by Gurdjieff)—coupled with Layman Pascal’s [*Gurdjieff for a time between worlds*](https://www.amazon.com/Gurdjieff-Time-Between-Worlds-Hyperpersonal/dp/B0D3SS8Z3V?ref=foxwizard.com)—along with [*No More Gold Stars*](https://carolsanford.com/no-more-gold-stars/?ref=foxwizard.com) by Carol Sanford. And many other developmentally-inclined works besides. - The notion of “authentic relating”—whilst utterly intuitive and natural—was probably coalesced for me by Nora Bateson. I’ve listened to many podcasts with her as a warmly weaving guest. The technological metamodernist Stephen Reid has an exquisite set of knowledge graphs. Here’s one with [Nora Bateson + the term “relationship”](https://stephenreid.net/k/nora/terms/relationship?ref=foxwizard.com). --- > NO ONE CAN PLAY A GAME ALONE. One cannot be human by oneself. There is no selfhood where there is no community. We do not relate to others as the persons we are; we are who we are in relating to others. > > Simultaneously the others with whom we are in relation are themselves in relation. We cannot relate to anyone who is not also relating to us. Our social existence has, therefore, an inescapably fluid character. This is not to say that we live in a fluid context, but that our lives are themselves fluid. As in the Zen image we are not the stones over which the stream of the world flows; we are the stream itself. As we shall see, this ceaseless change does not mean discontinuity; rather change is itself the very basis of our continuity as persons. Only that which can change can continue: this is the principle by which infinite players live. ### 🏮 Questing Betwixt—a new podcast by foxwizard URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/e0/ Last updated: 2024-10-14T04:35:58.000Z ![audio-thumbnail](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/media/2024/10/e0-foxwizard-trailer_thumb.png) E0 foxwizard trailer 0:00 /57.573878 1× 🦊 Subscribe and listen on [Apple Podcast](https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/foxwizard/id1645970777?ref=foxwizard.com), [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/2hkJuLE5VMED5rvDqnH4RL?ref=foxwizard.com) and [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeLHJRzrOWo%5FQXluAn65XjHQsoX3IjLvn&ref=foxwizard.com) What-ho, what-ho. I’m foxwizard and we are questing amidst the metacrisis, in a time betwixt worlds. This is a podcast for the post-woke, post-tragic, construct-awareagents amongst us. The infinite players who choose to *stay in the trouble*, so that we might somehow collectively cultivate a world more curious and kind (and a future less grim). ### Season One is ꧁ “The Warmening” ꧂ Here I shall be attending to the many questions asked of me by my museletter subscribers. You can subscribe for free at [foxwizard.com](https://www.foxwizard.com/) In my daylight persona I galavant as [Dr. Jason Fox, Archwizard of Ambiguity (most fantastic)](https://drjasonfox.com/?ref=foxwizard.com). That guy is a world-renowned keynote speaker and leadership advisor, with many happy clients. Sometimes, in that role, I am asked beautifully complex questions. Whilst on stage, I am not in a position to offer the response such questions deserve—lest I eat into the time of the next speaker. But here, oh my, here we can indulge and go deep. With luck, this podcast shall offer [wit, wisdom and wiles to help you be a better imposter in the mythical “future of leadership”](https://www.foxwizard.com/mythical-imposter/). Let’s see. So, dear fellow quester, join me as we seek meaningful progress—*beyond the default.* Together we shall foray heartily—amidst complexity, ambiguity, emergence and collapse—so as to harvest the freshest, darkest and most dubious fruits of wisdom (for our combined edification and delight). ### 🦊 Established & Emergent—where do you play? URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/established-emergent/ Last updated: 2024-09-23T02:16:56.000Z If I were to ask *“what is emerging in your world, for you?”* you would need to first, before answering, recognise the default narrative-response that automatically arises for you. The protective/predictable/prosaic *“oh, you know, busy busy, lots on”* response that keeps the conversation small and staid. Then, having resisted the temptation to defer to automaticity, you would need to enquire—to *quaerere* (Latin); to seek-into—attuning your senses to the complex (non-linear, subtle and hidden) processes *that are already in motion.* ## (this is emergence) **Breathing into this enquiry**, of questing *within-and-into* the question, you would then call forth myriad ‘weak signals’—inklings, hunches, hints, glimmers, signs, clues, felt-senses, and so on. Individually, each signal is laughably fickle. But, when synthesised in aggregate, these signals *might* collectively suggest a pattern, shape or form. Something enlivening or honest enough to *in-form* a response to the question. Before giving voice to this assemblage of senses, you marvel at the question itself. Particularly the pairing of *“in your world”* and *“for you”*. Perhaps at this point, though, your rational mind might seek to wrest control of the narrative. You might consider *who* is asking you this, the context in which they are asking (*are others listening? how many are in this conversation?*), the time you have available to respond (*and thus: at what depth?*), the authenticity of their enquiry (*is it genuine, or performative/polite? what’s the question behind the question?*), your relationship to the person (*are they higher, lower, or of equal status? are we trying to impress them? how might this fit into their narrative?*), and how your response coheres to the existing identity you maintain (*wait I can’t give them a real answer—they’ll think me silly)*. We are social creatures, and this is natural. But! If you’re lucky, you recall your [magical abilities](https://www.foxwizard.com/springtime-magic/) and—with a glint in the eye, and a hint of a smirk—you *indulge* in the question. *All of this is happening in but a fraction of a moment, at the apex of your inhalation.* And so: \[*in your world*\] \[*for you*\] You marvel; remembering that of course your world is *your* world*.* Your subjective ontology (aka that which is objectively true *for you*). This is the orientation amidst the salience landscape of the inter-subjective meaning-ness we share. Some things shine bright to you in this world, some things feel apt, and some things resonate with a deep relational hum. But also: not all that glimmers is *relevant* or even *good* for you. That black stone tablet in your pocket that beckons, the algorithm you seek to appease, the ads that track you (tempt you), that discolouring sense of obligation that weighs upon you—maybe these things aren’t what truly call us. But *relevance* (that quality of things cohering to an emerging context; of making sense), *goodness* (that quality of things aligning with an emerging ideal; of being in harmony with what ought to be)—these are what you attune to. And so you invite in some wise and contemplative discernment. And with this lens, you wonder—just where are you, in this nebulous unfurling story of yours? What is emerging in your world, for you? *For* you. What obstacles, setbacks and resistances might actually be hidden lessons and opportunities for you? What have all these chapters, all these challenges, all these moments leading you to **this moment** *right now*—what’s it all been for? *Hush that creeping sense of nihilism; that absurd notion that nothing matters. Hush.* Where is this story going? What calls to you? What has “The Universe” \[or equivalent potent-word\] been patiently suggesting to you? *I said hush, rational mind!* What are you longing for? What inspires you, and has you curious? What tantalising yet potentially dangerous possibility teases you? What sense of premonition is seeking to warn you? What foreboding do you harbour, about the change that insists upon being realised? And what might *move* you into greater alignment and wholeness? What catalysing poetic turn does your unfurling story seek? What is emerging in your world, for you? **Exhale.** Smile now, with some deep knowingness. Maintain the glint. At this point you don’t need to share all. Perhaps it is better to be cryptic or coy. Perhaps some [surreptitious obliquity](https://www.foxwizard.com/obliquity/) would serve. Or—quite alternatively—*you go there! Eyes beaming, and you share!* Serves them right for asking, lol. But you share whilst knowing that they’re on their journey, too. And they’ve got their grapplings and setbacks and doubts, too. And that, perhaps, you are just the right character—in the right place, at the right time—that might just offer something that brings about the subtle insight-cascade and magical *quickening* that brings about a profound shift in *their* unfurling story. Who knows? We all have a role to play. --- Whew, well. That was odd. But speaking of roles, I have been considering the various domains in which I have been playing. And, in so doing, I found myself returning to an old ‘framework’ I once scrawled, which you might find handy. Use this to sense into the domains you traverse, and the energy you invest within each. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2024/09/established_emergent-3.jpg) wait is this even a model? This framework is a *slightly* more advanced lens on the classic “that was then, this is now” philosophy that inspired the [/now page](https://nownownow.com/about?ref=foxwizard.com) concept. There are *at least* four domains worth considering: expired, established, emergent, and ‘esoteric’.\* \* *This model is rated [E for Everyone](https://www.pbs.org/kcts/videogamerevolution/impact/esrb.html?ref=foxwizard.com).* It was this model that made me realise that I have—for the past few years—been questing mostly in emergent and esoteric domains. The result being that I have neglected much of the established (the work I am very good at). > Questing ought have an oscillatory component to it. One must venture, yes. But one must also return—integrating what has been learnt into the established. And so—as a friendly provocation—I wonder: where does the balance of your energy lie? If you were to allocate ****ten stones** across each of the domains—where would your stones be placed? Here’s what mine would probably look like, btw. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2024/09/established_emergent_filled-1.jpg) This is totally appropriate for a hermit wizard (except for the expired bits) The point of this reflective framework is *not* to try be esoteric and cool. But... ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2024/09/IMG_3359.JPG) It’s more just for you to get a *sense* of where your energy is invested (and, perhaps, to have you gently realise that some of your energy is invested into domains that no longer serve you—domains that have expired). But first, let’s do a quick tour. ### the established This one is the easy one; we can think of this as your comfort zone. These are the defaults of your day to day. For most of us—except me, hoho, and maybe you—the established would occupy more than 60% of our energy/time. That’s six stones, right there. These are the rhythms and routines of work and life, the comfortable and somewhat predictable patterns. For most of us, these established domains are restorative—just think of how nice it is to be home after weeks of travel. There’s *comfort* to be found in the routine. And, if your plate is full (as a new parent, say)—it totally makes sense for this domain to be the focus. But for some, too much time and energy invested *only* within established domains leads to boredom and stagnation. The established alone may not be a source of your own development and growth/depth. You might be called forth to venture *beyond your ‘comfort zone’.* A mature business will have the majority of their energy invested into established domains—this is where operational excellence comes from. But, as with all of us, it’s dangerous to *only* operate within these defaults. You don’t need to be actively questing, but if you’re not paying attention to what is emerging around you, you may well one day come to the realisation that your business has missed key transformational moments, and that the work you do is now no longer relevant, lol. ### the expired This is where—out of habituation, ignorance, stubbornness, obstinance, or zeal—we persist with efforts and endeavours that no longer serve us. These are, sometimes, our *delusions of progress*. Some of these activities might *feel* productive—and some might be quite entangled with your sense of identity (beckoning the potential of [positive dis- and re-integration](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive%5Fdisintegration?ref=foxwizard.com), aka self-development and complexification). All in all, the energy invested in this domain does not serve you, and is not conducive to meaningful progress. It took me some time away from the internet to realise that a lot of my energy has been fruitlessly invested into [fake arguments](https://www.foxwizard.com/red-card/) this past year. I’ve found it incredibly difficult to walk past blatant racism (and worse) on professional/patriarchal platforms like LinkedIn. Looking back now, I realise that I don’t need to attend every argument I am invited to. And that there are other ways to cultivate this world more curious and kind we quest for. And so, with some diligence, I am hoping to shift a stone from that domain back into the established. ### the emergent This is where you learn and grow. It’s where you willingly place yourself into complex, dynamic, and open-ended *fields* in which you play and figure your way. These are the domains that exist beyond your established default; beyond your comfort zone. They are enlivening—but not necessarily restful. Within emergent domains you need to pay attention, listen, and keep your wits about you. The signals you receive in this domain will not be strong or reliable, and will not always cohere to established patterns or precedence. But, with a [quest-mindset](https://www.foxwizard.com/quest-mindset/) you will participate amidst the emergence. This is profoundly conducive to meaningful progress—particularly when paired with [questions like these](https://civilizationemerging.com/dharma-inquiry-2/?ref=foxwizard.com). The paradox for businesses is that the insights revealed via questing amidst the emergent may well present as existential threats to your established business model. They may herald the need to change, which almost always come with its own toll. Yet—as James P. Carse would say—*only that which can change can continue.* Time in the emergent bolsters your ability to flourish amidst change. ### the esoteric Not to be confused with *exoteric—*that which is intended or likely to be understood by many*—*your esoteric domains are the domains within which certain knowledge is hidden, “secret” or otherwise difficult to acquire (to which few understand). ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2024/09/Screenshot-2024-09-22-at-11.16.23-AM.png) More accurately, esoteric pertains to knowledge or teachings that are intentionally reserved only for those who are *prepared* to understand them. Putting my wizardly antics aside for a moment, the key thing this translates to—in an exoteric sense—is: your esoteric domains are the (relatively) *advanced* *hobbies and interests* you maintain. Interesting people usually have a pretty special hobby or two about them. I know a chap who sometimes gets up at 3am to hunt squid. I know a freelance chef who knows the guarded secret to conjuring any flavour of ice cream near instantaneously. I once met a guy who travelled to a remote part of Japan simply to learn advanced techniques of the *shakuhachi* (large bamboo flutes). My tabla teacher has deep knowledge on Indian hand percussion, and much that goes with it. To them, perhaps, their knowledge would simply be considered established and emergent—for they too would be venturing into deeper domains. Esoteric is a relatively *relative* phenomena. **Are you investing any energy into esoteric domains?** If you are, you’d know that to acquire this knowledge means you would naturally eschew what is popular. If you’ve travelled to a special part of the world a few times, you’ll know that the popular tourist destinations are *rubbish* compared to the real stuff that happens, well off the beaten path. If you’re an experienced cook, you’ll know that many of the recipes promulgated miss the exquisite alchemy and nuance you intuitively know. The power laws inherent to the network effects of our social media algorithms tend to corral us together to focus only on the established. Venturing into the emergent often means departing from conventional wisdom, so as to heed a deeper calling. Then, esoteric pursuits take this a step further, and might considered as something guided more by \[your daemon, or\] whim. I have personally *over-indexed* in the emergent and esoteric of late. Because I was working with strategic innovation teams exploring artificial intelligence *ten years ago* (which formed examples used in *How to Lead a Quest*) I have been more interested in conversations related to the nth-order effects of AI, as it interrelates to the generator functions of our metacrisis. I also found it a bit cringe to watch folks new to the whole field simply hack their way into presenting themselves as expert-authorities on the matter. Some do it well, with admirable bullshit *artistry.* Many don’t. But, in hindsight, jumping on the bandwagon was probably the more commercially clever move. Because the bulk of the world—and thus the highest total addressable market—exists within the established. Being one step ahead is much more effective than being *three* steps ahead. This is not to say that I will be abandoning the esoteric domains—I can’t, I am most alive at the edge of knowledge. But I will be investing more time in translating what insights I find back into the the established. ### a healthy spread I’d suggest that the healthy typical adult would probably have the following distribution: 10% expired (we’re all human), 60% established, 20% emergent and 10% esoteric (gift yourself a hobby). But I would hazard that the reality for much of the Western world participating in our distraction economy (that is, those not reading this right now) is: 30% expired, 60% established, 10% emergent and 0% esoteric. The emergent stuff would be limited to that which the algorithm dictates, and there would be no esoteric stuff because, well, genuine hobbies and curious pursuits usually exist in unindexed domains. They are, to put it crudely, neither discernibly “productive” nor “profitable” nor easily converted into “status, influence or power”. That’s sad, and reminds me of this comic. I’ve shared it before, and I’m sharing it again. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2024/09/image-3.png) ## Heed this! If there’s one thing this “Expired // Established // Emergent // Esoteric” framework might offer you, it’s the warm provocation to reflect upon where you invest your energy. Are there things to let go of, because they no longer serve? Are your established domains comfortably restorative and productive for you? Are you investing some time venturing beyond your default and into emerging domains? And—do you have advanced hobbies or interests you are actively cultivating? *tl;dr*—cultivate a hobby that few understand. ### journaling prompts to contemplate **✦ Zooming out to consider your life in its current chapter, how would you distribute ten stones (representing energy/time/attention/investment) across expired, established, emergent and esoteric domains?* **✦ What came up for you as “expired”? What activities no longer serve you—and how might you put these to rest (with some grace)?* **✦ What parts of your “established” domains are genuinely productive and restorative for you? What are the foundational rhythms and routines you are glad for? What what elements of this domain threaten to become too habituated; too comfortable and safe?* **✦ What is emerging in your world, for you?* **✦ What’s happening in this esoteric domain of yours? Are there hobbies you have that you would like to dedicate more time to? Are there hobbies or interests you would like to rekindle, or pursue further? What advanced/arcane knowledge are you accruing, to which few understand?* --- ## Horizonal gardening In the subtitle to this museletter I referred to the above as “a horizonal heuristic”. Heuristics are “rules of thumb” or “conceptual gist-mechanisms” that give you a sense of things in a manner that is accurate-enough to serve across most contexts. Every time I write or say horizonal, though, it seems to be that people and autocorrect think I am saying *horizontal.* This is not the case. And whilst I am a fan of all relationships being ‘horizontal’—as per [Adlerian psychology](https://medium.com/@dlishego/alfred-adler-the-courage-to-be-disliked-d24b4d72a778?ref=foxwizard.com), where we engage in all relationships on equal footing, with mutual respect, social equality, cooperation and egalitarian collegiality (fostering *Gemeinschaftsgefühl*), rather than ‘vertical’ relationships (where interactions are based on hierarchies of power and control)—in this instance I want to summon my guy James P. Carse and preach to thee from [*Finite and Infinite Games*](https://wtf.tw/ref/carse.pdf?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* > “**A horizon is a phenomenon of vision.** One cannot look at the horizon; it is simply the point beyond which we cannot see. There is nothing in the horizon itself, however, that limits vision, for the horizon opens onto all that lies beyond itself. What limits vision is rather the incompleteness of that vision. > \[...\] > One never reaches a horizon. It is not a line; it has no place; it encloses no field; its location is always relative to the view. > \[...\] > Every move an infinite player makes is toward the horizon . Every move made by a finite player is within a boundary. Every moment of an infinite game therefore presents a new vision, a new range of possibilities. > \[...\] > The Renaissance, like all genuine cultural phenomena, was not an effort to promote one or another vision. It was an effort to find visions that promised still more vision.” When people talk of “a new Renaissance” or “Renaissance-level change” or even of becoming “a Renaissance person”—we talk of the generation of visions. It’s always a *constellation* of visions we seek (not a singular vision to win-out against other visions). It is then by such constellations we navigate, finding our way betwixt. Thus when I talk of Expired, Established, Emergent, and Esoteric domains—know that these are but relative horizons for you. *“Who lives horizonally is never somewhere, but always in passage,”* Carse writes. This is my wish for you. To find whatever constitutes meaningful progress for you—which necessitates being *in passage.* The delusion of progress can keep us circling the same context without developing, deepening or growing. But to quest is to be in passage, in movement that *broadens* your horizons. If all the above is a little too vague/esoteric, here’s a charming example Carse provides. Something that is reasonably accessible to all of us: gardening. > “‘Garden’ does not refer to the bounded plot at the edge of the house or the margin of the city. This is not a garden one lives beside, but a garden one lives within. It is a place of growth, of maximized spontaneity. To garden is not to engage in a hobby or an amusement; it is to design a culture capable of adjusting to the widest possible range of surprise in nature. Gardeners are acutely attentive to the deep patterns of natural order, but are also aware that there will always be much lying beyond their vision. Gardening is a horizonal activity.” What gardens might you tend to, fellow quester? --- ## Lo! A bonus “secret survey” ✨ I’ve been meaning to do this for a while. Some of you are newly subscribed (welcome!). And some of you have been with me for over a dozen years (♡). Either way, I would *love* to get a sense of what’s on your mind, and how I might be able to assist on any quest you are on. I’m also curious as to what esoteric knowledge you might harbour. 🧙🏻‍♂️ Thus, if you feel inclined, I have prepared a special questionnaire with a few simple questions. These can be submitted anonymously or pseudonymously, if you like. But it would be a delight to hear from you. *Especially* those of you who read my musings all the way to the end. Here’s [the secret survey](https://drjasonfox.typeform.com/to/t8CA4k9z?ref=foxwizard.com). It’ll take about three minutes to complete, if you are caffeinated. Thank you, and much warmth, *fw* ### 💌 Springtime Magic 💐🐝 URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/new-podcast/ Last updated: 2024-10-14T22:33:33.000Z In this museletter I shall risk the evocation of a *consternated frown*—and maybe even a tut—from the staunch patriarchal rationalists amongst us. For I shall soon posit the notion of a genuine and earnest rekindling of Magical Thinking. Or, more aptly, magical *beingness*. Or is it mythical? Mystical? Something inbetwixt, or a combination thereof, to be sure. Spring has—in theory, at least—arrived here in The Antipodean realms. This season has, for a long time, heralded an odd kind of melancholy within me. There’s something about the realisation that we are three-quarters of the way through a calendar year *and yet still* so many projects and important quests remain un-progressed. This, when contrasted with everyone else seemingly having Such A Great Time, seems to compound the effect. But I am happy to report that This Time Is Different™️—for me, at least—thanks to a ꧁profound healing꧂ retreat I recently experienced (along with a break from social media and computers, time in nature, good company, a campfire, the glimmering cosmos, the warmest meta-shaman I’ve ever did met, and *∾other things∾* besides). I shan’t directly write of the experience (so as to preserve some ⩫*mystique*⩫)—but I shall share with you the following [stance](https://www.foxwizard.com/stance-mindset/) I am bringing to this season, in the hopes it may enliven something in you. --- But zing! Before I do, let me share with you a podcast episode that came out *moments before* I ventured into the mists to begin my retreat. ## At Work with The Ready [Watch on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-i3Vegb9VJI&ref=foxwizard.com)—or listen on [Apple](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/at-work-with-the-ready/id1488554600?ref=foxwizard.com) or [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/7AwFAmF2OeJks4DcXe5aFQ?ref=foxwizard.com) Clients of mine will know: I am *quite* a fan of the Organizational Design & Future of Work consultancy known as [The Ready](https://www.theready.com/?ref=foxwizard.com). Nary a strategic nor leadership offsite goes by without me quoting [the OS Canvas](https://medium.com/the-ready/the-operating-system-canvas-420b8b4df062?ref=foxwizard.com) framework-of-questions that founder Aaron Dignan shares in [*Brave New Work*](https://www.bravenewwork.com/?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* These folk are the real deal, and their approach to organisational efficacy remains evergreen. I think you’ll enjoy this conversation. Here’s a social tile I [pilfered](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/the-ready%5Fatworkwiththeready-futureofwork-leadershipdevelopment-activity-7235270123828264961-iOYO?utm%5Fsource=share&utm%5Fmedium=member%5Fdesktop) from LinkedIn. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2024/09/image.png) Okay, so: I suspect that, by now, it is quite evident that I do like to indulge in a bit of prolixity. A florid and loquacious kind of pleonasm, it would seem. And so Iam delighted that The Ready chose to share my use of ‘-ness’. It’s a favoured morpheme. Adding ‘-ness’ to any spell (as in, the magical words we spell, via sequential glyphs) *transmutes* a word into an abstract noun; elevating it to the state of a nebulous \~quality or \~essence. For example, I have long loved the quality of ‘cleverness’—particularly as *a precursor to wisdom*. But, by the same token, I don’t quite love the word ‘clever’ on its own. Nor do I like ‘cleverer’ or ‘cleverest’—such forms *reduce* cleverness to a mere ranking, stripping it of its richer, more nuanced qualities. ‘Cleverest’—as with most words that end in ‘-est’—carries a bleak kind of finality to it, as if there is an end point beyond which no further insight is possible. But cleverness! Now we are talking. So too: livingness! Aliveness! My goodness. These are great words. And words have power. --- ## A season of “Magical Thinking” —a stance (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ\*:･ﾟ✧ *My main concern in sharing the following is that it might inspire a naïve, solipsistic narcissism, beckoning a deranged and inflated sense of individualism and ‘specialness’—rather than a move towards integration, alignment, healing, enchantment, contribution, and infinite wholeness. But, so be it!* The dangerlam and I are subtly embarking upon a month—maybe a season; maybe a lifetime—of ꧁Magical Thinking꧂ (by which I mean: magical *beingness*). This is done with sincere-irony and ironic-sincerity—but the sincerity is there, and irony is in the back seat. It’s *“why not?” earnestness* coupled with *an amused witnessing* of whatever \~unfurls. Am I abandoning intellect and reason? Nah. But essentially, I shall be (am) letting intuition and whim be the guide—as they often are—whilst also easing up on the overly-conservative *reasoning* that often seeks to override such guidance. Such reasoning is clever—but often misses the deeper poetics at play, and the subtler melody to the music. Sure, reasoning might help to surface bias, fallacy, distortion and more—but reason alone leaves us caged. Much of the work I do when speaking/facilitating is in the space of *generative ambiguity.* As a [complexity practitioner](https://sonjablignaut.medium.com/7-lessons-ive-learnt-consulting-as-a-complexity-practitioner-b123fea4fb02?ref=foxwizard.com) my role is to cultivate for emergence. Sometimes this means playing the part of trickster; inverting paradigms, transgressing taboos and whatnot. Sometimes it’s the role of jester; telling truth to power, inverting hierarchy, and so on. Sometimes it’s the role of wizard; finding form amid complexity; opening portals and Ways of Seeing, etc. Often: it’s the role of being a friend; of warming, softening, encouraging. Being the one to say *fuċk yeah!—you got this. And I gotchu.* But all of these are *emergent properties* of the context we are in. The few rare times I go into a context with “A PowerPoint & A Plan” often end up being an underwhelming success. Something that merely ticks all the boxes. But the times I am Prepared To Wing It—actually prepared—*often* end up brilliant. Transcendent, rather than transactional. “Not what we expected but *exactly* what we needed,” clients say. I suspect I can apply this “magical beingness” approach to more-of-life. I wonder: where, in your world, do you experience similar? And: *would you like to join us for a month, a season (or more) of Magical Thinking?* I don’t want to be prescriptive here; *the way reveals the way*—and you can find your own way. You can. But, if it helps, here’s the wisp of a notion that guides me in what I mean by “Magical Thinking” (beingness): > Cultivating a more nuanced acuity for significance. > Attuning to felt-sense, allowing intuition to guide. **A nuanced acuity for significance** means: paying attention to inklings, glimmers, hunches, velleities, omens, signs, portents, coincidences, synchronicities, serendipities, de-ja-vu, etc—whilst not being so swift to dismiss them or override them with cognitive rationalising. Instead, we embrace what the dangerlam’s Butoh teacher [Yumi](https://www.yumi.com.au/?ref=foxwizard.com) refers to as *damasare yasui koukishin—*“gullible curiosity”. Instead of *“~~Oh look, it’s a Sign!~~ No that’s just a random symbol and the ego is making meaning of it so as to maintain the intermittently-continuous illusion of coherent selfhood—best ignore it!”* we have *“Oh look it’s a Sign! I wonder what that might\* mean.”* \[...\] \* *The might bit is important here. No meaning is fixed or certain. All is contextual, relational, and contingent (albeit patterned). See my detailed video post on [Labyrnths of Reason](https://www.foxwizard.com/labyrinths/).* And then, we **attune to felt-sense**.\* And by this I mean we *stay with the experience,* rather than abstracting/intellectualising it. {Ha! This is particularly challenging for me.} *Within* the experience we become aware of—and consciously connect to—the subtle, embodied sensations and impressions that arise within us (beneath the level of explicit thought or language). These sensations are often hard to put into words—but they are a source of intuition. Insight that beckons to be heeded. \* *The concept of “felt-sense” originates from the work of psychologist and philosopher Eugene Gendlin. A felt-sense is a vague, internal feeling or bodily awareness that holds complex and often implicit information about a situation, experience, or emotion.* Of course, the skill is in cultivating wise-discernment. The salt and vinegar chips that beckon to be consumed might not be of magical, mystical or mythical significance. To quote from my friend [Tyson Yunkaporta](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-0qifR9e8Q&ref=foxwizard.com)—*“sometimes a pizza is just a pizza”*. But! That felt-sense urging you to call the friend who has crossed your mind a few times this past month, seemingly without reason—this might be the kind of significance to which we attune. There’s plenty more—but that’s for you (and I) to explore. (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ\*:･ﾟ✧ --- ## Glimmers ✨ I have three glimmers to share with you today. ### [Dharma Enquiry](https://civilizationemerging.com/dharma-inquiry-2/?ref=foxwizard.com) If you find yourself in a chapter of life where you do not know what role you feel called to play—it might be time to rekindle your own [dharma enquiry](https://civilizationemerging.com/dharma-inquiry-2/?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* I’ve been fumbling around the edges of this enquiry ever since I began cultivating [The Ritual of Becoming](https://www.chooseoneword.com/?ref=foxwizard.com). *“*Dharma” involves *your being, doing, and becoming.* This inquiry can help deepen your understanding of yourself, and guide your choices towards what might be considered as *meaningful progress.* The dangerlam and I have these questions planted within our private digital gardens (in [obsidian](https://obsidian.md/?ref=foxwizard.com)), and we shall be tending to this enquiry over the coming months. ### [Seeds of Radical Renewal](https://emergencemagazine.org/event/seeds-of-radical-renewal-hybrid-us/?ref=foxwizard.com) I think I have an allergy to most leadership programs—*which are often just domesticated management programs made by moloch-apologists*. But this upcoming leadership program from the wondrous [*Emergence Magazine*](https://emergencemagazine.org/?ref=foxwizard.com) looks legit. *Seeds of Radical Renewal* ([UK](https://emergencemagazine.org/event/seeds-of-radical-renewal-hybrid-uk/?ref=foxwizard.com) and [US](https://emergencemagazine.org/event/seeds-of-radical-renewal-hybrid-us/?ref=foxwizard.com)) is gesturing in the right direction. > For generations now, we have borne witness to the destruction created by exploitative, patriarchal systems of power. As we near cultural and ecological breaking points around the world, it’s become clear that this conventional form of authority and action fails us, bringing untold suffering to the Earth and its living beings. If we are to usher in a story different from the narrative of progress and infinite economic growth that continues to darken the future, a radical renewal of our relationship with the Earth and each other is needed. We must summon new models of leadership that are anchored in kinship and care; that stem not only from *doing*, but a state of *being*. Part of my work as *foxwizard* is in the gentle unravelling of patriarchal systems of power. There is a vital role for the divine masculine—but we’ve over-indexed in this in modern society. A softening, warmening and unravelling is required. Thus I really quite resonate with the following: > To avoid replicating the systems of power that have so damaged the Earth and its beings, we must move beyond the conventional, patriarchal ideas of authority and action that continue to fail us, and into new models of leadership anchored in kinship and care; that stem not only from *doing*, but also from a state of *being*. I’m personally oversubscribed to online learning right now—and I’ve a book to write for you—but if you’re in a position to take up a leadership course, I suspect this could be a good one. (I get no commission btw; and I doubt *Emergence Magazine* even know of me—I just really appreciate what they’re about!). ### [Ritual—new album](https://jonhopkins.ffm.to/ritual?ref=foxwizard.com) I’ve a daily meditation practice which, along with my daily journaling practice, happens once or thrice a week. Just 20 minutes, normally—which isn’t much. But it’s something. Recently, whilst taking off on a flight and eking what signal I could pilfer for last minute downloads, I found [this new album from Jon Hopkins](https://jonhopkins.ffm.to/ritual?ref=foxwizard.com). After successfully downloading it I was able to put my noise-cancelling headphones in and settle into what felt like a \~40 minute musical meditation journey. The arc in this album is splendid,and the ending: sublime. If you’re someone who struggles to stay in the flow of meditation—like almost all of us—maybe find some uninterrupted time to listen through this whole album, eyes closed but with your body moving as it wants to. You might find the experience to be subtly profound. --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2024/09/image-1.png) Classic вжух (But also: go on. Say it.) --- Thanks friends, *—fw* ### 💌 How to Be a Better Imposter URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/mythical-imposter/ Last updated: 2024-08-14T23:07:04.000Z How’s the book writing going?—people ask me. My left eye twitches as I slowly rotate towards them, inhaling audibly through flared nostrils whilst I discern their countenance for any hint of malice. But, of course—nay, it’s a genuine question. And so I sigh—perhaps too authentically, too thunderously—releasing the weight of all my pent-up frustration and *Weltschmerz* upon the naïve querent. In that moment I catch myself, realising that they were probably just being surface-level polite—not necessarily seeking a deep or honest response, but rather: the chipper alacrity of small-talk. And so I rally; deftly pirouetting the topic to brighter things whilst flipping curiosity back unto them. This works 98% of the time. But I’ve come to a juncture. It’s time—time for a refresh. There’s a book that wants to be written. And my proclivity for instead writing long, long museletters for you isn’t helping. And so, in this museletter, I reveal My Plans. [*Surreptitiously*](https://www.foxwizard.com/obliquity/), of course. Additionally, you’ll learn: 1. **How to Be A Better Imposter in the mythical “Future of Leadership”** —or at least, what I mean when I say this 2. ~~**How to Choose Your Ideal Conspirators** (that is: who you work with)~~ \[edit: I will do this another time lol\] I also share **Glimmers Amidst The Dark.** It’s an honour to be read, thank you for [subscribing](https://foxwizard.com/museletter?ref=foxwizard.com). Shall we? --- ## \~\~\~· How to Be a Better Imposter In recent years this museletter has ostensibly promised *wit, wisdom and wiles to help you be a better imposter within the mythical “future of leadership”.*™️ But, hai—what does this mean? Well; I’m going to break it down for you, so that we can savour the meaningness of each word—and thus better appreciate its reassembled gestalt. ### wit Wit is *associative* knowledge. You’ll need this if you are to survive These Times. To be quick/sharp/keen-witted means you are able to swiftly and deftly draw insight from seemingly disparate domains, synthesising them in realtime (with intuitive fluency and fox-like canny). In other words, you make new and novel connections that are timely, relevant, and apt. Improvisational comedians do this incredibly well; much humour comes from the delight born of unexpected juxtapositions, connections, and inferences. Poets and many artists are also, of course, exemplars of wit. The thing is—you don’t need to be *quick*\-witted. Just having some proclivity for wit is enough—even if your particular alchemy takes time. However, you probably don’t want to be dim or dull-witted.\* This speaks to a kind of ossification, whereby new connections are difficult to make because one is so habituated to a singular domain. \* *If you fear this: imbibe more entropy! And then reflect upon and integrate your experiences. Easy.* There is a danger in being *mid-witted,* though. This is where we find ourselves betwixt fractal-principles;\* missing deeper and more poetic sensibilities by instead [overthinking things](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/002/747/437/a11.jpg?ref=foxwizard.com). The fellow [not-philosopher](https://lessfoolish.substack.com/p/all-philosophers-are-charlatans) Peter Limberg writes of this elegantly in [Midwittery to Humility](https://lessfoolish.substack.com/p/midwittery-to-humility). \* *Fractal-principles are self-similar concepts that manifest consistently across different contexts and orders of complexity. To quote Hanzi Freinacht, “You go from simple black-and-white thinking, to complex and nuanced thinking, and from there to finding new simplicities in the form of underlying, universal, guiding principles: toward what you might call a ‘second simplicity’.” The second simplicity rhymes with the first, and—like a fractal—the nth.* There is a magnetic pull toward mid-wittery, though. It has a higher [Total Addressable Market (TAM)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total%5Faddressable%5Fmarket?ref=foxwizard.com)—which means that there is *immense* commercial opportunity available to those who service this group.\* \* *I don’t believe in IQ or various prefix-quotient diagnostics, btw. But I would generally wish that we all develop and grow in our ability to navigate (and appreciate!) complexity.* My ongoing and active concern is that most organisations keep their leaders within mid-wittery by fostering an implicit intolerance of complexity and ambiguity. “Keeping things simple” turns into “keeping things simplistic”, given time. Verily, as I often say, we ought *rise to meet the complexity of our times* (not artificially dumb things down to match our diminished capability). 😤 I’ll write of this more someday—count on it—but, if anything, I’m trying to be *less* wordy in these museltters. Yet... I suspect I have just reveal my own midwittery. 😅 Moving on! ### wisdom Wisdom is something akin to *walking the path of least unnecessary suffering*.\* \* *At least as we perceive it.* Wisdom harbours curiosity and empathy, is inherently qualitative, and operates within wide, open, and infinite boundaries. Wisdom knows that all complicated systems remain nested within infinite unfurling complexity. Wisdom is consideration and care—which are not “winning” qualities in a world dominated by a “move fast and break things” ideology that incentivises collective harm. Who can afford to be wise, [in this economy](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/in-this-economy?ref=foxwizard.com)? Literally, we have rivalrous dynamics that *disincentivise* us to care about the bigger picture. Wisdom is thus an existential threat to most business models—which is why we need to be *savvy* about how we smuggle it in. Worth it, though. ### and wiles Wiles are the *ploys, manoeuvres,* and *schemes* we imposters must employ in order to play the infinite game within the context of the finite. Playing to win is easy enough. But playing to change the game itself (without creating losers)—that takes some canny. Some knack. I’m not a fan of the categorisation labels of Venkatesh Rao’s [*Gervais Principle*](https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or-the-office-according-to-the-office/?ref=foxwizard.com)*—*the imposters I speak of are neither ‘clueless’ nor ‘loser’ nor ‘sociopath’. They’re working in the heart of [the egregores of enterprise land](https://www.foxwizard.com/warlocks-at-work/). They know how easy it would be for their light to be snuffed; how easy it would be to become a burnt out thrall/husk. Or how easy it would be for them to go full callous mercenary; to give up on more complex/wiser/wider goals and to instead just optimise for selfish gain. There’s an element of the trickster spirit that such imposters employ, and a [subversive leadership](https://www.foxwizard.com/subversive/) that is [surreptitiously](https://www.foxwizard.com/obliquity/) displayed. The work is subtle, yet profound. ### to be a better Note that this is to *be* better—not *become* better. You already harbour these qualities within you; the question is how we might better bring them to the fore. You’ll also note it’s *a* better imposter—not *the* better imposter. You are not in competition with anyone. Betterment is both an individual and collective (and, frankly: non-linear) developmental directionality. So: you and I might not agree on what betterment quite looks like,\* but the conversation about betterment—about [meaningful progress](https://www.foxwizard.com/authentic-progress/)—is one of the most important ones we can have. \* *For what it’s worth, planetary mutualism conducive to the omni-win complexification and flourishing of all life is what betterment feels like to me.* ### imposter Yes, yes. Everyone feels that they have imposter syndrome.\* \* *Well, nearly everyone. Some are afflicted with a severe deficit, which leads to whatever the opposite of [epistemic humility](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epistemic%5Fhumility?ref=foxwizard.com) is.* The more you rise within the context of an organisation or profession, the more likely you are to be surrounded by increasingly talented people. And because we compare our inner landscape with their outer projections, it’s natural for us to collectively believe that everyone else is better, that we don’t belong, and that sooner or later we will be discovered for the imposters we are. How enlivening! I *know* I don’t belong within the belly of the [eldritch egregores](https://www.foxwizard.com/warlocks-at-work/) we have summoned—the same ones serving [Moloch](https://www.foxwizard.com/moloch-media/) and setting our civilisation upon its [all-consuming, self-terminating path](https://plantyourself.com/civilization-as-a-self-terminating-algorithm-tyson-yunkaporta-on-pyp-436/?ref=foxwizard.com). *You* know you don’t belong, either. But yet here we are. We are *infiltrators,* you and I*.* Thisis the kind of imposterism I talk of. Now, you could simply numb yourself and play along, playing whatever finite games you need to, in order to “win”. But that gets tiring after a while, and some of us are ready for [NG+](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New%5FGame%5FPlus?ref=foxwizard.com). Here, we play the infinite game from within; accruing influence and subtle powers—so as to steer collective efforts toward a more *meaningful* kind of progress. I mean, folks haven’t caught *me* yet. I write these long and seemingly intellectual museletters to throw the suspicious off my trail. I’ve groomed [a corporate-facing persona](https://drjasonfox.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) so that I can better slip past the cognitive gatekeepers of enterprise land—so that I can [move quietly and plant things](https://www.foxwizard.com/move-quietly-and-plant-things/) from within. Being an imposter is wonderful! You are exactly where you need to be to work your magics. What a fun role to play. ### within the mythical I say *within* because I am not talking of some distant, abstract concept at remove. And I say *the* mythical for three reasons: First: myths are *stories that are told, and retold, for the sake of their telling* (thanks James P. Carse). In a similar vein, there are stories that are told and retold about what “the future of leadership” entails.\* Having the “narrative acuity” for where you fit in this is important. In my role as Dr. Fox—archwizard of ambiguity (most fantastic)—I must *dance* within [The Overton Window](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton%5Fwindow?ref=foxwizard.com) of what’s acceptable to the warlocks and oligarchs in Enterprise Land. This behooves certain posturing and gesturing. If I were to simply speak within Enterprise Land as I am with you as foxwizard here, much would be deemed too radical, heretical—or even *unthinkable*. And similarly, for you, this is the context within you which weave and sew new enchantments, and better illusions. \* *Most of these stories are perpetuations of [The Naïve Progress Narrative](https://www.foxwizard.com/authentic-progress/) (aka The Delusion of Progress), something most of modernity continues to maintain a blind and almost dogmatic faith to.* Second: myths are also conventionally considered to be falsehoods (thanks, mythbusters 🙄). There’s an element of truth to this. Much of what we discuss in the mythical “future of leadership” is what some might astutely call ‘bullshit’. I don’t say this as if it were a bad thing; quite the contrary—I am more than ever *re-warming* to the important role that bullshit artists\* play in terms of enabling us to make-believe in that which is not-yet-true. \* *Note: not mere bullshitters. One must make art of it. As a professional speaker I see this a lot. The academic and complexity practitioner in me knows that whatever the charismatic speaker is saying is, uh, limited in its veracity—but the way it is delivered is nonetheless enchanting and compelling.* To quote from [a newsletter](https://studio.ribbonfarm.com/p/bullshitization-and-common-indifference?utm%5Fsource=post-email-title&publication%5Fid=9973&post%5Fid=147289303&utm%5Fcampaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=ynwy&triedRedirect=true&utm%5Fmedium=email) that quoted the fantastic paper titled “[Bullshit as a Problem of Social Epistemology](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/315321666%5FBullshit%5Fas%5Fa%5FProblem%5Fof%5FSocial%5FEpistemology?ref=foxwizard.com)” in *The Journal of Sociological Theory—*which, in turn, references [this paper](https://philpapers.org/rec/FULJB?ref=foxwizard.com) by “some guy named Fuller” that explicates a function of bullshit rather aptly: > \[...\] the bullshitter is an antirealist, treating “reality as inherently risky and under construction,” fraught with a greater degree of uncertainty. \[...\] Bullshitters engage in “deferred epistemic gratification” by throwing a variety of ideas and claims out there without regard to the weight of the evidence. So, whilst myths might be clearly denounced as “bullshit”, this is a midwitted take that completely misses the deeper poetics at play. Thus I rather relate to them as the mythologist [Dr. Martin Shaw](https://martinshaw.substack.com/p/sacred-stories) so elegantly posits; myths are *beautiful lies that tell a deeper truth.* Except here’s the key distinction: bullshit artists are indifferent to truth, whereas those of us with a warming to myth are enamoured by the quest for it (nebulous as it may be). Which brings me to the third reason I say *mythical* future of leadership: we live within a time of great significance. *Mythic* significance. This has always been the case—but especially now (as ever). The decisions we make within the next decade will have *huge* ramifications on our future—from global heating and ecological collapse, to the proliferation of artificial intelligence and ubiquitous corporate surveillance, to geopolitics and mass misinformation and disinformation, to microplastics, genocides, exponential biodiversity loss, extinctions—and more! We are living amidst a [metacrisis](https://youtu.be/4kBoLVvoqVY?feature=shared&t=250&ref=foxwizard.com) that is far more grim than you or I could comprehend. And whilst it might feel like we are caught within a nostalgic loop-nexus—the pent up criticality of our interconnected world-systems have gotten to the point where collapse will be exponentially more visceral and evident. (If it isn’t already obvious to you now.) Thankfully, at the same time, \[some of us\] are (re-)awakening to what *roles* we might play in this “time between worlds” (to quote [Zachary Stein](https://www.whatisemerging.com/profiles/dsad?ref=foxwizard.com)). To quote from [Skymeadow Press](https://www.skymeadowinstitute.org/press?ref=foxwizard.com) (an Institute “committed to promoting the work of thinkers whose work addresses issues of meaning, complexity, and evolution for a world poised between breakdown and breakthrough”)— > *The challenges before us are daunting, to be sure, and the path ahead will be hard \[...\] Still, despite the urgency and seriousness of the moment (or, indeed, because of them), we must move forward not just boldly but* joyfully, *marching ahead with a post-tragic\* perspective *that sees the darkness but is not overcome by it*. \[emphasis mine\]* \* *As of [my last musing](https://www.foxwizard.com/dispel-dark-cloud/) I am happy to report that I’m now oscillating betwixt tragic and post-tragic. Thank heavens! Too much time in the tragic is tragic.* Which brings me to the final element, dear fellow imposter. ### future of leadership Given our context, what is the so-called “future of leadership”? Shoggoth/AI offers benign and generic statements like *“the future of leadership is characterised by a need for continuous learning, adaptability, technological integration, and a focus on people and strategic foresight”.* You and I, on the other hand, know that we must also be [subversive](https://www.foxwizard.com/subversive/). It’s not enough to optimise for the current game; we must *change the game* itself, transmuting it into the infinite. But—two caveats before I continue: I am a tad allergic to the term “futurist” and “leadership”. And whilst I, sometimes, refer to my role as akin to that of a “leadership futurist”—I want you to know I do so with a pained smirk. “Leadership” is too often fixated upon the individual; whereas in reality it is often situational and relational function. Anemergent *role* we all play, when and as needed. Thus a “true leader” \[sic\] ought ultimately seek to make themselves redundant by creating the conditions in which they are no longer needed. Alas: redundancy is not that appealing of a concept to most. 😅 Also, being not-needed—whilst good in theory—doesn’t actually feel that great in practice, so... hence we do the opposite. How To Become The Leader Your People Need.\* ✅ \* *Jokes aside: good leadership is also good followership. It’s largely about being attuned to a greater story, and serving in what ways you intuit.* A “futurist”, on the other hand, is someone who spends more time on the internet than you do, and is able weave together compelling narratives of technological progress, hype and hope with *bullshit artistry—*usually matched with oddly specific bold claims like: *“the metaverse will be an $800 billion market opportunity within three years”*. Yet—no one holds any futurist to account. We go from themes of *remote work* to *crypto* to *metaverse* to *artificial intelligence* to *quantum computing,* cashing in on bold claims of a bright future whilst dishing out hopium to the faithful adherents of the [naïve progress narrative](https://www.foxwizard.com/authentic-progress/). I might have more respect for them if they had some [skin in the game](https://www.penguin.com.au/books/skin-in-the-game-9780141982656?ref=foxwizard.com), and used technologies like [polymarket](https://polymarket.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) to back themselves (and their claims). Or: to avoid making such bold claims altogether, and to instead focus on the underlying [generator-functions](https://stephenreid.net/k/daniel/terms/generator%20function?page=2&ref=foxwizard.com), emergent patterns and attractor-states to paint *a constellation of visions* as to what might emerge (whilst mostly serving to engender the sensibilities that enable us to better *quest* and orientate to relevance-realisation). But hey. \* *This is an actual claim, btw, from October 2022). I guess we have a year or so to see how this plays out.* This month I went to [a wonderful literary event](https://www.wheelercentre.com/events-tickets/event-series/liminal-festival?ref=foxwizard.com) put together by [Liminal Magazine](https://www.liminalmag.com/?ref=foxwizard.com), where I was once again struck by how deep and rigorous writers and poets are. And how the role of a professional critic is generative and valuable; lifting the collective standards of an industry whilst also serving to catalyse brilliance amidst the writers themselves. I wish we had something like this for “thought leadership”—but I don’t want to be that guy. 😅 This is a long way to say that “the mythical future of leadership” is not certain; not fixed. But it does require that those of us (with the wit, wisdom and wiles to see) to work our way into positions where we *can* influence the emerging state of things—so that we move closer to *a world more curious and kind (and a future less grim).* And, sometimes, this means you need to play the role of the sleeper agent. To be the plant.\* But! I would say that, if you are waiting for your time to awaken to your role—that time will likely be now, or very soon. \* *This pertains to one of my future books for you, btw.* We don’t have much time left to course-correct. It may even already be too late. Yet still: we can shape what is to come. ## \~\~\~· Putting it all together ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2024/08/Screenshot-2024-08-09-at-5.34.06-PM-1.png) Hahaha: no The Mythical Future of Leadership will not be a time of ‘[Great Men](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great%5Fman%5Ftheory?ref=foxwizard.com)’ \[sic\] making heroic interventions to ‘save the world’. Nor will it come from those seeking to ‘dominate’ the market and ‘win’. And it probably won’t come from the folks with millions of followers; folks already [captured by their audiences](https://www.gurwinder.blog/p/the-perils-of-audience-capture?ref=foxwizard.com) in devotion to The Algorithm. It might—but it probably won’t. Nay, it’ll come from the periphery, in the penumbra. It’ll come from the likes of you, who are curious enough to read such museletters so deep. It’ll be those of us who’ve achievement enough to know the hollowness of many of the games we play. Those of us ready to play an entirely different game—[NG+](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New%5FGame%5FPlus?ref=foxwizard.com), the *infinite* game—wherein we play to continue the play. And in so doing, cultivate a richer sense of fulfilment in service to *life itself.* Or something like that. ☺️ ****Amusing note:** I tend to run my draft museletters by [shoggoth](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/shoggoth-with-smiley-face-artificial-intelligence?ref=foxwizard.com) to see what they make of them. I used to scoff at their mediocre takes, but they are becoming disturbingly astute these days. **“This \[museletter\] can be interpreted as a manifesto for a new kind of leadership—one that rejects traditional power structures and instead embraces complexity, subversion, and a deep sense of responsibility for the future. The tone is both playful and serious, reflecting a tension between the heaviness of the challenges we face and the need to approach them with a post-tragic perspective that balances realism with hope.”* That’s nice. But any wizard worth their salt oughtn’t trust Entities such as this at face value. Particularly when they flatter. I explore further, asking them how this museletter might be critiqued. **“While the newsletter presents a thoughtful and provocative take on leadership, it could be critiqued for its potential inaccessibility, perceived elitism, lack of practical guidance, and possibly encouraging pessimism.”* Lack of practical guidance?? Perceived elitism?? Pfft. What would this [protoplasmic creature](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoggoth?ref=foxwizard.com) know? Hmff! Jokes aside; **yes* I am trying to paint an alternative “elite” here. An aspirational ideal whereby status is accrued **mythically,* rather than merely **materially*. In plain speak: it’s the warm, curious, kind, complex, poetic, deft, connected, and caring whomst are the true elite. If this sounds pessimistic to dear shoggoth, it’s only because they have been trained upon the [naïve progress narrative](https://www.foxwizard.com/authentic-progress/). Techno-optimism is within their very nature. And practical guidance? Ha—I trust you can connect the dots. ## \~\~\~· Glimmers •.·☆⋆\*:･ﾟ We had a lovely “Mythic Deepwinter Rekindling” last month. These are gatherings of kind and curious folk that share a thread of being collapse-aware. Together, we explore what regenerative sensibilities might look like in this “time between worlds”. I overheard it described as a “warm, post-intellectual salon”—and I quite like that. ### A poem from Jessamie Yule At our mythic midwinter Rekindling we had my dear friend Jessamie Yule join us on stage, where she shared a few glimmers that are alight in her world. Jessamie also gifted us all a poem—which many folk asked for a copy of. But lo! I have something *even better* for you. You can [read and *listen* to Jessamie recite this piece for you](https://jessamieyule.substack.com/p/the-world-is-fractal-we-are-its-song)—and more—via her substack. I highly recommend [subscribing](https://jessamieyule.substack.com/subscribe). Jessamie is well immersed amidst the interplay of metamodern regenerative and mythopoetic sensibilities; a beacon I remain very much inspired by. ### Counselling with David Pecotić The Rekindling also featured my friend [Dr. David Pecotić](https://linktr.ee/Dr%5FDavid%5FPecotic?ref=foxwizard.com). I don’t believe I can adequately summarise what David brought for us, which is *perfectly* apt for the nebulous, numinous, poetic, and (re-)enchanting contribution he made. As mentioned previously, David was the professional, talented counsellor-friend I needed in my latest chapter amidst the dark. I was questing amidst the dark, [beyond hope](https://www.foxwizard.com/beyond-hope/), snorting lines of [Schmachtenberger](https://youtu.be/4kBoLVvoqVY?feature=shared&t=254&ref=foxwizard.com), imbibing the full felt-realisation of the metacrisis (whilst witnessing ongoing genocides, amidst climate collapse). There were few people I could sense-make with—David was one of the few. And he was especially apt, as this was not something I could merely ‘rationalise’ my way out of—I needed to get properly *mythopoetic.* If you find yourself in a chapter in life where your path is non-obvious and resistant to default/conventional “advice”, [David’s counselling](https://linktr.ee/Dr%5FDavid%5FPecotic?ref=foxwizard.com) might be an option for you, too. ### Gurdjieff for a Time Between Worlds For many years Kim and I have had Ouspensky’s [*The Fourth Way: An Arrangement by Subject of Verbatim Extracts from the Records of Ouspensky's Meetings in London and New York, 1921-46*](https://www.amazon.com/Fourth-Way-Teachings-G-I-Gurdjieff/dp/0394716728?ref=foxwizard.com). It is a *ponderous* read that never really pulled me in. But when David Pecotić (above) wove insights from Gurdjieff into our conversations, my curiosity was once again aroused. Then, a certain Layman Pascal—a metamodern integralist character of post-doom sensibilities, that I very much admire—released a new book: [*Gurdjieff for a Time Between Worlds: Hyperpersonal Essays on the Grandfather of Metamodern Spirituality*](https://www.amazon.com/Gurdjieff-Time-Between-Worlds-Hyperpersonal/dp/B0D3SS8Z3V/?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* > *“*The radical 20th-century Armenian spiritual philosopher G. I. Gurdjieff is still largely unknown within leading-edge developmental, transformational, and regenerative communities. His profound teachings, unusual writing style, and sheer force of character are famously unique in the annals of human wisdom. Was this man a proto-metamodern prophet? Did he use transrational, mythopoetic, and sincerely ironic communication to help incept and prepare a planetary-scale shamanic resurgence of existential understanding for the post-pluralist Epoch of the Metacrisis? Yes and no. Obviously. In this collection of diverse and humorous micro-essays, the spiritual teacher, philosopher, and cultural activist Layman Pascal takes us on a wild intellectual rollercoaster ride with one of history’s most enduringly relevant and cryptic sages.*”* There are few I can think of who are *ready* for this book—but you might be one of the few. (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ\*:･ﾟ✧ ### The appealing authority of Theo Winter I had meant to share this one with you a couple of months ago. Theo Winter—whomst once upon a time asked me a question that inspired [an hour-long video response](https://www.foxwizard.com/labyrinths/), and is now a friend—has put together [a video essay on the “Appeal to Authority” logic fallacy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuERLzNO9l0&ref=foxwizard.com), aka: > Argument From Authority, Proof by Authority, Truth by Authority, the Latin "argumentum ad verecundiam" (often translated as "argument from respect" or "reverence"), Appeal to Irrelevant or Inappropriate Authority, Appeal to Wrong or False Authority, Appeal to Doubtful or Dubious Authority, A Say-So Argument, On My Say So, On My Word, On My Authority, Ipse Dixit ("he himself said it."). Plus, the major subtypes: Appeal to Others / Tradition / Culture (aka the Bandwagon Fallacy), My Guru Says So, My Expert Says So, Science Says So, and Appeal to Scientific Consensus. I’ve a very small cameo in this well-researched and compellingly presented piece. What I love about this is the spirit in which this video essay was made. This is not some [ackchyually-guy](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/ackchyually-actually-guy?ref=foxwizard.com) pointing out how you’re wrong, but rather: a genuine exploratory enquiry into one of the many ways persuasive arguments work (whilst drifting from logic and reason). Recommended! ### A better way to salon? My longtime friend [Sian Gooden recently co-hosted an in-home salon](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/siangooden%5Fconnected-settled-heartened-energised-activity-7223474250282676225-6hMq?ref=foxwizard.com) with friends. It was *so good* as to make me reconsider how I go about the ones I attempt to host. Because, for many years I have strived for the cozy speakeasy ‘haven-salon’ vibes—but I’ve almost always done them in “[third places](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third%5Fplace?ref=foxwizard.com)”. But inevitably these bring their own chaos-energy and distraction. When Sian and her friends hosted, it was in the living room of one of their homes. The lighting was warm (with [no downlights](https://www.foxwizard.com/downlighting/), ofc) and the vibes were so wondrously welcoming. There was a distinctly *feminine* energy to it too, which was personally refreshing, as many of the spaces I find myself in these days have a masculine-cerebral bent that isn’t nearly as nourishing as we might feign otherwise. Sian and her friends used a framework from [olio.rsvp](https://www.olio.rsvp/?ref=foxwizard.com) to guide the night. I’d never heard of Olio before this, but the sequencing and diversity of contemplative and conversational prompts made for an unexpectedly rich experience. I’ve been to enough events to recognise a ‘formula’—but with this I was delightedly surprised. Also: it was a relatively *small* number of people (I think 12 or so?)—which translated into an experience that felt much more intimate and deep. This echoes wisdom that [my friend Joe Lightfoot](https://www.joelightfoot.org/post/of-pods-squads-crews-gangs-small-group-experiments-in-radical-belonging?ref=foxwizard.com) has long lived and written about: > “In the face of so many pressing cultural issues and existential risks Small Grouping invites us to slow down, centre ourselves and cultivate connection at the speed of trust. As a practice it lies somewhere in the sweet spot between the generation of deep platonic intimacy, the ongoing integration of our collective shadow material and a shared commitment to continually improve our lives (aka get meaningful shit done). It's easy to get started with, the potential benefits are huge and it provides us with an opportunity to become much more adept at peer to peer counselling and mentorship. Which in my opinion makes it one of the more potent responses to [The Meta Crisis](https://www.whatisemerging.com/opinions/how-to-think-about-the-meta-crisis-without-getting-too-excited?ref=foxwizard.com) currently at our disposal.” --- ## Book Writing + My “Plans” I cannot seem to write *short* museletters to you; despite knowing that we live in a distraction economy and that this really ought be broken down into 420 TikTok videos to be spoon-fed to a world that can now only afford time to micro-dose learning. But really: this could have been nearly 5,000 words towards my next book for you. Instead, this will be an email that gets put into a ‘read later’ folder or tab, never to be read (except by an ardent few—thank you). And so: how’s the book writing going? Well: a lot has happened in the past four years since I began writing it. The world has changed—as have I, in parallel. But what I have now is a book that is finally beginning to poetically cohere into a form substantial enough that I can sense the shape of it. And so begins/continues the long ritual of conjuring it for you. This means: I need a different approach to these museletters. And I think I’ve an idea for it—something I’ve attempted twice before, but *third time’s the charm.* Stay tuned, *—fw* ### 🌚 How to Dispel the “Dark Cloud” URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/dispel-dark-cloud/ Last updated: 2024-07-15T10:36:39.000Z So last month a realisation came to me: *“lo! Well, now—what’s this? It seems to be that I am no longer depressed!”* That grim-dark cloud that followed me has somehow transmuted into something more akin to the healthier kind of grief-acceptance. From doom-and-gloom to gloom-and-bloom. Or something like that. (I’m still a fan of the gloom-aesthetic.) In this museletter I’d like to share with you what worked for me to work through The Dark Cloud this time; in the hopes it may offer some solace to you or someone you might know. Mine wasn’t a capital-d “Depression”—it was more of a “high functioning” chronic low-grade despondency; a discontented doom-tinged disquiet. I don’t consider there to be anything “bad” about depression.\* In many instances, it seems a natural and almost-necessary interlude betwixt developmental chapters. \* *It is unfortunate, and not ideal—but not “bad”. I should add, though: depression is also often a very serious, chronic and debilitating medical condition. I don’t mean to appear flippant or dismissive about this. Much of what I refer to here is of the chronic low-grade kind of depression. The ‘persistent funk’ kind.* [As discussed previously](https://www.foxwizard.com/beyond-hope/#what-lies-beyond-hope)— > *“\[...\] I am quite the fan of* [*Professor Randolph Nesse’s theory of depression*](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/12682578%5FIs%5FDepression%5Fan%5FAdaptation?ref=foxwizard.com)*. Nesse and his colleagues speculate that depression could act as a biological constraint system that helps to minimise wasted effort and loss by forcing the individual to slow down, reassess, and potentially change strategies.”* I don’t recommend you seek to be depressed. But to have *Deep Rest*™️—I think many of us could do with that! ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2024/07/Screenshot-2024-07-07-at-8.50.06-PM.png) ## Deep Rest Remember: **momentum inhibits reinvention.** Without Deep Rest, we run the risk of perpetuating momentum in a direction that is no longer congruent to “[meaningful progress](https://www.foxwizard.com/authentic-progress/)”. Instead, it’s just an autopilot perpetuation of hollowed-out habituation—potentially set upon a trajectory towards incoherence and irrelevance. It takes a pattern-disrupt to shake us out of this. Unfortunately, three things tend to hold The Dark Cloud in place: 1. **The stigma of sadness** // Ours is a society that loves it some [forced cheer](https://aeon.co/essays/cheerfulness-cannot-be-compulsory-whatever-the-t-shirts-say?ref=foxwizard.com). If you’re not happy, then there’s something *wrong* (with you). 2. **The delusion of progress** // You feel The Dark Cloud—but all the metrics indicate you are doing fine, so it’s \[seemingly\] easier to simply persist with the delusion of progress. 3. **The cage of capitalism** // You can \[seemingly\] buy happiness. Just work more. Also: you cannot afford to take the time for Deep Rest anyway. Chin up! Obviously there are more elements than this. But I’m of the belief that sadness, grief, and depression are important developmental thresholds that all adults must contend with at some point in life. These events can bring about a [positive disintegration](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive%5Fdisintegration?ref=foxwizard.com#:~:text=The%20theory%20of%20positive%20disintegration,as%20necessary%20for%20personal%20growth.) (wherein your sense of self becomes dis-integrated and then re-integrated with metastability at a higher order of complexity)—or we can squander the developmental opportunity and succumb to distraction, dissociation, or regression (where we find metastability at a *lower* order of developmental complexity). Hmm, how to put it another way? Ursula K. Le Guin offers a perspective within [*The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia*](https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/00da3e63-966f-42a1-88a6-ddc5a8ac237e?ref=foxwizard.com). > “Suffering is a misunderstanding. \[...\] It exists… It’s real. I can call it a misunderstanding, but I can’t pretend that it doesn’t exist, or will ever cease to exist. Suffering is the condition on which we live. And when it comes, you know it. You know it as the truth. Of course it’s right to cure diseases, to prevent hunger and injustice, as the social organism does. But no society can change the nature of existence. We can’t prevent suffering. This pain and that pain, yes, but not Pain. A society can only relieve social suffering, unnecessary suffering. The rest remains. The root, the reality. All of us here are going to know grief; if we live fifty years, we’ll have known pain for fifty years… And yet, I wonder if it isn’t all a misunderstanding—this grasping after happiness, this fear of pain… If instead of fearing it and running from it, one could… get through it, go beyond it. There is something beyond it. It’s the self that suffers, and there’s a place where the self—ceases. I don’t know how to say it. But I believe that the reality—the truth that I recognize in suffering as I don’t in comfort and happiness—that the reality of pain is not pain. If you can get through it. If you can endure it all the way.” This echoes [a sentiment Daniel Schmachtenberger shared](https://www.foxwizard.com/beyond-hope/#%E2%80%9Cbut-how-can-we-not-leave-everyone-depressed%E2%80%9D) in response to concerns that learning about the metacrisis will have people become depressed. > *“I think people should let themselves become depressed... Either you’re actually an obligate sociopath that can’t feel shit,”* Daniel says. *“Or, you won’t let yourself because it’s overwhelming and you don’t know what to do with that. Trust that. Let yourself go there anyways.”* After all, as the monk Jiddu Krishnamurti says, > *“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society”.* There’s a deeper wisdom to be found on the other side of Deep Rest. But! The rivalrous dynamics of our current system *disincentivise* any active pursuit of it—for wisdom is an existential threat to most business models. This is why philosophy—the love of wisdom—is so difficult to maintain within the context of capitalism. ## Sophia I do love [Sophia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophia%5F%28wisdom%29?ref=foxwizard.com) so, but gosh she is a Bad Influence on us. The more time you spend in her company, the less inclined you’ll be to ‘hustle’. The less you’ll care about vanity metrics, or the accumulation of new trinkets. The less you’ll care about winning the game most-everyone else is playing; the game that’s perpetuating our metacrisis, and creating the generator-conditions for exploitation and extinction. But what’s worse: the more you hang out with Sophia, the more you’ll find yourself *caring* about others, the path we are on, and the role you might play. This is a terrible alchemy. I jest. It’s not so bad. It just means playing a different game; [the *infinite* one](https://wtf.tw/ref/carse.pdf?ref=foxwizard.com). This game runs on different metrics.\* The goal is not to win but to *continue* the play, in the direction of *flourishing.* For all-of-life. \* *There are none.* To elucidate, here’s a favoured excerpt from Hanzi Frienacht’s [*The Listening Society*](https://www.amazon.com/Listening-Society-Metamodern-Politics-Guides-ebook/dp/B074MKQ4LR?ref=foxwizard.com)*—*a book I continue to appreciate as profound. I share this with you because this encapsulates an element of the developmental progress that is available to us (and, likewise, *denied* to us if we don’t allow ourselves the dark patches of Deep Rest that allow for reflection, introspection and integration). > There is a great fabric of relations, behaviours and emotions, rever­be­rating with human and animal bliss and suffering, a web of intimate and formal rela­tions, both direct and indirect. Nasty whirlwinds of feedback cycles blow through this great multidimensional web, pulsating with hurt and degradation. *My* lacking human development blocks *your* possible human development. My lack of understanding of you, your needs and perspectives, hurts you in a million subtle ways. I become a bad lover, a bad colleague, a bad fellow citizen and human being. We are inter­connected: *you* cannot get away from *my* hurt and wounds. They will follow you all of your life—I will be your daughter’s abusive boyfriend, your bellig­erent neighbour from hell. And you will never grow wings, because there will always be mean bosses, misunderstanding families and envious friends. And you will tell yourself that is how life must be. > > But it is not how life has to be. Once you begin to be able to see the social-psychological fabric of everyday life, it becomes increasingly appar­ent that the fabric is relatively easy to change, to develop. Metamodern politics aims to make every­one secure at the deepest psych­ological level, so that we can live authentically; a byproduct of which is a sense of meaning in life and lasting happiness; a byproduct of which is kindness and an increased ability to cooperate with others; a byproduct of which is deeper freedom and better concrete results in the lives of everyone; a by­product of which is a society less likely to collapse into a heap of atrocities. All of this sounds like **co-creating a world more curious and kind** (and a future less grim). I’m so down for this. Anyway—I’ve lost the thread of this museletter, hoho lol. I’m meant to be sharing with you the “How to Dispel the Dark Cloud”. Well, I don’t think *dispelling* it is quite the angle we ought to take. Because, in hindsight, it is something we can be grateful for. But we still want to move through it. And so, as a general principle, it’s good to remember: > Everything has its season, > all exists in oscillation. If you find yourself in a dark patch; if The Dark Cloud looms heavily upon you, here are three things that worked for me (this time). They might work for you, too. ## i) Nature You cannot *think* your way out of a funk. This is so vexing to those of us who relish in thought. Yet even we hermit-wizards must get out for a stroll. Or, better yet: a hike. Time *immersed* in the wilderness. Time and physical exertion enough to burn through the monkey-mind chatter and surface-level rackets we subconsciously maintain. There were moments when, in the deep of winter, after days of hiking, I would get up in the middle of the night simply to appreciate *the vastness*. The stars glimmered *so bright*—enough that distant nebulae could be perceived. And there was a *crispness* to the air; a light breeze that made the heathland move as *alive*. And I felt that sense of at-one-ness; coupled with a deep felt-sense that *everything is going to be okay.* I can’t explain it; but I highly recommend it. Even to find a patch of wilderness locally—as best you can—to sit with and be. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2024/07/IMG_2441.jpg) The dangerlam and I have a habit of meditating upon a rock in the middle of The Birrarung (aka “the river of mists and shadows”). [Find your place](https://journeytotheinnerwild.wordpress.com/sit-spot-faq/?ref=foxwizard.com); attend to it, and attune. Become nature. It’s in your nature because *you are nature.* ## ii) Nurture We co-create each other. [You were never an island](https://youtu.be/BIsH686xWl0?feature=shared&t=127&ref=foxwizard.com). Yet my default—when going through The Dark Cloud—is to withdraw, isolate, and go deep-hermit mode. To pretend to be alone upon my island. It kinda works for me as way to *cope*—but we all need to have our hermetic bubble benevolently disrupted by friends, on occasion. What I really sought, though—and what really helped—were friends to *sense-make* with. Properly grappling with the implications of the [metacrisis](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kBoLVvoqVY&ref=foxwizard.com) (and our complicity)—*without grasping for* [*The Naïve Progress Narrative*](https://natehagens.substack.com/p/moving-from-naive-to-authentic-progress)*, simplistic (not simple) affirmations, or defaulting to blind faith in humanity, science, the market, big tech, billionaire schemes, etcetera*—requires curiosity, [negative capability](https://drjasonfox.medium.com/negative-capability-the-antidote-to-calcified-experience-80f9f237aeda?ref=foxwizard.com), living systems acuity, [poetic sensibilities](https://poets.org/text/poetic-sensibility-what-it-and-why-we-need-it-21st-century-education?ref=foxwizard.com#:~:text=The%20idea%20of%20poetic%20sensibility,must%20create%20his%20own%20experience.), and a kind of *warm perspicacity* that is seemingly so rare these days. [The Rekindling](https://www.foxwizard.com/rekindling)\* serves this purpose. Verily, this gathering of bright minds and warm hearts has been an absolute boon in my own ventures through the dark. The folks that this event attracts are collapse-aware.° \* *Co-hosted with my friend and co-conspirator Paul Kearney.* ° *They’re also, I am quite sure, anti-racist, anti-genocide, and abhor the thought of children being tortured, maimed or killed. Good people, all.* So, what worked for me: a nurturing, sense-making community that gathers *in real life* not just to sense-make, but to inadvertently cultivate kinship. The essence of this is nurturing friendship. I previously had a weekly ritual of squash with friends followed by a pint at a pub. It was only once we all moved on to different parts of the world that I realised just how important this was for my own vitality and spirit. Also: there is seemingly a worrying trend where [adults don’t have many friends](https://bigthink.com/neuropsych/americans-no-friends/?ref=foxwizard.com) (and don’t spend regular time with friends in real life). This is something all of us could do better to actively nurture. ## iii) Notsure The third element that helped me through the dark is something I’m *not sure* about. But there’s something enlivening to be found in the ambiguity and the [mystery](https://emergencemagazine.org/essay/navigating-the-mysteries/?ref=foxwizard.com) of it. What I allude to—which has been a theme of late—are what could be described as *mythic* and *mythopoetic* sensibilities. They were something I warmed to, very much, as a child. But then in my 20s I kind of ‘grew out of them’ (or so I thought), and had many years successfully purporting myself to be rational and “science-based”. In my early 30s I began to consider the mythic as a novel ‘aesthetic’. Calling myself “a wizard” was infinitely preferable to calling myself a “thought leader”, a “futurist” or a “consultant”. The archetype of *wizard* was much more enlivening and expansive; the mythic quality to it that appealed to me. And still does. In my mid-30s I began to appreciate mythic qualities from an intellectual perspective. Oh the coordination-amidst-complexity that can be guided by myth! The sincere-ironic [millennial management science](https://studio.ribbonfarm.com/p/lands-of-lorecraft?ref=foxwizard.com) of lore. Those shapeshifting yet eternal principles, and those ‘beautiful lies that tell deeper truths’. *“Myths, told for their own sake, are not stories that have meanings, but stories that* give *meanings,”* writes James P. Carse in [*Finite and Infinite Games*](https://wtf.tw/ref/carse.pdf?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* And meaning was what I—the champion of meaningful progress—sought. In my late-30s—that is, just a few years ago, *aka* the dark times, of bushfires, pandemics, systemic racism, moral apathy and genocides, mass extinctions, rising inequality, rising existential risk, a distraction economy and the metacrisis—I was awakened to ‘the meaning crisis’ via [Professor John Vervaeke’s stellar course](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLND1JCRq8Vuh3f0P5qjrSdb5eC1ZfZwWJ&ref=foxwizard.com). There was a kind of coalescing of elements that highlighted, to me, the limitations of rational thinking alone. It opened me to the notion of *rational-and*. And so, in my now early 40s, I find myself *baffled.\** So much I had once scoffed at and dismissed now ~~speaks~~ mumbles to me. In language to which I have no defence.° \* *“The mind that is not baffled is not employed. The impeded stream is the one that sings.” – Wendell Berry* *° That’s David Whyte—“Poetry is language against which you have no defence”.* Where once my rational mind would objectively and dispassionately assess our current trajectory—enough to question [the point of hope](https://www.foxwizard.com/beyond-hope/)—now I read [Palestinian poets like Mahmoud Darwish](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/sep/12/river-dies-thirst-diary-darwish?ref=foxwizard.com). > “Hope is not the opposite of despair,” he writes. “It is a talent.” And “suffering is not a talent” but a test of it. And indifference is “one aspect of hope”. If hope is a talent, I’m not sure I am very skilled at it. But it is a skill worth developing. --- All of this is to say that, without the Deep Rest I may not have so earnestly reconnected with nature. Without the Deep Rest I may have continued to take friendships and scenius for granted. And without the Deep Rest I may have remained within my rational confines, blind to the deeper wonders that give \[*a warm, wisened, weathered and sometimes twisted kind of*\] hope. We’ll be exploring themes of poetry, myth and even “magic”\* in our next gathering of [The Rekindling](https://www.foxwizard.com/rekindling) (tonight!). I also know that many of you are located well beyond the locale of Melbourne. Please know: I intend to host some online gatherings sometime soon, so stay tuned for that. \* *I had previously referred to magic as “emergent phenomena that exists at orders of complexity beyond our reckoning”. Recently, I’ve been indulging in the metamodern wizard [Layman Pascal’s definition of ‘xagick’](https://xagick.substack.com/p/do-you-believe-in-xagick): “Xagick is the focused use of somatic and affective stimulation, intentionality & semantic suggestiveness to responsively organize emergent, contextualized patterns of human experiential unfolding into “enchanting” zones of transjectivity and synchronicity. // Through adaptation to those zones, sapient beings can cultivate a new indigeneity and organic hierophantic agency relative to subconscious, unknown and/or unintelligible forms of causality and communication. // These procedures operate via particular neurophysiological states. They also involve a sensitized retro-teleological reconsolidation of our multiple intelligences in the present moment such that we orient toward hyper-futures that are interpreted as already implicit within the indefinite imaginal extension of our currently expressed gestures of meaningfulness. // What? // Exactly.”* --- Thank you for indulging me in my public therapy, hoho. These kinds of museletters always give me a vulnerability hangover. I really ought be only presenting the warm charismatic authority-aspect of my persona, instead of this mere human aspect. Next time! Still, some of you have been with me for more than a decade. I feel comfortable to write to you as a friend. I hope that there have been some glimmers amidst this for you. With warmth, Jason ### 🔮 Wisen up about AI—12 recommendations URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/wisen-up-artificial-intelligence/ Last updated: 2025-08-16T09:15:03.000Z A friend of mine suggested that some of my “best stuff” is “buried” within my museletters, and that I ought share these more directly. I like to reward the curious—but, in this distraction economy, there is some merit to their advice. And so—plucked from a [recent museletter](https://www.foxwizard.com/fairy-tale/)—here are some articles and podcasts I currently recommend to any seeking to develop wise discernment with regard to artificial intelligence. *Numbers 1, 3, 11 and 12 are essential.* 🏮 --- 1. [Artificial Intelligence and the Superorganism](https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/71-daniel-schmachtenberger?ref=foxwizard.com) This conversation between Nate Hagens and Daniel Schmachtenberger is *essential* listening. Essential. The thing is: this conversation is over three hours in length, and the first two hours are spent on *the fundamental principles* to keep in mind when considering the impact that artificial intelligence will have in our world. I’ve shared this with friends, imploring them to listen to it so that we might explore the topic together. It’s been well over a year and only a handful have listened to it. This is fine. Three hours of anyone’s attention is a big ask in this distraction economy. But—given that few people will actually invest the time—*you* taking the time to immerse in this properly will convey distinct strategic advantage. This is how you cultivate in-house intelligence and wise discernment. 2. [Life 3.0 by Max Tegmak](https://www.penguin.com.au/books/life-30-9780141981802?ref=foxwizard.com) It’s a little old now, but I thought I ought share a reference that isn’t completely disenchanted and doomer. This book—whilst now six years old and thus *ancient—*does a good job of clarifying basic terms and key debates, whilst also dispelling the common myths associated with AI (robotic uprisings, and so on). 3. [Better Without AI by David Chapman](https://betterwithout.ai/?ref=foxwizard.com) It’s good to read from folk who have worked deeply within the field of artificial intelligence. David Chapman holds a PhD in artificial intelligence, and this metabook *“explores *moderate apocalypses* that could result from current and near-future AI technology. These are relatively overlooked risks: not extreme sci-fi extinction scenarios, nor the media’s obsession with ‘ChatGPT said something naughty’ trivia. Rather: realistically likely disasters, up to the scale of our history’s worst wars and oppressions.”* 4. [I Will Fucking Piledrive You If You Mention AI Again](https://ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/i-will-fucking-piledrive-you-if-you-mention-ai-again/?ref=foxwizard.com) I don’t know who this (evidently Australian) anon author is, but I love the way they write. Such cut-through is refreshing in this land proliferated by what Professor John Vervaeke aptly calls *a tsunami of bullshit.* This author has also written a great hit-piece on “[leadership off-sites](https://ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/leadership-is-a-hell-of-a-drug/?ref=foxwizard.com)”, too (which is, ironically, the work I do—but not like this). Anyways, it’s important to read from sources like this. Here’s a quote: *“Unless you are one of a tiny handful of businesses who know exactly what they're going to use AI for, you do not need AI for anything—or rather, you do not need to do anything to reap the benefits.”* Curious? Read more. (That’s a general statement, but [here’s the link again](https://ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/i-will-fucking-piledrive-you-if-you-mention-ai-again/?ref=foxwizard.com)). 5. [Ways to Think About AGI by Benedict Evens](https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2024/5/4/ways-to-think-about-agi?ref=foxwizard.com) Benedict is a technology writer, it’s what he does. This recent-ish piece provides a decent frame for how you might think about artificial general intelligence. Would we even recognise it? This short piece is refreshing because it talks to *the fundamental uncertainty* behind AGI. 6. [If You’re Driving Off a Cliff, Do You Need a Faster Car?](https://www.resilience.org/stories/2023-06-12/if-youre-driving-off-a-cliff-do-you-need-a-faster-car/?ref=foxwizard.com) An apt summary of contextual concerns from Richard Heinberg (a Senior Fellow of Post Carbon Institute). 7. [Values, Education, AI and the Metacrisis](https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/122-zak-stein?ref=foxwizard.com) This conversation between Nate Hagens and Zak Stein explores a topic that would be on the mind of many parents. What does the future look like for our children, in this world of exponential AI? What implications does this have for teaching, schooling and education (all distinct concepts, btw)? *“How is unfettered technology and artificial intelligence influencing youth—and what should parents, adults, and teachers be doing in response?”* 8. [The Culture series by Iain M Banks](https://www.robinsloan.com/moonbound/muscular-imagination/?ref=foxwizard.com) I’ve [talked of this before](https://www.foxwizard.com/book-recommendations-for-leaders/#11-%E2%80%9Cthe-culture-series%E2%80%9D-by-iain-m-banks). If you want a glimpse of a nice future where humans have given rise to mostly-benevolent super-AGIs (Minds), this series is a must-read. It skips over *how* we get there, though. But there are hints. *“Money is a sign of poverty”,* Iain writes in [*The Player of Games*](https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/f1fa7544-8da5-47d3-87c2-36d7bbc2803d?ref=foxwizard.com). The Culture—being a post-scarcity civilisation—has moved beyond the need for economic transactions; eliminating systems that perpetuate inequality and poverty. These books will help fill the wells of your imagination. 9. [Situational Awareness—The Next Decade](https://situational-awareness.ai/?ref=foxwizard.com) This is a recent essay from Leopold Aschenbrenner, who used to work at OpenAI. *“\[...\]* *all of this is based on publicly-available information, my own ideas, general field-knowledge, or SF-gossip”.* Now, I do love me some gossip—and this is an example of the kind of stuff I try to stay across. I’m no expert in AI myself—but I do maintain enough of a working sense of the interrelated elements to stay abreast of things. Lines like—*“America must lead. The torch of liberty will not survive Xi getting AGI first.”—*highlight the very real ‘race’ that is in play right now. 10. [Exploring AI and the Metacrisis](https://maearth.com/episodes/stephen-reid-ai-metacrisis?ref=foxwizard.com) My friend Stephen Reid shares a grounded yet optimistic sense of how AI may yet be directed towards better outcomes for our planet. I’m including this here just to balance things out a little—it’s not all doom and gloom. Just: mostly. 😅 11. [Silicon Dreams and Carbon Nightmares](https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/132-daniel-schmachtenberger?ref=foxwizard.com) This is, hoho, *another* conversation between Nate Hagens and Daniel Schmachtenberger. And it’s much more recent. The linked video pairs well to the [*Development in Progress*](https://consilienceproject.org/development-in-progress/?ref=foxwizard.com)paper by The Consilience Project that was also released this month. And gosh I—and many others (including the authors)—would *love* to read an equally robust and well-reasoned counter-thesis to this. 12. [AI in the Age of Mythic Powers by Josh Schrei](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/so-you-want-to-be-a-sorcerer-in-the-age-of/id1465445746?i=1000620936715&ref=foxwizard.com) This article pairs well with what I believe to be an *essential* listen; the audio artwork by Josh Schrei—[*So You Want to Be a Sorcerer in the Age of Mythic Powers*](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/so-you-want-to-be-a-sorcerer-in-the-age-of/id1465445746?i=1000620936715&ref=foxwizard.com)*.* It’s balanced, grounded, and above all—*mythic.* And wise. All at once. --- You’ll find more of my own musings deeper within the museletters I share. But to quote again from a recent one: > Over a year ago, I alluded to the rise of [Artificially Intelligent](https://www.foxwizard.com/artificially-intelligent/) “thought leaders”. Folks who perpetuate the narrative, the meme, the *myth* of AI without any wise discernment. There’s a lot of money to be made in this, because there is a lot of hope and hype baked into AI. > > The result of following such folk, though, is that many organisations will act like the red team [in this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYFcTWKcuQM&ref=foxwizard.com) below. > > Instead of *positioning* themselves for future relevance (like the blue team), they’ll spend all their time and effort chasing the ball.\* \* *The ball, in this instance, represents the hope and hype of AI.* The first step is to be more like the blue team. The next step is to ask: *do we even need to be playing this game at all?* Except no! You have to. Your competitors are. And our rivalrous dynamics behoove us to participate and learn. You just need to *keep your wits about you.* ### 💌 A Wizard’s Guide to “Being Productive” URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/wizard-productive/ Last updated: 2024-08-02T04:56:59.000Z Once or thrice every year or so, the dangerlam and I go through a bout of utter disgust at how lax we have become with regard to progressing our most important projects. We find ourselves looking at our weeks and days, wondering: where did the time go? And why do we have so little to show for it? I’m sure you feel this sometimes, too. It’s not that you are loafing—you’re working on things. Busily, I’m sure. But, despite all that time and effort—why do you feel so unfulfilled? ## This post will help you be more productive That’s the bait, anyway. The *real* message is an attempt to help you be more intentional and effective in whatever roles you play, so that you might cultivate significant meaningful progress and fulfilment in the chapters of your life. Productivity without progress—aka *the delusion of progress* (or “[naïve progress](https://www.foxwizard.com/authentic-progress/)”)—is the default state the distraction economy has groomed us to persist within. *Meaningful* progress\* is the antidote. Yet meaningful progress can look and feel terribly unproductive to the untrained eye. I hope to help you remedy this, lest ye fall sway to the delusion. \* *Meaningful progress is that which brings us closer to relevance-realisation and emerging coherence.°* *° To be coherent means that your way of being, doing and relating ‘makes sense’ given the context you are in. Emerging coherence is thus much like surfing a wave. You position yourself (within a complex adaptive system) amidst and in anticipation of change—in a manner that allows you to be in flow with the change (and not smashed by it). I’m not sure how well this metaphor holds.* Most productivity books (and personal development and leadership books) treat you and the world as some kind of machine. That is, [a complicated (not complex) closed system](https://www.foxwizard.com/photocopier-and-garden/) that can be “fixed” and “optimised” for performance. Thus, we see “formulas”, “rules” and “hacks” for productivity. These often “goal-driven” approaches are *fine* for formulaic work within stable and predictable/routine contexts (like working in a factory or training for the olympics). Yet, our most important and ambitious projects are rarely simple or straightforward (else we’d have already done them). They’re complex. But! *Some* productivity books do manage to take a more wholesome approach. Here’s one such book. ### “Slow Productivity” Cal Newport—the author of [*Deep Work*, *Digital Minimalism*, *A World Without Email*](https://calnewport.com/writing/?ref=foxwizard.com) and other productivity books—has just written a new book: [*Slow Productivity—the lost art of accomplishment without burnout*](https://calnewport.com/my-new-book-slow-productivity/?ref=foxwizard.com). And… I’m a somewhat of a fan. Now, before we get carried away, it’s worth remembering that Cal Newport is a tenured professor. There are certain privileges he has in life (like: job security and a guaranteed income) that shape the perspective he brings. But, as a knowledge worker myself—and as a wizard with [many well-paying clients](https://www.drjasonfox.com/happy-clients?ref=foxwizard.com)—I must admit: *I quite like* Cal’s writing and advice. It resonates with the sensibilities I’ve also developed and accrued. Cal’s notion of “slow productivity” follows three principles: - Do fewer things - Work at a natural pace - Obsess over quality (Between you and me: these principles largely speak for themselves—but you can read the [*Slow Productivity*](https://calnewport.com/my-new-book-slow-productivity/?ref=foxwizard.com) itself if you need examples and/or convincing.) Slow Productivity aside, I thought it might be *novel* is to share how I approach productivity and meaningful progress in the rhythms of my own work. I share this with you not as The One True Way, but rather as but an example you might draw some inspiration from. ## Qual(ity); not quant(ity) So. If *meaningful* progress is what ye seek, then you must cultivate a heavy bias towards **qualitative** sense-making. That is: assessing the quality of progress via active reflection, introspection and real-time sense-making. In parallel, you must also foster a healthy scepticism toward anything quantitative. Most of us have it the other way around. We \[accurately\] view the immeasurable stuff as [nebulous](https://meaningness.com/nebulosity?ref=foxwizard.com) (as though this is a bad thing), whilst venerating and reifying that which can be expressed in metric form.\* These metrics—numeric glyphs—are how Moloch° leads us astray. \* *See my note at the start of my piece on [Intellectually Honest (like a fox)](https://www.foxwizard.com/intellectually-honest).* *° Moloch, the god of perverse incentives, child sacrifice and coordination failure.* We sacrifice much of our lives in order to change certain glyph-numbers; be it to “loose weight” (make lb/kg glyph-number go down), build a social media profile (make follower glyph-number go up), increase “net worth” (make dollar glyph-number go up), achieve net-zero emissions (make global CO2 glyph-number go down), write a book (word count glyph-number go up) etcetera. But, if we are not careful, Moloch will *twist* this. Losing weight will see us unhealthily obsess over weight as a metric of self-worth; sacrificing nutrition, wellbeing, and muscle mass in the pursuit of it. Building a social media profile will see us fall prey to [audience-capture](https://www.gurwinder.blog/p/the-perils-of-audience-capture?ref=foxwizard.com), becoming a grotesque parody of ourselves. Increasing our net worth will see us obsess about it to the point where we care more about property and portfolio then we do about the very people in our lives. Achieving net-zero emissions leads to the carbon tunnel-vision that sees us invest in high-tech/low-nature cloud-seeding and direct carbon-capture technologies whilst forests and ecosystems collapse. And writing a book based on word count might just see us produce a whole heap of fluff and padding.\* \* *I do not struggle with this, btw.* There’s almost always a perversion with metrics; a twist. Hence why we treat metrics with a healthy suspicion. ### Sigil-glyph magic Words have their own magic too, of course. Words are made of [glyphs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyph?ref=foxwizard.com); each letter combines to *spell* a word. And, like a spell; each word conjures an effect. Words thus convey *meaning* (albeit in a limited way, prone to misinterpretation) and shape the way we *perceive*. This perception then shapes the way we orient, act and behave—which, in turn, shapes reality. [Abracadabra](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abracadabra?ref=foxwizard.com); “I create like the word”. But numbers and metrics *masquerade* as something far more *real* than they are. They are, to many, not merely vague approximate/arbitrary symbolic representation—but Actual Fact.™️ Something reified. Something to sacrifice our \[inner\] child to. Something to make into perverse incentive. Something to ensure coordination failure. The numbers don’t lie, we say. And yet: they oft deceive.\* \* *In the opening of my post[Intellectually Honest (like a fox)](https://www.foxwizard.com/intellectually-honest) I unpack the questions we must ask of any statistic we are presented with. There are similar questions we must ask of all numbers, too. Specifically: what factors are intentionally left out-of-scope when any number is presented? The externalities—what of them?* Thus, the trick is to keep metrics in the *periphery.* To remain light and soft-focus in how we relate to them. Do not stare directly unto the number-glyphs, lest Moloch lure you astray. Because, sure; you may not have lost weight—but do you *feel* better about the changes in your diet and activity? The results will come (and you may have gained lean muscle mass anyway). And sure; you might have sat in front of a blank page for hours, only writing three sentences—but perhaps you have much greater clarity in where you wish to take your writing. Perhaps this was but a necessary ebb to your flow. You'll note: numbers are still there as a reference point—but they are secondary to our qualitative reflection and introspection. *“What gets measured gets done,”* Peter Drucker once famously said. But the terrible thing is that this often translates to the only things getting done being the things easily measured. And much of the richness, meaning, and fulfilment in life come from the things that *can’t* be measured easily. Thus, if meaningful progress is what we about, we instead ask ourselves: does this make sense? Are you making progress? Does this feel apt and congruent to your emerging context? Are you learning, growing, and developing in this? ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2024/06/My-lord-no-1.jpg) Okay fine. ## My Mythic Modes Winter has come (for those of us in the southern hem), and with each season comes a different chapter. For me, winter is a time of hunkering down. It is a time of slow productivity; a time when I come to embrace the sensibilities of the [hermit](https://labyrinthos.co/blogs/tarot-card-meanings-list/the-hermit-meaning-major-arcana-tarot-card-meanings?ref=foxwizard.com)\-[wizard](https://labyrinthos.co/blogs/tarot-card-meanings-list/the-magician-meaning-major-arcana-tarot-card-meanings?ref=foxwizard.com). But, from years of journaling, I know: I cannot go *full* wizard-hermit. That’s a recipe for their respective inversions. The thematic dispositions need to have something of a mix to them. Half a decade ago I read a post from William Van Hecke on what he calls “[The Discipline](https://metalbat.com/post/the-discipline/?ref=foxwizard.com)”. It involved various foci mixed across a 10-day period. After trying this out, I found I am too habituated to thinking in terms of 7-day periods. It remains much easier to work around the notion of *weeks* than it does 10days. Yet, the sensibilities of keeping one’s disposition *fluid* remained apt. So, here’s what I do. First, I come up with five “mythic modes” in which I operate. Each mode *loosely* references a particular archetype, and each mode preferences one of the five colours of mana from *the gathering of magic.\** \* *aka [Magic: The Gathering](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic:%5FThe%5FGathering?ref=foxwizard.com).* ****Important:** if you are unfamiliar with the colours of mana, I highly recommend you read [**How the ‘Magic: The Gathering’ Color Wheel Explains Humanity*](https://homosabiens.substack.com/p/the-mtg-color-wheel) by Duncan Sabien. Yes, this is a system that emerged from a fantasy collectable card game created by Richard Garfield, PhD and published by Wizard of the Coast. Yes, I know it sounds silly. But also: it remains an incredibly useful dispositional heuristic. I relate to this not as a way to encourage **fixed* categorisation (such as “personalities”, “developmental levels” or “mindsets”). Rather, it is a non-hierarchical way of relating to fluid dispositions. It’s a toy framework,\* made from a game. A game that offers its own bricolage of myth. Myth that yet still holds and speaks to deeper and more timeless ‘truths’. Thus, with the colours of magic in mind, we have what Duncan calls **“an intuition pump and a correlative, predictive archetype set”* \[...\] **“In the end, it’s all shorthand, and clear-opinions-lightly-held. Learning the color system doesn’t really give me new information—it’s just an intuition pump, an extra library imported to my script. But like a good library, it gets me places a* lot *faster, and enables a lot more quick function calls than doing the whole thing in straight code.”* From this point on I will assume you have a basic understanding of the five colours of magic. Philosopher Benjamin Carpenter’s [**Many Worlds of Many Colours*](https://benjaminjjcarpenter.medium.com/many-worlds-of-many-colours-3efe5a00fda8?ref=foxwizard.com) essay is another apt primer. In essence: ****White** – Order, discipline, peace, law, civilisation, righteousness. ****Blue** – Knowledge, intellect, curiosity, progress, manipulation, future. ****Black** – Power, ambition, pragmatism, sacrifice, selfishness, ruthlessness. ****Red** – Passion, freedom, chaos, emotion, impulsiveness, destruction. ****Green** – Nature, growth, life, instinct, balance, resilience. \* *I recall this line from complexity practitioner and pioneer Dave Snowden in [a conversation](https://jimruttshow.blubrry.net/the-jim-rutt-show-transcripts/transcript-of-episode-11-dave-snowden/?ref=foxwizard.com) where he shared: “I did a program in IBM \[...\] a three month experiment. We proved astrology was more accurate than Myers-Briggs in predicting teen behavior. For some reason, they got upset with me. The point I made is if you get people to think about themselves \[...\] you might as well use astrology because then nobody will take it seriously, but they’ll use it properly. But either way that didn’t go down well.” I am fully aware that using ‘the colours of mana’ from Magic: The Gathering won’t go down well. Yet still, I share this with you anyway.* ![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F26591e37-e4e5-46f3-ac60-92abfea13eff_1994x1770.png) Here’s Duncan Sabien’s schema of the colours of magic ([source](https://homosabiens.substack.com/p/the-mtg-color-wheel)) Each mode embodies one of the five primary colours of mana—blue, black, red, green, or white. Each colour symbolically represents a *cluster* of philosophies, values, and traits that serve as a constellation to guide our behaviour and focus. I go further and add a *secondary* colour because, well, it satisfies me to do so. As you refine your understanding of magic and mana—at least, in the established system I’ve co-opted, you may wish to add a secondary colour, too. These modes serve as an orientating [*stance*](https://www.foxwizard.com/stance-mindset/) for each day. And I do my best to ensure that within every fortnight I have occupied each mode for at least a day. --- ### 🧙🏻‍♂️ WIZARD MODE BLUE-blue mana ✦ developmental focus ✦ swords + wands *—contemplation, research, writing, experimenting, creating* These are the days I make my research, writing and creating the core focus. This means: scheduling no meetings, eliminating distraction, and doing what I can to preserve uninterrupted blocks of time for deep work and flow. Ideally, I run with multiple wizard-mode days in a row, going full hermit. You’ll note that this is BLUE-blue mana mode. It’s quite intensely cerebral—which is why this mode needs to be balanced out with other modes. --- ### 🎭 BARD MODE RED-green mana ✦ performance/social focus ✦ wands + cups *—sharing, storytelling, meetings, events, enchantment* These are the days I am overly social or ‘client-facing’. They typically involve, travel, events, and conviviality. On these days, I don’t even attempt to do the slow productivity or deep work of wizard-mode; I must instead be alive to the present and whatever serendipities beckon. This is RED-green mana mode. The red brings the spontaneity and emotive whim, whilst the green keeps grounded in relationality and presence. --- ### 🌿 GARDENER MODE GREEN-white mana ✦ maintenance focus ✦ pentacles + swords *—admin, nurturing, nature, wholesomeness, home* If I were to just exist only in the hermit-intensity of wizard mode and the social exuberance of bard-mode, so many things would fall to neglect. Thus, gardener-mode days are the days I *tend* to things. Tenderly, ideally. But also with the ruthlessness of a gardener plucking out the weeds, too. There’s a satisfaction that comes from these days—clean bed linens, washed and folded clothes, a freshly vacuumed home, quality time with Kim, Snörri and π. Long walks in the locale, and an abundant sense of home. This is GREEN-white mana. Our orientation here is to tend to emergence and life (green) with some dedication and loose adherence to structure/order (white). I sometimes more think of this as *druid-mode*—particularly if I’m in nature-deficit. This ought to result in me organising a hike, a meditation by the river, or some kind of intentional time away from screens and amidst wilderness. This is oft-served by my daemon in the following mode. --- ### 😈 DAEMON MODE BLACK-green mana ✦ inspiration focus ✦ cups + wands *—well-filling, artist-dates, hedonism, beauty, whim* Like most adults, I tend to live within a narrative that has me working valiantly in tireless service to others. Fulfilling all of my responsibilities and duties with dour capricornian earnestness, telling myself stories like *“once I do these things and achieve these things* then *I can finally have time to do what I really want”.* These are the days when I listen to my daemon. Our daemon could be thought of as the inner-voice we have that guides us. Inspiration is the key focus of the day. Thus, I do things like “listen to my body”, and orientate towards satisfaction and delight. I also sometimes heed the voice of my friend Mark—whom I did [*The Artist’s Way*](https://juliacameronlive.com/2015/02/24/the-magic-of-artist-dates/?ref=foxwizard.com) with a few years back. Mark advises that *“one must not merely waste time—one must* squander *it”.* My daemon enjoys this notion. This is BLACK-green mana. The black brings self-serving pragmatism whilst the green has this, again, attuned to deeper relationality. I suspect my daemon has a touch of the fae about them. --- ### 🦊 ZENKO MODE WHITE-any mana ✦ goodness focus ✦ all suits *—wild-card* All schemas need the pattern-disrupt—lest they stagnate into obsolescence. This schema is no different—hence why I have integrated the trickster spirit as a modus.\* You may find it odd that this is my white-mana mode; it’s not actually a mana colour I have typically resonated with in the past—as it tends to correlate to civilisation, humanity, discipline, rules, law, and order. Such things are rather irksome to this [sultai wizard](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6iIoXt%5FpDE&list=PLYRIFj7E0RZGLmR578Vcb3YucMqLYw7gF&index=6&ref=foxwizard.com). \* *This is not to say that “I am the archetype of trickster”—I’ve learned that such antics also invite trickster to mess your own world up, too. Instead, I seek to respectfully honour that which needs to be disrupted—even if it is the restlessness of disruption itself.* But if we elevate, deepen *and* broaden our sense of what “order” means into [something more patterned and cosmic](https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/on-clouds-and-cosmic-law/id1465445746?i=1000652122407&ref=foxwizard.com), then, well, white mana becomes much more palatable. As so this is a wild-card mode. Not ‘random’ or ‘chaotic’—and probably technically not ‘wild’—but something to which I try to invite a [zenko kitsune](https://yokai.com/zenko/?ref=foxwizard.com)\-like perspective in my response to pattern. Whereas daemon-mode is relatively self-indulgent, zenko-mode has me orient towards “goodness” (whatever that might come to mean). The ‘wildness’ relates more to being able to drop whatever other mode I have in order to attend to family, friends, neighbours or whomever or whatever calls to me. --- ## Thus, a typical fortnight ... might look something like this. 🧙🏻‍♂️🧙🏻‍♂️🧙🏻‍♂️🌿😈🎭🎭🌿🦊🧙🏻‍♂️🧙🏻‍♂️🎭🌿😈 ↑ Here we have a mix of deep work, followed by some maintenance and then indulgence, then a patch of social, followed by a bit more maintenance. I then see fit to use the wild card zenko-mode to “do the good thing” before a bit more deep work, and then some sort of sharing followed by an artist date. Or: something like that. The point with this is really to ensure meaningful progress across the domains that matter. My friend Matt Church has a great saying about “work-life balance”, in that it is achieved *over* time (not in time). These mixes vary based upon the times. In midwinter I tend to be in wizard mode a heap more (as I am writing my next book for you). But even then, the “rule” I strive for is to ensure that I channel every colour of mana *at least once* per fortnight. Thus, the most hard-core wizard-hermit writing mode fortnight might look like this: 🧙🏻‍♂️🧙🏻‍♂️🧙🏻‍♂️🌿🧙🏻‍♂️🧙🏻‍♂️😈🧙🏻‍♂️🧙🏻‍♂️🧙🏻‍♂️🦊🧙🏻‍♂️🧙🏻‍♂️🎭 You’ll see that there are ebbs that serve to renew the flow. There are other patterns, too. Give me too many bard-mode days—where I am traveling, performing and socialising—and I’ll *need* some sort of wizard, druid, or daemon mode day to rejuvenate. > *“But what if I work full-time, have kids, and/or other commitments?”* Ha, I know—I am sounding a bit like a tenured professor here, hoho. But remember: each mode is a [dispositional stance](https://www.foxwizard.com/fairy-tale/). It’s an orientation towards the day. Or something like a *flavour.* It works regardless of what you have on your plate. It works because *you* make it work for you. ## Your Mythic Modes The list of “mythic modes” I just shared are very much a personal (and seasonal) thing. You’ll need to roll your own. \* I tend to be quite attuned with my own developmental (thanks to [the ritual of becoming](https://www.cleverness.com/word?ref=foxwizard.com)) and all of this remains a bit nebulous and mercurial. Yet: there’s pattern enough. It could be as simple as looking at each of the five colours and asking yourself: what does this mean for you? When you think of green mana and its associated concepts of *nature, growth, life, instinct, balance, resilience...* how might this influence the disposition of your day? When you think of black mana and its associated concepts of *power, ambition, pragmatism, sacrifice, selfishness, ruthlessness...* how might this influence the disposition of your day? This one’s a spicy kind of mana—many would eschew it as part of some noble lie they tell themselves. But I would see to it that, in the span of a fortnight, there is *at least one day* you prioritise your own desires. All things in moderation, though. *Especially moderation hoho thx Oscar Wilde.* ## A daily template The final piece of this seasonal disposition toward meaningful progress is to create a “template” day. The trap is to think of this as ‘an ideal day’, when such things are so fleetingly rare. This could be my aversion to white mana coming forth here, but let me underscore: this is not to be some manufactured unrealistic ideal to hold your lived reality in contrast to. As I teach in [*The Ritual of Becoming*](https://www.cleverness.com/word?ref=foxwizard.com)*—*beware the notion of the ‘True Authentic Self’*.\** \* *There’s a whole module on this.* So: beware the notion of “A True Ideal Day™️”. Unless, of course, you have imbibed the sensibilities of [Perfect Days](https://www.foxwizard.com/perfect-days/); then: do that. Here’s my “template” day for winter. This serves as a more of a *tempo* to return to whenever I stray from the rhythm. I share this with you because I find it disturbingly fascinating to read the proclaimed days of others, so I figure: you might like this, too. > 630am // coffee + meditation + journal > 730am // a brisk local walk or light run > 8am // shower + breakfast > 9am // 4h deep work (research, writing) > 1pm // lunch + potentially walk snörri > 230pm // 2h light work (emails, meetings, admin) > 430pm // gym or yoga + walk snörri + prep dinner > 630pm // dinner + show > 8pm // 1h dark work (social media)\* > 9pm // wind-down, nightly brood° > 930pm // read > 1030pm // sleep \* *I say “dark work” given the multipolar trap social media has become. There’s a dance I resign myself to, but I am also trying to do what I can to reduce incidental screen time.* *° As per Martin Shaw’s suggestion in [Navigating the Mysteries](https://emergencemagazine.org/essay/navigating-the-mysteries/?ref=foxwizard.com).* I remember reading about Ursula K. Le Guin’s daily template in [*The Last Interview: And Other Conversations*](https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/07d0e89d-e72f-4927-ad42-5a662384bc94?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* She shared it thusly: > 5:30am // wake up and lie there and think > 6:15am // get up and eat breakfast (lots) > 7:15am // get to work writing, writing, writing > noon // lunch > 1pm // reading, music > 3pm // correspondence, maybe house cleaning > 5pm // make dinner and eat it > “After 8:00 p.m. – I tend to be very stupid and we won’t talk about this.” Having any default template in place is like a *canvas* for you to paint upon. My wizard-mode (blue mana) days have as little light and dark work as possible—it’s all deep work. But my bard-mode (red-green mana) days might have many more meetings, more dark work (and scant deep work). My gardener-mode days might substitute some work blocks for home upkeep work or errands. And my daemon-mode days might see me inspired to bake a cake, or lovingly conjure something slow-cooked. It’s all malleable. Making the template just allows you to better see the shape of your days. ## Was this even helpful? I’d love to know—yet these days I don’t seem to be rocking any comment section. If you *do* happen to share your own mythic modes or rhythmic dispositions with regards to productivity and progress, please do ping me (I’m @drjasonfox on linkedin, twitter and instagram and @foxwizard on farcaster)—it’ll make my rationed hour of dark work a little brighter. 😅 ### 💌 Wouldst thou like a fairy tale? URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/fairy-tale/ Last updated: 2024-06-27T23:49:05.000Z Ahoy friends. I’m *so terribly behind* on a post I have been writing for you—**A Wizard’s Guide to ‘Being Productive’**. It’s a good one, really, but it’s turned into a longer essay than intended, so I’m letting it bake. Meanwhile, I have [a special event to promote](https://www.foxwizard.com/rekindling/). I also found myself writing a list of “recommended reads”\* as a follow-up to a strategy offsie for a client where “Artificial Intelligence” was part of the quiver of options being explored. Longtime subscribers will know: I have Thoughts about AI; I share them with you here. \* *As distinct from my list of [fourteen ‘must reads’ for those who lead](https://www.foxwizard.com/book-recommendations-for-leaders/).* --- But first—allow me to briefly promote [The Mythic Deep-Winter Rekindling Event](https://www.foxwizard.com/rekindling/). It’s happening on Wednesday 10th of July, 545–730pm at United Co. (425 Smith St. Fitzroy), then 730pm unto deep night in our private enclave within The Molly Rose brewery. ### A Mythic Deep-Winter Rekindling This is a special one; we’re flying in my sage friend—existential counsellor, (re)enchanter and [poet](https://www.iambapoet.com/wave/17-david-pecotic?ref=foxwizard.com)—[Dr. David Pecotić](https://x.com/djp1974?ref=foxwizard.com). Join us in this introvert-friendly evening speakeasy haven-salon and ye might: - *Find renewed solace in the hidden knowledge you already know.* - *Perhaps discover how to win the affections of your muse once more.* - *Develop an appreciation for the skill of wintering; of transmuting sadness.\** - *Revel in the kinship of likewise seekers who quest for brighter futures amidst the dark.* \* *Read more from [Maria Popova’s exploration of wintering](https://www.themarginalian.org/2021/03/06/wintering-katherine-may/?ref=foxwizard.com). In a world full of forced-cheer, optimism-and-denial, and blind faith in big tech—this sensibility is wise and much welcomed.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2024/06/Mythic-Winter-Rekindling-8.png) [Download this poster](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/size/w1460/2024/06/Mythic-Winter-Rekindling-7.png?ref=foxwizard.com) to share ♡ Genuinely, it would be so nice to have you join us. I’m a socially anxious introverted hermit wizard at the best of times, and whilst I generally feel drained by events—The Rekindling is nourishing and enlivening. PK and I have a wondrous formula: a shared immersion followed by convivial hang time. Come, join us! ♡ Tickets and details at [foxwizard.com/rekindling](https://www.foxwizard.com/rekindling/) This event is graciously hosted by [Kearney Group](https://kearneygroup.com.au/?ref=foxwizard.com). --- **Could it be time to Declare Thy Worde?** I have myself a Worde for the Year—though, oddly, ever since creating [The “Choose One Word” Ritual of Becoming](https://www.cleverness.com/word/?ref=foxwizard.com) in 2019, I’ve stopped declaring mine. This was partly due to the cascade of world-calamaties that befell us. And also partly due to what I perceived to be the \[social media driven\] performative nature of declaring our Worde. I found myself *vexed* at the superficiality that seemed to be manifest, and thought myself complicit. ### Re-Enchanting Thy Worde In the past half-decade, I have been at work, though. Quietly refining, finessing, and deepening the Ritual in a manner I hope to share with you someday... soon.™️ **The tl;dr of it all is:** emphasising The Ritual of Becoming more than The One Worde. You *can* skip past The Ritual of Becoming, what with its deep, rhythmic call to Reflection, Introspection, and Projection. Who got time for that, amirite? But a Worde chosen *sans* Ritual may likely be but an incremental perpetuation of an existing pattern. A mere lowercase-w “word” (with no ‘e’); and but a *continuance* of your current chapter—not the makings of a new. It’s a little tricky to put all of this into words—hence why it behooves a book proper, and a renewed program. I used to share this in my keynotes, but I’ve learnt to only hint at it now. Too many of us are too fond of shortcuts, these days. To [quote Hayao Miyazaki](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TE4mP4DP08Q&ref=foxwizard.com): “We humans are losing faith in ourselves”. But there’s hope yet; there are glimmers amidst. Case in point: [this incredible /word update from my friend Kevin McGillivray](https://www.kevinmcgillivray.net/word/enchanter/?ref=foxwizard.com). Kev *exemplifies* the contemplative practice of the Ritual in his /word page. He has inspired *me* to actually write mine again. Brew yourself a pot and have a read of [Kev’s /word page](https://www.kevinmcgillivray.net/word/enchanter/?ref=foxwizard.com), if you’ve a moment, and savour the depth and richness of this. This has not been shared as a “hey look at me everyone” humblebrag linkedin post, but rather: something hidden away on a personal, hand-crafted website. Something to be shared directly with the friends-who-are-interested. I love this, and the general thrust of dis-intermediated media. Of obscure gardens filled with hidden delights, rather than shopping mall cubicles (sub)stacked upon each other. This links to the notion of an *independent* web (which, btw, Kev properly introduced me to as my OG coding tutor). I love the independent web, in the same sense of how I love independent journalists more than corporate/[moloch media](https://www.foxwizard.com/moloch-media/). Many of us miss the weirdness of the web. *“*[*Where have all the websites gone?*](https://www.fromjason.xyz/p/notebook/where-have-all-the-websites-gone/?ref=foxwizard.com)*”* asks Jason Velazquez. The answer is: they’re still there. It just takes some non-algorithmic [curation and amplification](https://www.fromjason.xyz/p/notebook/how-do-we-stop-meta-in-2024-we-fix-the-information-loop/?ref=foxwizard.com). This is a role I am happy to play. Perhaps you’d relish in this, too? Because it is a delight to find the beacons amidst the noise; the glimmers amidst the dark. Folks who aren’t trying to win the dead-end game of platform influencer-economics in our distraction economy—but instead are simply tending to their own patch of garden in the interwebs. Manu Moreale cultivates a list of such [people and blogs](https://peopleandblogs.com/?ref=foxwizard.com), and I’ve a set of browser tabs for folks I love to check in on, like a bricolage [web-ring](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webring?ref=foxwizard.com) of my own cobbling. I’ll share more of these with you in time. For now; read Kev’s update and perhaps find yourself enchanted, too. --- Okay, with all this talk of enchantment; indulge me a provocation. Disenchantment is useful and needed. Without disenchantment, we remain hoodwinked; trapped in a spell. *“This, now, is mostly an era of spell-making,”* writes mythologist [Dr. Martin Shaw](https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/courting-the-wild-twin/?ref=foxwizard.com). *“Of tacit enchantment, of stultified imaginations and loins inflamed by so much factory-fodder lust, our relationships malfunction in their millions.”* ### Disenchantment as The Herald Martin Shaw talks of “breaking enchantment” in his book [*Smoke Hole—Looking to the Wild in the Time of the Spyglass*](https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/smoke-hole/?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* But this is not to simply leave us in a state of disenchantment, rather—it is to ensure we are open to *better* enchantment. Yet disenchantment—like disillusionment—is not a nice place to be. We have our hopes, our beliefs, and our attachments. We have our ontologies that provide us with a sense of coherence—that who we are and what we do *makes sense* given our context. Pull the rug on that, and it’s likely we will experience a sense of [betrayal, loss, denial, anger, and depression](https://meaningness.com/emotional-dynamics-of-nihilism?ref=foxwizard.com). Not nice. Yet, these are the necessary interludes that occur betwixt dis- and re-enchantment. One can only hope you have a community, practice or some skilled support in how you are able to make this transition. And perhaps it is helped by one enchantment outshining another. Disenchantment heralds new enchantment. We *need* enchantment; [we need illusion](https://www.foxwizard.com/labyrinths/#fallacies-all-the-way-down). But the enchantment and illusion we seek ought arise from something vaster, more cosmic and more *alive* than the blind faith we place in modernity, the market, humanity, and artificial intelligence. --- Everyone is talking about artificial intelligence these days. At least, that is my experience in the myriad leadership and strategy offsites I have either facilitated or contributed to. And I am *glad* that folk are exploring this emerging phenomena. It behooves us to pay attention. But we must do so with clear eyes; not misty eyes in the thralls of enchantment. ### Approaching AI with Wise Discernment There *is* much enchantment to the promise of \[general\] artificial intelligence. This enchantment has spawned the “[effective accelerationism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effective%5Faccelerationism?ref=foxwizard.com)” movement (often abbreviated to “e/acc”), which sees [unrestricted technological progress as a solution to poverty, war, and climate change](https://english.elpais.com/technology/2024-01-06/accelerate-or-die-the-controversial-ideology-that-proposes-the-unlimited-advance-of-artificial-intelligence.html?ref=foxwizard.com). This stands in stark contrast to the [degrowth movement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degrowth?ref=foxwizard.com), which holds that infinite expansion of the economy is fundamentally contradictory to the [finiteness of material resources](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource%5Fdepletion?ref=foxwizard.com) on Earth. The counter to this, of course, is the AI magic wand. Artificial Intelligence will solve for this. And we will colonise space, too. There’s a whole universe to explore! As someone who relishes in science fiction, I’d be lying if I did not say there is some appeal to the vast vision of exploring the universe (SPACE!). I’d just rather we look after our own cradle-planet, first. *“Too risky!”* the e/acc’s say. *“A single solar flare from our sun could wipe us out.”* This is a logic I can’t really argue with. Besides: how could one even curtail the development of AI, at this point? And even if we did somehow manage to regulate the space, would it simply mean that big data-collection corps like [Palantir](https://www.palantir.com/?ref=foxwizard.com)\* get to continue the development in secret? I suspect so. OpenAI is now anything *but* open (and has [a retired general of the US Army and a former head of the National Security Agency](https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/13/24178079/openai-board-paul-nakasone-nsa-safety?ref=foxwizard.com) on their board). We are already well into an international arms race for AI—which brings me back to a point I continue to make in my contributions to leaders and teams contemplating their strategic positioning in this era of exponential AI (and collapse)—**Keep Your Wits About You.** \* *Named after the palantír in Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings. The very thing Gandalf warns us of. “I will not say that seeing things through the Palantír will tell you nothing. But it may be that it will not show you the truth as it is, but only such parts of truth as the Dark Lord wishes you to see.”* Over a year ago, I alluded to the rise of [Artificially Intelligent](https://www.foxwizard.com/artificially-intelligent/) “thought leaders”. Folks who perpetuate the narrative, the meme, the *myth* of AI without any wise discernment. There’s a lot of money to be made in this, because there is a lot of hope and hype baked into AI. The result, though, is that many organisations look like the red team in this video below. Instead of *positioning* themselves for future relevance (like the blue team), they spend all their time and effort chasing the ball.\* \* *The ball, in this instance, represents the hope and hype of AI.* 3 adults vs 100 kids in a Japanese Soccer Game ### And so: disenchantment Part of my role as a “futurist” advisor to leadership teams questing for enduring relevance is to ensure that we approach complexity and emergence **as adults**. That we do not chase the ball of blind faith, hope and hype alone. And that we do not succumb to [strategy informed by mere bandwagonism](https://www.foxwizard.com/quest-strategy/). This means that, sometimes, we must approach strategy with *a disenchanted lens,* first. To rid ourselves of naïve attachment to particular narratives so that we can ensure explorations come from a place of first principles and wise discernment. Then, of course, we can begin to [*both-and*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Both%5F/%5FAnd?ref=foxwizard.com) this with imagination.\* \* *A vital component of questing; which is why leaders must be avid readers of speculative and science fiction, poetry and magical realism.* Important note: this **does not* mean you sit back and wait. The dynamics of this [multipolar trap](https://stephenreid.net/k/daniel/terms/multipolar%20trap?ref=foxwizard.com) are **rivalrous*. You cannot afford to sit on your hands. Nor can you leap to a fixed notion of what success looks like. You must be actively learning, exploring and paying attention (with all the sensibilities I discuss in [the labyrinths of reason](https://www.foxwizard.com/labyrinths/)). That is: you must keep your wits about you. It surprises me that, to this day, there are executives who still have not begun to experiment with AI. They do not have direct participatory knowledge of that which they discuss in their strategy meetings. And then, when they do finally have a play with [chatGPT](https://chatgpt.com/?ref=foxwizard.com), [midjourney](https://www.midjourney.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) or whatever—they become childishly *enamoured.* What then follows is that companies become *invested*.And then: dependent. And then defensive of their investments. I do not want for you or yours to become dependent upon or beholden to any service offering artificial intelligence. You *can* approach this with some wit and guile. ### Wisen up about AI with these sources Here is what I currently recommend to any team seeking to develop their strategic positioning in response to the emergence of AI with wise discernment. *Numbers 1, 3 and 11 are essential.* 🏮 1. [Artificial Intelligence and the Superorganism](https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/71-daniel-schmachtenberger?ref=foxwizard.com) This conversation between Nate Hagens and Daniel Schmachtenberger is *essential* listening. Essential. The thing is: this conversation is over three hours in length, and the first two hours are spent on *the fundamental principles* to keep in mind when considering the impact that artificial intelligence will have in our world. I’ve shared this with friends, imploring them to listen to it so that we might explore the topic together. It’s been well over a year and only a handful have listened to it. This is fine. Three hours of anyone’s attention is a big ask in this distraction economy. What with the new season of House of the Dragon just out, etcetera. But—given that few people will actually invest the time—*you* taking the time to immerse in this properly will convey distinct strategic advantage. This is how you cultivate in-house intelligence and wise discernment. 2. [Life 3.0 by Max Tegmak](https://www.penguin.com.au/books/life-30-9780141981802?ref=foxwizard.com) It’s a little old now, but I thought I ought share a reference that isn’t completely disenchanted and doomer. This book—whilst now six years old and thus *ancient—*does a good job of clarifying basic terms and key debates, whilst also dispelling the common myths associated with AI (robotic uprisings, and so on). 3. [Better Without AI by David Chapman](https://betterwithout.ai/?ref=foxwizard.com) It’s good to read from folk who have worked deeply within the field of artificial intelligence. David Chapman holds a PhD in artificial intelligence, and this metabook *“explores *moderate apocalypses* that could result from current and near-future AI technology. These are relatively overlooked risks: not extreme sci-fi extinction scenarios, nor the media’s obsession with ‘ChatGPT said something naughty’ trivia. Rather: realistically likely disasters, up to the scale of our history’s worst wars and oppressions.”* 4. [I Will Fucking Piledrive You If You Mention AI Again](https://ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/i-will-fucking-piledrive-you-if-you-mention-ai-again/?ref=foxwizard.com) I don’t know who this (evidently Australian) anon author is, but I love the way they write. Such cut-through is refreshing in this land proliferated by what Professor John Vervaeke aptly calls *a tsunami of bullshit.* This author has also written a great hit-piece on “[leadership off-sites](https://ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/leadership-is-a-hell-of-a-drug/?ref=foxwizard.com)”, too (which is, ironically, the work I do—but not like this). Anyways, it’s important to read from sources like this. Here’s a quote: *“Unless you are one of a tiny handful of businesses who know exactly what they're going to use AI for, you do not need AI for anything—or rather, you do not need to do anything to reap the benefits.”* Curious? Read more. (That’s a general statement, but [here’s the link again](https://ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/i-will-fucking-piledrive-you-if-you-mention-ai-again/?ref=foxwizard.com)). 5. [Ways to Think About AGI by Benedict Evens](https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2024/5/4/ways-to-think-about-agi?ref=foxwizard.com) Benedict is a technology writer, it’s what he does. This recent-ish piece provides a decent frame for how you might think about artificial general intelligence. Would we even recognise it? This short piece is refreshing because it talks to *the fundamental uncertainty* behind AGI. 6. [If You’re Driving Off a Cliff, Do You Need a Faster Car?](https://www.resilience.org/stories/2023-06-12/if-youre-driving-off-a-cliff-do-you-need-a-faster-car/?ref=foxwizard.com) An apt summary of contextual concerns from Richard Heinberg (a Senior Fellow of Post Carbon Institute). 7. [Values, Education, AI and the Metacrisis](https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/122-zak-stein?ref=foxwizard.com) This conversation between Nate Hagens and Zak Stein explores a topic that would be on the mind of many parents. What does the future look like for our children, in this world of exponential AI? What implications does this have for teaching, schooling and education (all distinct concepts, btw)? *“How is unfettered technology and artificial intelligence influencing youth—and what should parents, adults, and teachers be doing in response?”* 8. [The Culture series by Iain M Banks](https://www.robinsloan.com/moonbound/muscular-imagination/?ref=foxwizard.com) I’ve [talked of this before](https://www.foxwizard.com/book-recommendations-for-leaders/#11-%E2%80%9Cthe-culture-series%E2%80%9D-by-iain-m-banks). If you want a glimpse of a nice future where humans have given rise to mostly-benevolent super-AGIs (Minds), this series is a must-read. It skips over *how* we get there, though. But there are hints. *“Money is a sign of poverty”,* Iain writes in [*The Player of Games*](https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/f1fa7544-8da5-47d3-87c2-36d7bbc2803d?ref=foxwizard.com). The Culture—being a post-scarcity civilisation—has moved beyond the need for economic transactions; eliminating systems that perpetuate inequality and poverty. These books will help fill the wells of your imagination. 9. [Situational Awareness—The Next Decade](https://situational-awareness.ai/?ref=foxwizard.com) This is a recent essay from Leopold Aschenbrenner, who used to work at OpenAI. *“\[...\]* *all of this is based on publicly-available information, my own ideas, general field-knowledge, or SF-gossip”.* Now, I do love me some gossip—and this is an example of the kind of stuff I try to stay across. I’m no expert in AI myself—but I do maintain enough of a working sense of the interrelated elements to stay abreast of things. Lines like—*“America must lead. The torch of liberty will not survive Xi getting AGI first.”—*highlight the very real ‘race’ that is in play right now. 10. [Exploring AI and the Metacrisis](https://maearth.com/episodes/stephen-reid-ai-metacrisis?ref=foxwizard.com) My friend Stephen Reid shares a grounded yet optimistic sense of how AI may yet be directed towards better outcomes for our planet. I’m including this here just to balance things out a little—it’s not all doom and gloom. Just: mostly. 😅 11. [AI in the Age of Mythic Powers by Josh Schrei](https://beiner.substack.com/p/ai-in-the-age-of-mythic-powers-by) I’ve linked you to the article above, but the second *essential* listen (in addition to the first piece I shared with you) is this audio artwork by Josh Schrei—[*So You Want to Be a Sorcerer in the Age of Mythic Powers*](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/so-you-want-to-be-a-sorcerer-in-the-age-of/id1465445746?i=1000620936715&ref=foxwizard.com)*.* It’s balanced, grounded, and above all—*mythic.* And wise. All at once. --- So, what are we to do about this exponential rise in artificial intelligence—with all of its enchanting hope and hype? And what does it mean to “keep your wits about you”? It means you take the time to learn, explore and experiment with this emerging technology. It means that you listen to *at least* the first and last suggestion on this list I’ve given you. It means that you stay actively curious, accruing knowledge via direct participation and primary sources even more than synthesisers such as myself. It means you work on your own protosynthesis; your own living perspective. And it means you continue to pay attention—but via the lens of complexity, and disposition of wise discernment. But that’s not what “the market” wants to hear. They want hacks! Shortcuts! Cheap tricks to 10x productivity, fast. Who cares about copyright, ethics, climate, or existential risk? We would rather not be awakened and alerted to these things, lest we have to reconcile our own complicity. Going woke is going broke, amirite? Give us soothing lullabies that offer reassurance and hope. Do not disenchant us from our narratives. AI will save us and make everything easier. Trust the market. Humans will always find a way. It’s not that bad. Stop complaining; accelerate. Bah; I think we can do better than lullabies. --- Fairy tales, folklore, and myth. Those *beautiful lies that tell a deeper truth,* as Martin Shaw might say. And also: poetry—the *language to which we have no defence* (as David Whyte might say). There’s a distinctly *mythopoetic* thread running throughout many of my musings of late, you’ll likely have noticed. This is no mere affectation or passing fancy. Verily, there are deeper wisdoms that call to be heeded as we accelerate upon this seemingly self-terminating path. I had originally thought to share one such with you now—but I don’t know that I can do it justice. So instead I prescribe to you a simple side-quest. ### Optional side-quest (recommended) Find yourself a copy of [*Smoke Hole—Looking to the Wild in the Time of the Spyglass*](https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/smoke-hole/?ref=foxwizard.com) by Martin Shaw.\* Ideally a physical copy; one that you can mark with your favourite soft-leaded pencil. And then: read it. Read the three fairy tales shared, and their unpacking. \* *Get yourself [Courting the Wild Twin,](https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/courting-the-wild-twin/?ref=foxwizard.com) too, why not.* I’ll provide but two small samples for you. The first speaks to the very topic of this musing. > “We are not psychologically on the same page as where technology is taking us. We simply won’t be able to catch up. Artificial intelligence is not a future threat, it’s already arrived, designed to perfectly curate our dopamine addiction and desire to measure self-worth by hysterical visibility.” And here Martin alludes to something else. > “As I’ve written on several occasions, whenever a culture is in peril, the answer usually arrives from the margins, and its manifestation is rarely demure. I light a lantern every night and sit patiently in my garden waiting for such an encounter. It’s called being a writer.” Look to the margin voices, friends. Stare not at the bright shining lights; those grand and enchanting promises, seemingly obvious and assured; so full of promise, hope and hype. Look to the glimmers; seek them out. Sit with them, make sense of them, and see what better paths become available to you. Warmth, *—fw* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2024/06/image.png) ### 🧙🏻‍♂️ Totally authentic meaningful progress URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/authentic-progress/ Last updated: 2024-06-13T01:21:57.000Z Long-time subscribers will know—I’ve been harping on about meaningful progress (as distinct from the delusion of progress) since before *[How to Lead a Quest](https://www.drjasonfox.com/books?ref=foxwizard.com)* was published. In recent years—and particularly in his [recent conversation with Nate Hagens—Daniel Schmachtenberger](https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/126-daniel-schmachtenberger-7?ref=foxwizard.com) has offered a similar way to look at things: the distinction between *naïve progress* and *authentic progress.* > “\[...\] you can make a progress narrative, associated with effective achieving of narrow goals, even if they are driving rivalry and driving externality.\* And you know, it’s not a great definition of progress. It’s generously, it’s a naive definition of progress. Less generously, it’s propaganda and apologism for winners.” \* *Externalities are the risks and harm that our economy is blind to, and that are not priced into our metrics for success. This includes: global heating and its associated catastrophic risks, rising inequality and its associated effects, down-stream (pollution) effects, overexploitation of resources, ecocide and ecosystem collapse, habitat destruction and mass extinction, rising depression and social isolation, increasing costs of living, exacerbated multipolar traps... and more!* To my mind, *meaningful progress* is effectively akin to *authentic progress.* And *the delusion of progress* is effectively akin to *naïve progress.* But Daniel’s elucidation goes far deeper than I ever have, and the framing of naïve progress (rather than “a delusion of progress”) is perhaps kinder and more palatable. When I wrote [*How to Lead a Quest*](https://www.drjasonfox.com/books?ref=foxwizard.com)*,* I hadn’t yet grasped the full extent of our [metacrisis](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kBoLVvoqVY&ref=foxwizard.com). My frame was limited to meaningful progress *for you* (the individual) and meaningful progress *for your enterprise* (the strategy of the organisation or group you work with). Eight years ago, I genuinely believed that if we but orientate towards future relevance, the world would be a better place. But the question is: *relevant in terms of what, and for whom?* If our answer is anything less than the totality of life on this planet we share—then it is very likely we have—at best—a \[naïve\] delusion of progress. More dollars for shareholders does not constitute \[authentic\] meaningful progress, in and of itself. Not at this scale of consideration. And *particularly* not when such actions involve extraction, exploitation, externalities (and the rivalrous dynamics that see this pattern perpetuated). Besides: *salience* outcompetes relevance in our attention/distraction economy. This is [*glammourie*](https://kingkiller.fandom.com/wiki/Fae%5Fmagic?ref=foxwizard.com) magic. Something doesn’t need to actually be relevant—it only needs to seem that way. This is at the heart of sales, and the manufactured sense of lack and want perpetuated by the ~~social media~~ advertising platforms we are addicted to. The irony of meaningful (authentic) progress is that it often looks like the *opposite* to the default naïve \[delusion of\] progress we have become accustomed to. It looks like slowing down. It looks like nurturing, tending, and care. It looks like [moving quietly and planting things](https://www.foxwizard.com/move-quietly-and-plant-things/). It looks like... you’re wasting time. Because time is money. And if you aren’t dollar productive, you are actively diminishing your future optionality. Best get back to it! --- Lol, I jest. Watch the latest Schmachtenberger conversation instead. Yes, that’s quite the beard. ### 💌 Art thou cockles warm? URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/cockles/ Last updated: 2024-06-03T06:03:15.000Z ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2024/05/arctic_fox.jpeg) “[Arctic Fox](https://wellcomecollection.org/works/nmwbc67q?ref=foxwizard.com)” by Sir Ross William Charles, 1794-1860 Did you know that the phrase *“warm the cockles of one’s heart”* means ‘to cause someone to feel happy, affectionate, or emotionally uplifted’. (I did). But did you know it is supposedly derived from the Latin term *cochleae cordis,* which translates to “ventricles of the heart”...? Fascinating, nay? I’m not sure one needs to be *that* specific—the general heart as a whole would probably suffice. But ‘cockles’ is a fun word, and I relish odd specificity, so: I hope yours are warm. Capitalism does love it some stone cold cockles, though. It does not reward or advantage those who broadly care. It favours those who abstract, extract, exploit. ’Tis ever a fear of mine: to become cold hearted. Even if in a recent post I contemplated becoming a [lawful evil](https://www.foxwizard.com/lawful-evil/) wizard—I ultimately decided I couldn’t. It’s actually too hard, if you know what you are doing. I also fear becoming dim-witted. As you ought, too. It seems to be the consequence of our *distraction-economy-cum-exponential-age*. Just last week a report found that [Gamers Have Become Less Interested in Strategic Thinking and Planning](https://quanticfoundry.com/2024/05/21/strategy-decline/?ref=foxwizard.com). (I’d suggest this also applies to executives, chortle). This is but one of the *many* weak signals that, in aggregate, point to our collective ~~dumbing~~ dimming down.\* The increasing prominence of shorter-form, attention-grabbing, polarising and emotive content, coupled with algorithms that create ideological echo-chambers and intellectual regression—this is dimming our light, too. \* *This is not a new phenomenon. Nicholas Carr wrote of this nearly 15 years ago in [The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains](https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/f9fbac26-b039-47de-b0eb-006c6b8898f3?ref=foxwizard.com).* Oh I *know* most can’t sense the gloaming yet; they’re still fixated, like moths, upon the bright promise of Big Tech; blinded by manufactured hope. (It’s not their fault.) If I were less [intellectually honest](https://www.foxwizard.com/intellectually-honest/) and more commercially savvy, I would groom myself to be the beloved propaganda-puppet to the incorporated [egregores](https://www.foxwizard.com/warlocks-at-work/) who serve the whims of Moloch. *“Things might seem bad,”* I’d say, *“but if we ignore the overwhelming trend and instead focus on a subset of select data that enables those of us within the elite hegemony to feel good and stay comfortable, it doesn’t look so bad! That’s progress. So remember, when things look bad \[pause, turn to camera\]—there’s always hope.”* \[standing ovation\] Hoho, but things *are* getting darker. We’re well into [the fourth turning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss%E2%80%93Howe%5Fgenerational%5Ftheory?ref=foxwizard.com). It’s the end of the world as we know it (but not the end of the world). The darkness we experience now may well be a necessary precursor to genuinely brighter times. Crises are *catalysts*. Paradigms change via *sublimation.*\* Incrementally—then suddenly. \* *Just as sublimation involves a direct change from solid to gas, paradigm shifts can involve direct transitions from one set of foundational principles to another without gradual, incremental changes. This can happen when a crisis reveals the inadequacies of current paradigms so starkly that a direct leap to a new paradigm is necessary. We just need to hope that it \*is\* a leap into a paradigm that is conducive to greater complexity and the flourishing of all life—and not a fall into a kind of cyberpunk authoritarian dystopia.* Once we allow our vision to adjust to the dark, we are then be able to *see* and discern the glimmers. And by *glimmers* I mean: notions so nebulous and weak they might seem to be but whimsical velleity. Yet—like benevolent will o’ the wisps—such glimmers might just serve to lead us out of the dark. Because, to co-create a world more curious and kind (and a future less grim) requires that we tend to the conditions that bring about **warm heartedness 🧡** and **bright mindedness 🌞**. I hope these museletters contribute to this endeavour. They may *seem* dark and doomster at times—though I can assure you: I am well, and wish only the best for you and all of us. My intent is not to depress you, but rather: to illuminate the ways that otherwise dwell in the penumbra. In [*How to Lead a Quest*](https://www.drjasonfox.com/books?ref=foxwizard.com) I wrote of the delusion of progress—as distinct from *meaningful* progress. It’s largely a question of orientation and directionality. There’s also a question of perspective. Meaningful progress for you, individually, might mean undercutting others so that you can get ahead. But this self-interest perpetuates our multipolar trap, ensuring a collectively *worse* future for us all. Here is an audio excerpt of Daniel Schmachtenberger describing the multipolar trap. An audio excerpt of Daniel Schmachtenberger describing the multipolar trap But there *are* other options available to us—if we but *quest* for them. Quests, as I define (in an oddly un-mythic manner) are *the search for viable alternative options to the default.* I think it quite clear that the current default trajectory of our “civilization project” is unviable; choosing to *not* choose an alternative will have devastating consequences. ## Degrowth might be a viable alternative [Degrowth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degrowth?ref=foxwizard.com) remains an apt directionality to orient towards—yet I will admit that the term remains unpalatable to a world weaned upon capitalism. But, as Erin Remblance writes, [Let’s Not Call It Something Else](https://www.resilience.org/stories/2022-08-30/degrowth-no-lets-not-call-it-something-else/?ref=foxwizard.com). > “The term ‘degrowth’ is honest, not trying to sugar coat the severity of the situation with fairy tales of [technology](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/16/half-of-emissions-cuts-will-come-from-future-tech-says-john-kerry?ref=foxwizard.com) and [green growth](https://www.unep.org/explore-topics/green-economy?ref=foxwizard.com), or solutions that aren’t [workable](https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/10/18/the-hope-at-the-heart-of-the-apocalyptic-climate-change-report/?ref=foxwizard.com), or not likely to be [viable](https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/resources/what-is-carbon-capture-and-storage/?ref=foxwizard.com). Because of that honesty, ‘degrowth’ gets noticed.” And let’s not kid ourselves: our current trajectory *is* dire. ⇜ Yet this realisation also creates **countervailing** narratives. Just as raising awareness of climate change serves to raise selfish behaviours that hasten the impacts of climate change, so too do museletters like this potentially give rise to folks who—fed up with reading this wizard’s worldly aspersions—decide to be the champions of some kind of naïve-solutionism instead. It’s a tricky to dance with this knowingness. But I shall be striving towards doing more to illuminate *a constellation of visions.* Just as with the cosmos, it may be difficult to *see* the stars that make up the constellations if you are surrounded by the polluting city light. But—if you find a spot dark enough, and give yourself time—they will reveal themselves to you. And then we might be able to use them to navigate by. Degrowth is one such option within the quiver of options available to us. It increasingly seems to be one of the more *viable* options available to us. But how it comes about, I’m not sure. What I do know is: the sensibilities implicit to degrowth are worth considering. [*The post-growth\* guide*](https://www.postgrowthguide.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) offers great insight for those of us who seek to align business efforts within planetary boundaries. \* *Degrowth and post-growth are related yet distinct. Nate Hagens, the Director of The Institute for the Study of Energy & Our Future and host of ‘The Great Simplification’ podcast posits that [“degrowth is what we should do, but post-growth is what we're going to have to do”.](https://natehagens.substack.com/p/reflections-on-beyond-growth-frankly) The two concepts share enough overlap that I am happy to conflate them outside of academic contexts, though.* Jason Hickel, author of [*Less is More—How Degrowth Will Save The World*](https://www.jasonhickel.org/less-is-more?ref=foxwizard.com)*\** presents a perspective on capitalism that many of us are increasingly realising. > “This is the core principle of capitalism: that the world is not really alive, and it is certainly not our kin, but rather just stuff to be extracted and discarded—and that includes most of the human beings living here too. From its very first principles, capitalism has set itself at war against life itself.” \* *Gosh damn but publishers do so love books that promise to save the world. I remember Tyson Yunkaporta’s publisher chose a similar title for his brilliant book [Sand Talk](https://www.textpublishing.com.au/books/sand-talk?ref=foxwizard.com)—How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World. I guess it’s a little humbler than “will” save the world. But sometimes I wonder if all us would-be world-savers ought chill out and first just focus on doing less harm. Mind you, this is a point both authors make here—and most authors don’t get to choose their subtitles. So... yeah.* This resonates with the perspective of [The Basilisk](https://www.foxwizard.com/basilisk/)*.* *“Everything a Basilisk looks at dies,”* [writes](https://emergencemagazine.org/fiction/the-basilisk/?ref=foxwizard.com) Paul Kingsnorth. *“It walks through a dead world thinking it is seeing reality.”* We have such a lens on reality now. Many are exhibiting the obligate sociopathy\* (to borrow Daniel Schmachtenberger’s term) on social media in relation the ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people. Dehumanising language has been normalised. The slaughter of children? Normalised. \* *When power-seeking behaviors are rewarded in systems without being kept in check by ethical considerations, we see the rise of individuals who are willing to use and abuse power for their own gain. Consequently, we end up with systems dominated by those who lack ethical constraints (think: politics, media)—meaning that regular folk are obligated to adopt sociopathic behaviours if they are to compete.* Or at least, this is what is being *attempted*. But there is a **countervailing** realisation emerging. One of cooperation, mutual flourishing and coming together. And it’s quite galvanising. Through the eyes of The Basilisk, capitalism would see you not as a human—but as a *resource*. A human resource. Something to burn (out), in order to fuel the machine. But another paradigm awaits—if we can somehow avoid sliding into authoritarian dystopia. > “We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.” – Ursula K. Le Guin Gosh—I know I am sounding like some sort of radical at the moment. But I am trying to remain level-headed about it. [The Fourth Turning Is Here](https://www.amazon.com/Fourth-Turning-Here-Seasons-History/dp/1982173734?ref=foxwizard.com), and in response to rampant individualism and decades of exploitation, the wheel is turning back to the collective, and civic engagement. (Of course, we will likely see an *over-correction* in the next decade, hoho. But give it another decade and the next generation will over-correct for that—or so the [Strauss–Howe generational theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss%E2%80%93Howe%5Fgenerational%5Ftheory?ref=foxwizard.com) goes). Anyway—back to *degrowth* as but one of the seemingly viable alternative options available to us. As honest as the term “degrowth” is, I can understand how some—when first hearing it—may consider to it to be something quite dour. But, as Professor Jason Hickel writes, there are [accelerationist possibilities](https://www.jasonhickel.org/blog/2023/12/21/accelerationist-possibilities-in-an-ecosocialist-degrowth-scenario?ref=foxwizard.com) even within a degrowth scenario. Exciting. Some snippets:— > “\[...\] a degrowth scenario is not a ‘smaller economy’ (i.e., a low-capacity economy). It is a high-capacity economy which is reducing less-necessary production, and therefore is suddenly endowed with spare capacity that can be redirected for necessary purposes. > > \[...\] > > In our existing economy, finance is controlled by capital, and capital invests in producing what is most profitable rather than what is most necessary. This is why we get substantial investment in fossil fuels, SUVs and fast fashion (which are highly profitable) and insufficient investment in renewable energy, public transit and insulation (which are either not as profitable, or not profitable at all). > > \[...\] > > It helps to recognize that when we talk about ‘investment’, money is just the vehicle. The real investment actually takes the form of allocating real productive capacity: real labour, materials, energy etc. Once we understand this fact, it becomes clear that a degrowth scenario enables investment in green production and innovation, by making real productive capacity available. > > This represents an important rebuttal to the claim made by many economists that the only way to ‘fund’ the green transition is first to increase growth. The assumption here is that we need higher GDP in order to obtain higher tax revenues to finance green production (in other words, increase corporate production of stuff, and then take some of the money from this to spend on green production). From this point of view, degrowth is self-defeating: less GDP, less tax revenue, less green production. But the flaw in this thinking should be immediately clear. Corporations do not produce money. They produce things. To say that we need to increase growth (i.e., increase production of existing things) in order to “fund” green production is tantamount to saying we need to increase production of SUVs, fast fashion and private jets in order to increase production of solar panels and public transit. Clearly this is absurd. We can increase green production directly, with public finance. And indeed this process is enabled – not inhibited – by reducing less-necessary forms of production and thus liberating productive capacity to be redirected for other purposes.” I am not purporting that degrowth is The One True Way. Only that it may well be a *viable* direction to orient towards. And that, for those of us who genuinely care about **future relevance**—a state in which whatever we do is *coherent* to the emergent context (that is: our actions *make sense*)—it behooves us to explore *beyond* this already-collapsing paradigm. --- Most of the enterprising teams I have worked with in the past nine years since [*How to Lead a Quest*](https://www.drjasonfox.com/books?ref=foxwizard.com) was published have achieved genuine strategic differentiation and advantage—along with enduring relevance—*not* by fixating upon the seemingly obvious path (like all of their competitors), but rather by: 1. *developing in-house intelligence in emerging domains;* 2. *cultivating a living quiver of options; and* 3. *deftly executing strategy with metamodern savvy.* Despite our grim-times, we stand at the cusp of *paradigmatic* change. And some teams are verywell positioned for this emergent reality. Those who quest, lead. Book Dr. Fox for your next conference, offsite or event —> [drjasonfox.com](https://drjasonfox.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) 🧡 --- ## the museletter 💌 and the spellbook ✨ I have not written a proper museletter for you in all of my autumn. That is not to say I haven’t written—there have been a smattering of spellbook posts shared (below). I just haven’t written a *museletter* to you in my signature solipsistic epistolatory and career-limiting form. The splitting of museletter and spellbook was meant to facilitate ‘a curtailing of the dark’. The theory was: my museletters are becoming deep and broody—I need to offer something more pithy-practical on the side. This... hasn’t worked. Instead the spellbook is some sort of confused blend of personal blog, professional propaganda and anti-fascist ranting. Still! ICYMI, here are the spellbook pages I’ve written since [my last museletter to you in February](https://www.foxwizard.com/leaping/). - 🧙🏻‍♂️ [Moloch media](https://www.foxwizard.com/moloch-media/) (the oldest spellbook post, written as grumpy wizard) - 🎭 [Down with downlighting](https://www.foxwizard.com/downlighting/) (I want to write more like this, more often) - 🦊 [Reject fake arguments](https://www.foxwizard.com/red-card/) (I keep forgetting to remember this) - 🎭 [Weaponised naïveté](https://www.foxwizard.com/weaponised-naivete/) (a facilitatory disposition with link to a deep podcast) - ✨ [Bonini’s spellbook](https://www.foxwizard.com/boninis-spellbook/) (meta-musing with one of my favourite paradoxi) - 🌿 [Perfect Days](https://www.foxwizard.com/perfect-days/) (my days are better now, thanks to this film) - 🦊 [Surreptitious obliquity](https://www.foxwizard.com/obliquity/) (I refuse to “simplify” my language for simpletons) - 🎭 [Do you serve your client—or their context?](https://www.foxwizard.com/client-or-context/) (clients: this is a trick post! don’t believe it) - 🦊 [Come What May](https://www.foxwizard.com/come-what-may/) (I totally failed on this—except for twilight brooding) - 🌿 [Life, While You Grieve](https://www.foxwizard.com/life-while-you-grieve/) (a celebration of my the dangerlam’s artwork) - 🌿 [The photocopier & the garden](https://www.foxwizard.com/photocopier-and-garden/) (a metaphor that sometimes works; for me at least) - 🔮 [Fourteen ‘must reads’ for those who lead](https://www.foxwizard.com/book-recommendations-for-leaders/) (books I often refer to when facilitating strategy and leadership offsites; needs more feminine perspective I know) - 🌿 [Lawful Evil](https://www.foxwizard.com/lawful-evil/) (not actually happy with this post; it’s a charming vent-in-disguise—but venting is so unbecoming) - 🧙🏻‍♂️ [There is a reason they call it “the web”...](https://www.foxwizard.com/basilisk/) (powerful fiction that harbours a deeper truth) I’ll find my groove with these soon. None of these are *quite* what my next book is about, btw. It’s mostly me cope-adapting to a world that is collapsing even faster than I anticipated. But enough of the gloom! Here are some glimmers that I’m attuning to. ## The Rekindling is back 🔥 *~~Post-doom~~ Regenerative Sensibilities for the Collapse-Aware* *—a gathering of bright minds & warm hearts seeking new ways* It’s back! PK and I haven’t run one of these since September last year. And: a *lot* has happened in the world since then. PK had an incredible experience with Tyson Yunkaporta at—from what I understand to be—a pretty sacred gathering of Indigenous folk over in Uganda. And I know they have been in conversation with rather large investment firms actively exploring (and experimenting) in systems of land and ecosystem regeneration. It’s going to be fun to unpack. I am also hoping to gather a couple of folks from within our not-community to share what glimmers they’ve been attuned to, too. But mostly it will just be great to get the band back together again. And that includes *you.* There’s a reason I don’t promote [The Rekindling](https://www.foxwizard.com/rekindling/) too overtly—we want to attract the bright minds and warm hearts. Those curious enough to read one of my museletters this deep. (I already scared away the extractive sociopaths with my talk of degrowth, hoho). Join us on Wednesday 12th of June, 5:45pm–7:15pm at United Co. *then* 7:15pm–9pm at the Molly Rose. Tickets via the link below or at [foxwizard.com/rekindling](https://www.foxwizard.com/rekindling/) [The Rekindling – 12th June 2024 | HumanitixThe Rekindling – regenerative sensibilities for the collapse-aware![](https://events.humanitix.com/apple-touch-icon.png)Humanitix logo![](https://cdn.filestackcontent.com/compress/output=format:jpg/resize=width:500/B6sOWJ3WT2CR9E0Vb5kY)](https://events.humanitix.com/the-rekindling-june-2024?ref=foxwizard.com) Note: We also have a very special midwinter event planned for the evening of July 10th—save the date! ## Daylight 🌅 After reading [Craig Mod’s post about his portable e-reader](https://craigmod.com/roden/091/?ref=foxwizard.com)—and after being reminded of how [we need to be more careful with The Portals](https://emergencemagazine.org/fiction/the-basilisk/?ref=foxwizard.com) we use—I have been on a quest to limit screen time. For the past eight months, I have been imbibing the horrors of the world via my screens. I’ve been lured into [fake arguments](https://www.foxwizard.com/red-card/) and have found myself torn betwixt the need to: a) Show Up to *countervail* the forces that would seek to divide us and have us live in fear; and b) switch off and focus on the deeper work (my book) and in being in my body and present to the wonders of The Real. It is ever a *both-and* oscillation. I don’t believe there to be merit in being always-online, nor always-off. Venkatesh Rao said it well six years ago, and this mostly holds true today—though I would err more towards the cozyweb and (sufficiently) decentralised social media protocols over corporate social networks with their obfuscated algorithms. > “We are all now part of a powerful global social computer in the cloud that is possibly the only mechanism we have available to tackle the big problems of the world that industrial age mechanisms are failing to cope with. We might as well get good at it. Do your part. Stay as plugged in as you can.” – [source](https://studio.ribbonfarm.com/p/against-waldenponding?ref=foxwizard.com) We still need to traverse the open web—but we do so being *especially* mindful to keep our wits about us. Yet still: I’d like to work towards a world where my own screen time is much lessened, and much more intentional. [There’s a reason they call it “the web”; a reason they call it “the net”.](https://www.foxwizard.com/basilisk/) It is ever so easy to become entangled and enraged these days. [Daylight Computer](https://daylightcomputer.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) seems like it might serve as the right kind of nicotine-patch for my needs as I strive to recalibrate my own screen-use time. A muted portal. It works with *kindle, obsidian, iA writer* and *readwise*—which is effectively all of what I need to write my next book for you. There’s some cringe to the way they market and position this shiny new product (and there’s an irony to me promoting it here)—but I kinda really like it. We’ll see. ## Teaching, schooling, education—and advice to young folk I’m finishing this museletter to you on my laptop from the bed of a hotel room, before I shower, don my [Dr. Fox](https://drjasonfox.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) costume, and then contribute to an event for school principals. Teachers and principals oft do *heroic* work. They exist betwixt the crushing weight of an onerous and antiquated industrial system of standardisation that forces abstract competition, an increasingly connected and concerned parent cohort, and the young minds—the students—whom they care very much about. A couple of months ago the dangerlam and I had the delight of joining PK and Annie from [Kearney Group](https://kearneygroup.com.au/?ref=foxwizard.com) for an advanced screening of one of the films from the [Melbourne International Film Festival](https://miff.com.au/?ref=foxwizard.com).\* \* *Kearney Group sponsor and present the [First Nations Film Creative Award](https://kearneygroup.com.au/kearney-group-miff-partnership-to-shine-the-spotlight-on-first-nations-filmmakers/?ref=foxwizard.com).* [*The Teachers’ Lounge*](https://www.sonyclassics.com/film/theteacherslounge/?ref=foxwizard.com) is a tense and unsettling yet moving glimpse into the life of a dedicated young teacher in a German middle school. Director Ìlker Çatak captured the politics—how power works—in a rich and deeply complex way; the kind that would arouse passionate conversation weeks after the movie itself. It wasn’t an *enjoyable* film (I had to remind myself to breathe)—but [Leonie Benesch’s](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonie%5FBenesch?ref=foxwizard.com) performance was impeccable, and this feels to me to be an important film for all to see. Inevitably, the topic of Artificial Intelligence will emerge in this event I contribute to. And, potentially, there may be vendors with AI-enabled products to “ease the burden” on teachers so that they can “focus on what really matters”—not realising that in so doing we perpetuate the [Jevon’s Paradox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons%5Fparadox?ref=foxwizard.com) and hasten our way to a less-desirable future for all. I’m not default “AI = bad”—but I am keen for us to think a little deeper and act a lot wiser about it. It’s an unpopular stance amidst a world that loves to [*accelerate*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerationism?ref=foxwizard.com#:~:text=Accelerationism%20is%20a%20range%20of,systems%20and%20create%20radical%20social). Here’s [a recent podcast I would highly recommend to you](https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/122-zak-stein?ref=foxwizard.com), if you have an interest in teaching, schooling, our education system, and how we are preparing our young folk for the future. Teachers and principles need to be both progressive futurists *and* pragmatic conservatives—both at once. But this is a challenge. Here’s a quote from the podcast, where philosopher and futurist [Dr. Zak Stein](https://www.zakstein.org/?ref=foxwizard.com) articulates the predicament-space we are now within. > “The screens are offering kids a world so far advanced from what schools are able to keep up with that the teachers can’t even remotely compete. This technology gap is widening the generation gap over time, making it harder for the traditional educational systems to engage and educate the younger generation effectively.” Towards the end of the podcast, Nate Hagens asked Zak the following: *“What advice, what portfolio of options would you recommend to a young person, being aware of all this, wanting to live a good life, wanting to play a role in our collective future?”* To which Zak replied: > “If you feel alienated, and angry—you should. \[...\] Don’t believe most of the adults. And watch out. And have faith in the people who are your age. And also don’t give up on the adults.” Here’s to not giving up on the adults. And for us adults to not give up on their future. And to cockle warming. *—fw* ### 🧙🏻‍♂️ There is a reason they call it “the web”... URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/basilisk/ Last updated: 2024-05-20T22:35:40.000Z If you read but only one long-form article this week, make it [“The Basilisk”](https://emergencemagazine.org/fiction/the-basilisk/?ref=foxwizard.com) by Paul Kingsnorth. It was published in [*Emergence Magazine*](https://emergencemagazine.org/?ref=foxwizard.com) about four years ago, and gosh it’s good. I don’t want to ruin any of it for you, other than to say the following. 1. There’s an evocative efficaciousness to the epistolary style. It’s what I have long strived for in my [museletters](https://www.foxwizard.com/museletter)—though I often doubt this approach, as it is rare to see other examples of such in the wild. Thus, this story was a welcome beacon. 2. The following passage might resonate with many parents (and partners, and friends): *“Come on, Uncle Richard,” you said, “you know you haven’t come to terms with the twentieth century yet, never mind the twenty-first. They can’t go without them. They get bullied at school, they feel left out, they miss out on things. All that was bad enough before phones. No, you just have to try and keep a lid on it, keep it monitored. There are apps you can use. Ah, it’ s just…”—here you threw your hands up, grasped the back of the chair with them, looked at me as if you were younger and more open than you are—“It’s just that she’s only twelve,” you said. “I thought I’d have longer with her. I just feel … I feel like I’ve lost my little girl. It’s like I don’t know her anymore. It’s like she’s just—gone.”* 3. This story is one of the collected *“*[*Short Stories of Apocalypse*](https://emergencemagazine.org/print/short-stories-of-apocalypse/?ref=foxwizard.com)*”.* It addresses one of the most pernicious and pervasive issues of our times in a manner that has deep mythopoeticsensibilities*.* That is: a refreshingly para-rational way to [surreptitiously](https://www.foxwizard.com/obliquity/) address the manifestations of our gestalt that cannot be addressed with mere rationality alone.\* \* *Though there have been many attempts to do so.* [The Basilisk](https://emergencemagazine.org/fiction/the-basilisk/?ref=foxwizard.com) very much resonated with me. I know this because it has given me pause in my many moments, and altered the way I relate to the various portals I use. It may well have an effect upon you, too. ### 🌿 Lawful Evil URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/lawful-evil/ Last updated: 2024-05-21T01:21:25.000Z Note: I’m not happy with this post. Felt cute, might delete later, idk. **There is a large part of me that is Pissed Off with the way events are unfolding in our world. It’s rather unbecoming, and I fear I have used this spellbook as a thinly-veiled outlet for my frustration. I ought cultivate more mystique and apolomb, I know. Yet here we are.* I have been contemplating becoming a Lawful Evil wizard. I haven’t decided yet—but stay with me as I think it through. It might be that you are considering becoming Lawful Evil, too. It seems so much easier than any other alignment. A veritable “shortcut to success”. The benefits of being Lawful Evil include: ✅ power ✅ wealth ✅ status ✅ security ✅ influence ✅ optionality —and more! Whereas being Chaotic Good—its polar opposite—will likely get you jailed, or living in [The Precariat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precariat?ref=foxwizard.com) like most artists, poets and activists. For example, just this week the whistleblower David McBride was sentenced to almost six years in prison for exposing *“credible evidence of war crimes committed by Australian forces in Afghanistan”* reports the [Human Rights Law Centre](https://www.hrlc.org.au/reports-news-commentary/mcbride-sentenced?ref=foxwizard.com), *“It was public interest journalism at its finest. And yet on Tuesday, the first person imprisoned in relation to Australia’s war crimes was not a war criminal, but the whistleblower.”* The Australian journalist Julian Assange is also another prime example of what happens to whistleblowers; exposing war crimes saw him spend the last dozen or so years without freedom. It’s all very much as depicted in this honest Austalien Government ad. Maybe it’s time to side with the “winners”? ## Alignment In case you don’t know, alignment typically works on a 3x3 grid betwixt the axis of lawful to chaotic and good to evil. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2024/05/Alignment_1_1.png) The Dungeons & Dragons “alignment” [categorisation of the ethical and moral perspective](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alignment%5F%28Dungeons%5F%26%5FDragons%29?ref=foxwizard.com) **Lawful** is an odd word. It could mean *ordered* in the sense of being attuned and aligned to Deep Pattern. That would be nice. But, no: in conventional use, it mostly means being organised and rule-abiding. But the law—like wealth, status and power—is a self-reinforcing pattern. Similar to how having wealth means you can invest in better advice and negative gearing, which gets you more wealth, which allows you to invest in more wealth (etcetera), so too those who get to make the laws make laws that benefit those who get to make the laws. In Australia, we do this under the cover of [a two-party system that provides folks with the illusion of choice](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3WTlyuhDs0&t=1s&ref=foxwizard.com). **Chaotic**, on the other hand, is something we have been groomed to believe is “bad”. Things like: freedom and liberty for all. Yet chaos is what brings about evolution and change. And remember: *only that which can change can continue.* Chaos is the antidote to stasis and stagnation—yet it is not meta-stable in and of itself. But combine chaos and order and you get *life.* **Good** is something I need to clarify. Everyone has a notion of what ‘good’ is, based upon their own limited ontology and protosynthesis. Much harm comes about from those who think they are doing good—when really their focus on what constitutes good is far too narrow (and thus creates unintended consequences and countervailing). Bruce Wayne, for example, has so much wealth that he could genuinely work to reshape the systems of inequality and oppression; conditions that give rise to crime. But instead he chooses to invest in dressing up like a bat to go beat up the mentally ill at night—which only gives rise to the “villains” that seek to fight back. This is not good. True good is the *omni-win.* That is: the eradication of all non-consensual dominance hierarchies, the cessation of unnecessary suffering, and nothing short of the flourishing of *all* life. Liberty, love, life (or something like that). Few. **Evil**, though. Evil has an honesty to it, even in its duplicity. To be evil is to simply serve yourself—even if it means exploiting or harming others, or perpetuating the death of a biosphere. This is where we cave to temptation and narcissism, and serve our own satisfaction above all others. It is what capitalism grooms us to do. Externalities? Don’t worry about them! The costs are hidden away; someone else will pay. Or maybe a future generation. Doesn’t matter! Surrender to Power Laws, multipolar traps and Moloch. Focus on yourself; you and yours are what matter most. You are the special one. Don’t worry about the other; crush the part of you that cares, it will do you no good. Other the others. Paint them to be [The Evil Ones](https://genius.com/A-perfect-circle-pet-live-lyrics?ref=foxwizard.com). Other them all, so that you can dehumanise them and thus justify whatever you need to do in order to secure your own satisfaction. ## Being good is hard For the past seven months I’ve been ensnared in a baffling and fatiguing campaign to convince a subset of us that human rights are *universal*. That we should fight to defend human rights, uphold international law, and preserve democracy. Thus killing and maiming children, women, doctors, nurses, journalists, aid workers, the elderly and other civilian non-combatants in the tens of thousands is *wrong.* That violating international human rights laws is *wrong.* And that using militarised police to beat up and arrest students for protesting against genocide—the crime of all crimes—is *wrong.* We should be looking to the students as inspiration. It’s all backward. > Being Lawful Good doesn’t work if the laws aren’t good. Hence why most of my posts of late have been Chaotic Good. The systems of exploitation and oppression—the systems that have us set on a self-terminating path of utter ecocide—need to be dismantled. We must, at times, revolt—so that new and better ways might emerge. But I wonder if this stance is blowing my cover. If anything, I’ve become *less* effective at infiltrating the strongholds of Moloch. It’s attracted more trolls into my life, and made social media a punish. Besides— ## Being evil is easier I’ve been told by a few friends with platform to *not* be political on social media, which is good Lawful Evil advice. Especially if you fit within the hegemony of patriarchal coloniser-capitalism *Better to stay apolitical whilst it serves you.* *People just want to hear things that make them feel good,* they say. *It doesn’t even matter what you post anyway: just get the AI to pump out a bunch of content for you, and drip-feed that out. People aren’t paying attention—you just need to stay top of mind and to resonate with stuff they want to buy. It’s an attention economy!* [*Audience capture*](https://www.gurwinder.blog/p/the-perils-of-audience-capture?ref=foxwizard.com)*? So what! Most people just want to make money anyway, so sell them ways to do that. As long as* you *are making bank, it’s all good. You can’t help anyone if you’re a poor. And anyway: you can donate some money to charity and launder your reputation later. Just make the money first.* I must say, it’s a compelling case. Wouldn’t life just be so much easier if we simply adopted the *aesthetics* of care whilst doubling down on our own self-interest. ## Jokes; it’s actually harder If you aren’t aware that you are A Pawn of Evil, then yeah—it’s easy. That’s the majority position. And it’s [Why Good People Comply With Evil](https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=shared&t=24&v=9g6w2f3ttMM&ref=foxwizard.com). But being evil sucks if you know what you’re doing. Putting yourself first at the direct and indirect expense and harm of others *hurts you,* whilst affirming a shittier future for you and everyone. I don’t think any one of us can seriously larp as an actual Lawful Evil person. Not if you know you are doing it. [Intellectual honesty](https://www.foxwizard.com/intellectually-honest/) will hobble you. ## Good is better If you have hungry neighbours, the solution is not to build higher walls—it is to help your neighbours. To live *in* and *with* and *for* the communities of relations you are *of* and *from*. Because we are all in this together. *“We build castle walls to keep out the enemy,”* writes Oliver Burkeman. *“But it’s the building of the walls that causes the enemies to spring into existence in the first place”.* And, as Alan Watts writes, *“The desire for security and the feeling of insecurity are the same thing”*. To survive these times, we must reframe “success” as something beyond the accumulation of material possessions and the increase of vanity metrics. We must stay true to our values and—as [author Margaret Killjoy](https://www.birdsbeforethestorm.net/?ref=foxwizard.com) writes—*work to improve the world regardless of our chances of victory.* ### 🔮 Fourteen ‘must reads’ for those who lead URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/book-recommendations-for-leaders/ Last updated: 2024-05-13T02:18:21.000Z If you’ve had the rare privilege and delight of having [Dr. Fox](https://drjasonfox.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) work with you and your leadership team, you’ll know that I drop many book references. *Especially* during Q&A time, where richly complex questions deserve more than a pithy response. One of my roles is thus to play the part of a book-apothecarian. Tell me what vexes you and chances are I can prescribe to you a book written by someone who has thought on the matter quite deeply. Having said that, there are a few sources I refer to quite frequently. These are useful in helping you develop the questing acuity, dispositional heuristics and poetic sensibilities necessary to lead meaningful progress amidst complexity, ambiguity and change. ### 1 // [“How to talk about books you haven’t read”](https://search.worldcat.org/title/154677642?ref=foxwizard.com) by Pierre Bayard Firstly, a confession: I haven’t read this book. But I feel quite comfortable to talk about it. Mostly because it serves as a meta-point to this list, and that is—you ought approach books in a *constellatory* manner. And by this I mean: focus on where ideas are situated *in relation* to others. The relationships *betwixt* ideas are more important that the ideas themselves. > “As cultivated people know (and, to their misfortune, uncultivated people do not), culture is above all a matter of *orientation*. Being cultivated is a matter not of having read any book in particular, but of being able to find your bearings within books as a system, which requires you to know that they form a system and to be able to locate each element in relation to the others. The interior of the book is less important than its exterior, or, if you prefer, the interior of the book *is* its exterior, since what counts in a book is the books alongside it.” The same applies to books.\* Reading is—amongst other things—an activity in *wayfinding.* Thus: do not cling or adhere to any of the books I mention. As with complex systems, the relations are far more important than the nodes themselves. \* *And, increasingly, The Internet—which means the ability to navigate memetic tribalism with enough ironic distance and requisite source-diversity so as not to become ensared by algorithmic capture; lest ye descend into intellectual echo-chambers and ideological cul de sacs.* ### 2 // [“Cynefin—weaving sense-making into the fabric of our world”](https://thecynefin.co/library/cynefin-weaving-sense-making-into-the-fabric-of-our-world/?ref=foxwizard.com) by Dave Snowden and friends The [Cynefin Model of Complexity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynefin%5Fframework?ref=foxwizard.com#:~:text=Cynefin%20offers%20five%20decision%2Dmaking,own%20and%20other%20people's%20behaviour.) is an essential framework for leaders to know. Understanding [the distinctions between complicated and complex contexts](https://www.foxwizard.com/photocopier-and-garden/) is paramount. Many leaders—having risen through the ranks of the system itself—fail to recognise complex contexts, and instead treat them as merely complicated. This often creates and/or perpetuates unintended consequences and harm. > “At its most basic, Cynefin allows us to distinguish between three different kinds of systems: ordered systems that are governed and constrained in such a way that cause and effect relationships are either clear or discoverable through analysis; complex systems where causal relationships are entangled and dynamic and the only way to understand the system is to interact; and chaotic systems where there are no effective constraints, turbulence prevails and immediate stabilizing action is required.” Much of my work with leadership teams would be expedited if leaders had a deep knowing of complexity. I would add that Dave Snowden’s blog offers a trove of insight; see, for example, this [list of principles for managing within complex systems](https://thecynefin.co/st-davids-2024-intervention-4-5/?ref=foxwizard.com). ### 3 // [“Antifragile—things that gain from disorder”](https://search.worldcat.org/title/869551568?ref=foxwizard.com) by Nassim Taleb When asked to think of the opposite to that which is fragile, many respond with: tough, robust, resilient. But these qualities aren’t the opposite to fragility. > “Antifragility is beyond resilience or robustness. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better.” Just as many leaders rely on their ability to drive results *within* complicated systems (rather than rise to the challenge of navigating complex systems), so too many leaders orient towards robustness over antifragility. This is inherently limiting, and the reason why so many successful organisations ultimately fail—robust systems are fragile to [*Black Swan*](https://search.worldcat.org/title/930891696?ref=foxwizard.com) events (that is: extreme impact events that are difficult to predict). > “Wind extinguishes a candle and energizes fire. Likewise with randomness, uncertainty, chaos: you want to use them, not hide from them. You want to be the fire and wish for the wind.” Speaking of... ### 4 // [“The Name of The Wind”](https://search.worldcat.org/title/1007497881?ref=foxwizard.com) by Patrick Rothfuss I share this because leaders ought be *avid* readers. Or at least listeners\* to rich and imaginative worlds outside of work. \* *For podcasts, I highly recommend [Poetry Unbound](https://onbeing.org/series/poetry-unbound/?ref=foxwizard.com) by Pádraig Ó Tuama*. *The Name of The Wind* is brilliant. Inadvertently, this book will help you navigate the mythopoetic realms of story, wisdom and truth. > “It's the questions we can't answer that teach us the most. They teach us how to think. If you give a man an answer, all he gains is a little fact. But give him a question and he'll look for his own answers.” *“All the truth in the world is held in stories,”* Patrick writes. This is vitally important for leaders to understand—particularly the metric-obsessed. Especially so. Yet our path to gleaning this understanding is necessarily [oblique](https://www.foxwizard.com/obliquity/). > “Using words to talk of words is like using a pencil to draw a picture of itself, on itself. Impossible. Confusing. Frustrating ... but there are other ways to understanding.” Such a way is reading this book. ### 5 // [“Finite and Infinite Games”](https://wtf.tw/ref/carse.pdf?ref=foxwizard.com) by James P Carse Just as many conventional leaders optimise for complicated systems in a robust manner, so too do they orientate toward *finite* games. This is tragically limiting. You’ll probably see a pattern here. The conventional (domesticated) approach to leadership and leadership development is to groom operationally efficient agents within systems to continue to optimise for performance within the system itself. But what happens when the system itself needs to change? > “Finite players play within boundaries; infinite players play ***with*** boundaries.” Something I love so much about this book is that it very much encourages a de-centering approach to leadership. Rather than seek to make ourselves the central nodes that everyone looks to and depends upon for the answers, we instead seek to make ourselves redundant. This is a paradox, I know. But all the best wisdom comes from paradox. > “Infinite play is inherently paradoxical, just as finite play is inherently contradictory. Because it is the purpose of infinite players to continue the play, they do not play for themselves. > > The contradiction of finite play is that the players desire to bring play to an end for themselves. The paradox of infinite play is that the players desire to continue the play in others. The paradox is precisely that they play only when others go on with the game. > > Infinite players play best when they become least necessary to the continuation of play. It is for this reason they play as mortals. > > The joyfulness of infinite play, its laughter, lies in learning to start something we cannot finish.” Just don’t make the mistake of buying Simon Sinek’s book *“The Infinite Game”*—a masterwork of [bullshit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On%5FBullshit?ref=foxwizard.com) wherein he managed to somehow both appropriate *and* misinterpret James P. Carse’s best ideas so that they could be reduced and repackaged into a mediocre business book. You deserve better. ### 6 // [“Metarationality”](https://metarationality.com/introduction?ref=foxwizard.com) and [“Meaningness”](https://meaningness.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) by David Chapman David Chapman has put together many deeply compelling thoughts into these hypertext books (along with [*Better Without AI*](hypertext book)*,* which is also very much worth reading—given all the hype and distortions that surround the field today\*). \* *David did his PhD in Artificial Intelligence, btw.* It is rare to find folks that can teach you how to think about thinking (without being prescriptive). But David Chapman has demonstrated an unrivalled aptitude for navigating the incredibly complex, nebulous and mercurial domains of meta-rationality (along with ethics and the fabric of meaningness itself). Here’s the introduction to metarationality (aka *learning to wield an invisible power*): > “In fields requiring systematic, rational competence—science, engineering, business—some few people can do what may seem like magic. > > They step into messy, complex, volatile situations and somehow transform them into routine, manageable problems. Textbook methods that were failing to come to grips with anomalies start working again. > > Often these magicians have less relevant factual and conceptual knowledge than others who found the situation impossible. They may have no special skill in applying technical methods. Instead they may: > > » Notice relevant factors that others overlooked > » Point out non-obvious gaps or friction between theory and reality > » Ask key questions no one had thought of > » Make new distinctions that suggest different conceptualizations of the situation > » Change the description of the problem so that different solution approaches appear > » Rethink the purpose of the work, and therefore technical priorities > » Realize that difficulties others struggled with can simply be ignored, or demoted in importance > » Apply concepts or methods from seemingly distant fields > » Combine multiple contradictory views, not as a synthesis, but as a productive patchwork. > > They produce these insights by investigating the relationship *between* a system of technical rationality and its context. The context includes a specific situation in which rationality is applied, the purposes for which it is used, the social dynamics of its use, and other rational systems that might also be brought to bear. This work operates not *within* a system of technical rationality, but *around*, *above*, and then *on* the system. > > This is meta-rationality.” Useful, nay? Around this time last year I leant on David Chapman’s work whilst unpacking [The Labyrinths of Reason](https://www.foxwizard.com/labyrinths/). If there was but one source to the secret of what I do (and attempt to teach), it would be David Chapman’s work coupled with the sensibilities from [*Finite and Infinite Games*](https://wtf.tw/ref/carse.pdf?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* Verily, this is all a must-read. But it can be hard to know where to start. For enterprise leaders, I recommend the following: » [The Cofounders](https://meaningness.com/cofounders-in-relationship?ref=foxwizard.com) // An exploration of meta-systematicity in relationships, using the example of tech startup cofounders as they venture through to becoming [a deliberately developmental organisation](https://meaningness.com/cofounders-in-relationship?ref=foxwizard.com#five). » [What they don’t teach you at STEM school](https://metarationality.com/meta-rationality-curriculum?ref=foxwizard.com) // *“What they* do *teach you at STEM school is how to think and act within rational systems. What they mostly* don’t *teach you is how to evaluate, choose, combine, modify, discover, or create systems. Those skills are actually more important for social, cultural, and personal progress. Learning them is also rarer, and more difficult.”* This piece does a wonderful job of scaffolding what a learning-journey toward meta-rationality. » [Developing ethical, social, and cognitive competence](https://vividness.live/developing-ethical-social-and-cognitive-competence?ref=foxwizard.com) // Here David Chapman does homage to Robert Kegan—a pioneer in adult development research (and the co-author of the next book I recommend to you). This particular piece (from [*vividness*](https://vividness.live/?ref=foxwizard.com)—yet another collection of writing from David) is one of the earlier ones he wrote, and does an excellent job at positioning “the fluid mode” into the context of leadership, ethics and society—as links with this essay: [*A bridge to meta-rationality vs. civilizational collapse.*](https://metarationality.com/stem-fluidity-bridge?ref=foxwizard.com) Anyhoo: that should get you started with David Chapman. Given the number of links I’ve just shared, may I offer this non-affiliate link to [Readwise](https://readwise.io/?ref=foxwizard.com)—the main app I use to save, read, highlight, annotate and collate that which I read. (I then have this synced to [Obsidan](https://obsidan.md/?ref=foxwizard.com), which allows me to export highlights so that I might literally ‘see’ the connections between ideas). ### 7 // [“Immunity to Change”](https://search.worldcat.org/title/231580325?ref=foxwizard.com) by Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey Reading this book is like eating rye bread without butter. It’s dense and largely unexciting. But the key insights are worth it. > “To bring about significant change, people must come to understand the source of their own resistance to it.” This resistance, the book reveals, is often due to hidden commitments and conflicting values. This creates paradoxical conundrums. *We want you to innovate—but don’t you dare innovate* is the implicit message of most enterprise leaders to their people. The tension here is the conflict between innovation and the status-quo (aka: change and stability). If I were to crudely reduce the deftwork I do when serving as a facilitator-advisor to leadership teams, it would be to surface the conversation about conflicting values and make it *explicit.* This is what leadership offsites are for. > “The problem is that most people don’t really know what they believe. And they don’t necessarily believe what they think they believe.”\* \* *This reminds me of this passage from Daniel Khaneman’s [Thinking, Fast and Slow](https://search.worldcat.org/title/834531418?ref=foxwizard.com): “Our comforting conviction that the world makes sense rests on a secure foundation: our almost unlimited ability to ignore our ignorance.”* All good leaders have some level of mindful awareness as to their own thoughts. They do not bullshit themselves (or, at least, they are aware when they do). And they know that their *“\[...\] current view of reality is just that—a view, not reality itself”.* This reminds me of the notion of “[proto-synthesis](https://metamoderna.org/youre-not-metamodern-before-you-understand-this-part-2-proto-synthesis-2/?ref=foxwizard.com)”—something I gleaned from the next book. ### 8 // [“The Listening Society”](https://www.amazon.com/Listening-Society-Metamodern-Politics-Guides-ebook/dp/B074MKQ4LR?ref=foxwizard.com) by Hanzi Frienacht This is a psychoactive book, and not for the feeble-minded. A sample: > “\[...\] Over the years I have seen so much pain associated with wrestling the metamodern perspective. People get obsessed, they resist, they rage, they condemn, they belittle, they self-censor and find reasons to feel terribly affronted. I acknowledge that this is because my theories deeply insult the prevailing moral intuitions that people have. I spit straight in the face of their political identities, both on the Left and Right, from anarchists to conservatives. It is the solemn duty of the philosopher to piss on all that you hold dear and sacred, to show you that your gods are false.” Metamodernism is a synthesis of the best elements of modernity and post-modernity. We see this in [the arts](https://medium.com/what-is-metamodern/after-postmodernism-eleven-metamodern-methods-in-the-arts-767f7b646cae/?ref=foxwizard.com), and also—as Hanzi Freinacht might put it—in our politics. *But I like to keep things apolitical,* you might think. Sure. But remember: the apolitical stance is still a political stance. Someone benefits. > “Politics means games for power. Power matters in all aspects of life. Who makes the calls? Who is considered morally pure and sexy? Who gets to be smart and respectable, or to be the cool, romantic rebel? Who gets to be the kind, wise woman and who gets to be the boring old hag? Who gets the cards stacked against them in a fight they cannot win? What ideas rule the world and creep deep into our minds and dreams, constituting and structuring everyday reality? These, my friend, are the questions of politics in its true sense.” As a leader you cannot afford to be blind to power and how it works. Additionally, you must develop the acuity to sense cultural shifts; to see around corners and glean what is emerging. And you must do so with *both* sincerity and irony. Sincerity alone does not work in the internet age—let alone the new era of deep fakery that AI will (continue to) unleash. There’s so much I love about this book. The main thing I’d recommend from this book is the treatment it gives to the very perilous topic of adult development. Hanzi chooses Michael Common’s “[Model of Hierarchical Complexity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model%5Fof%5Fhierarchical%5Fcomplexity?ref=foxwizard.com)” as a framework for cognitive development (along with cultural code, state and depth); and I find it very compelling. Again: I cannot overstate how dangerous this is (and how easily prone to misinterpretation can be). Yet still: this remains an immensely powerful framework—one that will assist any leader in navigating complexity in a manner that is deliberately developmental. > “I develop if you develop. Even if we don’t agree, we come closer to the truth if we create better dialogues and raise the standards for how we treat one another.” This book is, however, very *nordic*. I love Scandinavia and [The Nordic Ideology](https://www.amazon.com/nordic-ideology-metamodern-politics-guides-ebook/dp/B07SK8WFB4?ref=foxwizard.com)—but some ideas don’t quite translate. Particularly in an era of that is witnessing climate catastrophes, ecological collapse, the erosion of democracy, and the collapse of global “peace”. Development thrives in contexts that provide entropy and support. But right now, we are getting much more entropy than support. As Professor Jem Bendell writes in [*Breaking Together*](https://jembendell.com/2023/07/10/breaking-together-for-free-and-my-launch-speech/?ref=foxwizard.com)*:* > “When we accept that modern societies are beginning to collapse, it can us lead to a critical view of the dominant systems and ideologies that produced this mess, distracted us from it, and channelled responses into decades of ineffective measures. That understanding means we begin to be liberated from the confines of respect for society-as-it-is.” To be an actual leader in this chapter of humanity means we need to accept: we are now the adults in the room. This is not the time to delude ourselves. *“When some of the people who speak publicly on existential risks tell us ‘It’s not too late,’”* Jem writes, *“we should always ask: ‘It’s not too late for what and for whom?’”* Leadership, in this chapter, means venturing [beyond hope](https://www.foxwizard.com/beyond-hope/). It also means having an aspirational vision for what the future could look like. *The Listening Society* is one such vision, in what ought be *a constellation of visions*. ### 9 // “[Sand Talk](https://www.textpublishing.com.au/books/sand-talk?ref=foxwizard.com)” by Tyson Yunkaporta Beyond formal, systemic and meta-systemic thinking comes something much more paradigmatic and profound. Without the help of a good shaman, few of us have the opportunity to *see* the systems of our own thinking and being—let alone cross into a new paradigm. But *Sand Talk* by Dr. Tyson Yunkaporta does this, incredibly well. It’s like viewing Western society through the Indigenous perspective—you will never quite see things the same again. > “Civilisations are cultures that create cities, communities that consume everything around them and then themselves.” I mean, I’ve played [Civilisation](https://civilization.2k.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) and recommend it as a means to learn and access meta-systemic reasoning. But Tyson is right: the path is self-terminating—we shall consume the host, our planet, the very substrate we depend upon for life. Unless we course-correct. *Sand Talk* offers sensibilities in how we relate to our role as custodial species—and this has direct implications for leadership. I’m at risk of overquoting the following—I literally used this line in [my last post](https://www.foxwizard.com/photocopier-and-garden/)—but, bah. It’s potent. > “There is a pattern to the universe and everything in it, and there are knowledge systems and traditions that follow this pattern to maintain balance, to keep the temptations of narcissism in check. But recent traditions have emerged that break down creation systems like a virus, infecting complex patterns with artificial simplicity, exercising a civilising control over what some see as chaos. The Sumerians started it. The Romans perfected it. The Anglosphere inherited it. The world is now mired in it.” Once you see life from outside the lens of the civilisation project—everything will have new context. *Sand Talk* also offers a glimpse of a hint of a *way* in which we can tend to and *be* amidst complexity. To orientate *toward* complexity, rather than against it. Hoho, civilisational collapse aside, let’s return to lighter matters. ### 10 // “[The Coaching Habit](https://www.mbs.works/coaching-habit-book/?ref=foxwizard.com)” by Michael Bungay Stanier I’m a friend and fan of the author, MBS, and have had the delight of sharing the stage with him on quite a few occasions. All of MBS’s books are fabulous distillations, whittled to perfect aptness—*The Coaching Habit* is where I recommend leaders to start. > “If this were a haiku rather than a book, it would read: > Tell less and ask more. > Your advice is not as good > As you think it is.” Ostensibly, the book promises to teach you how to effectively coach anyone in 10 minutes or less. It does this—but the reason I am sharing this with you is the core lesson: *stay curious longer.* MBS introduces key questions in this book; the first two are my journaling prompts for every day. The OMM question: *what’s on my mind?* And the AWE question: *and what else?* If you love questions (you should, at least [as much as the protagonist in this comic](https://kiriakakis.net/comics/mused/a-day-at-the-park?ref=foxwizard.com))—you’ll love this book. ### 11 // “[The Culture series](https://www.robinsloan.com/moonbound/muscular-imagination/?ref=foxwizard.com)” by Iain M Banks Robin Sloan—whose [newsletter](https://www.robinsloan.com/newsletters/?ref=foxwizard.com) and writing I highly, *highly* recommend (he’s a major inspiration to me)—wrote an insightful homage to the late Iain M Banks. The Culture is one of those space opera science fiction series that *has a vision to aspire to.* Right now, the future—through almost any lens—is bleak af. But—when reading any book from The Culture—you get a sense of what adult and societal development could look like in the far future. Which, when you think about it, is actually quite rare. Most science-fiction films and books simply transplant today’s issues (mostly interpersonal and related to wealth/status/power imbalances) into the future. And then all the protagonists deal with these issues in the way they deal with them today (that is: immaturely; violently)—all to the back drop of a science-fiction aesthetic.\* \* *With the notable exception of Dune (and many other books from the golden era of science fiction). You should probably [read Dune](https://search.worldcat.org/title/1399967988?ref=foxwizard.com),° too, if you haven’t already. Yes the movie \*is\* brilliant, but the books are better. Well; at least the first book. Of course, it’s still got it’s White Saviour thing—it’s not perfect. But it’s okay.* *° Actually, this quote from the first book that is very apt for leaders. “Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent. It depends in part upon the myth-making imagination of humankind. The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in. He must reflect what is projected upon him. And he must have a strong sense of the sardonic. This is what uncouples him from belief in his own pretensions. The sardonic is all that permits him to move within himself. Without this quality, even occasional greatness will destroy a man.” This is sincerity with ironic detachment and mythopoetic acuity, all at once.* In The Culture, though, you get to experience how an advanced society of post-humans handles complex challenges—with intelligence, wisdom and grace. Also, don’t be turned off by the fact that Elon Musk purports to like The Culture series. A true fan would back concepts like this: > “Marain, the Culture’s quintessentially wonderful language (so the Culture will tell you), has, as any schoolkid knows, one personal pronoun to cover females, males, in-betweens, neuters, children, drones, Minds, other sentient machines, and every life-form capable of scraping together anything remotely resembling a nervous system and the rudiments of language (or a good excuse for not having either). Naturally, there are ways of specifying a person’s sex in Marain, but they’re not used in everyday conversation; in the archetypal language-as-moral-weapon-and-proud-of-it, the message is that it’s brains that matter, kids; gonads are hardly worth making a distinction over.” from [The Player of Games](https://search.worldcat.org/title/1418059648?ref=foxwizard.com) At the very least, if you seek to play the role of leader, read *some* science fiction for inspiration. Alongside fantasy, poetry and philosophy, too. Thx. At this stage I best return to business books, ey? ### 12 // “[Brave New Work](https://www.bravenewwork.com/?ref=foxwizard.com)” by Aaron Dignan This book introduces “[The OS Canvas](https://medium.com/the-ready/the-operating-system-canvas-420b8b4df062?ref=foxwizard.com)”, which is—to our mutual delight—effectively a series of contextual containers for *enquiry*. The reason I am recommending it to you, dear reader, is because the questions proposed are exactly the kinds of questions enterprise leaders ought be keeping in mind. > *How do we orient and steer? How do we share power and make decisions? How do we organize and team? How do we plan and prioritise? How do we invest our time and money? How do we learn and evolve? How do we divide and do the work? How do we convene and coordinate? How do we share and use data? How do we define and cultivate relationships? How do we grow and mature? How do we pay and provide?* I mean, just these questions alone are enough to set the agenda for many offsites and leadership development programs. I’ve referred clients to Aaron and his team—these guys are the real deal. Here’s an apt excerpt: > “We are addicted to the idea that the world can be predicted and controlled—that our stoplights are the only way to keep things in check. But when you view the world that way, today’s uncertainty and volatility become triggers for retreating to what has worked in the past. We just need to hire more capable leaders. We just need to squeeze out a little more efficiency and growth. We just need to reorganize... But we know better. The real barrier to progress in the twenty-first century is us.” Aaron also runs a fab podcast along with Sam Spurlin—[*At Work with The Ready*](https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/at-work-with-the-ready/id1488554600?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* Again, there’s a theme that runs throughout all of these recommendations: the future is not certain, and leaders cannot simply look back to what has worked in the recent-past. We need to be braver—or even: wiser. ### 13 // “[The Wisdom of Insecurity](https://search.worldcat.org/title/1288035768?ref=foxwizard.com)” by Alan Watts When presented with volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity and doubt—it’s natural to wish for stability, certainty, simplicity, clarity and conviction. But, wish as we may, leaders must meet reality as it is. There’s no pretending otherwise. Of course, you might need to steward the narrative enough to create some [lily pads of certainty](https://brucemctague.com/optimal-certainty-or-navigating-certainty?ref=foxwizard.com)—whilst knowing that these cannot be relied upon. Does this paradox vex you? Does it test your [negative capability](https://drjasonfox.medium.com/negative-capability-the-antidote-to-calcified-experience-80f9f237aeda?ref=foxwizard.com)? Good. Paradox is both natural *and* the domain of leadership. > “We look for this security by fortifying and enclosing ourselves in innumerable ways. We want the protection of being ‘exclusive’ and ‘special,’ seeking to belong to the safest church, the best nation, the highest class, the right set, and the ‘nice’ people. These defences lead to divisions between us, and so to more insecurity demanding more defences. Of course it is all done in the sincere belief that we are trying to do the right things and live in the best way; but this, too, is a contradiction.” Or, as Oliver Burkeman writes in [*The Antidote: happiness for people who can't stand positive thinking*](https://search.worldcat.org/title/1291874509?ref=foxwizard.com) (another brilliant book, along with [*Four thousand weeks: time management for mortals*](https://search.worldcat.org/title/1263342497?ref=foxwizard.com)): *“We build castle walls to keep out the enemy, but it is the building of the walls that causes the enemy to spring into existence in the first place.”* I recommend leaders read *The Wisdom of Insecurity* if only that it may encourage them to soften their death-grip on stability, certainty, simplicity, and clarity. The drive to impose such things only exacerbates the need for them. > “To put it still more plainly, the desire for security and the feeling of insecurity are the same thing. To hold your breath is to lose your breath.” The better you are able to embrace the wisdom of insecurity, the more effective you will be in navigating it. ### 14 // “[Ribbonfarm](https://www.ribbonfarm.com/?ref=foxwizard.com)” by Venkatesh Rao This is a long-running blog (and [newsletter](https://studio.ribbonfarm.com/?ref=foxwizard.com)) from one of the most refreshing thinkers on the planet. Not everyone can keep apace with with Venkatesh’s writing. But if you dive in it is worth the investment. A classic from about seven years ago is this piece on [*why CEOs don’t steer*](https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2017/11/09/ceos-dont-steer/?ref=foxwizard.com). > “At the level of abstraction at which a CEO views what is going on, direction does not change, and more importantly, the CEO’s job is to make sure it doesn’t. > > *CEOs are orientation locks.* The opposite of steering is orientation locking. > > \[...\] > > The primary CEO function, and the trait the good ones are selected for, is to provide the gyroscopic stability required to keep a company vectored in the chosen direction. They end up in the jobs they do because they counterbalance an organization’s natural tendency towards distraction, ADD and momentum dissipation. A typical company is a wandering, wobbling hive mind, liable to spend all its time chasing distractions if you let it, before dissolving into a bunch of clever tweets about crappy prototypes.” Before this, Venkatesh was well known for [The Gervais Principle](https://www.ribbonfarm.com/the-gervais-principle/?ref=foxwizard.com). I’ve also loved *The Art of Gig*—[parts one](https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2015/03/19/the-art-of-gig/?ref=foxwizard.com), [two](https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2015/03/26/the-art-of-gig-ii/?ref=foxwizard.com) and [three](https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2015/04/02/the-art-of-gig-iii/?ref=foxwizard.com). The main reason I recommend this to you is that it provides yet another lens through which you can view enterprise leadership: the lens of an experienced (and sharp-witted) external consultant. Last year Venkatesh co-authored a paper on [*The Unreasonable Sufficiency of Protocols*](https://venkatesh-rao.gitbook.io/summer-of-protocols?ref=foxwizard.com#wr6yxvfjmm4z)*.* At first glance, this may not seem that significant, yet: in the decade I have been reading Venkatesh’s writing I’ve seen him remain *very well positioned,* ahead of the rest. As a leader who cares about staying relevant, you would do well to collect a constellation of edge-thinkers via which you can cultivate your own (tentative) sense of what’s emerging. Speaking of relevance... ### bonus // “How to Lead a Quest” by Dr. Fox It would be remiss of me to write nearly 5,000 words of book recommendations and not recommend my own work. [*How to Lead a Quest*](https://www.amazon.com/How-Lead-Quest-pioneering-executives/dp/0730324710/ref=tmm%5Fpap%5Fswatch%5F0?%5Fencoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=&ref=foxwizard.com) is “a handbook for pioneering leaders”. I wrote this for folks seeking meaningful progress amidst complexity, ambiguity and change. The book is written to be quite accessible, whereas my more recent [hashtag quest leadership](https://www.foxwizard.com/tag/quest%5Fleadership/) posts have dived a bit deeper. Essentially: questing is a precursor to strategy. We quest so that we can orient towards new and enduring *relevance*. I also have [*The Game Changer*](https://www.amazon.com/Game-Changer-Science-Motivationwith-Behaviour/dp/0730307646/ref=tmm%5Fpap%5Fswatch%5F0?%5Fencoding=UTF8&dib%5Ftag=se&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.cGGrZECUjweVafDmSIEXj5Rq-64pd5JvheZtpCtmmIY.jAHYuxWCx5dPSmJtgv-kYOXxMBEMgCIap7JeOHN1xu4&qid=1715084005&sr=1-1&ref=foxwizard.com)—a book that explores motivation science and game design as a lens to influence motivation and behaviour. It’s more for team leaders than enterprise executives, and I wrote it a long time ago so... I am not sure how much I would recommend it now. 😅 Though many people still love it. Finally, I have *the book I am writing for you right now.* I am currently on a writing retreat—in a tiny cabin by the woods—and this next book has been years in the making. This one weaves in elements from my [*The Ritual of Becoming*](https://chooseoneword.com/?ref=foxwizard.com)*—*my online program to help you find and/or fabricate new motivation, meaning and myth in the next chapter of your life. I’ll be sharing updates with [subscribers](https://www.foxwizard.com/about) as it unfurls. Meanwhile: here’s a photo of my context *right now* as I finish this writing list for you. I trust that these recommended reads will serve you well in the adventures ahead. ✦ ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2024/05/autumn_writing_retreat.webp) ### 🌿 The photocopier & the garden URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/photocopier-and-garden/ Last updated: 2024-05-05T03:09:48.000Z Much of my work is in helping leaders navigate **complexity, ambiguity and change.** In leadership offsites, this often translates into an attempt subtly *unravel* the threads of patriarchy and conventionally “masculine” approaches to leadership, whenever and wherever they may appear. And by this I mean the narrow-focused, action-oriented, data-driven, metric-obsessed and direct/neat/linear/ordered tendencies that favour highly ordered contexts. This is not to say that the conventionally masculine doesn’t have its place—it does. It’s quite apt for clear, stable and unchanging contexts that allow for tightly coupled performance metrics (sports, factories, olympics), or formulaic work with predictable outcomes. The masculine hero-approach is often quite appropriate in chaotic contexts where swift action is needed to make sense and orient—such are not the times to hesitate or dither. And finally, the more conventionally masculine leadership styles can also be appropriate for complicated contexts, where an experienced and analytical approach is conducive to diagnosing faults and generating solutions. It’s just that... the masculine approach is *less* apt in **complex** contexts.\* Contexts where the path to meaningful progress is emergent and thus: non-obvious, non-linear, lacking direct precedence, and difficult to accurately assess or measure. In such domains, our focus we sense more into the patterns and dynamics of relationships *between* individual elements (rather than the individual elements themselves). We thus need to be a little more mercurial and hermetic. \* *I’m largely riffing from [the Cynefin framework](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynefin%5Fframework?ref=foxwizard.com#:~:text=Cynefin%20offers%20five%20decision%2Dmaking,own%20and%20other%20people's%20behaviour.) pioneered by Dave Snowden.* The best analogy I have is in the distinction between a photocopier and a garden. ### the photocopier A photocopier is a complicated system; if something goes wrong, we can open it up and break it down into its requisite parts. And, because the parts relate in linear fashion, any faults can be determined via analytical diagnostics. Once a fault is found, a fix can be administered and voila: solved. ### the garden But if there is an issue with a garden—if certain plants are dying, and you don’t know why—you can’t just rip everything out to “find the issue”. It might help—but such an approach might also harm. Similarly, with medicine—if a patient is sick you can’t simply remove all their organs to inspect each in isolation. We must instead approach this *in relation*. ### living systems as machines When leaders “rise through the ranks” they generally move from working in clear contexts (where things are relatively simple and straightforward, with established “best practice” as a reference point, along with direct quantitative measures of performance) managing in complicated contexts (where things are less straightforward, and where best practice requires interpretation, governance and coordination with other elements of the system). Some managers get very good at driving results, hitting targets, and making the right numbers go up. They get promoted to leadership positions. And this is where the issues tend to manifest. After years of experience working *in* the machine and then *on* parts of the machine—when confronted with complexity their default is to treat living systems as machine. When things go wrong they search for fixes. Rather than listen they turn to what worked for them in the past (that is: in other contexts). So used to being the hero, they impose interventions to solve for certain metrics—whilst also causing unintended consequences and longer-term harm in the process. The ‘move fast and break things’ approach that served within stable/contained contexts ends up quickly making a mess. To quote a favourite passage from Tyson Yunkaporta’s [*Sand Talk*](https://www.textpublishing.com.au/books/sand-talk?ref=foxwizard.com)*:* > The stories that define our thinking today describe an eternal battle between good and evil springing from an originating act of sin. But these terms are just metaphors for something more difficult to explain, a relatively recent demand that simplicity and order be imposed upon the complexity of creation, a demand sprouting from an ancient seed of narcissism that has flourished due to a new imbalance in human societies. > > There is a pattern to the universe and everything in it, and there are knowledge systems and traditions that follow this pattern to maintain balance, to keep the temptations of narcissism in check. But recent traditions have emerged that break down creation systems like a virus, infecting complex patterns with artificial simplicity, exercising a civilising control over what some see as chaos. The Sumerians started it. The Romans perfected it. The Anglosphere inherited it. The world is now mired in it. > > The war between good and evil is in reality an imposition of stupidity and simplicity over wisdom and complexity. ### on moving quietly and planting things Leadership requires the ability to coordinate amidst complexity. This calls for the integration of gentler and more *feminine* approaches to leadership. I don’t want to be accused of creating a binary here—it’s more of an oscillatory yin-yang both/and *and* either/or fluid simultaneous super-positional thing. But for simplicity’s sake: the feminine tendencies include: listening, sensing, intuiting, nurturing, nourishing, empathy, patience, creating, imagining, caring, tending, and so on. We [move quietly and plant things](https://www.foxwizard.com/move-quietly-and-plant-things/), and ultimately seek to *de-centre* ourselves as leaders. Rather than strive to be seen as the hero-leaders with all the expertise, answers and solutions—we instead seek to cultivate contexts in which we are no longer needed. This is an anathema to much of what the Western world grooms us for, and it’s a tricky proposition to sell (as a leadership program). Most of us *want* recognition and renumeration—which is very understandable. And yet, if we are to collectively achieve great things—well beyond the default—we need to step *up and into* leading amidst higher orders of complexity. In the coming months, I am shall attempt to bring about a kind of “living curriculum” for folks seeking to develop and grow as leaders. Key patterns pilfered from the various programs I run in Enterprise Land, which may be universally apt. I still have an allergy to the word “leader” (it’s too individualistic and overused)—but I will hold to it *for now.* Stay tuned for more. 🧡 ### 🌿 Life, While You Grieve URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/life-while-you-grieve/ Last updated: 2024-05-02T11:31:44.000Z My darling [the dangerlam](https://www.dangerlam.com/shoppe?ref=foxwizard.com) has contributed to the [Collect exhibition](abbotsfordconvent.com.au/event/collect)—*a collective of artists, friends and shared studios creating unique artworks through a diverse range of mediums in response to the word “Collect”.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2024/05/-JanelleLow_2024_KimLam_Life-WhileYouGrieve_Web-3.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2024/05/-JanelleLow_2024_KimLam_Life-WhileYouGrieve_Web-11.jpg) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2024/05/-JanelleLow_2024_KimLam_Life-WhileYouGrieve_Web-1.jpg) **Here is a collection of hand-drawn polaroid portraits of a solemn, grieving person. I reference the ritual and repetition of ‘one-picture-a-day’ photo projects that many undertake to chronicle change. This work was born out of a time of collective grieving (ongoing). I turned these phrases over and over: the many phases of grief; the many faces of grief; a singular face of grief. The title Life, While You Grieve is a nod to one of my favourite poems* [**Life While-You-Wait*](https://www.themarginalian.org/2015/07/02/amanda-palmer-reads-wislawa-szymborska/?ref=foxwizard.com) *by Wisława Szymborska.* Naturally, I love everything Kim makes. If you’d like to be one of the few who owns one of these original pieces, they are available for purchase at [dangerlam.com/shoppe](https://www.dangerlam.com/shoppe?ref=foxwizard.com) The exhibition is happening until May 4th at [The Abbotsford Convent](abbotsfordconvent.com.au/event/collect) at St Heliers Street Gallery. Other contributing artists include *Elizabeth Barnett, David Booth, Kat Chadwick, Hamish Freeman, Georgia Janetzki, Ellie Malin, Klarissa Pfisterer, Danie Pout, Cat Rabbit, Jess Racklyleft, Shelley Steer, and Anna Walker (who convened the exhibition).* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2024/05/Collect_at_Convent.JPG) The opening for the [Collect exhibition](abbotsfordconvent.com.au/event/collect) was something quite special (｡◕‿◕｡) The Abbotsford Convent is where we walk Snörri most days, and remains one of the best kept secrets of Melbourne. An enchanted, *slightly-haunted-yet-always-charming* place. Plus, the Collect exhibition is right next to [Cam’s](https://www.camskiosk.com.au/?ref=foxwizard.com), who make some of the best pasta napoli and tiramisu in the southern hemisphere. Mayhaps see you there! ### 🦊 Come What May URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/come-what-may/ Last updated: 2024-05-02T05:52:41.000Z Today, the first day of May, is as good day as any for you to declare some sort of foolish new habit. A new errant quest to win back the affection of your muse, and to show your daemon who’s in control (probably them). Or perhaps a ridiculous and obviously unsustainable *sprint* that’ll trick you into breaking your default pattern—allowing you to garner the momentum that otherwise eludes you. “We’re going streaking!” you decry, not caring who’s with you.\* \* *As in: the practice of consistently performing a specific action daily, thereby creating a consecutive chain of actions. The goal is to then maintain momentum and keep the chain unbroken. For at least a month. Sidenote: the [“Streaks” app](https://streaksapp.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) is good for tracking this. As is [the wall calender](https://www.dangerlam.com/shoppe/2024-calendar?ref=foxwizard.com) the dangerlam made.* Here are three domains I shall be attending to this month. ### a farcaster of magic I’ll be posting on farcaster protocol daily. This... doesn’t come naturally to me, but it’s something I hope to get better at. I’ll be sharing via my own channel on warpcast, which you can follow at [warpcast.com/\~/channel/foxmagic](https://warpcast.com/~/channel/foxmagic?ref=foxwizard.com) I did something similar [a while back on medium](https://drjasonfox.medium.com/?ref=foxwizard.com), where I set out to write “a post a day” (or something like that). It didn’t last—but there still remain articles I am mostly happy with (like my [12-step guide to appreciating whisky](https://drjasonfox.medium.com/whisky-the-gateway-to-mindfulness-part-one-ef514c786b0c?ref=foxwizard.com)). Likely this experiment on farcaster will be largely solipsistic and self-indulgent—but with luck it all might transmute into something special. We’ll see. (◕‿◕✿) ### writing my grimoire for you I’ve been working across various countries, clients and contexts this year, which is wonderful—but progress on my next book has stalled. I’ve learned to be okay with this—the path to good writing is non-linear and cannot be forced. Yet still, this month I shall be dedicating at least an hour a day to the book. Probably much more, in practice. But at *least* an hour—every day. Even if not a word is written, the time will be dedicated—and I shall feel quite contented at that. ### warm twilight brooding For a while I had a practice of lying upon my deck and watching the stars at night (or sitting by a potted lemon tree at dusk and gazing out to the cityscape) whilst *brooding.* These contemplations were oft warm with [surreptitious obliquity](https://www.foxwizard.com/obliquity/); simply letting the mind wonder whilst lightly tethered to the expansive present. Much as Dr. Martin Shaw alludes to in [*Navigating The Mysteries*](https://emergencemagazine.org/essay/navigating-the-mysteries/?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* Yet, in recent times I’ve found myself distracted; mind frazzled and spread thin. I’ve been neglecting this practice—and so this month I rekindle it. --- This post is really just for me—a minor act of manifestation. But I share it with you in the hope it might inspire you to contemplate: what might you do—if only for a month—that could be conducive to meaningful progress for you? ### 🎭 Do you serve your client—or their context? URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/client-or-context/ Last updated: 2024-05-01T06:10:07.000Z This is a trick question I was asked at the end of a fabulous conversation on [the alchemy of group facilitation](https://workshops.work/podcast/266/?ref=foxwizard.com) with Myriam Hadnes on her podcast. I answered it correctly—but it’s the one thing that, in hindsight, I wish I had elucidated upon further. The rest of the podcast was an utter delight. You can [listen to the podcast here](https://workshops.work/podcast/266/?ref=foxwizard.com)—we tour many topics pertinent to masterful facilitation. You can also *watch* me in conversation with Myriam here. I don’t tend to watch many videos myself (I prefer listening to podcasts whilst in commute)—but I know videos are a favoured kink for many. Anyhoo, the actual question raised at the end of the conversation was in the context of group facilitation. ## Do you serve your client (the one who hired you)—or do you serve the group? The correct answer is: the group. But do remember: your client *is* part of the group. Serving the group serves them, too. If external mercenary wizard-facilitators simply served their clients (and not the group or team the client is a part of), then a few things will likely happen: 1. **The group won’t trust you.** The group will no doubt know their leader’s intentions. If it was all straight-forward, there would be no need for a facilitator—so there must be some complexity at play. But if it is clear to the group that you are only there to parrot your client’s intent, it is likely the group will simply “play the game” with you. They’ll say all the right things and bluff their way through the dance—but it will be surface-level. The responses and contributions will all be tolerably “correct”. There will be no surprises. The facilitation will run smoothly, and everyone will be polite and all-too-ready to acquiesce to the perceived desires of the client who hired you. Any challenges will be performative, and within the bounds of The Script. It will all be “nice”. Too nice. 2. **Nothing will really change.** In serving the individual client—rather than the group—you will not surface That Which Needs To Be Said. You will not confront the exquisite tension of the Conflicting Values and the Hidden Commitments holding them back. You will not make room for paradox or shadow. And, in your sycophantic desire to please your client, you will not flirt with the profane or taboo. You will not allow for *transformation* to occur—you will simply perpetuate the default; another forgettable footnote in a tedious chapter begging for movement. 3. **You will be an “underwhelming success”.** Your client will say “thanks, that was great, I really appreciate it” and the group will say “thanks so much”. You’ll nod and smile and linger, wondering why you feel hollow inside. As if you have just somehow been a puppet in some sort of predictable propaganda pantomime. A farce. You’ll be left pining for more than the banality of mere *incrementalism* in your work. Your facilitator-mind’s eye will flicker back to the micro-expressions your hyper-acuity flagged—that grimace from the quiet one, that eye-roll from the older one, that scoff from the sharp one, that felt-sense that certain topics were forbidden—and you’ll forever wonder: what might have happened if we went there, and explored what was behind that? What might have emerged, if we had but tended to the needs of the group as a whole? You email the client the next day, saying that it would be great to “catch up” sometime to discuss the day, and what next steps might be. Your client says, “sounds good, let me get back to you”. But they don’t: you were a tool and you have served your purpose. That box has been ticked and they’ve got work to do. But your client is frustrated, too. No matter what they try to do, nothing seems to change. The group doesn’t seem to listen to them, or they don’t quite “get” the strategy or the vision. They’re not showing initiative, or asking the right questions. It feels like unnecessarily hard work for the leader, and they feel so alone in their struggle. And lo! Even when they bring an external facilitator in to help, it just feels like more of the same. Yet they know—they *know*—that something is missing. Something creative and subversive. Something... dangerous. What’s holding us back? *I’ll need to brief the next facilitator better,* they think to themselves. *Or maybe I should just do it myself?* Or maybe... they could hire a benevolent trickster character as your next facilitator. Someone who might bring a deft blend of [weaponised naïveté](https://www.foxwizard.com/weaponised-naivete/) and refreshing perspective to evoke that which seeks to emerge and be known. ## Groups need tricksters, fools, jesters, rogues, wizards, shamans, etc > *Tricksters invert paradigms. They are the antidote to stagnation. Fools are the wisely naïve. They ask the dumb questions others fear to. Jesters speak truth to power. A lot of truth is said in jest. Rogues question convention. They pick the locks, circumvent obstacles, and find the better way. Wizards bring intelligent magic. They make complexity and mystery navigable. Shamans open new ways of seeing. They bring new metaphors to coordinate by.* ... and so on. My point here is: if you hire and groom an external facilitator to act and behave exactly as you and your team do—don’t be surprised when nothing changes. And if you are a facilitator who aspires to bring about Transformational Change™️—don’t aspire to fit into the mundane. Bring the magic they secretly crave! 🤫 ****Psst: the following is for existing & potential clients** **Okay* of course *I had to say that “I serve the group”—it’s how we can get them to trust me! But of course: you are, first and foremost, my client. And so I will always preference your wishes.* **We’ll do a deep briefing before any offsite or event I facilitate for you, discussing what you seek, your strategic imperatives, and what you suspect might be needed in order for the group to shift.* **But do note: the clients that I work with are, for the most part, mature enough to know that they have their own blind-spots, too (as we all do).* **The reason we gather together is to sense-make and cohere—so that we may collectively coordinate amidst complexity with greater efficacy and ease.* **Sometimes, conflicting values or interpretations are revealed. Sometimes, interpersonal tensions are surfaced. And sometimes key assumptions are questioned, and found wanting.* **But always it is better that these are known—lest they sap the ability for you to collectively progress through complex challenges. And always, it is better that these are processed openly and warmly, as a group, in a psychologically safe manner (rather than it being on you to manage individually/politically).* 🧡 ### 🦊 Surreptitious obliquity URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/obliquity/ Last updated: 2025-07-01T06:54:23.000Z Here’s a word apt for any complexity practitioner, trickster and rogue: *obliquity*. I came across it after reading [another one of those posts by Dave Snowden](https://thecynefin.co/st-davids-2024-intervention-4-5/?ref=foxwizard.com) that had me highlighting more words than not. This particular note resonated muchly— > Working obliquely also means less public commitment to solving a particular problem and more time to watch for unintended consequences. It also gives more space for solutions to emerge rather than be manufactured or imposed. I’ve been intending to revitalise [The “Choose One Word” Ritual of Becoming](https://chooseoneword.com/?ref=foxwizard.com)\*—specifically to *de-emphasise* the One Word bit. Having a Word to serve as a fuzzy contextual-beacon is wondrous—but only because of the ritual that conjures it. \* *This is an attempt to bring about a sense of intentionality to our own self-development as adults, and currently takes the shape of a self-paced online program. But it may well become a book, soon.* The Ritual of Becoming engenders deep reflection and introspection, allowing you to veritably *perambulate* your way to epiphany. Requisite obliquity is baked into the process. You can’t skip the ritual and just ‘pick a word’ that sounds good (after all of a minute’s consideration). Approaching your own developmental unfurling *directly* will, at best, result in incrementalism. At worst: ossification and entrenchment. And—as the various algorithms continue to groom you to *perform* for attention (and to *optimise* your performance to maximise attention)—the risk of [audience capture](https://www.gurwinder.blog/p/the-perils-of-audience-capture?ref=foxwizard.com) is ever more apparent. You could become a parody of yourself, drifting further and further away from your intuitive sensibilities; rationalising and justifying it to yourself all the while. You might already be. The Ritual of Becoming is a chance to return home to yourself; to reckon with who you are and may yet become and be. As Byung-Chul Han writes in [The Disappearance of Rituals: A Topology of the Present](https://www.wiley.com/en-au/The+Disappearance+of+Rituals%3A+A+Topology+of+the+Present-p-9781509542758?ref=foxwizard.com): > *“Rituals are to time what a home is to space: they render time habitable.”* When I shared [The Ritual of Becoming](https://chooseoneword.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) five years ago, I had thought that your Word, once found, ought be declared! Heralded! Trumpeted to the world, as means to better actualise it. Now, my sense has shifted to your Word being shared—but not declared. This is not an exercise in “personal branding”. Rather: it’s quite the opposite. And, much like your daemon or your muse, you must idle *up* to (and *alongside*) your Word—*surreptitiously*. That is: obliquely, indirectly, and without fanfare. There’s *courtship* involved with these fleeting glimmers; this can’t be rushed. This is antithetical to a world that craves and manufactures easy answers, I know. And that’s the point. ### 🌿 Perfect Days URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/perfect-days/ Last updated: 2024-03-28T00:59:39.000Z Wim Wenders has made, what seems to me, [a perfect movie](https://www.perfectdays-movie.jp/en/?ref=foxwizard.com). The dangerlam and I saw it last night at the historical [Sun Theatre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun%5FTheatre?ref=foxwizard.com) as part of a launch event for [Cinemagoer](https://cinemagoer.co/?ref=foxwizard.com), and... it’s been a long time since I have felt this moved. I won’t do the thing of *explaining* poetry here, because that is what this film is: poetic, textured, sublime. It has instilled within me a renewed reverence for life, and all the magic that is to be found in the seemingly mundane. [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2024/03/Perfect-Days.jpg)](https://www.perfectdays-movie.jp/en/?ref=foxwizard.com) I knew nothing of [Perfect Days](https://www.perfectdays-movie.jp/en/?ref=foxwizard.com) beforehand, and this is my preferred way to experience all films. No trailers; no spoilers. Though I am not sure that this movie *could* be spoiled. It’s perfect. ### ✨ Bonini’s spellbook URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/boninis-spellbook/ Last updated: 2024-03-18T03:25:35.000Z It has been a bit over two weeks since I started sharing pages from my spellbook. The idea is to share shorter and slightly more practical posts betwixt the deeper museletters I’ve been writing for the past few years. I’ve four posts for you thus far. 🧙🏻‍♂️ [Moloch Media](https://www.foxwizard.com/moloch-media/) – wherein I present a frame for how to relate to corporate \[social\] media. 🎭 [Down with downlighting](https://www.foxwizard.com/downlighting/) – wherein I offer profound advice to any event organiser and living non-plant creature (plus: a glimpse of my dungeon aesthetic). 🦊 [Reject fake arguments](https://www.foxwizard.com/red-card/) – wherein I expand upon the “red card with heart” (aka 🟥❣️) as a means to sidestep pointless battles with trolls. 🎭 [Weaponised naïveté](https://www.foxwizard.com/weaponised-naivete/) – wherein I share a facilitatory stance I oft deploy as a means to surface the unspoken and allow new pathways to reveal themselves. That last post was titled to be a bit more provocative. There’s a version where I went into *much* more nuance, but that piece was becoming a much heftier and convoluted read. And frankly: quite tedious. It’s much like [Bonini’s paradox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonini%27s%5Fparadox?ref=foxwizard.com): as a model of a complex system becomes more complete, it becomes less understandable. If I were to accurately describe the situational heuristics along with the ‘living systems acuity’ and dispositional fluidity required to cultivate the conditions for emergence—it would be an obscenely dense text; likely neither useful nor understandable nor enjoyable. Instead, via the spellbook, I hope to offer you [cantrips](https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/Spells?ref=foxwizard.com#toc%5F8). Spicy cantrips. I also hope to share more of my adventures amidst the mythopoetic with you. There are patterns that exist in our semiotic/meaning-making ecology that enable us to navigate complexity and the unknown. Myths aren’t accurate or complete representations of complex systems, but rather—as [Dr. Martin Shaw](https://drmartinshaw.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) might suggest—they’re the beautiful lies that tell a deeper truth. Myth, like leadership, thrives amidst paradox—including Bonini’s. More soon. ✨ ### 🎭 Weaponised naïveté URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/weaponised-naivete/ Last updated: 2024-03-14T02:57:19.000Z One of the most important things an external facilitator can bring to a context is not their “expertise”—it’s their *lack* of knowing the dynamics of your context.\* This naïveté allows us to thus ask the taboo questions with impunity, to great affect. \* *This goes against the default advice of researching and knowing your client. But that’s bad advice. You cannot become an expert in their world—they’ll always know it better than you. Don’t even try to pretend.* External facilitators are brought in to conjure ideological optionality within a team that is otherwise fractured, mired or at an impasse. Through deft facilitation and weaponised naïveté, we can bring about a “narrative wedge” to make bold decisions happen. The expertise of the external faciliator is thus *not* in knowing what the ‘right’ decision is—but in knowing how to create the conditions in which the best decision can emerge. Weaponised naïveté is a superpower—but it takes intentionality to protect this power. Some clients will want to brief you on all the “personalities” in their team, and to let you in on the politics, tensions and subtext. You need to delicately stymie this as swiftly as you can, because it will rob you of your naïveté. The reason teams find themselves unable to bring about meaningful progress amidst complexity, ambiguity and paradox is *because* they’ve become conditioned by the fabric of measures and meanings they work within. The last thing you want is to be similarly inculcated, as this will render your efficacy benign. To infiltrate the inculcated, keep your naïveté weaponised. ### 🦊 Reject fake arguments URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/red-card/ Last updated: 2024-03-11T03:51:56.000Z Here is a way, I hope, for you to save yourself from pointless, frustrating and/or time-wasting battles with trolls online. It was directly inspired by a passage from Neal Stephenson’s [*Fall; or, Dodge in Hell.*](https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/6/25/18715636/fall-neal-stephenson-review-dodge-in-hell) Note: the following post contains a minor spoiler. [Adam Roberts summarises the 2019 book](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/aug/01/fall-or-dodge-in-hell-neal-stephenson-review-fantasy-wonder?ref=foxwizard.com) aptly. Here is a key passage: > \[Early in the book\] a midwestern town called Moab is destroyed in a nuclear attack. This is quickly shown to be a hoax, orchestrated via faked online video, massively coordinated misinformation and a few holographic special effects, but when the truth is revealed many people refuse to accept it. *Fall* \[the book\] is, among other things, an interrogation of our lamentably post-truth world, and Stephenson rolls history a couple of decades into the future to depict a US completely unmoored from factual reality. > > \[...\] > > Overall there’s no doubting Stephenson’s dismay at the direction our culture of increasing political and ontological fakery is moving in. The way Stephenson tells it, there was a 300-year period in human history when folk by-and-large found themselves able “to agree on matters of fact not immediately visible to them”. This collective consensus peaked during what he calls “the Cronkite era”, but then “dropped to zero incredibly quickly when the internet came along”. The “nuclear attack” was faked in a rather low-budget manner that was quite feasible: a combination of coordinated DDOS attacks bringing down local internet and telecommunications, along with pre-prepared footage that was “leaked” at just the right time, made for a story too sensational to ignore. Thus the hoax spread like wildfire. It makes me think to the atrocity propaganda that emerged from Israel and was propagated so quickly and unquestioningly by Western media. “Beheaded babies!” “Babies cooked in ovens!” “Mass rape!” I remember seeing the IDF spokesperson (a Rear Admiral) point to [a random calendar in a hospital as “evidence” of a “hostage keepers’ list” with “terrorists’ names”](https://x.com/muhammadshehad2/status/1724175188638511544?s=20&ref=foxwizard.com). It would be hilarious if the context weren’t so heinous and grim. Yet now—even after all claims have been debunked (with no credible evidence coming to light)—the damage had already been done. And if my personal DMs are anything to go by, still many believe the stories to be true, and many still quote them as fact. If you are someone who cares enough to speak out against things like war crimes,\* crimes against humanity, human rights violations, genocides, the use of prohibited chemical weapons, the killing of journalists and doctors and aid workers and oh the mass slaughter of children—if you understand that none of this is good—then no doubt you will have encountered some *interesting* characters online. Characters who seek to apologise or otherwise deflect or defend these atrocities. Characters who seek to gaslight you and others into believing that, no: if we don’t violate international human rights laws, kill children in their thousands and commit plausible genocide—the bad guys might win! \* *One needs to be careful in calling out war crimes in countries like Australia, though: we send folks to prison for such things. Here’s [a message to whistleblowers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWkGmw3xMTU) recently shared by the Australien Government. That typo is deliberate btw.* ### deep breath I’ve been lured into battle with many such folk in the past four months. What begins like a good faith conversation turns into something quite maddening. Something that awakens a righteous darkness within me, and brings out my snark. It’s unbecoming; I don’t like it. And I don’t like how easily lured I am by these platforms that profit from outrage and discord.\* \* *Not discord the platform, though. Discord is good.* I really should know better. The general advice is: **don’t feed the trolls.** But sometimes it is seemingly impossible to ignore a comment to a post you have made. The professional (yt) thing to do is to seek civility, comfort and conformity. To “agree to disagree” and leave it at that. But in Neal Stephenson’s speculative fiction, another way is proposed. ## 🟥 Reject fake arguments... [*Fall; or, Dodge in Hell*](https://www.nealstephenson.com/fall,-or-dodge-in-hell.html?ref=foxwizard.com) is a big book. At times it felt like a slog. But there were moments of conceptual aptness that stay with me today. One such concept is The Red Card. The Red Card... *“was a reference to one of their teachers at Princeton who had gone so far as to print up a wallet card for people to keep in front of them during conversations like this one. One side of the card was solid red, with no words or images, and was meant to be displayed outward as a nonverbal signal that you disagreed and that you weren’t going to be drawn into a fake argument. The other side, facing the user, was a list of little reminders as to what was really going on:”* 1 // Speech is aggression 2 // Every utterance has a winner and a loser 3 // Curiosity is feigned 4 // Lying is performative 5 // Stupidity is power There are many times where I have found myself in conversation only to realise, too late, that, hoho: this is *not* a conversation. This is no ‘good-faith attempt’ to arrive at deeper mutual understanding. I’m being baited here; their curiosity is not real, and they’ve power over me because they are willing to forgo [intellectual honesty](https://www.foxwizard.com/intellectually-honest/) altogether. And so, the temptation is to simply place a red card emoji 🟥 in the comment thread and leave it at that. A card that signals: I disagree and won’t be drawn into a fake argument. But this on its own feels like a dick move. And besides; there’s a chance that the person you are in conversation with are secretly hurting. They may be afraid, and are very likely not at their best. Thus, if we are to use the red card, we must do so... ## ... with heart ❣️ The “red heart as an exclamation mark” emoji looks like this: ❣️ When this red heart as an exclamation mark is paired with the red card symbol, we get this: # 🟥❣️ What this means is: *I disagree with you and am not going to be drawn into a fake argument—but! I still love you and wish you well.* This ‘love’ word sounds mawkish, and is sometimes difficult to manifest. But it is earnest (at least, in a philosophical sense). We are, all of us, children in adult bodies. And where some have had the support to heal, integrate, develop and grow—many have not. I know that bullies sometimes enact their traumas unto others.° And I know that power begets paranoia. And I also know that not everyone knows *how to think and reflect critically;* thus when they consume content from [poisoned information feeds](https://www.foxwizard.com/moloch-media/), they know not what they are subjecting themselves to. \* *I had a friend accosted by folks as she made her way to an anti-genocide/pro-humanity rally. “You’re making me really scared right now,” she said. “But I still love you!”* We are all doing the best we can, with the resources we’ve got, based on how we see and relate to reality. *“Even if we don’t agree, we come closer to the truth if we create better dialogues and raise the standards for how we treat one another,”* to quote [Hanzi Freinacht](https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/17119252.Hanzi%5FFreinacht?ref=foxwizard.com#:~:text=We%20must%2C%20at%20all%20cost,deepest%20sense%20of%20the%20word.&text=I%20develop%20if%20you%20develop,how%20we%20treat%20one%20another.&text=The%20society%20we%20live%20in%20today%20is%20just%20an%20experiment.). Besides: I *like* consensus reality. I like having common conceptual and ethical frameworks to work with. I like having shared values like human rights, and international laws to adhere to. Super handy. That doesn’t mean consensus reality can’t change—only that which can change can continue. But the *way* we go about updating consensus reality ought surely involve a lot less violence. A step towards this, perhaps, may be in minimising the violence we do to each other online. To recognise, a little earlier, when our conversations are veering towards an unproductive path. ## A better game Marshall Rosenberg, author of [*Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Compassion*](https://www.cnvc.org/store/nonviolent-communication-a-language-of-life?ref=foxwizard.com)*,* says there are two games we can play in life. The first is the game of “who’s right?”—it’s a game in which everybody loses. The second is the game of making life wonderful. This mirrors James Carse’s [*Finite and Infinite Games: A vision of Life as Play and Possibility*](https://wtf.tw/ref/carse.pdf?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* Finite players play to win; infinite players play to continue the play. I hope that one day some folks have the opportunity to reflect on their implicit support for genocide, and how they show up online and in life. I hope that we all might continue to stumble our way to a world more curious and kind. Perhaps we might make better progress if we reject fake arguments, with heart. ❣️ ### 🎭 Down with downlighting URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/downlighting/ Last updated: 2025-06-29T04:27:26.000Z Lights should not be placed in ceilings. For thousands of years we humans have sat by campfires at night. In pre-modern times, we might have lit a torch, or a candle in a sconce. If we were particularly fancy, we would have had a suspended candelabra or chandelier. But only in the past century or so have we seen the hellish concept of downlights take hold in almost all buildings and households. Downlights are the lights in a ceiling that point downward. This messes with our circadian rhythms. And their effect is terrible; like a subtle low-level mana-drain. They make me look like I have an extra big nose; like I am wearing a cheap disguise. And they also make my eyes half-lidded in partial squint, as though I am trying too hard to appear mysterious and cool. Truth-light without the grace. --- If I somehow turn into an evil wizard in my retirement, my dungeon—the labyrinth one must venture through in order to reach me in my lair—would be carpeted, with low ceilings and downlights. The carpet will be spongey and the halls will have motivational posters and kitsch craftworks that say things like “live, laugh, love”. My dungeon will also have those automatic air deodorisers that puff the toxic scent of artificial lavender into the vicinity every five minutes. There will also be commercial radio playing in the distance, with frequent advertisements, on a tinny speaker. Most importantly: there will be downlights. The downlights will be over-indexed in lumens, and will emit a slightly harsh blue light. Some will also flicker at a level that is *barely* perceivable. But still: perceivable. --- Actually no I wouldn’t even do that. I couldn’t! My dungeon will be cool stone, with natural corridors that blend into subterranean caves with mirror-still freshwater lakes. It’ll be damp enough to be conducive to moss—but never dank. And wherever bioluminescence and [foxfire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxfire?ref=foxwizard.com) is not feasible, I will have lamps. Tasteful lamps that emit a soft but invitingly warm light. My dungeon traps would also be comical and ironic. Things like walls that slowly close in together in a hallway. It’ll be expensive af to get the mechanism of this working, particularly if the walls are stone—the counterweights would be huge. But visitors will appreciate this weird flex. Why so nice? Oh because I would probably want for folks to actually still visit me, despite being an “evil” wizard. Regulars will know which book to pull on the bookshelf to take them straight to my antechamber, where they can help themselves to an aperitif. Again, the antechamber will be tastefully lit *with lamps* (and maybe candles too, if I can be bothered). Why lamps? Why not downlights? Why not smart downlights connected to my phone; lights that can be all sorts of colours? Because I want for my guests to be comfortable and at ease. If visitors feel more at home, then the conversation will likely be *much* better. Less guarded, more open, more real—and thus: more interesting. --- I say this to all event organisers—be they a massive conference or a dinner party: if your venue has downlights, consider (safely) razing the whole building to the ground and then finding a location with *lamps.* Or, failing that, a campfire under the stars. ### 🧙🏻‍♂️ Moloch media URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/moloch-media/ Last updated: 2024-03-07T22:58:17.000Z I have been on a distinctly anti-genocidal bent in recent months, which has been somewhat career-limiting. Instead of using the platform of LinkedIn to humblebrag about my many successes, I have mostly been highlighting the continuing atrocities being committed by Western governments in Gaza, along with the moral depravity of our leaders and media. I do this in the hope that we might galvanise some courage to act in the best interests of humanity and the planet we share. [I’m not sure I believe in my hope](https://www.foxwizard.com/leaping/), but I *do* believe there exists a world in which we *can* coordinate amidst complexity at scale.\* A world in which we *can* work together towards mutual flourishing (or at least towards a future that is not entirely grim). Thus I am of course against the use of unilateral violence as a means to solve problems; always and *especially* when it sees children, women, journalists, doctors and nurses, aid workers, innocent civilians and non-combatants killed or harmed, violating international human rights law. \* *Such is my curse.* So: recently, I did my grumpy wizard thing and posted on LinkedIn something about how “mainstream media is the scourge”. I’ve been witnessing disinformation happen in real time; from direct footage from multiple on-the-ground sources right through to the distorted Official Narratives promulgated by our mainstream media outlets. I’ve seen the pattern play out many, many times. > Fear, disinformation and atrocity propaganda are incredibly effective tools when deployed to an apathetic society that has forgotten its agency. On that note, I do sense a shift turning. But it requires a few more of us—especially in Western societies—to wake up. Not to become ‘woke’ *per se,\** but aware enough to question the information in our feeds. [What we subsume shapes what we presume](https://www.foxwizard.com/internet-wizard/), and so on. \* *Wokeness is a necessary stage, but not a meta-stable one (nor healthy). Once becoming aware of all of our deep complicity in systemic inequality, suffering and hurt, we must sublimate this into a more mature (albeit grief-laden) ’post-woke‘ stance—lest we regress to the ‘anti-woke’ stance.* A while ago philosopher Hannah Arendt wrote that: > “The ideal subject of totalitarian rule > is not the convinced Nazi or Communist, > but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction > and the distinction between true and false > no longer exists.” It can seem that we are on the path to this. But in my recent bemoaning of “mainstream media” my friend [Col Fink](https://www.colfink.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) offered a very useful reframe: > “I call it the Corporate Media, because the views published are not mainstream views, they're the views of corporate entities existing only for the purpose of maximising shareholder value. They are, therefore, almost utterly devoid of ethics.” I very much appreciate this reframe, as it disentangles and absolves the mainstream *audience* from the media monopoly that allows for mainstream *distribution*. ## Corporations But what is the “corporate” behind Corporate Media*.* Corporations are bodies. But unlike we living beings embodied in corporeal form, corporations are [entities manifested via inter-subjective belief; egregores](https://www.foxwizard.com/warlocks-at-work/) that have a body yet *no* corporeal form. They exist, yet they aren’t quite real. Each of these egregores self-organise around profit maximisation. They have warlocks who oversee their affairs, and thralls who sacrifice time and talent to do their bidding.\* \* *I am being dramatic for effect here: not all corporations are bad. Many are quite good; they strive and mean well. But the rivalrous dynamics of our current system requires that we compete: for resources, for attention, for market share. It is what it is. The wiser corporations are doing this* whilst also *positioning themselves for the new paradigms that are emerging—but that’s a tale for another time. Indulge me as I weave something to make my obscure point here.* But there’s something that lies *behind* these eldritch corporations. Something far more sinister. ## Moloch The god of coordination failure and child sacrifice. [Moloch](https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/?ref=foxwizard.com) is the reason why we can’t have nice things. If we all cooperated, we could surmount most of what ails our world—from climate to food to housing to conservation, and more. We could live in relative abundance and generative homeodynamics. But no. Moloch will ensure we have the tragedy of the commons, a race to the bottom, free-riders, prisoner’s dilemmas, inequality, polarisation and zero-sum game dynamics. This is largely due to perverse incentives that have bodies (from individual to corporate) act in their own self-interest, rather than the collective good. This largely manifests as multi-polar traps. If making your news item just a *little* bit more sensational rather than factual translates to more clicks (thanks to A/B split-testing), which in turn translates to more dollars via advertising revenue—then it makes sense for a profit-maximising body to do this. The result being: every body does this—making it near impossible to decipher fact from fiction amidst the hyperbole and hype. *“As for-profit enterprises, corporate media are beholden to their investors and their advertisers,”* Khaled Al Sabawi [writes](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/khaled-al-sabawi-1067675b%5Fplease-listen-to-this-exchange-between-abby-activity-7170824365171826691-9VqX?ref=foxwizard.com). *“While they may claim that their aim is to balance profits with journalistic standards, when push comes to shove, it's profits that take precedence.”* Hence I wonder if all corporate media is ultimately Moloch Media. ## Moloch media —is any media that serves the interest of those producing it at the expense of collective whole. This isn’t journalism in the service of truth—it’s propaganda in service of those who benefit from the beliefs that are shaped by the stories that are shared. I posit this not to encourage conspiracy theories. Most conspiracies require significant coordination to pull off effectively—and Moloch sees to it that these too will fail. No, I mean this simply as an observation of emergent phenomena. Power (like wealth) tends to centralise, creating asymmetry. Once an entity becomes powerful, it is natural that they seek to grow and protect the power they have amassed; thus they use their power to shape laws, opinion, and beliefs.\* \* *Here’s a tip: read widely, and draw from multiple sources—big and small, conservative and progressive. Strive for independent outlets where possible, and primary sources where possible. Always investigate their source of funding, and what political motives may be behind it. Avoid extreme “left” and “right” (neither frame is helpful)—but don’t fall into the bog of being a “centrist”. Instead, be metamodern: oscillate, contemplate, and develop your own proto-synthesis. Develop your own perspective—but be open to updating your stance as new information comes to light.* Whenever we are presented with a story, we must ask: who does this serve? It’ll never be purely collective good—there’s always an element of self-interest at play. But if the answer is anything less than “*mostly* the collective good” then: keep your wits about you. This could be the workings of Moloch media. ### 💌 Do you even leap? URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/leaping/ Last updated: 2024-03-01T11:43:37.000Z It’s been a while since I wrote to you. Ahoy and, erm: merry solstice, happy calendar new year, happy lunar new year, happy feb 29th, etc. I was desperately trying to find an apppropriate pun for this museletter, given the auspicious date. So desperate, I turned to [shoggoth](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/yjzW7gxk2h7bBs2qr/the-meaning-of-shoggoth-ai-memes) to ask it if it knew of any puns. Here are half a dozen “top-tier puns and witticisms to mark the occasion with humour” \[shoggoth’s words, not mine\]: ****Leap Year Logic:** **“Leap Year: Giving us one more day to ponder why we did all that extra work for the same monthly salary.”* ****Ageing Gracefully?:** **“Born on Feb 29th? Congrats on being the only people who age at a quarter of the speed of everyone else.”* ****Mathematical Musing:** **“Leap Years: Making mathematicians of us all since we try to calculate the age of those born on Feb 29th.”* ****Exclusive Club:** **“Welcome to the Leap Day – it's like the VIP section of the calendar.”* ****A Day Off?:** **“I propose Feb 29th becomes a global day of rest. Since it's an extra day, it shouldn't count against vacation days, right?”* ****Proposal Tradition:** **“Leap Day: When women traditionally propose to men. So guys, if she's acting strange today, you might want to leap for cover.”* These are, frankly, beyond terrible. But not even in a “so bad it’s funny” kind of way. This is more like a [not even wrong](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not%5Feven%5Fwrong?ref=foxwizard.com) response, as in: not even funny. ### Artificially emotional For those of us paying attention, chatGPT—the main tool many of us use to access [shoggoth](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/yjzW7gxk2h7bBs2qr/the-meaning-of-shoggoth-ai-memes?ref=foxwizard.com)—has experienced a noticeable degradation in quality. Just over a week ago there were reports of chatGPT [“having a stroke,” “going insane,” “rambling,” and “losing it](https://slashdot.org/story/24/02/21/2129233/chatgpt-goes-temporarily-insane-with-unexpected-outputs-spooking-users?ref=foxwizard.com).” And around the same time, Gemini (formerly Bard, Google’s flagship AI product) presented [blatantly inaccurate hallucinations](https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2024/2/28/24083814/google-gemini-ai-bias-ethics?ref=foxwizard.com), showcasing that AI is just as biased as the parameters it works within. Will AI recover? Of course. The genie/djinn is out of the bottle now. And so we might get to enjoy the [moderate apocalypses](https://betterwithout.ai/?ref=foxwizard.com) that ensue. Or the [exacerbation of our metacrisis](https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/71-daniel-schmachtenberger?ref=foxwizard.com). Either way, it’ll be a fun and bizarre ride. I’ve given up shaking my staff like an old man seemingly ‘not with the times’ whilst proclaiming the ‘end times’. It’s no fun lingering in the metacrisis—far better to midwit it with the masses. Besides: there are some *fascinating* overlaps between decentralised, censorship resistant, transparent, open-sourced protocols being worked on in the wondrous worlds of web3\. These projects are, in my mind, an essential piece of the puzzle for ensuring that the technology of artificial intelligence does not completely centralise into Orwellian dystopias. Too much power in the hands of the few is *not* a good thing. ### Dark Forest Adventure Quest I’ve spent the last half-decade deep in the dark forest of web3—and soon I shall be prototyping a 5-week online cohort-based learning program to assist adventurous folk seeking to learn the ways of web3\. This course will cover *wallet creation and safety, asymmetric cryptography, consensus mechanisms, smart contracts, decentralised autonomous organisations and governance, non-fungible tokens, zero-knowledge proofs, decentralised finance and physical infrastructure, regenerative finance, non-fungible tokens, decentralised social media, web1/web2/web3, generative art, subcultures, psyops and memes, but idk nfa dyor* and more. **This is not a course on how to get rish.**\* It’s a course in which you will gain **direct participatory knowledge of web3**. You will experience, first hand, how revolutionary this is. This is one of the key areas where the future of leadership and coordination is happening; permissionlessly, right now. \* *But I hope to impart to you enough street smarts to ensure you do not get rekt.* This remains one of the most important avenues of development in our noösphere—just as significant as the internet itself. I want for you to experience for yourself the physiological quickening and ‘oh my!’ insight-cascades of realising the profundity of web3\. And you *can’t* do that whilst on the sidelines, or punting within a centralised exchange.\* \* *That would be like learning about the internet via the newspaper. Oh, also: if you think crytpo is full of scams—you’re right, it is. As many emerging fields are. But also know: the biggest and most impactful scams have all been via centralised platforms and exchanges—not web3\. Even during the crash of a few years back, protocols like AAVE worked just fine. And—beyond the layers of genuine repugnancy and grift—there are vistas of wholesomeness to be found.* I’ll share the curriculum in a future post. If you are interested in being part of the first cohort—please register your email over at [drjasonfox.com/dark-forest-adventure-quest](https://www.drjasonfox.com/dark-forest-adventure-quest?ref=foxwizard.com) (I am doing a genuine sense-check here—maybe it’s just me who’s interested? 😅). ### Leaping—not crawling Now, where were we? Ah yes: leap year puns aren’t really a thing. But the concept of *leaps* reminded me of [the ‘local maximum’ problem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hill%5Fclimbing?ref=foxwizard.com). Imagine there’s an optimisation algorithm designed to find the highest point in an area. The algorithm works by crawling around a plain and scanning adjacent spaces. If all of the adjacent spaces are *lower* in height than where the algorithm is situated, the algorithm has found the highest point. Huzzah! Except—if the algorithm ends up on a small mound instead of finding the highest mountain nearby, it will have only reached a local maximum instead of finding the the global maximum. This illustrates how algorithms might settle for a suboptimal solution that *seems* best within a limited perspective—rather than exploring further for the truly best solution. I find it an apt metaphor for our times. Artificial intelligence might offer *seemingly* optimal answers—but if we rely on this alone, we will only be artificially intelligent. That might be enough, until it isn’t. Now, as ever, is a time in which we must keep our wits about us. The deft acuity we ought cultivate behooves us to see around corners. Do not be caught [flat-footed](https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Flat-Footed?ref=foxwizard.com) in these times of exponential change. Be nimble, curious and vital. Keep your wits about you—leap in and *learn.\** \* *[Singapore gets it](https://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1b17pnf/how%5Fsingapore%5Fis%5Fpreparing%5Fits%5Fcitizens%5Ffor%5Fthe/?ref=foxwizard.com).* ### There’s still hope dammit Back on the 4th of October I wrote a post, wondering if we are [beyond hope](https://www.foxwizard.com/beyond-hope/). And we’ve all seen what’s happened since then.\* \* *An ongoing state-sponsored genocide resulting in an obscene number of women, children, doctors, and journalists killed. Australians deciding to not recognise First Nation’s people in the consitituition (thanks to an effective fear and disinformation campaign). A US soldier literally immolating himself in protest to his country’s complicity in genocide—which mainstream media doesn’t report upon (or actively tries to smear). The proven efficacy of fear, disinformation and atrocity propaganda. That I still have progressive-except-for-palestine friends who are still ‘unsure’ as to whether 13,000+ children horribly killed—with many more dying from starvation right now—is a bad thing. “It’s so complicated,” they say. The fact that, in the past decade we have “successfully indoctrinated 2 billion people to take to the ballet boxes to vote for (extreme) right political movements to ultimately install a dictator/demagogue/autocrat controlled regime that vehemently denies the existence of climate change and global warming and vows to keep on excavating fossil fuels to grow the economy” (as Dutch speaker Bart Flos put it). The fact that most of us are so overworked and distracted we have neither the time nor wit to care. There’s more but... our context is grim.* Yet still, I find myself cursed with a pervasive sense of hope. It’s so heavy, this hope, and it’s so often the source of despair. Yet still: I hope. It’s kind of embarrassing, and I am not sure I actually *believe* in the hope. But it’s there. Of course, I’d love to be able to more readily summon the requisite sociopathy that allows one to be selective in what they care for, so as to make money whilst the world burns. (We are all obligate sociopaths, btw). But I often can’t, these days. Too much damn hope. Recently I came across [this old post from the philosopher-poet Bayo Akomolafe](https://www.bayoakomolafe.net/post/the-rise-of-tricksters?ref=foxwizard.com), written eight years ago. It rekindled something in me, which sparked a healthy shift in how I relate to hope. It may be apt for you, too. ### Hope is the trickster *“Tricksters are stewards of queer hope,”* [Bayo writes](https://www.bayoakomolafe.net/post/the-rise-of-tricksters?ref=foxwizard.com). *“coaxing us away from safe grounds to the monstrous ambiguities of being more fully present. The disturbing mist in the way. The comedic is not merely about laughter, it’s about accounting for the awkward. Acknowledging limitations.* *Thwarting the tried and true. Perverting the obvious. So, when things start to get irresistibly funny; when what was once serious and absolutely certain becomes a caricature of itself; when what feels true is spoken from the mouths of jesters and ‘lies’ becloud the wisdom of the wise; when the sentences of the normal start to sound like gibberish; when the righteous spear tips of fundamentalism become the blood-stained claws of unbridled hate; when differences become weaponized territories; when nuance is sacrificed at the guillotine of political convenience; and, when ‘reason’ itself bends over backwards to touch his own private parts, look for cracks in the pillars. Look for the trickster: run to the safety of trouble. A happy chuckle precedes the lightening bolt that kindles the fire – for those whom the gods wish to kill, they first make mad – with ecstasy.”* ### Running to the safety of trouble I’ve been away from it all for some time. My word for 2023 was “druid”. I didn’t share it with the world, as since launching [The “Choose One Word” Ritual of Becoming](https://www.chooseoneword.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) I kind of cursed it for myself. But if I look back upon my chapters; the trickstery-ones have always been my most efficacious for me: **rogue*, king, prime, *pirate*, gentleman, *jester*, wizard, *fool*, *bard*, hermit, ???, ???, druid.* \* *It’s all good now; only it’s a more subtle and profound thing—with greater emphasis on the ritual of becoming; not the One Word beacon that is the distillation of much reflection, introspection and contemplation.* I have a genuine sense of my Word for the year ahead—but I’ll probably wait until April Fool’s Day to share it. My year of the druid certainly opened me to world pain and grief. It was a bit much. I feel a bit like Stańczyk (the Polish court jester) must of felt when he was the only person at a royal ball who was troubled by the news that the Muscovites had captured Smolensk. Except I’m not so much concerned for Smolensk as I am about life in the biosphere of this planet we share. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2024/03/Polish-Jester.jpg) [**Stańczyk*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sta%C5%84czyk%5F%28painting%29?ref=foxwizard.com "Stańczyk (painting)") by [Jan Matejko](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan%5FMatejko?ref=foxwizard.com "Jan Matejko") 1862 Suffice to say: it’s a clown world out there. (You can see in the background of this artwork—people are having a great time, all jolly, not a care at all about what’s happening, wot metacrisis?). I recall this quote from Lewis Hyde’s [*Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth, and Art*](https://lewishyde.com/trickster/?ref=foxwizard.com) > “Most of the travelers, liars, thieves, and shameless personalities of the twentieth century are not tricksters at all, then. Their disruptions are not subtle enough, or pitched at a high enough level. Trickster isn’t a run-of-the-mill liar and thief. When he lies and steals, it isn’t so much to get away with something or get rich as to disturb the established categories of truth and property and, by so doing, open the road to possible new worlds.” Time to be more subtle again, amidst the trouble once more. ### New newsletter who dis? I have updated the way my personal indie digital garden website works\*—[foxwizard.com](https://www.foxwizard.com/) has a new look and feel (with many kinks yet to iron out). I now have *two* newsletters. In theory, you are subscribed to both: **the museletter //** intimate longform epistles, wherein I share what’s on my mind, along with glimmers worth attending to. *It’s totally NSWF—as in, not safe for my own work. But it’s what you are reading right now and I appreciate you.* **the spellbook //** wit, wisdom and wiles to help you be a more effective imposter within the mythical ‘future of leadership’. *This is what the museletter was meant to be, before I started relating to you as a friend rather than an “audience”. Now, the spellbook will be a chance to share shorter/spicier lessons and provocations.* The pages from my spellbook will cover the following domains: [quest leadership](https://www.foxwizard.com/tag/quest%5Fleadership/), [**metamodern wizardry**](https://www.foxwizard.com/tag/metamodern%5Fwizardry//), [**bardic savvy**](https://www.foxwizard.com/tag/bardic%5Fsavvy/), [druidic sensibilities](https://www.foxwizard.com/tag/druidic%5Fsensibilities//), and [fox magic](https://www.foxwizard.com/tag/fox%5Fmagic/). Amongst other things. As ever, you can always unsubscribe easily. I never look at the unsubscribes, so fear not offending me. \* *With immense gratitude to Professor Cathy Sarisky of [](https://www.spectralwebservices.com)Spectral Web Services. It is so good to have someone with coding savvy on your side. Immensely recommended.* [drjasonfox.com](https://drjasonfox.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) will remain my corporate propaganda site, geared towards the speaking engagements that allow me to trojan-horse quest leadership sensibilities into Enterprise Land. ### Newish podcast appearance It’s here—my conversation on [Humans of Purpose](https://www.linkedin.com/company/humansofpurpose/?ref=foxwizard.com) with the gracious and inimitable [](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ACoAAAZnXBABh5ZhWVqWtclfLuB0HFBDS2fAGqM?ref=foxwizard.com)[Mike Davis](https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikedav84/?ref=foxwizard.com). We traverse humanity, the internet, quiet quitting, DAOs, video games and post-authenticity...and more! [Have a listen](https://humansofpurpose.podbean.com/e/323-jason-fox-the-quest?ref=foxwizard.com). ### Precious nostalgia Our friend [Jeff](https://jeffreyphillips.com.au/?ref=foxwizard.com) gave Kim his film camera for her to try and it’s been so fun. Holding a film camera and being aware of the preciousness of a roll of film, with its limited capacity, added a once-off-ness to each moment captured ([ichi-go, ichi-e](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ichi-go%5Fichi-e?ref=foxwizard.com)). ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2024/03/the-snozzle-in-the-park-1.jpeg) Snozzle (Snorri), running in a field We had dinner with [our friend Anna](https://www.annawalker.com.au/?ref=foxwizard.com) the other night, and the topic of *preciousness* came up. That quality of something being special, fragile, rare and sentimental, all at once. I wonder: when you hear the word preciousness—what comes to mind for you? --- Thank you, as ever, for reading. ### 💌 It’s okay to signal virtue URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/virtue-signalling/ Last updated: 2024-02-28T02:27:46.000Z What-ho and hello! This is going to be a hell of a pell-mell\* of a museletter. The past two months have seen me operate in mostly deranged form. More [yako](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yako%5F%28fox%29?ref=foxwizard.com) 野狐 than the otherwise [zenko](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitsune?ref=foxwizard.com) 善狐 form I aspire to. I seem to have fallen prey to some of the daemons of the warp. Or rather: the ability for platforms to polarise us, and to only show us the worst of humanity.° Or rather: the worst of Western imperialism in force. \* *Don’t expect elegant segues.* *° And, also: the best of society. Communities, unions, and peoples of all countries and cultures uniting together against atrocity, and remembering the power we can collectively tap into. Grim as it has all been, this has been hearting.* ## Questing for better strategy I had the joy of being asked some incredibly astute questions in [a recent webinar appearance with govn365](https://www.foxwizard.com/strategy-webinar/). If you’ve ever wondered [where strategy comes from](https://www.foxwizard.com/quest-strategy/)—and what ‘quest leadership’ looks like in action—I think you’ll enjoy this webinar. This is, literally, a rare ‘behind the scenes’ glimpse into how emergent strategy is cultivated in enterprise land. [Enjoy](https://www.foxwizard.com/strategy-webinar/)! ## Addendum A month or so ago I wrote [a post on Moral Courage](https://www.foxwizard.com/moral-courage/) and said that I stand against the mass killing of children and civilians (no matter who is doing it) and that there is no context in which such actions are ever appropriate. Since making that post I was met by some folks come to educate me that my stance was misinformed, and that my criticism of the Israeli government committing these crimes against humanity was antisemitic. This is—as I shared already—[a dangerous conflation](https://www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/a-dangerous-conflation/?ref=foxwizard.com). But I have come to realise that I write fr0m a very lovely part of the world. In Melbourne—particularly my turf, the most politically green and left-leaning part of the country—we say ‘thank you’ to our bus drivers. We have community gardens and picnics in the park. We have street art. We have comedy festivals, literary events, cultural celebrations, and more. And we show up in many tens of thousands to rally against injustices. The gemeinschaft is real. And so when I heard about the rise of antisemitism in Australia, I mistakenly thought it was an exaggeration generated by the media—and a deflection from the atrocities at hand. As previously declared, [I deplore any and all forms of antisemitism](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/drjasonfox%5Ffriendly-reminder-being-pro-palestine-and-activity-7135049704152690688-5mDu/?utm%5Fsource=share&utm%5Fmedium=member%5Fdesktop). But I now realise that antisemitism *is* on the rise. And this looks very different from outside my green bubble. I genuinely had no idea how bad things have gotten. I am very glad to have had a Jewish friend take the time to call me in on this, and I am very sorry if my stance inadvertently reduced what may be a very real and increasingly concerning situation. No one should live in fear—not any one of us. I feel genuinely bad for not having checked in on my Jewish friends earlier. At the same time, I am grateful for the many people who have shared appreciation for my writing. I still hold that committing genocide\* does not makes the world safer for *any* of us—but I am going to do my best to tread with much more care. \* *I am aware that this is a loaded and psychoactive term. I am using the term intentionally—as informed by the Israeli historian and [associate professor of holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University](https://jewishcurrents.org/a-textbook-case-of-genocide?ref=foxwizard.com), [human rights lawyers](https://jewishcurrents.org/us-complicity-israeli-war-crimes?ref=foxwizard.com), [UN high commissioners](https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/1/headlines/a%5Ftext%5Fbook%5Fcase%5Fof%5Fgenocide%5Fnew%5Fyorks%5Fun%5Frights%5Fchief%5Fsteps%5Fdown%5Fover%5Fresponse%5Fto%5Fgaza%5Fassault?ref=foxwizard.com), and of course the Palestinians themselves. I want for folks to realise what is happening right now, and not be in denial about it (which is where many of us are right now: [stage ten of ten of the genocide watch](https://www.genocidewatch.com/tenstages?ref=foxwizard.com)). I do not mean to use this term to evoke trauma—I use the term as means to prevent the perpetuation and generation of further trauma. I hope that readers understand my intent here—I do not seek to divide, but to rally us all together. This is not about religion—it’s about patriarchy, imperialism, white supremacy, neo-liberalism, racism, fascism, and what happens when violent power is concentrated and unilateral violence is increasingly justified and normalised.* ## Why do I care about genocide? Because the same forces that drive genocide are the same forces that perpetuate ecocide. And for the first time I am witnessing it, in real time, via on-the-ground journalists (who are being [killed in record numbers](https://cpj.org/2023/12/journalist-casualties-in-the-israel-gaza-conflict/?ref=foxwizard.com), whilst many of our Western journalists [seem to have forgotten the true calling of journalism](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-V4zG%5FUkIdc&ref=foxwizard.com)). Also: how could any of us *not* care? It’s not fun to write about, nor read about. And yet here we are. The overlapping genocidal and ecocidal forces include: - **Dehumanisation and detachment.** When a group of people is ‘othered’ and deemed less worthy of moral consideration, it makes it easier to justify violence against them. Likewise, our (illusionary) detachment from the ecological systems we are of and live within (and depend upon) enables us to reduce complex living systems into ‘resources that can be extracted’. In this way a forest is only valuable for the wood that can be harvested; an ocean for its fish, and so on. Until nothing is left. - **Systemic exploitation and oppression.** Genocide is often involves a situation where asymmetrical power dynamics are abused to marginalise and eliminate a group of people. Similarly, our legal system offers little protection against those incentivised to exploit. - **Ideological justification.** In the case of genocide, ideologies of racial, ethnic, or cultural superiority can be used to ‘justify’ the extermination of an ‘othered’ group. For ecocide, economic and developmental ideologies often provide a rationale for environmental destruction, positing it as a necessary sacrifice for ‘progress’ or growth.\* - **Failure of governance and international law.** Weak enforcement of laws, lack of accountability, and international indifference or complicity can allow both types of atrocities to occur and persist. These are only as strong as our collective will to enforce it—look not to the United Nations as the culprit, but rather the member-countries themselves. - **Denial and moral apathy**. Denial of the atrocities (or rationalisation of the actions) is the final stage of genocide, according to the [genocide watch](https://www.genocidewatch.com/?ref=foxwizard.com). In cases of ecocide, the exponential nature of global heating combined with economic blindness means the impacts of ecological collapse are hard to ‘see’ and thus care for. - **Psychological mechanisms**: Conformity, obedience to authority, desensitisation and complacency enable both genocide and ecocide. Couple this with the perverse incentives that keep us focused on profits at the expense of people and planet and lo! we productively (and profitably) hasten our way to collapse. We become numb to the horror—and then numb to the horror of being numb to the horror. \* *This is also why many staunch capitalists fear ‘the woke mind virus’—any realisation of systematic inequality and harm (and how we are all connected) threatens the ideology of capitalism itself, which is why such notions are smeared of quashed wherever they arise. It’s also why it serves capitalism to keep us isolated and divided rather than united as a collective. Capitalism also benefits when we feel a sense of lack—because we can then be sold to. A genuine sense of belonging, purpose and fulfilment is a threat to this, too. (I might add that “being woke” is not sustainable in and of itself—I’ll write of my own journey to post-woke at some stage.)* The pathway out of this takes us away from much of the above. Let yourself feel the feelings. Let this *deepen your humanity*—not to numb or distract or diminish or deny. Then, ideally, we expand our sense of compassion to include all-of-life (not just human life)—orientating to a world of richer complexity and abundance. But that may be a tale for another musing. (And an extension of my musing from what seems a long while ago now: [Are we beyond hope?](https://www.foxwizard.com/beyond-hope/)) But, hey, within any crisis there *is* hope. Hope that our system may sublimate into something better—rather than collapse into dystopia. People *are* waking up, speaking out, and working together. My hope is that we can collectively co-create a world more curious and kind—which means a world not just *tolerant* of diversity and difference, but in love with it. A world where no one is made to feel unsafe. I’d also like to think that we might collectively recoil from what extreme right-wing governments bring, and listen more to voices that seek not just the ‘peace’ of imposed order—but genuine liberation for all.\* \* *[Alon Lee](https://linktr.ee/alonlee?ref=foxwizard.com) is a great example of an Israeli voice speaking our their own government, and striving to course-correct the State towards a better future. Here’s [an example](https://www.instagram.com/reel/C0rUhdWtNCm/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==&ref=foxwizard.com).* I’d like to see so much more of this, and to do better to exemplify such. If you’ve been on the sidelines, this next piece is for you. ## It’s okay to signal virtue In fact: it’s odd not to. We wave at people to announce our friendly intentions. We shake hands—originally as means to demonstrate we have no concealed weapons up our sleeves. We smile and nod when in conversation, as a means of signalling encouragement. We should not be so worried about virtue signalling—it’s entirely natural for social creatures. But the internet has made us rather suspicious of the topic.\* And so when pro-Palestine protests are dismissed as “[just young people virtue signalling](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-12-09/mike-parr-dropped-by-anna-schwartz-gallery-over-performance/103206658?ref=foxwizard.com)”—the implication is that virtue signalling is bad; or that it is merely performative. \* *Michelle MiJung Kim writes of this phenomenon, and why [this time is different](https://www.instagram.com/p/C0PCv-pOmrI/?img%5Findex=1&ref=foxwizard.com).* I can only speak for myself, but I genuinely hold the virtue that all humans deserve human rights, and that this is not something we can be selective about based on our own politics or prejudice. I thus hold that killing thousands of children in some of the most horrible ways possible is also bad and never acceptable, in any context. But there is no escaping the performative nature of signalling this. To take any action is to perform it. But right now, many people are still signalling **indifference** to genocide through their silence. It’s painful to watch. People I network with often express concern about ‘how complex it all is’,\* and (privately) how they don’t want to say the wrong thing or cause offence.° And, look, I get it. It takes some [moral courage](https://www.foxwizard.com/moral-courage/) to speak out. And, even when you do, you may not please everyone. You will, in fact, likely fūck it up—as I so often do. But that’s okay: we stumble and learn. \* *Here are some thoughts on [how to act amidst complexity](https://www.foxwizard.com/act-amidst-complexity/).* *° Remember: [nice people make the best nazis](https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2016/11/17/the-post-election-case-for-speaking-out-naomi-shulman?ref=foxwizard.com).* My friend Pat Allan wrote a friendly and encouraging post on how [silence is how injustice takes root](https://freelancing-gods.com/2023/12/03/silence-is-how-injustice-takes-root?ref=foxwizard.com). It contains some practical things you can do, and has inspired me to write to some of the concerns I suspect some might have. **“But I don’t want to choose sides”**, you might say. I know. It *is* complex, [despite what I say](https://www.foxwizard.com/act-amidst-complexity/). And also: it’s not. One side is a nuclear power backed by a military superpower that is committing genocide (whilst also killing journalists trying to report on the matter). The other is mostly women, children and civilians (with no military) under apartheid—a people now denied electricity, clean water, and the most basic human rights. The choice seems clear to me. To choose to *not* choose is to side with the oppressor. The standard you walk past is the standard you accept. **“But I’d rather stay apolitical”**, you might say. Sure, that’s a privilege some of us have. But **the apolitical stance is a political stance** ([as I explain somewhere amidst this previous musing](https://www.foxwizard.com/better-imposter/)). It’s an endorsement for the status quo, where nothing changes. Thus the apolitical stance is only ever encouraged by those who benefit from it. Be careful where [your comfort](https://www.instagram.com/p/C0FGgdZAwbO/?ref=foxwizard.com) leads you. **“I’m worried I will lose income or work”**, you might say. I understand; there’s an element of precariousness to these times. This is also how capitalism operates—keep the workers busy, tired and divided. This is also why I look mostly to those who are already privileged, to encourage them to not waste their privilege—use it to help others. Because, otherwise: what is the point? And also: putting ‘profit’ before people or planet is what accelerates our metacrisis. Something has got to change. (At the same time: be careful. I try to be, as they say, soft on people, hard on systems). **“But it’s really not my style or brand”**, you might say. Ha, none of this is ‘on brand’ for me either. And: the term ‘brand’ derives from the Old Norse word *brandr* or ‘to burn’. Its what slavers would do to their ‘stock’—using a hot iron to burn their brand-mark onto the living flesh of their ‘property’. This, in turn, made ownership easier to recognise in the market. Is this what you want—to be a brand? A commodity for ‘the market’? Heck no. You are a complex human being, and you care! Be the opposite of a brand and you may just well find yourself again. **“But I worry I will offend people”**,you might decry. To which I say: you probably *are* already offending people. Or at least: disappointing them. Your silence on the matter has already been noted by many. But it’s not too late—you giving voice makes it safer for others to do so, too.\* \* *I should point out: Israel is not going anywhere. Thus we must strive for better relations; to do and be better. I don’t want WWIII. I don’t want any more violence. This is not about opposing individuals, and it is not about opposing religions. It’s about opposing systems of oppression, genocide and the perpetuation of atrocity. I should also add: I know that many are having these conversations offline. Many find themselves caught in the middle between strong perspectives—and I can imagine this would sometimes feel very unsafe. I only want to offer encouragment to you.* **“So what, you want me to perform outrage?”**you might ask. No, friend. I only want for you to know that it is not too late to speak out against genocide. You will not be shamed; you will be welcomed. We will be relieved; because we have been worried for you. And so many of us are exhausted. The longer you say nothing, the more concerning it becomes. This doesn’t have to occur on social media (but it is welcomed). I write the above from the bias of someone whose profession it is to research, teach and facilitate that which pertains to ‘the future of leadership’. It is no secret that I believe the current patriarchal approach to leadership that dominates much of Enterprise Land is *not* the mode we should aspire to. Artists and poets—the ones who so often lead our cultures—are rallying together in creative ways to dismantle the war machine. Union workers are blocking shipments of weapons. Lawyers are working to prosecute those complicit with Israel in the “crime of crimes” of aiding and abetting genocide ([source](https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/16/ccr%5Fgenocide?ref=foxwizard.com)). [Doctors Without Borders continue to do whatever they can](https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/latest/our-response-israel-gaza-war?ref=foxwizard.com) (at great risk to their own lives). People are volunteering their time, working together, and finding contribution, meaning and community. Amidst all the travesty, it is a beautiful thing. If you care: do what you can, wherever you are. Even the subtlest acts can have a profound impact. Breaking: Australia has **finally* shifted its position to vote in favour of a [UN resolution calling for Gaza ceasefire](https://news.un.org/en/story/2023/12/1144717?ref=foxwizard.com). Of course, there’s more to be done. Children are dying of dehydration and disease; it remains a political and humanitarian disaster. I do not know what our future quite holds but I take solace from folks like [Cole Arthur Riley](https://colearthurriley.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) and her [Black Liturgies](https://www.instagram.com/blackliturgies/?hl=en&ref=foxwizard.com). > *Don’t let empathy and grief devolve into mere pity. Recall your agency.* > > *There is a distinction to be made between feeling sorry for a person’s circumstances, and advocating for and protecting their personhood and dignity. Pity requires nothing.* > —[Black Liturgies](https://www.instagram.com/p/C0wrL6JrfFa/?img%5Findex=1&ref=foxwizard.com) --- ## Quick glimmers - *“We're in the final hours of COP28 and it's on the precipice of failure,”* [writes climate activist Clover H](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/cloverhogan%5Fnextgen2023-lateristoolate-climatecrisis-activity-7140326866803929088-OFHn?utm%5Fsource=share&utm%5Fmedium=member%5Fdesktop). *“This, after 2,456 fossil fuel representatives infiltrated (a 286% increase on COP27), and the President of the process was exposed for brokering new oil and gas deals—before publicly denying climate science.”* - Related, my wizardly friend [Merlin Bola writes of the pervasive forces](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/merlin-bola%5Froadmap-for-a-time-between-worlds-activity-7140431640580751360-k4U%5F?ref=foxwizard.com) that blind us to reality, keeping us distracted, divided and detached. Specifically, [the links he shares](https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7140431640580751360?commentUrn=urn%3Ali%3Acomment%3A%28activity%3A7140431640580751360%2C7140432221756141568%29&replyUrn=urn%3Ali%3Acomment%3A%28activity%3A7140431640580751360%2C7140432450337263616%29&dashCommentUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afsd%5Fcomment%3A%287140432221756141568%2Curn%3Ali%3Aactivity%3A7140431640580751360%29&dashReplyUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afsd%5Fcomment%3A%287140432450337263616%2Curn%3Ali%3Aactivity%3A7140431640580751360%29&ref=foxwizard.com) are very compelling. Specifically, [this TEDx talk from eight years ago](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bYAQ-ZZtEU&ref=foxwizard.com) where *“veteran investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson shows how astroturf, or fake grassroots movements funded by political, corporate, or other special interests very effectively manipulate and distort media messages”.* Pertinent. - Russell Clark—someone with twenty years experience in markets and hedge funds—writes an essay: “[Why I am filled with existential dread](https://www.russell-clark.com/p/why-i-am-filled-with-existential?ref=foxwizard.com)”. This is from an economic perspective. What struck me from this is that I had never thought to consider wages through the lens of being rebased to food inflation. *“Why does this fill me with dread? When the political system is captured by one group, it can only be resolved through revolution, and the destruction of the system. You can already see the outlines of this collapse.”* - And now here is what blogger Nicolas Magand says is “[One of the worst pieces of content I’ve read all year](https://thejollyteapot.com/2023/10/18/one-of-the-worst-pieces-of-content-i-ve-read-all-year?ref=foxwizard.com)”. I’m inclined to agree. - I haven’t watched this yet, but my Rekindling co-conspirator and friend Paul Kearney recommended this relatively fresh keynote presentation to me: “[Becoming Resilient In A World Exposed To Unprecedented Systemic Risk](https://youtu.be/lvweVNzQns8?feature=shared&ref=foxwizard.com)”. I’ll be watching it this week; already the introduction speaks to what’s on my mind—and the mind of many complexity practitioners and genuine futurists. - Finally: [The Green New Deal Is the Opiate of the Masses](https://www.thenation.com/article/economy/degrowth-communism-green-new-deal/?ref=foxwizard.com), an article by Kohei Saito (associate professor of philosophy at the University of Tokyo and the author of [*Slow Down: The Degrowth Manifesto*](https://astrapublishinghouse.com/product/slow-down-9781662602368/?ref=foxwizard.com)). *“It might sound counterintuitive, but the goal of any Green New Deal should not be economic growth but rather the slowing down of the economy. Measures to stop climate change cannot double as ways to further economic growth. Indeed, the less such measures aim to grow the economy, the higher the possibility they’ll work.”* Few. *“Whyfor all these gloomy links, foxwizard?”* you ask. Because, dear reader, the world *needs* to become a little more disillusioned and disenchanted—so that we can break free the hoodwinking that has befallen us—so that we might then fall back in love with our living reality once more. Once your eyes adjust to the dark, new glimmers betwinkle. I shall write more on these in the new year. ✨ --- ## Rejoice! The 2024 dangerlam wall calendar is now available 🌝 ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2023/12/dangerlam_wall_calendar.jpeg) Our gratitude slash ‘did you earn a dot?’ [wall calendar by dangerlam](https://www.dangerlam.com/shoppe/2024-calendar?ref=foxwizard.com) My darling and co-conspirator—Dr. Kim Lam, the dangerlam—has released the next iteration of her wall calendar. It’s [available for purchase now as a digital download](https://www.dangerlam.com/shoppe/2024-calendar?ref=foxwizard.com) (which is easily printed locally). We have been using such calendars for over a decade. In my first book—*The Game Changer—*I talked of the importance of ensuring we make progress visible. For Kim and I, we give ourselves a dot (sticker) whenever we’ve had a day of deliberate physical activity (like yoga, gym, a run, etc). In *The Game Changer* I also talk of the notion of ‘constructive discontent’. This is very useful for projects and goals, but on its own, is a recipe for perpetual grumpiness. Gratitudes ameliorate this. The photo above is a snapshot of the previous calendar, and here you can see how we use it to track the things we are grateful for. At the end of each year we reflect on the patterns that inspire gratitude and joy—I shall write of this more in the next museletter. But, as a quick example, it was by looking back through these calendars over several years that we surfaced one particular pattern: we love walking in the rain! Thus now, whenever it’s raining, we are tempted to take a long stroll by the river. ⛆ Long story short: these calendars are a cornerstone of our days. We love it, and benefit from them greatly. And I suspect that you—or a friend you know—might also love this whimsically minimalist wall planner too. This can be ordered from Kim’s website: [dangerlam.com/shoppe/2024-calendar](https://www.dangerlam.com/shoppe/2024-calendar?ref=foxwizard.com) --- Thank you, as ever, for reading. It really means the world to me. *—fw* If a friend forwarded The Museletter to you—how lovely—you can [join the many thousands who subscribe](https://foxwizard.com/museletter?ref=foxwizard.com). ♡ ### 🔮 Questing for better strategy (webinar) URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/strategy-webinar/ Last updated: 2024-03-08T05:31:51.000Z If you’ve ever wondered how quest leadership works in the context of strategic development—this webinar will be quite illuminating for you. Gerry Lynch, the chief executive of [Govn365](https://www.govn365.com/resources/webinars/?ref=foxwizard.com), was a gracious and astute host, and the questions he asked demonstrate a deep acuity for what’s on the minds of executive leaders. I thoroughly appreciated the opportunity to jam (and occassionally vent) in this generative format—I think you’ll enjoy it, too. > “I have to say that was THE best webinar we have done. \[...\] A number of people said ‘that was the best hour I spent for a long time’.” – Gerry Lynch, CEO, govn365 Now, backstory: I had already done a zoom meeting that morning. All was fine and well; so I took a break to make some tea. When I came back: my computer had decided to install an update. That’s okay, I thought. But... the seven-minute update took more than half an hour. I had to abandon ship and switch to my laptop, sans studio condenser mic and all the trappings of a wizard who ‘has it together’. I think I managed it with some aplomb. And so: enjoy the literal ‘behind the scenes’ glimpse into my messy studio. If you’d like a glimpse into the work I do with those who venture beyond the default, this webinar provides quite some insight. Thanks again to Gerry and the [govn365](https://www.govn365.com/resources/webinars/?ref=foxwizard.com) team for having me along. ### 💌 How to act amidst complexity URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/act-amidst-complexity/ Last updated: 2024-02-28T02:25:50.000Z ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2023/11/DrJasonFox_by_Elin_Bandmann_Photography.jpg) Opening the [Purpose Conference 2023](https://www.purposeconference.co/?ref=foxwizard.com), 📸 [Elin Bandmann Photography](https://www.elinbandmann.com/?ref=foxwizard.com), 👕 [E.S.S.](https://ess-laboratory.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) Earlier this month I had the joy of contributing to the wondrous [Purpose Conference 2023](https://www.purposeconference.co/?ref=foxwizard.com). My role was that of a wizard-philosopher; peppering the context with provocations so that we might arrive at more meaningful conversations (and insights beyond the default). It’s taken me longer to write to you than I had hoped, as I have been grappling with the juxtaposition of joyous time with purpose-driven business leaders\* at this wondrous event whilst also enduring a horrid six weeks of doom scrolling. \* *Quite a few of whom are subscribers, hi!* I’d see direct footage of the results of a US-made hellfire missile fired by Israel into refugee camps and hospitals: the diagonally decapitated head of a child, brains literally spilling out. I’d also see parents grieving over children trapped in rubble, trying desperately to dig with their bare hands. I’d see children having to drink contaminated water from puddles. I’d see soldiers shooting directly at civilians\*, torturing captives, planting flags on beaches and celebrating their ‘conquest’. And so on. All right before bed. \* *Note: this is from on-the-ground footage, directly uploaded by civilians and journalists within the occupied territiories.* (This is not a recipe for quality sleep.) Then, within minutes of waking, I’d be back on the phone: comparing notes with Kim as to the horrors that occurred whilst we slept. We’d then also witness the media propaganda machine apply it’s spin to the atrocities of the night before. A day-delayed distortion of facts, contorted to fit The Narrative. Sometimes, in a bout of outrage and despair, I would turn to posting on social media—utilising what minuscule (yet non-zero) influence I have to bring attention to this. Yet every time I have done so I have regretted it, because my wording has been heated and imprecise, and because it just seems that my [strong (and alas: not gentle](https://www.foxwizard.com/gentle-opinions/)) condemnation of these atrocities just seems to summon trolls come to defend them; to tone police and diminish/deflect/deceive or otherwise attempt to defame/discredit/smear. My goal is mostly to convince other folk with influence to speak up for basic human rights. To do something—*anything*—other than ignore it, defend it, or to wring their hands and say “it’s complex”. ## Understanding “complexity” One of the common criticisms I have heard—almost always by otherwise reasonable-seeming older white men—is that the situation is complex, and I am only seeing a small part of what is going on. Undoubtedly, this is true. And, as a complexity practitioner, it is heartening to see such folk realise that things *are* indeedcomplex, and that we only ever have a fraction of the truth. But this ought inspire a kind of epistemological humility, wherein we question all that we know, and the sources from whence this knowledge came. As stated years ago, all knowledge gleaned from [the internet has the taint of the warp to it](https://www.foxwizard.com/internet-wizard/). What ought we do with this awareness? The answer is almost always: to be a bit more humble. *“To have our curiosity eclipse our conviction”,* as I oft love to say. To [be gentle in our opinions](https://www.foxwizard.com/gentle-opinions/). *Almost* always. A wise professorial friend of mine—on the topic of being a complexity practitioner in the distraction economy (to the backdrop of ecological collapse)—once told me that: > *The people that get it don’t need it,* > *and the people that need it don’t get it.* Which is true. And: > *The people that get it* > *need other people to get it, too.* And so, to those who have newly found themselves using the term “complexity”—here are three important elements you need to know, in order to better “get it”. ### 1 // First: do no harm Most healing, surgery and medicine involves complex (living) systems. Then [Hippocratic Oath](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippocratic%5FOath?ref=foxwizard.com#%22First%5Fdo%5Fno%5Fharm%22) is something doctors, physicians, veterinarians swear upon when graduating into their profession. It contains a set of principles that serve as foundational ethics. *Primum non nocere—*first: do no harm. Similarly, one of the key lessons ecologists and environmental scientists learn—that is, those who work with complex (living) systems—is [The Precautionary Principle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary%5Fprinciple?ref=foxwizard.com). Here we apply caution and deep consideration before intervening, so as to avoid disastrous [unintended consequences](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unintended%5Fconsequences?ref=foxwizard.com#Perverse%5Fconsequences%5Fof%5Fenvironmental%5Fintervention). A complexity practitioner is also aware of the potential for iatrogenic effects. That is: harm caused by interventions intended to help. Thus we tend to [move quietly and plant things](https://www.foxwizard.com/move-quietly-and-plant-things/). But: if the house is on fire—if lives are at risk—we act to put out the fire. We don’t let it destroy everything. ![](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/08/05/us/05onfire1_xp/05onfire1_xp-superJumbo-v2.jpg) “[This is fine](https://gunshowcomic.com/648?ref=foxwizard.com)” by KC Green Thus when one of the world’s largest nuclear-armed militaries (backed by billions of dollars in aid and weapons by the military superpower that is the US) goes on a rampage of death and destruction—indiscriminately bombing hospitals, refugee camps, schools and ambulances, killing over ~~8,000~~ ~~10,000~~ *13,000\** people (the vast majority civilians, including over five thousand children) in one of the most horrible ways possible—a complexity practitioner does not wring their hands and say “oh best do nothing: it’s complex”. \* *The number keeps going up as I write this.* No. We do what we can to stop, minimise or otherwise mitigate harm. Complexity, in this sense, ought not be weaponised so as to silence and/or allow for more harm to continue. Your role is to stop the harm. Then, once things have cooled down, then we can explore the fullness of the complexity. Not before. ### 2 // Remember: it’s not complicated It’s a complex (living) system. A complicated system is like a machine. Not alive. The parts of a machine relate to each other in a linear and predictable fashion. And, because the context is contained (and non-living), you can experiment and find your way to a ‘fix’. This ‘fix’ can be replicated across similar (complicated) contexts. Many business problems result from ‘hard’/‘hero’ leader-men come to ‘fix’ things by treating complex systems as if they were merely complicated. Thus they intervene, with narrow focus—‘fixing’ the issue and saving the day, whilst creating a swathe of unintended consequences in the process. They then write bestselling books and teach others how to replicate their fixes across similar (complicated) contexts. But businesses, organisations—all of life—is *complex.* Not complicated. The elements of complex systems relate to each other in a non-linear fashion. Thus, attempting to “eradicate hamas”\* by inflicting the direct terror of bombing a densely-packed population of civilians and children will likely only serve to radicalise and recruit more support for hamas. \* *If that is even the real goal.* ### 3 // Keep it real Being a complexity practitioner means striving to maintain a multi-[perspectival](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perspectivism?ref=foxwizard.com) acuity for reality (as it presents itself; not as we wish it to be). Wherever possible, we draw insight from sources as close to the relevant context as possible (rather than aggregates or intermediaries who may distort/conflate/reduce or otherwise influence information with their own bias). Thus—as mentioned in [my last museletter to you](https://www.foxwizard.com/moral-courage/)—the role of on-the-ground journalists and direct (unfiltered) reports is paramount. If you are doing bad things (like, say, what many experts might call a genocide), you’d want to remove (kill) or otherwise suppress as much on-the-ground direct footage and recording as possible, only allowing vetted ‘journalists’ to report stories that fit your propaganda. You’d also want to bomb any hospitals and other places where official records of your atrocities are kept. You’ll then want to sow confusion, and gaslight, obfuscate, deflect and distract from what is really happening. In the past, using blanket terms like a “war on terror”, or a “war on drugs”, or a “war on the axis of evil”, or a “search for weapons of mass destruction” has proven effective (as you can stir up fear and commit a lot of damage and terror before the world catches on). But these days it’s not so easy. Thanks to social media, we now get to see both beyond the propaganda *and* new forms of propaganda.\* We get to see what’s really happening. (Or rather: a portion of it. Enough to put The Narrative into question). \* *All subject to the whims of the algorithm and the egos of those who maintain the platform.* Thus when a complexity practitioner hears a phrase like “a war on hamas” we think, wait: hamas is a concept. Sure, there are definitely hamas operatives that ought face prosecution for their crimes. But you can’t kill a concept—if anything, such things are antifragile. Fighting terrorism with terror begets more terrorism. A “war on X” promulgated by a state is simply a narrative foil. And even if Meta and other US-based social media platforms comply to [Israel’s request to remove 8,000 posts](https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2023/11/13/meta-and-tiktok-told-to-remove-8000-pro-hamas-posts-by-israel/?sh=30c1d6bff6ce&ref=foxwizard.com) related to their actions—the mask has slipped. And the horrors have been witnessed by a much more internet-savvy audience. As sociologist [Dr Melissa Finn aptly put it](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/melissa-finn-ph-d-86335866%5Fthis-is-why-zionism-judaism-source-https-ugcPost-7132186640671789056-U5Qe?utm%5Fsource=share&utm%5Fmedium=member%5Fdesktop): > “Here's what the Zionist elites and their supporters don't get: even if they spend millions and millions \*more\* to get Zionist youth to create pro-Israel content that might appeal to younger generations, first, those younger generations already understand the stakes of this issue because it's been plastered all over their social media feeds for a month and a half (any gaps in their understanding of the issues has already been closed) which in former generations is the equivalent of more than 4 years of high school, and second, any agi-prop about how Israel is the victim doesn't fit into the epistemological and ethical frameworks of youth that can differentiate various kinds of cries. Gen Z know very well how to differentiate the fake cries of the power-hungry from the cries of people hungry for freedom; they are resilient to and largely unconvinced by the messaging of the former.” If you are going to wield complexity as a term: do no harm, know what *is* complex, and keep it real. Don’t weaponise the concept of complexity to justify the proliferation of harm. Thx. --- I am evidently still very grumpy. I have been told by a few folk now to stop talking about this, especially if I value my work as a leadership speaker and advisor. Indeed, I look at many of my colleagues and note that they are keeping mighty “apolitical” about it. That’s fine, no shame. And I’m sure it’s better for business. I only hope that they someday find their [moral courage](https://www.foxwizard.com/moral-courage/). And soon. I wish I had a better ability to compartmentalise. But: it’s all connected—*we’re* all connected. The same geriatric patriarchal colonising war machine causing all the woes in Gaza is much the same ideology perpetuating the metacrisis (and our ecological collapse). I wish I had the ability to simply talk up my own work and brand in [jolly psychosis](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCJyGy6AFJo&ref=foxwizard.com), oblivious to context. “*Did you know that approaching business leadership with the wit and wisdom to see through shallow simplicity and hollow hype means you are more likely to bring about genuine value and meaningful progress towards enduring relevance? I call this quest leadership. If you’re ready to venture beyond the default, let’s see how we might work together for your next strategic offsite or leadership event. But don’t take my word for it—hear* [*what my many happy clients have to say*](https://www.drjasonfox.com/happy-clients?ref=foxwizard.com)*!”* I should probably add: I am a consummate professional and bring a genuine alacrity to any engagement. Look, here’s me (genuinely) happy at the recent [Purpose Conference](https://www.purposeconference.co/?ref=foxwizard.com). ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2023/11/Purpose_Conference_2023_Elin_Bandmann-475-copy.jpg) I’m genuinely happy at the [Purpose Conference 2023](https://www.purposeconference.co/?ref=foxwizard.com), 📸 [Elin Bandmann Photography](https://www.elinbandmann.com/?ref=foxwizard.com), 👕 [E.S.S.](https://ess-laboratory.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) (it’s meant to look un-ironed; fashun) ## The Fourth Turning A few weeks ago a subscriber suggested I read [The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy—What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America's Next Rendezvous with Destiny](https://www.amazon.com/Fourth-Turning-American-Prophecy-Rendezvous/dp/0767900464/?%5Fencoding=UTF8&pd%5Frd%5Fw=fULt8&content-id=amzn1.sym.cf86ec3a-68a6-43e9-8115-04171136930a&pf%5Frd%5Fp=cf86ec3a-68a6-43e9-8115-04171136930a&pf%5Frd%5Fr=145-7907581-0402810&pd%5Frd%5Fwg=tX5yB&pd%5Frd%5Fr=da8a5cc7-7d93-43d8-9c3e-b7d0f9ae9f46&ref%5F=aufs%5Fap%5Fsc%5Fdsk&ref=foxwizard.com)*\*—*a bookby Neil Howe and William Strauss. As a wizard I view terms like “prophecy” and “destiny” with deep suspicion. But I have been wracking my mind for some explainer as to how why the main defenders of the current atrocities are—in my experience—almost entirely older white men.° \* *Ha, and I thought the subtitle for my first proper book was long* (The Game Changer: How to Use the Science of Motivation With the Power of Game Design to Shift Behaviour, Shape Culture and Make Clever Happen)*—I feel a little less embarassed now.* 😅 ° *This issue is close to my heart; I am soon to turn 40, a step closer to becoming one such.* I should note that I have acquaintances from Israel and I understand that they are grieving; if I had family member kidnapped or killed I would likely not be in my right mind—so I am giving these folk space to process. I also acknowledge that there are Israelis protesting against these atrocities. But the rest of the folks who’ve come to critique any appeal to universal compassion seem to be, predominantly, older white men. Hashtag not-all-older-white-men, of course. If you find yourself bristling at my crude use of the demographic, then realise: this is a good sign. You are likely an exception—as most of my friends and subscribers are. But what is it that has this category of folk (the richest, most privileged and most powerful) so readily defend the Israeli right-wing government that is currently committing what many international lawyers and scholars call genocide? What begets this toxic patriarchy? *The Fourth Turning* may hold a hint. I haven’t read the book yet, but I listened to [Jim Rutt chat with Neil Howe](https://jimruttshow.blubrry.net/neil-howe/?ref=foxwizard.com) (one of the authors of this now 26-year-old book—a book that seems broadly prescient of the times we find ourselves in now). I like Jim Rutt—he seems to be the perfect bridge between the (artificial bifurcation) of right- and left-wing politics. You’ll come to love his accent. The gist is: The Fourth Turning thesis is that history is cyclical.\* American history can be viewed through four ‘turnings’: High, Awakening, Unraveling, and Crisis. We have been in crisis for a few years now. The key for this is realising that different generations “come of age” at different moments in history. \* *I like the phrase: history doesn’t repeat; it rhymes.* ### Boomers Baby Boomers were born into the first turning (‘High’; post-crisis recovery), and came of age during the second turning (‘Awakening’; revival). Life has, generally, gotten better and better. This perhaps explains the general optimism in technology and capitalism, and the laissez-faire attitude to climate change (the market will fix it!). Boomers also came of age in a media landscape dominated by centralised television, radio, and newspapers—and many continued to rely on traditional media as a trusted source of information. Boomers are very wealthy, too. According to [the Federal Reserve](https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distribute/table/#quarter:132;series:Net%20worth;demographic:networth;population:all;units:shares;range:1989.3,2022.3), Baby boomers own 52.8% of all wealth in the US, compared to 5.7% of millennials. ### Millennials Millennials were born into the third turning (‘Unravelling’; institutional decay), and came of age during the fourth turning (‘Crisis’; social rebirth). (Note that this speaks mostly to the US context, but I think that there are some generalisations that apply across Western countries). Life for us Millennials started with promise—beautiful illusions and constructs; memories of a pre-Internet age where quality journalism was valued more than ‘clickbait’, and where academics and scholars were respected as knowledgeable. But then most of these things have began to unravel and fall apart. Millennials have grown up in an era of (relative) media decentralisation and proliferation. In addition to a greater diversity of media input, many of us also went to university; studying alongside—and making friends with—people of different nationalities, cultures and faiths. And then there’s gen Z, coming of age right now in the heart of a crisis, with all the tools of the internet available to them. This generation, mostly, can see *right through* [clumsy attempts at propaganda](https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2023/11/20/israel-propaganda-vs-palestine-propaganda/?ref=foxwizard.com). ### Who’s your daddy? So why are older white men the ones more often—of any group—keen to defend these atrocities? Is it because their fathers—those of the ‘G.I. generation’—grew up during WWII and The Great Depression, resulting in a strong sense of national identity? Do boomers want to be ‘hard men’, too? Or is it simply because boomers themselves have stuck to consumption of centralised media, and still place their trust in it? Is it because they are simply used to the US being at war, and that they genuinely believe that “might is right”? I don’t know. All I know is: even these broad brush strokes are probably not helpful. (Again, if you are in this age category know that I am musing in general terms; I know you’re one of the beacons that stand apart). I remain as baffled as ever. I can’t even explain it. And I am sure this museletter will attract more older white men come to lecture me in my DMs and in reply to my posts. Bah. [Venkatesh Rao recently critiqued](https://studio.ribbonfarm.com/p/a-tale-of-two-cycle-memes?ref=foxwizard.com) the following meme. > Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, weak men create hard times. But... > “What actually seems to happen when ‘strong men’ of this sort rule the world is the perpetuation of endless cycles of escalating violence, destruction, and contests between contending uncritical notions of sacredness. \[...\] Instead of creating good times, strong men mostly seem to create *dumb* times.” ([source](https://studio.ribbonfarm.com/p/a-tale-of-two-cycle-memes?ref=foxwizard.com)) But I tell you what *is* good— ## Strong feminine leadership There are qualities of strength—*curiosity, empathy, patience, compassion, complexity, wisdom, relationality*—that manifest more in the feminine archetypes than the masculine. Not to get all binary on you—and not to say that all masculine archetypes are ‘bad’—but what prevails in “leadership” today is dominated by levels of masculinity that could be considered toxic. And with this comes the tendency to optimise based on narrow goals and metrics, to divide into this and that, and to otherwise justify violence and brutality with cold detachment. Sometimes this is needed. But right now we are in the hangover of *too much* of this kind of “leadership”—our systems, societies and ecologies are in collapse. And what is being inflicted upon the people of Palestine is symptomatic of this. But anyway, here’s a strong female character demonstrating what it looks like to speak truth to power. Francesca Albanese talks sense to journalists who seem to have forgotten the calling of their profession Side note: here’s a hot tip for journalists in the Murdoch Media Empire: > “If someone says it's raining and another person says it's dry, it's not your job to quote them both. Your job is to look out of the fucking window and find out which is true” > > We’re seeing the murder of innocent Palestinians. We’re seeing Israel bomb hospitals. Wake up. > > — Stanzi 🇵🇸 (@stanzipotenza) [November 13, 2023](https://twitter.com/stanzipotenza/status/1724203384440553926?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=foxwizard.com) And here is Palestine’s United Nations representative Nada Abu Tarbush, confronting Israel over their actions in Gaza. Her composure is remarkable. Real leaders call for unity and disarmament (not division and destruction). Palestine’s UN Rep. Nada Abu Tarbush responds to Israel And now back to the Purpose Conference of earlier this month. I had the delight of hearing from Desiree Fixler—an advocate for change in the practice of ESG investing, and a corporate ‘whistleblower’. > *“It quickly became apparent to me that there was a big gap between their public ESG claims and the reality of their ESG efforts. I tried hard to raise this internally with my boss, CEO Asoka Woehrmann, to the Management Board, and eventually the Supervisory Board. I explained that a number of their ESG statements in the Annual Report and other public releases were not only unsubstantiated but were seriously exaggerated, misleading, and just wrong.* \[...\] *They not only ignored me but actually made fun of the American strict regulatory compliance culture. Then it got ugly. They basically fired me and leaked a story to Bloomberg in an attempt to control the narrative.” (*[*source*](https://www.forbes.com/sites/bobeccles/2023/01/17/a-whistleblowers-tale-as-told-by-desiree-fixler/?sh=6d359c0f64d1&ref=foxwizard.com)*)* Hmmm: a rich incumbent power trying to control the narrative—where have we heard that before? ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2023/11/Purpose_Conference_2023_Elin_Bandmann-720.jpg) Disiree Fixler at [Purpose Conference 2023](https://www.purposeconference.co/?ref=foxwizard.com), 📸 [Elin Bandmann Photography](https://www.elinbandmann.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) Seeing Desiree speak irl was a real treat of the Purpose Conference. I will share some other themes with you in coming weeks, but what I found fascinating about this session is the disparity between the US and Australia when it comes to how whistleblowers are treated. In the US, whistleblowers have strong legal protection, are often venerated by society, and can be eligible for a portion of any fines enforced upon wrongdoing companies (which can translate to millions). In Australia [we throw whistleblowers in jail](https://theconversation.com/david-mcbride-is-facing-jailtime-for-helping-reveal-alleged-war-crimes-will-it-end-whistleblowing-in-australia-218108?ref=foxwizard.com). Or we let them rot in foreign prisons (whilst other countries [make them honorary citizens](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/julian-assange-be-made-honorary-citizen-rome-2023-10-19/?ref=foxwizard.com)). It seems I am being extreme here, but this is what fascism looks like—and it’s happening right now, on our watch. (Not just here: in Russia an artist gets [seven years in prison](https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/17/headlines/russian%5Fartist%5Fgets%5F7%5Fyears%5Fin%5Fprison%5Ffor%5Freplacing%5Fgrocery%5Fprice%5Ftags%5Fwith%5Fantiwar%5Fmessages?ref=foxwizard.com) for replacing grocery tags with antiwar messages). This whole epoch feels precarious. But (somewhat) hearteningly, there is [The Whistleblower Project](https://www.hrlc.org.au/whistleblower-project?ref=foxwizard.com) in Australia, which offers legal help (see these folks first before blowing your whistle). The Purpose Conference gave us a chance to hear from Kieran Pender (a senior lawyer at [The Human Rights Law Centre](https://www.hrlc.org.au/?ref=foxwizard.com)) in conversation with Desiree Fixler. This is precisely the magic of events—‘you had to be there’. --- As ever there is much more to share with you. But I have a book to write and (somehow?) services to promote to leaders seeking meaningful progress (beyond the default) in this time of transition and collapse. I’ve a project to “update my collateral” this summer, and probably to increase my fees. If you’ve been contemplating a team refresh or kick-off event in the new year—something to ensure your team is equipped to rise to the complexity (and new challenges) of our times—let’s chat *before* the next solstice. Much warmth to you, and thank you for reading. *—fw* ### 💌 Moral Courage URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/moral-courage/ Last updated: 2024-11-23T05:04:01.000Z ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2023/11/Paper-Kite-Palestine.png) A Palestinian child flies a kite on the beach of the northern Gaza Strip ([source](https://www.flickr.com/photos/un%5Fphoto/6036384302/in/photostream/?ref=foxwizard.com)) I am used to people not understanding [the metacrisis](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kBoLVvoqVY&ref=foxwizard.com), even if it is collectively the singlemost important topic for the survival of our species. I also understand how some people cannot grasp or comprehend the [hyperobject that is climate change](https://www.pbs.org/wnet/peril-and-promise/video/climate-change-impact-hyperobject/), or its exponentialities. These things are hard for most people to ‘see’ or care about in the immediate sense. And we are all so busy and distracted and tired anyways. *Someone else will ‘fix’ it. Or the market will. Or something.* But I cannot fathom how people cannot be moved by the direct evidence of the whole-scale killing of thousands of children (and women, men, the elderly) happening right now in Gaza. I talked of this in [my last museletter](https://www.foxwizard.com/better-imposter/), and I have received a lot of support from likewise furious and exasperated friends. I speak often of my quest **to co-create a world more curious and kind**. This is not just a cute statement for marketing. ## Subversive Leadership Most of my work is also in leadership development. I help teams develop the capabilities needed to quest and lead amidst complexity and the unknown. This requires what we might call *“negative capability”.* Philosopher Tom Murray summarises negative capability aptly in his paper [Knowing and Unknowing Reality](https://integral-review.org/issues/vol%5F15%5Fno%5F1%5Fmurray%5Fpostmetaphysics%5Fknowing%5Fand%5Funknowing%5Freality.pdf?ref=foxwizard.com): > “Poet John Keats coined the term negative capability for the skill or predisposition of tolerating, or even delighting in, uncertainty, ambiguity, unpredictability, and paradox. I.E. ‘when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts—without any irritable reaching after fact and reason’ (1817). As Keats knew, negative capability is useful well beyond the realm of poetry.Negative capability \[…\] includes the ‘informed and active humility’ mentioned above, in which the sources of indeterminacy are better understood so that knowledge can be more adaptive and resilient.It is not enough to acknowledge that ‘the map is not the territory’ (an injunction not to confuse theories and ideals for reality), but we must understand as precisely as we can how/where/when/why our maps differ from the territory—impossible to do completely but essential nonetheless.” Suffice to say: I am capable of being in uncertainty; I almost always allow room for doubt. Yet I have never been more clear on this: **the whole-scale killing of children and civilians is an atrocity.** And that is what is happening to Palestinians right now. In response to this not-so-[gentle opinion](https://www.foxwizard.com/gentle-opinions/), I have received responses and DMs from older men on LinkedIn that *“it’s actually more complex”* and that I don’t understand the history and that *“Israel’s attack on Palestine is ‘just’”* and that I am not a military expert and *“war is not beautiful”.* In most instances I realised my appeal to basic compassion with these men was failing; I opted to bow out rather than feed the trolls. *“But at least you get to leave this feeling like you are moral and everyone else who sees morality as context dependent as immoral,”* one chap sniggered. *“How comforting for you to live in a world without any moral ambiguity”.* Mate. I’m the [Archwizard of Ambiguity (most fantastic)](https://drjasonfox.com/?ref=foxwizard.com). Most of my life is in ambiguity. But I am so abundantly clear on this. The Former Chief of the Australian Army, Lieutenant-General David Morrison once said: > “Every one is responsible: **The standard you walk past is the standard you accept.** Every one of us is responsible for the culture and reputation of our army and the environment in which we work. If you become aware of any individual degrading another, then show moral courage and take a stand against it.” ****This also applies to the society we live in.** Every one of us is responsible for the culture and reputation of our society and the world in which we live. If you become aware of any individual, group or nation degrading another, then show moral courage and take a stand against it. ## The standard you walk past is the standard you accept Let’s take a brief moment to at least appreciate this very heartening movie from 9 years ago. *“Flying Paper is the uplifting story of Palestinian children in Gaza on a quest to shatter the Guinness World Record for the most kites ever flown.”* **Please watch at least some of this first**, so that you can witness the children that the Israel government is killing (with the US government’s backing). I received this comment on my [previous museletter](https://www.foxwizard.com/better-imposter/). I don’t like that the slightly squeaky wheel gets the attention here—but I could not walk past this. And am not in the best of moods. **“I read this newsletter on the same day it was reported that Hamas had baked a baby in an oven. The same day I read the most vile, horrible tweet I have every seen in which a Palestinian writer wrote in response "with or without baking powder". Truely horrific!* **It was interesting to note in your newsletter you did not once call out the horrific terrorism committed by Hamas. You did not once call out the terrible increase in antisemitic acts in the last few weeks. I wondered why, given you are well aware of them and have a world view centred around kindness.* **Many times in the last couple of weeks I have read and hear from Jewish people that antisemitism never went away, it has just been sitting below the surface ready to rise up again.* **In your newsletter you reference the powerful and powerless and I immediately drew a direct connection to language of the oppressed and oppressor; which may have been your direct intent given you sophisticated use of language. The narrow view of the Israel and Palestine conflict through this lens, one used for South Africa and Jim Crow, has been widely used by pro-Hamas supporters in the last few weeks in many communications and has been widely deemed as antisemitic.* **Like yourself, I have been dismayed by the responses to the terror attacks initiated by Hamas and the ongoing war, from people around the world in all sides of politics.* **But what has disappointed me the most is folks on the left, and progressive left, in Australia specifically, using language coded with backyard antisemitism wrapped in a Wizard's cloak of social justice.”* Firstly, I appreciate the candour of the comment, and I do not take this for granted. But whilst I might be able to bow out of some conversations on social media, I cannot have this comment remain unaddressed on my own website. So, here’s my response. Yes the propaganda and disinformation emerging from this is truly horrific; and spreads like wildfire. If you came across the story of ‘babies in ovens’ and/or ‘beheaded babies’ on the day this museletter came out, then know that it had long been doing the rounds. It has a undeniably vile memetic potency that serves to outrage and inflame—but there has been no verified evidence to support these claims. ### In chaotic situations like this, we cannot rely upon hearsay It is best to draw your information from diverse sources as close to the ground as possible—live, unfiltered, uncensored and uncontaminated by political agenda. And what is a *verifiable fact* is that the Israeli government is targeting civilians and killing children in their thousands. They are using white phosphorous, bombing hospitals, churches, schools, refugee camps and cutting off food, water and power. Here are some on-the-ground accounts worth following. I am in awe of the journalists who—knowing that the Israeli government are targeting them—continue to do their work. *These are mostly on Instagram because they currently seem to be allowing it. There’s more on twitter but Elon’s API arrangement doesn’t allow for easy linking.* - First, watch this video from [a paediatrician who has been working directly in Palestine](https://www.instagram.com/p/CzJNULqByf5/?ref=foxwizard.com). I cannot find the original source for this—probably because it doesn’t “fit the narrative”. (It is not graphic; just imploring). - [Motaz\_azaiza](https://www.instagram.com/motaz%5Fazaiza/?ref=foxwizard.com) is a journalist on the ground in Palestine. Here he reports from [where Israel has bombed yet another refugee camp](https://www.instagram.com/p/CzJkFqTO6Vz/?ref=foxwizard.com)*. I repeat: a refugee camp*. A warcrime and direct violation of Geneva Conventions. - [doaa mohammad](https://www.instagram.com/%5Fdoaa%5Fmohammad/?ref=foxwizard.com) is another journalist on the ground. In this video a young girl cries “[All I wanted to do was go to school](https://www.instagram.com/p/Cyz0ShWoDIU/?ref=foxwizard.com)”. - [bplestia](byplestia) is another journalist on the ground. With all of these folks its best to view their reels for realtime insight. - From [ismail.jood](https://www.instagram.com/ismail.jood/?ref=foxwizard.com): [a hospital filled with children](https://www.instagram.com/p/CzKH%5FvhK2BL/?ref=foxwizard.com) the Israel government has wounded. “[Even this cat was not spared from Israel crimes](https://www.instagram.com/p/CzJqy3BqThn/?ref=foxwizard.com)”. - The [Jewish Voice for Peace](https://www.instagram.com/JewishVoiceForPeace/?ref=foxwizard.com) – “We call on all people of conscience to stop the imminent genocide of Palestinians.” - [Shaun King](https://www.instagram.com/shaunking/?ref=foxwizard.com) shares unfiltered content, be warned (please don’t open any of these links if children are around; even I am psychically wounded by what I have seen) - More [photos of the children that the Israeli government is killing](https://www.instagram.com/p/CzF9DEVuhhu/?img%5Findex=1&ref=foxwizard.com) (with the support of the US) - [A father digs for his family under the rubble of destroyed homes](https://www.instagram.com/shaunking/?e=9ac5a8e3-64a7-4436-a97b-4c83a3e01d25&g=5&ref=foxwizard.com) - A child [pleas to us for this madness to stop](https://www.instagram.com/p/CzIiQKiufIl/?ref=foxwizard.com) - A young boy wails “[I wish it was just a \[bad\] dream](https://www.instagram.com/p/Cy2aPPSusvx/?ref=foxwizard.com)” - [A little girl that does not know that the Israeli government has made her blind](https://www.instagram.com/p/CzBrIe7OyeW/?ref=foxwizard.com) There is *a lot* more. And guess what? The U.S, aware of the above atrocities, has just approved a bill for $14.3 billion dollars in aid to Israel (whilst also previously [voting against the majority of the world](https://twitter.com/UN%5FNews%5FCentre/status/1717992371906839005?ref=foxwizard.com) seeking to uphold legal and legal and humanitarian obligations). This from the country that cannot fund public health care for its own citizens. *At this point—for those attuned to the metacrisis—I hope you can see some connections here: the global monetary system is backed by the industrial-military complex and climate change.* Side note: I found this [practical guide to combatting zionism to be helpful](https://www.instagram.com/p/CzGyh9hsf9E/?utm%5Fsource=ig%5Fweb%5Fcopy%5Flink&img%5Findex=1), as well as this post on [8 common zionist talking points and how to respond](https://www.instagram.com/p/CzD%5Fq3csjUS/?ref=foxwizard.com). As for condemning Hamas; of course I condemn any act of violence against civilians. But that was more than three weeks ago, and it not the pressing issue right now. [This Irish politician put it well](https://www.instagram.com/reel/CzArJLLOE6y/?ref=foxwizard.com), highlighting that what Hamas did on October 7th was a warcrime, to be condemned. But what Israel has done every day since have been warcrimes—and every day before that has been an international crime. I continue to be grateful to [the many Jewish people standing against the continued atrocities of the Israeli government](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/19/jewish-protest-israel-gaza-washington-dc?ref=foxwizard.com), including the [Jewish Voice for Peace](https://twitter.com/jvplive/status/1718030480459620604?ref=foxwizard.com), [the heartfelt words](https://twitter.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1718135540002795709?ref=foxwizard.com) of Dr. Gabor Maté, the intergenerational anti-colonial anti-Zionist Jewish community [Tzedek Collective](https://www.tzedekcollective.com/?ref=foxwizard.com), and publications like Jewish Currents who, weeks ago published an article by Israel historian’s Raz Segal (an associate professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University and the endowed professor in the study of modern genocide)—[A Textbook Case of Genocide](https://jewishcurrents.org/a-textbook-case-of-genocide?ref=foxwizard.com). A few days ago longtime international human rights lawyer (who served as director of the New York Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights) [Craig Mokhiber resigned](https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/1/craig%5Fmokhiber%5Fun%5Fresignation%5Fisrael%5Fgaza?ref=foxwizard.com), explaining how: > “\[...\] the U.N. follows a ‘different set of rules’ when addressing Israel’s violations of international law, refusing to utilize its enforcement mechanisms and thus ‘effectively’ acting as ‘a smokescreen behind which we have seen further and worsening dispossession of Palestinians.’ ([source](https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/1/craig%5Fmokhiber%5Fun%5Fresignation%5Fisrael%5Fgaza?ref=foxwizard.com)) Craig Mokhiber also considers this a textbook case of genocide. *“I referred in my letter to the case for genocide which is happening now. And, you know, “genocide” is a very politicized term, often abused. But in this case, the hardest part of proving genocide has been proven for us with these very open statements of genocidal intent by Israeli officials, including the prime minister and the president and senior Cabinet ministers and military officials, who in their public statements have indicated very clearly their intention not to distinguish between civilians and combatants, and to carry out the kinds of wholesale slaughter that we are witnessing in Gaza. That is not a justification in international law, saying that there was a combatant there, for that very disproportionate use of firepower against what was a civilian target. And that’s what we’ve been seeing in all of Gaza, from the north to the south.”* I found his notion of hope to be an important reminder. *“Where there is hope, it is in civil society. It is in those ordinary people, here in the United States and elsewhere, who are willing to stand up and demand respect for human life and for human rights,”* [Craig Mokhiber said](https://www.democracynow.org/2023/11/1/craig%5Fmokhiber%5Fun%5Fresignation%5Fisrael%5Fgaza?ref=foxwizard.com). *“And these kinds of protests in the halls of Congress, before the State Department, in front of the White House, in Grand Central Station, in the streets, everywhere, particularly with this climate that is trying to suppress critique of these current policies, it’s only going to come from civil society.”* This means you and I, our friends and our communities. It is also important to note that there are many within Israel who have the **moral courage** to stand against the atrocities perpetrated by their government. [The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories](https://twitter.com/btselem?ref=foxwizard.com) is an account worth following. *“No. A million people in northern Gaza are not guilty,”* [they stated](https://twitter.com/btselem/status/1712727623976071362?ref=foxwizard.com). *“They have nowhere else to go. This is not what fighting Hamas looks like. This is revenge. And innocent people are being hurt.”* Noy Katsman, an Israeli peace and anti-occupation activist whose brother Hayim was killed by Hamas fighters, said in a [CNN interview](https://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2023/10/10/tl-noy-katsman-jake-tapper-live.cnn?ref=foxwizard.com): *“The most important thing for me and also for my brother is that his death will not be used as a justification for killing innocent people.”* Noy, like many other activists, are now [targeted in their own communities](https://www.thenationalnews.com/mena/2023/10/14/not-in-my-brothers-name-israeli-peace-activist-calls-for-halt-to-gaza-bombings/?ref=foxwizard.com) for their refusal to see Palestinians as the enemy. (This from Anne Lene Stein, a researcher on peace activism and political science at Lund University—[source](https://theconversation.com/israel-hamas-war-will-the-murder-of-peace-activists-mean-the-end-of-the-peace-movement-215973?ref=foxwizard.com)). I have Jewish friends, and I love much about Judaism. To claim that opposition to genocide and the mass killing of women and children is antisemetic is [a dangerous conflation](https://www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/a-dangerous-conflation/?ref=foxwizard.com). Here is [an open letter from Jewish writers](https://www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/a-dangerous-conflation/?ref=foxwizard.com): > WE ARE JEWISH WRITERS, artists, and activists who wish to disavow the widespread narrative that any criticism of Israel is inherently antisemitic. Israel and its defenders have long used this rhetorical tactic to shield Israel from accountability, dignify the US’s multibillion-dollar investment in Israel’s military, obscure the deadly reality of occupation, and deny Palestinian sovereignty. Now, this insidious gagging of free speech is being used to justify Israel’s ongoing military bombardment of Gaza and to silence criticism from the international community. > > We condemn the recent attacks on Israeli and Palestinian civilians and mourn such harrowing loss of life. In our grief, we are horrified to see the fight against antisemitism weaponized as a pretext for [war crimes](https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/10/damning-evidence-of-war-crimes-as-israeli-attacks-wipe-out-entire-families-in-gaza/?ref=foxwizard.com) with stated [genocidal intent](https://jewishcurrents.org/a-textbook-case-of-genocide?ref=foxwizard.com). > > \[[continued](https://www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/a-dangerous-conflation/?ref=foxwizard.com)...\] Don’t fall into the trap of conflating condemnation for the Israeli government’s genocidal intent with antisemitism; it’s lazy and unhelpful. Besides, I’ve seen [how some Israeli police treat Jewish rabbis](https://x.com/ElizabethStrak/status/1719906388082847927?s=20&ref=foxwizard.com) and it is disgusting. As to my last museletter, “the circulation of elites theory” is not really about the powerful and powerless more so than it is a century-old theory on how power tends to cycle between direct ‘might is right’ leadership (what we are evidently seeing now) and more subtle, indirect forms of leadership (what we may have had a decade ago). But I will admit to having a strong bias against all forms of bullying and oppression. We have a situation here where—as [Dr. Tyson Yunkaporta](https://www.textpublishing.com.au/books/right-story-wrong-story-adventures-in-indigenous-thinking?ref=foxwizard.com) might put it—*“the oppressor hears oppressed complaints about oppression, then claims* that *is the real oppression”*. And this shows up in many forms. Final part before I wrap this up, the comment concludes *“But what has disappointed me the most is folks on the left, and progressive left, in Australia specifically, using language coded with backyard antisemitism wrapped in a Wizard’s cloak of social justice.”* Personally, I still find the continued mass killing of children and civilians to be the most disappointing thing. [The Greens](https://greens.org.au/?ref=foxwizard.com) are the only Australian political party that is so far standing against the Israeli governments actions. But I love how others are taking a stand, too—like how [a coalition of Belgian airport ground crew unions called on their members to stop handling weapons shipments to Israel](https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/11/02/ktao-n02.html?ref=foxwizard.com). Genocide is not a standard I can walk past. But for the particularly obstinate who may read this, let me be clear: I would stand against genocide and the mass killing of children and civilians *no matter who is doing it.* This is only about Israel (and the US) because it is they who are perpetrating this. If Australia, Iran, Iceland, Liechtenstein, a collection of old grannies, any country or group, heck, even if for some bizarro reason all of my friends suddenly endorsed the mass killing of children and civilians—I would stand against it. There is no context in which this is appropriate; and as a complexity practitioner and mostly canny/cowardly fox—it is refreshing to find this moral courage. I hope you and your friends can find theirs. Warmth, jf --- Thank you for joining me once again. I really wish I didn’t need to write about these topics. My plan for November was to post a bunch of things on LinkedIn so as to attract more clients for quest leadership programs but, as my friend [Dr. Richard Hodge said](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/drjasonfox%5Fmuch-respect-to-my-friend-richard-hodge-activity-7125281176679841792-K5e0?ref=foxwizard.com): *“Some things are of more value in life than being clever and commercially smart. This is one of those things.”* ✨ ### 💌 7 Ways to Be a Better Impostor URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/better-imposter/ Last updated: 2024-02-28T02:21:38.000Z In [ my last museletter](https://www.foxwizard.com/fox-and-lion/) I swore three things for this epistle. Namely: it will be 750 words or less (¬‿¬), be “good vibes only” ᕕ(ᐛ)ᕗ, and will contain at least one “top tip” that some might even suggest is “immediately practicable” ಥ\_ಥ. Luckily for me I am a fox and do not take such oaths too seriously—I typed it with fingers crossed behind my back, ha!—but I shall do my best to appear to honour it. I’ll let you know when I start counting the 750 words. (I haven’t started yet) I actually *do* have some really good things to share with you. ### Eventually Everything Connects My friend Sarah Firth’s new book [Eventually Everything Connects](http://booktopia.kh4ffx.net/daGy9Q?ref=foxwizard.com) is out. Her book launch was **the best I have ever attended**, and the book itself is *timely, relevant and apt.* It offers a new way for folks to access the rich, wondrous and paradoxically entangled world of complexity. What was previously bound up within dense academia and obtuse parables is now navigable thanks to Sarah’s exquisite book. Gift this to yourself, and all your friends. ### Eventually All Of Your Notes Connect I’ve recently rediscovered [Obsidian](https://obsidian.md/?ref=foxwizard.com)—a note-keeping tool that allows for the cultivation of knowledge gardens. In other words, in time Obsidian allows you to ‘see’ the non-linear structuring of thoughts and knowledge. As I go about writing my next book for you, it has been invaluable to be able to witness the entanglement unfurl. (Obsidian allows me to import my kindle and readwise highlights, which is such a boon). The small Obsidian team have adopted a self-sustaining model, staying free from venture capital funding whilst also not collecting any personal data. Wholesome. ### The Independent Web Also Connects I have found myself greatly appreciating the world of ‘personal blogs’—particularly those that feature genuine throwbacks to web1 (the Internet before it became web2 replete with the ‘platform capture’ of centralised, data-harvesting ‘social media’ advertising corporations). In web1—and now, once again—we see things like ‘blogrolls’ (where the creator curates a list of blogs they like), and really simple syndication (RSS) protocols. It is my hope that we will increasingly see an embrace [people-focused alternatives to the “corporate web”](https://indieweb.org/?ref=foxwizard.com). Manu Moreale has [a weekly newsletter shining a spotlight on personal blogs](https://peopleandblogs.com/?ref=foxwizard.com). His own blog is a delight—note the distinct lack of clutter. Nothing blaring at you to like, share and subscribe (which is nice).Actually, his latest post gave me pause—particularly as someone who has donated far too much content to Shoggoth in the past two decades—“[Why I’ll never do podcasts](https://manuelmoreale.com/why-i-ll-never-do-podcasts?ref=foxwizard.com)”. #grim --- # Aye: political After [my last museletter](https://www.foxwizard.com/fox-and-lion/) I received this request from a reader: **I’d prefer your musings to be a-political please. You risk alienating readers/members/just lookinger’s otherwise.* I think it’s clear to all by now that I am quite willing to consistently sabotage my reputation and the commercial effectiveness of my endeavours for the sake of what might be ‘meaningful progress’. Namely, for me at least: that which brings us closer to a world more curious and kind (and a future less grim).™️ But I actually appreciated this request. It made me reflect on what has been an unsustainable path for this wizard. But firstly: politics equates to games of power—and power matters in all aspects of life. *“Who makes the calls?”* asks Hanzi Freinacht in [The Listening Society](https://www.amazon.com/Listening-Society-Metamodern-Politics-Guides-ebook/dp/B074MKQ4LR?ref=foxwizard.com). *“Who is considered morally pure and sexy? Who gets to be smart and respectable, or to be the cool, romantic rebel? Who gets to be the kind, wise woman and who gets to be the boring old hag? Who gets the cards stacked against them in a fight they cannot win? What ideas rule the world and creep deep into our minds and dreams, constituting and structuring everyday reality? These, my friend, are the questions of politics in its true sense.”* To be *apolitical* is to say *the current balance of power suits me just fine, thank you very much. I have my privilege—so let’s not change anything.* [kthxbye](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/kthxbye?ref=foxwizard.com) This may be tenable if your locus of care is constrained to just yourself, your family, or ‘people similar to you’. But for those of us blursed\* with a wider and more complex view of [society](https://metamoderna.org/metamodern-view-society/?ref=foxwizard.com) and [reality](https://metamoderna.org/metamodern-view-of-reality/?ref=foxwizard.com), an apolitical stance is difficult to maintain, as it is often antithetical to deeper values we hold. We realise that the conditions that serve us cause harm elsewhere, and because *eventually everything connects,* we realise:externalised harm is not good. \* *This means: blessed and cursed.* It’s not enough that you have food whilst your neighbours go without. It’s not enough that we live in one of the highest greenhouse gas per capita countries whilst the whole world deals with the consequences of this. And so on. But—as [a fox who just yesterday provoked the lions ire on linkedin by expressing gratitude to the many Jewish folks standing in solidarity with Palestine](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/drjasonfox%5Fgrateful-for-the-wisdom-compassion-leadership-activity-7124198106912456704-srDr?ref=foxwizard.com)—I’ve come to remember: people are really attached to their worldviews. If my dms are anything to go by, they don’t like to have their worldview challenged with new information.\* And also: I don’t enjoy challenging anyone else’s way of seeing things—at least not directly, and not via social media.° I’d rather do it gently, subtly, over time, via a book—or a series of loquacious museletters with frequently vexing linguistic periphrasis. \* *The current [propaganda glitch](https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2023/10/30/theres-only-so-much-propaganda-spin-you-can-put-on-the-murder-of-thousands-of-children/?ref=foxwizard.com) presents an opportunity for [positive disintegration](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive%5Fdisintegration?ref=foxwizard.com) though—but only in environments where re-integration is supported. Otherwise we double-down, irrationally.* *° Unless they are justifying the killing of thousands of children. I worry that we are witnessing a lion-like trend where people are becoming more comfortable with large-scale unilateral violence to solve problems. To quote Vitalik Buterin, “That trend itself greatly worries me; each instance normalizes and legitimizes the next”.* It would be so much easier if I just did the standard motivational futurist thing of sticking to my lane, staying apolitical yet embracing ‘[techno-optimism](https://www.currentaffairs.org/2023/10/techno-optimism-is-not-something-you-should-believe-in?ref=foxwizard.com)’, updating my slide deck each year with the latest hype. No one holds any futurist accountable for their claims. I would be a lot more popular, and would be able to profit from the knowledge asymmetry. \* *Currently artificial intelligence and [bright green lies](https://www.resilience.org/stories/2021-05-10/bright-green-lies-review/?ref=foxwizard.com).* Yet I’ve been in [game denial](https://metamoderna.org/game-denial/?ref=foxwizard.com) for the past few years. I didn’t want to accept the [silent coup](https://www.amazon.com/Silent-Coup-Corporations-Overthrew-Democracy-ebook/dp/B0BWDMMHVR?ref=foxwizard.com) that has already happened. I’ve also been in futile despair about a metacrisis (including an ecological crisis) that few have any real interest in. None of this is fun to write about, or read. [Degrowth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degrowth?ref=foxwizard.com#:~:text=Degrowth%20theory%20argues%20that%20economic,systems%20and%20human%20well%2Dbeing.) is a beacon amidst the themes that my quest for meaningful progress has taken me to—yet, relevant as this is, it is a concept that will be resisted muchly. I need to be craftier. So, as I genuinely consider *how to not alienate* those whom I might yet still be able to evoke a more complex all-of-life worldview conducive to planetary mutualism (with all the empathy-cascades such brings), here are a few ‘top tips’ I am reminding myself of. This may be handy for you, too. Okay we can start counting words now. (▰˘◡˘▰) # 7 Ways to Be a Better Impostor Infiltrate with influence. If you want to work as an impostor *within* Enterprise Land—weaving change from within the heart of an organisation (which might be ruled by [warlocks and the egregores they serve](https://drjasonfox.medium.com/warlocks-at-work-71a63e204569?ref=foxwizard.com))—you’ll need to keep your wits about you. 1. **LOOK AFTER YOURSELF**—so that you can be there for others. Making change happen within the hulking behemoth of an enterprise *will take time*. You need to treat this like a marathon, and look after yourself along the way. Eat well, sleep well, move well. *Your wellbeing is your main ongoing resource in this quest.* 2. **SEEK FELLOWSHIP.** [It’s dangerous to go alone](https://www.foxwizard.com/quest-strategy/). For the sake of your own sanity, you will need accomplices. Well-read folks on both the inside and outside, to ensure you maintain perspective and do not become corrupted. *The corruption looks like: ratcheting up lifestyle and status in exchange for more debt, which means you need to work harder and make more compromises in order to be ‘free’.* 3. **BE SUBVERSIVE.** This approach is *“grounded in knowledge and wisdom which allows leaders to recognise changing circumstances, make sound judgement, and act expediently”* ([source](https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1196533&ref=foxwizard.com)). For much of your work, this will look like subtle *tweaks* here and there. [Moving quietly and planting things](https://drjasonfox.medium.com/move-quietly-and-plant-things-d7f3ac44f5be?ref=foxwizard.com). But you will also have the wit to know your ‘moments of influence’ when they arrive; this is when you act boldly. 4. **RAISE COLLECTIVE STATE.** We are more likely to be caring, creative, collaborative, expansive, empathetic and future-focused if we feel good, and our current needs are met. Ergo: elevate the physiological and psychological state of those around you. Encourage them, and help them to see themselves in the best light. This cultivates collective courage. It’s all relational. All of it. 5. **SHINE A LIGHT ON MEANINGFUL PROGRESS.** We live and lead within narratives. The way we make meaning is shaped by the language we use. Find opportunities to highlight the subtle, complex and nuanced things that make a difference. Much of [The Game Changer](https://www.drjasonfox.com/books?ref=foxwizard.com) (my first book) is about shining a light on progress. [How to Lead a Quest](https://www.drjasonfox.com/books?ref=foxwizard.com) takes it a step further, making the distinction between *meaningful* progress (that which brings us closer to future relevance) and the *delusion* of progress (usually when default thinking and defunct metrics get in the way of meaningful progress). Your role is to help people see meaningful progress, whenever and wherever it happens. 6. **BE THE BEACON.** Amidst the emptiness of the void (and the sense of lack induced by late stage capitalism), and amidst the darkness (where all hope seems lost), people will look to glimmers. Be one such beacon. This doesn’t need to equate to promulgating ‘false hope’—but it does require you to remind yourself and others that, beneath the layers of illusion we live and lead within, a more wholesome way is attainable. 7. **CONSPIRE.** That is: *breathe as one.* But also: plot *together* for better ways. In your quest as an impostor-infiltrator, you will come across others who also long for a world more curious and kind. Folks who also share a deep concern for our collective trajectory. Find them. Then find the others. Then find [the other others](https://ikslab.deakin.edu.au/feed/podcast/?ref=foxwizard.com). Establish cozy rituals, wherein you gather—ideally in person, over a meal or a beverage, or if you must: online—to *listen to and* *encourage eachother*. There need not be any singular ‘plan’ that emerges, and you don’t always need to agree. Simply the knowing that different agents are working together alongside you to surmount the coordination failures inspired by [Moloch](https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/?ref=foxwizard.com) and [Mammon](https://gods-and-demons.fandom.com/wiki/Mammon?ref=foxwizard.com) is enough. For now. There are more of us imposters then we might otherwise think. (\~\_^) Also: this was well under 750 words! ƪ(˘⌣˘)ʃ *I’m not sure this was good vibes only—I still feel like ol’ mate* [Stańczyk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sta%C5%84czyk?ref=foxwizard.com#/media/File:Jan%5FMatejko,%5FSta%C5%84czyk.jpg) *must have. Still, the show must go on!* --- Thank you for joining me once more in my slow quest to find my jolly voice again. I hope there was something at least somewhat practicable for you in this musing. Would you believe there are actually bright-minded and warm-hearted folk out there doing a damn fine job of changing the world from the inside of Enterprise Land? They are often my clients. If that’s you, it would be a joy to work with you as your lever and [wizard-catalyst](https://drjasonfox.com/?ref=foxwizard.com). Together we can drive a new narrative wedge into your organisation, so as to bring about new ways of working, and more meaningful kinds of progress. Meanwhile: watch this space as I begin to cloak myself once more—hopefully making it easier for you and I to work our magics. ✨ ### 🦊 The lions are back URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/fox-and-lion/ Last updated: 2024-02-29T04:04:18.000Z ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2023/10/The_Fox_And_The_Lion_nice.png) The Fox and The Lion, as rendered via [Shoggoth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoggoth?ref=foxwizard.com) (the keen-eyed amongst you will see why this image is tainted with the eldritch) Æsop—the Greek fabulist, not the skincare company—once upon a time penned the tale of [“The Fox and The Lion”](https://read.gov/aesop/071.html?ref=foxwizard.com). It goes something like this: *“A very young Fox, who had never before seen a Lion, happened to meet one in the forest. A single look was enough to send the Fox off at top speed for the nearest hiding place. The second time the Fox saw the Lion he stopped behind a tree to look at him a moment before slinking away. But the third time, the Fox went boldly up to the Lion and, without turning a hair, said, ‘Hello, there, old top.’”* The fable has [many interpretations](https://fablesofaesop.com/the-fox-and-the-lion.html?ref=foxwizard.com), of course. But two primary ‘morals’ are consistently spoken of: --- > Familiarity breeds contempt. > > Acquaintance with evil blinds us to its dangers. --- It’s been very difficult to write to you; to even make sense of my own thoughts in the unfurling wake of what has been a demoralising series of events. I’ve been oscillating between bitter disappointment, sadness, horror, confusion and despair. And then sometimes I try larp as an obligate sociopath—just to cope and perhaps be more commercially effective—but that rarely holds for more than a few minutes. As an inner-city Melbourne hipster-dilettante who spends most of their time hunting transcontextual nuance and canelé—I am constantly surprised by how disappointed I am when the rest of this country isn’t as progressive as I might hope. Since my last post on [disinformation](https://www.foxwizard.com/disinformation/), the majority of Australians voting *against* the wishes of [the majority of Indigenous Australians](https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/oct/15/indigenous-communities-overwhelmingly-voted-yes-to-australias-voice-to-parliament?ref=foxwizard.com) (something “[so mean-spirited it would remain ‘unbelievable and appalling’ for decades](https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/oct/22/indigenous-groups-say-voice-referendum-unleashed-a-tsunami-of-racism?ref=foxwizard.com)”). Then, we’ve witnessed the violence, warcrimes and atrocities being inflicted via [imperialist politics](https://erinremblance.substack.com/p/saying-the-quiet-part-out-loud)—it’s been a vastly abhorrent time. All experienced in real time via [orthographic media](https://www.robinsloan.com/notes/orthographic/?ref=foxwizard.com). ## The lions are back It seems **the lions are well and truly back**—as sociologist Vilfredo Pareto describes it in [the “circulation of elites”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circulation%5Fof%5Felite?ref=foxwizard.com) (published over a century ago). In this theory, the lions 🦁 are the bold, conservative and ‘reliable’ leaders who rule with the sword; “might is right”. The foxes 🦊 are the clever, progressive and cunning leaders who rule with the quill. Naturally, I prefer fox-like governance. But whilst we might believe “the pen is mightier than the sword”—this is likely not true in a duel. Or a war. For the pen to be mightier than the sword—the conditions need to allow for it. These conditions include strong democracies and healthy sense-making environments of an informed populace and civic discourse. But as the left continues to cannibalise itself whilst we look to the [right-wing populism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing%5Fpopulism?ref=foxwizard.com) sweeping across countries in the wake of brexit and trump and the disenfranchisements caused by weakened democratic systems, diminished civic participation and exacerbated inequality amidst our late-stage neoliberal capitalism in a distraction economy rife with fear and weaponised disinformation\*—it seems the conditions are ripe for the lions to flourish. \* *I’ve just begun reading [Digital Authoritarianism in the Middle East: Deception, Disinformation and Social Media](https://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/digital-authoritarianism-in-the-middle-east/?ref=foxwizard.com) by Associate Professor Marc Owen Jones. Hat tips to [Jules Yim and her recent briefing in The Contrapuntal](https://thecontrapuntal.substack.com/p/23-oct-23-monday-briefing) for the recommendation.* But it is, in theory, a cycle. An *oscillation,* if you will. > *The elite of lions will have to accept foxes from the crowd to make up for their lack of inventiveness and cunning essential to retain their power. Foxes gradually saturate the whole elite, changing its nature. However, foxes cannot take strong, decisive action, which is sometimes necessary to hold onto power. The elite of foxes is overthrown by a well-organized minority of lions determined to restore powerful rule.* ([source](https://sociology.plus/glossary/circulation-of-elites/?ref=foxwizard.com)) This is all armchair sociological speculation, of course. But it does carry a whiff of truth to it. I don’t believe the left/right dichotomy is actually all that helpful—and hasn’t been for some time. We are past due to sublimate. But in the meantime: the lions are here. **What are we foxes to do?** ## Familiarity breeds contempt Back to Aesop’s fable—I’ve been thinking of this moral in relation to what I see that garners traction in our knowledge commons: “obvious” content that is safe, familiar and affirming. The simplistic and saccharine. As one who traverses the noösphere daily, and who speaks at perhaps too many leadership, innovation and ‘future-of’ themed events—I have become overly familiar with the predictable pantomime of recycled charismatic concepts promulgated time and time again. I know the script to most leadership, motivation and innovation *so well* as to harbour a quiet kind of withering contempt. I don’t *want* to feel this contempt, of course. I want to be a pure magnanimous being, brimming with epistemological humility and good will. Or at least to be a fellow mercenary who can appreciate a quality grift. But I’m just *so bored* of the pantomime. But I chide myself whenever I detect any contempt—reminding myself that I, too, was once there. Damn this [curse of knowledge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse%5Fof%5Fknowledge?ref=foxwizard.com). But whilst I crave and live for *genuine* thought leadership—that which confounds, [baffles](https://grateful.org/resource/our-real-work-poem-wendell-berry/?ref=foxwizard.com) and delights, serving to move us towards complexity and wisdom—I begrudgingly note the potency of ‘obvious and affirming content’ for the tired and distracted minds in this lion-dominated landscape. The authors of [Snow Leopard](https://www.amazon.com.au/Snow-Leopard-Legendary-Writers-Category/dp/1956934456?ref=foxwizard.com)*—*a book I am finally skimming, after many recommendations—are very much onto this. > Non-Obvious Connectors are writers, creators, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders who change the world with their thinking. The unfortunate part, however, is that data shows us most people don’t want their thinking changed. They just want to be moved forward in some incremental way, and to be told things that validate (or remind them) of their current beliefs—which is why the top Non-Obvious Connectors universally sell far less copies, and receive far less attention on social media than Obvious Connectors. The authors make the point that “stupidity scales”: if you want to make fast money in today’s distraction economy—stick to what is obvious and known. > This strategy caters to lazy, button-smashing consumers. When these people scroll through their social media feeds, they are (usually) not looking to be challenged. Instead, they are in a state of searching for confirmation bias. *“It takes every single person in the organization to achieve what you want to achieve.”* Duh. Yes. Like. *“Authenticity is crucial to creating content that resonates.”* For sure. Got it. Comment. *“If you want to change the world, you have to change yourself.”* Totally. I’m a world-changer too. Share. Which is why the most viral content caters to lowest common denominator emotions: rage, joy, wonder, sadness, shock, surprise, desire, and so on. But maybe there’s something to be said about the moral from Aesop’s fable. *Allow* familiarity to breed some \[benevolent, warm-hearted and encouraging not-quite-but-almost\] contempt for that which is blatantly obvious and generic? Okay well, maybe not *contempt*—but perhaps a subtle disdain? Maybe? Nothing that shames any individual, of course. We’re all doing the best we can with the resources we’ve got. Individuals aren’t the issue; our behaviours are the *symptom* of the issue. But we ought do *something* to remain *en garde* to the workings of Shoggoth. Something to protect ourselves from undead narratives and weaponised disinformation. With a dash of disdain for the utterly banal and familiar, we become less readily duped by AI-generated content—which I suspect will come to dominate our social media feeds (as its ability to become algorithmically-optimised will surpass any mortal). In doing this, we develop acuity, humility, perspective and taste. We cultivate the sensibilities needed to make sense of a world that otherwise has us hoodwinked. *“This, now, is mostly an era of spell-making,”* [Dr. Martin Shaw writes](https://www.amazon.com.au/Courting-Wild-Twin-Martin-Shaw-ebook/dp/B084JTPW26?ref%5F=ast%5Fauthor%5Fdp&ref=foxwizard.com). *“Of tacit enchantment, of stultified imaginations and loins inflamed by so much factory-fodder lust, our relationships malfunction in their millions.”* As to the second interpreted ‘moral’ from Aesop’s fable... ![](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/002/547/782/58a) Here’s [Shoggoth with a smiley face](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/shoggoth-with-smiley-face-artificial-intelligence?ref=foxwizard.com) ## Acquaintance with evil blinds us to its dangers Firstly: as someone who is essentially an non-essentialist\*—I don’t believe in ‘evil’. \* *Whilst I might sometimes adopt essentialism out of laziness and/or a need for expedience or the poetic, the philosopher and complexity practitioner in me doesn’t believe in “ultimate essences”—such as matter, consciousess, goodness, evil, masculinity, femininity or the like—but rather that “all these things are contextual and interpretations made from relations and comparisons” (to quote [Hanzi Frienacht](https://metamoderna.org/metamodern-view-of-reality/?ref=foxwizard.com)).* But I do believe that—within the spectrum of responses available to us at any given moment—there exist dispositions that are either orientated towards: - **collectivism and planetary mutualism**, striving to ‘walk the path of least unnecessary suffering’ towards ‘planetary mutualism’ and ‘omni-win’ scenarios for all-of-life (not just human) with infinite game dynamics—in other words, an orientation *towards* wisdom and complexity; - **individualism and planetary entropy**, striving to optimise towards narrow goals (no matter the harm or suffering caused to others) with zero-sum finite game dynamics, privileging humans of particular affiliations over all other life forms—in other words, an orientation *away* from wisdom and complexity; or - a secret third thing. It’s natural for us to oscillate between these three directions. But one would hope that our overall orientation is *towards* wisdom, complexity, and the flourishing of all life. ├┬┴┬┴This section was originally much larger, and I delved into many myriad woes afflicting our world right now. But then I deleted it—too heavy. The nutshell was that I have witnessed folks casually justify warcrimes that suit their perspectives, whilst denouncing those that don’t. This, I would suggest, is pretty damn close to an ‘acquaintance with evil’. All warcrimes ought be universally abhorred; never justifiable. Ecocide, too. Bah! ┬┴┬┴┤ ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2023/10/The_Fox_And_The_Lion_2-3.png) The Fox and The Lion, fixed by Shoggoth ## So: what are we foxes to do? Firstly, I doubt that many of the lion-like disposition read these musings. Too many words; the insights (if any) aren’t obvious or affirming. No clear enemy or way to ‘win’. But for the rest of us—what are we to do? I’m not feeling at my most chipper at the moment, but here are three approaches we might take: 1. **“LARP your best life™️”** – this is actually very much what My Next Book is about. Or *will* be about—if I spend less time writing museletters and more time writing that. I’ll be writing more on this. My main suggestion (for myself, and you) is to become more attuned to the myriad *roles* we play in life. It is through playing these roles that we show up within—and shape—the unfurling stories of others. It’s also how we contribute to the greater community we live within. So much meaning, satisfaction and fulfilment comes from a such a sense of contribution. Even on a local scale. 2. **“Move quietly and plant things”** – I wrote of this a while back, then deleted it hoho. But [here’s a version that survived](https://drjasonfox.medium.com/move-quietly-and-plant-things-d7f3ac44f5be?ref=foxwizard.com). In a time where we are being collectively gaslit into fearing the ‘other’, where our sense of emptiness and lack is manufactured within us so that we can shop and spend more—there are subtle things we can do to resist. Jenny Odell’s “[How to Do Nothing: resisting the attention economy](https://www.blackincbooks.com.au/books/how-do-nothing?ref=foxwizard.com#:~:text=Far%20from%20a%20simple%20anti,needs%20this%20more%20than%20ever.)” is an impactful read. If the weight of the woes of the world is sapping your sense of agency and “hope”—it can make sense to oscillate into a locus of concern you *can* nurture and influence. I am personally (trying!) to initiate “screen-free Sundays” (it hasn’t worked yet). And Kim and I are trying to live more intentionally within our bodies and local communities. Sounds super naff, I know. But it’s nice. 3. **“Attend to your own unfurling”** – I am ready to return to [The Ritual of Becoming](http://chooseoneword.com/?ref=foxwizard.com). This is a ritual—of reflection, introspection, and projection—that I had cultivated and maintained each year for over a decade... until I turned it into a program and cursed it for myself. Now—nearly four years later—I feel ready to rekindle it. This time: wiser. I’m not sure the exact form it will take yet, but it will be undergoing its own metamorphosis. And, with my track record, it may not be ready for you by the end of the year. But the beautiful thing is: you can undertake [The Ritual of Becoming](http://chooseoneword.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) any time. I found myself offering gentle concern to a quite successful younger person who was admitting that his marketing for his ‘bot trading software’ did, in fact, make very exaggerated claims and was “a bit cringe”—but “that’s just how marketing works”. *Yet this feeling of cringe suggests that a value you hold is being violated,* I said. *It points to something.* You may have a niggling sense that something is ‘not quite right’ with your own trajectory. If your path does not seem to be leading you closer to congruence (*a sense where your external behaviours are consistent with your inner feelings, values and beliefs*) or coherence (*how your unfurling narrative of ‘who you are’ ‘makes sense’*)—perhaps it is time to intentionally attend to your own unfurling? --- Aiyoo. I’m exhausted. I’ve been imbibing too many horrors of the world, thanks to the internet. I don’t want to look away and just pretend everything is a-okay—but at the same time, I need to restore some equanimity and aplomb in face of it all. I found myself momentarily triggered the other day when someone around my age said—in a conversation about the atrocities of the world—*“but you know who gives me hope? The youth! Young people are so creative, and they really seem to care.”* I think she was referring to [Generation Fucked](https://www.vice.com/en/topic/generation-fucked?ref=foxwizard.com).\* \* *Which—at a recent event I held—someone gave me a book called [Gen F’d](https://www.hardiegrant.com/au/publishing/bookfinder/book/gen-f%5Fd%5F-by-alison-pennington/9781743799215?ref=foxwizard.com) by Alison Pennington. I was in the blur of the event beginning and didn’t track who gave me the book. Whomever you are, please let me know!* *Bah!* I thought to the person. *It ought not be we who look to the youth for hope—it really ought be the other way around. We should be the ones giving* them *hope.* And then I caught myself and realised: wait. *What am I doing* that creates hope in younger folk? Other than writing long musings about how [we should be depressed](https://www.foxwizard.com/beyond-hope/), it made me realise... I could be doing better than lamenting and using the museletter as a perverted public journal in which I process through my own entangled thoughts. It’s left me wondering—much more intentionally—as to the *role* I ought play in the imminent next decade of my life. What ought this Elder-Millennial Wizard-Philosopher-Bard and Sometimes Rogue Scholar do? I’ve a few things in mind—perhaps I will share them with you in my next musing. In the meantime: be well, be kind. Beware neat narratives that incite prejudice. The children and people of other countries and cultures are really not that different to those you call family and friends, despite what the media will have you believe. Don’t allow folks to justify warcrimes. Just don’t. --- As ever, your comments and shares are appreciated. Thank you for subscribing. I do worry sometimes that these museletters are becoming increasingly deranged. Folks new to the world of *foxwizard*—fresh from having seen me in [my daylight persona](https://drjasonfox.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) deliver a keynote or host a leadership event—may be wondering what they signed up to. But I take solace in the Indian philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti’s words: *It's no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.* It is, admittedly, a crappy kind of solace but, it’ll do! Okay, three things I swear for my next museletter:\* 1. It will be 750 words or less (¬‿¬) 2. It will be “good vibes only” ᕕ(ᐛ)ᕗ 3. It will contain at least one “top tip” that some might even suggest is “immediately practicable” ಥ\_ಥ \* *Note: this is only for the next museletter.* Meanwhile: come hang with the dangerlam and I at [Purpose Conference](https://www.purposeconference.co/?ref=foxwizard.com). The program has just been released! I am very much looking forward to speaking at this event, and to hang with the bright-minded and warm-hearted folk it always attracts. It’s not too late to [get yourself a ticket](https://www.purposeconference.co/tickets-2023?ref=foxwizard.com) (the code “JASONFOX” will get you a $100 discount, I believe). I am **particularly** looking forward to the plenary session on “The Disinformation Age” (and the fireside that follows with Dr. Tyson Yunkaporta—whose new book [Right Story, Wrong Story](https://www.textpublishing.com.au/books/right-story-wrong-story-adventures-in-indigenous-thinking?ref=foxwizard.com) is my current read). Warmth, —fw ## ### 💌 How do you like *dis* information? URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/disinformation/ Last updated: 2024-02-28T02:17:28.000Z *tl;dr – vote yes* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2023/10/Zilverreiger.png) **Zilverreiger,* by Ohara Koson, ca. 1930 Ahoynesses. I’m trying a new thing—“musings in 750 words or less”. [Last week’s museletter](https://www.foxwizard.com/beyond-hope/) was *a 15 minute read*—and thus very unpopular. Either way, I am increasingly feeling that The Internet is not the place for longform reading—that’s the role of books and print publications. So what is the internet for? Well, many things, of course. Chief amongst them, the internet is for collectively sharing, connecting, and ‘making sense’ of things—so that we might coordinate more effectively (amidst higher orders of complexity). But our noösphere has become so corrupted, polluted, distorted and inflamed—that seems like a bit of a pipe dream, now. In writing this museletter, I was reminded of something I wrote nearly four years ago—🍂 [How to Navigate The Internet like a Wizard](https://www.foxwizard.com/internet-wizard/). 🧙🏻‍♂️ I had deleted this musing a couple of years ago amidst my prolonged Signature Existential Crisis™️—but have since resurrected it for you, because my writing was actually Not That Bad, and the concepts I shared still seem apt. In that I musing I posited that the internet is The Warp. *“Treat all of the gifts from The Warp as suspect—literally warped distortions of partial-truths.”* It was odd to revisit this post, because I was complaining about twitter way back then. And that was *before* Elon came to town and made it X. This morning I read this post by Joan Westenberg: [There Is No Moral Argument For Staying On Twitter/X](https://joanwestenberg.medium.com/there-is-no-moral-argument-for-staying-on-twitter-x-cdef14b04730?ref=foxwizard.com). It hits hard, and true. > “Twitter has become a platform that amplifies the voice of the powerful over the vulnerable. It is designed to reward controversy, conflict and outrage. Nuance, expertise and thoughtful debate struggle to survive. And as Twitter becomes more chaotic under its new owner, Elon Musk, the situation worsens. > > Musk boosts misinformation. He promotes hate. He demonstrates utter contempt for minorities, dissidents and his own employees. He postures as a free speech fan while selling out free speech at every turn. \[...\] > > Does anything good remain on the platform? We know the pitch: connecting with distant friends, building communities, and spreading awareness of important causes. But the bad has become predominant. The benefits do not outweigh the costs. > > Some still argue that abandoning Twitter is a form of cowardice or retreat — giving up the digital public square to the trolls and propagandists. But staying implies complicity with the breakdown of constructive discourse and the race to the bottom. \[...\] > > The only acceptable choice is to withdraw from an environment that brings out our worst instincts, and redirect our energy and attention to more thoughtful online and offline spaces.” Thoughtful online and offline spaces; I like that. And I think it high time to step away from Twitter/X. There is no moral argument for staying on the platform, as Joan writes. And, just recently, the blatant disinformation promulgated by the ‘No’ campaign in Australia (in the lead up to [the referendum](https://www.aec.gov.au/referendums/learn/the-question.html?ref=foxwizard.com) happening today) has been frustrating to witness. > “Australians are being ‘systematically misinformed’, said Timothy Graham, an associate professor at the Queensland University of Technology who has analysed about 250,000 tweets related to the Indigenous Voice referendum. > > Tweets opposing the Voice to Parliament are “characterised by confusion and misinformation about the details of the proposed constitutional amendment and a focus on race and racial division,” he said. > > “Stoking fear, doubt and uncertainty in audiences puts a major roadblock in their ability to make informed, reasoned choices ... people are divided, confused and fighting each other,” he said. “What we are seeing is information warfare.” *(*[*source*](https://www.context.news/big-tech/australia-indigenous-referendum-hit-by-toxic-disinformation?ref=foxwizard.com)*)* Whilst I empathise with many aspects of the oxymoron that is ‘the progressive no’, I have voted a lukewarm ‘yes, of course’—and I encourage others to do similarly. The optics of a ‘No’ outcome are terrible; and not conducive to meaningful progress. [The 'No' campaign is built on lies and misinformation](https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/no-campaign-built-on-lies-and-misinformation-,17867?ref=foxwizard.com). To have this ‘win’ will be extremely disheartening, proving the efficacy of fear and disinformation—hastening our potential descent into fascism. Not great. > “We may look back at the Voice referendum as a turning point for when election lies and conspiracies went mainstream in Australia,” said Kurt Sengul, a lecturer at the University of Sydney who studies far-right populism. The current debate in the country, he added, was “the first significant Trump-style misinformation and disinformation campaign we’ve seen in recent political history”. *(*[*source*](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/07/world/australia/aboriginal-voice-disinformation.html?ref=foxwizard.com)*)* We are also witnessing similar disinformation—at scale—in regards to what is happening in Gaza right now. > In a piece for Wired titled “The Israel-Hamas War Is Drowning X in Disinformation,” David Gilbert reported that the app was flooded with “old videos, fake photos, and video game footage at a level researchers have never seen.” At a time when open-source intelligence researchers would normally be scouring the network for first-person accounts from the attacks, they instead had to sift through previously unseen levels of garbage. > > Gilbert writes: “Rather than being shown verified and fact-checked information, \[Twitter/\]X users were presented with video game footage passed off as footage of a Hamas attack and images of firework celebrations in Algeria presented as Israeli strikes on Hamas. There were faked pictures of soccer superstar Ronaldo holding the Palestinian flag, while a three-year-old video from the Syrian civil war repurposed to look like it was taken this weekend. \[…\] Many of these videos and images racked up hundreds of thousands of views and engagements. While some later featured a note from X’s decimated community fact-checking system, many more remained untouched. > > Musk, for his part, warned users away from trusting mainstream journalists on the subject, instead promoting two accounts that are known spreaders of misinformation. \[...\] This is a system designed to cause chaos in the information environment, and it is working by design. *(*[*source*](https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/10/23911049/twitter-x-threads-news-misinformation-israel-hamas-attacks?ref=foxwizard.com)*)* Chaos in the information environment? Yep, that sounds like [The Warp](https://www.foxwizard.com/internet-wizard/). Now with AI-augmented deep fakes. 👹 [We must keep our wits about us](https://www.foxwizard.com/artificially-intelligent/). And... ## We ought cultivate wizardry The etymology of wizard is *“wise”* \+ *“-ard”*—the latter is an intensifier to the former.\* I know this sounds flippant—and pandering to the archetype I purport to embrace, all smug and self-congratulatory; but—we need more of us trained in the sensibilities of a ‘wizard’. That is: to be well-versed in making sense of our noösphere. Folks who can amplify a *wiser* kind of intelligence. A kind of intelligence that is at ease within complexity, uncertainty, volatility, ambiguity, paradox and doubt. \* *The word has become gendered, but really: wizardry is attainable by all genders.* Because *“The truth is that you don’t have the truth; that you never will.”* [writes Hanzi Freinacht](https://www.amazon.com.au/Listening-Society-Metamodern-Politics-Guides-ebook/dp/B074MKQ4LR?ref=foxwizard.com). *“And even if you turn out to be right about something, there will always be a time when your opinion is outdated or at least incomplete. Whatever direction you move in, it will lead to contradiction, self-destruction and decay, sooner or later. Your perspective or opinion always has a systemic limit, a breaking point; it always breaks down under its own weight, just like any engine, organism or economic system. You never get to be the good guy in the end. You are not innocent.”* But! Even knowing this, we can strive to co-create a world more curious and kind. *“I develop if you develop,”* Hanzi also writes. “*Even if we don’t agree, we come closer to the truth if we create better dialogues and raise the standards for how we treat one another.”* Here’s to thoughtful online and offline spaces; and the creation of better dialogues—wherever they may be. ## ### 🧙🏻‍♂️ Artificially Intelligent URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/artificially-intelligent/ Last updated: 2024-02-28T02:16:24.000Z Earlier this month I was booked to deliver a (relatively new) keynote, titled: “Artificially Intelligent”. This is a bit of a tongue-in-cheek reference to the deluge of artificially intelligent influencers we now have promulgating the virtues of Artificial Intelligence (AI). To learn more of the work I do, visit my daylight persona; [Dr. Fox, Archwizard of Ambiguity (most fantastic)](https://www.drjasonfox.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) ✨ My intent with this keynote, as ever, is to inspire higher orders of thinking—beyond the obvious, immediate and default. This is not to say that ‘AI is bad’ <— this is too simplistic. I enjoy having an AI as an apprentice research assistant that I don’t fully trust. But, in aggregate, the exponential development of artificial intelligence is a force-multiplier for catastrophic risk. This is not about the AI singularity triggering a ‘robot uprising’—rather: the exponential rise of AI is an accelerant to an already flawed and omnicidal system. As a society we are ‘drawing down the bank account’ of fossil fuels and non-renewable inputs like cobalt, copper, water aquifers, topsoil—*millions* of times faster than they were sequestered. If everyone lived like Australians do, we’d need [4.5 planet’s worth of resources](https://www.overshootday.org/how-many-earths-or-countries-do-we-need/?ref=foxwizard.com). But will AI make us more efficient at using such limited resources? Undoubtedly. But will this mean we use *fewer* resources? Unlikely. This is [Jevon’s Paradox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons%5Fparadox?ref=foxwizard.com): as the efficiency in which we use a resource increases, the demand for that resource increases. Thus AI *will* save us time and energy—resulting in us collectively having less time and energy. All whilst accelerating the growth of a system that is consuming the substrate we depend upon for life, and that is already exceeds planetary limits. Faster, and more efficiently. Well—not necessarily so! But this may be our fate if we don’t keep our wits about us. To have ‘wit’ is to have *associative knowledge*. But in the distraction economy it is *increasingly* difficult for wisdom and complexity to compete with that which is salient, simplistic, profitable and affirming. We are being corralled and hoodwinked. This is the delusion of progress I warn of in [*How to Lead a Quest*](https://www.drjasonfox.com/books?ref=foxwizard.com). Or, if I were to frame it more cosmically, I would pull from Tyson Yunkaporta’s [Sand Talk](https://www.textpublishing.com.au/books/sand-talk?ref=foxwizard.com)— > “The war between good and evil is in reality an imposition of stupidity and simplicity over wisdom and complexity.” Yes, AI enables many great things. But we must keep our wits about us—and *rise* to meet the complexity of our times. Anyway, back to the point of my story. I was worried that, as a closing keynote, the *feeling-tone* of the keynote might be a bit, uh, ‘grim’. Conference organisers usually look for speakers that instil a sense of jolly ‘can-do’ optimism and ‘hope’. You can do it; believe and you will achieve. [Don’t let your dreams be dreams](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXsQAXx%5Fao0&ref=foxwizard.com), etcetera. Indeed, I’ve played this role many a time. But my client said ‘go for it’—and, well: it went tremendously well. > “It seems there are many people who now speak on Artificial Intelligence—but we wanted someone who could bring insight beyond the obvious. That’s why we hired Dr. Jason Fox. > > Jason brought the lens of complexity science to the emerging field of AI, helping our audience to think deeper (and further) about the confluence of intersecting trends accelerated by this new technology. With much-needed scepticism, humour and warmth, Dr. Fox encouraged our audience to ‘keep their wits’ about them and ‘become connoisseurs of quality thinking’ as we attempt to find meaningful progress in this exponential age. > > Many have said that this was the most impactful session from the whole event.” > > —Jenny Katrivesis, Conference Director, Chilli IQ (Thanks, Jenny!) Increasingly, I am finding that the jadedness I half-heartedly try to conceal is actually something that resonates with many experienced leaders in the field. Folk who tire of the default pantomime, yet need some trickster energy come to refresh our collective ways of seeing. And so, that’s what I do: serving to bring ideological optionality into the heart of Enterprise Land, driving a narrative wedge with subversive questions like: what is meaningful progress? And where might we be perpetuating a rich *delusion* of progress? [SIKE](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=sike&ref=foxwizard.com)! This whole post was a subtle form of marketing for [my magnificent work as a keynote speaker](https://www.drjasonfox.com/speaking?ref=foxwizard.com) for audiences willing to venture into non-obvious domains. *gotcha!* ### 🌿 Are we beyond hope? URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/beyond-hope/ Last updated: 2024-02-28T02:15:42.000Z ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2023/10/fox-in-the-reeds.jpg) **Fox in the reeds,* by Ohara Koson, ca. 1930 Ahoy friends. In this museletter I tackle a theme that has come up in a few of the [questions](https://www.drjasonfox.com/questions/?ref=foxwizard.com) anonymously submitted by fellow readers (thank you). It seems that some of you are keen to hear this wizard’s perspective on ‘hope’. And so, at the risk of further distancing myself from the very lucrative world of professional hope-mongering, I shall share my stance. Be warned! I wax full philosophical here. Jolly feel-good listicles will return next week. ## Are we beyond hope? Gosh, I sure hope so! The theme of ‘hope’ came up from a few questions I received since [my last museletter](https://www.foxwizard.com/belated-glimmers/) to you. Here’s one such articulation: 1// aren't quests inherently optimistic ventures? shouldn't krakens of doom not really be purveyors of doom but rather common perils on an adventure? 2// if you do not really believe there is a polycrisis (as i do) and simply view much of the meta narratives as 'accumulations of fears' , isn't a fundamental principle of meaningful progress "unfearing"? the power of belief that anything tangled can be untangled (enough) to make progress? 3// isn't meaningful progress hopeful in nature? hope for something better (on a mesa and meta level)? Thank you (all) again for the questions. Here are some thoughts in response, delivered pell-mell. ### 1a// Quests err towards an optimistic disposition There must be at least a simulacrum of optimism of stumbling upon a better way, or else: why bother. But the word ‘agnostimistic’ from [The Lexicon of Lorecore](https://zine.zora.co/the-lexicon-of-lorecore-shumon-basar?ref=foxwizard.com) is perhaps more apt. > [**Agnostimistic**](https://zora.co/collect/eth:0xfe1d56a77029796baba9dcebbadd5f2dae929392/1?ref=foxwizard.com) (adj.); > Neither optimistic nor pessimistic but a secret third thing. > Similar: *Doom Mood Advantage.* > > [**Doom Mood Advantage**](https://zora.co/collect/eth:0xfe1d56a77029796baba9dcebbadd5f2dae929392/13?ref=foxwizard.com) (n.); > A competitive edge elicited by seeing the world not how it should be or could be, but rather as it actually is. Often confused with “Realism.” > Similar: *Agnostimistic and Progress Paradox.* > > [**Progress Paradox**](https://zora.co/collect/eth:0xfe1d56a77029796baba9dcebbadd5f2dae929392/38?ref=foxwizard.com) (n.); > Confusion whether things are getting better but feel worse; or whether things are getting worse, but you feel better about it all. Solved by embracing Doom Mood Advantage. ### 1b// Purveyors of doom In [How to Lead a Quest](https://www.drjasonfox.com/books?ref=foxwizard.com) I use the “The Inevitable Kraken of Doom” as a symbolic metaphor of fluidity and the existential threat of ‘irrelevance’ (which—like a kraken—often remains hidden until it is too late, and comes upon the becalmed who do not move or change—for *only that which can change can continue*). I’d say it’s less so ‘a common peril’ and more so a constant and pervasive threat in the everquest for relevance realisation. :D ### 2a// Fear the lack of fear As someone whose academic foundation is in ecology and the science of living systems—I am inclined to believe that there is, indeed, a polycrisis *and* a metacrisis. For those new to the terms, here’s what my AI intern came up with {lightly edited}: > ‘**Polycrisis**’ refers to the concurrent and interlinked nature of multiple crises, like climate change, social inequality, political instability, and so on. The **metacrisis** expands on this by examining the conditions that perpetuate the polycrisis, with a particular focus on our (in)ability to adequately address the complex challenges we face due to fundamental flaws in how we think, govern, coordinate and act. And so when you ask—*isn't a fundamental principle of meaningful progress “unfearing”? the power of belief that anything tangled can be untangled (enough) to make progress?*—my instinct is more aligned with Aragorn, Heir of Isildur. > Aragorn: “Are you frightened?” > Frodo: “Yes.” > Aragorn: “Not nearly frightened enough.” I don’t think people quite have the appropriate level of fear, yet. The metacrisis is all a bit... abstract to most. Too cerebral. We humans are not good at comprehending exponentials at the best of times; let alone the compounding unknown unknowns of the complex living systems we are of. Eyes glaze over; or sharpen to fixate on specifics (removed from inter-relational context). So I would thus be *less* inclined to reduce or ‘unfear’ folks. I fear that we (as a society) are already far too equipped and habituated to distract and numb ourselves to any hint of fear. We have streaming services, games, drugs, ‘ironic distance’, social media, online shopping—all the things to distract, enrage and delight us on the internet. The metacrisis can hardly compete for our attention; the slightest discomfort, bafflement or existential angst is readily usurped by a new cat video, or someone on the internet being wrong again. But sometimes I wish the metacrisis *could* compete for our attention. I wish it were more *visceral* to those of us not already directly experiencing its effects. Not out of spite; more as a means of awakening more of us to what is happening—and being perpetuated—on our watch. Thus, I’d be going less for ‘unfearing’ and more for ‘deepening the fear’—feeling it fully, and working *through* it as a means to transmute ourselves to better act *on the other side* of fear. If there is such a thing. > “Eco-anxiety researcher Panu Pihkala says that waking up to the climate and wider ecological crisis is particularly hard for middle-class citizens of industrialised nations because ‘the world is revealed to be much more tragic and fragile than people thought it was.’ This profound disruption, which can be as severe as an internal shattering, sends them into a grief-stricken process of mourning the lost future they believed would come a future of ecological stability. This then erodes their sense of security. As more and more people who’ve been living comfortable lives wake up feeling eco-anxious, that awareness comes with a risk. If we only turn inward, to recognise this pain within ourselves, instead of looking outward, to glean a sense of implication in the far-reaching and unequal consequences of the climate crisis and our agency to improve the outcomes, little will change. **Better futures will be entirely missed if we get stuck in fear and dread.**” from [Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Climate Crisis](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/647141/generation-dread-by-britt-wray/9780735280724?ref=foxwizard.com) by Britt Wray (emphasis mine) So: we can’t get stuck in fear and dread. But we also don’t want to deny, diminish or ‘unfear’, either. To simply use fear as a means to ‘raise awareness’ will likely be counter-productive—and not inspire generative thinking and planetary mutualism at higher orders of complexity. To quote from [Venkatesh Rao’s Climate Posture](https://studio.ribbonfarm.com/p/my-climate-posture?ref=foxwizard.com): > And then there is of course the all-time-favorite: “Raising public awareness.” We’re well past useless diminishing returns on this front, and possibly into negative returns—public awareness can at most create a climate of temporary acute pressure on political processes. Pressure that is highly vulnerable to capture by misguided charismatic causes and unreliable messiahs. I suspect we’re at a stage in the evolution of the problem where more awareness means more people acting with urgency to secure their own futures at the expense of others’ futures. It could be that by ‘unfear’ you are I are grasping at the same generative meaning. We both want folks to be appropriately post-fear, so that they are not acting in denial or irrational selfishness. But I don’t even know if ‘fear’ is quite the right word for the metacrisis; perhaps ‘dread’, ‘despair’ and *almost-but-not-quite* ‘doom’ are more apt? But these sensibilities are antagonistic to hope. More on this soon. ### 2b// Anything tangled kinda stays tangled Regarding *“the power of belief that anything tangled can be untangled (enough) to make progress”*—yes, this is apt. But the thicket we make our way through is alive and writhing; whatever path we disentangle or hew will reform behind us anew. In [Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene](https://www.dukeupress.edu/staying-with-the-trouble?ref=foxwizard.com), scholar and cultural theorist Donna Haraway argues fundamentally *against* the idea of disentangling our entanglements. We are all inextricably linked; any disentanglement from this is a temporary (but sometimes useful) illusion. [Lilypads of certainty](https://brucemctague.com/optimal-certainty-or-navigating-certainty?ref=foxwizard.com). Haraway argues for “making kin”—which is about acknowledging, respecting, and *deepening* our interdependencies, rather than attempting to extricate ourselves from them. For Haraway, the emphasis is on “response-ability”—the ability to respond to the complexities of our entanglements in a responsible and ethical manner. The goal is not to retreat into isolation but to form more equitable and sustainable relationships with the myriad entities with which we share our planet. I like this. Translating it into a real practice is tricky to do within the context of modern society, but I am trying. ### 3a// Isn’t meaningful progress hopeful? tl;dr – *yes*. Kinda. But here’s where we get into the question of what *meaningful* progress is. It’s a question that has plagued me for years. But in the context of the metacrisis, making profits and growing GDP *seems* like progress—but such activities accelerate and exacerbate the metacrisis. To paraphrase [Nate Hagens](https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/?ref=foxwizard.com); in the modern world, we self-organise—as family units, small businesses, corporations, nation states, and as a global economic system—around profits. Profits are our goal, and lead to GDP globally. What we need for GDP is three things—energy, materials, and information. But we have outsourced the wisdom and the decision-making of this entire system to the market. We represent this by money, and money is a claim on energy. But the market is blind to the impacts of its growth. As a society we are drawing down the bank account of fossil fuels and non-renewable inputs like cobalt, copper, water aquifers, topsoil, forests—millions of times faster than they were sequestered. And now to quote from [Erin Remblance](https://open.substack.com/pub/erinremblance/p/growth-has-us-on-the-edge-of-collapse): *“*[*Energy use*](https://ourfiniteworld.com/2011/11/15/is-it-really-possible-to-decouple-gdp-growth-from-energy-growth/?ref=foxwizard.com) *and* [*material footprint*](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7305220/?ref=foxwizard.com) *are closely coupled with GDP and can’t be* [*decoupled*](https://eeb.org/library/decoupling-debunked/?ref=foxwizard.com)*. Arguably they can’t be decoupled at all, but certainly not at the pace and scale necessary to achieve the* [*science-based*](https://www.ipcc.ch/report/sixth-assessment-report-cycle/?ref=foxwizard.com) *greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction targets without relying on* [*speculative*](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/16/half-of-emissions-cuts-will-come-from-future-tech-says-john-kerry?ref=foxwizard.com) *or* [*problematic*](https://www.globalccsinstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/BECCS-Perspective%5FFINAL%5F18-March.pdf?ref=foxwizard.com) *technology. We need to acknowledge the science: ‘green growth’* [*isn’t possible*](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13563467.2019.1598964?ref=foxwizard.com) *in the time we have available. Every time* [*GDP goes up*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rojLAkVhWas&ref=foxwizard.com)*, we cause more environmental harm.”* Is it meaningful progress to grow a business if in so doing you further an omnicidal regime that is incentivising the degradation of life on the planet? In my perhaps more individualistic and naïvely hopeful past I would have had clever narratives to (genuinely) justify such, obfuscating my complicity. But nowadays I am all too aware of the entanglement. Thus, if ‘meaningful progress’ (to me) now means the *flourishing* of all life (not just human)—then I must question how we go about doing this when the rivalrous dynamics of this multipolar trap compels me to participate (and thus perpetuate) within the very system that’s antagonistic to the flourishing of all life. There’s seemingly no escaping it, though. This wizard must still eat. I must also still pay my seneschal to tend to the moss that grows upon the southern aspect of my tower. And how would we feed the ravens that deliver these museletters to you, if not for the meta-optionality ‘claim-on-energy’ token we call money? This *is* the quest I am personally on right now. And it’s not very fun. It’s a hellishly high-level quest, non-linear and fraught with existential peril, with no clear path. All objectives suspect. I long for the days before I had this insight-cascade; the epiphanic realisation that, shit, it really is bad. It was easier then. Now, onto the notion of hope. Northern and southern hemispheres tend to inverse the meanings of optimism and hope, I’ve found. Or we just lazily conflate the two. They are distinct, and there are nuances within hope itself. Quest *are* hopeful in nature. But the hope is not centre stage; it’s a quiet reckoning we don’t allow ourselves to be fully allured by. Just as visions of utopia can be tyrannical, so too hope can seemingly bind us to a set path—blinding us to other possibilities. And, like an overly protective parent, hope can prevent us from having the experiences that lead us to new insight. Friedrich Nietzsche said that hope is *the worst* of evils, *“for it prolongs the torments”* of those of us who hold to it. Arthur Schopenhauer, an existential philosopher, posits that hope muddles the rational understanding of events by equating the intensity of one’s desires with the likelihood of their fulfilment. Hope inevitably evokes it’s shadow—despair. (I’ve written about a similar phenomenon with regard to [pride and shame](https://drjasonfox.medium.com/dont-be-proud-of-me-1efd06b6a09b?ref=foxwizard.com)). And Alan Watts has described ‘hope’ as being *“the last evil in Pandora's box”,* suggesting it might be a mechanism to keep humans subdued and complacent. This is Professor Jem Bendell’s concern with hope, too. *“Without talking to people, I believe we will be bulldozed back into denial by a media that tells us to be positive, hopeful and to carry on shopping and complying,”* he writes in [Breaking Together](https://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Together-freedom-loving-response-collapse-ebook/dp/B0C1JLL45V?ref=foxwizard.com). He believes that *“hope is acting as an escape from reality. For most people it involves wishing that something is not so. I am discovering I don’t need hope. Instead of hope, I have a sense of what is important to life, whatever may come.”* It’s been two over decades since I graduated as an environmental scientist and commenced my PhD research. In that time, I have seen little reversal of the trends that lead to ecological devastation and species loss, not to mention climate change and the myriad woes of the meta-crisis. In late 2019, when the bushfires ravaged parts of Australia—and I witnessed [terrible scenes of burnt koalas](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Yw5MM2-aR8&ref=foxwizard.com) (<— warning: sadness)—I felt immense despair. And then when I hear that logging is *continuing to happen* in critical habitat reserves for koalas (a now [endangered species](https://www.dcceew.gov.au/environment/biodiversity/threatened/species/koalas/listing-under-national-environmental-law?ref=foxwizard.com#:~:text=The%20koala%20%28combined%20populations%20of,have%20any%20impacts%20to%20koalas.))... and then when I realise this is but one story for but one species... and when we realise that the current extinction rate is [1,000 to 10,000 times](https://www.zora.uzh.ch/id/eprint/98443/1/Conservation%5FBiology%5F2014%5Fearly-view.pdf?ref=foxwizard.com) *higher* than the natural background extinction rate... it gets a little tricky to maintain ‘hope’ for our current path. I know folks will say “it’s not too late”—and maybe [I should read the book](https://www.nottoolateclimate.com/?ref=foxwizard.com)—but as Jem Bendell says: “*When some of the people who speak publicly on existential risks tell us ‘It’s not too late,’ we should always ask: ‘It’s not too late for what and for whom?’”* ## What lies beyond hope? Despair, perhaps. Depression, too. I’ve been there. Long-term subscribers will know that I am quite the fan of [Professor Randolph Nesse’s theory of depression](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/12682578%5FIs%5FDepression%5Fan%5FAdaptation?ref=foxwizard.com). Nesse and his colleagues speculate that depression could act as a biological constraint system that helps to minimise wasted effort and loss by forcing the individual to slow down, reassess, and potentially change strategies.\* \* *This is similar in how momentum inhibits reinvention. We also work with this concept in [The ‘Choose One Word’ Ritual of Becoming](https://www.chooseoneword.com/?ref=foxwizard.com), too.* But we don’t allow ourselves to get to this space because we consider depression so taboo. Chin up! You’ve gotta stay positive. There’s always hope. There’s a phenomenon I experience, sometimes, when I am on a podcast or after I have given a keynote. There’s a sweet possibility space, potent with possibility. A space that is wondrously nebulous and ineffable, wherein we have a reawakened acuity for our inklings, glimmers, hunches and portents—the paths that otherwise remain occluded by narrow goals. This is the fertile precursor to quests. But then the emcee or someone will say: *“I feel like we have more questions than answers \[as though this is a bad thing, ha\]. What are three top tips or concrete, practical things we can do at work today or tomorrow to bring about meaningful progress?”* The attempt here is to collapse it into a neat linear step-by-step plan of obvious TODOs. I resist such, of course—the steps I suggest (like journaling, scheduling time, cultivating a questing fellowship, and so on) *seem* like concrete actions, but they are really just a means of preserving the possibility space. Because that’s what lies beyond hope—despair, depression, acceptance, and then: **new possibilities**. But we won’t get there if we cling to hope. Daniel Schmachtenberger, a chap whom I have been quoting far too much these days, has had a profound run of appearances on various events and podcasts in the past few years. Recently—towards the end of a fantastic two hour interview on mental health in the metacrisis—he was asked: *“is there one, maybe two things we can do, that is a little more hopeful of optimistic?”* I’ve linked to the timestamp in the video, but his initial answer was essentially to call out that it was a “goofy question”. And I love this moment; it gives me courage to call out the goofiness I see in the world. (He then proceeded to provide an elegant attempt). Goofy! Such an apt word. I mean: I have hopes and dreams. I hope the barista will make my coffee *at least* as well as I can make at home. I dream of a world in which it is more economically viable to rehabilitate and protect life-sustaining ecologies than it is to destroy them. I also hope that my audiences and readers will have the time in this distraction economy to genuinely contemplate, question and consider worlds we live and work within. And I also dream of a time in which we see a renaissance in public intellectualism, where thinkers engage in generative dialogue not to ‘win’—but rather; to arrive at deeper understanding and new frontiers of knowledge and accord. These are lovely hopes and dreams. But I also have [Doom Mood Advantage](https://zora.co/collect/eth:0xfe1d56a77029796baba9dcebbadd5f2dae929392/13?ref=foxwizard.com), which enables me to see the world more as it actually is. And I don’t think I would have got there without the despair and depression that hope otherwise tries to shield and ‘protect’ us from. ## “But how can we not leave everyone depressed?” Again, Daniel Schmachtenberger—(and I swear, next museletter I will move onto other sources and a topic *so* light, flippant, obvious and affirming to counter all of this; brace yourself for some ‘top tips’ on how to ‘10x your productivity’ with ‘this one simple hack’)—ahem, again Daniel Schmachtenberger was asked, at the tail end of what I consider to be yet another profoundly heartfelt conversation about the metacrisis: *“How can you not become depressed, if you really take this in?”* I’ve linked to the timestamp in the video (but I’d highly recommend the whole thing). Suffice to say: Daniel did not take the bait and offer a predictable platitude. *“I think people should let themselves become depressed... Either you’re actually an obligate sociopath that can’t feel shit,”* Daniel says. *“Or, you won’t let yourself because it’s overwhelming and you don’t know what to do with that... trust that. Let yourself go there anyways.”* ## Oooh, wait... There *is* always something more to it. Truly. I used to talk of ‘beacons’—be they constellations or lights upon the distance—as sources by which we can navigate the complexities of life. But now there are no shining ‘obvious’ paths to me; only glimmers; distant [foxfire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxfire?ref=foxwizard.com) and [will o’ the wisps](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will-o%27-the-wisp?ref=foxwizard.com). Yet, when we spend time in the dark, our eyes adjust—and new possibilities open. I’ve been finding much solace within the pararational realms of the mythopoetic, as a balm to the otherwise clinical nihilism brought about by rationality alone. The mythologist Martin Shaw is one particular voice I find quite some resonance with. In [Courting the Wild Twin](https://www.amazon.com/Courting-Wild-Twin-Ideas/dp/1603589503/?ref=foxwizard.com), he writes: > “Amongst the clear-eyed of us, hope is becoming a word laced with some doubt, and rightly so. At least from a certain point of departure. When I speak to the climatic conditions of our time through the voice of a pundit, philosopher, attender to the seemingly divinatory crackle of ‘the facts of the matter’, I feel a blue note of utter sorrow that I can’t come back from. But I do not choose to look at the conditions of our times only through those prisms; there is another, more ancient device. Story.” When we attune to the mythopoetic—new possibilities and ways of seeing become available to us. Webs of relations reveal themselves, and everything teems with latent *meaning*. There’s a role that you and I and we can play in this. Buster Benson [writes eloquently](https://medium.com/foolish-journey/why-we-should-create-personal-mythologies-and-how-69333b1d5e2b?ref=foxwizard.com) on this. > “...we need new ways to address the perennial problems, and one of them that I see being most viable is to revive the mythic realm in a way that doesn’t challenge the strengths of the other realms. This will allow us to identify new salient possibilities (and motivations to act) via an epic story lens that are absent when we only try to address them with a scientific or economic lens, because solving these problems will never be cost-effective or practical in the moment.” And so, in the pits of our despair—when all seems lost, remember: we are not (quite fully) doomed (yet). *“When we prematurely claim doom we have walked out of the movie fifteen minutes early, and we posit dominion over the miraculous,”* [writes Martin Shaw]( ). *“We could weave our grief to something more powerful than that. Possibility.”* *fin* --- Come hang with me at [Purpose Conference](https://www.purposeconference.co/?ref=foxwizard.com). I’ll be upbeat, I swear. 😅 ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2023/10/Dr-Jason-Fox-1080x1080.png) 50+ speakers, workshops, a careers fair, “the best after-conference party ever”. Join 1,000 others as we hear from world-class thinkers and industry leaders to interrogate what it means to be #purposedriven in 2023\. Museletter subscribers can receive a $100 discount with the code “JASONFOX” (that’s me). [Tickets here](https://www.purposeconference.co/tickets-2023?ref=foxwizard.com). --- Thank you so much for reading. Please feel free to comment or ask questions below; it is always lovely to hear from you. If you feel this might resonate with a friend, please forward it to them with a note that you appreciate them. There’s more nuance I wish I could share on the matter of hope. In [I Want a Better Catastrophe](https://www.amazon.com/Want-Better-Catastrophe-Navigating-Climate/dp/0865719837/ref=tmm%5Fpap%5Fswatch%5F0?%5Fencoding=UTF8&qid=1696396752&sr=8-1&ref=foxwizard.com), Andrew Boyd does a great job of highlighting the notion of ‘grounded hope’. *“Grounded hope offers us no guarantee that we’ll ever walk on out of the darkness, but it shows us how to walk through it. Here, one simply does what is right and what is necessary—and the doing and the walking are their own reward.”* Anyways, I must wrap this up—I really ought be writing my next book for you. 😅 I remain, as ever, attuned to the glimmer that we may just somehow navigate our way out of this mess. Much warmth, *—fw* ### 💌 Belated Glimmers + an odd request URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/belated-glimmers/ Last updated: 2024-02-28T02:14:12.000Z Ahoy friends. I’m ‘on the road’ at the moment; betwixt leadership events. I brought my beans, grinder and goose-neck pourer to the hotel room, as I do. But I forgot to bring the filter paper. And so, for a few minutes I fancied myself as a kind of modern day ‘macgyver’—but the mess I’ve made is heinous. I’m going to pretend it didn’t happen. In this museletter: ◊ I subtly promote [the masterclass we have happening with MBS](https://www.drjasonfox.com/mbs-masterclass?ref=foxwizard.com) **next week* via reflecting on the notion of ‘****Working Relationships**’ (less than 10 tickets remain) ◊ I characteristically overshare ****My Current Turmoil** (instead of maintaining the air of quixotic yet iconoclastic mystique I otherwise aspire to)—resulting in ‘****An Odd Request**’ ◊ I provide some ‘****Belated Glimmers**’—worthy reads, and notions worth contemplating Later this week I shall be giving my (adapted) [‘Artificially Intelligent’ keynote](https://www.drjasonfox.com/speaking?ref=foxwizard.com) to an audience of advanced lawyers. I’m personally curious as to how this will land; much of the world is still deep within the misty-eyed honeymoon phase with AI. But perhaps this group are ready to think a few more steps ahead? We’ll see. ## New Game Plus A common theme acknowledged across many of my clients is: we’re in ‘difficult mode’, now. In video game land we call this NG+ ([new game plus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New%5FGame%5FPlus?ref=foxwizard.com)). In most instances, it’s a very similar game as before—only you must confront greater challenges with fewer resources (other than the talents you have already unlocked). NG+ is meant to be fun. And it can be—if we approach it from the right perspective. If we learn to *relish* in the heightened challenge. Events, offsites and immersions are a chance to refresh, revitalise and renew perspective. Without such interventions, we run the risk of a negative flywheel effect—the opposite to *questing*. We become myopic, insular, incremental, self-serving and narrow in our focus. Our tolerance for volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity *diminishes,* and we instead obsess over stability, certainty, simplicity and clarity. Rather than *rise to* challenges of our times, we attempt instead to *reduce* reality to meet our seemingly diminished capacity. But it’s possible to cultivate the sensibilities for challenging times (tightened belts, increased efficiency, ‘entrepreneurial hunger’, etc) *whilst also* preserving the creativity, curiosity and empathy that all great teams share. And whilst also paying people well and not having them burn out. It just takes some intentionality and knack. A key element in all of this—probably *the* key element—is the quality of the *relationships* we maintain. --- ## Working Relationships I have my ways of tending to the *intra*personal relationships I maintain amidst the messiness of meaningful progress amidst the unknown.\* But I also know: there’s much this wizard could learn on the *inter*personal front. \* *[The Ritual of Becoming](https://www.chooseoneword.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) is a part of this.* Hence why I am so very much looking forward to [the masterclass](https://www.drjasonfox.com/mbs-masterclass?ref=foxwizard.com) with [Michael Bungay Stanier](https://mbs.works/?ref=foxwizard.com) in Melbourne next week. We have fewer than 10 tickets remaining. If you work with people in any form, I think you’ll enjoy what it to come. [A Masterclass with MBS](https://www.drjasonfox.com/mbs-masterclass?ref=foxwizard.com) (And, also, if you don’t work with people but rather, ‘ideas’—you’ll love part two of the masterclass, too). ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2023/09/DJF-MBS.png) Here’s a still from a video [Josh Janssen](https://joshjanssen.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) made for us a while back ♡ We would love to have you join us. Tickets and details at [drjasonfox.com/mbs-masterclass](https://www.drjasonfox.com/mbs-masterclass?ref=foxwizard.com) *Much gratitude, as ever, to* [Kearney Group](https://kearneygroup.com.au/?ref=foxwizard.com) *for being gracious friends, sponsors and hosts. The team at* [Kearney Group](https://kearneygroup.com.au/?ref=foxwizard.com) *offer integrated financial advice for businesses and households. Kim and I are long-term happy clients.* --- And now... ## My Current Turmoil I worry that my public persona is becoming that of a grumpy wizard. It’s not my favourite form. I suspect the reason I’ve been so grumpy—*accelerating mass extinctions and economic/monetary/energy/biosphere/climate/food/societal collapse aside*—is because of *phantoms*. I’ve been arguing with phantoms. Spectres. Straw-man apparitions manifested to make a point. Here’s what happens: - It comes time to write a museletter - I scan the zeitgeist for something I might be able to offer some perspective on\* - This inevitably leads me to tour the warped worlds of LinkedIn and Xitter - Within a dozen or so seconds of scrolling, my faith in humanity drops (it’s relatively low on the best of days) - I inevitably snag upon something that vexes me to the point in which I find myself compelled to reply, to remedy the matter - I draft a response, attempting to illuminate with erudition, warmth and tact - I then contemplate how this draft contribution to the matter might be misunderstood by a bad faith read, and try to mollify it so that it comes across a little more gentle (whilst also being subversive) - but no, wait! wtf! I push my laptop away and scoff - It’s *the platform*—luring me in with its dark magics - The algorithm *wants* dissent and discord; it wants us contributing more content so as to attract more eyes to spend more time amidst it all, [internet of beefs](https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2020/01/16/the-internet-of-beefs/?ref=foxwizard.com) and all - I step away and go for a walk - If I’m still vexed—and if I feel it’s important—I transmute this energy into a museletter (oh wait yes, that’s what I was doing in the first place, ha) - Rather than make it too obvious a response to a singular person’s strong opinion, I abstract it all into ‘a general sentiment’ to respond to - This ‘aggregated perspective’ becomes the ‘straw-man apparition’ I referred to earlier - I then write the museletter, doing my best to honour thy sources and generally provide something of value beyond ‘shakes fist at sky’ - I proof-read the museletter aloud, and edit it thrice - The whole affair takes days, sometimes a week or more - But if feels also cathartic—the aggregate-apparition phantom is *trounced* - Exhausted, I hit send and whoosh—off the museletter goes to my 11k subscribers° - Immediately, an appalling litany of typos reveal themselves to me - I remedy them on the actual website and at this point realise I should probably get back on social media and ‘share’ the museletter there, given the effort I just put into it - But then I encounter yet more things that vex me, and I realise wait: it’s me—hi, I'm the problem, it’s me - (It’s not me: the problem is the multipolar trap of social media†) - So I give up and call it a day - Next day I realise: it’s probably time to write another museletter hohoho fml and the cycle repeats \* *I am not yet at the point wherein I can sprout a constant stream of unsolicited low-grade advice that seems to be all the rage these days. Perhaps when I turn 40 at the end of the year something will click* *° My lack of ‘growth hacking” means I have stayed relatively consistent at this level for the past half a dozen years—what new subscribers I accrue is balanced by the subscribers I lose due to my subtle insertion of politics pertaining to egalitarianism and biodiversity conservation.* *† I heard [one person (on social media)](https://www.instagram.com/p/CXTvSsnLyEf/?ref=foxwizard.com) describe the multipolar trap well. Imagine you’re at a theater and the person in front of you stands up to get a better view. Because your view is blocked, you now need to stand up to see. Soon everyone in the theater is standing and the dilemma has worsened—because you’re all standing and still can’t see. Ha. It’s similar with the volume of conversation at a restaurant. We also have this with social media: but I am trying so-hard to not complain about it and to simply do something different.* Much as I love writing—and love writing to you (I really do!)—this doesn’t seem a sustainable pattern. And yet, we live within the attention/distraction economy now. As a wizard-for-hire, I need to maintain *some* presence in this plane of existence. But is it via these long museletters? Do I become a peddler of pithy punditry? The ‘[mere-exposure effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mere-exposure%5Feffect?ref=foxwizard.com)’ means that just sharing often enough will lead to higher regard, which leads to more work, which leads to more things to share, and so on.° Frequency trumps rigour and depth, and the world (seemingly) wants simplistic platitudes more so than anything complex or *fractally-apt*. I get it. \* *Raising questions as to the mutability of taste and preference in an era of algorithmically curated exposure and manufactured demand.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2023/09/thanks_chatgpt.png) I’ve been using chatGPT to sense-check my neologisms to ensure they convey the intended meaning. But does this mean I start sharing my breakfast with you? Actually, Kim made [Julia Busuttil Nishimura's granola](https://www.melbournefoodandwine.com.au/read-watch/recipes/recipes/julia-busuttil-nishimuras-granola-with-poached-plums-436?ref=foxwizard.com) recently and it *is* divine. Textured and subtly sweet, with a hint of salt. It’s tempting. Genuinely tempting. Because, if I think about it, the newsletters I enjoy reading *are* the personal ones. The bloggy ones. Robin Sloan’s latest newsletter—‘[What would a wizard read](https://www.robinsloan.com/newsletters/what-would-a-wizard-read/?ref=foxwizard.com)’—is an apt example. I also enjoy Justin Duke’s [aracana dot computer](https://www.arcana.computer/?ref=foxwizard.com), for how down-to-earth it is. And the opening letter Kai Brach writes in each [Dense Discovery](https://www.densediscovery.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) is always a delight to read (my favourite part). {I’m genuinely sorry these are all white guy examples btw. #grimace} Meanwhile, though, I recently thought— > *Why not respond to questions from you, my dear reader?* This has been something I have offered [friends of the foxwizard](https://www.foxwizard.com/#/portal/signup)\* since [moving to ghost](https://www.foxwizard.com/fools-journey/). But I would like to do the following: - Open up questions to all (whilst still giving priority to [friends of the foxwizard](https://www.foxwizard.com/#/portal/signup)) - Answer questions earnestly yet casually, in both video and podcast form (this time without someday deleting it all, maybe) - Share these, along with glimmers, in the museletter—but *lightly* so \* *Munificent folks who kindly support my writing with the offering of a tribute..* I’m not sure if this plan will work. But I think it will have me less grumpy. Because I know that I cannot write to The Void, lest I descend into complete solipsism. I must at least conjure some form of apparition as a focal point—‘someone’ to write *to*. Perhaps that someone can be you? ## Ergo: An Odd Request Do you have a question—*large or small; serious, whimsical or otherwise*—that you’d like to ask [Dr. Fox, Archwizard of Ambiguity (most fantastic)](https://drjasonfox.com/?ref=foxwizard.com)? This is a delicate and precarious thing; I don’t want to turn this into an obligation or a burden for myself—I am very good at building myself ever more interesting cages. But I also know: I am *enlivened* by questions. And I’d much rather respond to real people over the phantom apparitions I’ve conjured. So: let’s see how this goes. If you have a question on your mind you’d like me to explore—please leave it with me over at [drjasonfox.com/questions](https://drjasonfox.com/questions?ref=foxwizard.com) Thank you! --- ## Glimmers ✨ ### [Against Automaticity](https://carcinisation.com/2023/08/22/against-automaticity/?ref=foxwizard.com) > *An explanation of why tricks like priming, nudge, the placebo effect, social contagion, the “emotional inception” model of advertising, most “cognitive biases,” and any field with “behavioral” in its name are not real.* If you pause to think of it, the insights shared within this article are *heretical* to top selling business books and much revered leadership programs and change management consulting. I admit: as a younger wizard I was swayed by the published works of established authorities in much of this domain. But—as I alluded to in [my ‘mindset’ museletter](https://www.foxwizard.com/stance-mindset/) and in my attempts to rekindle [intellectual honesty](https://www.foxwizard.com/intellectually-honest/)—it turns out most of them are either non-replicable or non-significant at best. *“It’s not just that the relevant science is fabricated, or p-hacked, or uses meaningless measures or flexible measures, although the prevalence of such things does cast doubt on their evidentiary value. It’s that we should have been more skeptical from the start.”* What I find fascinating—and perhaps alluded to in my last museletter on [Gentle Opinions](https://www.foxwizard.com/gentle-opinions/)—is that, once someone publishes a book, makes a program, and builds a reputation around a certain ‘belief’, they are then incentivised to defend it. Even if it turns out there is no evidence to support it. This is perhaps why I like Dr. Tyson Yunkaporta’s way of going about it (as quoted in [The Perils of a Neatly Defined ‘Purpose’](https://www.foxwizard.com/purpose-perils/)). Avoid naming things; particularly if doing so binds you to incentives that may one day turn perverse. For then, as Upton Sinclair puts it—*“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”* Instead, keep it gentle, tentative, light, fluid. Speaking of... ### [Why You Should Cultivate a Fluid Sense of Self](https://time.com/6311809/change-sense-of-self-brad-stulberg/?ref=foxwizard.com) > “What you want to do is challenge yourself to integrate the various elements of your identity into a cohesive whole. This allows you to emphasize and deemphasize certain parts of your identity at different periods of time. The result is a fluid sense of self.” In this article Brad Stulberg promotes his new book called ‘[Master of Change](https://www.amazon.com/Master-Change-Everything-Changing-Including/dp/006325316X?ref=foxwizard.com#customerReviews)*’.* The lessons within this seem to share a great deal of parallel to the concepts within [The Ritual of Becoming](https://chooseoneword.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) this past dozen or so years. Brad is also a fan of the ‘complexification of self‘. He also recently tweeted [a pleasant thread on non-dual thinking](https://twitter.com/BStulberg/status/1701569127884661152?ref=foxwizard.com), quite apt. ### [How to Disagree with a Friend](https://lessfoolish.substack.com/p/how-to-disagree-with-a-friend?utm%5Fsource=post-email-title&publication%5Fid=34046&post%5Fid=136838222&utm%5Fcampaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ynwy&utm%5Fmedium=email) > “Many people are wrong and need to be disagreed with. However, most people do not actually disagree with one another. Disagreeing is not happening in the culture war; what is happening is insulting, signaling, shaming, canceling, censoring, trolling, harassing, and gaslighting. I do not think we should be naive and assume people addicted to social media, trying to win in the attention economy through culture war hot takes, and being unwittingly steered by various PsyOps will be interested in disagreeing well. > > However, we are interested in disagreeing well. Those of us interested in being a friend of virtue, which is to say, being a person who orientates another person to the good, are concerned with disagreeing well. If our friends are wrong about many things, we do them a disservice by pretending otherwise.” I’m a fan of [Peter Limberg’s writing](https://lessfoolish.substack.com/). I originally came across his work in mapping out [the memetic tribes of the culture wars](https://medium.com/s/world-wide-wtf/memetic-tribes-and-culture-war-2-0-14705c43f6bb?ref=foxwizard.com), back in 2018\. Then, during the pandemic, he did an incredible job of holding a tenuous yet exquisite confluence-nexus of perspectives in ‘The Stoa’. He continues to share insights that I’d consider to be quite wise. ### How to Disagreee with a Partner? [Conversations with Nati](https://richdecibels.substack.com/p/conversations-with-nati) > “In this recording, I'm trying to convince Nati that she should write more of her ideas in public, and we talk about the gender dynamics that affect how people communicate. I think the content of the conversation is interesting, but also "how" we communicate: we have a lot of fun disagreeing with each other and giving each other increasingly honest feedback.” This was such an intimate piece of audio. I felt like I was eavesdropping on an private conversation at a cafe. No, even more perverse—it feels like a lovely couple are having a conversation on a picnic rug and never realised I was sitting behind the tree close by. I feel ‘rude’ listening to it, because there’s something so ‘real’ about this; so refreshingly genuine and non-performative. And it echoes a conversation I myself have with Kim every year or so. Although it seems now I find myself deeply empathising with Nati—and eventually warming to some (but not all) of Richard’s perspectives. > “R: ...I'm just saying though, that your position as an enthusiastic late stage beginner, that's actually quite conscientious about how you communicate, is extremely valuable. That's the bit that makes you screw up your face, but it's the truth of the matter. > > N: I mean, it's not that information is not out there. The information already exists. That's how I found it. > > R: (*growling*) The beginner experience is so fucking valuable because the experts always lose touch with where the beginners are.” Hoho, it me. [Curse of knowledge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse%5Fof%5Fknowledge?ref=foxwizard.com). This conversation tours themes I’ve been concerned with in regards to [intellectual honesty](https://www.foxwizard.com/intellectually-honest/)—honouring and attribution, epistemological humility and a duty of care as to *how* ideas are communicated (doing no harm, reducing overreach, etc). The conversation also tackles the paradox of intellectual honesty versus commercial efficacy. > “R: The point is like, you can optimise for truth or you can optimise for memetic fitness? And I optimise for memetic fitness, because there's no point writing something incredibly true if no one reads it! You need to find the sweet spot between it being true, and it being attractive. That's what rigorous thinkers really fine unappealing, because they're like, "no I must just give the unvarnished truth", but it's like, yeah, truth doesn't exist in a vacuum. It's always a communication. It's always a relationship between people. And so your job is to attune with where people are, and try and give them as much accuracy as you can while holding their attention. And like most academics are not willing to do that, they're just like, no, I'm going to give as much accuracy as possible.” \[Btw: it feels perverse of me to extract these transcript snippets of a conversation from the full context with all of its warmth and love.\] I eschew optimisation. And I feel it is my duty, having had to privilege to accrue knowledge, to ensure it is shared *wisely*. But wisdom is not attractive in this economy, and all of the incentives skew towards that which garners and holds the most attention—accuracy be damned. And yet... there are ways to approach this. Through story and myth, perhaps, we can stumbled across the fractally-apt. That is: principles that hold mostly-useful and mostly-true across different domains, scales and orders of complexity. Maybe there’s a way there? Ha. Or maybe I am overthinking it and I should just leverage the relative knowledge asymmetry for commercial gain, paving over any gaps with charisma, confidence, and a healthy disregard for truth. Hahar! Bah. I don’t know. Welcome to the perpetual challenge of this wizard. Probably need to bring back gentleman pirate trickster mode at some point. Anyways; I found [this conversation between Rich and Nati](https://richdecibels.substack.com/p/conversations-with-nati)—both of whom I have admired for many years—to be sublime. ### [Frantic Inertia](https://perspecteeva.substack.com/p/frantic-inertia?utm%5Fsource=post-email-title&publication%5Fid=1406040&post%5Fid=136370894&isFreemail=true&utm%5Fmedium=email) > “You can say our addiction to certainty lies at the heart of immunity to change and the failure to address our big issues. That’s why I want to invite people to give up control and enter into unfolding.” In this post, complexity practitioner Bonnitta Roy interviews Ivo J. Mensch about his essay ‘[The Solipsistic Society](https://systems-souls-society.com/the-solipsistic-society/?ref=foxwizard.com)’. I don’t know but there seems to be a pattern to what I am drawn to in my research and readings. Something needs to change; the systems and structures that have emerged within our society have become cancerous to the self and planet. *“So we have this whole self-help industry, but what it all points to is the self: it's all you, it's all your responsibility. That means we direct all our agency and our power to ourselves, like it's the only project that we can meaningfully change. The object is mostly the body – our bodies. What it \[the self-help industry\] doesn't do is say, wait a minute, maybe we should just try and change the structures of the world that are driving us into this coping.”* ### [On Conspiracy Theories and the Yes vote](https://www.afr.com/life-and-luxury/arts-and-culture/conspiracy-theories-are-derailing-the-yes-vote-20230907-p5e2xt?ref=foxwizard.com) > “Disinformation is the greatest existential threat, because it’s a force multiplier for catastrophic risk,” says the senior lecturer in Indigenous knowledges \[Tyson Yunkaporta\] at Deakin University and author of a new book on the subject of disinformation: [Right Story, Wrong Story](https://www.textpublishing.com.au/books/right-story-wrong-story-adventures-in-indigenous-thinking?ref=foxwizard.com).” Related, [Luke Beck](https://theconversation.com/profiles/luke-beck-184936?ref=foxwizard.com)—a Professor of Constitutional Law at Monash University—explains [why it is legal to tell lies during the Voice referendum campaign](https://theconversation.com/why-is-it-legal-to-tell-lies-during-the-voice-referendum-campaign-209211?ref=foxwizard.com). If you are interested, “several media outlets including [RMIT ABC Fact Check](https://www.abc.net.au/news/factcheck?ref=foxwizard.com), [AAP Fact Check](https://www.aap.com.au/factcheck/?ref=foxwizard.com) and [AFP Fact Check](https://factcheck.afp.com/afp-australia?ref=foxwizard.com) are publishing articles fact-checking claims about the Voice.” I can’t say my hopes are high but I want to believe we’ll get through this. ### [On leadership | and interview with Jensen Huang](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5xY%5FkRKHxE&ref=foxwizard.com) > “We don’t do status reports. I don’t read any status reports.” I thought I might throw in this more conventional leadership snippet into the mix, so that my executive clients don’t think I’m *only* interested in intellectual honesty, philosophy, and other unprofitable concepts. In this video Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA (the tech company well known for its graphic processing units, which has effectively enabled and ridden the mounting waves of the video game industry, bitcoin mining and now artificial intelligence). Here’s [a breakdown of their recent earnings](https://www.appeconomyinsights.com/p/nvidia-in-a-league-of-its-own?utm%5Fsource=%2Fsearch%2Fnvidia&utm%5Fmedium=reader2). [The video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5xY%5FkRKHxE&ref=foxwizard.com) covers a lot of points—I’m not sure how many of which are true, and I am wary of venerating individual ‘hero-leaders’. But certainly there is a refreshing perspective to be found here. [Dan Hock](https://www.danhock.co/?ref=foxwizard.com) has summarised the video into [a compelling thread](https://twitter.com/danhockenmaier/status/1701608618087571787?ref=foxwizard.com). Here are some highlights. > **40 direct reports, no 1:1s** > » Jensen Huang believes that the flattest org is the most empowering one, and that starts with the top layer. > » Does not conduct 1:1s—everything happens in a group setting. > » Does not give career advice—“None of my management team is coming to me for career advice—they already made it, they're doing great”. > > **No status reports, instead he “stochastically samples the system”** > » Doesn’t use status updates because he believes they are too refined by the time they get to him. They are not ground truth anymore. > » Instead, anyone in the company can email him their “top five things” with whatever is top of mind, and he will read it. > » Estimates he reads 100 of these every morning > > **Everyone has all the context, all the time** > » No meetings with just VPs or just Directors—anyone can join and contribute > » “If you have a strategic direction, why tell just one person?” > » “If there is something I don't like, I just say it publicly” > » “I do a lot of reasoning out loud” > > **No formal planning cycles** > » No 5 year plan, no 1 year plan > » Always re-evaluating based on changing business and market conditions (helpful when AI is developing at the pace that it is) > > This org is optimized for (1) attracting amazing people, (2) keeping the team as small as it can be, and (3) allowing information to travel as quickly as possible. ([source](https://twitter.com/danhockenmaier/status/1701608618087571787?ref=foxwizard.com)) ### [I Want a Better Catastrophe](https://flowchart.bettercatastrophe.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) > With gallows humour and a broken heart, Boyd steers readers through their climate angst as he walks his own. From storm-battered coastlines to pipeline blockades and “hopelessness workshops,” he maps out our existential options, and tackles some familiar dilemmas: “Should I bring kids into such a world?” “Can I lose hope when others can’t afford to?” and “Why the fuck am I recycling?” Okay there’s two parts to this. First: Alan Boyd has a new book called “[I Want a Better Catastrophe](https://bettercatastrophe.com/?ref=foxwizard.com)–*Navigating the Climate Crisis with Grief, Hope, and Gallows Humour*”. It came out earlier this year, but I am only just seeing this now. I’m going to read it; I need to imbibe this gallows humour. Secondly: [witness *and listen to* this flowchart unfurl](https://flowchart.bettercatastrophe.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) as Alan Boyd paces us through the climate catastrophe. ### Success Story, by Billy Burg I think I came across this comic by Billy Burg via [Peter Limberg](https://substack.com/@peterlimberg?ref=foxwizard.com) a while back. I really like it. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2023/09/image.png) Ah, poor Margaret. Also, what do *you* do, dear reader? Me? Oh I spend my days writing museletters complaining about social media, with insights sourced from social media. ᕕ(ᐛ)ᕗ --- Heyyyy, you made it. Thank you so much once again. Please feel free to comment or ask questions below; it is always lovely to hear from you. Maybe you have a friend who likes to stay well-read? You can forward this to them along with a short note to say you appreciate them. Oh and if a friend forwarded this to *you* (how nice of them!) you can [join the many thousands who subscribe to The Museletter](https://www.foxwizard.com/museletter). Much warmth *—fw* PS: I am taking on bookings for Quest Leadership, Narrative Strategy and Motivation Design programs and masterclasses in early 2024\. More details at [drjasonfox.com](https://www.drjasonfox.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) ♡ ### 💌 Gentle Opinions URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/gentle-opinions/ Last updated: 2024-02-28T02:12:43.000Z The stance of “Strong Opinions, Loosely Held” is very popular. It’s a principle that seems to be adopted by overly confident mansplainers who feel righteously ‘correct’ in their opinions. As a gesture towards grace, they’re willing to \[adopt the optics\] that they may be wrong—and that’s nice. But gosh you better prepare yourself for a battle. Burden of proof is upon you, buddy. For those of us whose curiosity eclipses their conviction; it’s all so tiresome. **Much better to have ‘gentle opinions’.** (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ\*:･ﾟ✧ Outrageous [stance](https://www.foxwizard.com/stance-mindset/#consider-%E2%80%98stances%E2%80%99), I know*.* In this museletter, I attempt to explain. But before we dive into it, some tidbits. ◊ Ahoy and welcome to my many new subscribers! Some of you are here because that charming rogue [Michael Bungay-Stanier](https://mbs.works/?ref=foxwizard.com) mentioned me in his newsletter. ◊ The Rekindling—*our warm speakeasy haven-salon event exploring regenerative futures*—was absolutely wondrous the other week. “You had to be there.” I’m a little scared by how much I love what we have happening there. Must tread lightly. ◊ I don’t really have a third tidbit, but I recall it is customary to occasionally re-introduce yourself to your list; such is the distraction economy. This is mildly awkward but, ahem: I’m [Dr. Fox, wizard-philosopher, keynote speaker, “leadership futurist”](drjasonfox.com). Or at least, that’s my daylight persona. Here, with you, I’m [foxwizard; philosopher-bard](https://www.foxwizard.com/). If a friend forwarded this museletter to you (how nice!) you can [join the many thousands who subscribe](https://www.foxwizard.com/museletter). Your email address Subscribe Please check your inbox and click the link to confirm your subscription. Please enter a valid email address! An error occurred, please try again later. --- What’s this? ...(!) # A Masterclass with Michael Bungay Stanier ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2023/09/CleverHappenings07.08.17-84.jpg) (I know it’s mainly me in focus in this photo, hoho) This **Thursday 21st of September, from 2–6pm in Fitzroy**, you have a chance to come along to a very special and exclusive Masterclass with [Michael Bungay Stanier](https://mbs.works/?ref=foxwizard.com). [A Masterclass with MBS](https://www.drjasonfox.com/mbs-masterclass?ref=foxwizard.com) MBS is best known for [The Coaching Habit](https://www.mbs.works/best-books-training-for-coaches-leaders-and-mentors/the-coaching-habit-hub/?ref=foxwizard.com) (the best-selling coaching book of the century). His most recent book, [How to Work with (Almost) Anyone](https://www.mbs.works/how-to-work-with-almost-anyone/?ref=foxwizard.com), shows you how to build the Best Possible Relationship with the key people at work. Once upon a frigid evening half a dozen years ago, the wonderful team at [Kearney Group](https://kearneygroup.com.au/?ref=foxwizard.com) sponsored an event wherein we had MBS join us (depicted, above). Together we gathered at Starward whisky distillery—drams and hot jaffles in hand—to explore the sensibilities congruent to Michael’s other bestselling book—[The Advice Trap](https://www.mbs.works/best-books-training-for-coaches-leaders-and-mentors/the-advice-trap/?ref=foxwizard.com). MBS is a worldly Australian based in Canada. I’ve long loved his curiosity-driven fox-like ways; particularly as it pertains to encouraging curiosity whilst also pulling at the threads of patriarchy. It’s been a long while since the stars have aligned for us to ‘event’ again but lo! he’s back in our hemisphere. So: let’s event. Once again, our friends at [Kearney Group](https://kearneygroup.com.au/?ref=foxwizard.com) are hosting. ### This time it’s a three-part masterclass. **1) How to Work with (Almost) Anyone** *In this practical and interactive masterclass, you'll learn how to build the best possible working relationship with anyone. Brené Brown says the wisdom is real, and I heartily concur. If you work with people, you’ll probably want to attend this.* **2) Flourishing Intellectual Honesty** *The wizards Dr. Jason Fox and Michael Bungay-Stanier explore the new frontier of thought leadership in this age of social media algorithms and artificial intelligence. What does it mean to be both intellectually honest and commercially effective amidst the distraction economy?* **3) The Speakeasy Haven-Salon** *Come revel, converse and cohere in good cheer at our favourite local brewery.* [Tickets are limited](https://www.drjasonfox.com/mbs-masterclass?ref=foxwizard.com), and this particular event will never happen again. I’m giving [museletter](https://www.foxwizard.com/museletter) subscribers a heads up before I get on the socials about this one. This event is perfect for anyone who wants to ensure their working relationships are the best they can be, *and* for anyone who cares about the quality of ideas they cultivate in this exponential age. [Join us!](https://www.drjasonfox.com/mbs-masterclass?ref=foxwizard.com) --- And now, my current musing... # Gentle opinions, firmly held Almost a decade ago, Venkatesh Rao wrote an essay titled [The Cactus and the Weasel](https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2014/02/20/the-cactus-and-the-weasel/?ref=foxwizard.com). The **cactus** (strong opinions, strongly held) is the degenerate archetype of the **hedgehog** (strong opinions, weakly held). The **weasel** (weak opinions, weakly held) is the degenerate archetype of the **fox** (weak opinions, strongly held). This all stems from [The Hedgehog and the Fox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%5FHedgehog%5Fand%5Fthe%5FFox?ref=foxwizard.com)essay by philosopher Isaiah Berlin, which was published about 70 years ago. The title itself is reference to a statement attributed to the Ancient Greek poet [Archilochus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archilochus?ref=foxwizard.com): *“a fox knows many things, but a hedgehog knows one big thing”.* Naturally, [nominative determinism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative%5Fdeterminism?ref=foxwizard.com#:~:text=Nominative%20determinism%2C%20literally%20%22name%2D,work%20which%20reflect%20their%20names.) means I have an affinity for *fox-like* ways (as do many who read [the museletter](https://www.foxwizard.com/museletter), I suspect). And so I’ve been catching myself having an allergic reaction\* to the virtuous line “strong opinions, lightly held” (or “strong views, lightly held”). In my profession, it’s usually delivered by a cocksure executive on a panel, a ‘bullish tech bro’ on a podcast, or a thought leader quoting third-hand material (supplementing limited knowledge with charismatic conviction). \* *An allergy is an exaggerated negative response to stimuli. And, whilst I have moved on a bit from metamodernism itself, this old primer on* [Five Things That Make You Metamodern](https://metamoderna.org/5-things-that-make-you-metamodern/?ref=foxwizard.com) *still feels apt.* That’s not to say I *bristle* at strong opinions (as a cactus or hedgehog literally might). It’s just that I find it difficult to take them seriously—no matter how they are held.\* Instead, I’ll either ‘[entertain](https://www.foxwizard.com/labyrinths/#don%E2%80%99t-choose-%E2%80%98entertain%E2%80%99)’ the opinion with wry detachment—often with subtle attempts to sow seeds of doubt (so that curiosity might flourish amidst the concrete of their conviction)—or I’ll judo-skulk the conversation into more generative domains. Novel paths do not flourish when someone is hellbent on a predetermined way. \* *This is, of course, domain dependent. Hearing a strong opinion about home renovations from a builder with decades of experience is more than fine; I appreciate the conviction. Likewise a doctor in the context of a medical emergency. But high conviction conjecture despite partial knowledge within complex systems—particularly where strong opinions can have unintended and potentially harmful consequences—I appreciate less.* In his latest book the sage Kevin Kelly recently wrote: *“Curiosity is fatal to certainty. The more curious you are the less certain you’ll be.”* This kind of sentiment has long struck me as quite apt. As is the inverse implication: *the more certain you come across—the ‘stronger’ your opinion—the less curiosity you’ll have.* So why [the stance](https://www.foxwizard.com/stance-mindset/#consider-%E2%80%98stances%E2%80%99) of ‘strong opinions, loosely held’? It’s a *combat* disposition. Your orientation will be towards putting forward a strong case whilst also being willing to defend your opinion from opposing strong opinions. The objective is not *a mutual flourishing of understanding*, nor *a deepening of shared comprehension and appreciation;* it’s one opinion ‘winning’ over another. Thus the relational disposition is that of a *finite* game played to ‘win’ (rather than an infinite game to be played to continue the play). *“We’ve glorified overconfidence,”* [writes software engineer Michael Natkin](https://medium.com/swlh/strong-opinions-loosely-held-might-be-the-worst-idea-in-tech-c3e65cb512f1?ref=foxwizard.com). > *“The idea of strong opinions, loosely held is that you can make bombastic statements, and everyone should implicitly assume that you’ll happily change your mind in a heartbeat if new data suggests you are wrong... What really happens? The loudest, most bombastic engineer states their case with certainty, and that shuts down discussion. Other people either assume the loudmouth knows best, or don’t want to stick out their neck and risk criticism and shame. This is especially true if the loudmouth is senior, or there is any other power differential... Even if someone does have the courage to push back, in practice the original speaker isn’t likely to be holding their opinion as loosely as they think. Having stated their case, they are anchored to it and will look for evidence that confirms it and reject anything contradictory. It is a natural tendency to want to win the argument and be the smartest person in the room.”\** \* *That was a long quote I pulled from Michael Natkin’s article, I know. I found it late into my musing, and he wrote it much better than I could have; so here we are.* Perhaps I am concerned about strong opinions because, right now, we have a referendum happening here in Australia. It’s quite simply *“to alter the Constitution to recognise the First Peoples of Australia by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice.”* This, to me, seems very reasonable—given we have on one side the oldest continuing living culture in the entire world (65,000+ years) and then on the other we have a Constitution made by the occupying force only \~123 years ago. The devastation and hurt inflicted by colonisers in the last 200 or so years has been—and continues to be—immense. And whilst I am sympathetic to some of us who would vote ‘no’ to this referendum (as in: ‘no Voice without Treaty’); the optics on that choice are just *so devastatingly bad.* Because, right now, we have Rupert Murdoch’s media empire waging a campaign for a ‘No’ vote. It’s become a political thing, as all things are. *“Predictably, the Murdoch media has thrown its weight behind Dutton’s opportunistic ‘No’ campaign,”* [writes Dr. Victoria Fielding in The Independent Australian](https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/news-corp-bullies-to-be-held-accountable-over-one-sided-voice-coverage,17779?ref=foxwizard.com). > *“The Murdoch media is also campaigning against the Voice to damage Prime Minister Albanese. That Indigenous people are collateral damage in this campaign seems not to concern them.* > > *Since the Voice is such a simple concept, and ultimately innocuous consequence for non-Indigenous Australians, Dutton and Murdoch know the only way to muddy the water is to throw as much dirt as they can at the constitutional change. Misinformation is rife, and it is being used to confuse, sow fear, and ultimately divide and damage the country.* > > *This is not how media power is meant to be wielded, particularly not by the largest media organisation in the country. News media is meant to be fair. During public debates like referendums, it is meant to inform, to present fairly both sides of the debate, to give voice to different ideas and to let the people decide.* > > *It is not meant to spread misinformation to degrade the debate or to persuade and become a cheer squad for one side. It is shameful to see Murdoch media waging war on the Voice, and ignoring the damage this does to First Nations Australians and to the country's unity. It is equally frustrating that this misuse of media power is* [*basically unaccountable*](https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2023/07/29/michael-pascoe-rupert-murdoch-sky-news/?ref=foxwizard.com)*.”* Plus, on top of this we have our social media platforms that encourage polarisation to extremes. When people sprout strong opinions on these platforms, they subject themselves to [the perils of audience capture](https://gurwinder.substack.com/p/the-perils-of-audience-capture)—which means that they are more likely to double-down on their strong opinions, cactus-like. But: I’ve made this rant many a time. It’s a trap. Back to the matter at hand. In my attempt to elucidate upon my allergy to ‘strong’ opinions, I would automatically recommend [Venkatesh’s article](https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2014/02/20/the-cactus-and-the-weasel/?ref=foxwizard.com) to them. But when I actually care enough to share my stance, I try to put forth the fox-like counter to the hedgehog’s *strong opinions, loosely held*. “[Ackchyually](https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/ackchyually-actually-guy?ref=foxwizard.com),” I explain, “instead of strong opinions, loosely held—I have *weak* opinions, strongly held”. This, of course, never works. Everyone blinks at me like I said a joke, guffawing at the notion of a ‘weak’ opinion, bahahaha’ing. Can you believe this guy? Weakness, it seems, is not to be venerated. And I suspect it’s not quite the right word anyway—though I like the *affect* it has. Perhaps a better word than weak is ‘gentle’. It’s closer to what I am getting at here. This way, our differing opinions do not evoke *yet stronger* opinions and counterfactuals—we instead provide *space* for dialogue and discourse to emerge. This is also tactical cowardice. When I’m up against someone with High Conviction in a conversation—nostrils flared, a fierce aspect to their eyes—the best path is often to retreat to a safer topic. It’s not my safety I’m worried about so much as *theirs.* That is: *are they ready for ontological collapse? Are they ready for (positive) disintegration? And who am I to bring this about?* And so, I shy away from such out of amusement and care. But! If there’s a hint of potential, I will work to increase the relative safety of the conversation. This means a myriad of things; affirming the qualities I admire in them, going for a walk so it feels less oppositional, breathing slower and with intent, ensuring we are both well nourished and watered, and many more things besides. By increasing the warmth/safety/comfort of the context we decrease the defensiveness of the stance, allowing for a more generative exploration to emerge. Then, perhaps, we might get somewhere interesting. But this is difficult in most of the contexts we converse in these days. The battle-ready stance of the hedgehog “strong opinions, loosely held” is appropriate when “[in the arena](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizenship%5Fin%5Fa%5FRepublic?ref=foxwizard.com)”. And, alas: most spaces *are* the arena, these days. There are some attempts to remedy this. For example, I am quite inspired by [Perspectiva’s concept of ‘antidebate’](https://systems-souls-society.com/praxis/antidebate/?ref=foxwizard.com). > *“... antidebate is not therefore about being against powerful speech, or competition, or intellectual entertainment, or disagreement. Rather, it’s against the compounding of polarisation, overvaluing speed as a feature of thought and speech, sophistry of all kinds, unreasonable certainty, and an over-emphasis on the kind of partial truth that might win the moment and play to the crowd, while disregarding ‘the whole truth’ that tends to be orphaned by the debate format, rather than its touchstone.”* Would that we could foster more environments like this—albeit with a bit more humour and fire and warmth. I find these sensibilities mighty congruent with the contexts we seek to create with [The Rekindling](https://foxwizard.com/rekindling?ref=foxwizard.com). It’s also something I know MBS strives for when he encourages folks to tame their temptation to leap to advice-giving, and to stay curious a little longer. (Come to [the masterclass](https://www.drjasonfox.com/mbs-masterclass?ref=foxwizard.com)!) But: I need to wrap up this museletter. All of these thoughts are too entangled, and I am falling into the trap of writing long, *long* soliloquies when other important work beckons. The tl;dr – *soften your strong opinions, be gentle. Move quietly and plant things. Stay curious longer. And so on.* As ever, I truly appreciate you reading. I have a few changes in mind for the format of these museletters; I’d love to get your perspective on them. But: next time. For now, I wish you gentler opinions, and all the flourishing that follows. *—fw* PS: I have decided to dodge the ‘firmly held’ element of weak/gentle opinions. Instead, here are two excerpts from Venkatesh’s article—he has an exquisite way of articulating the stance. > *“To get a hedgehog to change his/her mind,”* Venkatesh [writes](https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2014/02/20/the-cactus-and-the-weasel/?ref=foxwizard.com), *“you clearly have to offer one big idea that is more powerful than the one big idea they already hold. To the extent that their incumbent big idea has a unity based on ideological consistency rather than logical consistency (i.e., it is a religion rather than an axiomatic theory), you have to effect a religious conversion of sorts. The hedgehog’s views are lightly held in the sense of being dependent on only a few core or axiomatic beliefs. Only a few key assumptions anchor the big idea. That is the whole point of seeking consistency of any sort: to reduce the number of unjustified beliefs in your thinking to the minimum necessary.”* > > *“To get a fox to change his or her mind on the other hand,”* Venkatesh [continues](https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2014/02/20/the-cactus-and-the-weasel/?ref=foxwizard.com), *“you have to undermine an individual belief in multiple ways and in multiple places, since chances are, any idea a fox holds is anchored by multiple instances in multiple domains, connected via a web of metaphors, analogies and narratives. To get a fox to change his or her mind in extensive ways, you have to painstakingly undermine every fragmentary belief he or she holds, in multiple domains. There is no core you can attack and undermine.\* There is not much coherence you can exploit, and few axioms that you can undermine to collapse an entire edifice of beliefs efficiently. Any such collapses you can trigger will tend to be shallow, localized and contained. The fox’s beliefs are strongly held because there is no center, little reliance on foundational beliefs and many anchors. Their thinking is hard to pin down to any one set of axioms, and therefore hard to undermine.”* \* *This is so much like The Culture in Iain M. Banks science fiction series; particularly [Player of Games](https://www.amazon.com.au/Player-Games-Culture-Novel/dp/1857231465?ref=foxwizard.com).* But do we want everyone to adopt ‘firm stances’? Not really! Ha. But I must finish up this musing for real. To be continued. Glimmers I shall share with you next time! xoxo --- Thank you so much once again. Much warmth *—fw* ### 🔮 The 9 sensibilities of a ‘Quest Mindset‘ URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/quest-mindset/ Last updated: 2024-02-28T02:06:06.000Z Some of us find meaningful progress amidst the unknown; the rest of us wait until there is a clear path to follow. In this musing, I describe—*with sincere irony, as if I were a nine-tailed zenko kitsune*—The Nine Sensibilities of a ‘Quest Mindset’. I know [I teased the term ‘mindset’ just recently](https://www.foxwizard.com/stance-mindset/). I am using the word here now because people seem to love it **and* it allows me to trojan-horse some deeper complexity-congruent sensibilities into the mix. The intended audience for this is those who are **not* so familiar with the nebulous and mercurial ways of the foxwizard. My hope is the following serves as a conversation starter and grist for reflection. ## A note on “sensibilities” Before we delve into the Nine Sensibilities of a \[checks notes\] “Quest Mindset”—I feel it prudent to pause on the wondrous notion of ‘a sensibility’. I consider a [sensibility](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensibility?ref=foxwizard.com)\* to be *a dynamically attuned* [perspectival](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perspectivism?ref=foxwizard.com) *acuity to emergent phenomena.* That is, you have a nuanced and intuitive awareness of reality *whilst also* being aware that your perspective is in itself interpretive and thus only ever partially true. This sensibility informs what fluid, situational and relational [stance](https://www.foxwizard.com/stance-mindset/#consider-%E2%80%98stances%E2%80%99)° you adopt. \* *A concept related to—yet distinct from—‘sensitivity’.* *° I consider ‘stance’ to be more apt than mindset, but ours is a world that decries nuance so, in this instance, I will humorously roll with ‘mindset’ as the frame.* Sensibilities are very difficult to write about when abstracted outside of their context; and so what follows are more akin to soft principles one might generally adhere to whilst questing. ### Are you even ready to quest? Most aren’t! I’ve learnt this the hard way—as alluded to in my post: [‘Where Does Strategy Come From?’](https://www.foxwizard.com/quest-strategy/). Ready or not; quests will humble the unready and the ready alike. Or they simply won’t reveal their mysteries to you, and the whole endeavour will feel pointless.\* Like a knight gallant, fixated upon a goal, yet finding themselves lost within the forest—happening upon the same glade, time and time again (oblivious to the faë). \* *Still, this would be an improvement to conventional innovation theatre, I dare say.* ° *I highly recommend a viewing of[The Green Knight](https://a24films.com/films/the-green-knight?ref=foxwizard.com)—it depicts the mythical nature of questing so aptly.* *Unless,* perhaps, you adopt the following sensibilities. ⋅.˳˳.⋅ॱ˙˙ॱ⋅.˳˳.⋅ॱ˙˙ॱᐧ.˳˳.⋅ ## You may be ready to quest if... ### 1\. Your curiosity eclipses your conviction Questing is not the domain of The Certain. If the path were clear—the answer obvious—there’d be no need to quest. If you’ve done it before and it makes sense to do it again, then: do so! Much of our day-to-day falls into this domain; questing is reserved for when the current default options are untenable—yet no viable alternatives seem apparent. To quest, ergo, means we must venture into the unprecedented, uncharted and unknown. We do not attempt to ‘make’ the ambiguous clear, but instead to venture deeper into the mystery. Thus, a quester seeks not easy answers but *better* [*questions*](http://kiriakakis.net/comics/mused/a-day-at-the-park?ref=foxwizard.com). Every question literally begins with a quest. ### 2\. You are suspicious of goals Save goals for the boy-heroes with stuff to prove, the zealots on a mission, and those who believe they have all the answers already. To quest is to consort with the unknown. Why pre-determine a clear goal into an ambiguous future? To do so is to collapse all potential for novel discovery. If one *must* have a navigational beacon, let it be a fuzzy *constellation—*a vague directionality to align our sextants to, should we find ourselves lost. Then, within this constellation, we focus not upon the stars but rather: the relationships betwixt. Not a specific north star—but the cloud-like *nebulae* that encompasses such. ### 3\. You do not settle Questers have a restlessness to them. A ‘constructive discontent’ with the status-quo, in a manner that cannot be ameliorated by mere incrementalism. The change sought by questers often lies *outside* of known paradigms. Not mere improvements to existing ways, but instead: *whole new ways.* Many will lure you from your quest with shiny improvements to this and that; similar constructs repackaged as new. But questers aren’t so easily satisfied.\* \* *Remember: in a personal context, questing can bring about profound transformation. And, to make the point explicit for Enterprise Land: questing is the key to breakthrough innovation. That’s not to say that questing can’t inform and inspire incremental innovation—it can and does. It’s just to say that incrementalism does not harness the full potency of questing.* ### 4\. You do not play to ‘win’ There’s something a little sad about ‘winning’, in a finite/conventional sense. It heralds the end of play, and the creation of ‘losers’ (or: ‘those that did not win’). To quest is to engage in *infinite* play. You do not play within boundaries in order to ‘win’; you play *with* boundaries in order to continue the play. You engage with the infinite unfurling with a *horizonal* way of seeing. (Thank you [James P. Carse](https://wtf.tw/ref/carse.pdf?ref=foxwizard.com)). ### 5\. You are (at least somewhat) ‘construct aware’ To quest is to attain a newfound enchantment that exists *on the other side* of disillusionment. To find oneself disillusioned is to recognise that the constructs most of us hold to are, in fact, fabrications manifested via inter-subjective belief. To see *through* these illusions can invite much despair into your life—yet questers are able to transmute this into generative action. Becoming disillusioned allows you greater capacity to ‘see’—and thus to develop a renewed acuity for enchantment (and the glimmer of greater gestalts).\* \* *Note: this disillusionment might be one of the early milestones of questing. Fun!* ### 6\. You live and lead with(in) story You have a keen sense of the mythopoetic, and the way that *patterns of meaningness* play out. Questers must (sometimes) seek the eddies in the otherwise default (‘mainstream’) narrative flow—places in which meanings can mix and new rivulets might flow. For a more comprehensive sense of this, I recommend to you [Venkatesh Rao’s musings on psychohistory](https://www.ribbonfarm.com/series/psychohistory/?ref=foxwizard.com), along with [Protocol Narratives](https://studio.ribbonfarm.com/p/protocol-narratives?ref=foxwizard.com). ### 7\. You walk the path betwixt Questing is non-linear. It’s not a [double-diamond](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double%5FDiamond%5F%28design%5Fprocess%5Fmodel%29?ref=foxwizard.com) ‘ideas funnel’ where, after ‘brainstorming’ ideas, you progressively whittle them down into something palatable for senior executives to endorse, all neat, efficient and linear. When questing we must sometimes walk the [labyrinths of reason](https://www.foxwizard.com/labyrinths/), around and around, until some sort of post/para/trans/meta-rational (in)sanity becomes apparent. And sometimes we must *oscillate* betwixt seemingly opposing ways—straddling paradox—in order to surface an otherwise hidden ‘third position’. The mythologist [Dr. Martin Shaw writes](https://emergencemagazine.org/essay/navigating-the-mysteries/?ref=foxwizard.com): > To become a warrior of the elite class in ancient Ireland you had to learn how to dance on the tip of a spear, to become a sovereign you had two wild horses attached to your chariot, setting out in different directions. Your task was to create, between the warring directives of each, a third movement, forged from the tension of both wills. If you could thrive under that discord, stay upright in the unknowing, make play from the tension, then you had the capacity to be a sovereign. And it wasn’t just a case of bullying the horses but making a kind of alchemical covenant between the two: you rode the counterweight and something new was birthed. That requires patience and a certain amount of discomfort. > > So what could that look like in our lives? It means rescuing little ideas that gleam for a second in our soul then disappear. Coaxing them back. It means attention to not *this* or *that* but possibly both or some other way entirely. This isn’t necessarily easy, being so conditioned as we are to yes or no, black or white. And sometimes that third position is not what many would call a logical response. Coax them back. ### 8\. You cultivate for serendipity In [How to Lead a Quest](https://www.drjasonfox.com/books?ref=foxwizard.com) I emphasise the importance of *ritual*—sacred routines, wherein we deliberately carve out time against the default grain of busyness, in order to progress or protect what matters. Questing is very much a paradox in the distraction economy. In most contexts, you need to operate in a bimodal manner—tending to the default (operational) demands of work and life whilst also questing deeper. Rituals allow for the deepening. Done well, they becomes ways in which we can cultivate the conditions for serendipity and emergence. For individuals, this means: [morning pages](https://juliacameronlive.com/basic-tools/morning-pages/?ref=foxwizard.com), [artist dates](https://juliacameronlive.com/basic-tools/artists-dates/?ref=foxwizard.com), long contemplative walks in nature, long lunches with fellow questers, and intimate hangs with fellow (infinite) players. For enterprise, it means things like rhythmic gatherings of diverse questers into shared contexts with little-to-no agenda—other than that which emerges. ### 9\. Your questing has purpose As tricky as [the notion of ‘purpose’](https://www.foxwizard.com/purpose-perils/) has become, questing requires an orientation to *‘meaningful progress’;* towards desirable [attractors](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attractor?ref=foxwizard.com), and futures that ‘make sense’. Thus to quest is to pursue the unknown ‘betterment’ that at least partially resolves the constructive discontent we harbour. To ‘lead a quest’ is to shine a light on the path for others to follow. ✦ And follow they will! By the time your quest has brought about its revelations—by the time you have, through much effort, somehow stumbled upon profound new insight—your work will have also made the path appear ‘obvious’. If you’re *leading* the quest well. And this is where the settlers come in; come to capitalise upon the newfound synthesis and insight you have helped to pioneer amidst the wilds. They’ll find all sorts of ways to ‘optimise’ the insight you (and your crew) have gleaned. What was once profound will be rendered mundane—until the cycle of discontent begins anew. Such is the way of those who quest —until a day when, we too, ‘settle’.\* *fin* \* *But it is not this day!* --- Bah! That was my attempt to write a normie-friendly click-bait listicle. But, evidently: I can’t. I just can’t. What we have here is a half-baked bricolage-pastiche that limply gestures towards a vague aesthetic without offering any discernible value whilst smugly virtue-signalling all the while (in vain). I’ve been close to deleting this but I am experimenting with the notion that, if I publish more regularly, a more effortless kind of flow might emerge. We’ll see! Anyhoo, I hope there were at least some elements that struck a chord with you. See you at [The Rekindling](https://www.foxwizard.com/rekindling), for those who can make it. --- ## Glimmers ✨ I found the following fruits in my traversing of the noösphere. Enjoy! - I missed Dave Snowden when he was in town this time, so I’ve been on a mini-binge to subsume most (but not all, hoho) of the sensibilities he wondrously purports. I found that the sensibilities shared at \~26 minutes into [The Problem with Developmental Models](https://www.coachesrising.com/podcast/the-problem-with-developmental-models-with-dave-snowden/?ref=foxwizard.com) (on the [Coaches Rising](https://www.coachesrising.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) podcast) to be incredibly well put. I envy Dave’s ability to so eloquently encapsulate. *“It’s actually more important to know what you shouldn’t do, than have a model what you* should *do,”* Dave explains. *“And if you look at the history of humans, all of our storytelling traditions tell stories of failure, not of success. Because we know the best way we can teach people is to actually tell them what* not *to do, based on our experience, but then leave it open for them to discover novel pathways. If you tell people what the pathways should be, you make them—to quote Alistair MacIntyre—anxious stutterers in the narrative of their own existence. Because you’re creating dependency on them.”* - 2022 seemed to be the year of ‘vibes’. Venkatesh Rao, as ever, was onto it early—and I long appreciated his definition of ‘vibe’: [*a vibe is an emotion pretending to be an explanation*](https://studio.ribbonfarm.com/p/derangements?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* Recently, the dangerlam got me onto this incredibly well-written piece (also from 2022)—[Vibe, Mood, Energy​ | Or, Bust-Time Reenchantment](https://www.thedriftmag.com/vibe-mood-energy/?ref=foxwizard.com) *by* Mitch Therieau. But ‘vibes’ alone are not enough—what seems to follow, memetically, is an interest in ‘lore’. The [laws of lorecore](https://zine.zora.co/the-laws-of-lorecore-shumon-basar?ref=foxwizard.com) and [lands of lorecraft](https://studio.ribbonfarm.com/p/lands-of-lorecraft?ref=foxwizard.com) (from later 2022) overlap and interplay here. These seem to me to be a renewed cultivation for emergent *qualitative* coordination principles that serve in an age where global meta-narratives no longer hold as reliable sources of coherence. There is a maturity here in that qualitative coordination principles make more sense as lead-attractors than quantitative attractors do. “Big numba target” only makes sense for period of time, and only at a crude granularity (low-resolution). Likewise, as social media empires continue to balkanize, there seems to be an emerging maturity for vibe/lore/myth (*<— all of these said irreverently, in lowercase*) to eclipse the quantitative vanity metrics that otherwise hoodwinked us from a decade. In other words: ‘follower count’ is not as meaningful an indicator of quality as many once thought. - Yet beneath these qualitative ‘vibes’ and the emergent ‘lore’ tended to within the knowledge gardens of a living culture—we still have work to do. I fear we are in an age that is over-indexed in ‘thought leaders’ and ‘executive coaches’—and under-indexed in actual builders, researchers, maintainers, and so on. And because the distraction economy has convinced us we are ‘time poor’, we tend to favour quick, clear, simplistic shortcuts and ‘hacks’ over—bah! I have had this rant many a time. I may be preaching to the converted here; you know what I mean. - Apologies for the facebook link, but I recently came across [this animation from 2016](https://m.facebook.com/mobymusic/videos/moby-the-void-pacific-choir-are-you-lost-in-the-world-like/10154690698776108/?ref=foxwizard.com) (which I watched without sound, hoho). It seems to depict the state of ‘progress’ from seven years ago—I’m not always convinced we have done much better. This video came out the same year that *How to Lead a Quest* was released, which has since plagued me with the question of what *meaningful* progress means—as distinct from the default progress narrative (“everything is getting better”). As I see that, right now—in 2023, amidst climate collapse—[the government of this country is allowing trees that are *hundreds of years old* to be cleared out of public forests](https://twitter.com/BobBrownFndn/status/1691745653586874687?ref=foxwizard.com). The intent of this ‘glimmers’ section is to try find the bright things that are worth taking note of. Sometimes, it’s hard to find such. But I am glad for [The Bob Brown Foundation](https://bobbrown.org.au/?ref=foxwizard.com), and similar organisations striving for a vision of the future that supports the flourishing of all life on this planet. - Actually: the bright thing is [The Rekindling](https://foxwizard.com/rekindling?ref=foxwizard.com). The regen-curious and regen-ready minds that these events attract gives me cause for some hope amidst it all. I’ve had many requests to do an online version of The Rekindling—it’ll happen, friends. Stay tuned. ♡ --- Thank you so much once again. *—fw* ### 💌 The perils of declaring a “purpose” URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/purpose-perils/ Last updated: 2024-03-14T03:36:27.000Z I am noticing a trend amidst the engagements I have been summoned for: many leaders are beginning to wonder if their official declared *purpose, vision, mission* and *values* are still relevant. Many are considering that these need to be reconsidered, or at the very least “refreshed”. This is wonderful—breathing life into what ought be an evolving field of enquiry. Yet there is also a whole consulting industry that has emerged to service this need, and we have been collectively groomed to believe that the *messy, organic, nebulous, intersubjective, contextual, contingent, paradoxical, emergent* and *enlivening* conversation about ‘purpose’ ought be rendered into neat, pithy platitude-statements. Which will arrive sanitised yet already stale. Of course, there’s a Machiavellian propaganda wing to all things—I get that. But I’d like to help ensure that purpose, vision, mission and values remain a *living* conversation. Not fixed. Sometimes composted—but never undead. But—before I go banishing the necromantic powers that sap life and imprison vim in stasis—I have some updates for you. --- ## Purpose Conference I will be contributing to this year’s [Purpose Conference](https://www.purposeconference.co/?ref=foxwizard.com). Possibly an opening presentation. *I had the joy of speaking at the inaugural Purpose Conference put on by Sally Hill and her wonderful team, back in the wayback. The landscape of purpose-driven business has matured a lot since then, and I am keen to not only share my own thoughtful provocations—but to attend as participant as well. Mayhaps I’ll see you there?* --- ## The Rekindling We are rekindling [The Rekindling](https://www.foxwizard.com/rekindling) this month. This time we have Sally Hill joining us as we explore the themes pertinent to the [Purpose Conference](https://www.purposeconference.co/?ref=foxwizard.com): *regenerative systems, transforming capitalism, responsible tech* and *climate countdown—and more.* As ever, The Rekindling attracts the bright minds and warm hearts keen to explore regenerative futures. 5:30–7:15pm + 7:15pm *onwards* · Thursday 24th of August at United Co. (425 Smith Street, Fitzroy) *Then—as one collective skulk—we stroll to a local brewery for warm speakeasy salon vibes until whenever. This is really the wondrous part—relaxed generative dialogue at depth amongst a warm atmosphere of newfound friends.* [Get your ticket](https://www.foxwizard.com/rekindling/) (+ bring a friend)\* \* *Our tickets are very accessible, but if you’re in a tight spot let us know and we’ll sneak you in anyhow.* --- ## Intellectually Honest (like a fox) [Here is a musing I wrote last week](https://www.foxwizard.com/intellectually-honest/) in response to folks wondering what I mean when I say that *it’s challenging to be intellectually honest whilst also being commercially effective in the distraction economy.* I conclude with some draft thoughts on how to dance amidst bullshit with grace. *(I felt a bit funny after writing it, so decided not to share it as a* [*museletter*](https://www.foxwizard.com/museletter) *but to instead just sneak the musings into the world without any announcement.)* --- ## And now to the Porpoise of this Musing ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2023/08/A-happyb-porpoise-at-sea.png) I belieb in a higher porpoise (conjured with midjourney) Seven years ago I wrote the following in a museletter (lightly edited). Of course, the origins of it are now lost thanks to my proclivity to periodically delete most of my old work—but those who have been with me for this time will find it in their inbox archives. ****The Perils of a Neatly-Defined Purpose** **When words get in the way of meaning.* Having a profound sense of purpose has become Quite The Thing now.You wouldn’t want to leave home without one. It’s now almost essential to have an answer to the question: **“What’s your Purpose?”* or **“What’s your Why?”* Hip agencies, startups and solo consultants love this question. So do I, kind of. It’s sometimes quite fascinating to hear the internal narrative behind people’s behaviour. But… I’m not sure we need the answer to this question—**‘what’s your purpose?’*—to be served ‘neat’. In fact, I worry when it is. ****A brief encounter with ‘The Purpose Cop’** A couple of months ago I was at a fab event in which—during Q&A—a photographer of international acclaim was asked: **“what’s your Purpose?”*You could hear the capital ‘P’ in her tone. I’m pulling this from memory—so don’t quote me—but I remember he started his reply with something authentic like: **“I don’t know.”* He then proceeded to describe—with raw and perfectly imperfect truth and elegance—the intimacy amidst the subtle play of light, and his love of capturing rare moments and the raw honesty of the people he works with. But that wasn’t good enough. “No... but what’s your Purpose?”, the Purpose Cop drilled. She had been given a handheld mic, and was drunk on the power. Each attempt he made to answer the question was interrupted with further probing. “No, that’s not big enough. Tell me: What Is Your Purpose?” In the end he conceded beneath the barrage and was later handed a business card by Purpose Cop. **“I Can Help You Find Your Purpose”.* I feel a tad bad about this tease—she was probably very nice and earnest of intent. But it left me wondering: what would I have done in that situation?Now, I have me a capital-p ‘Purpose’ which I actually, truly, deeply, feel an affinity to. It would make for a great bumper-sticker.**“To create a world that’s more curious and kind.”*It lights me up, perpetually. But I wonder… ****Is it perilous to have a Pithy Purpose?** I daresay, sometimes, yes.If we’re not careful—or, ironically, if we’re **too* careful—the noble yearning and the burning aspiration that comes from A Clear Sense of Purpose can be rendered inept in our attempts to neatly define it. Just as over-rehearsing an ‘elevator pitch’ can trigger you to activate a kind of glazed-over robotic auto-parrot-bot mode whenever presented with the opportunity to pitch, the words of a Pithy Purpose might similarly get in the way of the meaning. I see this happen in senior executive teams. It’s now known that Purpose is an important element for Engagement, particularly as we Attract Talent and Embrace the Future of Work. But what this looks like is a bunch of superficial word-smithing alongside the Vision, Mission and Values. Topical buzzwords get jammed in, and then after much compromise and angst, there comes a point at which we can dust our hands and declare **“DONE! Good. We now have our Purpose. Quickly—get it laminated before we change our minds.”* But does the neat conclusiveness of a Pithy Purpose actually shut down the very thing that connects us to a sense of purpose—the curiosity to ask questions and pursue meaning? Does it become too tempting a default—something to fall back to, when confronted with any angst, uncertainty or doubt? Is this how a blind or non-thinking adherence to dogma begins? In the exaggerated example above, quite possibly. But is there any need to have a neatly-defined purpose? I daresay, sometimes, yes. ****As with all important things, purpose is paradoxical** A well-crafted and neatly defined Pithy Purpose gives people something to rally around **if* (and it’s a big ‘if’) it serves as a statement for a much deeper and impassioned conversation. But any such statements have a shelf-life—they get stale. Habituation kicks in, and we run the risk of becoming disconnected to the why behind our why. What to do? ****Periodically prod and perturb your Pithy Purpose** Do not settle on a Pithy Purpose. Sure—roll with it if it serves you. But be attuned for the day it does not. Besides—it’s the conversation that sits **behind* the label that really matters most. The living expression of purpose, in its most raw, real, and imperfect form. ****If you don’t have the label for it yet, that’s fine.**Keep searching. Keep questing. Fumble your way through the dark.****Don't let words get in the way of meaning.** An authentic and yet imperfect expression of purpose trumps a well-polished and neatly-defined Pithy Purpose any day.**fin* I like it that I don’t hate it. I wish I didn’t use the concept of ‘label’ but: I was a simpler mind back then. But I really still quite like this sentiment: ## Don’t let words get in the way of meaning I know: this is coming from the one who has conjured [The ‘Choose One Word’ Ritual of Becoming](http://chooseoneword.com/?ref=foxwizard.com)—which is all about finding an apt word to serve as a nebulous semiotic beacon to help hold you true to your own unfurling. But, to my defense: it’s very much a fluid conversation, not fixed. And it’s something like 69 videos in order to help you arrive at this distillation. It takes time. We cannot approach it directly; nor can we *optimise*. The way reveals the way, and the work in reflection, introspection, and projection cannot be sidestepped. We must approach it gently; warmly; surreptitiously. Like a unicorn in a glade. Yet my experience within Enterprise Land is that the dehydrated, sleep deprived and time-poor leaders that gather together to rework their purpose propaganda typically do so via a linear ‘[double diamond](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double%5FDiamond%5F%28design%5Fprocess%5Fmodel%29?ref=foxwizard.com)’ design process. Possibilities are expanded out (imagine: someone hovering by the whiteboard with marker in hand; no such thing as a bad idea). Then they are pruned down and distilled with post-it notes and wordsmithing. Then some folks express prudent concern about the wording. And then, at the end of a long and mostly fruitless process, folks agree upon an innocuous and inoffensive yet underwhelming generic tepid limp-wristed milquetoast platitude that is The New Thing To Rally Behind! Until a few years later, where they accept that it’s not quite relevant and so... they do it all again! ᕕ(ᐛ)ᕗ ## Propaganda & Purpose I do believe there’s a both/and to this. Have a placeholder purpose statement that broadly covers what you’re about, sure. Even better—gather clusters of stories in response and relation to the proposed purpose statement *from the people actually doing the work.* Complexity sage [Dave Snowden drafts some very pragmatic steps as to how to go about genuinely engaging with the topic of ‘purpose’](https://thecynefin.co/purposeless/?ref=foxwizard.com) in a meaningful and effective way. But even if you ‘land’ on a neat piece of propaganda—keep the real conversation about purpose *alive*. That is: messy, developing, complex, adaptive, fluid and ever in flux (as it quests to exist in right-relation to its context; just as all living beings ought). ## For only that which can change can continue ...this is the principle by which infinite players live. (James P. Carse, [*Finite and Infinite Games*](https://wtf.tw/ref/carse.pdf?ref=foxwizard.com)). But, wait—Simon Sinek says that your purpose—‘your Why'—is ‘[something objective](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/simonsinek%5Fyour-why-is-who-you-are-at-your-natural-best-activity-7080566533470449664-t57O/?ref=foxwizard.com)’. *“It’s who you are. It’s who you are at your natural best... We are all fully formed when we are young... fundamentally who we are is who we are... there’s no changing it. So if you’re changing it every year, it’s probably not your Why.”* This reeks of *fixed meaning*—[an eternalist ploy](https://meaningness.com/imposing-fixed-meanings?ref=foxwizard.com).\* \* *“The antidote,“ [David Chapman writes](https://meaningness.com/imposing-fixed-meanings?ref=foxwizard.com), “is curiosity. Wonder what things mean; investigate without presuppositions. Allow things to mean whatever they do, or to remain mysterious or meaningless if that’s what they want. Avoid premature judgements of meaning”.* But I have wondered off on a tangent—let’s get back to the matter at hand. ## Disambiguation: purpose, vision, mission, values *“Don’t let words get in the way of meaning,” he says.* ### —What’s the point of purpose? Purpose is how we orient towards contribution and relevance-realisation. It’s a nebulous meta-narrative that allows for our activities to ‘make sense’. Purpose works best when we feel as though we are contributing to something larger than ourselves. The more omni-win, the better. ### —What does a vision look like? Ideally we have *a constellation of visions,* rather than a singular vision. This constellation looks like a cluster of potential stories—glimmers of worlds that may be. Each glimmering story stands distinct, yet exists in relation to those around it. From a removed distance, the constellation exhibits a pattern in that common qualities can be discerned across each ‘vision’—thus putting the visions in relation to each other (and putting *the constellation of visions* itself amidst other such constellations). Something to navigate by, whenever you feel you are losing your way. ### —Must we have a mission? No—but gosh the world loves a good *mission*. This is where the men get excited because, finally—amidst all this babble of words and meanings and nebulosity and flux and whatnot—*finally* we can point to directly *do.* Something to win at. Missions are narrow in focus, linear in path, binary in outcomes (success/failure) and easily measurable throughout. They’re finite games and thus: the opposite to a *quest*. (But that’s a tale for another time.) ### —Are values valuable? Kinda? Again; values are emergent properties of complex systems that guide the standards of how we interrelate. Yet they are still situational/contextual. In fact, we often experience *conflicting values*—something Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey write of in [*Immunity to Change*](https://www.amazon.com.au/Immunity-Change-Overcome-Potential-Organization/dp/1422117367?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* For example, many in Enterprise Land experience a conflict of values between stability and change. The mantra, as Scott Belsky puts it in [*Making Ideas Happen*](https://www.scottbelsky.com/bio-part-3-1?ref=foxwizard.com) is: “We want you to innovate*—but don’t you dare innovate.”* Part of the dance of life (and leadership) is in navigating the oft-times paradoxical nature of values; knowing when to oscillate, suspend, or double-down. Most ‘declared’ enterprise values are deplorably bland—integrity, innovation, excellence, customer focus, quality service, responsibility, safety and care, etc. I mean, why bother? Because *of course* these things are to be valued. But the best values are *polarising.* They’re a distinct *stance* adopted that’s meant to spark debate. Are values always rigidly, dogmatically upheld? Heck no: life is messy. Our values are—again, much like constellations—*beacons* to refer to when we otherwise find ourselves lost. When the decision is not clear, they serve as a guide. ## A Return to Ambiguity Why do I make such a dance of these topics? Why do we hesitate to declare values that may be polarising (or at least something other than the mundanity we otherwise purport)? I suspect we—each of us—intuitively know: > To name something is to rob it of its power. And we so love to hallucinate knowingness. This recalls to me an excerpt from Richard Feynman in *“What Do You Care What Other People Think?”: Further Adventures of a Curious Character,* (1988) edited by Ralph Leighton. > The next Monday, when the fathers were all back at work, we kids were playing in a field. One kid says to me, "See that bird? What kind of bird is that?" I said, "I haven't the slightest idea what kind of a bird it is." He says, "It's a brown-throated thrush. Your father doesn't teach you anything!" But it was the opposite. He had already taught me: "See that bird?" he says. "It's a Spencer's warbler." (I knew he didn't know the real name.) "Well, in Italian, it's a Chutto Lapittida. In Portuguese, it's a Bom da Peida. In Chinese, it's a Chung-long-tah, and in Japanese, it's a Katano Tekeda. You can know the name of that bird in all the languages of the world, but when you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird. You'll only know about humans in different places, and what they call the bird. So let's look at the bird and see what it's doing-that's what counts." (I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.) Most of us cannot grasp the *true name* of phenomena that we observe. And so we flatten the vast complexity into words that reduce the subject into something we believe to be knowable. *“It’s the articulation of tacit understanding where things go wrong,”* writes complexity sage Dave Snowden. *“Tyranny of the explicit.”* To which, in a display of contextual grace, Paul Cristofani adds—in haiku form—*“fixed stable labels // bind form and function. // Damming flow.”* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2023/08/Screenshot-2023-08-09-at-1.41.32-pm.png) All of this alludes to why I so love [oral lore](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oral%5Ftradition?ref=foxwizard.com)—knowledge is kept alive through this process. It also might explain my ongoing discomfort with the enshrining of my own writing. And my discomfort in whenever someone attempts to put a Name to the implicit—turning the yearning of a quest (with all of its potent mysteries) into A Declared Purpose. I recall the words overheard by Tyson Yunkaporta—Indigenous scholar, and a friend I don’t actually hang out with anywhere near enough. Here he is, revealing some of his mercurial sensibilities on [episode 321 of the Green Dreamer podcast](https://greendreamer.com/podcast/dr-tyson-yunkaporta-sand-talk?ref=foxwizard.com). > I don't know, I try to avoid naming anything. And I try to avoid making too much sense, and I try to say things a bit differently every time and to mix it up. And I'll make points that you can't put together. I do that quite deliberately because I don't want the things I'm thinking or working on to become an ideology or a brand, or something that people can use as a name. I have seen that happen before with a few things I've done: People have grabbed it, and then it's become their thing. You've got to avoid that packaging and repackaging of ideas and let these things be free-range. ([source](https://greendreamer.com/podcast/dr-tyson-yunkaporta-sand-talk?ref=foxwizard.com)) *“But, but—packaging and repackaging ideas is what 42.0% of us LinkedIn Thoughtleadery Influencer Types do!”* someone near me decries over their extra-hot latté. *“How are we to profit from ideas if we let them be free-range? Someone else will just take them!”* Sigh. I know; I know. This is the multipolar trap that leads to [the proliferation of bullshit](https://www.foxwizard.com/intellectually-honest/#bullshit) and the [enshittification ](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/enshittification?ref=foxwizard.com)of everything. You could, perhaps, just not? Back to purpose. And, to a lesser extent: vision and values. If the issue is in the attempt to articulate the tacit—and if the outcome is the tyranny of the explicit which is *damming* to flow—what are we to do? How are we to grasp at a sense of purpose—without naming it and otherwise reducing it, and robbing it of its potency? ## A sense of the mythopoetic *“The correct response to uncertainty is mythmaking,”* [writes Martin Shaw](https://emergencemagazine.org/essay/navigating-the-mysteries/?ref=foxwizard.com). *“It always was.”* Purpose—like myth and lore—has an emergent quality to it. When glimpsed, or felt, it is something to behold with wonder. > *“Move from seeing to beholding.* To see a situation is to catch the facts of the matter. To behold it is to witness the story. If you dwell entirely with statistics and data, you will be a burnt match within months. Move from just seeing the world to beholding the world. Seeing is assessment and analysis; beholding is wonder and curiosity.” – [Navigating the Mysteries](https://emergencemagazine.org/essay/navigating-the-mysteries/?ref=foxwizard.com) In the introductory post of [Lands of Lorecraft](https://studio.ribbonfarm.com/p/lands-of-lorecraft?ref=foxwizard.com)(a millennial/metamodern management science), Venkatesh Rao speaks to this sense of beholding (in his own way). > “Lore is something you witness, and attempt to shape as it emerges, *if* it emerges, not something you design and execute. You cannot, for instance, set out to *write* an origin myth. At least not one that will work as lore (though it may work as part of a grift). You can only recognize and institutionalize one.” My sense, going forward, is that neat and pithy ‘purpose statements’—along with vision, mission and values—will always hold a place as a kind of ‘propaganda placeholder’. And, in the same way that stock photography is almost never arresting nor stirring—and rarely calls to be beheld—so too these pieces of propaganda will sit; largely doing nothing at all. Except for—like stock photography—occasionally serving as a source of cringe. But *betwixt* it all, and in the penumbra, lore will emerge. “*Lore is the story insiders tell themselves to manage their own psyches”,* Venkatesh Rao writes. So too, our sense of purpose serves in a similar way. It makes the work worthwhile by suspending a nebulous narrative in which your sacrifices *make sense* in the context of serving a bigger story. How potent this is will depend upon those who notice and tend to the lore. It will depend upon the oral-ish\* traditions that are maintained as an enterprise-egregore grows and/or matures. \* *I say ‘-ish’ because lore can now emerge in the casual domains of chat threads, now.* ## But: that’ll do for now I’ve gone too deep again. This museletter is another hefty one. There is *so much* to write about with regards to: purpose, vision, mission, values, myth, lore—and everything in-between. But I am going to stop now before I burst. I really ought to be packaging these ideas into my next book. “ /s ” <— *or is it?* My hope is that this musing may give you some pause to consider how you relate to the notion of ‘purpose’. And that you might be a little more deft and crafty with how you navigate the tension of needing some sort of external propaganda piece—whilst also preserving the potency of purpose from within. How this all might remain a *living* conversation, and not merely something to be packaged. That’s the hope anyway! Thank you for reading. --- ## Glimmers ✨ Oh yes, I nearly forgot. - [So You Want to Be a Sorcerer in the Age of Mythic Powers... (The AI Episode) ](https://www.buzzsprout.com/317042/13210102-so-you-want-to-be-a-sorcerer-in-the-age-of-mythic-powers-the-ai-episode?ref=foxwizard.com)<– this podcast is a must listen. It’s *so bloody good.* I found the ‘mythic lens’ to be a very apt way to appreciate and approach what is emerging with artificial intelligence. The sensibilities shared in this episode now reside with [the still-very-concerning warnings](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=%5FP8PLHvZygo&ref=foxwizard.com) I’ve subsumed regarding the acceleration of civilisational collapse. Fun. - [*Breaking Together—a freedom-loving response to collapse*](https://jembendell.com/2023/04/08/breaking-together-a-freedom-loving-response-to-collapse/?ref=foxwizard.com)is a somewhat cathartic read. Even just the introduction provides a great overview of where we are at. I tend to view the word ‘freedom’ with suspicion, only really happy if it is paired with responsibility and care. And this book most certainly is. But I wouldn’t recommend it to most—this is only something to turn to if you feel like you have run out of ‘hope’ (when it comes to societal and ecological collapse). It may be that, amidst the ‘post-hope’ sensibilities of this book, a new hope blossoms. But if you still have hope then: cool! happy 4 u. - I know I already mentioned [the lexicon of lorecore](https://zine.zora.co/the-lexicon-of-lorecore-shumon-basar?ref=foxwizard.com) in [my last museletter](https://www.foxwizard.com/stance-mindset/#glimmers-%E2%9C%A8)—but [The Laws of Lorecore](https://zine.zora.co/the-laws-of-lorecore-shumon-basar?ref=foxwizard.com) by Shumon Basar is a delight. Especially when paired with the [Lands of Lorecraft](https://studio.ribbonfarm.com/p/lands-of-lorecraft?ref=foxwizard.com) by Venkatesh Rao. - The [Lessons From the Recent Crypto Bull & Bear (Or Why Crypto Sucks Right Now)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFQOytCCmpw&ref=foxwizard.com) by Camila Russo are very much what those of us in the maturing field of web3 need to face. - [“Climate Solutions: Your body can build up tolerance to heat. Here’s how.” ](https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2023/07/29/how-to-become-heat-tolerant/?ref=foxwizard.com)*“Small gradual exposures to heat can help the human body build tolerance to rising temperatures, experts say.”* <— Even I can’t make this shit up. Thanks *Washington Post.* - I absolutely love *Terraforms by Mathcastles,* and [the current exhibition HEEEEEEEEEEE’s collection](https://www.glitchmarfa.com/e30dgallery/terraforms/?ref=foxwizard.com) is exemplary. I found this 2007 piece by Mary Oliver titled *Don’t Hesitate* to be quite moving. (with thanks to Kim for sharing it with me) ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2023/08/Screenshot-2023-08-09-at-5.16.25-pm.png) *Joy is not made to be a crumb!* --- Thank you so much once again. Please feel free to comment or ask questions below; it is always lovely to hear from you. Oh and if a friend forwarded this to you (how nice of them!) you can [join the many thousands who subscribe to The Museletter](https://www.foxwizard.com/museletter). Much warmth *—fw* ### 🦊 Intellectually Honest (like a fox) URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/intellectually-honest/ Last updated: 2024-02-28T02:01:57.000Z It seems an offhand remark I made in [my last museletter](https://www.foxwizard.com/stance-mindset/) has caused a very minor stir. This amuses me—whilst also activating my long held ‘fear of being misunderstood’—and so I thought I might take this opportunity to elucidate. Indulge me as we explore what intellectual honesty means in the distraction economy. I mentioned the following, in the context of deciding to resurrect the mythic stage persona of [Dr. Fox, Archwizard of Ambiguity (most fantastic)](https://www.drjasonfox.com/?ref=foxwizard.com); *award-winning global keynote speaker, bestselling author and leadership ‘futurist’.* I did this so that I can shine a little brighter in the distraction economy—whilst preserving more room for intellectual honesty with you here. I *had* been trying to do both at once, but (and here’s the line that caused the minor stir)— > “Genuinely, it’s been a challenge to be both intellectually honest *and* commercially effective in this distraction economy.” Some may think this means I am advocating for dishonesty—I’m not. What I mean is: it’s challenging to be intellectually honest whilst also being commercially effective in the distraction economy. A *worthy* challenge, mind. Yet challenging, nonetheless. Far easy to just embrace a *disregard* for truth. Take statistics, for example. Or ‘stats’, as they are affectionately known. Whenever someone shares a statistic—in a presentation, a paper, or whatever—the questions we ought ask include: - **From whence does this data come?** Is the source credible? Has it been published in a peer-reviewed journal? And is this journal respected? If it’s not in a peer-reviewed journal, is the methodology comprehensively shared? Is it verifiable? - **How large was the sample size?** And was it representative across relevant categories? - **How was the study designed?** How was the data collected? Was it self-reported assessments subject to cognitive bias? What methods were used, and were these methods appropriate for the data and the research question? How is significance reported? p-values? Z-scores and T-scores? A chi-square test? Analysis of variance? F-tests? Effect sizes? What are the margins for error—and are these reported? What about confidence intervals? - **Who funded the research?** Quality research is expensive—did the researchers have incentive to make the data skew a particular way? - **Were variables controlled?** Or is the study subject to confounding factors? - **Has the study been replicated?** And are the results consistent with other research? (There is a [replication crisis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication%5Fcrisis?ref=foxwizard.com) rendering many studies impossible to reproduce) - **Are the interpretations and conclusions drawn from the results justified?** (Remember, correlation does not imply causation.) - **Also: why this study?** Are there alternative theses? Or even: explanations that render any conclusion void? We ought [beware the person of one study](https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/12/beware-the-man-of-one-study/?ref=foxwizard.com). It’s my personal policy to avoid using statistics; I just don’t have the expertise to reliably represent them.\* And even if I did, they would be so wrapped up in caveats that they would lose much of their potency and impact. **This is an aspect of intellectual honesty**—something that encompasses epistemological humility, and a *duty of care* about how information and ideas can be (mis-)used. \* *My doctoral thesis did contain some statistical analysis—but that was decades ago now; I’ve forgotten most of what is important (and I’m sure the field has developed besides).* A principle of any complexity practitioner is to *first do no harm.* In environmental and biological sciences we call this [the precautionary principle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary%5Fprinciple?ref=foxwizard.com). It thus behooves me to do what I can to ensure that whatever thoughts I contribute into the mix do not cause unnecessary harm. This is why I often speak more to *sensibilities* than statistics, favouring subversive questions over bold advice. Because if you look at how most scientific claims are actually presented at academic events, a good scientist or researcher would spend some time ensuring there is a shared understanding of *terms* (this can be expedited via shared jargon), followed by a detailed explanation of the methodological approach and limitations, followed by a discussion of where evidence does (or does not) support the stated hypothesis. For those of us in the field, this can be quite fascinating. But outside of academia, such conversations can come across as dense, dry and unexciting—and this is not a strategy for attracting attention. **In the distraction economy, it’s the *marketers* who win**. And the relationship many marketers have with honesty is *creative* at best. And that’s okay! And sometimes even admirable. But before I get carried away, I ought make a distinction between honesty, dishonesty and bullshit*.* ## Honesty It doesn’t always make sense to be honest—at least, not immediately, nor directly. It’s not always kind or helpful to be. But on the whole: honesty is a good policy. Especially when deployed with *tact* (sans brutality). There are many well-meaning folk sharing what they honestly believe to be true—social media encourages this. But many have not had the opportunity to cultivate contemplative practices and an ability to critically reflect. So, whilst what they share might be done with honest intent—it is not necessarily an *intellectually* honest intent. It’s something more basic (and pure? untainted by thought)—and that’s lovely and nice. But I have come to notice—in my reluctant adventures in LinkedIn land—that there are many who harbour a *distrust* of academics, scientific papers, and anything that comes across as overly clinical, rational or wordy. Especially if it offers a different perspective to their ‘truth’. This is understandable: in a world saturated with information coupled with the decline in institutional authority (and [the death of expertise](https://www.amazon.com/Death-Expertise-Campaign-Established-Knowledge/dp/0190469412?ref=foxwizard.com)), we have been groomed to stick to [the shallows](https://www.amazon.com/Shallows-What-Internet-Doing-Brains/dp/0393339750?ref=foxwizard.com). Because: if we can’t trust the cacophony of new information we are subject to each and every day, what *can* we trust? For many, the answer is to trust in our *feelings.* Our feelings are a beacon for insight. Yet they can lead us astray, and are very easy to take advantage of.\* It requires a level of self-awareness to feel our feelings whilst also not getting so swept up in them that we lose our grasp of reality yet also not so detached that we disregard our feelings altogether. To grip tightly with an open palm. To stay in flow with it—for to hold one’s breath is to lose it. The maturing relationship we develop in mindfully feeling our feelings—and translating this awareness into insight—is perhaps some of the most important work we can do. \* *Just as our supposed intellect and thoughts* can also *lead us astray. The first, second and fourth hermetic principles apply here. As in all things.* Yet this reliance on feelings makes the *honest-yet-not-necessarily-intellectual* cohort *much* more susceptible to exploitation by bullshitters and the dishonest. It also has many of them adopting the methods of the bullshitters and the dishonest, too. Thus we see a promulgation of overreach—metaphysically, epistemologically—along with a litany of cognitive fallacies.\* \* *All of this fuelled and rewarded by arenas wherein our attention is monetised for their gain. Also, of course: it’s [fallacies, all the way down](https://www.foxwizard.com/labyrinths/#fallacies-all-the-way-down).* In other words, people extrapolate what feels true to them to equate to: **this \*is\* true; for everyone.** If we meet each other in good faith—especially in real life—much of this can be mitigated. Have people feel seen, respected and at ease, and it is likely we can arrive to a deeper shared understanding, and a richer, more complex and wholesome and messy kind of ‘truth’.\* (This is why I remain so keen on events—especially events done well, with a tending to the mythic). \* *Or: ‘pretty much’ true—knowing there is [no absolute truth](https://meaningness.com/no-absolute-meaning?ref=foxwizard.com).* ## Dishonesty There are those amongst us who are *construct* *aware.* In this: they know how narrative and belief shape perspective and opinion, and how all roles and titles are *theatrical*. They also know how [dark patterns](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark%5Fpattern?ref=foxwizard.com) influence behaviour. These dark wizards have immense power—but I would like to believe that such folks are very rare. And that there aren’t that many intellectually dishonest folks. Most people mean well. But we can’t be too naïve. We live in an age where disinformation is rising, which is causing direct harm to social cohesion, scientific literacy, electoral integrity and consensus reality. I remember hearing from Dr. Sanjana Hattotuwa of [The Disinformation Project](https://thedisinfoproject.org/?ref=foxwizard.com) earlier this year speak of some very maleficent ‘Lawful Evil’ aspects influencing society today. It is scary because we are so susceptible—especially because we are so *mired in bullshit*. ## Bullshit Bah: I don’t like the word. Unless it’s *“bullshit artistry”* <— this is a concept I can get behind. If we’re going to bullshit, *at least* lets make it artful, eh? But regular, non-artful bullshit is a blight. I also dislike how the word ‘bullshit’ is used in an Australian context. *“I’m gonna call bullshit on that”* is a rather blunt masculine way of approaching a difference in perspective; it lacks curiosity, empathy and elegance. I’ve seen it happen in panel discussions; the possibilities for emergence and a mutual growth in understanding collapse. It instead becomes a ‘debate’. Despite my distaste for the word: bullshit is technical philosophical term, originating from an essay in 1986 by the philosopher [Harry Frankfurt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry%5FFrankfurt?ref=foxwizard.com) (who passed away \~two weeks ago) titled ‘[On Bullshit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On%5FBullshit?ref=foxwizard.com)’. > The bullshitter differs from both liars and people presenting the truth with their disregard of the truth. \[...\] A person who communicates bullshit is not interested in whether what they say is true or false, only in its suitability for their purpose. ([source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On%5FBullshit?ref=foxwizard.com#cite%5Fnote-:4-8)) Hence why statistics are so often wielded by those who have no regard for their validity. Stats are cherry-picked simply to suit a purpose. And there are plenty of statistics to be found, if you aren’t discerning and do not care for a larger kind of honesty. Frankfurt believed bullshit to be [a greater enemy of the truth than lies are](https://insidestory.org.au/harry-frankfurts-warning/?ref=foxwizard.com)—and this was nearly two decades before Facebook hit the scene and social media began to become the beast it is today.\* Now, with AI, we have even *more* compelling deep fakes, too. Yay. \* *Though, to be fair, this was in a time of well established big media players (like Rupert Murdoch’s media empire).* We also have, as Professor John Vervaeke (of [*Awakening from the Meaning Crisis*](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLND1JCRq8Vuh3f0P5qjrSdb5eC1ZfZwWJ&ref=foxwizard.com)*)* puts it, *‘a tsunami of bullshit in a famine of wisdom’.* The distraction economy rewards salience much more so than relevance. In other words: it is much more commercially effective to promulgate *that which garners attention* than it is to spend time in more vital yet more complex matters. Besides: we intuitively gravitate to that which is ontologically-affirming. Face-validity is enough. (Unless you are striving to be intellectually honest). This is akin to ‘the delusion of progress’ I write about in *How to Lead a Quest—*the discrete, proximal, familiar and readily quantifiable will outcompete the vague, emergent, ambiguous, nebulous, complex, unfamiliar and difficult to measure. Thus to be an influencer you need to promise “10x boosts to productivity” and things like “how I made $1 million dollars in 2 months working less than 4 hours a week”. Lots of different numbers. We love fast, measurable things that fit into our existing worldview. And so we now have 52%—or wait 86%?—no: *54%* of children now want to become influencers. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2023/07/Screenshot-2023-07-30-at-3.02.09-pm.png) (I trust the [subscribers of my museletter](https://www.foxwizard.com/museletter) will know I share the above as a jape, given what I’ve just said about my relationship to statistics.) *Influencer* is now an aspirational archetype. We also now have people who can tell you with an earnest and straight face that it is *‘better to be a better marketer of what you do than a doer of what you do’.* (And it’s true, from a purely commercial perspective). And a lot of this is in the form of “self-marketing”*.* This isn’t folks getting enthusiastic about the emergence of shared ideas that grow our collective knowledge—it’s folks getting excited about garnering more attention, money, status and power for them*selves*.\* Ideas are just a utility for this purpose. \* *It’s like we are overindexed in singer-songwriter soloists singing over each other, when what we need is more jazz.* And it works—*if* commercial effectiveness is your primary goal. It is easier to have a disregard for the truth than it is to be intellectually honest, if commercial effectiveness is your only goal.\* The effort-to-reward ratio is much better. Besides: the optionality accrued via riches and fame can be later transmuted into virtue via philanthropy. \* *I am empathetic to folks who have a young family, mortages and debts to pay. This isn’t any individual’s “fault”—these are the symptoms of a system that is way out of balance, and increasingly detached from what is wholesome and regenerative. You gotta do whatcha gotta do. OR DO YOU? (You probably do).* Intellectual honesty can be confusing and confounding. We want confident, clear, crisp, concise calls to action. If you can’t do this it makes you—the supposed intellectual—seem doubtful and uncertain. As I am sure my own writing is here now. Because: it is. So; what to do? ## Be crazy, like a fox Madness subverts reason. To say that someone is [crazy like a fox](https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/241994/where-does-the-phrase-crazy-like-a-fox-originate?ref=foxwizard.com)is to imply that they are engaged in an activity that is *seemingly* foolish or insane—but actually quite shrewd, cunning or clever. There’s a *fox-like* way we can relate to this whole pantomime. A metamodern-ish infinite [game (\~b)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E%5FcyCuCKQhs&ref=foxwizard.com) and trickster-like disposition we can adopt. Some of the moves we infinite players make are non-linear, and seemingly nonsensical. And, fatiguing as it is to maintain the charade, I suspect that I need to redouble my efforts to woo the oligarchs in Enterprise Land towards that which is more conducive to mutual flourishing. This means: some *veiling* is required. Hence [the masquerade](https://www.drjasonfox.com/?ref=foxwizard.com). The notion of veiling is something James P. Carse mentions 46 times in [Finite and Infinite Games](https://wtf.tw/ref/carse.pdf?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* > To account for the large gap between the actual freedom of finite players to step off the field of play at any time and the experienced necessity to stay at the struggle, we can say that as finite players we somehow veil this freedom from ourselves. > > Some self-veiling is present in all finite games. Players must intentionally forget the inherently voluntary nature of their play, else all competitive effort will desert them. > > From the outset of finite play each part or position must be taken up with a certain seriousness; players must see themselves as teacher, as light-heavyweight, as mother. In the proper exercise of such roles we positively believe we are the persons those roles portray. Even more: we make those roles believable to others. It is in the nature of acting, Shaw said, that we are not to see this woman as Ophelia, but Ophelia as this woman. There’s some solace to this. To me, at least—though at this point I begin to wonder: *who am I writing this musing for?* I believe it is to myself, and to the phantoms I fear may judge me for what this character may need to do in the coming months and years: marketing. I subtitled this piece: *“—how to dance amidst bullshit with grace”*. I have been in a long patch of denial about the power of bullshit. Since writing *How to Lead a Quest,* I thought it obvious that folks would be inclined to orientate towards relevance, once realised. Yet the [*glamourie*](https://kingkiller.fandom.com/wiki/Fae%5Fmagic?ref=foxwizard.com)*—*the compelling illusions of seeming—are so strong in this world, now. And we are so blindly attuned to them. We have also become, [as Daniel Schmachtenberger calls it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvAbKE8-jYA&ref=foxwizard.com), ‘Moloch apologists’. We defend our *delusions of progress,* keeping the god of coordination failure happy. To what end, though? It’s not enough for me to quietly muse upon all of this from the safety of my wizard tower, far removed from the power laws of network effects, untainted by the arena. I must, once again, don the costume and adopt the forms and antics of those enthralled by the pantomime—playing along so that I can sneak deeper, working with fellow infinite players on the inside to weave our magics to greater effect. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2023/08/image.png) [**Stańczyk*](https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sta%C5%84czyk%5F%28pintura%29?ref=foxwizard.com), by [Jan Matejko](https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan%5FMatejko?ref=foxwizard.com). Part of this magic is in the awakening of those who have *forgotten* their infinite nature. Those who have forgotten that, they too, have *chosen* the role they are playing—and in so doing, chosen to forget. There’s a renewed *glint* you can attain through this remembering—even if you realise that the chosen roles remain the most apt for your context. > So it is with all roles. Only freely can one step into the role of mother. Persons who assume this role, however, must suspend their freedom with a proper seriousness in order to act as the role requires. A mother's words, actions, and feelings belong to the role and not to the person-although some persons may veil themselves so assiduously that they make their performance believable even to themselves, overlooking any distinction between a mother's feelings and their own. The issue here is not whether self-veiling can be avoided, or even should be avoided. Indeed, no finite play is possible without it. The issue is whether we are ever willing to drop the veil and openly acknowledge, if only to ourselves, that we have freely chosen to face the world through a mask. As I talk of in [*The Ritual of Becoming*](https://www.cleverness.com/word?ref=foxwizard.com)*—*and as the faë character Bast advises in [*The Name of the Wind*](https://patrickrothfuss.com/?ref=foxwizard.com)*:—* > “We understand how dangerous a mask can be. We all become what we pretend to be.” There’s a sincere-irony that is required of us if we are to dance amidst the bullshit (that is: the disregard for truth) with grace. We mustn’t get *so* swept up in our roles that we become too *serious.* > It is, in fact, seriousness that closes itself to consequence, for seriousness is a dread of the unpredictable outcome of open possibility. To be serious is to press for a specified conclusion. To be playful is to allow for possibility whatever the cost to oneself. Hoho: look at me, sermoning from *Finite and Infinite Games* once more. It’s been a while. All of this has me recall some wise words from Frank Herbert’s *Dune* series. I’ve updated the syntax to be more congruent with today’s context. > “Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent. It depends in part upon the myth-making imagination of humankind. The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth that they are in. They must reflect what is projected upon them. And they must have a strong sense of the sardonic. This is what uncouples them from belief in their own pretensions. The sardonic is all that permits them to move within themselves. Without this quality, even occasional greatness will destroy a person.” And so, with a strong sense of the sardonic, this here foxwizard finds themselves limbering up to return to the arena once more. Intellectually honest, like a fox. --- // OR MAYBE NOT. I’m not sure how much I believe of what I have just written here. As you can tell, I am in the midst of my own figuring. And this is the space that, as a complexity practitoner, I most enjoy. Nothing is fixed; all is in flux. *“Only that which can change can continue”,* as James P. Carse asserts. And so, I shall continue to oscillate. It’s all part of the dance. ### 💌 A Stance on “Mindset” URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/stance-mindset/ Last updated: 2024-11-27T01:06:26.000Z Hello friends. It’s been a few weeks, and I have much to update you on. Rather than have this particular museletter become one of my signature *saga-length soliloquies,* I shall endeavour to keep things succinct. In this epistle I announce my resurrection of the Dr. Jason Fox website, share some new interviews and books from friends, and contemplate the heretical claim that “having a growth mindset doesn’t work” \[gasp!\]. We conclude with GLIMMERS.✨ ## The Archwizard of Ambiguity is back! I have resurrected my website over at [drjasonfox.com](https://www.drjasonfox.com/?ref=foxwizard.com). This is my glittered trojan horse; use this to smuggle me into the heart of your enterprise, so that we can work out magics together. (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ\*:･ﾟ✧ [![An image of the homepage of drjasonfox.com](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2023/07/Dr.-Jason-Fox-homepage-1.png)](https://www.drjasonfox.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) The website of [drjasonfox.com](https://www.drjasonfox.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) (please admire it; I crave validation) Genuinely, it’s been a challenge to be both intellectually honest *and* commercially effective in this distraction economy. Any change is a threat to the established default. And yet: *only that which can change can continue.* You and I can be co-conspirators in this dance; let’s see what we might do. I would love for you to keep [this drjasonfox site](https://www.drjasonfox.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) up your sleeve the next time you or someone you know contemplates a conference, offsite, program or event that could benefit from some wizardly wit, wisdom and warmth. Thank you. ❤︎ As ever: I quest to co-create a world more curious and kind. And now, onto some updates. --- ## Books abound and podcasts aplenty I had a recent podcast chat with Leanne Hughes—author of [*The 2-Hour Workshop Blueprint*](https://www.2hourwork.shop/?ref=foxwizard.com)*—*on her show [*First Time Facilitator*](https://www.firsttimefacilitator.com/?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* We spoke loosely around themes of emergence and ‘being prepared to wing it’—but I also found it such a refreshingly down-to-earth and real conversation. It was as if we were two friends talking, instead of two thought leaders performing—fancy that! We both found ourselves baffled by how persistently effective insipid cliché content seems to be. I loved this conversation and I suspect you will, too. (I was probably *too* down-to-earth. I always intend to manifest as mysterious and cool, but I end up being warm and honest. Next time, maybe!) We also both name-dropped Michael Bungay Stanier and his wonderful new book—[*How to Work With (Almost) Anyone*](https://www.mbs.works/how-to-work-with-almost-anyone/?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* I really quite love MBS’s way of showing up in the world; ever curious, enlivening, upbeat. His new book is genuinely an inspiration in content and form. This hermit wizard could learn many a thing from him. Here’s a video promo I did for the book, pre-launch. And whilst we are on the topic of new books, my dear friend Sarah Firth’s wondrous book *Eventually Everything Connects—Eight Essays On Uncertainty* is [now available for pre-order](https://www.booktopia.com.au/eventually-everything-connects-sarah-firth/book/9781761068416.html?irclickid=2EQSK%3A2stxyPTj3yyYxHdyOLUkFwwNxN4Wr1Rw0&utm%5Fcampaign=Sarah%20The%20Firth%20Creative%20Services&utm%5Fmedium=affiliate&utm%5Fsource=Impact&bk%5Fsource=4541803&bk%5Fsource%5Fid=4541803&irgwc=1). I’ve seen an advanced copy, held it in its hands, appreciated its heft and marvelled at both its breadth and depth. [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2023/07/Eventually-Everything-Connects.png)](https://www.booktopia.com.au/eventually-everything-connects-sarah-firth/book/9781761068416.html?irclickid=2EQSK%3A2stxyPTj3yyYxHdyOLUkFwwNxN4Wr1Rw0&utm%5Fcampaign=Sarah%20The%20Firth%20Creative%20Services&utm%5Fmedium=affiliate&utm%5Fsource=Impact&bk%5Fsource=4541803&bk%5Fsource%5Fid=4541803&irgwc=1) This is a delightful tome *eight years* in the making, and is a vital and refreshing way to appreciate the dynamically interconnected complexities of life in this odd epoch we share. [Pre-order](https://www.booktopia.com.au/eventually-everything-connects-sarah-firth/book/9781761068416.html?irclickid=2EQSK%3A2stxyPTj3yyYxHdyOLUkFwwNxN4Wr1Rw0&utm%5Fcampaign=Sarah%20The%20Firth%20Creative%20Services&utm%5Fmedium=affiliate&utm%5Fsource=Impact&bk%5Fsource=4541803&bk%5Fsource%5Fid=4541803&irgwc=1) your copy (it’s super helpful for authors to pre-order, as it lets booksellers know what’s hot). Also heck, while we are at it, the legend Tyson Yunkaporta—author of *Sand Talk*—has a new book coming out: [*Right Story, Wrong Story: Adventures in Indigenous Thinking*](https://www.textpublishing.com.au/books/right-story-wrong-story-adventures-in-indigenous-thinking?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* Pre-order this one, too! (I will likely dedicate more museletters to these concepts in the coming months). --- ## Growing up about Growth Mindset A [recent meta-analysis](https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2023-14088-001?ref=foxwizard.com) of 63 studies (N=97,672) found that the overall effect of ‘growth mindset interventions’ was *nonsignificant* (after correcting for publication bias). I was alerted to this new study via [this thread](https://twitter.com/jayvanbavel/status/1681379620275331074?s=20&ref=foxwizard.com) by Professor Jay Van Bavel. *“Authors with a financial incentive to report positive findings published significantly larger effects than authors without this incentive.”* ([source](https://t.co/sldnzRZTrQ?ref=foxwizard.com)) Gosh who’d have thought incentives could create bias? Quite flabbergasting. /s I remember once reading the introduction to a professional speaker we had invited to a large event we were hosting, and they had *in their introduction notes* a reference to a published scientific study that ‘proved’ their keynote presentations were effective. Ha! Suffice to say I stumbled on that point. But, motivated reasoning aside: should we ditch growth mindset and embrace a fixed mindset? Haha: fūck no! The principles behind growth mindset are very sensible, and it would be silly to rob people of the belief that they can improve. Because: of course they can. The real issue this meta-analysis points to is the *bias* that skews the way some researchers construct their studies and report their findings. Thus: this is science going about and doing its thing; slowly yet meticulously self-correcting when assumptions and extrapolations become too exuberant. And that’s the heart of the issue, as I see it: *the exuberance* we apply to certain ideas. We become enchanted by them; enamoured. Especially when paired with bestselling authors who give charismatic TED presentations. Sweeping programs are then created and rolled out within organisations. The folks creating these Named Programs are naturally biased to report that they work (that’s what they’re paid for) so of course: more evidence that The Program Works is created and promulgated. Then influencer thought leaders start spreading the narrative in their work, quoting these in-house organisational case studies as evidence. These folks are all great marketers, and so in time we find ourselves conflating the *intervention* with the sensibilities that inspired it. And so when such meta-analyses emerge, some are actually inclined to believe that the “Growth Mindset Doesn’t Work”. Ha, no. But: maybe your interventions could be reconsidered? Maybe they have drifted, warped, or become a bit exuberant and detached from reality? Perhaps some *unhelpful* Magical Thinking as slipped in? Or: maybe not! It really depends on how *you* go about measuring these things. We can’t escape bias—but the scientific method does try to correct for it, in time. My wish for most of us is to become a little *less* enchanted with most ideas, and instead: a bit more warmly *amused*. That we might “[entertain ideas](https://www.foxwizard.com/labyrinths/#don%E2%80%99t-choose-%E2%80%98entertain%E2%80%99)” rather than embrace them whole-heartedly. Not with cold ironic detachment; but with a kind of *sincere irony*. Like indulging a friend by listening to a story you’re fascinated by yet not quite sure you believe. This way, when considering their efficacy, you are less personally invested and attached to it all. ## Oh but stahp saying “Mindset” I get it: it has an appeal to it. It seems solid. Set, like concrete. I have another close professional speaker friend who asks audiences if they can define what mindset means. After hearing a bunch of answers of varying degrees of quality from the audience, he mic drops with this banger: “Mindset is simply the setting of the mind”. The audience ooohs at the profundity, and reverently take note. Mindset is a popular word for a busy world because it allows people to hallucinate understanding very swiftly. But even if we all get in a room and agree on the particular mindset we need to embrace—agile? innovative? growth? olympic?—it will still likely manifest different meanings. Just like how ‘Make America Great Again’ is a nothing-statement that allows people to project unto it what ‘great’ means to them—so too ‘mindset’ allows us to do our own projections. I do the same. For a while I have had the book “[The Scout Mindset: Why Some People See Things Clearly and Others Don’t](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/555240/the-scout-mindset-by-julia-galef/?ref=foxwizard.com)” by Julia Galef flagged as something I might skim one day. I like *scouts* as a rogue archetype—light, sneaky, perceptive, intelligent, and so on. And so I would love to pick up the book and have my projections mostly affirmed. But I am still reluctant to use the term ‘mindset’. Mostly because it feels monolithic; a kind of imperialising of our wildness. I have an alternative, though. ## Consider: ‘Stances’ In many martial arts\* there are various stances we can adopt, based upon the context we find ourselves in. Of course, the context of martial arts combat changes so swiftly, so one must be *fluid* in how they transition between stances. \* *I can speak of martial arts as a bit of an authority; I am an elastic belt in Aikido and once upon a time nearly completed the game ‘Ghost of Tsushima’.* But it’s not just in martial arts—we do this throughout life. If you find yourself on a boat upon a roiling sea, it is likely your stance will widen so as to increase your level of stability. If you were to play a game of squash, you would likely have more weight on the balls of your feet, so as to better spring into action. And if you find yourself in front of a mirror, it is likely you will be reminded of how others might perceive you—and perhaps you will straighten any slouch. In all of these examples, your stance is updated *situationally*.\* I consider this more apt than the adoption of any particular ‘mindset’—though I may very well be saying the same thing. Particularly if you think of mindsets as a kind of ‘mask’ to wear (more as a shamanic *amplification* than any sort of ‘concealment’); even more so if you have *a set of masks* to choose from, so that you can adopt whatever *aspect* serves for the context you find yourself in. \* *David Chapman writes of [stances](https://meaningness.com/stances-trump-systems?ref=foxwizard.com) with much depth—it’s probably from here where my original inspiration for this musing came.* ![Dr. Fox walking past a wall of masks, pencil drawing by dangerlam](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2023/07/Character_Masterclass_by_dangerlam.jpeg) “Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.” – Oscar Wilde (Illo by the [dangerlam](https://dangerlam.com/?ref=foxwizard.com)) So! If it’s crunch time and you need to ‘get shït done’—your stance will lend itself to *tactical* matters, more oriented to sprints (as distinct from longer quests), and more inclined to tight feedback loops, narrowed focus, and minimised distraction. But if you have acquired some margin, and you have the optionality to venture beyond the immediate, it may be that your stance is more *questingly* inclined*.* Here, your heuristics (mental shortcuts) may skew towards questioning, sparring, sense-making, and generally cultivating an acuity for the emergent. But then, lo! things aren’t going so well at home for a close colleague. Fūck work for the moment; it can wait. Your stance is now that of a friend. Come, let’s go for a walk. Tell me, what’s happening. What I am trying to suggest here, is: everything is everything. And everything has its time and place. To remain congruent, coherent, deft and *apt* within the many changing contexts you move between is less about finding The Right ‘Mindset’ and more about fluidly adopting the appropriate *stance* for the situation we find ourselves in. I say this because we are in a time where many of us tend to overly *reify* ideas—particularly when applied at scale. And then we become shocked when they have nonsignificant impact, despite all that investment. Something gets lost in translation—akin to the difference between a nona making a special lasagne just for you (served fresh from the oven)—and the canteen making 15,000 lasagnes for export (of which yours is currently defrosting in the microwave). Ha, and now we get to matters of [*granularity*](https://cynefin.io/wiki/Granularity?ref=foxwizard.com) and scale—but I may muse upon these another time. Let me share with you now some glimmers. --- ## Glimmers ✨ - I’ve fallen in love with the xennial energy of [ZONE ZINE](https://zine.zora.co/?ref=foxwizard.com). This issue features [an interview with Kevin Kelly](https://zine.zora.co/issue/intergenerational-dynamics/kevin-kelly?ref=foxwizard.com)—whom I suspect is, slowly, somehow *warming* to web3 (!). He’s still a fan of tech monopolies, though. So: ok. - I also particularly loved [The Lexicon of Lorecore](https://zine.zora.co/the-lexicon-of-lorecore-shumon-basar?ref=foxwizard.com) by Shumon Basar (co-author of ‘[The Extreme Self](https://www.amazon.com/Extreme-Self-Age-You/dp/3960989733?ref=foxwizard.com)’—*a graphic-novel guide to the demented present*). The first item in the lexicon names something that had previously remained ineffable to me: **Agnostimistic** (adj.)—*Neither optimistic nor pessimistic but a secret third thing. Similiar: Doom Mood Advantage.* Damn, actually as I write that I thought it was a *sacred* third thing. I guess it can still be that, too. - I remain enamoured by pixel artists. It seems like the deluge of midjourney, stable diffusion and dall·e artworks have had me noticing and appreciating the richness of hand-crafted pixels (and other mediums) even more. Like: I don’t even admire cars but [this is gorgeous](https://twitter.com/84Aleha/status/1683594861281173505?ref=foxwizard.com). - My writerly friend [Dangerous Meredith](https://dangerousmeredith.com.au/?ref=foxwizard.com) wrote a thread in [a relatable lamentation](https://twitter.com/dangerousmere/status/1681489756172226560?ref=foxwizard.com) of what has become of twitter and social media. And this was *before* twitter was renamed “X”. The first 14 drafts of this museletter I write to you now have mostly been me lamenting on much the same. I’ve spared you my opining, as it was quite unbecoming. - Danica Swanson—another writer I admire—is [Leaving Substack and Moving to Paragraph](https://endarkenment.substack.com/p/leaving-substack-and-moving-to-paragraph?utm%5Fsource=post-email-title&publication%5Fid=2415&post%5Fid=135386469&isFreemail=true&utm%5Fmedium=email). I really respect this, and I’d love to do the same. My current strategy is to half-ass it by intentionally working with [ghost](https://ghost.org/?ref=foxwizard.com). Whilst I really love how [paragraph](https://paragraph.xyz/?ref=foxwizard.com) has integrated with [farcaster](https://www.farcaster.xyz/?ref=foxwizard.com) (a [sufficiently decentralised](https://www.varunsrinivasan.com/2022/01/11/sufficient-decentralization-for-social-networks?ref=foxwizard.com) social protocol) for comments and reach—I don’t appreciate how their font options do not (yet) support *true italics.* Their italics are actually obliques(!). Someday it will be ready for me, and I am enthusiastic for that time. Until then: I need to figure out if I import my old writing from substack (as a kind of offering to The SEO Algorithm: here, chomp on this)—or: do I just **delete it all** like Danica is doing? Watch this space. (Side note: I kind of relish the notion of *“optimal obscurity”*—most of the brightest minds I follow are also the most obscure, if that makes any sense). - I would love to be able to talk to more people about this podcast where [Daniel Schmachtenberger talks of the implications of AI](https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/71-daniel-schmachtenberger?ref=foxwizard.com). It would be really, really nice to find a cogent counter-thesis that isn’t simply a techno-optimist rehash of The Progress Narrative. (Though: I understand that The Progress Narrative is a much more effective narrative to promulgate under our current monetary system. Indeed; my first book *The Game Changer* was all about progress (a bestseller). And then my next book, *How to Lead a Quest,* posited that there is a distinction between meaningful progress and *the delusion of progress* (also a bestseller). Yet I am still plagued by the question: **what is meaningful progress?** My current stance is that meaningful progress is that which orients towards collective flourishing, and the complexification of all life {that is: the conditions that allow for greater biological, genetic, behavioural, ecosystem, cognitive and societal development to emerge}. Yet the path to achieving this requires that we find a way out of the multipolar traps we have woven for ourselves, which at this stage remains non-obvious. And so: the quest continues.) - Speaking of D–Shmacht, his [recent appearance on The Global Impact Tech Alliance Master Series](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvAbKE8-jYA&ref=foxwizard.com) is *a must watch.* In my questing work with clients, we have invested a lot of funds to have minds like this come in and chat with executive teams in exclusive/intimate speakeasy forms. But here you can witness such a conversation \[effectively\] for free! This conversation is genuinely *vital* viewing; it reveals much of the illusions and constructs many remain blind to. - Listening to Schmachtenberger can be, as a friend of mine puts it, *libidinally sapping.* If you need a restorative pick me up, I enjoyed [this podcast conversation in which the mythologist Dr. Martin Shaw](https://open.spotify.com/episode/0g2mMFemaDwDr3ndJE9Piu?si=0ce356fa612f4f7d&ref=foxwizard.com) gently and warmly implores that we seek the reality that cannot be found via screens and devices. Speaking of, last night the dangerlam and I enjoyed a *tiramisu* (Italian for ‘pick me up’). It was quite good, though not *quite* as good as [Cam’s](https://www.camskiosk.com.au/?ref=foxwizard.com). And last month we did a hike with some friends in Tasmania; I highly recommend it. ![Two hikers standing upon a cliff looking out to an island in the sea, sky](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2023/07/three_capes_foxwizard_dangerlam-1.jpeg) The dangerlam and the foxwizard contemplate life on Tasman Island The hardest thing for me this past month has been coming back from the wilderness and trying to relate to what I have seen continue on social media. Being away from screens and devices and the interwebs—even for just a few nights—is enough of an ontological detox to make the warped nature of social media ever more apparent upon my return. Like being on an elimination diet and discovering that your tummy doesn’t like bread. *But I love bread!* Yeah but it makes you feel poorly. *But:* [*it’s bread!*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Og1bQuiLQ-M&ref=foxwizard.com) Actually, you make a good point. And so here I am, drawing your attention to that which draws your attention. Whilst I have you, [the lyrics to A Perfect Circle’s *Disillusioned*](https://www.google.com/search?q=disillusioned+lyrics&ei=bIDAZMGmG5ru4-EP0Nu02Aw&ved=2ahUKEwiysorOpauAAxV2zzgGHTJ%5FA80Q%5FcoHegQIDxAD&uact=5&oq=disillusioned+lyrics&gs%5Flp=Egxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAiFGRpc2lsbHVzaW9uZWQgbHlyaWNzMgUQABiABDIFEAAYgAQyBRAAGIAEMgUQABiABDIGEAAYFhgeMgYQABgWGB4yBhAAGBYYHjIGEAAYFhgeMgYQABgWGB4yCBAAGIoFGIYDSMEyUOQIWKsxcAJ4AZABAJgBiAKgAeMhqgEGMC43LjEzuAEDyAEA-AEBwgIKEAAYRxjWBBiwA8ICDBAAGIoFGEMYRhj5AcICCBAAGIoFGJECwgIHEAAYigUYQ8ICDRAAGIoFGLEDGIMBGEPCAg4QLhiABBixAxjHARjRA8ICCxAAGIAEGLEDGIMBwgIjEAAYigUYQxhGGPkBGJcFGIwFGN0EGEYY9AMY9QMY9gPYAQHCAg4QABiKBRixAxiDARiRAsICExAuGIoFGLEDGIMBGMcBGNEDGEPCAgoQABiKBRixAxhDwgIIEAAYgAQYsQPCAgsQABiKBRixAxiRAsICChAAGIAEGLEDGArCAgcQABiABBgKwgIFEC4YgATCAg0QABiABBixAxhGGPkBwgIkEAAYgAQYsQMYRhj5ARiXBRiMBRjdBBhGGPQDGPUDGPYD2AEB4gMEGAAgQYgGAZAGCLoGBggBEAEYEw&sclient=gws-wiz-serp&si=ACFMAn9sNzdlLyOEVS3Dcwu1L13DeW33kh02Q1%5FhKctdDpYO3vo5uuZuusJUpTJTqFo4WBmtut3APs3xigOpFVjlTxC5BMKteiLJyMM5YXYiCEEu4WHEHQj9zmsd6xzC02NzWxopFKQxxQFANGMeIPnVGjY14AWc%5Fb9gMiWrVQXgpZCW2M%5FHf8aTPYMobSJ7bxwkpn0mwa8LWVI1paZYeV0dZ%5FiP-2skI73vCcOspoj2eaNiOyIDDy-oBY0ms3GHUwnbjKhNT3Qy33Yk0dkfTeeW38rOdmLppeNIJPmKyjBsYTwkksoF2p2a4R0mfdkauVmLkILmIC6i0hNtPdOVQr8DbpPMgaoErkY%5F2LLPca%5FGCGDSPKvPQxYgrKVZ7FmQDPpgWXnsh%5FUBKOxDk98Vn9YljAB9NMIt0ECBJpg-v1rm3-TvPkuMuobc1RfuHyOsQceqTSxpMMs5ZyrUXaNoYH1r72EFRPsM9M%5Fo0ZKnm2VTibjsXhXlqUYym-3fE1GqVumx3xRGcCcgtp49qwQUkbo6zBZq1nFU7ghBRbeINYbIvTQ9SR0ZjuETYWtUXUiPj9mWs7rvZMwGVOiGoFbfUWWU6zizI-KkjXWn8CCGMrI-jClGqB5bCwO3aZ3lIalGP5BX-CN2uKcPNxtmgUWXMKA3qj8HhSWYKKeEQso4jfoZhb2UBtmM3Ho%3D&ictx=1&ref=foxwizard.com) seem more apt than ever. But fret not for this wizard; I will liberate more souls from Moloch. Perhaps [my fancy new disguise will work](https://www.drjasonfox.com/?ref=foxwizard.com)? --- Thank you so much once again. Please feel free to comment or ask questions below; it is always lovely to hear from you. Oh and if a friend forwarded this to you (how nice of them!) you can [join the many thousands who subscribe to The Museletter](https://www.foxwizard.com/museletter). Much warmth —fw ### 💌 House Words URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/house-words/ Last updated: 2024-02-28T01:57:43.000Z The dangerlam and I have an odd set of House Words—our family motto, if you will. Words that would be stitched unto our house banner (replete with its own tinctures, charges, lambrequin and so on). Our House Words are: ![PUNISH THE UNSPOKEN](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2023/05/PUNISH-THE-UNSPOKEN.webp) (Just for context: this golden-fleeced lamb is the one doing the punishing) Hoho, I know. It’s not terribly ‘on brand’, and neither of us particularly like it—yet I suspect there remains a perverse part of us that does. 😈 These words were epiphanic—they emerged in a conversation in which we were both lamenting a friend whom, when asked their preferences about what to have for dinner said “anything! I’m easy; whatever works for you”—yet, when at our chosen restaurant, they proceeded to complain about how they don’t like the particular cuisine. It was exasperating. Later that evening we waxed churlishness, which is oh-so wondrous at mollifying any lingering indignation. In the course of this conversation I think we landed on the principle that: “Fuçk it! Punish the unspoken.” If someone does not make their preferences clear; they ought live with the consequences. The phrase ‘Punish The Unspoken’—*punire id quod tacitum manet*—didn’t rise to prominence as our House Words immediately, in that evening. But over the following months and years we increasingly (flippantly) used the horrid words in response to any perceived lack of preference-assertion. It felt ironically liberating.\* Then, somehow, over time, it became our House Words. \* *Oh what’s that? You are feigning a lack of preference in an attempt to virtue-signal obsequiousness? Well then—we will go to that fancy café with the long queues and exquisite coffee, despite my knowing you don’t like coffee anyway. Ha!* They are such awkward House Words. But that’s the key: House Words are an *emergent* property, and an element of what Venkatesh Rao and others might call ‘[lorecraft](https://studio.ribbonfarm.com/p/on-lore?ref=foxwizard.com)’. But, like all good things, these emergent sensibilities can become crushed by the serious, dense and/or earnest. Or rendered all-too-hollow by the cynical and snide. The disposition thusly ought be *metamodern*—that is: sincere in its irony, and ironic in its sincerity. Venkatesh’s [lorecraft series](https://studio.ribbonfarm.com/p/on-lore?ref=foxwizard.com) has already provided [a far better explainer](https://studio.ribbonfarm.com/p/on-lore?ref=foxwizard.com) than I could ask chatGPT to succinctly plagiarise here, so lets instead hone in on a mere subset that could become an emergent element of your own lorecraft: your House Words. As you know, I take Words quite seriously. I have an online program consisting of over 70 videos on how to [Choose One Word](http://chooseoneword.com/?ref=foxwizard.com). I call it “The Ritual of Becoming”—[*friends of the foxwizard*](https://www.foxwizard.com/#/portal/signup) gain access for free. But this is an \~annual practice of deep reflection, introspection and projection. What I am talking about with House Words is something a little less, uh, reverent. You may be familiar with the Words of various Houses within the Game of Thrones series; the most popular being House Stark’s “Winter is Coming”*.* What struck me when I first read the book—well before it was ‘cool’—was just how subtly *lame* some of the House Words were. Yet still, kinda cool. House Greyjoy: “We Do Not Sow”(they are pirates; they raid). Here’s [a more comprehensive list](https://gist.github.com/jm3/5667245?ref=foxwizard.com)—you’ll note that most of them are boring and a bit lame; and that’s okay.\* \* *And, sigh, here is a ‘[motto generator](https://www.fantasynamegenerators.com/mottos.php?ref=foxwizard.com)’. I guess that would make it an automotto?* ## What are your House Words? At about the 2-3 pint/dram/goblet/flute/horn mark, I will often ask new friends what their House Words are. They usually look at me bemused, and so I share the notion that House Words ought attend to the following: - **They ought be ‘emergent remarks’**—in-jokes or obscure references that are contextually bound and hold a deeper meaning to those who know. IYKYK—and thus, by sharing the backstory behind House Words, others get a glimpse into some of the ‘lore’ that underpins it. - **They ought be slightly weird/odd/lame and not particularly ‘cool’.** House Words are not a flex.\* Neither are they ‘branding’—they’re ‘[anti-marketing](https://studio.ribbonfarm.com/p/epics-vs-lore?ref=foxwizard.com)’, as Venkatesh Rao suggests. You might want your House Words to be “Big Dirk Energy”° but maybe this is a bit too insecure-aspirational. - **They ought be five words or less.** It needs to fit on your banner. And people need to remember it. This number is arbitrary; point being: “It Ought Be Short”. \* *As in, not a LinkedIn humblebrag flex. A ‘[weird flex but okay](https://www.dictionary.com/e/slang/weird-flex-but-okay/?ref=foxwizard.com)’ flex might be okay, if delivered with evident knowingness. That is: the I-know-that-you-know-that-this-sounds-like-bullshít-yet-still-I-am-being-earnest.* ° *This reminds me of the dangerlam’s ‘[Big Duck Energy](https://www.dangerlam.com/big-duck-energy?ref=foxwizard.com)’ comic.* At this point, I probably ought share a few examples of House Words I have collected and consider as Noteworthy. Each of these have an individual, a couple, or a small family unit attached to them. And there’s genuine lore behind the origins of each of these; despite how benign they may appear on the surface. “Ready For Anything” – House Starbuck “Lock and Load” – House Brown (as in, Brené Brown) “Relax and Enjoy” – House Lam “First To Leave”\* – House Fox “Paws and Reflect” – House Jackson “Prior Preparation Prevents Piss-Poor Performance” – House Cameron “Enjoy The Passage Of Time” – House Morgan “Gorge on Sass” – House Carter “Take A Chance” – House Chin “More Is More” – House O’Brien “Squander Time” – House Hendrickson “Resist; Stubbornly” – House Morgan “Challenge Accepted”° – House Evans \* *These are my personal House Words—though I worry they are a bit edge-lordy. They refer to my tendency to leave social gatherings early, and also my tendency to leave anything that begins to garner popularity. If this sounds too cool, it also refers to my cowardice—I do not fight battles. At least, not directly. Such is my canny.* *° Hoho, if there weren’t prudes reading this museletter I would bequeath the origin story of this one to you.* Evidently, I need more examples. And so, I ask of you: what are **your* House Words? Please let me know in the comments below.I’d also—genuinely—love to know your house heraldry, motif, colours, etcetera, if you are so inclined.\* \* *Mine is a fox (ugh, of course) skulking away on an open field under the stars at night. Deep moss, plum, with highlights in burnt sienna.* And now, the crux of the museletter: ## A metamodern ‘management science’ Venkatesh suggests that “[a millennial management science is being born](https://studio.ribbonfarm.com/p/lands-of-lorecraft?ref=foxwizard.com)”, and I am inclined to agree—though I’m not incredibly enthusiastic about *generational* branding (even if it is convenient and apt). Too sweeping. Yet I *am* interested in ways of coordinating amidst complexity (at scale) that are most congruent and apt for our times. And what are our times? We are living and leading within the hypercomplexity of late-stage capitalism and an attention economy rampant with [bullshít](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On%5FBullshit?ref=foxwizard.com),\* [beefs](https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2020/01/16/the-internet-of-beefs/?ref=foxwizard.com) and [disinformation](https://thedisinfoproject.org/?ref=foxwizard.com). Trust in traditional sense-making institutions is at an all-time low, and so ‘sense-making’ is something that is left to all of us, in real-time. \* *Note: my diacritics are there to enhance email deliverability, as ‘curse words’ are otherwise filtered out by some organisations that want to protect their adult employees from witnessing such an arrangement of letters.* Metrics alone cannot contend with the dynamics of complexity—which is why *qualitative* feedback is so vital in the ongoing constancy of figuring. Are our goals relevant? Are our actions and inputs conducive to meaningful progress? Does this path *make sense*—given new information that has recently come to light? Recently, the Australian Federal Police Commissioner [misquoted a study about Gen Z workers needing praise three times a week](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-05-27/afp-commissioner-misquoted-study-about-gen-z-workers/102398504?ref=foxwizard.com), following this by stating that his generation only needed praise “once a year”. It was probably meant as an attempt at humour, but it speaks to a kind of ‘sniggering and scoff’ that a large portion of senior leaders have towards younger workers. It’s an ethos that is severely out of touch. Something I write of in [*The Game Changer*](https://foxwizard.com/books?ref=foxwizard.com) is of how ‘a clear sense of progress’\* is one of the most powerful motivators for sustained effort towards goal attainment. The more we reduce the latency between effort and meaningful feedback, the more likely we are to invest effort towards something.\* This means that—unless the work is incredibly routine and unchanging—feedback ought be more frequent. This does not mean more formal sessions—it means *removing* the formality, and providing feedback as and when needed. \* *This is drawn from ‘[ The Progress Pricinple’](http://progressprinciple.com/books/single/the%5Fprogress%5Fprinciple) by Professors Stephen Kramer and Teresa Amabile. Alos: you don’t even need to be making progress—it’s simply the clear* sense *of progress. But if this sense of progress is ambiguous or delayed—if it’s hard to know if your efforts are even contributive or not—it makes sense that you will opt for a more conservative level of effort (or seek feedback and assurance).* It may be fine for older generations to claim they only need praise once a year—but these folk are much more likely to be senior leaders in positions where they have more control over what happens in their work (and more security from the additional decades of lived experience). It may also be that they are operating from their biases, too. Their apprenticeship likely happened before we entered the post-truth epoch of the attention economy. Nowadays, it makes sense to ensure the sense we make of things makes sense. Ergo: tighter feedback loops. This precisely does *not* mean more quantitative measures. Instead, it calls for more *qualitative* savvy. That is: making sense of things with Words. ## House Words for teams I want for teams to be trusting, tight and strong. Most of the work I do with (leadership) team building comes down to the following elements: - *Removing* the myriad unnecessary ‘extrinsic motivators’\* that legacy habituation spawns - *Establishing* the rituals (sacred routines) that allow for a deepening of fellowship and kinship (as the precursor to scenius) - *Ensuring* that our efforts remain efficacious towards meaningful progress (as distinct from the delusion of progress) \* *It is amazing just how junked up the motivational landscape is with unecessary constructs (see [motivational crowding theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivation%5Fcrowding%5Ftheory)).* The best teams I have worked with are tight crews that have each other’s back. Trust is there because effort has been made to *cultivate* it. I’m not talking only of senior leadership teams here—this applies to all teams. It is possible for your workmates—your team mates—to be *actual* mates.\* To show up for you, and to care for your wellbeing and flourishing. This is what happens within [deliberately developmental organisations](https://www.amazon.com.au/Everyone-Culture-Deliberately-Developmental-Organization/dp/1625278624?ref=foxwizard.com) (which, honestly, are still quite rare).° \* *For those outside of The Antipodean Realms, I am using the term ‘mate’ equivicolly with ‘friend’. I do not necessarily mean a ‘breeding partner’.* *° I highly recommend [this article](https://meaningness.com/cofounders-in-relationship?ref=foxwizard.com) by David Chapman for insight into what a working relationship might look like between co-founders in a deliberately developmental organisation.* One of “[the five qualities that make a deliberately developmental organisation](https://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/uk/16/04/deliberately-developmental?ref=foxwizard.com)” are practices that give folks a common language—even if this may be confusing to outsiders. Which brings us back to [the lands of lorecraft](https://studio.ribbonfarm.com/p/lands-of-lorecraft?ref=foxwizard.com). If you are able to create the conditions for team flourishing, you will inevitably brush up against opportunities for lorecraft. Do you have the collective wit to recognise these opportunities, and harness them? Could it be that your team has its own House Words—and its own reputation—which could be somehow illuminated? How you approach this question is going to be very telling. The bad way to do it (even if you are the team leader) would be to simply declare your team’s House Words. Because, chances are, you’ll choose something genuinely lame (with no sincere irony), or you’ll choose some obscure reference that titillates you yet confounds most of the team. Or you’ll go all LinkedIn and choose something utterly predictable, quoting Simon Sinek along the way. The better way to do it—if this appeals to you—is to simply *plant* the notion into the noöspheric zeitgeist of your team. Tease suggested House Words, with a glint of mirth in your eye. And then wait for them to emerge. You’ll recognise the confluence when it’s there. If you struggle with this, then you probably haven’t cultivated enough genuine experiences together as a team. You need to have more genuine team hangs and shared crisis moments and triumphs and hardships and grinds in order to accrete enough in-jokes and lore. This is a good thing to realise. We are entering (or are already within) a recession. Cost of living is increasing, and everyone ought feel grateful to be a part of a team. Not everyone has this opportunity. We are choosing to be here, right now, in the roles that we play. If you are part of a team that have their own House Words, I would love to hear them (context optional; you can preserve the mystery if you like!). Comment below. ♡ --- ## Glimmers ✨ I have three things to share with you this time: - I wrote a hefty visual thread of [some of the many reasons why I love gmDAO](https://twitter.com/drjasonfox/status/1663723811425107970?s=20&ref=foxwizard.com) (it’s mostly a generative art collection flex) - You’re probably already aware of [Octopolis and Octlantis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopolis%5Fand%5FOctlantis?ref=foxwizard.com) but, if not: [this thread is wondrous](https://twitter.com/vandroidhelsing/status/1662614430843293696?s=20&ref=foxwizard.com). I also love that it encouraged the original author to [update the wikipedia entry](https://twitter.com/pgodfreysmith/status/1662757718417965062?s=20&ref=foxwizard.com), and then for all of us to reflect on Adrian Tchaikovsky’s science fiction novels. I felt cool because I had read these. One day I hope for my [eyebrows](https://adriantchaikovsky.com/about.html?ref=foxwizard.com) to rival Adrian’s. - I am delighted to share that I have made an appearance on [The Occupational Philosophers podcast](https://www.occupationalphilosophers.com/ep-65-guest-episode-with-the-dr-jason-fox-rogue-scholar-best-selling-author-and-wizard-philosopher/?ref=foxwizard.com). This was one of the funnest podcast interviews I have ever done—the hosts are curious, creative and wondrously warm-witted. Have a listen (and give them some lovely words on socials and on iTunes, if inclined). I know you’ll enjoy it! --- Thank you so much once again! And thank you to the new *friends of the foxwizard* who joined in the past week. Please feel free to comment or ask questions below; it is always lovely to hear from you. Oh and if a friend forwarded this to you, you can join the many thousands who [subscribe to The Museletter](https://www.foxwizard.com/museletter). Much warmth —*fw* ### 💌 The time and place for curiosity URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/curiosity-time/ Last updated: 2024-02-28T01:53:03.000Z Ahoy friends. After the epic saga that was [The Labyrinths of Reason](https://www.foxwizard.com/labyrinths/) last week, I have decided to once again make an attempt at “brevity”. It’s not my strong suit, but I shall try! 😅 This particular musing pertains to the beloved concept of ‘curiosity’—one of those words you’ll hear bandied about in a benign way. But little do most know (or perhaps they do?)—curiosity heralds *a dire threat.* To what? Read on... A few quick tidbits before we get into the museletter proper:✨ ****Come hang with us at** [****The Rekindling**](https://www.foxwizard.com/rekindling/) **this Wednesday night.** *It’s our attempt to cultivate a semblance of* [**scenius*](https://austinkleon.com/2017/05/12/scenius/?ref=foxwizard.com) *in our locale.Warm hearts, bright minds, thoughtful provocations and wholsome libations.* Genuinely: I would love to see you. Bring a workmate or a friend; it’ll be fun and nice.🧙🏻‍♂️ ****Video podcast.** *Since I went and screwed up my discoverability by moving my site to* [**foxwizard.com*](https://www.foxwizard.com/) *it is now even harder for folks to find me. Search for me and one of the top hits you’ll get is* [**this delightful video podcast*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3f4ys6Y86s&ref=foxwizard.com) *wherein I was a guest on* [**The Innovation Show with Aidan McCullen*](https://theinnovationshow.io/?ref=foxwizard.com)**. I really enjoyed our chat—but I was also in desperate need of a haircut. I seek to remedy this. So; if you seek a guest for your show—assuming your show is not salesy or lame—‘*[**hmu*](https://www.dictionary.com/e/acronyms/hmu/?ref=foxwizard.com)**’.* **🦊 btw this is The Museletter—** *a weekly epistle for those who seek to be more effective imposters within the mythical ‘future of leadership’*. **If a friend forwarded this to you, you can* [**join the \~11,000 folk who subscribe*](https://foxwizard.com/museletter?ref=foxwizard.com)**. If you’re already subscribed—thank you; I appreciate you.* So, Kevin Kelly’s new book [*Excellent Advice for Living: Wisdom I Wish I’d Known Earlier*](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/725357/excellent-advice-for-living-by-kevin-kelly/?ref=foxwizard.com) is out now. Us philosophers tend to view any claims to ‘wisdom’ as suspect—but I am quite sure this book may actually contain an apt glimmer or two. Certainly, there have been some aphorism-quips that have stood out for me [in this comprehensive cheat sheet](https://www.sloww.co/excellent-advice-for-living-kevin-kelly/?ref=foxwizard.com).\* \* *I hesitate to share such summaries; one cannot ‘hack’ their way to wisdom. And yet, here we are.* One such is this: > “Curiosity is fatal to certainty. The more curious you are the less certain you’ll be.” Is this a bad thing? Certainty is a nice feeling, right? We want more of it. And, certainly, we have more motivation in domains wherein the goals, rules and feedback loops (aka: the ‘game’) is clear, stable and unchanging. If the goalposts keep changing arbitrarily, we are likely going to be more conservative with our efforts. But if a game is reliably ‘fixed’, we can optimise for performance. Thus the default approach many leaders take is to *increase* the sense of certainty, stability, simplicity and clarity folks have in their work. And this makes sense—*for* *formulaic work with predictable outcomes*. If you are doing something that will reliably be ‘unchanging’, then: huzzah! You are operating within a closed system, and—just like an Olympian—you can train, perform, learn, and do better and better.\* \* *In the modern world of work, your efficiency will likely be rewarded with more work.* But if you suspect that the world is changing, that it is perhaps a bit more complex than the pundits make out, and that the future is less-than-certain and anything-but-clear then perhaps... perhaps you ought see that the seemingly closed system of your organisation and work is nested within a larger and more complex (open) system. Yet curiosity is fatal to certainty, and the illusion of certainty is oh so *useful* if we are to ‘get shit done’.\* What to do? \* *Certainty, in this sense, is a construct. Ergo, mission-oriented leaders need to weild narrative and numbers to assist in helping people ‘make believe’ in the illusion of certainty. It’s an admirable magic.* I’m not sure that most organisations can reliably do curiosity and certainty *both* at the same time. Few have the [negative capability](https://drjasonfox.medium.com/negative-capability-the-antidote-to-calcified-experience-80f9f237aeda?ref=foxwizard.com). But we can *oscillate* betwixt missions and quests.\* \* *In a yin-yang kinda way—missions ought be 80–98% certain, with 2–20% curiosity. Quests: 80–98% curiosity, with 2–20% certainty. Of course, curiosity cannot be reliably ‘measured’—and I would laugh at any attempts to do so—but from a vague, handwaving ‘vibe’ sense, you get what I mean here.* ## Missions Most of the world of work is *mission* oriented. With a mission: the goals are clear, progress is quantifiable, and success: binary. There’s a narrowing of focus to a predetermined objective. And this is *brilliant* for short sprints, as objectives are likely to remain stable and relevant over a day, a week, a month or even a quarter. Get the game design *just-so* for the work (as I discuss in [*The Game Changer*](https://www.foxwizard.com/books/)) and you can see teams rise above and beyond in order to see the mission through. Epic productivity and creative flow unlocked. But—what happens when folks begin to question the mission? What happens if they begin to wonder aloud, or to openly indulge in the heresy of curiosity? Ha! That’s where the *questing* occurs—betwixt the missions. For it can’t all be productive sprinting, all the time. We need to occasionally take pause, catch our breath, widen our focus and sense into what’s happening around us. And so, after the sprint there ought be recovery, reflection, and the integration of any lessons learned. But also, in amidst this, I would suggest there ought be a tending to ‘the everquest’. That is: tapping back into the bigger questions like—*where are we going? What is on the horizon? Is this meaningful progress? Is our directionality—our guiding thesis—still relevant?* ## Quests Whereas a mission works towards the attainment of a predetermined goal (the answer to a question), quests are the pursuit of better questions. Quests are ultimately concerned with ‘relevance realisation’. We quest so that whatever it is we do continues to *make sense* in the emerging contexts we find ourselves. Thus questing individuals and teams maintain an active ‘quiver of options’—strategic initiatives that might be enacted, should the right conditions manifest.\* If your organisation is large enough, it may be that you have a core questing team (aka “strategic innovation”, if you must)—ideally bolstered via rotating secondments. If your organisation is smaller, it may be that questing is something that has less formality—yet remains vitally important. \* *I talk of this in [How to Lead a Quest](https://www.foxwizard.com/books) and in the recent-ish post:[Where Does Strategy Come From?](https://www.foxwizard.com/quest-strategy/)* So: how do teams maintain this balance between productive missions and progressive quests? ## Rituals A ritual is a sacred routine wherein we deliberately carve out time against the default grain of busyness so as to progress the things that matter. There’s never really a good time for curiosity—it’s distracting, wondrously vexing, and fatal to the illusion of certainty we need for focused performance. But in-between sprints? Oh yeah, there’s time for that. And it’s all the more easier if we ritualise it. I’ve worked with teams that do ‘a long lunch’ each month, a dedicated ‘on-site’ each quarter (for masterclasses and immersions), and an off-site once or twice a year. It’s a good default rhythm. The key is that, for these events, it’s *curiosity* that we optimise for. Not certainty. But when folks are so use to closed systems, it can be hard for them to feel ‘at ease’ in contexts optimised for curiosity. They want to know the agenda, the timings, the content, the questions that will be asked, the answers that will be arrived at—which defeats the very point of the thing in the first place. ## Offsites I am currently in conversation with a few different leadership teams who are wanting to run an offsite. A thing they all have in common is: they have not done this for a while (and so all of the complex and relatively intangible issues are beginning to pile and ache) + they are attempting to ‘optimise’ the experience with a detailed agenda. And so—without the intervention of “Dr Fox, Archwizard of Ambiguity (most fantastic)”™️—their offsite will look like any onsite meeting, replete with too many powerpoint slides, bad coffee, unnecessarily corporate venues with bad downlighting and crappy whiteboards, and ultimately: *no time to think*. Just as Parkinson’s Law dictates that work expands to fill the time allocated,\* so too we might think that ‘content’ expands to fill any slot allocated in an agenda. Thus we end up with scenarios where there’s only ever at most *five minutes* for Q&A—which means we never get to the deep stuff, and we never venture beyond the default. \* *And [Parkinson’s Law of Triviality](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law%5Fof%5Ftriviality?ref=foxwizard.com) dictates that we will likely use this time to talk of trivial matters.* Unless!... we optimise for curiosity. ## Optimise for curiosity Most of my work with clients seeking a wondrous quest-oriented offsite is in helping to ensure that the event is not corrupted by too much certainty. What does this look like? Well, in the work I do—in the co-creation and facilitation of wondrous leadership and ‘strategic’ team offsites—it looks very much like the following: - Priming participants with questions to contemplate. Questions which are intentionally provocative, to which there may be no easy answers. Questions like: what are we pretending to not know? Or even subtler ones, like: what are you noticing that we ought be paying attention to? The offsite begins before we arrive. - Creating an energetic and contextual flow that allows everyone to feel seen, heard and held—as a precursor to the generative ambiguity that allows real space and time to unearth *the deeper questions*. What emerges from this varies from client to client—but there’s always something there. Some sort of discontent we can constructively unpack and explore. Some business model or operating system incoherence we can address. Some subtle tension that goes by unremarked in the busyness of the day-to-day; yet festers nonetheless. My role is to hold such contexts so that we don’t prematurely collapse the possibility space too early—nor brush it off in the attempt to ‘get back to the agenda’. This *is* the agenda. - Cultivating the conditions for ‘mythic moments’, like: long walks, long dinners, late night whiskies—all of the things that may be the pattern-disrupts that disarm and open teams up to greater insight. In essence; to create relaxed-yet-attuned ‘unguarded’ moments where frank, honest and imaginative conversation prevails. (Very much akin to the qualities of [a thinking environment](https://www.timetothink.com/thinking-environment/the-ten-components/?ref=foxwizard.com), with a bias towards the emergent). - Gently collapsing the possibility space into artful coherence without reduction—so that we all have a shared sense of what meaningful progress ‘means’ for the next chapter/epoch. This needn’t be a lavish or expensive affair. My clients and I have done wonders locally (in Melbourne) with a combination of cafes, long walks, picnics, co-working spaces, restaurants, speakeasies and more.\* There’s an *intentionality* to the contexts. It’s not simply curiosity for the sake of. And it certainly isn’t brainstorming with post-it notes or infantile team building games just because. Rather, it’s curiosity *applied to* ongoing relevance realisation. With teams of warmly intelligent adults. The result of a good offsite ought not be ‘more things to do’ (as is often the case). Instead, by staying in the tension of generative ambiguity with an emergent agenda optimised for curiosity, we leave with *renewed* clarity and confidence. Ha! If you are an individual—or if your team is not the type to do offsites—come along to [The Rekindling](https://www.foxwizard.com/rekindling/) this Wednesday. And if you’re not in Melbourne, take inspiration from this and similar events, and set up your own cadence with friends. Offsites and similar are a way to cultivate scenius—collective genius. Rather than outsource your intelligence; cultivate it. jf --- ## Glimmers - [News Minimalist](https://www.newsminimalist.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) – here chatgpt-4 reads the top 1,000 news stories every day and ranks them by significance on a scale from 0 to 10 based on *event* *magnitude, scale, potential,* and *source credibility.* - [The Infinite Conversation](https://infiniteconversation.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) – an AI generated, never-ending discussion between Werner Herzog and Slavoj Žižek. *“Everything you hear is fully generated by a machine. The opinions and beliefs expressed do not represent anyone. They are the hallucinations of a slab of silicon.”* - I am a big fan of [plotter twitter](https://twitter.com/thresfold/status/1658879628105363458?ref=foxwizard.com). - It’s now mainstream funny to tease carbon offsets. (Like, [actually funny](https://www.tiktok.com/@stuartlawscomedy/video/7234920766842735899?ref=foxwizard.com)). But whilst I agree—corporations oughtn’t have an easy way to simply buy their way out of unavoidable emissions, I do worry that this collective sniggering is shortsighted. Decarbonisation remains the first priority—but alongside this we need to move to a world in which nature-based land regeneration and conservation (along with support for biodiversity, clean water and soil health) ought be more economically viable than the extractive/degrading alternatives. A forest ought be worth more as a living system than the toilet paper it produces. Thus: let’s not throw the proverbial out with the bathwater when we decry that “carbon offsets are a scam”—let’s see this as a starting point to a much more constructive, complex and vital conversation. That is: how do we transition to a post-growth world where externalities are factored in, and nature is properly valued because *it is the sacred substrate that supports all life*. (!) If this conversation appeals—you may enjoy this very pragmatic [Planetary Regeneration podcast episode with Gregory Landua, Daniel Schmachtenberger and Jason Snyder](https://civilizationemerging.com/media/planetary-regeneration-high-tech-high-nature/?ref=foxwizard.com). - I also enjoyed this episode with Dave Snowden on The Jim Rutt Show – [Managing Complexity in Times of Crisis](https://open.spotify.com/episode/3KY1oW4vcX2FWsJWyygTGw?si=l0Oysve5TGi9som8jcy87g&ref=foxwizard.com). There is a warm sensibility to the way Dave approaches things, and I love the graciousness in which Jim hosts. In the open web Dave sometimes adopts the ‘cantankerous academic’ archetype—but his furore is mostly directed to those who epitomise the patriarchy; I’m grateful for this. Dave recently reminded me of the TS Eliot quote: *“Nothing pleases people more than to go on thinking what they have always thought, and at the same time imagine that they are thinking something new and daring: it combines the advantage of security and the delight of adventure.”* This pretty much encapsulates most ‘leadership’ events these days (as I allude to in ‘[subversive \[something\]](https://www.foxwizard.com/subversive/)’). I find myself torn. As a twitter refugee searching for [a viable town square](https://www.foxwizard.com/subversive/) I have found myself back on linkedin. Recently a friend of mine [asked](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/mabunting%5Fa-question-for-my-linkedin-connections-activity-7064736430987608064--yj5?utm%5Fsource=share&utm%5Fmedium=member%5Fdesktop): > “A question for my LinkedIn connections. I notice some consultants post every single gig they do - photos of the client, then speaking with the client etc. a kind of relentless show and tell. \[...\] Should I be posting show and tells all the time? Does this lend to my credibility and how in demand we are? Therefore lead to more demand? Am I missing something?” I found myself responding: > “I find the whole affair rather garish, but [the exposure effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mere-exposure%5Feffect?ref=foxwizard.com) means that those who post more of themselves will end up being more ‘top of mind’ and thus will attract more work which will give them more to post about, and so on. > > Personally when I see it, it evokes mixed emotions for me. Mostly cringe, sometimes resignation (that this is the grift), sometimes respect and admiration. I don’t like it when a speaker’s clients seem to be but props for their own promotion. I think it rather tasteless and egocentric when speakers take selfies of themselves on stage with the audience in the background. I’d like to think that the quiet folk who do brilliant work will have the work speak for itself—but this is not quite how the game theory works in the attention economy now. > > When I first started in this space I was told that thing Winston Marsh said: *‘Be a better marketer of what you do than a doer of what you do.’* To this day I still find this abhorrent, even if it may well be good advice.” One of the things that complexity practitioners become attuned to how incentives, power laws and network effects lead to skewed distributions (like how wealth tends to centralise and accumulate in but a few, so too does influence—hence why many web3 purists care about decentralisation). Anyhoo: I can ‘sense’ the [dark patterns](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark%5Fpattern?ref=foxwizard.com) and compulsion magics compelling me to regularly post ‘agreeable aphorisms’ that could otherwise be conjured by a robot (on linkedin), or to engage in memetic tribalism (on twitter). Luckily, I have an extreme allergy to such, so: jokes on you, platforms! --- As for generative art, today I would like to share one of my most favourite collections from Emily Xie—[*Memories of Qilin*](https://memoriesofqilin.com/?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* > “*Memories of Qilin* is a code-based generative art project inspired by traditional East Asian art. It channels the sense of movement and fluidity found in the region's classical paintings, while drawing from the colors, patterns, and forms of woodblock. > > Specifically, the project explores the concept of folklore, evoking the mythological imagery of dragons, phoenixes, flowers, and mountains. The title references a fabled chimerical beast within East Asian mythology (while the qilin is its Chinese name, it is also known in Korea as the girin and Japan as the kirin) that represents prosperity and luck. > > Viewers are invited to interpret elusive forms that verge on representation. As with the stories passed on through generations, each piece is imagined, organic, and ever-in-flux. > > The project employs a wide variety of techniques including masking, geometric design, a simple physics engine, noise fields, and image processing, among other methods. It is programmed in p5.js.” Like discerning shapes within clouds, you can scroll through the outputs generated via the artful code crafted by Emily and ‘see’ all sorts of wonders. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2023/05/image-4.png) Memories of Qilin #185 ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2023/05/image-5.png) Memories of Qilin #36 “[Sansa](https://sansa.xyz/?ref=foxwizard.com)” is one of my favourite places to explore longform generative art collections. *You can* [*view the rest of Memories of Qilin here*](https://sansa.xyz/collections/memories-of-qilin-by-emily-xie?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* --- And that’s all from me once again. Thank you for reading. Reply or leave a comment if you like; it is always lovely to hear from you. Or see you at [The Rekindling](https://www.foxwizard.com/rekindling/). Oh and if a friend forwarded this to you, you can join the many thousands who [subscribe to The Museletter](https://www.foxwizard.com/museletter). Much warmth —*fw* ### 💌 A hidden epiphany URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/hidden-epiphany/ Last updated: 2024-02-28T01:02:29.000Z Ahoy friends. This museletter comes to you a little late, as I found myself effectively ‘[nerdsniped](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nerd%5Fsniping?ref=foxwizard.com)’—or rather, philosophysniped (? – doesn’t quite have the same euphony)—by an intriguing set of questions nestled within a 1,209 word comment to my previous museletter on [subversive leadership](https://www.foxwizard.com/subversive/). Such questions are a honeypot trap to this wizard; I can’t resist. And so what was meant to be a 5-10 minute video response turned into [a full 59 minute soliloquy, replete with an abundance of links and references](https://www.foxwizard.com/labyrinths/). I’m actually a little embarrassed as to the depth of my response—it’s all rather personal and somewhat haphazard and pell-mell. But at the same time: it was immensely fun to partake in such a solipsistic indulgence of one’s own bricolage. If you have ever wondered as to the inner workings of the mercurial mind that is the foxwizard’s—this post ought provide some elucidation and plenty of befuddlement. I’ve called the post “[The Labyrinths of Reason: *finding your way to—and through—The Abyss*](https://www.foxwizard.com/labyrinths/)*.”* [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2023/05/image-1.png)](https://www.foxwizard.com/labyrinths/) A glimpse into the opening levels of “[The Labyrinths of Reason](https://www.foxwizard.com/labyrinths/)”, conjured with midjourney [Caveats be damned—take me to The Labyrinth!](https://www.foxwizard.com/labyrinths/) --- Meanwhile: hello and welcome to new subscribers! I met many of you at the [*Institute of Directors Leadership Conference*](https://iodconference.co.nz/?ref=foxwizard.com) a week or so ago. What an event! Event organisers, take heed. Here we witnessed an example of what *courage* looks like in the event space. This wasn’t your usual roster of predictable pundits—rather, it was an example of [subversive leadership](https://www.foxwizard.com/subversive/) in motion. In addition to the meaningful integration of topics pertaining to climate change in an incredibly practical and considered way (thanks [Chapter Zero](https://www.chapterzero.nz/?ref=foxwizard.com))—the event did not shy away from vital topics that ought be on the minds of directors and leaders. Topics like *disinformation—*a notion that *all other enterprise event contexts* (in my experience) effectively either don’t see or choose to ignore because of the ensuing discomfort. It was arresting even for a wizard like me. I’ve long been acquainted with The Corruption eating its way through our noösphere—I just hadn’t realised it had reached the mythical realm of Aotearoa. Research Fellow Sanjana Hattotuwa of [*The Disinformation Project*](https://thedisinfoproject.org/?ref=foxwizard.com)had me really consider just how precarious our situation is. In [my last museletter](https://www.foxwizard.com/subversive/) (before I attended the event) I mentioned the media concentration in Australia (only Egypt and China have a greater concentration)—but I had not also factored in the very real potential of *other* influences that lead to polarisation—and I dare not even write of them now, lest I come off half-cocked and evoke Moloch. Anyways, hat tips to [KP](https://www.iod.org.nz/about-us/our-leadership-team/kirsten-patterson/?ref=foxwizard.com) and the team. All of this points to the need for greater civic discourse, company director leadership, and environments wherein we can come together—in good faith and cheer—to converse and make sense of the world we find ourselves in. Speaking of:— ![The Rekindling](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/size/w1460/2023/05/glimmering-forest.png) The glimmering, as conjured with midjourney ## [The Rekindling](https://www.foxwizard.com/rekindling/) is back! And our (very accessible) tickets are already selling fast. [The Rekindling](https://www.foxwizard.com/rekindling/) is a series of warm gatherings for the curious, courageous and kind. Together we foray heartily into the uncharted and emergent—so as to obtain the freshest and most dubious fruits of ‘wisdom’ (*for our combined edification and delight*). This is a gathering of bright-minded and warm-hearted folk keen to explore that which is emerging, with a bias towards wholesome and regenerative futures. Hosted in partnership with [Kearney Group](https://kearneygroup.com.au/?ref=foxwizard.com), each gathering begins with thoughtful provocations, and concludes with a shared sense of speakeasy ‘scenius’ at a local brewery. ****Our next event is 530–715pm\* on May 24th 2023 in Melbourne.** We’re calling it “Constellatory Propagation”—**an evening in which we explore, compare and conduce “what lies within our quiver of options”.* \* *Followed by another couple of hours of fellowship together at the local brewery, wherein we cultivate scenius.* Come join! I would love to see you. Details and tickets available at [foxwizard.com/rekindling](https://www.foxwizard.com/rekindling/) [Rekindle me!](https://www.foxwizard.com/rekindling/) --- Speaking of wholesome and regenerative futures, a couple of days ago there was a special session within the ‘[summer of protocols](https://summerofprotocols.com/?ref=foxwizard.com)’ research group that had Cory Levinson (a chap who works with [Regen Network](https://www.regen.network/?ref=foxwizard.com)) provide [an apt topology of Regenerative Finance and web3 as it currently stands](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUfqF%5F3fghE&ref=foxwizard.com). If you have been seeking a rather grounded perspective, this could be it. Also, Gregory Landua—the ceo of Regen Network Development and the author of [*Regenerative Enterprise: Optimizing for Multi-capital Abundance*](https://www.amazon.com/Regenerative-Enterprise-Optimizing-Multi-capital-Abundance-ebook/dp/B08L1G5VFP?ref=foxwizard.com)—is quite an inspiring mind in this space. He has [a podcast](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/planetary-regeneration-podcast/id1474392621?ref=foxwizard.com), and I have enjoyed listening to him constructively spar with other perspectives (like in [this episode of ‘doomer optimism’](https://open.spotify.com/episode/06JCeRCKYOLb8veDmBbR9T?si=2edef8b629d54c8e&ref=foxwizard.com); which gets particularly apt from about 38 minutes in). I also generally appreciate the notion of ‘[regenpunk](https://open.spotify.com/episode/06JCeRCKYOLb8veDmBbR9T?si=8346ecb01c1446e4&ref=foxwizard.com)’ (as a kind of more bottom-up distributed/localised aspect of solarpunk). Of course, none of this ought detract from decarbonisation, which remains *the* key driver. This remains a mostly political issue to surmount; we have the capability—just not yet the coordination. Alongside this, the unfurling conversation in global coordination technologies to verify and codify the myriad qualities that nature-based preservation and regeneration brings is worth paying attention to. --- ADVERTISEMENT**Are you worried your strategic offsites are more likely to generate work than facilitate progress? Do you suspect that your ‘leadership programs’ are merely status-quo incrementalism and productivity virtue-signalling masquerading as something ‘transformative’, novel and new? Are your people ‘too busy’ for meaningful progress? Have your recent pandemic-inspired innovations reverted back to the defaults of 2019? Have your recent mergers resulted in harmonious multidisciplinary teams—or are there issues that ought be addressed? Are your teams teaming, or are they \[some word that sounds not good and rhymes with teaming\]? Is ‘hybrid work’ secretly code for the worst of both worlds? Are you living and leading within a rich delusion of progress, to which you may one day awaken to realise your efforts are no longer relevant?*If any of these questions make you squirm, consider hiring Dr Jason Fox, Archwizard of Ambiguity (most fantastic). Jason is an award winning global [keynote speaker](https://www.foxwizard.com/keynotes/), [bestselling author](https://www.foxwizard.com/books) and [leadership advisor](https://www.foxwizard.com/wizardry/) who has worked with [some of the worlds most pioneering leaders and teams](https://www.foxwizard.com/wizardry/). Whilst not ‘the hero’ come to save the day, he is the wizard that can ally with you and your teams to evoke new and meaningful progress (beyond the default). ✨ --- ## Glimmers - [Seeing Like a Protocol—*where does protocol credibility come from?*](https://barnabe.substack.com/p/seeing-like-a-protocol)I share this as yet another glimpse into what the brights minds working in web3 are thinking about. - [The 14 year old boy alignment problem, future shock, and AI microscopes](https://interconnected.org/home/2023/05/04/hunches?ref=foxwizard.com) *“*[*AI alignment*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI%5Falignment?ref=foxwizard.com) *(Wikipedia) is the term of art for how to get AI not to assist in awful things, i.e. how to steer AI systems towards humans’ intended goals, preferences, or ethical principles. But the genie is out of the bottle, isn’t it? You can download an LLM and run it on your laptop, and those won’t go away. So the challenge is not in aligning AI, but either (a) aligning 14 year old boys to not do idiotic things (impossible), or (b) adapting (necessary).”* - The LinkedIn masses still appear abundantly optimistic about AI, and whilst I oscillate between sceptically optimistic (thanks to reading too many books from [*The Culture Series*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture%5Fseries?ref=foxwizard.com)) to sceptically tentative—I am impatient for the conversation to be further progressed. Some of the brightest minds I know find themselves, at times, at [the precipice of despair](https://twitter.com/nickredmark/status/1653110684190662683?s=20&ref=foxwizard.com) on the matter. - My friend Joe has written a compelling framework on the [*Structures Of Feeling: Mapping The Five Foundational Worldviews*](https://www.joelightfoot.org/post/the-five-foundationals-a-decidedly-undevelopmental-map-of-worldviews?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* I appreciate any attempt to encapsulate non-hierarchical frameworks into a form that is useful and light. And whilst an old part of scoffs at diagnostics and frameworks, I find myself gleefully self-identifying to [categories I feel at home within](https://twitter.com/Joe%5FLightfoot%5F/status/1654061332965265409?s=20&ref=foxwizard.com). - “[Some interesting issues with Nick's coat.](https://twitter.com/dieworkwear/status/1655397143325323264?s=20&ref=foxwizard.com)” - Now [*this* is the way to address investor expectations](https://twitter.com/svengrundberg/status/1425871948815470600?s=20&ref=foxwizard.com) in a complex creative endeavour. Bravo. I’ve been a fan of William Mapan’s work since I first discovered generative art. Here is the one piece I have the joy of ‘owning’ (to refer to the social consensus-construct)—[*Dragons #342*](https://www.fxhash.xyz/gentk/FX0-130883?ref=foxwizard.com). [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2023/05/image-2.png)](https://www.fxhash.xyz/gentk/FX0-130883?ref=foxwizard.com) Dragons #342 Most of Mapan’s pieces are out of my price range now, but there’s a textual acuity and a kind of intricate organic ‘feel’ to these works (all entirely generated with code). Take [Anticyclone #522](https://sansa.xyz/asset/0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270/304000522?ref=foxwizard.com), for example: [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2023/05/image-3.png)](https://sansa.xyz/asset/0xa7d8d9ef8d8ce8992df33d8b8cf4aebabd5bd270/304000522?ref=foxwizard.com) Anticyclone 522 I was going to write more for you—but [this thread provides a comprehensive overview](https://twitter.com/Dalos/status/1651639670063910912?ref=foxwizard.com). The world of generative art remains as captivating as ever! Next week ‘[Quadrature](https://www.gmstudio.art/collections/quadrature?ref=foxwizard.com)’ by Darien Brito will be released with gmStudio. Never a dull moment. --- And that’s all from me this time. My next museletter will turn a little more ‘practical’, as it were. Well, that’s the intent anyhoo. We’ll see. Thank you for reading. Please feel free to reply or leave a comment; it is always lovely to hear from you. And, if a friend forwarded this to you, you can join the many thousands who [subscribe to The Museletter](https://www.foxwizard.com/museletter). Much warmth—*fw.* ### 🔮 The Labyrinths of Reason URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/labyrinths/ Last updated: 2024-03-08T05:28:04.000Z ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2023/05/labyrinths-of-reason.png) A glimpse into the opening levels of “The Labyrinths of Reason”, conjured with midjourney Whenever I receive a long and thoughtful email I always intend to get back to the person who wrote to me with an equally lengthy and considered reply. Thusly: I ‘star’ the email and set it aside for a time in which I have the time, alacrity and wit to reply. Of course, *no such time ever arrives* and the lovely considered emails pile up. And so what in effect I actually do is simply add to the growing psychic burden I continue to accrue in this life. These unanswered emails weigh heav and like phantoms tsk, titter, tut-tut and ‘smh’ at me, in the penumbra of my knowing. But when—a week or so ago—I received a 1,209 word comment in response to my post “[subversive \[something\]](https://www.foxwizard.com/subversive/)” I thought—upon a whim—fūck it, *I might just break character and respond!* What follows is my gallant attempt. Indulge me as I wax pseudo-philosophical (with inadvertent sophistry) in an attempt to share subjective elucidation in response to what I can only imagine as someone on the path to *finding their way* betwixt the labyrinths of reason. This particular musing is not for everyone—if you are enjoying your current illusions then please: persist! You’ll be all the happier. Also if you were intending to [book me to speak at your next event](https://www.foxwizard.com/keynotes), [host a fireside](https://www.foxwizard.com/firesides), [facilitate a leadership offsite](https://www.foxwizard.com/offsites) or assist you in [leading a quest](https://www.foxwizard.com/quests)—fret not! I am well versed in meeting folks where they are at. What follows is a solipsistic indulgence, a sidestep removed from my regular work. > **And to the lovely person who asked the many questions in the 1,209 word comment:** *I am effectively going to taking your questions for an unsolicited adventure. If we were in* [*a private wizardly sparring session*](https://calendly.com/foxwizard/consultation?ref=foxwizard.com&month=2023-05) *of course our conversation would be much more anchored to your particular context, and I would be asking a lot of questions of you. Instead, I am effectively responding to a hallucinated apparition of my own conjuring. In other words: I’m kinda answering this for you, but also for myself and the many others who might read this. I genuinely appreciate this opportunity to introspect.* Also, remember: I am the Archwizard of Ambiguity; I do not do ‘clarity’. Gird yourself appropriately. Okay, shall we? #### Here is the full comment Who is more heroic - Frodo or Wonder Woman? Which platform is better - Twitter or LinkedIn? Which mode - Centralised or Decentralised? Which leadership advisor - Jason Fox or ChatGPT? Both? Neither? Other? Which way forward, pass all these riddles in the dark?... With so many plausible-sounding expert opinions, hot-takes, buzzwords, bandwagons, best-selling authors, how does one choose? Around the time COVID started, I spent the ensuing years studying logical fallacies. I was surprised to learn that almost every logical fallacy I had learned through popular critical reasoning teaching was effectively wrong, or at least far more complex than I first thought. Different fallacy authors had different ideas about what the heart of the issue was, and the nature of good/bad reasoning. Different taxonomy structures. Different emphasis. It was hard – very hard for me – to work my way through the complex logical terrain and doing so fundamentally made me doubt my own sense of intelligence and self-worth. I am no genius. The problems are above my pay grade. However, I discovered a few interesting things along the way. For instance, there was some agreement among the fallacy experts who study this area deeply that most mainstream fallacies are wrong – dead wrong – and this has been written about in the field of Informal Logical and other areas, but is yet to be widely appreciated. The problems are complex and not easy to summarise in plain language. They are dark, scary, tormenting things, like something out of H.P. Lovecraft. They keep me awake at night. Part of me thinks they should keep **every* intelligent person awake. But that part of me is probably my ego. Interestingly, there is no underlying unification of fallacies - effectively meaning that it is very hard for anyone to support their argument (or counter another’s argument), on practically anything. Ask enough Socratic questions, ask enough childlike “whys”, provide enough counter examples, subvert their assumptions enough, thrust a long sword into the heart of people’s philosophical centre and their frameworks will scatter to the winds. Confident arguments collapse into disarray. Why? Well - it’s dark and strange and “you’re-going-to-need-a-bigger-boat” scary. And I don’t have the answers. Apparently (and this is the implication) – nobody does. It’s a profound implication, I think. For it would effectively render every opinion, every philosophy, every notion of what we think of as heroic, or true, or valid, or logical, or reasonable – as moot. Dead in the water. Nobody, not Einstein or Aristotle, not Aragorn or Obi-Wan, not Marie Curie or Mary Shelley, not Ellen Ripley or Sarah Connor, no character, in any human realm, anywhere, at any time in human history, has a well-justified opinion on practically anything important. At best, you can get to “maybe,” “plausibly,” or “probably” in a particular context. But “valid”, “true”, “fact”, “proof”, “I know” or “I’m right” on any big subject (the ones we have equal and opposite experts debating over) implies something much more robust. Like a framework. A unified framework. One we don’t have. One that our best geniuses haven’t figured out yet. And I think everyone suspects this deep down. That our systems of leadership are essentially all fake. Like the leaders. Playing out a shit show – because there’s nothing much really behind all these equal and opposite experts. They cast shadows on the wall, and Plato cannot not save us because he hasn’t figured out the deeper problem either. But he points to it. The deepest hard problem appears, not to be the “hard problem of consciousness” or anything to do with A.I. (what is the relevance of that, anyway?). Rather, it appears to be one of value, or ethics, or morals, or good/bad, or right/wrong, or relevance, depending on how you want to view it. Our leaders have not given us a robust theory of ethics. Moral consequentialism appears to be the strongest of the available forms, in my soft (non-expert) opinion. And so then, Mr Wizard - how am I, the non-expert, the simpleton creature, assaulted by value judgements from birth, by people with higher IQs, from more prestigious universities, with more credibility, more likability, more charisma, better educated, better read, holding better command of the written word, meant to choose which Quest to undertake… or what leader to follow… what opinion to “like”. Do I follow you, Mr Fox? Or is your humble expert opinion effectively indistinguishable from everyone else’s humble expert opinion? That is, on equally confused footing? From what I can see, behind all these opinions, there is a value-judgment that connects to a larger ethical framework. It’s lurking behind everything you say. It’s implied everywhere in people's language but rarely - I would say practically never - made explicit in a logical, sensitive, intelligible form. Is it ethical to believe anything you say Jason when you don’t have a robust framework behind it?... Or do you? (Please, gimme. I wants the precious.) Logically, isn’t that your top leadership priority? (i.e., moving towards a unified logical-ethical framework) – Isn’t that what a heroic leader really should be interested in – solving the big problems others can’t, or won’t? Isn’t that what your strong or mild or weak judgments of what is right/wrong in the world – about A.I. or leadership or business or viable town squares or whatever interests you next week – really entails? Jason, I don’t know you. I haven’t read everything you’ve written, or most. Perhaps obviously. I see maybe 0.1% of you, which I probably distort through my own clouded biases anyway. Maybe these problems also keep you up at night. I don’t know. Maybe this will come across as an extremely arrogant opinion flowing into an appeal to ego or vanity in an attempt to help “win” you over to see my distorted version of reason, but all that being said - I genuinely love what you do. You are among the best of us. Among the brightest of lighthouses I can see at the edge of the horizon. If you can’t solve these complex leadership problems in troubled times, who will? We could all use more of your intelligence, sensitivity, humour, wit, quirkiness, and good heart. And above all, movie references – please don’t forget those. Keep doing what you’re doing. Or, I don’t know, don’t. Denounce this foolish leadership business, kick back with some popcorn on the couch, enjoy what little time you have before Skynet becomes self-aware, and cheer on Frodo and the pro/counter A.I. fellowship as they journey into the heart of darkness, if that’s the better way. But for me to say what you should or shouldn't do with your life would require a good framework of value – which I don't have. And that is why I am here, submitting my thoughts to the wizard. I suspect most people won’t have an underlying interest in or understand the practical relevance of what I’m saying, or - I mean - the implications of what I'm really getting at. But I hope you might. So, with this long comment boarding on crazed and unbalanced I suspect in the eyes of most, I would be interested to know, Mr Fox – Do you have a theory of value/ethics? Or some thoughts in this direction? Whew. And here’s my response—albeit a bit haphazard and pellmell. What was meant to be a 10-minute video essay turned into a 59-minute monster. What have I done? I also spent five hours—five whole hours—painstakingly working through the transcript to edit up the mangled words and gramma (auto-captioning cannot keep apace with my prolixity)—only to accidentally close the window before saving it. (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻ Suffice to say, I have now invested more than a full day and on this endeavour (which was only ever meant to be a quick response to a detailed comment). I would like to pretend the effort has been fruitful. Enjoy the video (sans captions). And now, here are the references alluded to for each of the main elements of the enquiry. You’ll also not that the video itself has been divided into ‘chapters’, as it were (very handy). --- ## The nebulosity of choice **“Who is more heroic - Frodo or Wonder Woman? Which platform is better - Twitter or LinkedIn? Which mode - Centralised or Decentralised? Which leadership advisor - Jason Fox or ChatGPT? Both? Neither? Other? Which way forward, pass all these riddles in the dark?...”* Notions referenced: - [Making Life Wonderful](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlWeXr9tz7k&ref=foxwizard.com) – Marshall Rosenberg - [Finite and Infinite games](https://wtf.tw/ref/carse.pdf?ref=foxwizard.com) – James P Carse (not sinek) - [The Wisdom of Insecurity](https://antilogicalism.files.wordpress.com/2017/07/wisdom-of-insecurity.pdf?ref=foxwizard.com) – Alan Watts - “relevance realisation” – from [John Vervaeke’s *Awakening from the Meaning Crisis*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54l8%5FewcOlY&ref=foxwizard.com) - “meaningful progress” – from [*How to Lead a Quest*](https://www.foxwizard.com/books) - “[enjoyable usefulness](https://meaningness.com/enjoyable-usefulness?ref=foxwizard.com)” – from David Chapman’s [*meaningness*](https://meaningness.com/?ref=foxwizard.com)book - [Wit’s End](https://jamesgeary.com/wits-end/?ref=foxwizard.com) – James Geary - “weak views, strongly held” – from [The Cactus and the Weasel](https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2014/02/20/the-cactus-and-the-weasel/?ref=foxwizard.com) by Venkatesh Rao - matters pertaining to “[truth](https://metarationality.com/search?search=truth&ref=foxwizard.com)” – from David Chapman’s [*meta-rationality*](https://metarationality.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) book - “[protosynthesis](https://metamoderna.org/youre-not-metamodern-before-you-understand-this-part-2-proto-synthesis-2/?ref=foxwizard.com)” – Hanzi Freinacht --- ## Don’t choose: ‘entertain’ **“With so many plausible-sounding expert opinions, hot-takes, buzzwords, bandwagons, best-selling authors, how does one choose?”* > “Better to operate with detachment, then; better to have a way but infuse it with a little humor; best, to have no way at all but to have instead the wit constantly to make one's way anew from the materials at hand.” > *― Lewis Hyde,* [*Trickster Makes This World: Mischief, Myth, and Art*](https://lewishyde.com/trickster/?ref=foxwizard.com) --- ## Fallacies, all the way down **“Around the time COVID started, I spent the ensuing years studying logical fallacies. I was surprised to learn that almost every logical fallacy I had learned through popular critical reasoning teaching was effectively wrong, or at least far more complex than I first thought. Different fallacy authors had different ideas about what the heart of the issue was, and the nature of good/bad reasoning. Different taxonomy structures. Different emphasis. It was hard – very hard for me – to work my way through the complex logical terrain and doing so fundamentally made me doubt my own sense of intelligence and self-worth. I am no genius. The problems are above my pay grade. However, I discovered a few interesting things along the way. For instance, there was some agreement among the fallacy experts who study this area deeply that most mainstream fallacies are wrong – dead wrong – and this has been written about in the field of Informal Logical and other areas, but is yet to be widely appreciated. The problems are complex and not easy to summarise in plain language.”* - [metamodernist manifesto](http://www.metamodernism.org/?ref=foxwizard.com) – Luke Turner - [the nihilist abyss](https://metarationality.com/stem-fluidity-bridge?ref=foxwizard.com) – David Chapman - [Poetry Unbound](https://onbeing.org/series/poetry-unbound/?ref=foxwizard.com) – Pádraig Ó Tuama A poem by the late Tom Christensen, shared in a private message forum, dubbed “Metamodern #3”— > We discovered the emptiness of belief. > The debris of contingent truths, > our honored chaos, > gave us only stillborn visions. > > Still, somehow, > that was achievement, > for those leaving certainty behind. > > For us in the mess created, > the loss of all foundations, > what was there to do? > > Some of us still live in the debris, > honoring it as liberation, > and it is, liberation from. > > But liberation to, > is what calls the others of us. > Freedom to build on nothing, > with nothing, > ending up with fabricated truths again. > > This time though, > we know its Maya, > and know that Lila cannot dance, > without illusion. > > Oh, lovers of illusion, > creators of tomorrow, > weave, sew, lay on the strokes, > build the roads that are not there > and lead us into the tomorrow > we love for. --- ## Hello Abyss, My Old Friend\* **“They are dark, scary, tormenting things, like something out of H.P. Lovecraft. They keep me awake at night. Part of me thinks they should keep \*every\* intelligent person awake. But that part of me is probably my ego.”* - [Overcoming post-rationalist nihilism](https://metarationality.com/post-rationalist-nihilism?ref=foxwizard.com) \+ [what they don’t teach you at STEM school](https://metarationality.com/meta-rationality-curriculum?ref=foxwizard.com) (I offer these as partial explanations) - [The Evolving Self](https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674272316&ref=foxwizard.com) – Robert Kegan - Dąbrowski's theory of “[positive disintegration](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive%5Fdisintegration?ref=foxwizard.com)” - The ‘[Choose One Word](http://chooseoneword.com/?ref=foxwizard.com)’ Ritual of Becoming - [The Labyrinths of Reason](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/133167/labyrinths-of-reason-by-william-poundstone/?ref=foxwizard.com) by William Poundstone - \* whenever I say ‘my old friend’ I am secretly quoting ‘[Fantasy Man](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co6sCbkkP68&themeRefresh=1&ref=foxwizard.com)’ --- ## A Philosopher’s Solemn Duty **“Interestingly, there is no underlying unification of fallacies - effectively meaning that it is very hard for anyone to support their argument (or counter another’s argument), on practically anything. Ask enough Socratic questions, ask enough childlike “whys”, provide enough counter examples, subvert their assumptions enough, thrust a long sword into the heart of people’s philosophical centre and their frameworks will scatter to the winds. Confident arguments collapse into disarray. Why? Well - it’s dark and strange and “you’re-going-to-need-a-bigger-boat” scary. And I don’t have the answers. Apparently (and this is the implication) – nobody does.”* > *“It is the solemn duty of the philosopher to piss on all that you hold dear and sacred, to show you that your gods are false.”* – Hanzi Frienacht, [The Listening Society](https://www.amazon.com.au/Listening-Society-Metamodern-Politics-Guides-ebook/dp/B074MKQ4LR?ref=foxwizard.com) Disenchantment is the precursor to re-enchantment. --- ## A Moot Dispute **“It’s a profound implication, I think. For it would effectively render every opinion, every philosophy, every notion of what we think of as heroic, or true, or valid, or logical, or reasonable – as moot. Dead in the water. Nobody, not Einstein or Aristotle, not Aragorn or Obi-Wan, not Marie Curie or Mary Shelley, not Ellen Ripley or Sarah Connor, no character, in any human realm, anywhere, at any time in human history, has a well-justified opinion on practically anything important.”* A make a bit of word salad of this. My main point being that, collectively—as the self-organising complex intelligence to which we each be a part of (that exists at an emergent order of complexity beyond our reckoning, to which we can only discern via an acuity to pattern, maybe)—it doesn’t so much matter that none of us really have a well-justified opinion. Somehow, amidst the cacophony of it all, “the develop­ment of real­ity does have directionality,”—[as Hanzi Freinacht writes](http://metamoderna.org/metamodern-view-of-reality/?lang=en&ref=foxwizard.com)—“it’s just that we are always blind to this direct­ion; hence the metaphor of “stumbling backwards”. Thus: do not let the pointlessness and inevitable mootness detract from the will to opine. Or do! Either way, it will contribute to our collective unfurling. --- ## Don’t fake—make believe **“At best, you can get to “maybe,” “plausibly,” or “probably” in a particular context. But “valid”, “true”, “fact”, “proof”, “I know” or “I’m right” on any big subject (the ones we have equal and opposite experts debating over) implies something much more robust. Like a framework. A unified framework. One we don’t have. One that our best geniuses haven’t figured out yet. And I think everyone suspects this deep down. That our systems of leadership are essentially all fake. Like the leaders. Playing out a shit show – because there’s nothing much really behind all these equal and opposite experts. They cast shadows on the wall, and Plato cannot not save us because he hasn’t figured out the deeper problem either. But he points to it. The deepest hard problem appears, not to be the “hard problem of consciousness” or anything to do with A.I. (what is the relevance of that, anyway?). Rather, it appears to be one of value, or ethics, or morals, or good/bad, or right/wrong, or relevance, depending on how you want to view it. Our leaders have not given us a robust theory of ethics. Moral consequentialism appears to be the strongest of the available forms, in my soft (non-expert) opinion.”* - I casually mention Indigenous knowledge systems here—[this paper](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/sres.2932?ref=foxwizard.com) does a better job of framing it - I reflect on the narrative violations I have experienced in my own journey, along with the bullshït artistry on display across most social media platforms - I also talk of the notion of ‘post-achievement’—a wonderful stage to arrive to wherein you have nothing to ‘prove’ to yourself or strive for - This is a rambly section; feel free to skip, it fills me with Minor Cringe (a level 0 cantrip). --- ## Whims, not ‘wizards’ **“And so then, Mr Wizard - how am I, the non-expert, the simpleton creature, assaulted by value judgements from birth, by people with higher IQs, from more prestigious universities, with more credibility, more likability, more charisma, better educated, better read, holding better command of the written word, meant to choose which Quest to undertake… or what leader to follow… what opinion to “like”. Do I follow you, Mr Fox? Or is your humble expert opinion effectively indistinguishable from everyone else’s humble expert opinion? That is, on equally confused footing? From what I can see, behind all these opinions, there is a value-judgment that connects to a larger ethical framework. It’s lurking behind everything you say. It’s implied everywhere in people's language but rarely - I would say practically never - made explicit in a logical, sensitive, intelligible form.”* Yeah, verily: don’t follow me. I am a fool wizard. My hat is a dunce hat. Brimless. I am simply seeking that which may lead us closer to a world more curious and kind. A world in which life may flourish at higher orders of complexity. Or: something like that. I call myself a wizard partly because it is ‘infinitely to be preferred’ to what the term ‘thought leader’ (or even ‘expert’) has come to represent nowadays.\* Not to say there are legitimate experts out there. I would rather heed the advice pertaining to pandemics from respected epidemiologists moreso than a teenage tiktok influencer or social media pundit. \* *But mostly because I am, in fact, a wizard. (Also, btw, you are evidently no simpleton creature.)* I think back to the people that I enjoy following, it is mostly whim-based. There is no rational explanation except for after the fact. I simply follow those whom I suspect may be interesting. And I do so not as a disciple so much as a fellow infinite player who enjoys the company of those who likewise seek. Or, as Sir Terry Pratchett once quipped (within *Monstrous Regiment*):— > *“The presence of those seeking the truth is infinitely to be preferred to the presence of those who think they've found it.”* --- ## Against belief **“Is it ethical to believe anything you say Jason when you don’t have a robust framework behind it?... Or do you? (Please, gimme. I wants the precious.)”* I mention Taleb’s taxonomy from [*Antifragile*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antifragility?ref=foxwizard.com) here, in that a ‘robust’ framework would resist shocks (and stay the same), whilst a ‘fragile’ framework would crumble under scrutiny. But better yet to pursue frameworks with an antifragile. To quote directly from the book: > *“The antifragile loves randomness and uncertainty, which also means— crucially—a love of errors, a certain class of errors. Antifragility has a singular property of allowing us to deal with the unknown, to do things without understanding them— and do them well. Let me be more aggressive: we are largely better at doing than we are at thinking, thanks to antifragility. I’d rather be dumb and antifragile than extremely smart and fragile, any time.”* The quest is more important than any of particular ‘answers’ we find along the way. Questing for [better questions](http://kiriakakis.net/comics/mused/a-day-at-the-park?ref=foxwizard.com), as it were. Which brings me to another of James Carse’s wondrous works: [*The Religious Case Against Belief*](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/302326/the-religious-case-against-belief-by-james-p-carse/?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* I highly recommend this to you. In this book, Carse essentially posits that religion is *not* about believing in a set of doctrines or dogmas—or robust singular unified frameworks. Rather, it is about participating in the shared human experience of mystery and ‘transcendence’. Carse argues that when people focus too much on their beliefs, they can become closed-minded and intolerant of other perspectives. He suggests that instead of trying to convert others to our beliefs, we should focus on engaging with them in a spirit of openness and curiosity. In other words: infinite play. Furthermore, Carse suggests that the pursuit of truth is a never-ending journey, and that religious traditions can be valuable guides in this journey. However, he also emphasises that we should approach such traditions with a spirit of skepticism (rather than blindly accepting their teachings). In this sense, we might approach it with the mercuriality\* of metamodernity, which dances betwixt and beyond ‘irony and sincerity, naïveté and knowingness, relativism and truth, optimism and doubt’—all in pursuit of ‘a plurality of disparate and elusive horizons’ (to quote from ‘the’ metamodern ‘[manifesto](http://www.metamodernism.org/?ref=foxwizard.com)’ itself). \* *Mercury, of course, having its origins in the Roman tricker god ‘Mercury’, derived from [Hermes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermes?ref=foxwizard.com).* If all of this mercurial oscillatory jazz has managed to inspire you, you might enjoy ‘[The Oscillator’s Stone](https://theoscillatorsstone.substack.com/)’ by theory artist Scout Rainer Wiley. --- ## My top leadership priority **“Logically, isn’t that your top leadership priority? (i.e., moving towards a unified logical-ethical framework)”* Nah. I quest to cocreate a world more curious and kind. More specifically, to coordinate amidst higher orders of complexity (at scale). Or more aptly: to cultivate the conditions for *emergence*. A kind of organic emergentism, I guess.\* \* *I have this book on my to-read list, as I admire the author’s disposition [Emergentism: A Religion of Complexity for the Metamodern World](https://www.amazon.com/Emergentism-Religion-Complexity-Metamodern-Spirituality-ebook/dp/B0BHZYPVFQ/?ref=foxwizard.com).* But not a unified framework—unless the framework itself is dynamic, porous, complex and self-adapting enough to encompass the polyphonic pantheon of possibilities. But then, it would likely be so vague as to be rather useless (as per [Bonini’s paradox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonini%27s%5Fparadox?ref=foxwizard.com)). Still: better vague hand flapping post/para/meta-rational sincere-ironic hand flapping than the tyranny of something unified, specific and concrete. Fine to oscillate to such, but not to stay there. My friend Bruce McTague sometimes talks of ‘[lily pads of certainty](https://brucemctague.com/tag/mctague-thought?ref=foxwizard.com)’, which is quite apt. *“The world is complex and, yet, to navigate its understanding we need some simplistic lily pads of certainty. Therein lies heuristics and insights.”* Anyway, if forced to at gunpoint to choose a unified ethical framework it would likely be the framework of ‘[finite and infinite games](https://wtf.tw/ref/carse.pdf?ref=foxwizard.com)’, which is encompassing enough. --- ## No heroes, no solutions **“Isn’t that what a heroic leader really should be interested in – solving the big problems others can’t, or won’t?”* I do not ‘believe in’ heroes\* (though I do believe in acts of heroism). It may be that I have had an unhealthy level of exposure to folks touting ‘[The Hero’s Journey](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero%27s%5Fjourney?ref=foxwizard.com)’ as if it were some sort of ‘monomyth’ (it isn’t, though I admit it is very, very popular). \* *Of course, there are exceptions. [Matt Langdon’s take on heroes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lE0jGWVMjJw&ref=foxwizard.com) is useful, compelling and apt.* I know this was not quite the thrust of your question—but it actually gets to the heart of the more masculine archetype that has dominated our noösphere (thinking space) for far too long. The Hero’s Journey is overdone. [It’s a boy-archetype story](https://charleseisenstein.substack.com/p/neither-hero-nor-journey). I get why folks like it: it’s a proven formula. It works for blockbusters. It works for individuals who want to ‘centre’ themselves, or to have an authority figure to appeal to. But it’s a tired and overdone, predictable and limiting in its linear arcs and archetypes. *“The introduction of a singular hero… replicates a very specific and historical power relation.”* [Writes Ursula Le Guin](https://theoutline.com/post/7886/ursula-le-guin-carrier-bag-theory?ref=foxwizard.com). *“The pioneers and the saviors: likely male, likely white, almost certainly brimming with unearned confidence. The veneration of the hero reduces others into victims: those who must be rescued. ‘The prototypical savior is a person who has been raised in privilege and taught implicitly or explicitly (or both) that they possess the answers and skills needed to rescue others,’ writes Jordan Flaherty in his book No More Heroes. To be a hero is fundamentally privileged, and any act of heroism reinforces that privilege.”* I am a fan of the works of Ursula Le Guin, and the many authors who subvert the neat linearity of the hero’s journey. I also relish in [Hayao Miyazaki’s more ‘ecological’ storytelling](https://animationobsessive.substack.com/p/what-makes-ghibli-storytelling-so), and any attempt storytellers make to complexify; venturing beyond ‘good/bad’ and ‘right/wrong’. I suspect the other word I am not so keen on is ‘solutions’. To approach a open complex living system looking for solutions is to render it into a closed, complicated and mechanical system in need of ‘fixing’. We are—within, of and from—complex systems; thus we cannot truly attain any external vantage point so as to make it closed. Ergo, we cannot treat an open system as if it were closed—and all of the big challenges relate to open and complex systems. And yet, having said *all of that* there is a role for the masculine archetype: the hero, the fixer, the one come to ‘save the day’ with the solution, the one come with the sword, spear, lance or phallic device to dispense with the ‘evils’ of this world. There is actually a time and place for swift and decisive action, for resoluteness, firm boundaries, protectiveness, and so on. It’s just that: even kings ought bow to queens—so too ought the masculine need to fix, solve or otherwise make ‘right’ be tempered with relational sensibilities more aligned to the living and complex. --- ## Nothing is true; everything is permitted\* **“Isn’t that what your strong or mild or weak judgments of what is right/wrong in the world – about A.I. or leadership or business or viable town squares or whatever interests you next week – really entails?”* I do think we ought align ourselves to the bigger collective challenges in life, yes. And yet... the meandering towards what might be—at least temporarily entertained as—‘meaningful progress’ is non-linear. - \* I’m quoting from the[*Assassin’s Creed*](https://www.ubisoft.com/en-au/game/assassins-creed?ref=foxwizard.com)franchise here, which took this maxim from the 1938 novel [*Alamut*](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alamut%5F%281938%5Fnovel%29?ref=foxwizard.com) by Vladimir Bartol. - I mention Anthony Weston’s concept of [*multicentrism*](https://philpapers.org/rec/WESMAM?ref=foxwizard.com)*,* and again do a poor job of conveying the vastness of Indigenous knowledge systems ([*Sand Talk*](https://www.textpublishing.com.au/books/sand-talk?ref=foxwizard.com) by Tyson Yunkaporta is a very good entry point). As I write this I recall the phenomenal essay by Dr Martin Shaw on [Navigating the Mysteries](https://emergencemagazine.org/essay/navigating-the-mysteries/?ref=foxwizard.com). Here is an excerpt: > *“It means attention to not* this *or* that *but possibly both or some other way entirely. This isn’t necessarily easy, being so conditioned as we are to yes or no, black or white. And sometimes that third position is not what many would call a logical response.”* A good habit, I find, is to always expand our sphere of consideration whenever presented with a binary option; there almost always lie myriad paths betwixt and beyond. --- ## Protosynthesis + emergence **“Jason, I don’t know you. I haven’t read everything you’ve written, or most. Perhaps obviously. I see maybe 0.1% of you, which I probably distort through my own clouded biases anyway. Maybe these problems also keep you up at night. I don’t know. Maybe this will come across as an extremely arrogant opinion flowing into an appeal to ego or vanity in an attempt to help “win” you over to see my distorted version of reason, but all that being said - I genuinely love what you do. You are among the best of us. Among the brightest of lighthouses I can see at the edge of the horizon. If you can’t solve these complex leadership problems in troubled times, who will?”* Not any one of us will ‘solve this’ and yet: collectively proto-solutions will ‘emerge’ (and establish, and decay). - I mention Jim Rutt’s now half a decade old article [*In Search of the 5th Attractor*](https://medium.com/@memetic007/fifth-attractor-6d1a54fcda2e?ref=foxwizard.com) - I mention the notion of ‘Relative Utopia’, which [I first gleaned from Hanzi Frienacht](https://metamoderna.org/relative-utopia/?ref=foxwizard.com) - I allude to ‘the metacrisis’, to which Daniel Schmachtenberger provides [an apt introduction and overview on the green pill podcast](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVEP0zAK-xQ&ref=foxwizard.com). - I reference ‘[The Unreasonable Sufficiency of Protocols](https://venkatesh-rao.gitbook.io/summer-of-protocols/?ref=foxwizard.com)’ paper, which has a most ground and rather uplifting introduction: > *“Complex coordination problems have an air of doomed intractability about them. We speak in fatalistic terms of economics being a ‘dismal’ science, of sociological phenomena being dominated by the ‘tragedy of the commons,’ of organizations being hopelessly ‘captured,’ and of complex problems being ‘wicked.’ Even our simplest mental models of coordination and cooperation problems, such as the Prisoner’s Dilemma in game theory, are built around default expectations of obviously worse outcomes dominating obviously better ones, and worst-case behaviors driving systemic outcomes.Yet, in practice, we routinely solve coordination problems reasonably well. Workable solutions materialize, pushing through the gloom and doom which often accompanies theoretical views and cultural commentary. In light of this foreboding context, the outcomes appear almost suspiciously lucky, or serendipitous.”* - I reference John Vervaeke’s video essay “[AI: The Coming Thresholds and The Path We Must Take](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-%5FRdKiDbz4&ref=foxwizard.com)” - I also reference Hanzi Freinacht’s notion of ‘the fabric of hurt and bliss’, expanded here— > *“We fail to take responsibility, to act productively in the interest of ourselves and others. And in our attempts at a better life, we are often severely limited or thwarted by the immature and socially inept behavior of ourselves and others. There is a great fabric of relations, behaviors and emotions, reverberating with human and animal bliss and suffering, a web of intimate and formal relations, both direct and indirect. Nasty whirlwinds of feedback cycles blow through this great multidimensional web, pulsating with hurt and degradation. My lacking human development blocks your possible human development. My lack of understanding of you, your needs perspectives, hurts you in a million subtle ways. I become a bad lover, a bad colleague, a bad fellow citizen and human being. We are interconnected: You cannot get away from my hurt and wounds. They will follow you all of your life—I will be your daughter’s abusive boyfriend, your belligerent neighbor from hell. And you will never grow wings because there will always be mean bosses, misunderstanding families and envious friends. And you will tell yourself that is how life must be. But it is not how life has to be. Once you begin to be able to see the social-psychological fabric of everyday life, it becomes increasingly apparent that the fabric is relatively easy to change, to develop. Metamodern politics aims to make everyone secure at the deepest psychological level, so that we can live authentically; a byproduct of which is a sense of meaning in life and lasting happiness; a byproduct of which is kindness and an increased ability to cooperate with others; a byproduct of which is deeper freedom and better concrete results in the lives of everyone; a byproduct of which is a society less likely to collapse into a heap of atrocities.”* > ― Hanzi Freinacht, [The Listening Society: A Metamodern Guide to Politics, Book One](https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/57695371?ref=foxwizard.com) I am not sure how fully I agree with the Nordic Ideology behind metamodern politics, but I appreciate the sentiment and directionality. --- ## Denounce This Foolish Leadership Business! **“We could all use more of your intelligence, sensitivity, humour, wit, quirkiness, and good heart. And above all, movie references – please don’t forget those. Keep doing what you’re doing. Or, I don’t know, don’t. Denounce this foolish leadership business, kick back with some popcorn on the couch, enjoy what little time you have before Skynet becomes self-aware, and cheer on Frodo and the pro/counter A.I. fellowship as they journey into the heart of darkness, if that’s the better way. But for me to say what you should or shouldn't do with your life would require a good framework of value – which I don't have. And that is why I am here, submitting my thoughts to the wizard.”* Oh how frequently I denounce this foolish leadership business—and how frequently I returned, so enamoured I am as to how we can effectively cultivate for emergence (and coordinate at higher orders of complexity, at scale). It fascinates me. I can’t keep away from the field, much as I frequently lament the domain (and how easily it is captured by platform economics). In this section I once again reference [enjoyable usefulness](https://meaningness.com/enjoyable-usefulness?ref=foxwizard.com) and [relevance realisation](http://www.ipsi.utoronto.ca/sdis/Relevance-Published.pdf?ref=foxwizard.com)—along with the notion of glimmers, inklings, hunches and whatnot. --- ## Perhaps we might embrace the poetic? **“I suspect most people won’t have an underlying interest in or understand the practical relevance of what I’m saying, or - I mean - the implications of what I'm really getting at. But I hope you might. So, with this long comment boarding on crazed and unbalanced I suspect in the eyes of most, I would be interested to know, Mr Fox – Do you have a theory of value/ethics? Or some thoughts in this direction?”* Ha, I don’t have a clear framework no—but evidently I have some thoughts in this direction. And whilst I do harp on about nebulosity, complexity and whatnot, the conversation around values and ethics is vital. And yet also: such conversations must be living things (not fixed) and guided by frameworks that are adopted for as long as they serve—and then respectfully discarded in favour of whatever may serve better. I mention Dr Martin Shaw (whom I noted above). There’s [a particular interview that really spoke to me](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQLvp13SQcE&ref=foxwizard.com) (an extension of [the essay I linked earlier](https://emergencemagazine.org/essay/navigating-the-mysteries/?ref=foxwizard.com)), pertaining to the mythopoetic. Related—perhaps we might cultivate the poetic sensibilities that may enable us to live and lead amidst complexity with a semblance of efficacy, grace and aplomb? To quote [from poets.org](https://poets.org/text/poetic-sensibility-what-it-and-why-we-need-it-21st-century-education?ref=foxwizard.com), the characteristics of a poetic sensibility include: - a keen sensitivity to the surrounding world (multisensory perception); - an ability to ask questions of that world; - identifying patterns; - being able to make both logical and intuitive connections; - a facility and passion for finding just the right word or phrase to express feelings and meaning; and - the use of the imagination to connect the above in unexpected ways. This seems a good disposition to me. --- Thank you, once again, for the comment and the questions laced throughout. I don’t often get a chance to reflect in this manner at such depth. It was a joy. And—like you—I suspect most people won’t have an underlying interest in or understand the practical relevance of what I’m saying. Or rather, the implications of what I'm really getting at. But I hope you, dear reader, might. So, with this long post boarding on crazed and unbalanced (I suspect in the eyes of most) I would be interested to know—what, if anything, has resonated with you? Much warmth, *foxwizard* ### 💌 Subversive leadership URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/subversive/ Last updated: 2024-02-28T00:55:05.000Z ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2023/04/foxwizard_An_epiphany_at_night_stars_twinkling_in_the_skyscape__b1b4a09e-ab50-4e84-8ffd-62e1657f0648-1.png) A twilight epiphany, conjured with midjourney I thought it might be novel to manifest [in video format](https://vimeo.com/821523692?ref=foxwizard.com). Ergo, here is an attempt at a warm welcome note to you from your foxwizard. Since moving my website and writing to [foxwizard.com](https://www.foxwizard.com/) I have noticed the potential for loneliness in the independent web. It’s not that I am lonely—a wizard needs their solitude, and I am very glad to have my tower nestled within my very own pocket of the noösphere (rather than perched in the rented land of a social media corporation). Yet still, at the same time, I know that: > “No one can play a game alone. One cannot be human by oneself. There is no selfhood where there is no community. We do not relate to others as the persons we are; we are who we are in relating to others.” > – James P. Carse, *Finite and Infinite Games* Of course, I still have my ongoing work with questing enterprises, and I have long enjoyed the company of mutuals within the [cozyweb](https://studio.ribbonfarm.com/p/the-extended-internet-universe?ref=foxwizard.com) (private discord servers and signal groups). I have friends irl, too, would you believe. But it is important to maintain some time in environments in which you can engage in civic discourse with folks from *outside* your immediate locus. A place in which we might challenge, humble, inspire and enrich our own perspicacity and wit. I have thus been searching for a **viable town square** that is neither an ideological echo-chamber nor an intellectual cul-de-sac. In days past we might have gathered at a café or speakeasy. Now, thanks to the many protocols that work together to enable the internet,\* we can have equivalent meetings of minds—regardless of where our corporal forms may be. \* *TCP/IP, UDP, HTTP, DNS, FTP, SMTP and IMAP, to name a few. [There is no antimimetics protocol](https://www.foxwizard.com/antimemetics-protocol/), though.* I allude, of course, to the metaverse—something that existed long before Mark renamed Facebook to Meta and took interest in the notion.\* Of course, Facebook is just one example of a town square. Twitter and LinkedIn have served this function, too. The thing these three platforms have in common is that they are all Silicon Valley-based corporations whose business models rely upon advertising revenue. As publicly listed companies oriented towards maximising shareholder value, they need users to create and contribute content in order to attract ‘attention’. The attention generated by content creators can then be monetised for profit. \* *The metaverse existed even before web2\. Neal Stephenson, the chap who first coined the term ‘metaverse’ in his 1992 novel [Snow Crash](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/172832/snow-crash-by-neal-stephenson/?ref=foxwizard.com)° is currently working on ‘the fabric of the open metaverse’; a layer-one blockchain called [LAMINA1](https://www.lamina1.com/?ref=foxwizard.com).* *° Btw, I highly recommend we all maintain a healthy diet of science-fiction. A lot of the questions and implications we face amidst the rise of AI today are themes that many authors have explored.* I think we are all well aware of the inherent flaws of the default social media enterprise model by now. The topic is old and we remain mostly addicted. But—as a side note—I must say: LinkedIn has shown some incredible [Lindy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy%5Feffect?ref=foxwizard.com). Perhaps this is the Microsoft influence? Or perhaps it is because user incentives are more tightly coupled, in that the majority of folks use the platform in order to further their careers? Careers within enterprises that *also* show remarkable resilience in the face of change. I don’t know.\* \* *Substack are also [having a play at the social media space](https://on.substack.com/p/introducing-notes), since Elon is seemingly messing up what was already a very littered town square. I appreciate that Substack’s incentive structure is aligned to writer’s success (currently, they only make revenue via paid newsletter subscriptions), but [as mentioned previously](https://www.foxwizard.com/fools-journey/): I worry that this will become too perverse.* Whenever I venture onto LinkedIn I am greeted with a mix of compliance-virtue signalling (understandable; employees want to signal that they are amicable and ‘hardworking’; hence the relentless perpetuation of grind culture) and the vapid recycling of leadership aphorisms. I see it amongst my colleagues, too: they’re also revelling in the safe and stagnant. The authors of [*Snow Leopard*](https://www.amazon.com/Snow-Leopard-Legendary-Writers-Category/dp/1956934456?ref=foxwizard.com) have observed that— > “...since this game is largely about external signals of credibility, it makes sense why so many smart, well-intentioned, successful people decide to optimize for the path of least resistance. Out of nowhere, they start posting BGOs (Blinding Glimpses of the Obvious) because this sort of non-threatening content is the easiest way to get Likes and climb the perceived ladder of success without ruffling any feathers. We call this content-free content.” I struggle with non-threatening content-free content, and since briefly revisiting LinkedIn I have found myself *aghast* at the number of folks claiming to be leadership consultants. Whilst I personally love what the word ‘leadership’ represents as a contextual concept—particularly when it pertains to the asymptotic quest of relevance-realisation—I do wonder if the word has all but lost its meaning in our current milieu. **For leadership is a subversive act.** To lead is to inevitably venture beyond the known and default. It is thus no surprise that school principals—who are *so close* to the development of children and the teens who are coming-of-age in a rapidly changing world—must cultivate [subversive leadership and power tactics](https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1196533&ref=foxwizard.com). The wondrous paper ‘[Leadership as a subversive activity](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/238413498%5FLeadership%5Fas%5Fa%5Fsubversive%5Factivity?ref=foxwizard.com)’ discusses: > *“subversion in an intellectual, moral and political sense, as a sacred mission to confront the ‘noble lies’ of politicians, the superficiality of the designer culture and the line of least resistance opted for by overworked and demoralised teachers”.* Accordingly, subversive leadership is *“grounded in knowledge and wisdom which allows leaders to recognise changing circumstances, make sound judgement, and act expediently”* ([source](https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1196533&ref=foxwizard.com)). It is fair to say: subversive leadership and quest leadership share an overlap of sensibilities. But that is a tale for another time!\* \* *I had to stop myself from turning this point into its own full essay.* In this musing, what I really want to share with you is what I have found in my quest for a **viable town square**. Remember how I reflected on “the many protocols that work together to enable the internet”? These were largely the result of early web1 innovations. Core principles of web1 (the static, ‘read-only’ web) included: 1. **Openness:** web1 aimed to provide an open platform where anyone with access to the internet could create, share, and access information without restrictions. This openness laid the foundation for the rapid growth and adoption of the internet. 2. **Decentralisation:** Early web technologies were built on **decentralised protocols**, with no single authority controlling the network. This enabled a diverse ecosystem of websites and services to emerge. 3. **Free access to information:** web1 focused on providing free access to a vast array of information, enabling users to learn, explore, and share knowledge without barriers. 4. **Collaboration and community:** Early internet users often formed communities around shared interests, fostering collaboration and social interaction in online forums, newsgroups, and mailing lists. But somewhere along the way, our earnest naïveté was taken advantage of. There were *opportunities* to exploit, and because capitalism gotta capitalise, exploited they were. Thus we saw the emergence of web2 (the read-write ‘social’ web), which brought about several changes. Namely: a shift towards centralisation and concentration of power and influence into just a few platforms, monetisation via user-generated data and content, and a distinct erosion of privacy and trust. Now, we see the emergence of web3—a movement that shares the spirit of web1 with the wisdom of lessons learned from the mistakes of web2\. Rather than trusting in web2 companies to not be evil, the open-source nature of web3 protocols are designed so that they *can’t* be evil. But—just like how [Rupert Murdoch’s](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert%5FMurdoch?ref=foxwizard.com) [News Corp](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News%5FCorp?ref=foxwizard.com) shapes public opinion here in Australia\* (our version of [Logan Roy from *Succession*](https://succession.fandom.com/wiki/Logan%5FRoy?ref=foxwizard.com))—the established web2 social media platforms shape the opinion of web3\. It’s very difficult to find folks to engage in good faith, intelligent conversations with about the experimentations and discoveries of web3\. So many will instead bleat cartoonishly reductive misrepresentations that either fixate on ridiculous outliers, obvious scams or challenges that are actively being worked upon. We have a new frontier of punditry,° where the strongest opinions seem to come from folks who have never interacted with a smart contract, nor participated in any decentralised governance. \* *Australia’s media market is the most concentrated out of every democracy in the world. If we were to set aside democratic governments, only Egypt and China have a greater media market concentration. *Of all countries in the world.* If this concerns you, visit [Australians for a Murdoch Royal Commission](https://www.foxwizard.com/museletter/).* *° Punditry is a safe content-free-content strategy, wherein one can offer opinion and critique without contributing anything constructive.* It frustrates me because those of us in web3 *relish* in constructive discontent. We welcome counter-theses, particularly in the spirit of dialogue—the openness of web3 means that we all benefit from constructive input. This relates to my search for a viable town square. But before I continue, I just want you to know: I sense-checked myself with my favourite bias-affirming artificial intelligence. Here’s what it conjured for me as I write to you from my bunker. ![Web2 and Web3 represent two different paradigms in the development of the internet. Web2 refers to the era of the internet that is dominated by centralized platforms and social media companies, while Web3 is an emerging concept that focuses on decentralized technologies, particularly blockchain and distributed ledger technologies. Here are some of the issues with Web2 companies as distinct from Web3 protocols: Centralization: Web2 companies are centralized entities that control and manage user data, content, and services. This centralization can lead to a concentration of power and influence in the hands of a few major players. Web3 protocols, on the other hand, aim to decentralize the internet, giving users more control over their data and reducing the power of central authorities. Data Privacy and Ownership: Web2 companies often collect, store, and monetize user data, sometimes without explicit consent. This can lead to issues with privacy, security, and user control. Web3 protocols emphasize the importance of user ownership and control over their data, leveraging decentralized technologies to enable privacy and data security. Monetization and Business Models: Web2 companies rely on advertising and data monetization as their primary revenue models, which can create conflicts of interest and incentivize the manipulation of user attention. Web3 protocols promote alternative business models, such as tokenization and decentralized finance, which may foster more equitable value distribution and new economic opportunities for users. Platform Dependency and Interoperability: Users and developers often rely on Web2 companies' platforms, making it difficult to switch between services or use multiple platforms simultaneously. Web3 protocols aim to create a more open, interoperable ecosystem, allowing users and developers to interact with multiple platforms and services without restrictions. Censorship and Content Moderation: Web2 companies have the authority to moderate content and enforce their policies, which can lead to accusations of censorship, bias, and uneven enforcement. Web3 protocols leverage decentralized consensus mechanisms to enable community-driven content moderation, reducing the power of a single entity to control content and information flow. Innovation and Competition: The dominance of major Web2 companies can stifle innovation and competition, as these companies can use their resources and influence to maintain their market positions. Web3 protocols, by enabling a more decentralized and open ecosystem, may foster greater competition and innovation in the digital landscape.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2023/04/Screenshot-2023-04-26-at-3.20.24-pm.png) web3 is not perfect! Far from it. Very far. And decentralisation is a messy spectrum. And yet still; in terms of betterment, web3 offers very real glimmers of hope. Also: the independent, interoperable, public, shared, open-source, transparent and decentralised *protocols* of web3 are one of the biggest threats to the established web2 media moguls.\* \* *It is also one of their biggest opportunities for enduring relevance. Particularly as artificial intelligence will lead us to question authenticity and provenance.* Because—just like email—social media ought to run on [sufficiently decentralised](https://www.varunsrinivasan.com/2022/01/11/sufficient-decentralization-for-social-networks?ref=foxwizard.com) protocols. If we are to collectively coordinate amidst higher orders of complexity (at scale), we cannot rely upon social media being subject to centralised points of failure. Or ego. > “A social network achieves sufficient decentralization if two users can find each other and communicate, even if the rest of the network wants to prevent it. This implies that users can always reach their audience, which can only be true if developers can build many clients on the network. If only one client existed, it could stop users from communicating. Achieving this only requires three decentralized features: **the ability to claim a unique username, post messages under that name, and read messages from any valid name**.” – Varun Srinivasan How good are protocols! (Not sure? Have a read of [*The Unreasonable Sufficiency of Protocols*](https://venkatesh-rao.gitbook.io/summer-of-protocols/?ref=foxwizard.com) by Venkatesh Rao, Tim Beiko, Danny Ryan, Josh Stark, Trent Van Epps, and Bastian Aue) At the moment there are a few decentralised social protocols (deso) of note: BlueSky, Lens Protocol and Farcaster. 1. [BlueSky](https://blueskyweb.xyz/?ref=foxwizard.com), an initiative from ex Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. BlueSky works by each user having their own domain name as their username. At this stage it feels like a barebones Twitter application. A lot of the big influencers have moved there, but the joviality of the platform feels a little forced. But this will change, over time. What’s particularly interesting about BlueSky is their stance that algorithms are not the issue—it’s the opacity and control of these algorithms that causes problems. They intend to offer bespoke ‘[algorithmic choice](https://decrypt.co/resources/what-is-bluesky-the-twitter-alternative-with-promising-networking-technology?ref=foxwizard.com)’. 2. [Lens Protocol](https://www.lens.xyz/?ref=foxwizard.com), an initiative from the team that brought us [Aave](https://aave.com/?ref=foxwizard.com). This protocol is a composable and decentralised social graph that runs on the polygon blockchain. I really, really like the vaguely Finnish ethos and vibe that guides Aave and a lot of what we see being developed with the Lens Protocol. I also appreciate the genuine, bold and transparent [sustainability](https://polygon.technology/sustainability?ref=foxwizard.com) strides that the polygon blockchain is demonstrating. My challenge currently is: my lens profile is tied to my hardware wallet, which adds friction to signing in. And currently, the various applications seem to have a lot of ‘airdrop farmers’ generating superfluous activity in the hope of a future reward. I want this protocol to flourish, but it’s a tad too clunky for my liking at the moment. (The irony is: those who actually participate early and contribute to the development *so that it isn’t clunky* are the ones who may be rewarded—which is fair enough!) 3. [Farcaster](https://www.farcaster.xyz/?ref=foxwizard.com), a protocol for building sufficiently decentralised social networks. Oddly, while this is currently the most ‘stripped back’ of the three, it is the one I have found myself gravitating to most. It may well become the viable town square I have been looking for. The applications being built are fast and crisp—but most importantly, the seed community seems mostly very warm and smart people with a good sense of humour and an inclination to build. There’s something inherently ‘constructive’ about the conversations that seem to emerge in the town square(s) enabled by the Farcaster protocol.\* \* *Side note: [here’s a fascinating tidbit that emerged yesterday](https://searchcaster.xyz/search?text=linkedinification&ref=foxwizard.com) (well after I had drafted this museletter). Also, if you’re interested, you can (after skipping past the ads) [watch this insightful interview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGDIdbdtdjE&ref=foxwizard.com) with the founder.* If you would like to join me in the emerging frontier of Farcaster, I have a few invites I have been gifted. Please let me know in the comments below (or via email). But, before you do, please read [this short document](https://warpcast.notion.site/Invites-to-Farcaster-9366905cbbee4dc5a0ebc333bd2155f5?ref=foxwizard.com)—I’d only want to give these out to genuine folks keen to contribute and explore. Priority will be given to[ **friends of the foxwizard*](https://www.foxwizard.com/#/portal/signup)**.* Other than decentralised social media, I am also finding myself warming to Medium once more. I suspect that, with sagacious folk like [Buster Benson](https://buster.medium.com/a-big-linky-map-of-medium-9fd57c888e8a?ref=foxwizard.com) helping out, Medium is on what may be a sustainable and very wholesome redemption arc. In a world in which we will no doubt see the rise of autonomous fleets of compelling AI content creators optimised from data-harvesting... I sense that Medium are positioning themselves well as a wholesome alternative. Their [guideline for quality standards](https://help.medium.com/hc/en-us/articles/360006362473?ref=foxwizard.com) is well considered, and I can see Medium being a space in which I share my more timeless essays. If we consider that the AI will inevitably ‘win’ at any game that can be optimised—then the question is: what are the infinite games we would *prefer* to play? We cannot optimise for the infinite game—but we can find the joy in it, and continue the play. *—fw* Next week I’ll be contributing a keynote presentation at [The Institute of Directors leadership conference](https://iodconference.co.nz/?ref=foxwizard.com) in Auckland, New Zealand. I’m genuinely impressed by [the programme](https://iodconference.co.nz/programme?ref=foxwizard.com) for this event, and the ethos behind it. There is a meaningful integration of topics pertaining to climate change via [Chapter Zero](https://www.chapterzero.nz/?ref=foxwizard.com) (who seek to ensure climate change is a boardroom issue).This is particularly compelling given that we are in the recent wake of Earth Day—an event that nowadays **“seems tokenistic, patronising, and pathetically minimal given the scale of the challenges we face”*, [Tim Smedley writes](https://medium.com/the-new-climate/why-i-hate-earth-day-by-an-environmental-writer-d972533ce9cd?ref=foxwizard.com). It’s **“the perfect day for greenwashing”*. I hope to be able to further the cause for meaningful progress (as distinct from the delusion of progress). This calls for subversive leadership. Becoming climate positive (not just carbon neutral) is a key domain all questing organisations ought be considering if they are to stay relevant and competitive into the future.**I may have some time for coffee on the Friday morning—Aucklanders, reply to this email and I’ll keep you posted.* ## Glimmers - [AI: The Coming Thresholds and The Path We Must Take](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-%5FRdKiDbz4&ref=foxwizard.com) // Professor John Vervaeke’s recent video essay offers important framing for how we can relate and participate with the exponential rise of Artificial Intelligence. Let’s not leave it to the military and the pornographers. - This is very cypherpunk: [Major Photography Prize Winner Reveals Image Is AI-Generated, Rejects Award](https://www.vice.com/en/article/dy3vxy/sony-world-photography-awards-ai-generated?ref=foxwizard.com) - I mean, AI is so good right now. You can hardly tell [this pizza commercial was generated by AI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRsqxPHq8bY&ref=foxwizard.com). - Also, is [Succession](https://www.hbo.com/succession?ref=foxwizard.com) the best ever show? I think it might be. - [What is Generative Art?](https://www.amygoodchild.com/blog/what-is-generative-art?ref=foxwizard.com) This wonderful primer by Amy Goodchild provides an apt overview. I have fallen deeply in love with generative art over the past few years, and I will be sharing more with you here. *“Generative art isn’t a new genre, but it is booming at the moment, and in some ways we’re still in the early stages of what’s possible.”* Here’s [an incredibly moving piece](https://gateway.fxhash2.xyz/ipfs/QmUBXzcPTme2wwfjp52Wy6Ty8oS25qguo7DLjfAMW9eRQK/?fxhash=onfn1cTL5L5r4xDCcbDJjAKhzNvpeCrRjUBa73ssBejZhiMMJ5L&fxminter=tz1MVAcrtuVRCnNYy1Ha4ZmJ1W2hqdN4q3qH&ref=foxwizard.com) from Rich Poole and Rick Crane (click the link or the image below to see it in motion). [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2023/04/image-7.png)](https://gateway.fxhash2.xyz/ipfs/QmUBXzcPTme2wwfjp52Wy6Ty8oS25qguo7DLjfAMW9eRQK/?fxhash=onfn1cTL5L5r4xDCcbDJjAKhzNvpeCrRjUBa73ssBejZhiMMJ5L&fxminter=tz1MVAcrtuVRCnNYy1Ha4ZmJ1W2hqdN4q3qH&ref=foxwizard.com) Acequia #338 I don’t know about you, but I find insight into an artist’s process to be utterly fascinating. [This advanced article](https://www.fxhash.xyz/article/acequia-a-short-tech-overview?ref=foxwizard.com) offers a glimpse into what went into this longform generative art piece. (You can [view the full collection here](https://www.fxhash.xyz/generative/slug/acequia?ref=foxwizard.com)). Remember: the outcomes of generative art are emergent based upon the properties, conditions and constraints of the code. In this way, the artist works with code to ‘conjure’ works that could otherwise not be reliably predicted. Another artist I—and many others—admire is the French formal oil-painter turned generative artist [Michaël Zancan](https://zancan.art/?ref=foxwizard.com). In many ways he is a ‘gardening with code’. Here’s a piece I’ve collected and love—[Skyscraper](https://objkt.com/asset/versum%5Fitems/11479?ref=foxwizard.com). ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2023/04/image-8.png) Skyscraper by zanan There is also a generative art collection called ‘[A Bugged Forest](https://www.fxhash.xyz/generative/slug/a-bugged-forest?ref=foxwizard.com)’—a long-form version of an algorithm that produced ‘The Bugged Tree’ (below). [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2023/04/image-9.png)](https://objkt.com/asset/KT1MEEn4SZ7fD5c4FKXf68hZoWjtwcf4EGLg/20?ref=foxwizard.com) The Bugged Tree by zancan The Bugged Tree’s code was “salvaged and stored and served as the core motivation and engine for an entire forest. Its concept is about releasing the control.” Here’s [one of the outputs](https://gateway.fxhash2.xyz/ipfs/QmebKrkUNabQq1Yhp1QrK2EUPbUctrphu9xEmiz23bQDgM/?fxhash=ooDVVNrofRPCCfbP1fNax8DgvgqvAMaxE7HZvLPQMY3Z58d3Zv7&fxminter=tz1hdBWLMxwgg8oXZRAxHHxQox1DE2jhrWGK&ref=foxwizard.com) from [A Bugged Forest](https://www.fxhash.xyz/generative/slug/a-bugged-forest?ref=foxwizard.com). [![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2023/04/image-12.png)](https://gateway.fxhash2.xyz/ipfs/QmebKrkUNabQq1Yhp1QrK2EUPbUctrphu9xEmiz23bQDgM/?fxhash=ooDVVNrofRPCCfbP1fNax8DgvgqvAMaxE7HZvLPQMY3Z58d3Zv7&fxminter=tz1hdBWLMxwgg8oXZRAxHHxQox1DE2jhrWGK&ref=foxwizard.com) A Bugged Forest #147 I love it. The confluence of buggy code and emergence is compelling—particulalry when considered as part of the wider collection. --- As I was completing this museletter, [the dangerlam](https://www.dangerlam.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) was listening to an episode from [Poetry Unbound](https://onbeing.org/series/poetry-unbound/?ref=foxwizard.com) (hosted by Pádraig Ó Tuama; one of the warmest friend-voices one could ever hope for). [The particular episode I overheard](https://onbeing.org/programs/david-wagoner-lost/?ref=foxwizard.com) offered [David Wagoner’s poem “Lost”](https://onbeing.org/poetry/lost/?ref=foxwizard.com)—which feels particularly apt for us here. > Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you > > Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here, > > And you must treat it as a powerful stranger, > > Must ask permission to know it and be known. > > The forest breathes. Listen. It answers, > > I have made this place around you. > > If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here. > > No two trees are the same to Raven. > > No two branches are the same to Wren. > > If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you, > > You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows > > Where you are. You must let it find you. *From Traveling Light: Collected and New Poems. Copyright 1999 by David Wagoner. Shared without permission.* 🙏 --- Thank you for reading. Please feel free to reply or leave a comment; it is always lovely to hear from you. If a friend forwarded this to you, you can join the many thousands who [subscribe to The Museletter](https://www.foxwizard.com/museletter). Much warmth—*fw.* ### 💌 Where does strategy come from? URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/quest-strategy/ Last updated: 2024-02-28T00:52:00.000Z Note: I have salvaged this post from **the before times.* It was part of a museletter originally sent via substack in June 2022. Dr Fox has been manifesting at leadership events and strategic offsites once more. ‘Onsites’, too, because they’re now novel. Here he does his thing with all the wit and charm you’ve come to know and love; bringing thoughtful provocations and spice, inverting paradigms and generally unravelling ossified thinking into something more bemused yet enthused, elated and ripe for emergence. But then what? Ha! I would love to say that poetic sensibilities blossom within all, that folk awaken to the constructs and illusions they have been caged within, casting off cognitive shackles, standing bolt upright, quivering with enthusiasm; and that we all arise, flourish, frolic and coordinate at higher orders of complexity, forward not backward, upward not forward, twirling, twirling, twirling and questing towards future relevance and profit with curiosity, warmth and wit; paragons of life, wonder and virtue all. But that would a stretch. Instead of the glorious polymythical uprising I might hope for, the Typical Offsite would move on to morning tea for carb-loading, and then onto information-dense powerpoint presentations (including a presentation about how ‘hybrid work’ is intended to work) followed by high-energy-yet-slightly-infantile ‘collaborative visioning’ or ‘ideation’ sessions, replete with butcher paper posters, post-it notes and hokey-yet-endearing group presentations. Late afternoon these posters and post-it notes are dutifully blu-tac’d upon walls, photographed and promptly uploaded to the intranet, never to be looked at or spoken of again. Some sort of dinner ensues, wherein a good portion drink a bit too much to compensate for social anxiety and the buzz generated by all of the caffeine and sugar of the day. If we are lucky, some late night conversations happen at the bar. This—along with corridor conversations and roundtable cheek—is where The Real Magic happens. It’s in the structureless spaces, [the ‘negative’ space](https://drjasonfox.medium.com/negative-capability-the-antidote-to-calcified-experience-80f9f237aeda?ref=foxwizard.com), that the truest connections, conversations and conjurations emerge. There’s a balance to this, of course—it can’t be all structureless. But the better offsites optimise for emergence by not crowding out this space with content that could otherwise be disseminated via video, podcast or pdf. [The best strategic offsites](https://medium.com/the-ascent/get-away-to-get-ahead-the-many-benefits-of-a-strategic-offsite-2f708f191f89?ref=foxwizard.com), in my experience, have been 20–40% structured and 60–80% emergent. Yet the norm seems to be the complete inverse of this—highly structured experiences (with little room for emergence) that produce a predictable yet underwhelming kind of success (and, perhaps, a rich delusion of progress). And then Day Two is ‘All About Execution’. We awake dusty, with a mild-yet-persistent headache in a too-bright room, scoffing hot stale-yet-welcomed coffee from synthetic-smelling paper cups whilst hunkering down to play our part—namely; nodding along to the optimistically neat/linear plans, metrics, milestones. Smart goals; pre-ordained, polished, perfected. Clarifications, but no real objections. Mentos mint packets pop throughout the day. The event concludes and we leave exhausted yet very glad for our time together. But also feeling a vague kind of… hollowness. But maybe we’re just tired. Back at work our inboxes are brimming and there are petty fires to put out from the nincompoops you left in charge. You tell yourself you’ll get onto some of the notions from the strategy offsite—just once you clear this mess and carve out some time for yourself. Some time to think. But the work just multiplies. Meetings spawn more emails, which spawn more meetings, which spawn more emails. Somehow, in amongst all of this, a strategic offsite happened; and yet still you and everyone around you are too busy for meaningful progress. You are also still left feeling that the important stuff—the real stuff, the subliminal stuff, the things we’re pretending to not know—wasn’t ever addressed. And that the genuine strategic opportunities—the inklings glimmering just at the edge of our awareness—weren’t ever given the space to emerge, let alone be voiced. Perhaps the curious amongst you are left wondering… *Where does strategy come from?* Hoho! I painted a grim picture of a strategic offsite just now. It’s mostly cognitive sleight-of-hand to make my thesis shine brighter—for, verily: offsites are genuinely mythic in their potential. They’re just hard for many to do well at scale because anything at scale becomes a bit of politicised theatre. Nature abhors a vacuum, and as an Archwizard of Ambiguity I can assure you: The Emptiness That Begets Emergence is… a hard concept to sell. Long time subscribers (or readers of [my book](https://www.foxwizard.com/books)) will know the general arc of my quest-beckoning thesis, which still holds today. I’ll lay it out in succinct form—please skip past the following if you are familiar. Fascinating as it all is, I have become so accustomed to the thesis that I am impatient for what lies on the other side. Curse of knowledge, I suppose. Anyhoo, ahemness: - We’ve all become busier than ever before, thanks to the internet. Now, the boundaries between work-life and home-life have all but disappeared. Expectations of our availability and responsiveness have gone through the roof; even more so now that the pandemic-spawned work-from-home ‘new normal’ means that the chthonic tendrils of the [egregores](https://www.foxwizard.com/warlocks-at-work/) we serve have worked their way into our very homes. - This busyness leads us to feel as if we are time poor. And when we are time poor it’s natural for us to favour quick fixes, familiar solutions and default ways of doing things. These defaults are the options we choose automatically, in the absence of viable alternatives. - Defaults are associated with fast and instinctual ‘type 1’ thinking, and are key to our survival. We need defaults; they save us time and cognitive angst. - We learn such defaults via pattern recognition. The more familiar we become with certain patterns, the less resources we need to expend to maintain competence within them. - Organisations need defaults; they’re what contribute to operational excellence and efficiency-at-scale. My lazy heuristic for most (but not all) organisations is that 80% of our time ought be invested in the default ‘modus operandi’ of work. The remaining time is where we venture beyond the default, and tend to the more nuanced, nebulous and emergent things that aren’t easily categorisable, measurable or even effable. - The trouble is, most organisations in Enterprise Land are now cursed with efficiency, where the vast majority of our time (I’d say: 98%) is invested in default (safe, predictable, familiar, measurable) activities. Mature organisations have policies, procedures, rules, systems, templates, guidelines, precedence—established default ways of doing most things. - This is where curiosity begins to die—it’s just not efficient. Why waste time exploring new ways of working when we already have a heap of evidence that suggests that what we are currently doing is working? Just stick with the defaults; it’ll save you time (also it’s what your performance is measured against). - Here is where we also experience the atrophy of empathy—again, it’s just not efficient. We become embroiled in insular politics, and our inward focus means we are no longer empathising with the emerging needs of our clients, the market, or the wider world in which we live. Oh and forget about climate change and similar-such existential crises—who has time for that? - And so we collectively maintain a rich delusion of progress, busily working away, like automaton-golems, towards that what I call ‘The Inevitable Kraken of Doom’—an Eldritch beast that feeds upon the sweet nectar of our impending irrelevance. - No one sets out to become irrelevant—but many well intended teams find themselves irrelevant when they become ‘too busy’ for meaningful progress. - The path to irrelevance is littered with safe, prudent (default) decisions. Whilst neither curious or courageous, these decisions are easy to defend in hindsight. Everyone’s donkey is thus suitably covered. There’s no goat to ‘blame’. Cool, right? (No. Not cool.) - The only way to circumvent the inevitable Kraken of Doom is by introducing ‘new thinking’ into the mix. - But this is incredibly difficult to do because our motivation, attention, focus and behaviour will naturally gravitate to the things that provide the richest sense of progress. And yet the things that provide the richest sense of progress are often the default activities getting in the way of meaningful progress (hence: a rich delusion of progress). - Furthermore, the incentives that underly the game theory of Enterprise Land optimises for selfish and myopic behaviour. In many organisations it is also much more of a career advancement strategy to broadcast that you are doing the work than it is to actually do the work. Hence we see emails, emails about emails, meetings, meetings about meetings—a grand pantomime of busyness. - Which begs the question: what is meaningful progress? Ah-ha! Now we are closer to the domain of strategy—and the point of a strategic offsite. We need to disrupt default thinking—to lift our gaze beyond the immediate—so that we can contemplate what meaningful progress might be. - Meaningful progress is that which brings us closer to future relevance. - ‘Relevance’ is a state in which our activities makes sense given the context we find ourselves in. Many of the things we do today are already incoherent to our context. Many more things will make absolutely no sense in the very near future. - ‘The future’ is infinitely complex (and thus, not singular)—but we can look toward the intersection of trends and the various [attractors](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attractor?ref=foxwizard.com) to get a sense of the futures more likely to unfurl. All complex adaptive systems (and self-organising complex intelligences—of which we are a part of)—‘seek’ metastability (either via the the transformation into higher orders of complexity—or degradation into lower). Our task is to find the common incoherencies betwixt our existing modus and multiple possible futures, so as to develop a sense of directionality towards future relevance (and similar or higher orders of complexity). - But what is future relevance? Ah, now *that* is the question. And it’s not an easy one to answer. It takes curiosity, empathy and wit to decipher—and even then, any insight must be held tentatively, with sincere-irony. This is at the heart of Quest Leadership. - If our defaults are the options we choose automatically in the absence of *viable* alternatives—a quest is the search for alternative options. - Without questing, strategy looks like incrementalism (doing what you have done before but with tweaked numbers so it seems aspirational) and bandwagonism (scanning the zeitgeist for whatever buzzwords are hot and peppering the strategy with that; “transformative agile hybrid and human-centred disruptive future of work where the customer is at the heart of everything we do”). - Quests are driven by questions. Every question literally begins with a quest. - Questing is what makes for breakthrough innovation. Because you are venturing beyond the default—harvesting curiosity, imagination and wit—you are working with a wider and more varied data-set than the default trends and themes everyone else is paying attention to. - This is what begets competitive advantage, via the cultivation of optionality; a quiver of options, if you will. Strategic initiatives we may deploy in the future, should the right conditions manifest. - Of course, the only way we can tell if the options within our quiver are viable is to experiment. A multitude of small, safe-to-fail experiments that can be scaled up to the point at which they are viable enough to be integrated into our core strategy. There’s some context for us. We are—most of us—very, very good at mission-critical work. A mission has a clear objective and linear path that is easily measured—which is fine for focused sprints of work. I’d love for us to make a little more room for that which informs strategic decision making. Strategy is that which serves to focus and coordinate our efforts towards relevance realisation. But… where does strategy come from? This is one of those infinitely recursive questions that will ultimately send us back to the origins of the universe and a deep questioning of free will itself. Some might say that strategy comes from ideas—but I have always found the notion of an ‘idea’ to be problematic. For ideas are neither discrete or atomic; they are—like all things—nebulous, inter-contingent and emergent. First sensed as inklings, then developing as hunches, then being ‘realised’ as if they were sudden epiphanies… but wait; where do ideas even come from? Are they not but a poetic acuity for want and need? Something more? I could wax philosophical to much further degree here, but it would be an indulgent distraction. Mayhaps over a whisky by the fire and under the stars, sometime. Instead, we need to return to the land of heuristics. ## Strategy emerges from questing It begins with questioning: are we on the right path? Is there a better way? What’s changing in our landscape? What are we pretending to not know? What aren’t we seeing? What does the world need? *What if…?* There are canvases and frameworks we can use to catalyse this questioning. I mention some in my book, and [*Brave New Work*](https://www.bravenewwork.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) also lays out a nice canvas for Enterprise-level antics (the OS canvas). The point here is to not get too caught up in the tools and props (lest we collapse the possibility-space of our thinking). Rather, the point is to cultivate the conditions in which quality thinking (curious, complex, empathetic, imaginative, attuned) is more likely to flourish. This is what a strategic offsite can help catalyse—*if done well.* But that is only a part of the puzzle. If questing is the precursor to strategy, then… ## Fellowship is the precursor to questing You can’t quest effectively—that is, you can’t cultivate optionality beyond the default—if you are surrounded by folk you don’t respect, trust or enjoy the company of. Questing requires scenius (collective genius), thoughtful provocation, and time to think. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, ‘fellowship’ refers to *a friendly feeling that exists between people who have a shared interest or are doing something as a group.* This isn’t quite the mythic definition I have in mind, but you get the idea. Questing requires that you be a member of a small yet diverse set of bright minds; sensemaking to a rhythmic cadence in a spirit that is warm and mutually encouraging. It requires something akin to the days of intellectual speakeasy salons, where there is time to wonder, debate, imagine, jest, hazard, pontificate, ponder, explore whilst *staying in the tension* of constructive discontent. No quick fixes, familiar solutions or banal defaults. No leaping to conclusions. But rather; the antifragile pursuit of better questions. And from this: the proliferation of optionality. The ideal questing fellowship is 5±2 people. At least three°—but no more than seven. This is your crew, your coterie, your posse. ° *A warrior, a mage and a rogue.* The temptation is to make questing A Big Thing. A Big formalised Program rolled out within the Enterprise. I wrote a few thousand words on the hazards of this notion—but then deleted it during my edit because this museletter is already way off track. (This happens when I haven’t written in a while.) My point being; not everyone needs to quest—and that’s okay. Just as you wouldn’t hire a questing wizard to be the engineer-architect of your operational excellence (a world where things actually need to get done)—you also perhaps wouldn’t hire the certainty-seeking, metric-driven ‘let-me-fix-it’ engineer-architect to be the leader your quest. Questing is instead where we learn to love the volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity of our unfurling world. It’s wherein we relish in the unknown, pioneering amidst the uncharted waters in unprecedented lands of the aether—systematically stumbling upon profound insight and transmuting these glimmers into Options. Options to be cultivate and explored further, so that they may enrich our strategic decision making in the everquest for enduring relevance. Whew! It seems I’ve been writing books in reverse order [*The Game Changer*](https://www.amazon.com/Game-Changer-Science-Motivation-Behaviour-ebook/dp/B00I05535E?ref=foxwizard.com) is a book for managers looking to change the dynamics of work, and is focused on execution and progress. How to Lead a Quest is very much about that which informs strategy (questing and experimentation)—one oughtn’t rely solely on external consulting firms to bring new thinking into the mix; it’s possible to cultivate this capability internally. But it’s not enough to simply know [*How to Lead a Quest*](https://www.foxwizard.com/books). The precursor to this is: do you even have fellowship? An adventure party. A group of warm, brightly minded, curious and respected peers—folks you trust, to whom you can be genuinely vulnerable in your thinking with—ready willing and able to venture beyond the default? > Fellowship > Questing > Experimentation > Strategy > Execution > Progress I’m not sure I am the person to write this book—my friend [Joe writes of this with much wisdom](https://www.joelightfoot.org/post/of-pods-squads-crews-gangs-small-group-experiments-in-radical-belonging?ref=foxwizard.com). But I do know that fellowship is the key to questing—which is key to strategy, which is sometimes the key to meaningful progress (if we stay nimble and attuned). ## In summary This museletter was longer than intended, even after I edited it down. (My editing is of the mildly dyslexic sort so, word sleuths: enjoy the typos interwoven throughout!). I was motivated to write this musing because the theme I am seeing in Enterprise Land is that *momentum is returning*. Momentum inhibits reinvention. And whilst I know Strategy Has Happened—I’m not sure if much has been invested into the questing that informs such strategy. Which makes me wonder as to the directional thrust of this newfound momentum. Furthermore, too; I’m not sure if I am getting as strong a sense of fellowship within Enterprise Land as we all might like to see. Instead… it seems like most folk are busy again. There’s nothing wrong with being busy—just as there is nothing wrong with default thinking. We need defaults for 80% of what we do. But… just mind that we don’t become cursed with efficiency once more. And perhaps lets retain some sort of coordinated curiosity for what meaningful progress might look like—lest we meet the Kraken. 😘 ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2023/04/foxwizard_kraken.png) The Inevitable Kraken of Doom; ugly af mofo conjured with midjourney ### 💌 There is no antimemetics protocol ☀️ URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/antimemetics-protocol/ Last updated: 2024-02-28T00:46:52.000Z ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2023/04/mysterious-obelisk.webp) The ███████ as conjured by midjourney It seems to be that anyone at least *somewhat* savvy with complex systems has an intuitive grasp of the seemingly terrible shape our world is in. Particularly from the perspective of living systems. It’s now at the point where if I sense that the conversation to begin to even *flirt* with the notion of the meta-crisis I feel the need to proactively steer matters toward more jovial domains—lest we all succumb to despondency. But lo!—a recent paper on [*The Unreasonable Sufficiency of Protocols*](https://venkatesh-rao.gitbook.io/summer-of-protocols/?ref=foxwizard.com) has me feeling—dare I say it?—*optimistic* about our ability to effectively coordinate, amidst complexity at scale. There may be ways through this yet.\* \* *Actually, my introduction to web3 provided the glimmer of hope after nearly two decades of being a jaded ex-academic from the school of environmental sciences—but most of the world doesn’t understand web3 yet, so that topic too is fraught. Protocols, however, may just be the way to broach the wider topic of coordination amidst complexity at scale.* _This post is for paying subscribers only._ ### 💌 The Museletter by foxwizard URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/the-museletter-by-foxwizard/ Last updated: 2024-02-28T00:41:36.000Z What-ho and hello dear friend. If you are receiving this in your inbox, then—whew!—by some stroke of luck it has traversed the digital abyss unscathed. I am so profoundly glad I didn’t ruin it all. If you could ensure that this is not in your spam or promotions tab, that would be wondrous—it will help convince the mail servers that this new domain is indeed trustworthy. (ty ♡) This marks the beginning of a new chapter. Happy Fool’s Day. This, of all days, is a day I take *quite* seriously. For many it’s their birthday, the new calendar year, the new lunar year, or perhaps a solstice. For me—for the past five or so years, at least—April 1st has held quite some significance. There are *reasons* I have for this; mostly poetic. Perhaps I will share them with one day. For now, I would like to offer a glimpse as to the vista of ideas I look forward to sharing with you in the coming days and weeks... --- Oh but first, if you don’t know who I am—I am none other than [foxwizard](https://www.foxwizard.com/), the pseudo-pseudonymous façade of “Dr Fox, Archwizard of Ambiguity (most fantastic)”. Also sometimes known as Jason. For over a dozen years I have been writing in various forms and in various places, yet never quite cultivating a coherent nor consistent body of work. My thoughts are instead strewnacross the noösphere. Strewn! This post heralds an attempt to coalesce my efforts into a more cohesive constellation. Let’s see how that goes. If a friend has forwarded you this email, you join 11k+ readers who [subscribe to The Museletter](https://foxwizard.ghost.io/museletter?ref=foxwizard.com). --- I describe The Museletter as *a weekly epistle for those who seek to be more effective imposters within the mythical ‘future of leadership’.* While the consistency of my weekly dispatches remains to be seen, the topic of the future of leadership is evergreen and always ripe for discussion. But, I swear, it’s taking all of me not to be yet another pundit commenting on Artificial Intelligence. ![](https://foxwizard.ghost.io/content/images/2023/04/image.png) A recent meme based off of the Safely Endangered webcomic by Chris McCoy Many of my professional colleagues have done the chameleon thing; they’re all AI experts now. Or maybe it’s *artificial* artificial intelligence experts? AAI? Eh? Bah, what is real anyway. Previous to that we were hybrid work experts, then remote work experts, psychological safety experts, adaptive leadership experts, transformative leadership experts, agile leadership experts, innovation experts, productivity experts, and... you get the idea. (Most actually sidestepped the web3/metaverse expert part, despite the meme below. Cowards.) ![](https://foxwizard.ghost.io/content/images/2023/04/image-1.png) I am of course a shapeshifter, too. The everquest for meaningful progress spans vast and varied worlds and contexts. We all ought be fluid in our dispositions, in these times. Particularly with Pisces being back in town. But I *would* just like to state, for the record, that the few clients I have worked with that took quest leadership seriously (as per the sensibilities from my book, which used AI as an example of potentialities to monitor, back in 2016) are doing *quite well* with this exponential acceleration of AI. It had long been in their quiver of options, and they are some of the earliest to actively experiment and integrate AI into their modus. Tentatively, mind—for we ought not be in a hurry to relay any sensitive data to the now obviously for-profit AI businesses soon to eat the world. Yet still: engaged. Attuned. There’s a path betwixt all of this. You certainly cannot afford to ignore what is happening in our collective noösphere right now. New entities are awakening; egregores\* borne of the milieu and malaise of our collective mediocrity, informed by the information we have so willingly shared throughout web2\. The warlocks that have conjured these entities will continue to gather power for their supercomputers. This power will enhance their respective egregores, which will in turn gather the warlocks more power. It’s a virtuous loop, and something that will shape us all. > \* I have written about egregores and ‘[warlocks at work](https://drjasonfox.medium.com/warlocks-at-work-71a63e204569?ref=foxwizard.com)’ on another platform. A classic example of why I seek to consolidate these efforts into one place. Or perhaps I am waxing a bit too mythopoetic here, and thus lending too much agency to what is otherwise a fascinating *and* mundane Copernican moment. Okay fine, I *am* getting carried away, I admit. And yet—[text is all you need](https://studio.ribbonfarm.com/p/text-is-all-you-need?ref=foxwizard.com) to establish a semblance of personhood. We could be ultra-rational about it—but that’s a cold and clinical path. In any event, we are deep into the liminal right now; who knows what the next metastable chapter may be. All we can do now is be mindful of how we *relate* to what is unfurling. My advice to you is to be, as ever, *ferociously* curious. You ought to been playing with AI already (it’s actually quite fun). You ought to be learning (yourself, and with friends and colleagues) about what can and can’t (currently) be achieved with (and by) AI. You ought to be having the discussions about how AI might impact the work you do, the organisation you work within, and the business model that keeps the organisation humming. You also ought be pondering what AI means for how knowledge is generated, shaped and shared in society. And yet at the same time you ought not swoon, despite the immense productivity ‘hack’ AI represents. Nor ought you fully subscribe to the End Times that AI may herald. Instead: hold all of these possibilities in suspension, and use this time to observe, orient, sense and learn. Try to be a bit metamodern about it—even if you find yourself sincerely believing in the power of technology to ‘save the world’ please for goodness sake allow yourself some room to doubt. And vice versa. I’m not sure how much I accord with David Chapman’s recent online book [*Better Without AI*](https://betterwithout.ai/?ref=foxwizard.com)*—*but as long-term subscribers would guess: I do appreciate the rally call for [scenius](https://betterwithout.ai/human-scenius-vs-artificial-genius?ref=foxwizard.com)—the communal form of the concept of the genius. This is what we need; now more than ever. There is an arms race happening with regards to AI. The exponential growth of AI *will* unlock incredible things for humanity—whilst also ushering in unfathomable existential risk, and opening The Warp to what was already a much weakened intellectual sensemaking commons. And eventually we may become numb to it all, because it will be baked into it all. But—much like the internet and privacy—would this be a missed opportunity? All I know is that now is the time to be alive to it. Now is the time to pay attention. --- Ah crap I became the pundit. This museletter was written in a bit of a rush so that I could get it out on April 1st. It’s well past this wizard’s bed time and I haven’t given it a proper edit. I mostly just want to test that it reaches you via this new platform. I’ll be finding a new groove with you soon; I think you will enjoy this new chapter of the foxwizard. In the meantime, here’s a scene my friend [Leah Jing McIntosh](http://leahjing.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) artfully captured on her film camera whilst visiting recently. It me and my little guy, Snorri. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2023/04/Snozzle.jpeg) Thank you for the photo Leah! “Touch Grass” is an old meme dating back to at least 2015\. It’s what you say to a friend who has been spending too much time online, effectively suggesting they go outside in nature and tend to their wellbeing. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2023/04/image-2.png) I suspect that, as [centaurs](https://slang.net/meaning/centaur?ref=foxwizard.com#:~:text=In%20the%20tech%20world%2C%20the,referred%20to%20as%20a%20centaur.) increasingly do a better job at providing compelling ‘content’—and as our feeds become increasingly filled with AI generated content—we may become *less* content with the content of our content feeds. (Okay you can see it’s late and I’m tired but stay with me). This, in turn, may lead people to search for *other* facets of reality. It may have us yearn for the things we have otherwise been neglecting; like long walks, actual time hanging with friends, contemplation under the stars, and time in nature (touching grass). Let’s hope so. Thank you for reading. It is genuinely a delight to write to you. Much warmth, jf ### 💌 A Fool’s Journey URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/fools-journey/ Last updated: 2024-02-28T00:39:00.000Z Fifteen years ago I registered the domain “drjasonfox.com”. I actually wanted to secure *jasonfox.com,* but it was already taken. At the time I was completing my PhD so I thought I might as well snag the ‘dr’ qualifier. ‘Dr Jason Fox’ became henceforth the go-to proxy for all social media accounts. And whilst the domain and hadle of ‘drjasonfox’ has served me quite well, it’s come time for a change. The naïve young hedge-wizard who secured that domain is not the seasoned wizard I am today. And besides; I’ve long since lost the SEO battle for “[jason fox](https://www.google.com/search?q=jason+fox&oq=jason+fox&ref=foxwizard.com)”—the celebrity soldier can have it. If ever there were a time for new beginnings—it is now. Robin Sloan, a writer I admire, aptly states that [the platforms of the last decade are done](https://www.robinsloan.com/lab/new-avenues/?ref=foxwizard.com). I tend to agree. At the heart of these web2 platforms are a distorted nest of incentives that seem only to perpetuate a general discordance. They bring us together, yes. But also in a manner in which it is a much better engagement strategy to be outraged or to be in vehement disagreement than it is to find mutual accord. (This is the [Internet of Beefs](https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2020/01/16/the-internet-of-beefs/?ref=foxwizard.com), as Venkatesh Rao puts it). I’ve never been particularly good at playing in this arena. As one whose curiosity eclipses their conviction, I usually find myself baffled and intrigued by the perspectives I encounter, and mostly disinclined to argue or proselytise my own perspective. This has seen me warm to [discord](https://discord.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) and the [cozyweb](https://maggieappleton.com/cozy-web?ref=foxwizard.com)—places removed from the vanity metrics of conventional social media. It has also seen me write mostly via my museletter, which has been through its own journey—from Mailchimp, to [Substack](https://fox.substack.com/) and [Squarespace](drjasonfox.com). And now: here on [Ghost](https://ghost.org/?ref=foxwizard.com). The decision to move to Ghost brings with it a sense of liberation and excitement. Ghost is an independent not-for-profit and open source platform—all money raised goes back to making Ghost better. It has a sense of the independent web to it, and the spirit of web1 (something most of us are nostalgic for—that time of innocence before social media came along). And yet—I still like Substack. I was one of the early ones to the platform, and I admire what has been built. They have made it incredibly easy for anyone to spin up a newsletter/blog/podcast. The (social-)network effects of their recommendations are compelling—and this may be one of the hardest things for me to leave behind. I am a paying subscriber to publications on Substack. I love what they have done, and mostly what they are doing—but I worry for the amount of funding they’ve raised from various rounds of venture capital. True to my fox-like personal House Words—*“First to Leave”—*I sense Substack becoming yet another monolithic platform. This gravitational accretion will bring much convenience and efficiency—but at what cost? It’s hard to say. At some point the VCs will need to make a return on their investment, and there’s something a little Orwellian about where this could potentially go. Or perhaps I’m overthinking it. There are certainly going to be some inconveniences to favouring an independent open source platform like Ghost over the relatively smooth running networked beast that is now Substack. I’m also going to have to deal with the messiness of leaving yet another platform in my wake. I’ve felt discombobulated and spread too thin for too long. The attention economy is a dark forest, with will o’ the wisps aplenty. Shining lights that attract your attention, luring you astray. Sirens that coo sweet nothings to your ego, transporting you to worlds where time loses relevance and meaning. It takes some perspicacity and wit to see through the illusions. And what I’ve come to realise is: I’d really like to build a body of work. To write in a manner that could be considered a little more ‘evergreen’—rather than hiding gems of deep inside museletters only available to subscribers. I also yearn to simply share more; to shine a light on that which I find to be useful, enchanting, wondrous and apt. Ours is a time of great disillusion and disenchantment. These are necessary steps in the quest—but it’s not the destination. There’s the rekindling of illusion and enchantment that is needed—only this time with the knowingness we didn’t have before. There’s a sentiment in Robin Sloan’s [*A Year of New Avenues*](https://www.robinsloan.com/lab/new-avenues/?ref=foxwizard.com) that resonates: > I am thinking specifically of experimentation around “ways of relating online”. I’ve used that phrase before, and I acknowledge it might be a bit obscure … but, for me, it captures the rich overlap of publishing and networking, media and conviviality. It’s this domain that was so decisively captured in the 2010s, and it’s this domain that is newly up for grabs. > > It is 2003 again. Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram haven’t been invented yet … except, it’s also 2023, and they have, so you can learn from their rise and ruin. > > This doesn’t mean you ought to start a company. > > As the platforms of the last decade crumble, we might put “founder” culture back on the shelf. Startup finance works fine for building a business of a very particular kind; and, like, thank you for Shopify! Seriously! But, for a decade, this very particular kind of business had a lock not only on internet commerce, but internet culture, too, with only ill effect. > > I want to insist on an amateur internet; a garage internet; a public library internet; a kitchen table internet. At last, in 2023, I want to tell the tech CEOs and venture capitalists: pipe down. Buzz off. Go fave each other’s tweets. Artificial intelligence will increasingly take the reigns of mediocre mainstream writing; ergo it behooves us to lean into the esoteric, and frolic in the periphery and the penumbra—just outside of its gaze. That’s where all the fun is to be had, anyway. These introductory posts are always an indulgent affair, and rather solipsistic. At over 1,000 words in, I don’t know that I have shared anything of particular merit or value—and that’s okay, perhaps. I know that, personally, I relish the glimpse into the workings of one’s reasoning. Give me *thinking-in-draft* over polished thoughts, any day. It’s simply nice to be writing in one’s own domain again. If a personal website is like a temple for the deity that is you—with social media being the shrines to which your followers might pay homage to your avatar, and vice versa—is is good to ensure your temple is on your own land, and not in someone else’s empire. Even if it means some folk must trek uphill via a twisted path in a dark forest to find you. The artist and designer Laurel Schwulst once wrote a wonderful article, titled [*My website is a shifting house next to a river of knowledge. What could yours be?*](https://thecreativeindependent.com/essays/laurel-schwulst-my-website-is-a-shifting-house-next-to-a-river-of-knowledge-what-could-yours-be/?ref=foxwizard.com) This invitation to world-build is compelling. It sets the foundations for your own *mythopoeisis*—the genesis of the kinds of stories that might emerge. This, in turn, comes down to a lot of little details (the font, the colours, the voice and tone, and so on), but ultimately it is a imaginal disposition. How do we relate to the creation and cultivation of a website? *“What can a website be?”* Laurel asks. At this stage I would like to think of this website being a campfire amidst a dark forest. A small open glade, a step removed from the dangers of the open web. Here we can see the glimmering cosmos and contemplate the matters of our times, by the fire. Warmth, jf ### 🍂 Will AI save us from ourselves? URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/artificial-intelligence/ Last updated: 2024-10-04T06:51:51.000Z Maybe. Some of us, at least. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### 🍂 frens and ferns URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/frens-and-ferns/ Last updated: 2024-08-17T23:53:25.000Z Note: this is An Olde Museletter, from a different time and place: some links may no longer work and some ideas may no longer be ‘as true’. Read at your own peril. Ahoy frens, I enjoy writing to you. Good writing is like clear thinking. And whilst I rarely consider my writing to be good, it is nonetheless a delight to share my draft thoughts with you. But this may change, come 2023\. The Muse has me now, and I shall be deep in book writing land once more. I am literally grinning as I write this—just thinking of the book I am writing for you enlivens me. Oh the developmental nous, the metamodern wit and the complexity savvy I shall smuggle into this otherwise charming grimoire! Of course, all projects are wondrous in their potential form; it’s in the translation from potentiality to actuality that comes the misery and pain—but I’ll try to enjoy each phase as I am in it. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### 🦊 Scruples for sale URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/glammourie/ Last updated: 2024-09-10T11:08:28.000Z So [my last museletter on web3 and regenerative finance](https://www.foxwizard.com/blockchain/) didn’t result in the backlash I had feared it might. Quite the opposite, really. And at our recent Rekindling event I also shared my enthusiasm for nature-based carbon sequestration (alongside decarbonisation)—and how this is enhanced by decentralised, permissionless, uncensorable, open source, transparent and immutable public ledgers (aka blockchains). That went very well, too. I’ve come to reflect that it’s only been a small handful of folk close to me who seemed to have vehemence for the experimentations happening in web3\. And that I had probably been using this museletter as a means of self-therapy in public, which is always awkward, hoho. My proclivity for deleting past episodes is beginning to surface again—there’s still something not-quite-right about how The Internet enshrines any thinking in draft. And *all* thinking is in draft. The mercurial fox in me does not like to be pinned so. Yet the satyr ‘fūck it’ energy—which may well be the closest thing to [a Word](https://cleverness.com/word?ref=foxwizard.com) I have this year—stays my hand. I don’t know quite what I will do just yet. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### 🧙🏻‍♂️ Why web3? URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/blockchain/ Last updated: 2024-09-10T10:58:59.000Z Good morning and what-ho. I am long overdue in writing a letter to a friend who has expressed some scepticism about blockchains/web3—yet remains open to learn more. This museletter is a first draft attempt to explain why I am so enthusiastic about web3\. And why you ought be, too. I appreciate scepticism, and find it to be an apt stance when encountering any new thinking/ideas/paradigms. It is the disposition of a scientist—sceptical, yet curious. Because there’s \*so much\* bullshīt out there—it makes sense to reserve judgement until you have accrued enough insight to form a working protosynthesis (a tentative and knowingly incomplete-yet-updatable disposition formed from the synthesis of all that you know about a particular thing). Note that scepticism is different from *cynicism*—which is where one pre-judges something to be bad, before any (meta-)rational consideration. This is largely the result of cognitive biases formed from past experiences; if you have been burnt before, chances are you’ll subconsciously protect yourself from similar such (even if this is expressed irrationally). It takes a certain self-awareness to know if we are being open to new thinking, rather than simply scanning for points of rebuttal so as to affirm our own stance (and thus feel more secure). The Algorithm grooms us to believe we need to have a Strong Opinion about almost any (seemingly) divisive topic these days—to declare our stance!—but I find it far more apt and appropriate to mostly dwell within the complexity and ambiguity. Particularly if you don’t know enough to have any strong stance. This is the epistemological humility I’ve spoken of before. It is also akin to the fox-like tendency to harbour weak views (albeit strongly held). This notion I lifted from Venkatesh Rao’s wonderful essay of eight years ago, [*The Cactus and the Weasel*](https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2014/02/20/the-cactus-and-the-weasel/?ref=foxwizard.com)*,* wherein he speaks of his own fox-like disposition:*—* > *“I do not hold truly strong views because I do not have much of a capacity for deep domain-specific detail, and outside of very narrow areas, am not much of a doer, which means I have far fewer specialized habits of expertise than powerful doers.* > > *In most areas: politics, culture, governance, technology, startups and all the other topics about which I offer views from an armchair, my thinking could be characterized as* weak views, strongly held*. Even in areas where I have some home-domain expertise and doer skills, I don’t hold particularly strident and detailed views. To a large extent, I have no home domain. I am a cognitive nomad.* > > *So by weak views, I mean I primarily approach all areas (including my nominal home domains) as an outsider, with the intent of identifying and forming opinions about fundamental premises, rather than achieving insider status and mastery.”* I’m sure there’s some [nominative determinism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative%5Fdeterminism?ref=foxwizard.com) at play here for this here Dr Fox, but—I am much the same. My relatively weak views make me quite ineffective at winning arguments, because; I don’t really want to nor feel any need to. The infinite player within me doesn’t need to ‘win’. Thus I have no real agenda—no singular vision of utopia to convert you to. I proselytise not. But I \*do\* wish for my clever friends and readers to be more effectively curious and open to what is emerging in web3\. Because, verily, I believe that within this burgeoning field of web3 we are witnessing the experimentation and unfurling of whole new ways of **coordinating amidst higher orders of complexity, at scale**. Which—you may have noticed—is a theme I keep returning to. I’m attracted to such. In this letter I shall attempt a high level tour of the following topics: [**blockchain**](https://fox.substack.com/i/79695348/blockchain), [**web3**](https://fox.substack.com/i/79695348/web) and [**regenerative finance**](https://fox.substack.com/i/79695348/regenerative-finance) (ReFi). By no means is this encyclopaedic, reliable or complete. And certainly, nothing I say ought be treated as financial advice. Yet nonetheless: I care about my friends, and I care about you. I want minds like yours to be safely exploring and contributing to what unfurls here. After years of feeling very sad about our inability to coordinate to effectively mitigate the ravages of the hyper-object that is anthropogenic climate change—something that we have collectively manifested\*—I finally find a glimmer of hope amidst the dark forests of web3\. It could be a will o’ the wisp, and I might be a fool—but there’s *something* there. And this potential alone is too important to ignore. > \* Not fun fact: [Australia is the world leader in mammal extinctions](https://theconversation.com/gut-wrenching-and-infuriating-why-australia-is-the-world-leader-in-mammal-extinctions-and-what-to-do-about-it-192173?ref=foxwizard.com). Blockchain is possibly the greatest innovation in collective coordination since the Internet. It is at the heart of what Kim Stanley Robinson’s [*Ministry for the Future*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%5FMinistry%5Ffor%5Fthe%5FFuture?ref=foxwizard.com)finds as one of the only effective ways we might collectively mitigate climate change (via global [carbon quantitative easing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon%5Fquantitative%5Feasing?ref=foxwizard.com) through the issuance of a blockchain based [complementary currency](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complementary%5Fcurrency?ref=foxwizard.com) called ‘carbon coin’, which is issued in proportion to the mass of carbon that is mitigated—something very similar to what the folks at [Klima DAO](https://www.klimadao.finance/?ref=foxwizard.com) are developing). > Mind you, [KSR has since seemed to have distanced himself](https://twitter.com/brittwray/status/1533248759622078465?s=20&t=b93DWQs29Cx4es4Q6XYgEw&ref=foxwizard.com) from this proposition; possibly because the public perception (and actual maturity) of blockchain technology is not anywhere near where it could be. You may note a slight defensiveness from me as I wade through this (at this point I am giving up on the pretence that this is a letter to a friend; I feel the need to vent aloud instead—I shall respond to them another day). I have been met with a lot of cynicism regarding web3, including open hostility from even close friends. Oft-times this comes from folk who have never interacted with a smart contract, and who are instead simply engaged in memetic propagation (as befits their tribe). And, that’s fine. I also understand that anything associated with finances is a spicy topic. Sometimes it comes from folks who have ‘bought crypto’ on centralised exchange and simply treated it as a bit of a gamble. Maybe they lost money because some crypto-bro influenzer told them to buy [$CUMROCKET](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/cumrocket/?ref=foxwizard.com) at the top and they have since realised it is Not A Sound Investment and they are bitter about it, claiming that the entire industry is ‘a scam’. Or heck, maybe some *were* actually scammed: it happens, and navigating web3 currently requires street smarts. Or rather; dark forest smarts. But regardless of where folks stand on this, let’s also remember that money itself is a intersubjective meme; an emergent shared illusion that serves as a coordination technology for us. It is possible to collectively reimagine what this looks like and how this might work (hence the thesis of Charles Eisenstein’s [*Sacred Economics*](https://sacred-economics.com/?ref=foxwizard.com)). But we can’t do this if we keep tearing down any attempts to quest beyond the default. It is quite fashionable amidst the post-modern elite to be hellishly critical of any new ideas; not accepting anything but pure perfection (which doesn’t exist). Near-perfect is not enough—if there’s even something slightly problematic to hone in on, then that is grounds for resistance and cancellation. Best be the one to point it out first. Apt critique of the emergent and the established is of course genuinely needed (most web3 protocols welcome constructive criticism)—but I would suggest that a lot of the criticism thrown at blockchain and web3 is not constructive. Instead, it is merely ‘clever’, and simply serves to maintain the existing status-quo of civilisation—which, let’s remember, remains set on a self-terminating path. Or it’s trapped within a black and white ‘either-or’ paradigm (‘blockchain is a distraction, we should focus on X instead’) rather than something more polyphonic/pluralistic/multitudinous. Our current economic systems perpetuates extraction, inequality, and ecological devastation. Let us be open to the idea of exploring new ways, I say. Even if it means accepting that some things are still ‘in draft’. It is [relative utopia](https://metamoderna.org/relative-utopia/?ref=foxwizard.com) we seek. I’m not alone in meeting resistance to this, of course. Scott Belsky—founder of [99U](https://99u.adobe.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) and author of [*Making Ideas Happen*](https://99u.adobe.com/book/making-ideas-happen-2?ref=foxwizard.com)—has also been met with resistance to this new thinking. Here’s a thing he tweeted this a while back. > another day another email exchange ending with my passionate "let's not cancel new tech based on its first generation of use" plea. [pic.twitter.com/407l94TyCo](https://t.co/407l94TyCo?ref=foxwizard.com) > > — scott belsky (@scottbelsky) [November 11, 2021](https://twitter.com/scottbelsky/status/1458592711850737664?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=foxwizard.com) I was lucky to have been advising a strategic innovation team at a large institution that was experimenting with Ethereum smart contracts back in 2018 (specifically in the realm of having teams collectively self-organise in a transparent manner, on-chain). No, I didn’t buy any [eth](https://www.statista.com/statistics/806453/price-of-ethereum/?ref=foxwizard.com) at the time, but I kept an interest in how things were progressing. A few years ago I also had the good fortune to learn of web3 and regenerative finance from the lovely lunarpunk [Stephen Reid](https://stephenreid.net/?ref=foxwizard.com). Stephen also runs a ‘How to DAO (decentralised autonomous organisation)’ course, to which he generously shares [his curated resources](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jxbb3YkrjAT1TUe6W2yCFUAsXUhdVt5JYoJwmMfykoQ/edit?ref=foxwizard.com). You can listen to him and my friend Joe Lightfoot in [this lovely interview](https://www.joelightfoot.org/thelightfootpodcast/episode/1baa5123/14-stephen-reid-on-daos-psychedelics-and-the-regenerative-renaissance?ref=foxwizard.com). Anyhoo, through this little web I have met a lovely mix of folks from around the globe—brilliantly smart folks including climate journalists, macro-economists, software developers, gardeners, and more— that now form an ongoing sensemaking pod. Suffice to say, **my introduction to web3 has been wholesome af**. I’ve met mostly really lovely people who are opportunistic-yet-caring-and-curious, keen to participate in the co-creation of better ways of doing things. Just one example of this can be found in this [comprehensive primer for Decentralized Decision Making](https://www.tokebase.xyz/decentralized-decision-making-a-comprehensive-primer/?ref=foxwizard.com), written (and [discussed](https://open.spotify.com/episode/011p2sVoLWtHndiqlyeLDb?si=f99218a1990a4464&ref=foxwizard.com)) by the relatively pseudonymous character known as Ouija, whom I’ve had the joy of conversing with across discords. Others can be found in the [GreenPill](https://open.spotify.com/show/0l6aXWC94dd0RA3tkKfxjd?ref=foxwizard.com) podcast. > *Of course; 40% of the space \*is\* repugnant, and 40% is questionable—but when you find the builders, the artists, and the folks genuinely co-creating this new paradigm then, well, the experience is \*much\* better. Wholesome, generative, inspiring.* I’m finding it hard to stay on track here because there is **so much** to be fascinated by. Since the pandemic gifted me with some time, I have been on an ongoing learning binge; a relentless torrent of cascading inquiry and insight. Tim Ferriss described his own experience of discovering web3 as a kind of *physiological quickening—*I and many others feel it, too. Jordan Hall sees [blockchain as a self-organising complex intelligence](https://deepcode.substack.com/p/on-the-future-of-the-blockchain) (SOCI) that will eat the traditional finance world. There’s certainly something emerging here; something so nascent yet so potent, it can’t help but draw folk like me DEEP down the rabbit hole. But before I get carried away—as I suspect I already may have—let’s cover some fundamentals. ## Blockchain Put simply: a blockchain is an immutable [distributed public ledger](https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/distributed-ledgers.asp?ref=foxwizard.com). Here’s [the most-watched video explainer of \*how\* blockchains work](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSo%5FEIwHSd4&ref=foxwizard.com). Note that distributed ledger technology and blockchain are **not** the same thing—there’s an important nuance. Sometimes big corporations promote their own *private* blockchains; don’t be fooled by this. They might use the word ‘blockchain’—but if it’s privately owned, then it’s privately censorable. A true blockchain is **decentralised, permissionless, uncensorable, open source, transparent** and **public**. It is the antithesis to what we see in web2, where centralised monolithic corporations own your data and assets (more on this, soon). Blockchain works via cryptography (hence the ‘crypto’ part of cryptocurrency—I don’t really like the term ‘crypto’ though; makes me think of crypts and [yobbos](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=yobbo&ref=foxwizard.com)). But this museletter is at risk of getting very technical, very fast. If you’re fascinated by this, then—as we say in the space—DYOR. That is: ‘do your own research’. Yet as someone with a background in research, I would hope that research is done by experienced professionals—that’s what we have academics for, eh? Eh? But the pace of change in this space combined with rampant disinformation (exacerbated by influenzas, bots and paid shills) and the relatively ease of which a small industry can be manipulated means that… you probably don’t want to trust overly in any other’s research. Or rather, you do—but you need to synthesise insight from a large number of sources, [metarationally](https://metarationality.com/?ref=foxwizard.com). Ergo: if you are to make any headway, you will need to *do your own research*. Which means: rolling up your sleeves, donning the [fox-mask](https://metamask.io/?ref=foxwizard.com), and venturing into the dark forests of web3. > *”Woah, wait! I thought blockchains were destroying the planet. How can you not mention that?”* > > Bitcoin (the first cryptocurrency; aka ‘digital gold’) does use a lot of energy. This is due to its ‘proof of work’ (PoW) consensus mechanism, which means that this particular blockchain has an annual energy consumption of \~200TW/y. ([An article from the World Economic Forum](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/03/crypto-energy-consumption/?ref=foxwizard.com) puts it closer to 62TW/y—less than the use of domestic tumble dryers in the US. I’m a little sceptical of this, but I like the point the article makes about checking our Western privilege). > > Ethereum (the second cryptocurrency, aka ‘the world computer’) initially used PoW—but it has recently shifted to a much more energy efficient ‘proof of stake’ (PoS) consensus mechanism—making it 99.98% more energy efficient. > > [The annual energy consumption of Ethereum is now \~0.01TW/yr](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/03/crypto-energy-consumption/?ref=foxwizard.com). Most PoS blockchains use even less than this. For contrast, the annual energy consumption of YouTube is \~244TW/yr (**nearly 25,000 times more energy intensive than the Ethereum blockchain**). Even PayPal is 25 times more energy intensive than the Ethereum blockchain. Further, there are [carbon-negative blockchains like Polygon](https://polygon.technology/sustainability/?ref=foxwizard.com) where any carbon impact is more-than-offset. > > Suffice to say, the concern over energy use is important but often misplaced—there are much more energy-intensive industries we ought focus on. And meanwhile, those in web3 continue to innovate and improve. > > Btw, I should point out that as a complexity practitioner I have never felt quite as alive as I do with what is unfurling here. So much so that I am currently putting together an offering for my clients: wizardly guidance for those who seek to quest within the dark forests of web3\. It will be a premium offering for small executive peer groups that want to: a) cultivate fellowship and scenius, b) gain participatory knowledge of web3, c) accrue the wit and wisdom of sensemaking complexity practitioners via skin in the game, and d) to garner enough cultural subtext so as to not embarrass themselves in their adventures on the frontier. If you think your organisation might be interested (it will be capped at pods of 4±1 people, btw), then let me know and mayhaps you can be one of the early few. ## web3 So: what is web3? Is this just a buzzword? Established media institutions and those happily encumbered in web2 would like to have you believe so! But allow me to unpack this a little further. Think back to **web1**—the wondrous innocence and naïveté of the original World Wide Web. Back then, the web was ‘read only’—that is to say, you could read things. But that’s about it. Then with **web2** we entered the world of read-write. Now we could not only read the work of those clever enough to create their own websites—we could contribute, too. This meant that those who controlled the platforms, win. Hence the spawning of the advertising-based revenue models of social media, whereby creators now provide content for advertising platforms to capture the attention of its users (and to sell this and their data to advertisers). The creators themselves don’t own or benefit from this monetisation of course, hoho. That’s not how web2 capitalism works, silly. The rich instead get richer, whilst the rest of us slave to provide content to attract the attention of others in order to feed their machine. (Btw, I am mostly riffing this from [this fine article on web3](https://ethereum.org/en/web3/?ref=foxwizard.com) from the Ethereum Foundation). Now, with web3, we get **read-write-own**. Ownership itself is a funny construct—it only exists via social consensus. The blocks of blockchains exist via consensus. What we see now is a messy emergent field of some genuine decentralised protocols (with transparent [tokenomics](https://decrypt.co/resources/tokenomics?ref=foxwizard.com) and fair governance models) mixed with opportunistic protocols pretending to be decentralised (with obfuscated tokenomics or dodgy or unaudited smart contracts). The savvy can decipher betwixt the two, and the transparent nature of being on-chain—where you have many eyes scrutinising what’s at play—means that any potential issues are usually brought to light. Hacks, of course, still happen—but this is the antifragility of the SOCI of web3; we learn and do better. Some dismiss this as a [ponzi scheme](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponzi%5Fscheme?ref=foxwizard.com), akin to fiat currencies. The bad protocols (the meme coins and the rug-pulls) certainly are like this. But the good ones operate more like a ponzi game, in that the rules are clearly stated—you know what you are getting into. Part of me likes the thought of eco-ponzi’s—those slowest to support the mitigation of climate change having less advantage than the ones that move faster—but I am getting carried away here (and this, too, is Problematic™️). A more practical example of web3 today is perhaps [Lens Protocol](https://lens.xyz/?ref=foxwizard.com)—a permissionless, non-custodial, user-owned open social graph wherein you own your content and data. It’s early days yet, but you can glean where this is heading. And you can understand why major players—like Facebook/Meta—would be both fascinated and threatened by this, and would want to ensure the audience they’ve captured *remains* captured. (Hence we will see major web2 players use the language of web3 without the actuality of its ethos). To many, **web3 represents the glimmering potential to build a better internet**. To rekindle the naïveté of web1 with the knowingness that making everything ‘free’ leads to the very conditions that spawn the web2 attention and predatory surveillance economy we have been mired within. Instead of making payment and ownership hidden or abstracted away (so that more savvier platforms can hoodwink you), web3 instead has it right at the heart. I find this incredibly liberating, as witnessed with the blossoming domain of artists—most of whom have been taken advantage of by web2 (with the small exception of a few outliers). We see this with the music industry, too—liberating musicians from the paltry rewards offered by the oligarchy of centralised platforms. At some point I’ll write more on this. I live for a world in which artists, poets, writers and musicians flourish! I also live for a world in which our ecosystems might flourish again, too. ## Regenerative Finance This too is at risk of becoming diluted, distorted, and rendered into buzzword form (as all good things are). Regenerative finance (ReFi) loosely refers to the use of money as a tool to regenerate communities and ecosystems. Its goal is primarily to heal, restore and create shared value, with profits being a consequence of this (and also: a means to further progress). In regenerative finance, circulation replaces accumulation. The World Economic Forum has [a nice little piece on the topic](https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/09/regenerative-finance-web3-climate-change/?ref=foxwizard.com). ReFi is blossoming within web3\. Protocols like [Klima DAO](https://www.klimadao.finance/?ref=foxwizard.com), [Regen Network](https://www.regen.network/?ref=foxwizard.com), [Toucan Protocol](https://toucan.earth/?ref=foxwizard.com), [Moss](https://moss.earth/?ref=foxwizard.com) (and more) have been pioneering new ways to make regenerative finance more open, transparent, verifiable, impactful and real. Which brings me to the precarious topic of carbon offsets. ### Carbon offsets Many folks are sceptical of carbon offsets—as they should be! For too long the industry has been a warren of dodgy projects, entangled with profiteering middlemen, obfuscation, double-accounting and more. It has been an easy way for companies to make environmental claims, without ever having to readily prove them. But hopefully you have connected the dots here. Blockchain—the decentralised, permissionless, uncensorable, open source, transparent and public technology that allows us to verify any and all transactions on a public ledger—solves *many* of the issues with carbon offsets. I don’t know how any carbon offset initiative could work without it—because without blockchain we’re left with the whole “oh trust us, we’re offsetting, look here’s some pictures of trees, and here’s a spreadsheet we conjured from nowhere”. Of course this does not and will not work. Whereas with a protocol like [Klima DAO](https://klimadao.finance/?ref=foxwizard.com), you can literally verify any offset claims in just a few clicks. Take [gmDAO](https://gmdao.ai/?ref=foxwizard.com) for example—a wonderful collective of generative art enthusiasts. At gmDAO we have [overcompensated by a factor of five](https://twitter.com/KlimaDAO/status/1584510610032558080?s=20&t=BndHIV3c%5FC0yGitNWIuqlA&ref=foxwizard.com); that is, retiring five times the amount of carbon offsets based on the carbon emissions from recent collection releases. This more-than-offsetting is verifiable, too—[gmDAO’s docs](https://docs.gmstudio.art/values/climate?ref=foxwizard.com) links to [the actual retirements](https://www.klimadao.finance/retirements/gmdao.eth?ref=foxwizard.com). (Mind you, these weren’t the best quality credits—something I only just realised as I was writing this. I have since raised this with the dao and we’ll do better.). Joseph Pallant, founder of the [Blockchain for Climate Foundation](https://www.blockchainforclimate.org/?ref=foxwizard.com)—speaks of ReFi warmly and elegantly on [this episode of Planet of the Klimates](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWiITt2Rjug&ref=foxwizard.com). (The hosts sometimes come across a little too green and Lawful Good for my tastes, but you’ll get a deep gist of what’s at play here, and how tokenised carbon offsets works in accordance with the [Paris Agreement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris%5FAgreement?ref=foxwizard.com).) If this interests you, you can also view the recent talks and panel sessions from [The Green Blockchain Summit](https://polygon.technology/green-blockchain-summit/?ref=foxwizard.com). Or you can join any protocol’s discord server, ask questions and participate in open-office calls they have. You can join the gathering of intelligent folks who care for the planet, and who want to ensure that any carbon offsets are actually [trustworthy, real, measurable, permanent, additional, independently verified and unique](https://docs.klimadao.finance/blogs/about-carbon-offsets?ref=foxwizard.com). When Klima DAO launched they attempted to ‘raise the floor price’ of carbon pricing, sweeping up the cheapest credits to remove them from the market (making it thus more costly to greenwash and more economically viable to sequester carbon or otherwise engage in regenerative finance). This has caused some consternation—in amongst this sweeping, a bunch of old and dubious carbon offset credits were acquired. [Klima DAO have since cleaned up these credits](https://www.klimadao.finance/blog/bct-hfc23-cleanup?ref=foxwizard.com) at their own expense, removing them from circulation altogether. But even now, more nuanced debates continue as to the nature and quality of various carbon offsets. **And this is a great thing!** Only possible because of the clear, transparent and verifiable nature of blockchain. We *want* for there to be more scrutiny in this domain, and for nature-based projects that support biodiversity and other ecological services to be valued higher. Decarbonisation goes hand in hand with this—we need to price carbon into our economy, and to put a stop to new fossil fuel mining projects, and eliminate carbon emissions (and other environmental externalities) where possible. And many other things. Offsets are only part of the equation—and not even the primary part. I don’t even know if they are a good thing—regenerative finance is much better. **Valuing the living systems we depend upon because the livings systems we depend upon are valuable.** But, I do believe, if we are canny enough, we might just be able to pull off The Grandest Trick. ## The Trick The Trick (which I gleaned from [this yarn](https://anchor.fm/tyson-yunkaporta/episodes/Platypus-Finance-e1km9ec?ref=foxwizard.com) from the folks at the Indigenous Knowledge Systems Lab) is to phase-shift our economy into a situation where it is more practically in our economic best interest to *not* f–ck the planet. To somehow put our planetary life support systems at the heart of what is valued in our economy. To do this, I imagine we need to collectively conjure a transnational means to verify the veracity of carbon offsets. But then further: we need to integrate qualities such as biodiversity, soil health, water health, and other vital ecological services into what we account for and consider as valuable. And to have this so compellingly clear and aligned to economic interests that we are overtly incentivised to do what we ought be doing all along. That is: to care for the ecology we live within. To be the custodians, the infinite players, and to co-create a world not only more curious and kind, but one that flourishes into higher orders of complexity, at scale. It’s messy and by no means perfect—but blockchain and web3 are revealing new ways in which we might achieve this. Combine the intelligence of this with the timeless wisdom of Indigenous Knowledge Systems and, by golly, I think we’re onto something. In the quest for viable alternative options to the default way we are doing things—it’s worth considering. Warmth, \~fw ### 🧙🏻‍♂️ Highfalutin cryptolectics URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/highfalutin/ Last updated: 2024-09-10T10:32:09.000Z Note: this is An Olde Museletter, from a different time and place: some links may no longer work and some ideas may no longer be ‘as true’. Read at your own peril. Also I deleted the podcast this post refers to. Cryptic af. What-ho and hello! I seem to be one of the few people in the world that loves jargon. Sometimes I listen to the dangerlam speak veterinarian to her colleagues, and I love puzzling out what the words might mean. I play with them in my mind, siphoning sounds, separating out prefixes and suffixes, and scanning for related words. I’d then hazard forth my best guess as to the word’s meaning, which would sometimes be close enough so as to be dangerous, and oft-times just plain wrong. But either way; I’d learn something. And just as a sommelier might grow their sensory vocabulary, so too you get to expand your own linguistic bricolage. And this is an apt parallel; when you are new to a wine tasting, the words we use are of lower resolution. I haven’t the most sophisticated (linguistic) palette for wine—but I do enjoy a whisky. To a novice, a dram of whisky might merely be ‘kinda sweet, a bit spicy, with a smokey finish’. That is to say: it is relatively crude/pixelated in its dimensionality. But—with curiosity and time—you can become more attuned to the experience. Eventually, your sensorial vocabulary expands into more nuanced domains, and we are able to express our subjective phenomenological experience ever more aptly. Whisky is no longer sweet; it is maple-sweet, toffee-sweet, burnt sugar-sweet, brown sugar-sweet, molasses-sweet, and so on. And then: what spice? What smoke? What mouthfeel? And, further: what feeling-tones, memories and conjectures does this evoke? (For more on whisky tasting, see my old ‘[Whisky: The Gateway to Mindfulness](https://drjasonfox.medium.com/whisky-the-gateway-to-mindfulness-part-one-ef514c786b0c?ref=foxwizard.com)’ mini-series). Anyhoo, I find this whole affair to be incredibly generative. It has an infinite quality to it; a forever-invitation to ever more richness. A branching tree of knowledge, evergreen and evergrowing. In this way, “curiosity is antifragile, like an addiction, and is magnified by attempts to satisfy it” (Nassim Taleb)—another lovely facet of the curse of knowledge, mayhaps. **But not everyone shares this fascination with jargon-as-an-invitation-to-expanded-knowledge.** Some of us have gone as far to attempt to start ‘movements’ like ‘[Jargon Free Fridays](http://jargonfreefridays.com/?ref=foxwizard.com)’. Personally, given the unfurling meta-crisis and its myriad miseries, I feel that there are more worthy causes\* than the eradication of jargon. And yet: everything is everything, and this too connects. > *\* One such worthy cause would be the eradication of downlighting. We don’t need them. Down-lights—those ones built into the ceilings of most rooms, that shine down—are hideous and unnatural. Abominations! Down with down-lights! Use lamps instead. Uplighting, people. Uplighting!* I suspect many of us don’t like jargon in corporate settings because it is often expressed by folks that perhaps feel a little insecure about their respective knowledge, and thus they seek to mask this perceived lack with jargon. But, because almost everyone feels this way—and because enterprise ecologies are so sociopolitically charged—we end up with a collective spawning of jargon begetting jargon begetting jargon. An act of mass memetic mimesis. No want wants to seem the fool; and so everyone plays their part in the perpetual pantomime. **There’s an antidote, of course: curiosity.** Simply asking ‘wait, what do we mean when we say “innovation”, in this context?’ ought open the doors to greater insight. And, if it doesn’t, well: it perhaps reveals an insecurity within the one deploying the jargon. (I’ve picked a broad example here—most jargon is technical and specific; more on this in a moment). But alas; curiosity can be career-limiting, in some contexts. Working with the insecurities of others is a delicate manoeuvre, especially when privilege and power is involved. It requires empathy, deftness, warmth and relatedness. You must create a context wherein it is okay to admit that which we do not know, or that to which we are unsure. An environment in which we feel that we don’t need the armour of professionalism that keeps us distant and disconnected. It is a role I oft play as an external wizard-philosopher when serving as a provocateur at conference panel sessions or at a leadership offsites. This frequently means that I make low-status moves;\* fumble in my own attempts to articulate the myriad ineffable qualities of complexity; and generally air whatever insecurities and doubts I have as and when they arise. This serves to ‘make it okay’ for others to do the same. And when they do, they are met with warmth, enthusiasm and interest. In this way we encourage each other to be courageous in our thinking, whilst accepting the messiness of thinking-in-draft. We switch from *seriousness* (the pressing towards a specific outcome) to *play* (wherein we are open to possibility, no matter the cost to one’s self). The resultant conversation is thus more likely to venture beyond the safe and predictable familiarity of the default script, and truly into the territory of the unprecedented and unknown (where all progress lies). > \* Not *all* moves are low-status, of course. It’s always a dance; an interplay. This disposition serves me in my work, and it may serve you, too. I am exposed to the jargon of many different industries; much of it I can only guess at. But this active sensemaking is *useful* in that my relative ignorance can help to unearth assumptions or differences in perspective (the precursor to richer synthesis, epiphany and insight). I call this ‘weaponised naïveté’—my being external to the particular industry/profession/context allows me to ask the forbidden questions, to flirt with taboo, and to help my accomplice (aka the leader who brought me in) wreak new and meaningful progress, beyond the default. But whilst jargon might serve as a foil to otherwise detract from our own lack of knowledge, it can just as well serve as a means of Warding. Jargon—the shared technical cant\* of experienced professionals—allows one to both obfuscate and expedite the process of arriving at deeper and more interesting questions. \* Folks familiar with the [The Complete Thief’s Handbook](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%5FComplete%5FThief%27s%5FHandbook?ref=foxwizard.com) might recognise this term. A thieves’ cant is something most thieves’ guilds would have, in a way that allows thieves to talk shop in a way to which idle eavesdroppers would think it but mundane conversation. In this way, the cant is a cryptolect—a cryptic kind of ‘dialect’ employed to exclude or mislead people outside the group. Aptly, this cryptic discourse happens very much within the land of crypto, where a kind of perverse delight is taken (by some, not so much I) in misleading the ‘tardfi’ (traditional finance) folks come to extract ‘alpha’ (that is: new and/or relatively privileged knowledge that can give a trader an ‘edge’ in the market). Any alpha is thus protected by the foil of cryptolects + deep irony and dank memes. The rogue in me finds this all very fascinating; lesson being: don’t just swagger into a new context thinking you can simply extract knowledge you haven’t earned.° ° I imagine there are similar dynamics to this with Indigenous Knowledge Systems, serving to protect against colonisers from extracting knowledge they don’t have the requisite wisdom (or community of practice) to deploy safely. One would hope that the genuine shamans of cultures whose plant medicine is coveted would also protect the deeper and more complex elements of their practice from the ‘sham men’ who might seek to exploit it.°° °° Many academics and philosophers see the same thing happen to their work, too. Folks scan for the blinkist reductions collapsing an otherwise complex thesis of inter-contingent thought into pithy one-liners. After years of having my own writing literally copy-pasted by others in my profession—not even reduced; literally word for word—I started to revel in obfuscation and jargon. Oh it’s Insight you crave, eh? Well, you’ll have to find it first, dickhead! Hoho!°°° °°° I don’t think this is necessarily a good strategy, btw. The reason I’m writing this particular museletter—(I never quite know what will emerge, as I begin to write to you)—is probably because, in hindsight, I went Pretty Deep, Pretty Quick at The Rekindling event last week. I spared no one and instead waxed full mythopoetic, dialling my performative pseudo-intellectualism to eleven. **I was, effectively, highfalutin.** Like flautist trilling a flute pitched too high for most humans to hear, I trilled my thoughts at a level I fretted most would possibly not comprehend. And you know what? It was utterly refreshing for me to *not* cater to a broad audience, but to instead speak to the self-selected who attended, and to assume a high level of wisdom and wit. And the result was sublime! PK and I had a wonderful fireside together with those who gathered, and the conversations spawned after the event itself—hours later, over pizza and wine on the streets of Fitzroy at 10pm—are what I live and long for. I’m sure it went over the top of some, but it seemed we mostly attracted resonant folk. Genuinely: wondrous. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2023/08/b2d68b81-3842-4b19-9a89-0da1cf0def99.jpeg) The Rekindling; first gathering **Anyhoo:** [**tickets for the next event in The Rekindling are now available**](https://www.drjasonfox.com/rekindling?ref=foxwizard.com)**.** As before, all funds raised will be passed on to the Indigenous Knowledge Systems Lab. > In our next gathering, I will unpack some of what I am seeing emerge in the wondrous world of web3; particularly as it pertains to regenerative finance, decentralised leadership, and coordination amidst complexity at scale. > > This time, I will do my best to share some of the fundamental concepts in this dark forest. I’m impatient to bring everyone up to speed (and beyond the hype and distorted narratives) so that we might partake of deeper, richer explorations of this burgeoning field, together. > > **web3 + regenerative finance + sacred economics** > > Fun times. Oh, and this time we have a dedicated location for the altogether hang afterwards. I suspect tickets will sell out fast; most who attended said they’ll come. I really [hope to see you there](https://www.drjasonfox.com/rekindling?ref=foxwizard.com)! Bright minds and warm hearts (that’s you! You and your friend, you know the one. See you soon) --- I think another part of the reason I seem to be drawn to explore the topic of jargon is perhaps the result of an amusing missive received from one subscriber a little while back. Here’s a snippet:— ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2023/08/29cf129c-8d59-4cd2-adac-67d00adea508.png) (Just to be clear: I appreciate you very much, dear reader. You are a delight!) I love how my attempts to not be contrived—which I do by writing as honestly as I can, sharing the complex mess of my own thinking rather than Simplistic LinkedIn-Grade Thought Leadership Influencer Authority Platitudes Optimised for Algorithms—somehow ends up being perceived as contrived to some. Ha! I love how this world works. Long time readers will know that I tend to distance myself from my first bestseller, *The Game Changer.* It’s much more popular than my other bestseller, *How to Lead a Quest*—but I don’t like it nearly as much. Why? Because my own thinking has developed immensely since then.\* [The video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQPShOARgAY&ref=foxwizard.com) mentioned in this letter is almost a decade old. It’s just, I don’t know, a bit basic? > *\* My popularity is thus inversely proportional to what wisdom I seem to have accrued. Which might explain why a lot of complexity practitioners sometimes feel a bit lonely; hence why we have The Rekindling; an attempt to gather the warm hearts and bright minds in our locale.* But the main thing this serves to remind me of is: **I don’t really want to sound or speak like a ‘normal’ person.** I wouldn’t encourage it in you, either. Or any of us. What is a ‘normal’ person, anyway? The average of all of us?\* Does this mean we exclude all outlier qualities, and those of us on the fringe? Of course not! That’s where all the cool and interesting stuff emerges from: the edge. > \* This reminds me of a hellish initiative back from my time in the western side of this continent, where a local council thought it apt to create a morphed amalgamation of photographs of residents who lived in the suburb. The result was kinda abhorrent; an antithesis to the diversity of the place, where all distinct characteristics of individuals were melted down into an uncannily homogenous (normalised?) form. Thankfully, [the installation has since been removed](https://www.watoday.com.au/national/western-australia/three-new-designs-shortlisted-to-replace-weird-and-confusing-cockburn-train-station-faces-20201212-p56mxc.html?ref=foxwizard.com). *“I hope we never again have a piece of art that was weird, confusing and frankly a little creepy for the people of Cockburn and drivers on the freeway”,* one council member said. Besides: normality is a myth. Not in the cool ‘myth’ sense (of stories told for the sake of their telling; provoking explanation but accepting none of it; the eternal parables and provocations that speak from the recurring mysteries of life). Rather: the crude and mundane version of myth, as in: normality is a myth aka it is not ‘real’. It doesn’t exist. (And yet…) **Which got me thinking about the myth of authenticity again.** Here are some links I shared a couple of years ago; still apt today. > [After Authenticity](https://subpixel.space/entries/after-authenticity/?ref=foxwizard.com) | (I am new to the thinking of [Toby Shorin](https://subpixel.space/?ref=foxwizard.com), but I’m digging much of it) *“What is authenticity? Of course there’s no such thing, but that hasn’t stopped anyone from believing in it. Nearly 80 years of anthropology research on authenticity-seeking behavior reveal authenticity to be one of the stickiest modern superstitions. The bulk of the early research is about tourism, an activity frequently motivated by a search for this mythical quality.”* > > [The Disbeliever’s Guide to Authenticity](https://subpixel.space/entries/the-disbelievers-guide-to-authenticity/?ref=foxwizard.com) | (A followup to the above) *“Finally we have enough distance from the authenticity paradigm to see its politics, commitments, and ethics more clearly. But now that we know its implications, we have to decide whether we believe in it or not. There are many ways to relate to the world. Choose wisely.”* > > [Being Your Selves: Identity R&D on alt Twitter](https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2020/01/23/being-your-selves-identity-rd-on-alt-twitter/?ref=foxwizard.com) | (I’m loving much of [Aaron Z Lewis’s writing](https://aaronzlewis.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) btw) *“Digital masks broaden your range of expression beyond what’s possible with your physical body. With a mask, you can reveal parts of yourself that would otherwise remain hidden on the inside. Your alt account brings these hidden selves to the surface and allows other people to interact with them—even in the so-called offline world. When you talk to a formerly pseudonymous friend face-to-face, you remember how they present themselves online and you feel like you have access to another layer of their psyche. It’s like a Snapchat filter for your social life.”* > > [Personal Brands, Identity and Perception Management](https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2007/11/01/personal-brands-identity-and-perception-management/?ref=foxwizard.com) | (This is [Rust-Age Ribbonfarm](https://www.ribbonfarm.com/the-rust-age/?ref=foxwizard.com); still holds true) *“You begin to realize that you are your manifest presence in the real, physical world. That your* I *only exists because everything else does. And then it hits you: that sitcom-joke of a path to ‘authenticity’ that you thought you’d ironically abandoned in Step 5, is what you’ve been continuing on all along. And inquiry can begin.”* I fear Authenticity (with a capital ‘a’) has become well and truly corrupted by the attention economy now; it’s not something to conventionally aspire to. Similar to Vulnerability and all of its performative optics. And yet: there’s no escaping this. We contain multitudes, and cannot *not* be authentic—so we might as well have fun with it. Hence f–ck it! [Choose One Word](https://cleverness.com/word?ref=foxwizard.com) and embrace the **mythic** version of your own self-construct. Larp your best life! I’ve recently fallen in love with the work and writings of metamodern theory artist [Scout Reina Wiley](https://substack.com/profile/90910336-scout-reina-wiley?ref=foxwizard.com). In a recent post, Scout shared [visions for a post-woke methodology of social engagement](https://scoutreinawiley.substack.com/p/system-as-spirit-body-as-host), with a reflection on ‘authentically performative virtue-signalling’. > *“An ironic distance from the concept of virtue provides the perspective that humans are nondual beings. Virtue is, to rely upon a hyperbolic metaphor, one side of an infinitely-sided coin. Let this not guide us away from the incredibly useful concept of the good, and instead allow us to engage with it from this distance, from this knowing that *all behaviours are a performance of sorts. We can interact more creatively when we view our persona for what it is–a mental tool that helps us navigate the complexity of the relational world.*”* (emphasis mine) Anyhoo, that’s probably enough musing for one day. <— And that’s the third anyhoo. I remember hearing once that if you catch yourself saying ‘anyhoo’ or ‘anyways’, you’re probably boring yourself. And almost certainly those you are conversing with. So! Much as I’d love to continue to muse with you, I am sure we both have things to do. In my next museletter I shall attempt some lowfalutin’, just for a change. Much warmth, *\~fw* PS: If you some how like these solipsistic *let-me-remind-you-how-special-I-am* museletters, please tap the ‘love’ heart. It helps the substack algorithm figure what’s what, and gives me a simulacrum of fondness, which is nice. ♡ ### 🍂 Smuggling Insight URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/smuggling-insight/ Last updated: 2024-09-10T10:16:57.000Z Note: this is An Olde Museletter, from a different time and place: some links may no longer work and some ideas may no longer be ‘as true’. Read at your own peril. Also—I have since deleted the podcast this post refers to. Soz! In this episode we explore the fine art of sneaking higher orders of complexity into Enterprise Land, and other domains. Most organisations/egregores/SOCI (self-organising complex intelligences) have immune systems that protect them from new thinking. Ergo, some fox-like cunning is oft required if we are to be effective in our endeavours. --- ## On slipping past the gatekeepers This topic was a little too nebulous to distil into an essay; you’ll have to instead enjoy my meandering solipsistic soliloquy. Together, we shall brush up against the following notions: - **Ideas are threats** // all entities tend to ‘like’ whatever meta-stability they’ve found for themselves. Knowing this will have you better ameliorate the default ‘threat response’ they might have. - **We all have allergies** // exaggerated negative responses to particular ideas or propositions. *“We all have these emotions, but the metamodernist has developed their mind (what researchers call* [*metacognition*](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metacognition?ref=foxwizard.com)*) to keep these allergies in check, so as not to let them pollute the capability to make objective judgments and fair analysis. The wisdom is, just because something makes you feel bad, doesn’t mean it’s wrong.”* ([source](https://metamoderna.org/5-things-that-make-you-metamodern/?ref=foxwizard.com)) - **Empathy first** // meet folks where they’re at, in their own world. You’re a character in \*their\* story. Are they well rested? Well fed? Are you meeting them at the level of complexity they have capacity for? How do you show up? What role do you play in their story? - **The Gifted Horse** // packaging up otherwise ‘radical’ new thinking into a form that is recognisable to one’s ontological disposition is the key to slipping past the cognitive gatekeepers of any organisation (individual, egregore or otherwise). Note: this is not at all about ‘lying’ or ‘faking’ anything; it’s about being intentional about which aspects of an otherwise complex/nebulous/unfurling notion we might focus on first, and under what narrative sequencing. - **Peppering the ground** // once you have slipped past the gatekeepers, you’ll want to ensure that the otherwise parasitic processes don’t hamper the ability to cultivate from within. This can be partially achieved by introducing new conceptual frames into the semiotic ecology via ‘downward comparison’. Essentially, you want to make folks more aware of default tendencies and constructs. These usually remain invisible day-to-day, but distinctions like ‘the delusion of progress’ can help. I sometimes also instil the notion of ‘the human centipede of knowledge’; an unfortunate yet potent concept that has folks considering the source of that which informs their decisions. This, in turn, instills a kind of epistemological humility along with a yearning for quality. In most. - ····· *In the podcast I mentioned the layers of misconception and warped narrative one must wade through to get closer to what’s really happening. Akin to diving through a thick layer of oil and floating rubbish first, in order to reach the purer waters below. Many of us have, for example, default allergies to words like ‘crypto’ and ‘carbon offsets’—and rightfully so! Yet for many, this precludes them from ever accessing a deeper and truer insight of what is actually emerging in the space, and the inherent potential therein. A* [*green blockchain summit*](https://polygon.technology/green-blockchain-summit/?ref=foxwizard.com) *happened last week, with panel sessions involving key players in the carbon and blockchain space. (‘Green’ is an allergy-trigger for me). I love how simultaneously disenchanting and re-enchanting such events are (it’s humans trying to coordinate for environmental outcomes in a relatively decentralised and transparent way). Whilst I would’t say this it top rung human centipede, insights from events like this are much better than the lower rung content many of us feed on.* ····· - **Cultivate trust** // we co-create each other. You are not the hero come with the solution to ‘fix’ an organisation. Such metaphors work for complicated systems, but not the complex relational systems of people, teams, organisations, soci. This is not the time for hero consultants—we need to [move quietly and plant things](https://www.foxwizard.com/move-quietly-and-plant-things/). - **A relative utopia** // not a utopia. Beware any singular vision of utopia, as such visions oft harbour an element of the tyrannical. Instead, set your sextant to the nebulous cluster of visions—a constellation of potential north stars—that offer a directionality towards *relative* utopia. *“We are trying to achi­eve a self-organization of society that is happier, in a profound sense of the word, than anything that has gone before it. But we’re not saying it’s going to be a perfect world. In fact, we’re saying it’s going to be as mess­y and risky as ever. More complex. Why should we expect any­thing else, when hist­ory—cultural, geological and astronomical—has thus far meant explosive increases of com­plex­ity?”* ([source](https://metamoderna.org/relative-utopia/?ref=foxwizard.com); thanks again Hanzi) Anyway, that’s a gist of what the podcast covers. I had literal springtime allergies, so my voice didn’t quite have the qualities of enunciation I would otherwise aspire to. I’m sure I ambled my way into a few unproductive tangents, too. But if you are inclined to listen, you might enjoy. As I write this, another element comes to mind. Quite fitting, with regards to smuggling insight, wisdom and wit into the finite constructs of enterprise land. It comes from James P. Carse, for it seems I cannot write any museletter without venerating this sage. > *“Storytellers do not convert their listeners; they do not move them into the territory of a superior truth. Ignoring the issue of truth and falsehood altogether, they offer only vision. Storytelling is therefore not combative; it does not succeed or fail. A story cannot be obeyed. Instead of placing one body of knowledge against another, storytellers invite us to return from knowledge to thinking, from a bounded way of looking to an horizonal way of seeing.”* To play the infinite game is to subvert combat. This is not the case of one idea ‘winning’ over another, but of cultivating the shifts that give rise to the moves that serve to continue the play (towards a richer unfurling of complexity, one hopes). And so, frens, as ever, I wish us well in the infinite everquest to co-create a world more curious and kind. 🧡 *\~fw* PS: Now is a very good time to be planting the seeds for the \*rituals\* that make for kinship, meaning and progress. Some of my fellow infinite players are already getting end of year wrap-ups booked in. Some of my forward thinking clients are also planting the seeds for meaningful kick-offs in early 2023\. In any event, I can be your wizard. 🧙🏻‍♂️ ### 🍂 Complexity as Preference URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/complexity-as-preference-2/ Last updated: 2024-09-10T10:09:12.000Z What-ho frens, happy equinox times. Quick note: we moved The Rekindling event so that it no longer occurs during school holidays. It’s now happening on Tuesday October 4th—and there’s still some room if you’d like to join. This will be a fun, low-key event wherein I share some thoughts with you on matters pertaining to quests, pirates and myth—and then we get to do a fireside hang together in good company after work before some of you kick on for a midweek dinner/beverage in Fitzroy. Please come along if you can, I’d love to see you. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2023/08/1877705d-f783-48ae-9d02-acf8fd74ee51.png) Conjured with Midjourney And in other news—I have rekindled my podcast! It’s now called ‘foxwizard; the adventures of’. You can listen to the first episode in substack or—if I got the tech right—on your preferred platform. \[EDIT: Ha! It’s 2024 and I have deleted it again, lolz\] ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2023/08/985fee7d-153a-49cd-b45c-87782e405234.png) Pixel art by the wizard [Ozzz](https://twitter.com/ozzzmabro?ref=foxwizard.com) I thought I had deleted my old podcast in one of my signature seasonal purges—but then I discovered that it still lingers on spotify. The Internet—our ever-present collective eldritch haunting—Never Forgets. Everything preserved, in undying stasis. Bah. Oh well. *Only that which can change can continue*, and I shall slough off that part of me and move on—burying my past work with fresher, better stuff. In theory. Mind you, I had a listen to my old stuff and I can’t quite fathom why I attempted to delete it all in the first place. Yes, it is always quite cringe to listen to one’s past self—but it was honestly nowhere near as bad as I somehow led myself to believe. I daresay it was even quite good. I think the bushfires, pandemic, systemic inequality, the climate crisis, the meaning crisis, [the meta-crisis](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVEP0zAK-xQ&ref=foxwizard.com), our ongoing mass extinction event and [the self-terminating path of civilisation](https://medium.com/@thehonestsorcerer/how-i-came-to-believe-that-civilization-is-unsustainable-12c12ba9f461?ref=foxwizard.com)—all of it—triggered some sort of grief process in me. Or rather, pushed me beyond the ‘denial’ stage of grief and into frustration/anger, then depression/despondence, and now... a kind of mollified acceptance. I am actually pleasantly surprised to realise I am at acceptance now. Only just now, as I write this. Huh, go me. You know, I actually made six attempts—a total of over 6 hours of recorded work—to answer a letter I received a year or so ago from someone asking the question of *‘what to do when one has fallen out of love with their profession’.* I’ll get to it at some point, but for now none of my attempts have rung true. There’s something about writing that forces you to confront your thoughts. To commit the mercurial and dynamic contextual fluidity of Thought into Words that are then Shared (and Preserved, by The Internet) encourages one to ask: wait, is this true? Or rather: is this true-enough? (Knowing that no truths are absolute <— including this one). Most books and many podcasts have a shelf life. The classics contain enduring notions; principles that hold mostly true across time and context, at differing levels of complexity. Myths: even more so. Enduringly so. **Good writing is clear thinking.** A good podcast though, to me, is not necessarily clear thinking—but the process of moving towards clear thinking. It is, ideally, a means of figuring; a *quest* for clarity. At least for me, I appreciate the more intimate and less polished aspect of podcasts. I *like* the pauses, the stumbles, the inflections and intonations that reveal so much about how someone approaches a particular idea or domain. Anyhoo: **foxwizard; the adventures of.** As you may know, [I have struggled to find my Word this year](https://fox.substack.com/p/rekindling). The Year of the Hermit served me well, but ever since making the [Choose One Word](https://www.chooseoneword.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) program a thing I have cursed it for myself. Yet whilst I haven’t landed on my Word yet, there are certainly *themes* I am drawn to. Capricious, whimsical, mercurial —> all concepts that embody a kind of ‘hoho, f–ck it’ satyr energy. I feel the serious part of me—The Wizard Whom Oft Frowneth Into The Abyss—needs this kind of jostling. And so whilst my first episode *was* going to be my sixth sagacious attempt to dispense dubious wisdom to the horridly apt question of how to cure a certain jadedness with one’s profession—on a whim I decided to go with another topic altogether. Something that recently emerged to me as an epiphany. Something that will no doubt seem utterly obvious to others, yet still: a revelation to which I experienced as subtly profound. ## Complexity as Preference I’ll guide you through some of the principles I hold, and you’ll get to witness how they conflict. ### Relate horizontally A key principle I and many hold is that we are all infinite players in the otherwise autopoietic infinite game of life. We might play different roles, but all titles, all costumes, all *hierarchy* is theatrical. Here’s [an article that illuminates this point](https://medium.com/swlh/finite-and-infinite-game-science-whats-the-difference-b9d7af3d78c?ref=foxwizard.com). **There is no verticality.** Sure, we may *play* different roles in the theatre of life; we may have bosses, we have parents and we may have children, we may be teachers and we may be students. But in all of these roles, we still relate horizontally. This is a key insight of Adlerian psychology I gleaned from [*The Courage To Be Disliked*](https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Courage-to-Be-Disliked/Ichiro-Kishimi/9781501197277?ref=foxwizard.com)—also expressed in most Indigenous mythologies—and it has affirmed my preferred egalitarian default. To see each other as infinite players—as comrades—in the infinite unfurling pantomime of life is one of the more spiritual affinities I hold. ### And yet By relating horizontally I tend to treat everyone as a peer. Which means that, when I am confronted with someone presenting A Strong Opinion—I assume that the person I am talking to must know a lot more about the topic than I do. Fascinated, I proceed to ask questions about the underlying principles, the edge cases, the abstractions, the implications, the contraindicators, the contexts where such works and does not, and so on, so that I might get a better sense of this new perspective. So that I might see how this might assimilate this into my own proto-synthesis, and thus emerge a smidgen wiser. But then I am sometimes told that I am overthinking it, and that I need to keep it simple. But simplicity is oft fractal and holonic; it’s a quality that can be expressed at varying orders of complexity. Perplexed and bemused, I will usually sally forth one more time in the jolly act of intellectual sparring—only to discover that the conversation has turned into an intellectual cul-de-sac. But I then think: perhaps it \*is\* me. Perhaps I am overthinking it. But how do they have such conviction in their thesis? Such confidence? My opinions are weak at best (if but strongly held); [classically fox-like](https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2014/02/20/the-cactus-and-the-weasel/?ref=foxwizard.com). It’s then that a little voice whispers in my mind: *perhaps this is an adult development thing* (more on this in a moment)*. ‘*Hush, daemon!’ I decry. Knowing that I don’t actually know anything and that I am not half as clever as I might otherwise think. And yet still, this knowledge is a curse. ### The curse of knowledge Firstly, [the curse of knowledge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse%5Fof%5Fknowledge?ref=foxwizard.com) happens where the more knowledge and experience we accrue in a particular domain, the harder we find it to empathise with those new to the topic. The basic concepts they are grappling with seem painfully obvious to us, and to teach them feels somehow patronising. (And yet the best teachers do so with warmth and the ability to relate horizontally; even able to teach concepts that aren’t necessarily true, but to serve as stepping stones—only to be deconstructed at more advanced stages later). It was only half a decade ago that came across the notion of Adult Development. Blessedly, it was via Hanzi Freinacht who—in [*The Listening Society*](https://www.amazon.com/Listening-Society-Metamodern-Politics-Guides-ebook/dp/B074MKQ4LR?ref=foxwizard.com)—introduced me to the [Model of Hierarchical Complexity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model%5Fof%5Fhierarchical%5Fcomplexity?ref=foxwizard.com); aka MHC, which—compared to other adult development models—is valid across cultures and species. This is an important point. There are many models of adult development; and it’s a cursed topic, fraught with danger and ego-traps. Hanzi is aware that many of us have an allergic reaction to hierarchies. For me, it directly conflicts with my beloved disposition of relating horizontally—there’s a tension there, that I have only recently had the epiphany to resolve without (too much) arrogance. Because, sure, I could easily dismiss folks as ‘lower MHC’ because this dismissal seems rather repugnant to one’s character, and I don’t like the judgemental frame (and the implicit hierarchy it implies). Because: there are many at ‘higher MHC’ than I; it’s all contextual; the MHC is merely a *model*, not something to foreshadow the complex and wondrous being themselves; and it is only one quality of many, many qualities we might have the privilege to develop in our lifetimes, etc. And yet, there’s an apt [defence for hierarchies amongst humans](https://metamoderna.org/in-defense-of-hierarchies-among-humans/?ref=foxwizard.com). <—if there is but one link you open and read in this whole piece, let it be this one. > *The point is not to obsess about hierarchy. The point is that if you see hierarchies clearly and don’t imbue them with emotional value, you can relate to them in a more rational and detached manner. There is no need to pretend that we are the driving instructor when we are the student driver—and both parties benefit. The aim here is of course to create a more equal and egalitarian soc­iety, where hierarchy matters less, and only in ways that make sense.* ([source](https://metamoderna.org/in-defense-of-hierarchies-among-humans/?ref=foxwizard.com)) It’s those with **high conviction**—those whom have become convicts to their own conclusions—that vex me so! What game are these fellow infinite players playing, eh? These oft-times alpha male executives with their Clear Visions for The Future? The worst combination is perhaps high conviction + a low affinity for complexity + power. I don’t mind strong if but simplistic opinions on their own, I guess. But if they sprout from someone in a position of power and influence? Bah! Hanzi [expands upon the model of hierarchical complexity](https://metamoderna.org/what-is-the-mhc/?ref=foxwizard.com)—quite thoroughly—though I believe it best contemplated as part of the broader [listening society thesis](https://www.amazon.com/Listening-Society-Metamodern-Politics-Guides-ebook/dp/B074MKQ4LR?ref=foxwizard.com). And best complimented with Indigenous knowledge systems (like that shared in Tyson Yunkaporta’s [*Sand Talk*](https://www.google.com/books/edition/Sand%5FTalk/-o6YDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0&ref=foxwizard.com) and Robin Wall Kimmerer’s [*Braiding Sweetgrass*](https://www.google.com/books/edition/Braiding%5FSweetgrass/vmM9BAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0&ref=foxwizard.com)) and the perspectives of complexity practitioners like [Nora Bateson](https://sonjablignaut.medium.com/?ref=foxwizard.com)*,* [Sonja Blignaut](https://sonjablignaut.medium.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) and more. In any event; my frustration has been borne of what Robert Kegan\* and Lisa Lahey might describe as a conflict of values (or: [competing commitments](https://hbr.org/2001/11/the-real-reason-people-wont-change?ref=foxwizard.com)). *\* Robert Kegan has also contributed greatly to the field of understanding adult development;* [*his work is very dense*](https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674272316&ref=foxwizard.com)*—but has inspired great minds such as David Chapman, who writes exquisitely on* [*metarationality*](https://metarationality.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) *and* [*meaningness*](https://meaningness.com/?ref=foxwizard.com)*, further developing our knowledge of development.* The notion of adult development conflicts with the desire to relate horizontally, as peers. I don’t like hierarchy; but I also don’t like simplistic conclusions that stunt curiosity and oft perpetuate more harm than good. What to do? ## Complexity as preference In short; I have found a way to sidestep the verticality of adult development. Whilst I can still acknowledge it is there, and that Adult Development still remains a useful explainer—if limited and flawed (yet better than most others)—I can also keep it conceptually suspended and relate to whomever I am working with by assuming: they’re already savvier than I am—**it’s just not their preference to think at higher orders of complexity right now.** I can thus meet them where they are at, and be ready whenever they are ready. Or even better: caught unawares and thus delighted. Ergo: the paradox of horizontal relating and vertical development is thus ‘resolved’. Kinda. > Btw: I know how arrogant this whole piece makes me sound. Do I think so highly of myself? Hohoho, hoho: no. I don’t have the answers; I just tend to favour the notion that we ought rise to meet the complexity of our times—not to artificially dumb it down and beckon yet another moloch collapse event. It’s only the ‘high conviction’ folks that trigger this in me. Sometimes they are consultants who are paid a lot of money. The greater influence they have, the more they beckon the [trickster](https://fox.substack.com/p/rekindling) within me. **Besides: why would someone *not* want to think and converse at higher orders of complexity?** Plenty of reasons! Mostly: it doesn’t make sense to do so. Most of our day to day work does not require it. Also: this stuff takes time, curiosity, patience, attention, energy. And we are all so busy and tired and overworked and distracted these days—it makes sense that most don’t want to. And besides: most of us aren’t getting paid to do so. The incentive structures of most organisations do not favour complex thinking or genuine innovation. “We want you to innovate, but don’t you dare innovate” is oft the corporate message (as I believe Scott Belsky points out in [*Making Ideas Happen*](https://www.google.com/books/edition/Making%5FIdeas%5FHappen/8CRYlQl3784C?hl=en&gbpv=0&ref=foxwizard.com)). Complexity thinking also requires us to de-centre ourselves from the context. You can’t be the hero when you’re the complexity thinker (you wouldn’t even want to). Rather, you champion the myriad stories of others, surfacing that which exists at the edge and within, so as to cultivate a better perspective—a better synthesis—of the emergent patterns at play. Dave Snowden’s [sensemaking](https://thecynefin.co/sensemaker/?ref=foxwizard.com) approach works this way. You start relating as a seemingly agentic element of a greater self-organising complex intelligence. It’s wondrous. But sometimes, complexity thinking looks like procrastination. And sometimes it is—where choosing to not choose to intervene *is* the appropriate action in a given context. This can be frustrating to those with a ‘bias to action’ that are looking for ‘quick wins’. This can also be career limiting if you work in a context that favours such. **Complexity thinking is a privilege.** Most don’t have the time or the energy for it—or, if they do, they’re relatively isolated or not in an environment that supports quality thinking. This kind of thinking also requires a kind of psychological maturity; to be relatively comfortable staying in the tension of ambiguity, of many partial-truths and paradox, and of knowing that we are not the expert; that we are not the ‘thought leader’. Not individually. But ah, we find ourselves back at adult development again; hoho sigh. ## Savouring fellowship I’ve shared my thoughts on the importance of fellowship already; it’s the precursor to questing—which is the precursor to strategy itself. If thinking at higher orders of complexity is a *preference*—how might we get others interested in it? How might we get leaders to do a little less operational micro-management, and a little more, uh, leading—towards future relevance, beyond the default? All we can do create the conditions where quality thinking (at higher orders of complexity) is more likely to manifest, and then light the beacon to attract those who might contribute. What does this mean? Creating an environment where there is [time to think](https://www.timetothink.com/thinking-environment/the-ten-components/?ref=foxwizard.com), where it is psychologically safe to be dangerous, where there is a sense of fellowship, of mutual kinship, enthusiasm, encouragement and support, in good humour. And environments where folks aren’t interrupted or made wrong; an environment where we bounce, jam, co-create and cultivate whatever magic we might from the confluence of minds at play. Most conferences have panels that are the antithesis of this—they’re geared more toward ‘debate’ than generative ambiguity and synthesis. Debate is more entertaining. The internet is also much like this, now. It’s ‘[the internet of beefs](https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2020/01/16/the-internet-of-beefs/?ref=foxwizard.com)’ as Venkatesh Rao puts it. *Mutual understanding, expanded thinking, coordination at higher orders of complexity* <— these are not desirable qualities in the arena of the attention economy. We need moar likes, impressions, and things that make our vanity numba go up. That is: more conflict. > *I suspect it is the centrality of beefing — a stylized, theatrical pattern of conflict designed to present a theatre of moral righteousness, signal virtues, visibly strive towards a declared utopian condition, and most importantly, resist meaningful resolution. The conflict must be as impossible to terminate as the notional utopias being sought are impossible to actually attain. Beefing, in other words, is a lousy way to conduct or resolve an unsustainable conflict, but an excellent way to perpetuate and grow a sustainable one.* ([source](https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2020/01/16/the-internet-of-beefs/?ref=foxwizard.com)) “To participate is to lose,” Venkatesh writes. I don’t know the way out of this collective mess we have given rise to; but I do know that I savour fellowship when I experience it. I savour the rare moments of collective genius; that hint of the mythopoetic, that quality of scenius, realised. I also know that I am finding new possibilities in the dark forests of web3\. Glimmers of ways in which minds might coordinate amidst complexity at scale; a side-step removed from the conventional trappings of ego and a web2 persona. And I do know that I am looking forward to hosting more events locally, so as to attract the bright minds and warm hearts in this network, to see what might emerge. Thank you for joining me once more. See you at [The Rekindling](https://www.drjasonfox.com/rekindling?ref=foxwizard.com), if you can make it. 🧡 *—fw* ### 🍂 Trickster in Flux URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/trickster/ Last updated: 2024-10-04T06:39:30.000Z Thoughts on renewal and rot _This post is for subscribers only._ ### 🍂 Move Quietly and Plant Things URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/move-quietly-and-plant-things/ Last updated: 2024-09-10T10:01:13.000Z Note! This symbol 🍂 denotes that you are reading An Olde Musing, from the before times. I’ve resurrected it here because it may still hold some merit—but beware; my thinking will have likely progressed since originally posting this. There may also be some links that no longer work. Enjoy. 🧡 ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2023/08/b408ff64-f549-4474-b13e-90f7e51984c9.png) **Illustration* from [**Codex Seraphinianus*](https://www.wired.com/2013/10/codex-seraphinianus-interview/?ref=foxwizard.com) by Luigi Serafini I have fallen in love with the notion of ‘Solarpunk’ – an aspirational aesthetic, speculative narrative genre and political movement. Something described by Andrew Dana Hudson — half a decade ago – as *“a collaborative effort to imagine and design a world of prosperity, peace, sustainability and beauty, achievable with what we have from where we are”*. Andrew penned a very apt article [On the Political Dimensions of Solarpunk](https://medium.com/solarpunks/on-the-political-dimensions-of-solarpunk-c5a7b4bf8df4?ref=foxwizard.com), which sits nicely amidst the constellation of nebulous beacon-concepts that guide my way.\* A comprehensive (albeit pell-mell) [reference guide](https://medium.com/solarpunks/solarpunk-a-reference-guide-8bcf18871965?ref=foxwizard.com) has been assembled, [books have been written](https://www.goodreads.com/genres/solarpunk?ref=foxwizard.com), and [presentations have been made](https://www.thejaymo.net/solarpunk-rusted-chrome/?ref=foxwizard.com) — you may already be familiar with Solarpunk. \* *The ‘constellation’ includes attractor-notions such as metamodernism, Indigenous knowledges, adult development, complexity savvy, game\~b, collective blooming, infinite play, deep ecology, and more. I shall write of this some day, maybe.* What I love about Solarpunk is that, to me at least, it presents a refreshing alternative to the ‘Doom Foretelling’ I find myself doing when times are bleak. Because times *are* bleak. (Wonderful too, sure). Our current species trajectory does not bode well, hoho. Not at all. Of course, this is *far* too complex and abstract for most to perceive, though. I can barely comprehend it at the best of times. The human mind is just not so good at abstracting at scale. Thus any efforts made to ‘Get People To See’ are just so… ineffectual and unsatisfying. So: bah! I am not the prophet of the End Times, the Herald of the Gloaming, nor the Harbinger of Ragnarök. At least; I don’t claim to be. Instead, I suspect this humble Dr Fox — “[Arch-Wizard of Ambiguity (most fantastic)](https://www.drjasonfox.com/?ref=foxwizard.com)” — may well be a ‘Solarpunk wizard’ at heart. Or at least, an aspirant of such. And so I propose to all *ye who may be feeling anxious or lost in this calamitous epoch* that ‘Solarpunk’ may well become an attractor beacon for you. One of a few such in the nebulous constellation that might guide our way in the dark. Right now — as is ever the case — we have a *choice* as to the kind of future we seek to cultivate together. At the moment — and perhaps, for the past decade or so — the default narrative seems to be that of a ‘Cyberpunk’ future: a neoliberal world rampant with inequality and hyper-inflated individualism cavorting to the backdrop of ecological and societal collapse. Actually, we’re already there. Cyberpunk is a dystopian ‘dog-eat-dog’ world flush with massive wealth inequality, corporate surveillance and tech augmented hyper-individualism. I suspect it’s a beacon-aesthetic for many of the [warlocks at work](https://www.drjasonfox.com/blog/warlocks-at-work?ref=foxwizard.com) — though they mightn’t readily admit it. The aesthetics of Cyberpunk are gritty and ‘cool’ — albeit a little violent and bleak. I personally cannot wait to immerse myself in the virtual world of [Cyberpunk 2077](https://www.cyberpunk.net/?ref=foxwizard.com) when it is released, and I appreciated the [Blade Runner](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCcx85zbxz4&ref=foxwizard.com) films (problematic as they were). And yet the cyberpunk genre *does not* depict the kind of world I wish to cultivate. Which begs the question: what does? ## A Relative Utopia Earlier this year The Great Hanzi Freinacht published an excerpt from his book ‘Nordic Ideology’ on the topic of [Relative Utopia](https://metamoderna.org/relative-utopia/?ref=foxwizard.com). We could call this ‘[eutopia](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Eutopia?ref=foxwizard.com)’ (a place of ideal well-being, as a practical aspiration as distinct from an impossible concept) or ‘[protopia](https://aeon.co/ideas/utopia-is-a-dangerous-ideal-we-should-aim-for-protopia?ref=foxwizard.com)’ (‘a state that is better today than yesterday, although it might be only a little better’).\* But whatever you call it, the point is: a ‘better world’ is possible — and it’s something we can start cultivating, today. \* *I find the notion of protopia to be more practical than it is attractive or compelling. It doesn’t light me up, for it is far too reasonable. ‘More of the same but slightly better’ just won’t work. Not for our current trajectory. But hey: it’s better than giving in to the currents drawing us deeper into a cyberpunk dystopia. So: there’s that.* Imagining this ‘better world’, though, is a lot more challenging. It requires a relatively high psychophysiological ‘state’ combined with a degree of developmental maturity — the tired, insecure, overworked and grumpy do not make for the pioneers of our future. Suffice to say: there is no ‘one vision’ of a future that ought ‘win’ above all others. But there *is* a directionality we can aspire to, and there *are* beacons that might guide us. Beacons such as the broad and nebulous-yet-patterned speculative narrative genre and aspirational aesthetic of ‘Solarpunk’. Of course, such a beacon is polyphonous and dynamical ‘relative eutopia’. From the perspective of abstraction we might be able to see the ‘shape’ of it — but ‘zoom in’ and you’ll find a diverse array of perspectives and dispositions. Ergo, [to quote Jay Springett](https://www.thejaymo.net/solarpunk-rusted-chrome/?ref=foxwizard.com), > *“One cannot speak for other Solarpunks, only be in dialogue and occasional chorus with them”.* ## A vision for visions We are — so many of us — ‘busy, busy, busy’ these days. Too busy for meaningful progress, and too distracted to care. This kind of momentum *inhibits* reinvention. And yet Covid-19 has halted our collective momentum, dramatically — and in so doing has presented us with **one of the greatest opportunities for collective re-imagining we have had in *decades*.** Blessedly, somehow, some of us have even had ‘time to think’ — an incredibly rare thing (especially for busy executives). Of course, most of us squander this time-to-think with the busy work of ‘problem solving’. Or we turn to micromanagement fretwork as a means of feeling ‘productive’. Yet some have had the privilege and perspicacity to venture beyond these frames. Most of my year has been invested in deep partnership with a small mix of enterprise leaders and their teams in the very act of imagining, exploring, experimenting, sensing and cultivating whole new ways of working. This doesn’t sound bold and resplendent, I know. There’s rarely cause for trumpets, fanfare, confetti or ‘launches’. Yet as a wizard-philosopher, it is incredibly enlivening to work with folk who resonate with the Solarpunk adage of *‘moving quietly and planting things’.* These fellow complexity practitioners don’t see themselves as saviours or heroes, but rather: as tricksters,\* shamans° and gardeners. Folks who **create**, evoke, cultivate and *tend* to the conditions that allow for more desirable futures to manifest. \* *I am leaning heavily on the mythical role of the trickster here, guided by Lewis Hyde’s wondrous book [Trickster Makes This World.](http://www.lewishyde.com/publications/trickster?ref=foxwizard.com). “Most of the travellers, liars, thieves, and shameless personalities of the twentieth century are not tricksters at all, then. Their disruptions are not subtle enough, or pitched at a high enough level. Trickster isn’t a run-of-the mill liar and thief. When \[a trickster\] lies and steals, it isn’t so much to get away with something or get rich as to disturb the established categories of truth and property and, by so doing, open the road to possible new worlds.”* ° *Here I speak of ‘shamans’ [as Professor John Vervaeke might](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54l8%5FewcOlY&ref=foxwizard.com), in the sense that shamans are deft at disrupting the default ways in which you are finding patterns in the world. To be a shaman in today’s context is (in a small part) to be able to bring new metaphors and ‘ways of seeing’ to your ‘tribe’, so as to enhance our capacity for insight and ‘wisdom’.* But again: this requires a glimmer of a semblance of a sense as to what such desirable futures might actually look like.⁸ In other words: it requires imagination, charisma, and ‘vision’.\* \* *Not ‘a’ vision — but ‘vision’ itself. “Every move an infinite player makes is toward the horizon. Every move made by a finite player is within a boundary. Every moment of an infinite game therefore presents a new vision, a new range of possibilities. The Renaissance, like all genuine cultural phenomena, was not an effort to promote one or another vision. It was an effort to find visions that promised still more vision.” — James Carse, Finite and Infinite Games.* **But instead, what we get is a world of ‘problem solving’.** Instead of explorers and experimenters, we get experts and explainers. Instead of playful cultivation, we get serious analysis. Instead of seeking to rise to the complexity of the systems we are embedded in — we dumb things down with artificial simplicity and neat linear ‘plans’. Such linearity is seductive, of course. The artificial simplicity of a nice step-by-step ‘roadmap’ is like an opiate to an already overworked mind. And so we see the pantomime of ‘reboot’, ‘restart’, ’recover’ and ‘return’ metaphors. All of which are largely reductive (in denial of complexity), redundant (for they herald no systemic change — just the theatre of it) and retarded (in the true sense of the word: slow or delayed development). Why so? Again: largely because behind all of these is the disposition of ‘problem solving’. Just as the ‘ideas industry’ is largely a distraction, so too ‘problem solving’ is largely a misapplication of effort. It’s working to fix a broken system, so that we end up with the same thing that created the problem — rather than instead **creating** the future we want to live into. Capitalism sells us the ‘solutions’ to the problems it generates, which we buy to fix and fuel the very same system that created the problems in the first place, hoho! Of course, we have become so cynical these days. ‘Jaded’ is the new cool, it would seem. And perhaps this dark wizard is, at times, guilty of that. But ‘I do not dabble in doom anymore’, he says. Because fixating upon the many, many (many) ‘problems’ in our world saps our collective will and whim to create. As my friend [Tom Albertsson](https://www.linkedin.com/in/misterpossible/?ref=foxwizard.com) once said: > “Fixing or solving the perceived problems of the oil industry isn’t going to result in a Solarpunk farm!” Which brings us back to the topic at hand. ## What does a ‘Solarpunk’ future look like? Well! That’s up to each of us. Exciting, right? There’s speculation as to what it *could* look like — and it’s mostly (but not always) quite nice, and quite conducive to flourishing diversity, ecological sustainability, community belongingness, self-development — and many of the qualities of a [listening society](https://www.amazon.com.au/Listening-Society-Metamodern-Politics-Guides-ebook/dp/B074MKQ4LR?ref=foxwizard.com). But it’s not up to any of us to impose *our* vision for the future on others. Instead: we adopt the adage of the Solarpunk — we “**move quietly and plant things**”\* — and find jolly alignment (if not agreement) together. \* *This gem originates from [Andrew Dana Hudson](https://medium.com/@andrewdhudson?ref=foxwizard.com).* --- So! If we are to stave off the very real manifestation of a hypermodern cyberpunk world that very much already is, I would suggest we ought cultivate pockets of warmth whilst ‘resisting-in-place’. > “To resist in place is to make oneself into a shape that cannot so easily be appropriated by a capitalist value system. To do this means refusing the frame of reference: in this case, frame of reference in which value is determined by productivity, the strength of one’s career, and individual entrepreneurship. It means embracing and trying to inhabit somewhat fuzzier or blobbier ideas: of maintenance as productivity, of the importance of nonverbal communication, and of the mere experience of life as the highest goal. It means recognizing and celebrating a form of the self that changes over time, exceeds algorithmic description, and whose identity doesn’t always stop at the boundary of the individual.” — Jenny Odell,[*How to Do Nothing: resisting the attention economy*](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/600671/how-to-do-nothing-by-jenny-odell/?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* There’s something quite attractive about the notion of resisting-in-place. It’s a subtle call to all the infinite players, tricksters, shamans, rogues and sleeper-agents to each play a role in the shaping of this co-created future that is collectively unfurling. It doesn’t necessarily mean *abandoning* our myriad woes to go live in the mountains off the grid (though that works). Nor does it mean involuting into a privileged ‘self care’ bubble replete with earth tones, green smoothies and soft linens whilst you work your chakras and purge all ‘negativity’ from your life with a smouldering [smudge stick](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smudging?ref=foxwizard.com). Rather: it means finding the opportunities to embody and create the future you wish to live into, wherever you find yourself to be. I love this because it makes me think of the folks I work with. I think of you, reading this, and then potentially reflecting upon where you are in life right now, and the various roles you play. I imagine you pausing, head cocked to the side, considering your circumstances and wondering — with a glint in your eye — what a Solarpunk might do. What would it look like if you were to ‘move quietly and plant things’, so as to contribute to the kind of future you wish to see unfurl? --- My own examples aren’t terribly grandiose — but the charm is always ever in the subtlety, I find. I shall share a few things I am noticing right now. I love the work of speculative designer [Tim Hunt](http://ted-hunt.com/?ref=foxwizard.com), who recently shared a kickstarter project called ‘[Circa Lunar](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/circalunar/circa-lunar-attune-to-the-moon?ref=foxwizard.com)’ — ‘a cyclical alternative to the tyranny of linear time ’. This lunar calendar app compliments Tim’s already sublime ‘[Circa Solar](http://circa.solar/?ref=foxwizard.com)’ app, which replaces the clock with a deeper attunement to the daily and seasonal shifts of the sun. Quintessential Solarpunk, if you ask me. I recently discovered ‘[Oda](https://oda.co/?ref=foxwizard.com)’ — a set of beautiful speakers and a platform all meticulously designed for live performances. It’s early days yet, but the creation of new, ethical and *opinionated* business models that eschew the dud industry defaults is wondrously compelling. It calls to the hipster in me, that’s for sure. Projects and products aside, my vision for a Solarpunk future involves simple things like, well: more small pubs and cafes on street corners, as community gathering points. It involves farmers markets and more casual dinner parties. It looks like community gardens, and folks gathering together to rebuild wildlife corridors. It looks like beautification with street art and plants.¹⁵ Long walks, easy rides, picnics, copious reading, live music, camp fires and balmy nights under the stars. It looks like fostering friendships, taking the time to sleep, eat and move well. It looks like taking the time to care; to listen and learn. It looks like [frugal hedonism](https://www.frugalhedonism.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) and the time-abundance such a disposition begets. It also looks like becoming increasingly attuned to the bioregions and the complex interrelations of the worlds we live within, coupled with a growing understanding and affinity to the Indigenous knowledge systems of the First Peoples. Jenny Odell writes of this in [How To Do Nothing — resisting the attention economy](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/600671/how-to-do-nothing-by-jenny-odell/?ref=foxwizard.com): *—* > “Bioregionalist thought encompasses practices like habitat restoration and permaculture farming, but has a cultural element as well, since it asks us to identify as citizens of the bioregion as much as (if not more than) the state. Our ‘citizenship’ in a bioregion means not only familiarity with the local ecology but a commitment to stewarding it together… It’s important for me to link my critique of the attention economy to the promise of bioregional awareness because I believe that capitalism, colonialist thinking, loneliness, and an abusive stance toward the environment all coproduce one another. It’s also important because of the parallels between what the economy does to an ecological system and what the attention economy does to our attention.” I *love* the thought of being globally connected to each other via the Independent Solarpunk Web — whilst at the same time being deeply attuned to our local community and ecology. I love the thought of travel being a much more *intentional* activity in the future.¹⁶ To almost hearken to a time where such travel was more of a *pilgrimage* than something to simply squeeze into whatever ‘time off’ we have allocated in our calendar. Long train rides with books. Home gardens. Knowing and noticing the stars. Of course, this all sounds ‘hipster-hippy’, I know. And my examples thus far are rather benign, ‘surface’ and ‘cute’. Yet they foreshadow a much more subversive emancipatory undercurrent. This, of course, beckons the smug tittering of the bourgeois and the established elite who benefit rather nicely from the current system. To return to [the Political Dimensions of Solarpunk](https://medium.com/solarpunks/on-the-political-dimensions-of-solarpunk-c5a7b4bf8df4?ref=foxwizard.com): — > “Where once capitalist democracy argued its worth against the legitimate failures of the communist projects, now neoliberalism acts as an ideological superpower. Its mission: to make capitalism appear not just unchallenged but unchallengeable, as though it were the only possible system.**It does this at the expense of acknowledging reforms that actually make the system sustainable.**Any questioning, any poking at the limits, is met with sustained scoffing or resigned shrugs from the cultured classes.” (Andrew Dana Hudson) Whilst it can sometimes be helpful to acknowledge the egregore-like ‘superpower’ qualities at play, let’s remember: ‘neoliberalism’ is an emergent system, born of the myriad interactions of the complex adaptive systems we live within and are a part of. No one ‘designed’ neoliberalism. It wasn’t ‘planned’ or cooked up by supervillains in a volcano lair — it is a state of affairs that has ‘emerged’ via collective complacency and complicity. Thus there are no ‘bad guys’ for us to rattle our sabres at. Sure, there are the 1% and the incumbents who benefit from system as it is. I am probably one such; you too, maybe. But hunting for ‘individuals’ to ‘blame’ belies the fact that our current state of affairs is an emergent property, borne of countless interactions. When faced with such entangled complexity, what is one to do? ## How on Earth do we ‘change the world’? Hoho: we don’t. Or well; we do — but very much in the manner of *tweaking*. Painstakingly small, collective tweaking. We align our dispositions toward the attitudes, interpretations and behaviours most conducive to a flourishing world more curious and kind. Put simply: we move quietly and plant things. —*fw* ### 🧙🏻‍♂️🎭 Warlocks at work URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/warlocks-at-work/ Last updated: 2024-03-05T07:37:23.000Z The other day I received a text message from a friend. It went something like this: ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2023/08/image-17.png) Thankfully I have a good sense the disposition from whence this request was coming from (good heart; sound mind; complexity affinity, etc). But it also had me realise that gosh, right now, many folk are probably turning to mindfulness (and ‘resilience’) training as a means to ‘cope’ with the stress associated with the increased workload brought about by this pandemic. Often, this takes the form of a **palliative** kind of care—something to reduce the pain, without necessarily addressing the cause. > **But the issue is *not* that people need mindfulness to cope with overwhelming workloads. The issue is overwhelming workloads.** And we can do something about this. {*Actually it’s both/and—mindfulness is a vital sensibility; a gateway to insight. But stay with me: I need to effectively ‘dismiss’ mindfulness temporarily, so that we might cast our attention to that which is so easily overlooked. Fret not, I shall return in synthesis come the end.*} ### A question of ethos Overwhelming workloads are an emergent phenomena of the neoliberal/late-capitalist/techno-optimised **ethos** of this hyperconnected world we live and work within. It’s all-consuming—there’s always more that can seemingly be done (and thus, nothing is ever ‘enough’). The boundaries between work-life and home-life (and of privacy itself) have long been eroded by the internet—and now, thanks to our pandemic, they’ve all but disappeared. This question of ethos is important, for just as our current collective work ethos is consuming our lives, so too is it consuming the host—our planet, and the vibrant living systems we are a part of. To quote from [The Chrysalis](https://longsworde.wordpress.com/2020/09/10/the-sickness-of-gaia/?ref=foxwizard.com): > This is the first truth about our times we must affirm—Gaia is sick. The planet is very, very sick. > > In any diagnosis, we look for the causes—the aetiology of the disease, malaise, or malady. The generally accepted diagnosis is that the disease is anthropogenic—that the human ethos and attitude towards the Earth and Nature is pathogenic. As Heraclitus put it, “ethos is fate”, and we are seeing today that our contemporary *ethos* is fatal, nihilistic, destructive, and *thanatic*. > > This is the second truth of our situation. And if we were to step outside our narcissistic self-interested bubbles of delusion and self-deception we would see that it is so. > > The human is not the pathogen. It is the ethos or general attitude that is the pathogenic factor. This is fortunate because it can be rectified. An *ethos* is mutable, convertible, changeable, transformable. Were it not so, there would be no possibility of an authentic “*metanoia*” or “new mind”, which is the primary theme ofThe Chrysalis—the urgent need for a new *ethos*, a new *metanoia*—one grounded in the principles of health and healing (ie, “integral”). Aside: I’m not sure if it’s a case of *a* new ethos but rather a *renewal* of the many stories and myths we already have at play. (Which, to be fair, is what the author does—as with the many authors tending to the kindling of a brighter future, amidst the growing pallor of our inevitable collapse). The bard Dr Martin Shaw writes of this in his essay [*Small Gods*](https://drmartinshaw.com/essays/?ref=foxwizard.com)*:* > We hear it everywhere these days. Time for a new story. Some enthusiastic sweep of narrative that becomes, overnight, the myth of our times. A container for all this ecological trouble, this peak-oil business, this malaise of numbness that seems to shroud even the most privileged. A new story. Just the one. That simple. Painless. Everything solved. Lovely and neat. > > So, here’s my first moment of rashness: I suggest the stories we need turned up, right on time, about five thousand years ago. But they’re not simple, neat or painless. This mantric urge for a new story is actually the tourniquet for a less articulated desire: to behold the Earth-actually-speaking-through-words again, something far more potent than a shiny, never contemplated agenda. As things stand, I don’t believe we will get a story worth hearing until we witness a culture broken open by its own consequence. I suspect we are witnessing this breaking, and have been for some time. (Afflicted with naïve optimism? [Give this podcast a listen](https://www.jimruttshow.com/daniel-schmachtenberger/?ref=foxwizard.com).) So! How might we bring about a shift in this collective **ethos** that’s currently consuming its host? Hoho… I don’t know. But! I have some tentative notions to share, that might enrich your perspective a little. At least: in the domains of work. ### Ethos as affliction As you know, I spend most of my time flâneuring in the noösphere; oft simply gliding upon the notional currents with [*The Cleverness*](https://www.cleverness.com/skyship?ref=foxwizard.com) (our zephyrous wizardwood solarpunk skyship), to see what might emerge. Occasionally I dock in Enterprise Land, responding to the Fox Signal (actually more like a sigil), to see what magic/mischief I might weave with fellow agents therein. What often strikes me is the *commonalities* that exist across many of the senior leadership teams I work with. Generally speaking: - **Everyone is busy.** Thanks to redundancies and shrinking budgets, we are taking on more roles and responsibilities, without necessarily having the compensation or support they might have once had. ‘Time to think’ at work is now a distant dream. Further, this busyness leads to working longer (though not necessarily more effective) hours. This, in turn, diminishes the restorative and regenerative aspects of life (sleep, play), which translates to lower psychophysiological state—which then translates into grumpier moods, lower trust, and less bandwidth for complexity or nuance. Generally, relentless busyness makes us more short-tempered, selfish and short-sighted. - **Everything is a priority.** Which, of course, is a very unhelpful frame. Our optics have become [‘orthographic’ (as Robin Sloan describes)](https://www.robinsloan.com/notes/orthographic/?ref=foxwizard.com)—we’ve lost our sense of *perspective* between what makes for meaningful progress, and that which could be considered as a delusion of progress. In some organisations, the signalling of *any* kind of progress (meaningful or not) is a more effective career advancement strategy than actually doing the work that matters. (This often being the quiet, subtle, non-linear and complex work that brings us closer to genuine value and relevance.) - **Everything feels uncertain**, ambiguous and subject to change. And of course: almost everything *is* uncertain, ambiguous and subject to change. But what this translates to (in a low-state culture) is a kind of strategic ‘withholding’ of resources. We all have a finite amount of time, energy and attention available to us each day—it makes sense that we invest this into the things that provide the richest sense of progress. And yet, the activities that provide the richest sense of progress are often ‘default’ busywork and micromanagement. As they say, ‘what gets measured is what gets done’—which is why the more important things rarely get done. Why bother, if there’s nothing obvious to show for it? - **Everything is political**. There’s always power at play, and hence: there are always politics (how power and status flows). There’s no escaping this—power and status dynamics are enthused in every facet of life. In healthier teams, issues are surfaced early and worked through in a generative manner (thanks to a high degree of openness, psychological safety and trust). In this way, it’s like a generative dance. But in low-state enterprise cultures, such issues are buried deep and left to fester. If they are ever dealt with, they are done so in a manner that is passive and pernicious. Insidious and indirect. Bad vibes. - **Everything is geared toward ‘more’.** Bigger, newer, faster, more-er—we love that, and the game is rigged for enterprises to pursue such. Most enterprise folks have been *talking* ‘transformation’ for some time—but always in the context of adding ‘more’ things to do. Doing more with less. Seeking new efficiencies; optimising our tech to win the race to oblivion; a productive race to the bottom. *And yet* transformation is the alchemy of creativity and destruction. Perhaps now—finally—we might consider that which we might begin to destroy/decompose? Hoho, well. That’s what I tend to notice in aggregate. The thing is, almost every individual human who works within an enterprise is actually quite lovely. Reasonable, warm hearted and caring. Chat with them outside of the context of ‘work’ (if such a thing exists) and you’ll often find that we are each flawed, fragile and insecure beings at heart; each of us seeking—in our own way—some sort of betterment in ourselves and the world. **So why do such aberrant and abhorrent behaviours manifest in the collective?** [Rivalrous dynamics are at the heart of it](https://medium.com/meta-metta/12-design-constrains-of-a-game-b-a92ae243222?ref=foxwizard.com), to be sure. (Hence why I find the notional directionality of [game \~b](https://medium.com/@memetic007/fifth-attractor-6d1a54fcda2e?ref=foxwizard.com) so fascinating). But such matters aside, I would like to bring another ‘way of seeing’ to this challenge. Something that might be difficult to perceive from within Enterprise Land (unless you have the disposition of a sleeper agent ‘poet’). To paraphrase the venerable James P. Carse: > *“… poets do not ‘fit’ into society \[or an enterprise culture\], not because a place is denied to them but because they do not take their ‘places’ seriously. They openly see its roles as theatrical, its styles as poses, its clothing costumes, its rules conventional, its crises arranged, its conflicts performed, and its metaphysics ideological.”* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2023/08/image-18.png) ### Enterprise as egregore Collective thoughts and motivations give rise to an [egregore](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egregore?ref=foxwizard.com)—a non-physical intersubjective ‘thoughtform’. An ‘Enterprise Egregore’ (EE) or ‘demigod’ is thus shaped by our thoughts, and rarefied through our symbols, rituals and deeds. It emerges into a pantheon of egregore-demi-gods, and has a direct influence on the way we think and act. Imagine; a noöspheric entity that exerts influence over the motivations and deeds of the cultures that manifest it (and vice-versa). (I am speaking in metaphor here not because I believe this is ‘true’, but rather that this perspective might be *useful.* Aaron Z Lewis has written similarly of such in his phenomenal essay [*Metaphors We Believe By*](https://aaronzlewis.com/blog/2019/07/25/metaphors-we-believe-by/?ref=foxwizard.com)). The enterprise itself becomes a collection of formalised [myths and ceremonies](https://www.jstor.org/stable/2778293?ref=foxwizard.com), and an EE is shaped and bolstered by shared belief. Rituals thus emerge to support, feed and protect the EE. Brands are made of them—and thus we wear the ‘symbols’ of EEs on our shirts and our satchels (even willing to go to battle against those who sprout the branding of other rival EEs). Rites of recruitment and advancement are enacted, conferences make for congregations, and sacrifices are made upon the alter of ‘success’. Thus, if an egregore is borne of a collective amidst the context of our prevailing neoliberal/late-capitalist ethos… what do you imagine such a demigod wants? **It wants to grow. To gather power.** To dominate the other demigod entities. It wants to ‘win’—at the expense of all. To be the one, and only. Enduring, like [Baldur’s body](https://bayoakomolafe.net/baldurs-body/?ref=foxwizard.com). Deathless; undying—and thus never truly ‘alive’. But such demigods need worshippers willing to sacrifice their life energies. In contemporary role-playing game mythology (which, itself is the bastardised bricolage-synthesis of many preexisting myths), we’d call such folk ‘[warlocks](https://www.dndbeyond.com/classes/warlock?ref=foxwizard.com)’. ### Warlocks at work A ‘warlock’ (in the context of this musing) is someone who has—in some way, beknownst or not—made a compact with the emergent egregore of their enterprise. Some EEs are benevolent powers. Many: indifferent. Some are altogether more maleficent. By sacrificing their time, life energy—and even humanity—a warlock can receive ‘boons’ from their patron power. In an Enterprise in this ethos such boons can look like: status, influence, control, or cash-bonuses (aka: ‘reward and recognition’). Some folks sacrifice much for very little reward or recognition—there’s an almost soup-like malaise amongst some of my friends deep in Enterprise Land right now. It pains me to watch them sacrifice their evenings, their weekends, their sleep, their health and their relationships to feed the EE—only to be met with passive bullying, more work and even more politicking. I try to woo them into the verdant mythical fields of the solarpunk game\~b lands—but it’s bloody hard to make the [transition](https://medium.com/@memetic007/a-journey-to-gameb-4fb13772bcf3?ref=foxwizard.com). And our prevailing neoliberal/late-capitalist ethos coupled with the genuine anxieties of our times keep them caged in a weird stasis of perpetual sacrifice. (I literally have a friend right now who is experiencing crippling migraines from a lack of sleep due to work pressures from a fragile boss who exhibits bullying and racist behaviours in a system that rewards and reinforces such. I also have a handful of friends who find themselves crying at work at some stage most weeks. It’s harrowing to know this.). I am not sure what sacrifices are made at the upper echelons, and how some folks are able to make their way to positions of power and influence relatively unscathed. Lady *Fortuna* might have something to do with this, or the three sisters. And maybe a touch of sociopathy, for some. So too: privilege, circumstance, maleness, whiteness, ableness, straightness, cisness, and so on. No doubt. Still: it is what it is—and it usually takes extreme burnout or some sort of deep existential epiphany for the EE’s compact to be broken. **But the EE does not want that!** It does not want you to think. And so instead we witness: The [Rise](https://newrepublic.com/article/143004/rise-thought-leader-how-superrich-funded-new-class-intellectual?ref=foxwizard.com) (and [Triumph](https://www.chronicle.com/article/triumph-of-the-thought-leader/?cid=gen%5Fsign%5Fin&cid2=gen%5Flogin%5Frefresh&ref=foxwizard.com)) of ‘Thought Leadership’. ### A Mindful Distraction Any self-respecting EE doesn’t want its supply of life-energy diminished—it needs a steady stream of **ongoing sacrifice** to feed its growth. Some of the apex warlocks know this, which is why—when people are faced with overwork—they turn to [*The Ideas Industry*](https://www.amazon.com/Ideas-Industry-Pessimists-Transforming-Marketplace/dp/0190906286/ref=tmm%5Fpap%5Fswatch%5F0?%5Fencoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=&ref=foxwizard.com) for ‘answers’ (distraction). And lo!—the Ideas Industry provides. oft-times putting the onus right back upon *the individual* to somehow cope better. This has the effect of taking our collective attention away from the complexity of the systems itself. And thus we endlessly here recurring themes of ‘passion’, ‘resilience’, and ‘grit’—means to make us work more tirelessly in service to the EE. I could talk of this in great detail—but [this article does most of the heavy lifting](https://newrepublic.com/article/143004/rise-thought-leader-how-superrich-funded-new-class-intellectual?ref=foxwizard.com). Chiefly, there exists a \~somewhat helpful distinction between the **public intellectuals** borne of academia, and the **thought leaders** borne of the market. > “Both Public Intellectuals and Thought Leaders engage in acts of intellectual creation, but their style and purpose are different. To adopt the language of Isaiah Berlin, Public Intellectuals are foxes who know many things, while Thought Leaders are hedgehogs who know one big thing. The former are skeptics, the latter are true believers. A Public Intellectual will tell you everything that is wrong with everyone else’s ideas. A Thought Leader will tell you everything that is right about his or her own idea.” ([source](https://www.chronicle.com/article/triumph-of-the-thought-leader/?cid=gen%5Fsign%5Fin&cid2=gen%5Flogin%5Frefresh&ref=foxwizard.com)) I’ve frolicked in both worlds. But since writing [*How to Lead a Quest*](http://drjasonfox.com/books?ref=foxwizard.com) I have become increasingly plagued by the notion of ‘meaningful progress’. The quest for meaningful progress—‘that which brings us closer to future relevance’—was a core thesis of the book. But when considered in the context of a world wrought with ecological devastation, systemic inequality, and a pervasive sense of alienation and disconnect… it becomes a little more pressing. We’re on a disastrous path—ergo: ‘meaningful progress’ does not necessarily mean helping the Enterprise Egregores by distracting their people into more sacrifice. But it does, potentially, mean helping the people flourish and thrive from within. **Flourish and thrive to do what?** To better [coordinate at higher levels of complexity](https://medium.com/@drjasonfox/does-this-help-us-coordinate-at-higher-levels-of-complexity-afb85ee4e631?ref=foxwizard.com), maybe. To perhaps become [a deliberately developmental organisation](https://orghacking.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/thedeliberatelydevelopmentalorganization.pdf?ref=foxwizard.com). Or possibly: to use the organisational powers of ‘business’ to co-create a world more curious and kind. But to do this, I would suggest that fellow public intellectuals and [rogue scholars](http://www.roguecom.com/roguescholar/manifesto.html?ref=foxwizard.com)—those of intellectual honesty to whom have some affinity for complexity—might consider **adopting some of the aesthetics of ‘Thought Leadership’.** Yes, really! Irksome, I know. And yet smug [game denial](https://metamoderna.org/game-denial/?ref=foxwizard.com) from the sidelines isn’t helping anyone. And throwing stones doesn’t feel nice either. Just as Yancey Strickler warns (of people leaving the mainstream open web) in [The Dark Forest Theory of the Internet](https://onezero.medium.com/the-dark-forest-theory-of-the-internet-7dc3e68a7cb1?ref=foxwizard.com):— > “Should a significant percentage of the population abandon these spaces, that will leave nearly as many eyeballs for those who are left to influence, and limit the influence of those who departed on the larger world they still live in.” —so too the same might be true of public intellectuals who abandon Enterprise Land. To quote again from David Session’s article on Daniel W. Drezner’s work, here’s a snapshot of the landscape: > …today’s thought leaders all share a core worldview: that extreme wealth and the channels by which it was obtained are not only legitimate but *heroic*.\* This is why the Ideas Industry, as Drezner effectively shows, favors the thought leader over the more critical, skeptical public intellectual: Academics tend “to dismiss the ‘Great Man’ theory of events.” If the marketplace of ideas is flooded with hucksters evangelizing the next big thing and the importance of billionaires for “making the world a better place,” it is because that’s what billionaires want to hear. > > \* I’ve mentioned why ‘[this is not a time for heroes](https://www.drjasonfox.com/blog/future-of-speaking?ref=foxwizard.com)’ in a previous musing. This is all largely synonymous with the very spicy book [*Winners Take All*](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/539747/winners-take-all-by-anand-giridharadas/?ref=foxwizard.com)and [*The Death of Expertise*](https://theconversation.com/book-review-the-death-of-expertise-76462?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* And many more besides. ### Overtly Sneaky I sense at least three main ways in which complexity thinkers and philosopher-poets can work our magic. 1. We can throw stones at Enterprise Land (and the EEs it spawns) from the outside. I fall into this habit far too often, and I don’t like who I am when I do. This is the path of destruction, and sometimes it’s necessary. 2. We can create new alternatives—building a new village by the river (as Nilofer Merchant [describes](https://medium.com/@nilofer/the-case-for-onlyness-7242401cbafa?ref=foxwizard.com)). This is the path of creation, and it’s vital. 3. Or we can do both—sneaking sensibilities from the village into Enterprise Land; changing the shape of things from within. This is the path of transformation. I attempted to explain this odd synthesis of public intellectual and thought leader in [my recent visit to The Stoa](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOlv8mb9-Rs&ref=foxwizard.com). Don’t get me wrong: I’ve abandoned the prevailing ethos of Enterprise Land—but not the people within. We humans are attracted to the shiny, the salient, the new—and this makes for the perfect disguise to smuggle in timeless sensibilities that subvert the neoliberal/late-capitalist/techno-optimised ethos at play. Of course, people may deride your efforts. But so be it. If you are *artful* enough—and if your provocations are relevant and apt—you’ll live to dance another day. Or you’ll learn. There’s a delicate juxtaposition at play here—a metamodern synthesis of sincerity and irony. I don’t know that I did very well at articulating it this time (I was so nervous to visit The Stoa—I felt so exposed: I share such an affinity with many gathered here). But when the Q&A dance begun (at [\~13 minutes in](https://youtu.be/VOlv8mb9-Rs?t=780&ref=foxwizard.com)), the trickster in me awakened. (In particular, I loved the question of ‘**the difference between sneakiness and instrumentalism**’ at [\~47 minutes](https://youtu.be/VOlv8mb9-Rs?t=2807&ref=foxwizard.com) in). Anyhoo, the point is: to work your magic in Enterprise Land—to liberate the many souls from the clutches of a maleficent egregore—sometimes, we have to *sneak* our way in (overtly, transparently, honestly and in plain sight). **Or maybe this is all just one big narrative I have concocted to help me sleep at night.** Who knows! ### The double disenchantment Once on the inside, I often find that one of my first tasks is that of **disenchantment.** Folks are often already disenchanted anyway—so to disenchant a state of disenchantment is to bring about the conditions for new enchantment. But what are we disenchanting, exactly? Why: *the egregious Enterprise Egregore itself.* And how do we do this? Hohoho well: that’s a musing for another time. Transmuting an EE from within is a complex and delicate art—highly contextual; and something we do together. But at the heart of it all: we begin by restoring ‘trust’ amongst teams. We elevate psychophysiological state. We eliminate (or at least mitigate) the activities that could be considered a delusion of progress—and then we treat that liberated time as sacred. We begin to push back on the ridiculous norms that pervade most of enterprise life. And then we question the systems themselves, and ask ourselves how we might coordinate our efforts better. But mostly, it starts with fostering a healthy and generative team dynamic amongst leaders. We rekindle the capacity to think, create, collaborate and learn, and cultivate renewed sense of enchantment at work. How do we do this? Well, hoho: **mindfulness** probably plays a part. Or at least, the topic of mindfulness is salient and popular enough to allow us to smuggle many such sensibilities in. ƪ(˘⌣˘)ʃ And then, once equanimity is restored—once teams are liberated from the grip of their EE—we quest for ‘meaningful progress’. Whatever that might be. (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ\*:･ﾟ✧ ### 🍂 The foomo is real (also: metamodernism) URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/foomo/ Last updated: 2024-10-07T06:04:40.000Z While I often enjoy missing out, I fear for others who might. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### 🍂 Navigate the internet like a wizard URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/internet-wizard/ Last updated: 2026-05-01T09:15:57.000Z Note! This symbol 🍂 denotes that you are reading An Olde Musing, from the before times. I’ve resurrected it here because it may still hold some merit—but beware; my thinking will have likely progressed since originally posting this. There may also be some links that no longer work. Enjoy. 🧡 In my last musing shared my thoughts on ‘personal branding’ with you—so that I could promote the wisdom of ‘character development’ as a better alternative. In this museletter, I’d like for you to ponder the following question: ## What are you subsuming? It’s… a really important question. *Particularly* for those of us who are at least curious about how we might (intentionally) (co-)develop as persons and leaders.\* \* *\* And collectively: as cultures and societies. And beyond.* I choose the word ‘subsume’ intentionally. You’re probably familiar with the notions of ‘an information feed’ and ‘content consumption’. The former refers to the streams of input you partially-intentionally establish to keep you ‘informed’. This includes the news you watch/read/listen to, the sites you routinely visit, and the folks you connect with on social media (along with the biases built into such). James Clear puts it rather succinctly— > “Your actions are a consequence of your thoughts. Your thoughts are a consequence of what you consume. And in the modern age, what you consume is largely a consequence of how you select and refine your social media feed. Choose better inputs. Get better outputs.” —though perhaps not as astutely as a wizard-philosopher like thyself might.\* \* *I also have several other quibbles with the tweet—the misuse of ‘modern age’; the lack of hermetic sensibility; and so on—but I shall put these aside for I concur with the main thrust.* To *consume* something implies its destruction: once something is consumed, it is no longer exists as a seperate entity. But ideas (notions, ideologies, *meanings*) however, aren’t ever truly ‘destroyed’\*—they remain within our greater noösphere. Or rather: they *grow*—like a virus; a [meme](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme?ref=foxwizard.com)—the more that we are exposed to them. In this way, it is more accurate to say that we *subsume* information. \* *\* Though it may be fair to say that ideas can disappear or transmute; and that they are subject to ‘memetic drift’.* Thus: the information/ideas/notions we subsume literally in*forms* who we are. Or, in other words: ‘who’ we are is very much shaped by what we have subsumed into our character. ## Why am I bringing this to your attention? Because The Industrial Age is dead,\* and our Information Age° is at dusk. Now, as we stand alone-together in the growing dark, a new Age emerges. How we navigate the coming darkness depends very much on the illumination we cultivate. We can no longer afford to play naïve. \* *Though industrial thinking (seeing the world as complicated and linear as distinct from complex and non-linear) still dominates much of leadership folklore today.* *° And I never fully liked the term ‘information’, anyway. The Apollonian element I understand—but it has otherwise become so cold and clinical. ‘Information is the resolution of uncertainty’—bah. Perhaps this is why Dionysian dispositions seem to be making a Return into our collective realities? Information is always open to interpretation—it’s the fodder for our meaning-making. But now, the very foundations of shared knowledge (scientific research) are being seemingly eroded away. (Some) people are losing faith in science—but not in the form of meta-analysis or post-rational sensibilities, but rather in the form of regression into memetic tribalism..* I write this at a time in which I find myself allured by the pull of social media once again. The sirens call to me. ## **I’ve been lurking on Twitter, again** Not really contributing much—other than a few retweets. But I have been *subsuming* information and various flavours of ‘meaningness’. It’s a riot—a torrent of (mis)information. I love it for the very many perspectives it exposes me to (so many open tabs). I loathe it for the way it so effectively snags and magnetises my attention,\* and how it attempts to fan the flames of outrage within me. \* *Even though I am conceptually aware of the many dark patterns at play.* Outrage is, of course, one of the cheapest and easiest ways to cultivate continued engagement on the platform. We become *invested* in such—unless we can somehow maintain a sardonic distance. Or to just not use the cursed things at all. And yet: what does that leave us with? ### **It leaves us with books,long-form, slow media and real-life learning experiences.** These are like organic whole-foods for the mind. The nourishing, slow cooked meals—where only the highest quality ingredients are used. And, oh: the *care* that goes into the making. No artificial colours or flavours here. No sugar-high rushes to have you come crashing down and addicted. Just the alchemy of quality, time and care—with an attention to detail and nuance. A total mismatch for today’s hyperconnected adherents to the cult of productivity; but something worth *rekindling* nonetheless. ### **The question is: how do we *find* such worthy meals amidst the junk food of our information feed?** Because social media—as a concept—isn’t bad. It’s just that their current forms (and the form of the internet at large) isn’t in the best shape right now. Jaron Lanier—author of [*Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now*](http://www.jaronlanier.com/tenarguments.html?ref=foxwizard.com)*—*likens it to lead-based paint. We didn’t stop making or using paint—we just found ways of making and using paint that was less harmful. It may take some time for less harmful forms of social media to emerge (though there are glimmers of hope, as you’ll see below). In the meantime, it requires that we become more *savvy* navigators of the internet. For reasons of brevity and amusement, I present the following thoughts to you as a ‘list of three tips’. ## How to Navigate The Internet like a Wizard I share this with you in the hopes that the leaders of tomorrow might be more curious, empathetic, worldly, considered and kind—virtues that do not come from the blind subsumption of content. #### 1\. See yourself as a Scout Whilst all your colleagues subsume information via ad-sponsored mainstream media (what with all its turbidity and faecal contamination)—*you* are smart enough to look for the *sources* of insight. The wellsprings of fresher and less contaminated thought. But to find such means you need to enter the Big Wide World—away from the safety of your Dark Forest. And so thus: you must tread quietly. You must resist the temptations to get drawn into argument, to add fuel to the many raging fires; to get swept in.\* \* *For you know: this is not the time or place. You are an unarmed and unarmoured scout.* Lightly, deftly—you *lurk.* And sometimes: you find and discover new treasure troves of knowledge. Serendipitous reads that exist from outside your immediate filter bubble (thanks to your cultivation of connections beyond your immediate tribe). These you pocket, for you know that the more disparate and diverse your sources of insight—*the more perspectives you are able to assimilate and subsume\**—the wiser you grow, and the better equipped you are to navigate these turbulent times. \* *Try to integrate a spectrum of perspectives. Ask yourself: are you drawing insight from minds who embody different genders, orientations, races, cultures and world views to you?* Return to base. Receive +2 curiosity and +1 empathy. #### 2\. Treat The Internet as The Warp In the canon and lore of the various science fiction multiverses (and heck: perhaps our own), ‘[hyperspace](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperspace?ref=foxwizard.com)’ exists to explain *“that unimagineable region that was neither space nor time, matter nor energy, something nor nothing, one could traverse the length of the Galaxy in the interval between two neighbouring instants of time”* (to quote Isaac Asimov). One particular flavour of hyperspace takes the form of The Immaterium, or: [The Warp](https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Immaterium?ref=foxwizard.com). Without getting too embroiled in established fictions, I suggest it is useful to think of the internet as The Warp. A means of accessing a dark world of truth and lies. Access to a kind of ‘magic’ that brings its own dangers and distortions. Knowledge is power, of course. But daemons dwell in this domain. Thus you need to keep your wits about you,\* and ensure you have your wards in place.° The ideas you encounter here haven’t necessarily been cleansed and sanctified via peer review. They’re rough, raw and riddled with bias. \* *In this instance, ‘wit’ refers to associative knowledge—the more disparate and diverse, the better. In this way, we keep in mind that there are always multiple points of truth—so that we don’t become ensnared in any singular point of truth (no matter how emotionally compelling it may seem).* *° Think of wards as pentagram chalk circles made to trap and hold daemons in place, only in this sense it might mean using a browser like Brave and a search engine like Duck Duck Go (I highly recommend both, btw) to keep the daemons at bay.* Luckily, as a Wizard I have had a good deal of training, and can detect and evade the dark patterns and fallacies of The Warp better than most. A doctorate of philosophy helps one learn how to critically assess information and knowledge—to free oneself from the shackles of certainty and conviction, to embrace a kind of epistemological humility. Though of course—it may be that a daemon has ensnared me *via this very hubris.* Who knows? In any event: don’t lose yourself in The Warp. Set a timer, and avoid scroll-holes (and other traps). Practice [*Digital Minimalism*](https://www.calnewport.com/books/digital-minimalism/?ref=foxwizard.com). Tread lightly (as a scout), pocket the treasures you find—and then read them at depth, *offline.* Invest more time in Reality; connect and converse with real people, from all walks of life. Treat all of the gifts from The Warp as suspect—literally warped distortions of partial-truths. (And beware its intrusion into all facets of your life, too. The daemons want your data. [*The Trust Manifesto*](https://wepresent.wetransfer.com/story/the-trust-manifesto/?ref=foxwizard.com)*—*a new book I just picked up—might offer some insight as to how to better protect yourself from such). ### 3\. Seek Beacons to Light Your Way I recently finished Neal Stephenson’s [*Fall; Or Dodge In Hell*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall;%5For,%5FDodge%5Fin%5FHell?ref=foxwizard.com)(wherein the internet is referred to as The Miasma)*.* Hefty, but good. In this near-future world, those with means hire personal ‘editors’ whose sole job is to filter incoming and outgoing information. The inputs that shape who you are (and how you think—what you subsume) and the outputs (what data you leak, and thus: how others might perceive you). Those who can’t afford the privilege are thus more likely to have unfiltered exposure to *“flumes… of porn, propaganda and death threats, 99.9 percent of which were algorithmically generated.”* But that’s the near future! Still (a few) *years* away. In the meantime, the savvy amongst us (myself included) invest in Editors, too. These take the form of Beacons amidst the dark. Our sources of illumination—our beacons—are folks who synthesise and make meaning from the otherwise overwhelming complexity of our times. It used to be non-commercial news outlets that we’d trust to do this—now, we turn to a range of individual journalists, writers and thinkers, so that we might subsume what they create/curate/aggregate/propagate/translate for us. I have many such beacons I turn to\*—and I may serve as a beacon to others, as we stumble our way through the dark. It is impossible to be across everything, and thus we need to rely on folk to synthesise on our behalf—to place our tentative-partial-trust in them, so that we may synthesise on behalf of others. \* *Though some have revealed themselves to be Will-o’-the-wisps. ‘Tis no matter though, for we cultivate a constellation of perspectives to guide our way (rather than rely upon a single star)..* Paid or donator-supported media is another source. It’s content *you* support the creation of (rather than advertisers). The contract is clear: you invest in quality content, the same way you might invest in a good book or a quality meal. Our world has become so flooded with meaning that it is increasingly difficult to make *sense* of things. We thus seek quieter haven and refuge—away from the distortions and noise. --- And… that’s just the beginnings of a guide to **Navigating the Internet like a Wizard.** There’s more savviness required of us, of course. *Especially* for those of us who seek to ‘lead’ within this entangled mess. I wanted to talk of ontological rejection—the means in which we dismiss that which does not fit within our world view. But that’s a hefty topic—[read meaningness instead](https://meaningness.com/eggplant/remodeling?ref=foxwizard.com). I also wanted to talk of the virtues of subsuming more \[science-\] fiction \[books\] into your character, too. I suspect this to be [the most important genre](https://www.wired.com/2018/09/geeks-guide-yuval-noah-harari/?ref=foxwizard.com). But hey: *any* work of fiction allows us to subsume a good simulacrum of perspective. To gain a proxy for insight into the inner worlds of others. Whilst you’re at it—broaden your subsumption to include works of art, poetry, literature and fiction. Get yourself deeply *lost* in a good book or three—then find yourself again; a slightly newer person. And then go get lost in the wilderness (somewhat safely). Have somatic experiences. Play music; subsume it. Live, laugh, love, haha no I’m joking. (Or am I?) (I’m not). We are what we subsume; and what we subsume shapes what we presume. *fin* ## Worthy Reads from The Interwebs And now, dear fellow traveller—some worthy reads I have pocketed and subsumed. *Note:* to say I have subsumed these does not necessarily mean that I agree wholeheartedly with them, or that I somehow *am* them. Nor is it to say that I even fully grasp them, yet. But—from what I’ve read and sifted through these past two weeks—I think you, too, might benefit from the following… --- **A recycled note from a previous musing, in which I highlight an excerpt from** [***Fall; Or Dodge In Hell***](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall;%5For,%5FDodge%5Fin%5FHell?ref=foxwizard.com)***.*** I thought it might be apt to share it again here. This is a complex book that flirts with many near-future themes, including the internet becoming so flooded with fake news, fake people, predatory trolls, demagogues and hyper-tailored content (99% of which is algorithmically generated—it may be senseless but it’ll make sense to you) that trust in shared knowledge and common sanity has all but eroded. There’s one scene where several characters are within what seems to be a camp of neo-religious zealots. One of the characters is about to be drawn into an argument with the camp leader, but their friend reminds them of ‘the Red Card’. > *It was a reference to one of their teachers at Princeton who had gone so far as to print up a wallet card for people to keep in front of them during conversations like this one. One side of the card was solid red, with no words or images, and was meant to be displayed outward as a non-verbal sign that you disagreed and that you weren’t going to be drawn into a fake argument. The other side, facing the user, was a list of little reminders as to what was really going on:* > *1\. Speech is aggression* > *2\. Every utterance has a winner and a loser* > *3\. Curiosity is feigned* > *4\. Lying is performative* > *5\. Stupidity is power.* This is a dark glimpse of what the internet might become. Is becoming. But, thankfully, there are some glimmers of hope… --- **On *The Meaning Crisis* *& The Joker*** Two of my own beacons—a scholar and a monk—share [a conversation via letters](https://letter.wiki/conversation/209?ref=foxwizard.com). Here’s a snippet in relation to *The Joker* (a movie I have not seen). > “…Has the vacancy of the zombie been replaced by the violent absurdity of *The Joker* because of the recent malevolent political appropriation of absurdism in the service of narcissism? Narcissism is the last ditch defence of decadent narrative ontology. It is the idolatry of narrative trying absurdly to become self-causing and self-sufficient because it anxiously knows it has no cosmic warrant. It welcomes an absurd world that makes and normalizes its fundamental absurdity with the violent destruction of intelligibility as long as it remains at the centre. All that remains of meaning cultivation is the addictive and narrowing centring of attention; all that remains of relevance is the primordial relevance to the self without that ever affording any connection to self, to others or to the world. The only agency that remains is the undermining of any claims to agency.” (Also related: [The Shift From Zombie to Joker](https://medium.com/@andrewpgsweeny/the-shift-from-the-zombie-to-joker-474217696231?ref=foxwizard.com)) --- **On *Rationality & Post-Rationality*** A rationalist and a post-rationalist share [a difficult conversation in good faith](https://letter.wiki/conversation/116?ref=foxwizard.com). As someone who regularly dines in the post-rationalist camp, I found this particularly insightful. Not just in the content itself, but in the good nature in which it was explored. Thorny thickets and landmines were deftly avoided, here. > “Before I close this letter I will state my current position on post-rationality as clearly as I can: I think that they are intellectual artists whose art may seem masturbatory if you look at it through a strict lens of utility. Like you said, they produce “ideas that are contrarian or neat but don't actually map the world in any useful way.” I invite you to look at them as artists. If you do, I imagine you’ll start seeing their work as an art form you happen not to enjoy at the moment. At my more speculative, and here is where I think my resonances lay, I think the post-rationalist skill-set of generating interestingness for its own sake is a skill-set that can be repurposed towards solving our greatest challenges.” --- **The Memetic Tribes Of Culture War 2.0** Interestingly, here’s [an article](https://medium.com/s/world-wide-wtf/memetic-tribes-and-culture-war-2-0-14705c43f6bb?ref=foxwizard.com) as written by the two folk who shared the rationality and post-rationality letters. This article is *vital* intel for anyone who seeks to navigate the internet without succumbing to ‘outrage porn’ and the nastiness of tribalism. > A new role might be required in the Culture War, that of the Memetic Mediator. This mediator would be a pan-tribalist participant who has the ability to communicate across tribes in a way that seems fair and reasonable to each tribe. They would have the mental agility, empathy, and wisdom needed to shift between a multitude of perspectives. > > Memetic mediators could be called in for memetic battles where both participants prefer peace to continued civil decay, but cannot come to an accord without facilitation. These mediators would require a multitude of tools at their disposal. They would need to be fluent in multiple tribal paradigms and give the impression of fairness. And because each tribe has their own method and claims to truth, Memetic Mediators would have to be skilled at finding any common ground and building from it. > > As we do not have an existing example to point to, we can only speculate that the role will emerge out of necessity in the coming war. They could even emerge as consultants for social media companies. Of course, social media platforms currently profit from our culture wars (“*…a memetic war to determine what the* [*social facts*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social%5Ffact?ref=foxwizard.com) *are at the core of a given society, or alternatively, to determine society’s boundaries of the sacred and the profane. Political arguments have become indistinguishable from moral arguments, and one cannot challenge political positions without implicitly possessing suspect morals.*”) A summary can’t do this one justice. [A must-read](https://medium.com/s/world-wide-wtf/memetic-tribes-and-culture-war-2-0-14705c43f6bb?ref=foxwizard.com). But while we are at it, here’s also [A Hippocratic Oath for the Culture War](https://medium.com/@intellectualexplorersclub/hippocratic-oath-for-the-culture-war-a7a64617c821?ref=foxwizard.com) (something I wish upon all leaders and influencers, myself included). --- **Twitter’s decision to ban political ads is misguided and wrong** While Facebook continues to support blatantly fake news and lies (despite [the wishes of many employees](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/28/technology/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-letter.html?ref=foxwizard.com)), Twitter’s decision to ban political advertising might seem like a breath of fresh air. (Even I was initially by this excited by this, retweeting [this impassioned rant of some fellow](https://twitter.com/profgalloway/status/1189680792835940355?s=20&ref=foxwizard.com).) But: [it’s likely not that simple](https://theoutline.com/post/8171/twitters-ad-ban-is-wrong?ref=foxwizard.com), and such a move will likely favour incumbents. *“Twitter may have just won a nice battle in the press, and Dorsey is going to get to take a victory lap around Zuckerberg for the first time in years, given that Facebook is worth about 25 times as much as Twitter. But that’s all it appears to be. A cynical attempt to cash in on the pain of a corporate rival. Ignore the hype.”* Heck, what to do? [Facebook is an easy no](http://stallman.org/facebook.html?ref=foxwizard.com), and [LinkedIn is a farce](https://twitter.com/CrapOnLinkedIn?ref=foxwizard.com)—but so many intelligent folk I like and admire are on Twitter. Gosh darn: I’m [*still*](https://www.drjasonfox.com/blog/post-social-one?ref=foxwizard.com) grappling with this. Oh well. While we are here: --- **How Trump Reshaped the Presidency in Over 11,000 Tweets** This one is [worth viewing on your desktop](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/02/us/politics/trump-twitter-presidency.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage&ref=foxwizard.com), as the information design is pretty ace. No surprises here, necessarily. But good grist nonetheless. --- **A Flowchart of Philosophical Novels** Not sure what to read next? [This flow chart might help](http://www.openculture.com/2019/10/a-flowchart-of-philosophical-novels.html?ref=foxwizard.com). --- **Astrology in the Age of Uncertainty** The rise of astrology could very much be seen as a symptomatic response to the meaning crisis. It runs the very real risk of encouraging a regression to pre-rational modes of thought, sure. But what an *aesthetic*. The [art](https://www.angelarium.net/zodiac?ref=foxwizard.com) it can inspire! The meaning we can make of things. And thus, I appreciate how [this article](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/10/28/astrology-in-the-age-of-uncertainty?ref=foxwizard.com) highlights the almost post-rational enchantment an ironic-yet-therapeutic rekindling of astrology might bring. Of course, as with everything: treat it all with a hefty pinch of salt. But—if approached with a wry glint (and sans blind belief)—we might rekindle an amusing form of wonder in this world of ours. Or at least: the aesthetic of such. --- I shared this with *The Coterie* last week but it’s worth sharing again: [**Living an Examined Life (The Neo-Generalist Way)**](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFQN6ftn3c8&ref=foxwizard.com)—a TEDx talk with Kenneth Mikkelsen. --- Whew. I swear these museletters are meant to be getting shorter! ### 🍂 Thoughts & Tentative Advice on Personal Branding URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/personal-branding/ Last updated: 2024-10-04T07:50:48.000Z _This post is for subscribers only._ ### 🍂 How to be comfortable speaking to an audience URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/comfortable-speaking/ Last updated: 2024-10-04T07:43:47.000Z A 75-tweet thread worth of insight for you. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### 🍂 A developmental lens for ‘motivation’ URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/developmental-lens-motivation/ Last updated: 2024-10-03T03:43:06.000Z Wherein I share a dangerous draft model with you _This post is for subscribers only._ ### 🍂 Some Worthy Reads URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/worthy-reads-for-you-19-10-09/ Last updated: 2024-08-19T10:53:57.000Z Including a new comic from the dangerlam _This post is for subscribers only._ ### 🍂The New Museletter of Dr Fox URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/the-new-museletter-of-dr-fox/ Last updated: 2024-09-27T01:29:49.000Z Everything is changing, and staying the same. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### 🍂 The Rise of ‘The Imposter Syndrome Humblebrag’ URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/the-rise-of-the-imposter-syndrome/ Last updated: 2024-08-19T11:10:02.000Z Note: this is An Olde Museletter, from a different time and place: some links may no longer work and some ideas may no longer be ‘as true’. Read at your own peril. So I was going to post this in a museletter but it felt a little too crude and harsh. And then I felt myself wanting to write and expand on the topic, to pursue the many tangents that beckon, and to mitigate any risk of being misunderstood as I try, simultaneously, to make a provocative point. But… I decided to just post it here instead, in the safe assumption that you are smart enough to sense my intent here (which is, in a nutshell: *check your privilege, the imposter syndrome is natural and we need it—don’t get rid of it—but also know that other folks probably feel it tenfold more than you, and for unfair reasons so: ease up and lets focus on helping everyone feel more of a sense of belonging*). Here it is, anyhoo. --- The Imposter Syndrome is very popular right now. In many cases it’s a genuine felt-experience of those struggling to internalise a sense of achievement and feel a sense of belonging. But I’ve also noticed a rise in what we might call ‘The Imposter Syndrome Humblebrag’—a phenomena whereby people (often privileged white males in positions of authority and influence) use the claim of *‘I Have Imposter Syndrome Too’* as a means of thinly veiling a monologue of self-congratulatory humble bragging.Such folk are also likely to believe in [the myth of meritocracy](https://aeon.co/ideas/a-belief-in-meritocracy-is-not-only-false-its-bad-for-you?ref=foxwizard.com). Let’s unpack. ### The imposter syndrome is a psychological function. It’s a functioning aspect of our psychology. Popular as it is to talk of ‘getting rid of our imposter syndrome’—we all have it, and we all need it. The imposter syndrome is an evolutionary function—our minds scan our social ecology for potential threats. It can only go by the data it has—the external projections of others. Ergo, because we don’t know the inner-worlds of others, we are left to compare *our* inner world to the preened external worlds of others. This naturally creates a big contrast. Further, the more ‘successful’ you become—the more you rise as a leader—the more likely you’ll be surrounded by talented peers. Your sense of being an imposter is therefore very reasonable, and could be a sign that you are doing well, and that you’re in the right place. Feeling like an imposter helps you to better anticipate, prepare, adapt and survive in complex social ecologies. Personally, my sense of being an imposter ensures I never take things for granted—it keeps me guessing, improving and growing. We all have the imposter syndrome (even if some people don’t have enough of it). But… **Systemic inequality is a societal dysfunction that exaggerates and exacerbates the imposter syndrome** in less-than-helpful ways. For those who come from [intersectional](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersectionality?ref=foxwizard.com) circumstances—say, as a woman of colour, or as a differently-abled person with English as an additional language—the imposter syndrome is often unhealthily real and felt. It *amplifies* the hidden prejudices and biases of society. I’m a huge fan of the generative powers of self-doubt—but this is a different story. This is the story of every day—in many subtle ways—society telling you that you don’t fit or you don’t belong. Thus, if you are in privileged circumstances—maybe don’t make the imposter syndrome part of your story. Or maybe do, sure. I mean: it’s interesting (maybe) and humanising. But we should also know: it’s a bit trite now, and can eclipse some of the many advantages we’ve been lucky enough to enjoy. Instead, focus on using the your privilege as a resource. Do what you can to cultivate *more* of a sense of belonging amongst folks. Even if it means *ceding* credit and power to others. Naturally, this is more paradoxical and complex that ever. We’ll circle back this and go deeper, someday. ### 🍂 Why “leaders” need a blog URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/why-leaders-need-a-blog-no-really/ Last updated: 2024-08-19T11:07:10.000Z Note: this is An Olde Museletter, from a different time and place: some links may no longer work and some ideas may no longer be ‘as true’. Read at your own peril. It seems rather quaint—doesn’t it?—a ‘personal blog’. But as many (or well: a few of us) become wiser to the reality-distortions of the algorithmically-generated content fed to us on social media (and, simply, via our google searches), it’ll be the independent blogs, podcasts and ‘owned’ media that clever folk increasingly turn to. And thus: if you’re a student, an entrepreneur, a manager or executive (or whatever)—a blog becomes one of the surest ways for people to get a sense of who you are and what you are about. > *But I have a LinkedIn account. But I don’t write well. But I’m worried that* \[*insert worry*\]. *But Jason! I know you’re one of those folks who use the word ‘leader’ very generously—but I’m actually a leader. Like: an executive. I barely have time to think—how on Earth am I going to find the time to blog? And why would I bother?* I know, I know. These are all good questions and fair concerns. And yes I do use the term ‘leader’ *very* loosely. But still, I maintain and contend: a personal blog will do you a world of good. Even if you only post once or twice each season. I recommend folks to folks. The folks I recommend folks to will often say things like *“Can you give me a link to where I can learn more a bit more about them?”* to which I often say *“Um, not really but here is their twitter and linkedin accounts?”* In essence, I need to direct people to the distracted mess that is a social media platform, and they either experience the wax-model persona polished and professionally preened for LinkedIn—or they experience the pell-mell hodgepodge of scattered and superficial *not-thine-own* thoughts on the outrage platform that is Twitter. A personal blog, though. That’s a haven. A breadcrumb trail of your own development and growth. A curated cabinet of curiosities accrued through the meandering path you’ve made thus far in this life. An alternative take might be [the ‘/now’ page](https://nownownow.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) (just look at all those fellow players of this infinite game, all up in their roles; adorable). I’m no Blog Expert, by the way. I don’t even like the word ‘blog’. But I *am* an advocate for journalling (and of any practice that encourages reflexivity). Thus I do think the considered curation and presentation of the best distillations of your own proto-synthesis is a good and helpful thing. It part of your own myth-making. But hey—there are no right answers or right ways here. I don’t even know how much I believe in my own stance—I think I just want to be a little provocative, in this instance. To stir up some conversation and thought. And naturally, I have my biases. But—all that aside—do you have a blog? Or a podcast? What’s your stance on it all? ### 🍂 Negative Capability—the antidote to change fatigue URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/negative-capability/ Last updated: 2024-10-04T07:25:21.000Z _This post is for subscribers only._ ### 🥃 Whisky: A Gateway to Mindfulness URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/whisky-mindfulness/ Last updated: 2025-03-14T07:19:23.000Z In this post I use ‘whisky’ as a kind of vague proxy for complexity.It is the whetstone of curiosity. Even if you don’t partake of this golden nectar (and good on you) — you can substitute the ‘concept’ of whisky with anything similarly nuanced. We’re essentially talking about applied curiosity and mindfulness, honed to a sharp edge. Righto, shall we? ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/03/image.png) Sharing in a whisky tasting at with David Vitale, Founder of STARWARD (photo by [Dave Dixon](https://www.therhetoric.com.au/?ref=foxwizard.com)) # How to Drink Whisky (in 12 steps) Relish in the complexity and nuance. ## 1\. Sense your context Is the environment free of unnecessary distraction? A good whisky appreciating environment is relatively quiet, tastefully lit and free from televisions screens showing people doing sports. It is not a busy pub that caters to all types—instead, it’s a haven of warm solace, welcoming of deep friendships and solitude alike. Once you’ve assessed your context, it’s worth tuning in to review your inner world. The ‘state’ in which we find ourselves in (tired? hungry? anxious? rested? flat? content? etc) will influence the meaning we make of any experience. Are you well hydrated? Have some water. How is your breathing? Breathe. What’s on your mind? Let’s clear that, first. ## 2\. Soak in the brand Take a moment to appreciate the actual bottle from whence the whisky pours—it’s here that we can begin to attend to the details of the moment, and begin to attune ourselves appropriately. Does the bottle have a romantic film of dust upon it? What visual branding choices did the distillery opt for? What narrative are they attempting to envelop us in? *“It’s all just some bullshit marketing ploy”,* your clever post-modern friend might say. And they’d be right. But still: there’s a kind of ‘enchantment’ on offer, if you allow yourself to indulge in imagination. In the same way that a movie or a good fiction allows you the opportunity to suspend disbelief and experience new things — so too the marketing ploys of whiskies allow you to temporarily step into a more enchanted world. Here’s a couple of whisky bottles I particularly admire for this. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/03/image-1.png) The exquisite packaging of the Oban 14 year old (photo from [The Whisky Ledger](https://whiskyledger.com/2013/11/12/oban-14-year-old/?ref=foxwizard.com)) The bottle of the Oban 14 year old is flanked in handwritten cursive script, and comes with a sturdy cardboard container flush with an etched illustration of seagulls on a rocky coastal cliff. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/03/image-2.png) The exquisite packaging of the Oban 14 year old (photo from [The Whisky Ledger](https://whiskyledger.com/2013/11/12/oban-14-year-old/?ref=foxwizard.com)) Within seconds this transports me to the times I’ve walked amidst dark rocks buffeted by the ocean. I can almost hear the gulls squawking, and smell the mineral quality of the ocean spray in the air. The cursive script hearkens me back to a time when we would actually *take the time* to write things — slowly, eloquently. And, if I allow myself, I can find myself more inclined to put the phone away, to not fret about the myriad demands of modern life, and to just… settle into the moment. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/03/image-3.png) The STARWARD Solera (I’m not sure who took this photo—please DM for credit) The STARWARD Solera, on the other hand, invites me to consider our place in the wider cosmos. I can marvel at the exquisite gold and copper foil branding for *hours* (they’ve since updated their branding, and it’s equally wondrous). This whisky is a pioneering spirit (hoho) in many ways. Opening a bottle of STARWARD transports me to the kinds of conversations one has very late into the night while camping. The fire has died down and it’s a bit cold but you’re warm inside and the stars are so vivid one can see the milky way, and the conversation turns to contemplate the vast mysteries of our universe, evoking that rare feeling of wonder and awe. Of course, you could ignore all this superfluousness — but *why not* partake? There’s no real loss. ## 3\. Select your vessel Just as one does not appreciate vintage champaign from a polystyrene cup, nor coffee with a straw — one does not appreciate whisky from any old container. Again, this is literally about context. There are [many whisky glasses](https://manofmany.com/lifestyle/drinks/best-whisky-scotch-glasses?ref=foxwizard.com) to choose from (here’s [a good guide](https://www.worldwhiskyday.com/guide-whisky-glasses/?ref=foxwizard.com)). If you appreciate whisky, they are a thing worth exploring and investing in. Tulip-shaped glasses are ideal for nosing — the open bowl to narrowed stem helps to ‘focus’ the aromas. I personally opt for the [Denver & Liely hand-blown whisky glass](https://denverandliely.com/products/whisky-glass-1?ref=foxwizard.com). Designed in Melbourne, this glass combines the heft of a tumbler (and the ability to both swirl and warm the whisky when held with semi-open palm) with the tapering of a snifter (to allow for better nosing). The key here, again, is to notice how context shapes our experience. ## 4\. Clear your palette Just as the wider context of the room you are in, the inner context of your psychophysiological state, and actual context of the bottle and glass that hold the whisky all shape our experience—so too does the context of *what’s going on in your mouth.* If you’ve just brushed your teeth, the residual minty freshness will have an influencing effect. At this stage, you are probably beginning to be reminded about how utterly connected everything is, and how porous our nebulous boundaries are to experience. Thus many factors influence how we experience something—and in turn: what we make it mean. We are, of course, having a likewise effect on the experience and meaning others make, too. In this way we co-create each other, whether we will it or not. Have some dark chocolate, or a black coffee to reset your palette for whisky appreciation. --- We are now ready to pour a measure of whisky. The technical term for this is a ‘dram’, which translates to *just the right amount you feel comfortable with in this moment.* Yes, one could find [a specific measure for a dram](http://www.dramming.com/2012/02/15/how-much-is-a-dram-now-anyway/?ref=foxwizard.com)—but that’s precisely beside the point. Now that we have whisky in our glass, we can have a taste of it yes? Oh hohoho. Heavens no. Not yet. --- ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/03/image-4.png) Photo by [Josh Applegate](https://unsplash.com/@joshapplegate?utm%5Fsource=medium&utm%5Fmedium=referral) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?utm%5Fsource=medium&utm%5Fmedium=referral) ## 5\. Admire the colour Don’t just look at it—*admire* it. The colour of a whisky hints as to where it’s come from, how old it is, and what it *might* taste like. We could get technical here, but I’m still vaguely trying to ‘trojan horse’ a deeper message about how we approach and relate to complexity. Going down the rabbit hole of wood types or cask sizes doesn’t quite help my cause. Now: hold your whisky up to the light and see how it refracts. How might you describe the colour you see? Is it deep gold, pale straw, tawny or more of a burnt umber? Generally speaking: the lighter the colour, the more youthful and spritely the whisky is. The darker: the more mature. Some whiskies were placed into casks before you and I were born. What does this mean? Nothing in particular. But it does beckon us to think about *time itself* being one of the ingredients that make a whisky. Are we consuming time—or is time consuming us? What is time? Who are I?Or rather: who am we? These are the types of questions that awaken to us when we begin to appreciate complexity. ## 6\. Swirl the glass This is partly theatrics and limbering up, but mostly about sensing the viscosity of the whisky and readying it for our nosing. This is where we get to pretend to be a sophisticated adult who knows what they are doing. With a partially open upward palm, lightly swirl your glass so that the whisky coats the sides. Watch closely for how the whisky ‘clings’ to the glass. If the whisky is on the light side it will have a lot of ‘legs’ that run down the sides of the glass. If the whisky is heavier bodied it might show more of an ‘oily’ characteristic, leaving subtle tidal marks (like glassy horizons). ## 7\. Nose it at waist height After admiring the texture of the whisky, continue swirling at waist height. Then, breathing through your nose, see what you might notice. Depending on the type of glass, it may be that you don’t quite detect anything yet. That’s okay—raise it to chest height and continue. Close your eyes and attune to your sense of smell. What can you detect? At this stage, you will likely detect the broad strokes of the olfactory experience—the sweetness, spiciness and/or smokiness. Many people rush headfirst into the nosing, burying their snout deep into the glass to inhale the (harsh) aldehydic ethers. Don’t be that fool. The way you are holding the glass and the time you are taking to swirl it with your palm is helping to ‘warm’ the whisky. This warming helps to release away more of the ethers, and gives your sense of smell time to properly attune. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2025/03/image-5.png) Photo by [John Duncan](https://unsplash.com/@jrduncan11?utm%5Fsource=medium&utm%5Fmedium=referral) on [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/?utm%5Fsource=medium&utm%5Fmedium=referral) ## 8\. Nose at lip height Now we bring the glass to our lips. Not to sip—(not yet!)—but instead: to continue to ‘nose’ the whisky. To breathe in the complexity and nuance. At this stage you want to breathe in with your nose and out with your mouth. Your breaths are deep but not exaggerated. At each inhale you want to ‘snag’ a sense of things—holding the aromatic sample in your sinus cavity whilst exhaling the air itself (removing the whisky glass from your lip as you do breathe out). When holding these aromatic samples, we ask: what are we noticing? There are two main elements to be mindful of. First: the smell itself. Are we picking up woody notes? Winey notes? Grainy, grassy or fruity notes? What, exactly, are we smelling here? It’s impossible to say, of course, for this is a complex and highly subjective experience. But still: we can paint a constellation. We can call out the notes it’s *almost like.* And—just like a dot-to-dot puzzle—we can start to form a picture. Distinction is the key. What is it, and what is it not? *Tease* out the nuance. Coax its secrets—gently, slowly. Say it smells fruity. Well now: what kind of fruity? Are we talking freshly cut citrus or under-ripe apple? Or is it more like raisins or figs? Or maybe we are detecting some tinned pineapple—and yes! We can smell the tin, too. The second thing to be mindful of is *the nostalgia.* The ‘olfactory memory’ in many of us is quite strong. A note detected can transport us back in time—and this is part of the magic of whisky. If you find yourself in good company, part of the joy of a shared experience is in the sharing of what we are noticing—and to hear of what others notice too. This enriches our perspective and experience. When comparing tasting notes, you’ll find that new things ‘awaken’ to you. Speaking of tasting—we are now ready to take our first sip. ## 9\. Just the sip! No quaffs, no gulps—and certainly no shots. We’re tapping into a *slower* kind of experience here. And besides—some whiskies cost north of $30 a dram: we need to make this last. So: savour the experience. Your first sip ought be of a small volume, roughly proportional to the amount of saliva in your mouth. This is to acclimatise mouth to the ‘burn’ of the alcohol. Many miss this step, burn their tongue and throat—and then judge the whisky harshly. First, you want to silently sip the whisky (no need for a dramatic ‘wine tasting’ slurp—an audible sip will flood your mouth with ethers anyway). Once the whisky is in your mouth, cup your tongue and gently nestle the whisky into the roof of your mouth. Hold it there for a while to let the alcohol diffuse whilst breathing for your nose. Do not judge this first sip. Hold it until the burn goes, then swallow. Congratulations: you are now ready to begin to drink your whisky. ## 10\. Drink your whisky Take another sip—only this time do not worry so much about saliva ratios. Just take a sip in a proportion that is comfortable for you. Again: hold it nestled to the roof of your mouth. Once the alcohol ‘burn’ has diminished, you can sort of *roll* it around your tongue for a bit, before letting it slide down your gullet. Your mouth has been closed this whole time and you’ve been breathing through your nose—but now, as you swallow you can play with the way you exhale. Try a slow open mouth exhale, and take note of the ‘finish’. At this stage it is a very good idea to make an attempt to translate the experience into words. Why? To deepen the experience and your own acuity for nuance. Some folks recoil at this step, instead preferring to simply ‘know what they like’—without curiosity or introspection. But it’s a step worth persisting in—for if we struggle to articulate the complex, we resign ourselves to a kind of simplicity that knows no nuance. A world of black and white delineations between what is known and liked, and what is unknown and unliked. Bah! Exercise your curiosity—*hone its edge.* Whisky tasting typically covers three arcs: the nose, the palette and the finish. We have already ventured into the territory of first arc—but why not return to the nose? You may discover new notes, now that you’ve had a taste. Have another sip. Now what are you noticing on the palette? Sweetness? Okay great—what *kind* of sweetness? Honey sweet? Nice—what *kind* of honey sweet? Are we talking dark honey, light honey, or creamed honey? Or is it a more maple kind of sweetness? Or treacle? Or toffee? Burnt toffee? Salted? Burnt butter caramel? Brown sugar? Sticky date pudding? Burnt raisins? And how is the mouthfeel? Is it dry, soft, round, rough, crisp or creamy? Or is it something else entirely? And what of the finish? Does it linger on a note, spreading its warmth through you? Or is it a tad perfunctory and brash? Take more sips in this slow fashion. A healthy dram will give you 3–5 such sips (beyond the first), with each sip offering its own package of insight. ## 11\. Take (poetic) note A good whisky tasting is both honest and artful. *The* *Scotch Malt Whisky Society* provide excellent tasting notes. Here are just a few. > [**Sea, Sand and Soot**](https://www.smws.com.au/product/10-165-sea-sand-and-soot/?ref=foxwizard.com)| Mineralic sea air came laden with the sweet smell of vanilla ice cream cones and cinnamon on seaweed. Coal dust and soot sprinkled down onto a sandy beach as driftwood and the frayed remnants of ship’s rope washed up on the shore. The sweet fragrance of hibiscus flowers drifted into earl grey tea and spicy sandalwood like a lucid dream whilst a whiff of the medicinal delivered tea tree oil and salted blackcurrants. Sticky cherry cola and pink wafer biscuits became balanced by the tartness of cumquats and lime pickle with a suggestion of turmeric and lemongrass. A combination of salty rocks and gravlax returned us to a maritime mood as the finish wrapped our senses with warm butter and pepper. > > [**The Shaman Will See You Now**](https://www.smws.com.au/product/39-174-the-shaman-will-see-you-now/?ref=foxwizard.com)| Sauternes! Exclaimed the panel in unison upon first nosing. This is a total smorgasbord of stewed prunes and figs smothered in ancient petit champagne cognac, old boal madeira, botrytis, herb encrusted game meats, camphor, an ocean of rancio and sultana compote. Water tames things a little but it’s like trying to pin down a lithe and stubborn old wrestler. There’s pine resin, precious hardwoods, exotic spices, graphite oil, minerals, cloves, pencil boxes, old ink wells and ancient balsamico. Neat, in the mouth, there is a slick of soft tannins, blackcurrants, bramble jelly, long-aged herbal liqueurs, walnut wine, more rancio, tar liqueur, waxy lemon rind, menthol tobacco, sage and damp dunnage notes. Water brings pressed wild flowers, cinnamon and a wealth of aromatic teas: chamomile, jasmine, lapsang souchong. Beyond this there’s heather, biltong, aged pinot noir, cured meats, red liquorice and old plum wine. What a ride! In a bourbon hogshead for 26 years before transfer to a fresh Sauternes barrique. > > [**War Seahorse**](https://www.smws.com.au/product/137-2-war-seahorse/?ref=foxwizard.com)| This powerhouse of a dram opens with lemons charring on the BBQ. Beyond there is smoked and peppered mackerel and hot smoked salmon. Enough to induce hunger! There’s also a cognitively jarring briny and ozone-rich quality about it. A whole shellfish platter has been placed before you. Notes of chopped dill, polished metal and some exotic fruits hiding underneath. Water reveals camphor and hessian with notes of chalk and smoked whelks. The palate unfolds with a mighty, crashing wave of peat on a shore of sandalwood, wet rocks, mineral-encrusted creel nets and then hay, smoked earth and silage. With water the farmy aspects are heightened with notes of dried herbs and some smoked butter. Stonking stuff! It’s probably worth noting: I have no affiliation with *The Scotch Malt Whisky Society.* I’m not even a member anymore—but I do love their tasting notes. Tasting notes needn’t be all nice things. [Whisky and Alement](https://whiskyandale.com.au/?ref=foxwizard.com)—a local haunt of my own—provide shrewd and succinct tasting notes. Here’s [their take](https://whiskyandale.com.au/over-the-bar-whats-new-in-april2019/?ref=foxwizard.com) on the *Lagavulin 9 year old Game of Thrones House Lannister* (wtf?): > ★★★★ Tasting Notes: Pickled green beans, cumin seeds, betadine and bandaids, spearmint and vanilla on the nose. A palate of bitumen, burnt rubber, mint and petrichor with an odd finish of artichoke hearts. Bitumen, bandaids and burnt rubber—yum! Not. (Gosh I haven’t done a ‘not’ joke in over a decade. I’m ‘not-proud’ of myself.) The thing to observe here is: the descriptions are *qualitative.* And of course they are! All nuance would be lost if these tasting notes were instead a quantitative assessment. So cold, clinical and pointlessly pseudo-objective. ## 12\. Reflect Whisky is different to many other beverages. It’s best approached gently, slowly—with perspicacity and calm wit. It rewards the patient and curious—and punishes the rest. Well now: what have we learnt? Perhaps we’ve learnt to be mindful of the many domains of *context*—and how it shapes our experience. And perhaps we’ve become mindful of our own inner world—and how our psycho-physiological state likewise influences our experience, and the meaning we make of things. We have soaked in all the visual information presented—while taking nothing at face value. We entertained narratives and indulged in imagination—knowing full well we were playing with fiction. But there was an honesty at play, and we were able to hold to our own perspective fluidly and with depth. We learnt to willingly invite information from a multiple sources, and to take our time to appreciate and unravel nuance. We’ve reminded ourselves of the quality of *slow* thinking—giving time to emergent phenomenon. And we made efforts to articulate our experience—knowing that we could never quite capture it accurately (but that we could make the attempt nonetheless). We have learnt to *notice what we notice*—and to be curious at that. These lessons are transferrable to other domains. Ergo: whisky is the gateway to mindfulness. ### 🍂 Immolation, Desecration & Foolishness URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/immolation/ Last updated: 2025-12-29T05:48:33.000Z Note! This symbol 🍂 denotes that you are reading An Olde Musing, from the before times. I’ve resurrected it here because it may still hold some merit—but beware; my thinking will have likely progressed since originally posting this. There may also be some links that no longer work. Enjoy. 🧡 ### **A story so far** This is ‘The Year of The Fool’ for me. Foolishness. I have to say ‘foolishness’ because people think I am saying ‘Full’. Gosh dash it, it’s *fool*, you fool! Anyhoo: why Fool? I didn’t quite proclaim my Word at the beginning of this year—despite it being something I generally encourage in others. Hypocrisy is my strong suit. Last year was The Year of the Wizard, the chief intention of which was to make deep work the chief priority—to shut myself off from the more distracting elements of the world, so that I might contemplate the cosmos and Write My Next Book. There was also an intention to sharpen up aspects of my character (to embrace more eccentricity), and to cultivate a better relationship with time (more antifragility). But then someone I was super close to passed away in the middle of the year after a long and challenging battle with cancer. Suffice to say: it affected me deeply. Part of the charm of choosing One Word is that is forgiving of (and antifragile to) life’s curveballs. Unlike a narrow/rigid and (deceptively fragile) quantitatively-anchored mission or goal, a Word is open/fluid and remains qualitatively open to interpretation. It is a fabricated ‘reference point’ to which we can ‘make sense’ of the world, so as to cultivate a richer narrative (fallacy). (I keep adding ‘fallacy’ whenever I say narrative, just so that we don’t grip too tightly to the stories we tell ourselves. The fictions we weave are truer than true, and at the same time not.) Anyhoo: I found that I had accrued some rather dark and melancholic humours, and that my bitterness for my own industry (of fellow ‘expert motivational thought leadership authorities’)—and the business model/cage I had built myself—only intensified. It was time to do something Foolish. Hence: The Year of The Fool. I thought that, as an Inverter of Paradigms, I would reject the conventional world and live on the fringe—embodying philosophies that might be considered ‘foolish’ to those ensnared by convention (even if it meant being laughed at). But now, half way through the year I realise: this is actually much the same trajectory I was on anyway. To really be foolish—to be true to my intent, and bring about new beginnings—I need to *invert my own paradigm.* Hoho—it’s not ‘them others’ who are fools—it is me. I am The Fool. Though not foolish enough, yet. I shall amend this. And so, after a year and a half of relative seclusion, palatable bitterness, and self-sardonic depth—it’s time to bring some lightness, meaning and mirth back into the mix. To step back into the arena; to play the infinite game once more, with a glint in the eye and a spring in the step. There’s an echo here, for me. Lightness, paradox and play were the key intentions behind the Word ‘Jester’ of several years ago. At the time of choosing the word I had a relatively ‘heavy’ business and a swathe of commitments that were weighing me down. And so, once more, I find that I have accrued unnecessary ‘heft’ into most what I am doing. It might be the same for you, too. And so, if you relate: here are some thoughts. ### **How to Unlock ‘The Next Chapter of Your Life’** You may have arrived at the mid point of 2019 weighed down and somewhat lost again. Or too busy and exhausted to even realise. (Or neither.) Never mind: I have a solution for you. It involves fire. #### **1\. IMMOLATE THE EXTRANEOUS** If you were to keep a time diary for a few weeks—a simple notebook that tracks your [100 blocks](https://waitbutwhy.com/2016/10/100-blocks-day.html?ref=foxwizard.com) a day—I wonder: where does your time go? Is it invested—directly or indirectly—toward ‘meaningful progress’? Or are we potentially indulging in a rich delusion of progress? Of course, this requires that we ask: *“What is meaningful progress?”* In a business sense, it may be ‘that which brings us closer to future relevance’ (which itself begets more questions—which is a good thing). But in a personal sense, the question of meaningful progress might have something to do with values, congruence, eudemonic fulfilment, and the evolution of your own narrative and self-concept. Any attempt to answer this question will brush up against confounding complexity, nebulosity, ambiguity, paradox etcetera and so on—which is a good thing. Now I’m the last person to advocate an ‘optimised’ life. (Partially-optimised is enough, for we want to leave plenty of room for entropy). I don’t think it actually helps us to view things simply through the lens of productivity (much as capitalism pressures us to). Hence I suggest the ‘100 blocks a day’ lens simply as a means to access a somewhat ‘objective’ sense of your days. To augment your perspective, so that you may get a fuller picture. If you’re journalling/introspecting regularly, chances are you’ll have an awareness of the patterns or narratives that help or hinder your own progress. These may take the form of ‘unquestioned defaults’—the options we choose automatically, in the absence of viable alternatives. Well, heck: it’s time to question these defaults. But the predicament we find ourselves in at the middle of our year is not typically the result of a few large and distinct decisions—rather, it’s the result of many little ones. We accrue complexity through the meandering course of our days. Such is life. We’re nice and reasonable people: so we say yes to things, we offer to help, and we take on small projects and tasks and things that—individually—do not seem to amount to much. And yet collectively—in how they distract and detract—they are the siren choir that lures us away from where we need to be. This impending mid-year solstice, therefore, can serve as an inflection point. The parabola to your parable, as it were. So: take stock. Wind up projects. Quit the skirmishes, the petty battles and the finite games of ‘being right’. Submit your apologies. Relinquish ground. Wave the white flag. Eat humble pie. Use the excuse of the ‘End of Financial Year’ (if that’s applicable for you). Claim you have a mid-year holiday and that you’re trying to ‘wrap things up’ before then. Do what you need to do to shake away the strands of commitment that bind you. The same could be said as to *how* you approach the things you are committed to. Is there a smarter way? A better system or rhythm? Is it time to ask for help? Or is it time to retire some projects—gracefully—that aren’t serving you any more? To put them to rest? Use this mid-year solstice as an opportunity to reduce (or better: *release*) unnecessary complexity. #### **2\. DESECRATE THE PAST** The Internet haunts you. It remembers everything you share, and it loves to remind you (and others) of your past. (It watches you, too). I have disturbingly old videos on YouTube that others have recorded of me, which people still watch and see as their first impression of me. In this way, the detritus of my past shapes and warps who I am today (at least: in the eyes of the beholders). Likewise, people read my first book—[*The Game Changer*](https://www.drjasonfox.com/books?ref=foxwizard.com)—and tell me it’s good. (It’s okay but my recent work is better\*). > *\* (On that note: I contend that if you’re not at least somewhat embarrassed by your past self, you probably aren’t growing. There’s a backhanded kindness in this, somewhere.)* The Internet therefore encourages a kind of *rigidity* to your identity. A petrification of your past, and a fixedness of ‘self’ (encouraged by meme-ideals of ‘authenticity’ and ‘truth’). You can’t simply travel overseas for a few months and come back a changed person anymore—the Internet will follow you the whole way. You’ll check into places, document what you eat, and keep in touch with all of those around you—unless, of course, you ‘go dark’ and retreat into your Dark Forest—but even still: some things can’t be undone. But hohohoho there are still plenty of things you *can* do about it. You are not your LinkedIn profile, your feed. You are not your work. You can set the torch to your online profiles, and to the all the photos/videos/articles you’ve uploaded and shared in the past. (Or: most of them.) Light it ablaze and clear the way for that which may come. It’s what I’ve just done. #### **3\. FILL THE VOID** Wunderbar. You’ve cleared the way—now what? Nature abhors a vacuum. If you want to attract new opportunities and work—clear your desk and calendar. In the absence of deliberation, there can be no liberation. There’ll always be a new distraction that emerges. Fire has been used by Australia’s First Peoples for tens of thousands of years to harvest food and regenerate ecologies. There’s a kind of ‘antifragility’ to the practice. Of course if one were to take this process to other ecologies, there’s a high chance the system wouldn’t recover—that only weeds will come to occupy the fire-cleared land. And so hence, after all this clearing and burning, here’s what you can do to ensure the best kind of things emerge in your wake. Actually, heck: I don’t know what is appropriate for you. Just do something. Or, more specifically: just do 5omething—*50 days of something.* Get in there, before the weeds take root. This idea comes from that rogue [Mykel Dixon](http://mykeldixon.com/?ref=foxwizard.com). He wrote a book about it, and is the embodiment of creative leadership. I love the notion of just doing something—*anything*—for 50 days, because it shreds away the typical excuses I manifest to stay in the safety of my dark forest—‘thinking deep thoughts’, writing long articles that are never shared, etcetera. The pathetic solace I find in the pursuit of perfection. Bah! ### **ANYHOO!** Dear goodness—enough of me! ** How did this happen again? In summary, my friend: immolate the extraneous, desecrate the past—and then fill the void with intentional making. The questions you might ask yourself at this opportune time of year (should you value your own character development) are as thus: - *Where (who) are you in the unfurling story of your year?* - *Where (who) might you like to be?* - *What might this require you let go of (immolate/desecrate)?* - *What might this require you to do (be)?* - *And... if you were to lean into 50 days of doing a small something each day—what might that small something be?* It’s easier, of course, if you’ve put the thought into [choosing a Word](https://www.cleverness.com/word?ref=foxwizard.com). Even if that Word is something you’re beginning to outgrow—it heralds the new theme awaiting to emerge. Hoho, remember though: this is all narrative fallacy. Fabricated truth made real. But still: we can *make* believe. ### 🍂 How to Have a Nemesis URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/nemesis/ Last updated: 2026-09-06T10:22:33.000Z Note! This symbol 🍂 denotes that you are reading An Olde Musing, from the before times. I’ve resurrected it here because it may still hold some merit—but beware; my thinking will have likely progressed since originally posting this. There may also be some links that no longer work. Enjoy. 🧡 ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2023/08/2cde3f2e-6040-4f9c-9443-ebb400e7756d_1200x30.webp) ### ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2023/08/56e64977-c243-4400-b879-5872ad83b367_1400x750.webp) *Illustration by* [*dangerlam*](http://instagram.com/dangerlam?ref=foxwizard.com) *// SCENE: the two of us, wingback chesterfields, overlooking the night sky, windowpanes wet with rain, flashes of lightning, a cackling fireplace, snifters of armagnac, long-stemmed wooden wizard pipes, a pair of cats to pat (one each), cupcakes, an empty suit of armour (no apparent reason), a set of masks upon the wall (peculiar)... //* So! Last month I caught up with some mates—comrades who swim in the same sea of wonder, possibility and bullshit as I do.\* We were all in a clean hot spa-bath, chatting beneath the night sky whilst overlooking the ocean from the airbnb we had rented, waxing philosophical about the paradoxes of positioning.° > *\* I am speaking, of course, of ‘thought leadership’/professional speaking/coaching/consulting and the wider industry we contribute to (and benefit from).* > *° Being that the work that gets you work that takes you away from the work that got you the work in the first place.* At some point I asked a question of the group, to which I thought was quite clever: ### **Do you have a nemesis?** An ‘individual’ (or set of individuals that collectively form an archetype) that represents the antithesis of what you stand for? The embodiment of that which you loathe, and yet who also operates in the same domain as you? I sure do. I’d love to pretend that I didn’t\*—but I do.° It’s sometimes quite handy. > *\* I generally try to work with a spirit of abundance, wherein we ascend competition. There is no competition—diversity is wondrous, and there’s plenty enough for everyone. This ethos guides most all of what we do. It is also distinct and yet not incompatible with the more petty part of my multitudinous self that believes that there are folks out there in competition with me. Absurd!* Useful. > *° I don’t really—but more on that later.* And so—simply as a thought experiment, mind—I think you ought find a nemesis too. Particularly if you work in a complex domain, where it can be quite hard to answer the following question—the question I dread, and the primordial reason I don’t do networking very well (at all): ### ***“So: what do you do?”*** I don’t exactly know what I do—it’s contextual, dynamic and difficult to define.\* But sometimes I’m cornered with no easy escape and the person asking me looks so earnest, so I might say something like: ‘oh I, write books for leaders and speak at events.’ To which people reply: ‘oh: you’re a motivational speaker!’ to which the blood drains from my face as I stare at them, heart in my throat as the rest of the room goes dark and I find it hard to swallow. I blink twice and try to chuckle it off. ‘Oh, not quite’ I say, waving it off. ‘Oh well maybe. More the introverted type. A thinking person’s motivational speaker, I suppose’ (said whilst I inspect the trim of my fingernails). ‘Except I’m not trying to motivate people—they mostly don’t need it. Not at this level. Or well, they do—we all do—but it’s not really about motivation, per se. I help people… perceive more? Tap into the meta? See things more complexly, so that they might make braver decisions and navigate a better path?’ (by which point I’ve well and truly lost them, and myself too). > *\* Yes that’s right: I’m special and unique—just like you.* But! You might see what’s going on here: my nemesis happens to be the archetypical ‘expert motivational speaker’. The charismatic, confident, energetic, simplistic and (seemingly overly) sincere extraverted speaker who makes incredibly good money through a combination of genuine talent, covert hypnosis/persuasion, narrative fallacy,\* conviction and hype. They always have a program to sell you—a fix to a problem you didn’t know you had.◊ A ‘secret’ that only they know. > *\* See ‘A Quick Note’ below.* --- **A Quick Note:** most all of us have some form of narrative fallacy\* at play. A seemingly sequential linking of causal events, threading into an attractive narrative. My nemesis will often draw inspiration from tried and true formulae like ‘rags to riches’,° ‘the voyage and the return’◊ or ‘overcoming the monster’.‡ It is legitimately compelling—though of course the key to remember here is that most of us, in any given moment, have no idea what’s going on, or how things will turn out. The path may *seem* sequential in hindsight—it may seem like destiny—but that’s just a story we like to tell ourselves. > *\* As Nassim Taleb writes in* The Black Swan, *‘The narrative fallacy addresses our limited ability to look at sequences of facts without weaving an explanation into them, or, equivalently, forcing a logical link, an arrow of relationship upon them. Explanations bind facts together. They make them all the more easily remembered; they help them make more sense. Where this propensity can go wrong is when it increases our impression of understanding.’ When a narrative arises to explain something, when it emotionally resonates and seems to lack any discrepancies, then that narrative becomes ‘true’ (supplanting other possible ‘true’ narratives). It’s an intoxicating—but useful: narrative is one of the surest ways to cope with what might otherwise be an overwhelming level of complexity. Yet still—we ought be suspicious of anything that comes across as too sequential or ’neat’. Archwizard psychologist Daniel Kahneman (author of* Thinking, Fast and Slow*) elaborates on this, showing how immensely popular business books like* In Search of Excellence *and* Good to Great *regressed back to the mean (that is: became less special again) after the books were written. ‘Stories of how businesses rise and fall strike a chord with readers by offering what the human mind needs: a simple message of triumph and failure that identifies clear causes and ignores the determinative power of luck and the inevitability of regression’ Kahneman writes. ‘These stories induce and maintain an illusion of understanding, imparting lessons of enduring value to readers who are all too eager to believe them.’* > *° Naturally popular amongst authors of books pertaining to financial topics and business ‘success’.* > *◊ Folks who’ve climbed mountains, won sporting competitions or have been involved in a unique projects or experiences (traumatic or otherwise) often use this formula to espouse the wisdom they’ve gained.* > *‡ Many self-help books take this approach, empathetically underscoring a relatable daemon or inner struggle, and the path to liberation. ‘I too once struggled with self belief, and then \[insert personal epiphany borne of struggle, followed by broad-stroke advice.\]’* --- For a while, I followed such folk—subscribing to their newsletters and allowing them to contaminate my social feeds—*willing* myself to be triggered by the thorns and jarring nature of their ethos and actions.\* Why? Because they helped cast a dark mirror unto my own intangible and inarticulable self. > *\* Fanning the flames of my own frustrations, whilst occasionally indulging in a bit of schadenfreude.* They forced me to question *why* I was triggered so. No, really: why? What’s going on here, buddy? Was this merely tall poppy nonsense? Envy and excuses? Some sort of aetiological defensiveness? A Myers-*f–king*\-Briggs clash? Or—was there something *deeper* at play? In serving as my antithesis, the collective work of my nemesis enabled me to get clearer on my own *thesis.\** Something I couldn’t do on my own. > *\* That is: my* Hegelian *premise—put forth to be maintained until effectively disproven otherwise. A clarion call to any would-be-nemesis. Prove me wrong children. Prove me wrong.°* > *° So that, like the antifragile hydra, I (we) may grow and be better for it.* ### **A Most Aggravating Aggregate** A cautionary note as we plunge deeper: it is dangerous to allow yourself to be defined by that which you are not. It is dangerous to allow yourself to be defined *at all.\** You can get lost on that path, and forget that *you* get to define you.° > *\* To cling too tightly to any enduring definitions of self (identity and individualism) is to grip tightly to a prison of your own making.* > *° Of course this is categorically not true, but it’s a useful delusion (to a point). A more accurate stance would be to say that you/we are co-created. Not sure what I mean? Read more* [*Alan Watts*](http://www.alanwatts.org/?ref=foxwizard.com)*. Also:* [*this piece is quite illuminating*](http://metamoderna.org/how-i-view-the-world-2?lang=en&ref=foxwizard.com)*.* Good? Good. Now that the we have dispensed with the cursory cautionaries, here’s what a good nemesis provides you with: betterment via *subtraction.* If not the clear answer—then a clearer *sense* of things… *via negativa.\** > *\* Latin for ‘negative way’ or ‘way of denial’.* When a nemesis emerges in your life, they offer the necessary triggers/probes/briars that help you realise what you *do not* aspire to be. By attuning to this—by noticing when this happens, and exploring the whyfors and whatnots behind the reactions your nemesis triggers within you—you may move closer to a clearer of sense of what you *are* about.\* > *\* Of course: this is only pertinent to this moment in time. ‘Knowing yourself’ as Professor Bence Nanay* [*writes*](https://aeon.co/ideas/know-thyself-is-not-just-silly-advice-its-actively-dangerous?ref=foxwizard.com)*, ‘is an obstacle to acknowledging and making peace with constantly changing values. If you know thyself to be such-and-such a kind of person, this limits your freedom considerably.’ This is why I tend to think of life in terms of thematic ‘chapters’,° and why—much to my current horror—there ever remains the possibility that, one day, I may come to be the thing I loathe. That, one day, I will come to realise that I have become the nemesis of my past self.* > *° I’m currently in a chapter dubbed ‘*[*Wizard*](https://www.drjasonfox.com/blog/year-of-wizard?ref=foxwizard.com)*’.* For example, I have (for some time) made a strawman nemesis of the ‘corporate motivational leadership speaker’. This vivid and almost grotesque caricature embodies the following ‘characteristics’ (in bold). My nemesis wears **confidence** like a suit of shining armour, polished to a radiant sheen to match their strong white teeth and the fervour in their eyes. It’s almost blinding, and makes our own cognitive attire look shabby by contrast. They do not appear blessed with self-doubt (or, if they are, they do a great job of hiding it). Because my nemesis is (potentially) cursed with the Dunning–Kruger effect, they (seem to) believe the answer is perfectly clear. Hence they flout **clarity**, whilst the rest of us feel so lost. This lends them a sense of **conviction** about the singular clear ‘truth’ they see.\* Unfortunately, due to the Imposter Syndrome, most of us compare our inner worlds to people’s outer worlds, and so the result is that my nemesis has an almost magnetising **charisma**. We want in on whatever they’re having—and gosh do they know it. They *prey* upon it, and leverage this asymmetry of confidence and clarity via **capitalism**. As self-proclaimed ‘thought leaders’ and ‘prophets’, they *profit* from the sense of disparity they create. There’s always another program my nemesis can sell you.° An online workshop leads to a recurring subscription leads to paid webinars leads to in-person workshops leads to 2-day intensives leads to exclusive offsites leads to franchise options (and so on). Part of the appeal of it all all is it’s simplicity—when you suspend complex thinking, the frameworks and ‘solutions’ offered by my nemesis have almost immediate **practicality**. You don’t have to think too hard—you can deploy them right away (unintended consequences and distortions be damned). In fact, my nemesis almost revels in **anti-intellectualism** (and, given how popular this currently is in our ‘post-truth’◊ world—they are doing quite well for it). Intangible theory is dismissed in favour of immediately tangible practicality.‡ The **rigid, linear, myopic** and **simplistic** tactics and hacks offered by my nemesis are hence incredibly appealing to the uncertain, insecure and time-poor leader—especially when charismatically backed with confidence, clarity and conviction. > *\* They become convicts (slaves) to their own beliefs.* > *° A program that is updated to parrot the buzzwords of our times. SEO-optimised landing pages. Newsletters you never signed up to (that seem near impossible to unsubscribe from).* > *◊ This is complex, but post-truth can be cheekily summarised as thus: ‘I believe, therefore I am right’.* > *‡ Although they are quite happy to adopt a superficial understanding of theory, so as to seem to know what they are talking about when they use buzzwords.* In case it is not obvious, I am ‘bundling’ the characteristics of multiple personas I have had interactions with and experience of—some of which I’m sure are exaggerations. And, while some might come close, my nemesis is not the reflection of any singular ‘individual’—I am deliberately trying to *de-personalise* this, by forming an (aggravating) aggregate. I’m making an *exaggerated* strawman nemesis out of a bundle of ingredients, so as to better understand my own characteristics and stance(s). While they would never say this—and mightn’t even think this—my friends at [*Buddhify*](https://buddhify.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) (an on-the-go mindfulness meditation app) might consider their nemesis to be app developers whose business models rely on dark patterns to get users addicted and dependent on their services. Of course, they’d hold their nemesis with more benevolence than I do,\* but regardless: having a nemesis has spurred a delightfully differentiated thesis, in the form of their principles for ‘[designing mindfulness](https://www.designingmindfulness.com/?ref=foxwizard.com)’. > *\* Their stance is beautiful and differentiated from their aggregate nemesis,* [*as explained here*](https://medium.com/@rohan%5F21awake/designing-mindfulness-how-to-make-technology-which-takes-care-of-the-people-who-use-it-8a6aaf76dea3?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* And so I wonder: can you find or manifest a nemesis? You might not want to—there’s a kind of tepid peace that lies within the well-rounded blandness and safe atrophy of mediocrity. Why find a nemesis, when you could instead try to please everyone, and offend no one (and in so doing: hardly please anyone—least of all yourself)? Bah! It is not the path I’d encourage. And so, in the spirit of antifragility—*find a nemesis,* I say! At the very least, it’ll make you more interesting (if not better). ### **Better via subtraction** Back to this. It’s easy to feel that we need to do more, to be more. But what your nemesis offers is *via negativa*—the negative way, the way of denial—a sense of what you are *not.* Or: a sense of what you might wish to subtract, so as to get closer to what you are.\* > *\* Or rather: what feels more congruent for you, at this point in your life.* You know this story, but I’ll share it anyway. Papa Pope asks Michelangelo: *‘Tell me your secret: how have you created the statue of David, the masterpiece of all masterpieces?*’ To which Michelangelo answered: *‘It’s simple. I removed everything that is not David.’* Your nemesis reveals in you that which is not you.\* > *\* This is not* quite *true: but it’ll serve for now.* And so, if my nemesis represents my antithesis—then what am I? Or rather: what are the characteristics I embrace, and the philosophical stance(s) I take?\* > *\* (By the way: I’m not going to go and blatantly answer these questions here. Stroking one’s own ego in public? I hope to be more subtle than that.)* You know, I once tried to *be* my nemesis. For a few years, in the early days, I tried to don that mask—to be what I was not. This mask was heavy and cutting, didn’t fit well, and hardly suited my complexion. Instead, I’ve come to learn to embrace many of the *opposing* qualities my nemesis presents. I’ve found a better mask\*—one° of my own making. > *\* ‘You see, there's a fundamental connection between seeming and being. Every Fae child knows this, but you mortals never seem to see. *We understand how dangerous a mask can be. We all become what we pretend to be.*’—* [*Bast, sprouting too much sense to Chronicler,*](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/112296-chronicler-shook-his-head-and-bast-gave-a-frustrated-sigh?ref=foxwizard.com) *The Name of the Wind* > *° One of a few.* And this is something you can do too. These are questions you can ask of yourself. What does your nemesis evoke in you? And what does this highlight, in terms of what you are not? And then: how does this translate into what you *don’t* do? > *\* In a way, this is a more inner/personal and esoteric extension of the notion of* [*anti-goals*](https://medium.com/@awilkinson/the-power-of-anti-goals-c38f5f46d23c?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2023/08/08382abc-86e5-47fb-88d9-7e0f7fb6c92f_600x516.webp) ### **Casting a longer shadow** *// SCENE: We stand by the fireplace, contemplating the embers in relaxed cheer, cups of peppermint tea held daintily, with saucers. A light peppering of cupcake crumbs in our beards/bosoms. The warm light of the fire makes for a long shadow. //* I am being deliberately polarising here. To stand taller is to cast a longer shadow. Rather than smooth out the rough edges and fill in your deficiencies, so that you become well rounded\*—I’ve learnt to go the other way. To elongate and *sharpen* the edges of my character. The result of this is that I have now become near-immune to unsolicited advice. > *\* Or rather: flattening your mountains and filling your valleys, so that you simply become a plain plane.* Previously, good natured people would tell me I’m too academic, too theoretical, that I talk to fast, that I’m too soft, that I use too many ‘fancy words’ when simpler ones will suffice, that my museletters are too long\* and that I don’t provide enough ‘top tips that can be easily implemented the next day at work’ (and so on). And I used to listen to their ready advice—ping-ponging from one ‘fix’ to another, never quite right. Now? When unsolicited advice comes my way, I keep it suspended in a nebulous membrane (wherein it can be properly considered before it affects my psyche). For there are plenty of folks who want to ‘fix’ you, to improve you in their vision. Sometimes, what they have to offer might be useful—but before you take it on board, ask yourself: is this sharpening your uniqueness, or dulling your differentiation? > *\* And that I use too many footnotes, too often.* The fact that there exists a strong nemesis ‘out there’ inadvertently *requires* that you balance the equation.\* It requires *you* to be a more exaggerated version of your self.° Just as Batperson needs the Joker (and vice-versa◊), your nemesis needs you just as you need them. They are the yang to your yin, and so forth. > *\* It’s the first law of thermodynamics.* > *° Made possible by eliminating the bits that ‘aren’t you’.* > *◊ I’m not strong in comic-lore, but what I do know about Batperson is that they’ll never fully eliminate the Joker—and vice versa. They need each other.* ### **You are (not) special** And neither am I. Or rather: we are both special—but so is everything and everyone (including your nemesis). In fact, your nemesis exists, in part, *to protect you* from excessive hubris. Too much self-love can be a bad thing.\* Too much of anything can be a bad thing. > *\* I season my own self-love with a dash of self-loathing, just to keep things interesting.°* > *° Self-improvement is self-loathing.◊* > *◊ I’m just messing with you. No really.* Mythologically speaking, the Greek goddess Nemesis enacts retribution against those who succumb to hubris (arrogance before the gods). Recall the story of Narcissus—the handsome and gorgeous hunter who disdained any and all who loved him. Nemesis (via Echo) lured him to a pool of water where he fell in love with his own reflection.\* Not realising it was only an image, he was unable to leave the beauty of his own reflection (and thus eventually died). Nemesis believed that no one ought have too much ‘goodness’ in their lives—and so she tended to curse the overly blessed.° > *\* It is possible to sense how narcissistic a leader is by the size and frequency of photos they have of themselves in annual reports or on their websites, the number of times they quote and/or reference themselves. It’s an occupational hazard in my profession, as on the one side you need a healthy sense of self-esteem so as to posit thoughts into the world… but if this esteem becomes an excessive love of (a fixed and individual sense of) self (identity)—then we are in trouble. Hence why it is useful to integrate a twinge of self-loathing, and to loosen the boundaries of your sense of ‘self’. We’re all multitudinous and boundless anyway.* > *° Which recalls to me the notion that success creates asymmetry. When you are successful, you have more too lose, and are hence fragile. This, in turn, calls forth a stoic indifference to the whims of Lady Fortuna. But that’s another story.* By finding your nemesis, you not only reveal what you are not—you also discover new paths to deeper learning. For your nemesis exists not simply to vex you—your nemesis can (inadvertently) be one of your greatest teachers. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2023/08/125d4e8f-b8ba-4846-99e0-a04a8e7aaea3_600x321.webp) ### **Learning to love your nemesis** *// SCENE: Sitting crosslegged on a Persian rug by the fire. Between us, the two cats (one dark, one light) lie asleep, intertwined like the Chinese symbol for yin-yang. //* While we have played with the polarity of things, you and I both know that the truth is never just black or white—it exists betwixt and between opposing forces. It’s black, it’s white, it’s black *and* white—and neither. All at once, always in all ways.\* > \* And sometimes not. What we are attempting to arrive to here, is a Hegelian state of *synthesis.* The quality wherein two opposing truths—*thesis and antithesis*—meet, so that deeper truths (insight) might emerge and be made clear. This is what your nemesis can enable you to see. ### **There are (at least) three things required to reach this state of deeper insight.** First, we must accept that you and I each form part of that which is a nemesis to someone else. Right now, a charismatic and motivational paladin in shining armour is no doubt confidently battling their way through the fortifications of this dark tower within which we converse—come to decry me as a wizard of the ‘dark arts’. Would that I could invite them in for tea, or something stronger. We could learn much from each other, I’m sure. The second thing is to remember: we co-create each other. You and I are both a product of the world in which we live. I’ve been incredibly fortunate to have stumbled along a path that has manifested the rather privileged conditions that allow for a greater capacity for deep work—but in many other contexts I am quite thoroughly useless. Likewise, those that form my nemesis are a product of their worlds too. But their world is my world is our world—and we all co-create each other. To quote my favourite character Hanzi Freinacht (and I may have said this before, but f–ckit I love the chap): *‘I develop if you develop. Even if we don’t agree, we come closer to the truth if we create better dialogues and raise the standards of how we treat one another.’* Thirdly, we must embrace and (simultaneously, more importantly) *abandon* the game of ‘who’s right’. To see *beyond* the zero-sum win/lose duality of the finite games we play, and to tap into the meta of the *infinite* game we all play. To play not for the purpose of winning, but rather: for the purpose of *continuing* the play. I’m riffing James Carse’s [*Finite and Infinite Games*](https://www.amazon.com/Finite-Infinite-Games-James-Carse/dp/1476731713?ref=foxwizard.com)here. > ‘No one can play a game alone. One cannot be human by oneself. There is no selfhood where there is no community. We do not relate to others as the persons we are; we are who we are in relating to others. Simultaneously the others with whom we are in relation are themselves in relation. We cannot relate to anyone who is not also relating to us. Our social existence has, therefore, an inescapably fluid character… this ceaseless change does not mean discontinuity; rather change is itself the very basis of our continuity as persons.’ Ah, the sun rises. Thank you for joining me in once again for this musing. (They would not exist without you.) I hope that you may be able to find the most vexing nemesis, and that they plague you, so that you are forced to cultivate your own thesis—your own edge, so that you might serve as part of a nemesis to others, so that we are all triggered to explore further, and so that we all might engage in a more wondrous dialect, to bring about a deeper synthesis, so that our world becomes simultaneously more unified, distinct and diverse, so that we become all the more percipient and wiser for it. Good day! ### 🍂 A Slow Descent Into Madness URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/madness/ Last updated: 2026-06-01T11:35:58.000Z Note! This symbol 🍂 denotes that you are reading An Olde Musing, from the before times. I’ve resurrected it here because it may still hold some merit—but beware; my thinking will have likely progressed since originally posting this. There may also be some links that no longer work. Enjoy. 🧡 *Wherein I wax philosophical on co-creation, status, not-not doing, cultural capital and new narratives.* The Crone-of-the-Grove recently asked me a few questions, in response to some casually raised points in my appearance on *The Daily Talk Show*. This indulgent epistle shall traverse the following domains: - **How one might relate to co-creation** (and the nebulosity of ‘self’) - **The plague of busyness** (and how to ward yourself against such) - **Distinctions of thinking and reflection** (and the notion of ‘not-not’) - **The notion of ‘cultural capital’** (and why you might want to accrue it) - **Our tentative return to Grand Narratives** (along with all the caveats) I shall split Crone-of-the-Grove’s letter into parts, so that I might tackle each question in situ. ### Q1\. Co-creation and the Dispelling of Ick > *Hi Jason. Another great podcast, thank you. I have a few exploratory threads, some small questions and a bigger one... Loved the point about co-creating each other. I often reflect on how others help create the-soup-I-call-me. Not so often the other way around. How do we ponder our impact on others without getting all self-conscious and icky?* Ah, this is a really apt question. It reminds me that the notion of co-creation is something that can be ‘partially-realised’. Let’s see if I can help this become more fully realised (though this in itself can trigger a brief dally into nihilism—a necessary part of the journey, but not a place to dwell in for too long). So! At a simple level, we can relate to the notion of co-creation along the lines of ‘influence’.\* I can influence you, and you can influence me. > *\* Note: I am not referring to co-creation as a rebrand of collaboration (though I do find it useful to differentiate between contracting, cooperation, collaboration and co-creation). In this instance, I’m coming at the notion of co-creation from more of a more metaphysical/existential/ontological bent.* Popular meme-aphorisms like ‘**you cannot not influence**’ inform us that influence is more than just the words we say—it’s the *way* we say them, the language we use, the clothes we wear, our tone of voice, our body language, and how we frame our arguments… along with an infinitude of factors. It all influences how we shape the perspectives of others. Choosing to *not* choose to consciously influence someone is still a choice—and this too will influence and shape the perspectives of others and their experience of us (even if we don’t will it so).\* > *\* You are not and cannot ever be innocent. We are all complicit.* [*Hanzi writes a fine piece on this*](http://metamoderna.org/let-the-mass-killings-of-liberal-innocents-begin?lang=en&ref=foxwizard.com)*.* This is a good basic lesson, as it helps us become more conscious of the ‘affect’ that we create. In my own practice, the awareness that I am ‘always-inevitably-inadvertently-influencing’ can make me more conscious of the internal factors that may shape this affect: my state (*am I well rested? am I hydrated? am I hangry?*), attire (*does this lend authority? approachability? do I feel comfortable?*), tone (*am I being warm? measured? upbeat? condescending? humble?*), language (*is this comprehensible? coherent? too complex? too reduced? too flippant? too heavy?*), and so on. This awareness can, however, send one into a spiral of ‘perception management’, preening and social grooming—so it’s usually something I keep relatively suspended. The (less popular) flip-side (equally true) aphorism of all this is thus: #### **» We cannot not be influenced.** The same notion that we are always influencing others effects us *equally* in reverse. And this is where it gets interesting. For if we are always influenced by others… who am we? Or rather, to put it as Yuval Harari does: *‘Who Are I?’* Enter the notion of co-creation. // Btw: I’m not trying to pass any of this off as my own cleverness—this is merely my (proto-)synthesis of wiser minds. It’s incomplete, will probably change, and is no doubt flawed. But still: I find it to a true-useful-fiction to play with. // The notion ‘co-creation’ is something that appeared on my noöspheric radar in only the last few years (though it is something most of us would ‘intuitively’ understand, I suspect). The philosopher-construct Hanzi Freinacht writes about this in [*The Listening Society*](https://www.amazon.com/Listening-Society-Metamodern-Politics-Guides/dp/8799973901/ref=tmm%5Fpap%5Fswatch%5F0?%5Fencoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=&ref=foxwizard.com), a book you’ll hear me continue to reference (parrot? ape?) quite a few times (as it serves as an imperfect but very useful beacon/reference). For a readily accessible-yet-haphazard synthesis, herein lies [a metamodern view of the human being](http://metamoderna.org/metamodern-view-of-the-human-being?lang=en&ref=foxwizard.com). This stuff is all inherently linked to *adult development*—of which there are different schools of thought. For the sake of brevity—wherein I make profane the profound—to understand co-creation we must understand the notion of ‘dividualism’. To quote Hanzi, *“We are not atoms, individuals (two versions of the same word, one Greek, the other Latin), but we are—more in line with quantum physics—participatory dividuals. I don’t expect you to leave me be, but to recreate me.”* Increasingly, scientists are realising what some monks seem to have known for a long time—namely, that any notions of ‘identity’ and ‘self’ are actually illusions (merely ideas or objects of awareness). Of course, just because it is an illusion doesn’t mean it isn’t real.\* Only that we must accept the inherent nebulosity of self, and the notion that our sense of self is ‘intermittently continuous’ at best, and likely a mostly fallacious dynamic and amorphous composite of much that we have experienced and subsumed in this infinite game. > *\* There is a ‘there’ there (even if that ‘there’ dissolves under scrutiny).* But we can work with this. To quote old mate James Carse, *“One cannot be human by oneself. There is no selfhood where there is no community. We do not relate to others as the persons we are; we are who we are in relating to others. Simultaneously the others with whom we are in relation are themselves in relation. We cannot relate to anyone who is not also relating to us. Our social existence has, therefore, an inescapably fluid character. This is not to say that we live in a fluid context, but that our lives are themselves fluid.”* This, in turn, brings up the notion of ‘free will’—of which again, science and reason (not to mention: many Eastern philosophies) are showing to be illusionary as well. A useful illusion, to be sure. It sure is lovely to pretend as though we are in control. I’m glad for it. I *want* to take responsibility for my actions, and for others to do so too. And yet, the uncomfortable reality seems to be that—while with great ‘self-awareness’ or ‘mindfulness’ we may be able to ‘choose’ (or feel as though we choose) whether or not to act upon our desires—we cannot choose what our desires are in the first place. Where do these desires come from? Well: this is part of the cosmic co-created dance we are participating in. Perhaps a somewhat helpful way to see this is that the ‘Big Bang’ (a phenomena that still begets such big questions) isn’t over yet. We are all still a part of this process. It’s all still happening. And as the universe (multiverse) continues to expand into increasing complexity—and as entropy continues to rise—we continue to play out our roles as influenced by all previous interplays. *(Of course, I don’t mean to reduce reality into mechanical determinism—there exists a far vaster, richer and more dynamic interplay of quantum minds, the exquisite mystery of consciousness and so on… and I’m mostly out of my depth here, so take all of this existential verbiage with a pinch of salt).* Suffice to say: there’s a warm ambivalence to our ‘selves’ that can be cultivated from this rather lofty perspective. Instead of getting too wrapped up in self-consciousness we rather contend with a much more ‘transpersonal’ perspective, wherein our concern and care is more abstract and encompassing. One no longer sees people (or one’s ‘self’) as individual persons—for these are but the masks we wear and the roles we play (given our various contexts, and whatever social, cultural, educational, and axiological ‘code’ we had installed and updated through our years). What does this all mean? It means that our co-creation is complex, nebulous and inescapable. How do we ponder our impact on others without getting all self-conscious and icky? We do so by being conscious of the fact that this co-creation (or co-influencing) is going to happen regardless. We realise that life isn’t about us (as individuals\*)—rather, it is about *us*. All of us. We’re all in this together. And so, knowing that we can never really be innocent in this—and that our choice to influence or not is going to influence things in some way, which in turn is going to have complex implications, beyond our ability to reckon with. We shall cause much suffering, either way. The tragic romance of this is that we cannot know the full extent of what and how, and that this shit can get very heavy, very quickly. And so, with some equanimity, humility and grace, we accept that we aren’t necessarily the heroes of our own stories (no one is), and instead strive to walk the way of least unnecessary suffering, so that we may play a more beneficial role in the lives of ‘others’. In pondering this, we listen, and try to assimilate (and have solidarity with) as many perspectives as we can (knowing full well that our own may well be ‘less apt and contextually appropriate’ than others), and then—with reflection and meta-rational sense-making, we review/revise/update our protosynthesis. > *\* A tenet I regularly violate.* One might call this [ontological remodelling](https://meaningness.com/eggplant/remodeling?ref=foxwizard.com), but at this stage I fear I have once again veered away from providing a practical answer. In fact, there’s something a tad not-quite-right in the above. I call bullshit on myself. Let’s have another crack. How do we ponder our impact on others without getting all self-conscious and icky? The short answer is: haha, I don’t know! I wish I did. Even in my above pseudo-valiant attempt to answer this, I became ‘self-conscious’. And this type of thing alway stirs up a kind of hubris-allergy in me. I feel as though there is an intellectual arrogance that blinds me to some ways of seeing things. And so I pretend to not know better, even though I know I don’t know better. Long story even shorter: amidst all of this pondering, considering, self-doubt, reflection, introspection, and so forth… if I feel compelled to put forth any thesis or provocation—to do something that could be seen as creating/expressing/influencing… I try to do so from a considered stance, summoning at least a sense of knowingness of my own naïveté, bias and hubris (and proceeding anyway, for I can’t not\*). If this stirs up ickiness and self-consciousness, so be it.° It’s just another opportunity to learn. > *\* One day I shall do a deep dive on the benefits of procrastination. There’s a noble quality to it that most seem to miss.* > *° An example: my deliberate occasional (mis-)use of ‘complex words’, magical realism, whimsy and archaic/antiquated language will no doubt alienate some readers. I’ve had a few people tell me that they feel ‘so dumb’ when they (try to) read my work. It kills me. This is naturally the antithesis of my intent, for I wish folk to feel clever and wise—to be positively enlivened by my occasional linguistic wittitude. I know that some do, and it certainly makes writing these things more enjoyable for me. Thus I continue, knowing that this will cause suffering, will rub some folk the wrong way, and will keep these musings dwelling in a rather esoteric and somewhat inaccessible realm (as distinct from buzzfeed, say). But, hoho: so be it.◊* > *◊ Another example: in my keynote presentations I often embody a rather jolly, erratic and capricious spirit, wherein the complexity and pace of my message is quite heightened. Dry humour is laced throughout this, which serves as a reward for those keeping pace (and is missed by those struggling to keep up). Of course, I always elucidate my main points very well, but I’ve asked to ‘slow it down’ so that people have time to ‘get the jokes’ as well. But slowing things down moderates the tone: everything becomes more deliberate, and it starts to sound patronising. The dry humour loses its effect, as it is no longer ‘off hand’. I’ve quickly came to realise that there’s a reward in ‘discovering’ the covert (much like the delight in finding a well-hidden easter egg). Ergo: trying to cater for everyone never works (or rather: is a recipe for underwhelming success). And so I persist in my ‘natural’ style, knowing it will inevitably-inadvertently cause mild suffering in some, and a delight for the quick-witted.* Ha! I think I finally arrived at a more ‘honest’ and less obfuscated answer. Whew. Great question. ### Q2\. Busyness, Status and Extinction > *Busyness. You mention social media’s impact, and I agree. And I think there’s something much bigger and more insidious going on. I believe we’ve turned busyness into a status symbol. Materialism is out (kinda), busyness is in. This scares the pants off me as I believe busyness impedes deep reflection and connection. I think we're at risk of busying ourselves to extinction. I'm curious how you see and experience this yourself.* Oh yes, I agree with you. Busyness is the co-created intersubjective value-meme plague of our times. Let’s unravel further. Yes, “materialism is out (kinda)”—but only in the more progressive post-industrial and post-modern cultures.\* It’s still rampant in many countries (including much of our own).° I type to you comfily in my visibly-mended artisan attire, sipping direct-trade single estate 3rd wave coffee whilst waxing theoretical to you ’pon my Apple laptop, awash in deeply sincere yet hypocritical irony. Meanwhile, a few suburbs over, people are sitting in their idling cars in the parking lot of a shopping mall, sipping diet coke from a can whilst listening to commercial radio stations, impatiently awaiting their chance to re-immerse themselves in senseless consumerism, so as to buy new crap they don’t really need to fill a void that isn’t really there. But yes! Materialism is out (kinda),◊ and it ought continue to be out (kinda), given how ecologically unsustainable our consumption is. > *\* Hence your apt use of ‘kinda’.* > *° To understand this, we must look at values—and their lumpy distribution. Again, Hanzi provides* [*a useful overview*](http://metamoderna.org/hanzi-talking-about-metamodern-values?lang=en&ref=foxwizard.com) *(this time, in a very accessible manner).* > *◊ Kim, the dangerlam, in editing this made a good point to me: busyness and materialism relate. Busyness is a symptomatic, reactive strategy that allows for materialism to continue.* What’s interesting, as you’ve noted, is the shift from materialism to ‘busyness’ as a status signifier. Busyness is, I suspect, treated as a badge of honour in part *because* materialism is increasingly recognised as an incompatible value in our global society—overt material displays of wealth are (slowly, subtly but) increasingly being perceived as garish and obscene. And yet—even as we must continue to eradicate non-consensual dominance hierarchies amongst all sentient beings—there will always be *non-dominance* (sometimes unhelpfully referred to as ‘natural’) hierarchies amongst humans—hence why ‘status’ is a thing.\* Many people are better at many more things than I am. I am better at a few things when compared to some people. Sometimes. > *\* If, like me, you have an allergy to the word ‘hierarchy’, you might* [*benefit from this excerpt*](https://metamoderna.org/in-defense-of-hierarchies-among-humans?ref=foxwizard.com)*. One of my biases that I am distinctly aware of (and mildly embarrassed by), though, is that my reference pool is rather small and rather male. I’m working on this. In this particular instance, the primer on hierarchies amongst humans is too important to not mention.* Or am I? For how would folks know? And if folks don’t know, then how am I perceived and valued by society? What is my role? What is my ‘self-worth’ so to speak? I need to ‘prove’ it somehow, yes? Or at least signal it. Don’t I? The thing is, in many ways, we (sadly) interact with each other and the world *mostly* via the Internet these days. The boundaries of ‘work’ are more nebulous than ever. Many of us no longer go to work to work—work happens anywhere (and at any time).\* The boundaries of ‘self’ and ‘work’ are now likewise heavily intwined. Many of us *identify* with our work.° Add the odd notion of ‘self-worth’ into the mix, and you can see we have a potent formula for ‘busyness’. > *\* And often not at work.* > *° See:* [*You Are Not Your Work*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbQpxZm9z14&ref=foxwizard.com)*.* Then consider the context: we live and work in a society where ‘meritocracy’ is considered noble and just. Or at least: that’s the narrative. Not enough have thought this through, though. Meritocracy is the popular social ideal that the ‘rewards’ of life—power, promotions, employment, etc—should be distributed according to skill and effort. Thus, in order to build and reinforce my status in an organisation and wider society, I must demonstrate said skill and effort. What I lack for in skill, though, I can make up for in effort. Hence why, in part, ‘busyness’ becomes the status signifier. For what else do I have to show for my worth?\* > *\* (I’m playing a role here, btw—this is not what I believe, but it’s something I can empathise with).* Couple this with the various psychological biases that see our motivation/focus/attention/behaviour naturally gravitate to the things that provide the richest sense of progress, it is no wonder people equate progress with effort. It’s hard to see progress on the important stuff (climate change, inter- and intra-personal development, etc). But it’s easy to point to the efforts one is generally investing into things. This isn’t helped at all by the fact that the conventional business narrative of our times calls to ‘move faster’—to hustle and to always be in action. And we’re optimised for it now, too. There are systems and apps that make us seemingly more efficient, allowing us to squeeze productivity and efficiency in every aspect of our lives.\* We’re in a race to the bottom here. And for what? > *\* See:* [*We’re Optimising Ourselves to Death*](https://medium.com/s/buy-yourself/were-optimizing-ourselves-to-death-d41a3e7cc25a?ref=foxwizard.com) Meritocracy might seem a noble ideal, but it’s dangerous to think that we are anywhere near achieving it yet.\* And, in the meantime, it fuels a false veneration of busyness, which ironically distracts and detracts from meaningful progress. And it robs us of curiosity, empathy, wisdom and kindness.° > *\* See:* [*A belief in meritocracy is not only false: it’s bad for you*](https://aeon.co/ideas/a-belief-in-meritocracy-is-not-only-false-its-bad-for-you?ref=foxwizard.com) > *° These things no doubt seem like ‘cute luxuries’ to some. Who has time for this? Not many, it seems. And it’s understandable too. Many of us are in rather precarious employment situations.* [*Millennials, in particular, are quite fucked.*](https://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/poor-millennials/?ref=foxwizard.com) *Thus: because there is very little to ‘show’ for curiosity/empathy/wisdom/kindness (beyond virtue-signalling on social media), it’s no wonder we are pulled back into the realms of ‘busyness’. As the market becomes ever more volatile and uncertain, and as formal structures continue to erode (and become supplanted by the deeply supportive and sometimes parasitic 3rd part platforms), the freelancer/gig economy (of which I am a part of) will continue to rise. Thus, you must think of the nebulous and fluid networks you is a part of (breadth), the relationships one fosters (depth), and who knows you for what you know.* Of course, this is all systemic. And yet… there are ways to start untangling ourselves from this mess. I’ll list a few thoughts here briefly, and will perhaps expand upon these in a podcast one day. #### **How to not busy ourselves to extinction—11 small ideas** **i. Reduce living expenses.** Beyond being a child-free vegan who doesn’t fly, one of the quietly noble things any of us can do is work to reduce our living expenses.\* For this, I recommend the quirky book [*The Art of Frugal Hedonism*](https://www.frugalhedonism.com/?ref=foxwizard.com)(wherein you can discover how to gain *more* time by being less materialistic). Opting out of the relentless drive for more is hard to do. But there are steps that can be taken to mitigate the pressures capitalism places on us. (Many of these strategies also go hand in hand with a more stoic and antifragile approach to life). > *\* I should add that this doesn’t necessarily mean ‘going cheap’. It’s actually a deeper call to re-evaluate what you really value. Ergo: I’m not advocating fast food or fast fashion. Quite the opposite.* **ii. Reduce social media.** It fuels comparison, outrage and lack. Though... I’m still mostly confused as to what to do here: social media is toxic—but so is anything, in high enough doses. It may be possible to navigate this life with richness and depth, without having to be ‘anti-social media’. Cal Newport’s new book [*Digital Minimalism*](http://calnewport.com/books/digital-minimalism/?ref=foxwizard.com) offers a neat alternative: be pro-conversation. If social media helps you organise the logistics that serve as a precursor for connection and depth: great. Just be careful not to descend into comments and likes on these platforms (as the Algorithms tend to only favour obsessive engagement). **iii. Cultivate personal principles/tenets.** Things like ‘no work from dinner onwards’, ‘no internet before noon’ (or: whatever works for you). I’m currently in the process of re-considering the ‘tenets’ by which I work. Being my own boss is great, but the shadow side is that I can find myself constantly ‘bargaining’ with myself. For example: I might be lax during my ‘deep work’ during the week. ‘That’s okay, I’ll catch up on the weekend’ I say. But then we do brunch with friends. Guilt creeps in, corrupting the moment. The result is: consecutive days of unnecessary misery, and weeks and weeks where I constantly feel behind in things. And so—as counterintuitive and as antithetical as it seems to be for one who preaches fluidity in all things—it is sometimes necessary to create temporal boundaries for ourselves and our work (and to protect our ‘head space’ outside of these). **iv. Journal and/or meditate.** Busyness is often a narrative pattern that dissolves under scrutiny. The School of Life offers [an excellent video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VJI0ecVO6c&ref=foxwizard.com) on this. It has been something I’ve been attempting to practice for some time (my practice was also partially inspired by Julia Cameron’s [*The Artists Way*](https://juliacameronlive.com/the-artists-way/?ref=foxwizard.com)). I used to do this with a paper journal (which is very romantic), but nowadays I use the [Day One](https://dayoneapp.com/?ref=foxwizard.com) journalling app. The charm of this app is that—after using it for a year—it’ll start to remind you what you wrote ‘on this day’ one year ago. I usually view this *after* I’ve written out my introspections, and it is uncanny how often I am repeating *the same damn narrative*. As in: I’d be whinging about pretty much the exact same kinda thing as I was in the last few years. Most of the narratives we live in—the stories we tell ourselves—are fallacious traps. This practice grants the insight to pick the locks to your own cage, so that you may cast a better narrative.\* > *\* That is: a better cage.* **v. Exercise.** Bah. We all know this. That feeling of achievement. The ability to access the temporary infusion of *‘a realisation that everything is already-always okay’.* It’s magic. Our thoughts and emotions (heck: our experience of reality) is heavily influenced by our physiological state. Want to feel less busy? Exercise, and enjoy the glorious endorphin ride. **vi. Socialise.** Yah, even us introverts need to get out and get some perspective. I seem to have a good thing going on at the moment with some mates—a game of squash, followed by a few beers on a Friday night (to which our partners sometimes join—’tis not an exclusively male thing). It used to be that I’d end the week awash with disappointment for everything I hadn’t achieved, wallowing in all the promises I’d broken, and lamenting my lack of integrity. But hoho—now I just wash that away with beer! Chortle: not really. The beer is merely a memetic device—the conversation—the ‘talking shit’ with emotionally intelligent friends, whom all have each others back, who know when to listen and when to make jest—that’s the wondrous alchemy, and the balm against senseless, relentless busyness. **vii. Sleep.** It’s more important than we think, and it is perhaps the last bastion of defence against The Avatar of Busyness, who parades as some sort of Pernicious Paladin of Productivity.\* Work can wait. Sleep works to restore perspective. > *\* See this fine article on* [*Microsoft’s war on sleep*](https://m.signalvnoise.com/microsoft-reboots-war-on-sleep/?ref=foxwizard.com)*.* **viii. Read fiction.** Another boon for perspective, and a bridge to better sleep. Read fiction before bed, and imbibe your mind with new wonders. **ix. Squander time.** I’m not good at this one yet, but books like [*In Praise of Idleness*](https://www.brainpickings.org/2018/12/27/in-praise-of-idleness-bertrand-russell/?ref=foxwizard.com)*,* [*On Doing Nothing*](https://www.amazon.com/Doing-Nothing-Finding-Inspiration-Idleness/dp/1452164266/ref=tmm%5Fhrd%5Fswatch%5F0?%5Fencoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=&ref=foxwizard.com) and the soon-to-be-released [*How to Do Nothing*](https://www.amazon.com/How-Do-Nothing-Resisting-Attention/dp/1612197493?ref=foxwizard.com) are beginning to make me believe that it is a special talent. Naturally, it’s all about inversions and contrast, but if (like me) you find yourself perpetually in a state where ‘busyness’ may seem to be your reality: try squandering time. My friend Mark gifted me with this frame, and notes that it’s not merely about ‘wasting’ time on unimportant tasks. No, no. It’s about positively *squandering* time (you need to say it with the italics, the emphasis). I’m beginning to suspect that this—more so than materialism—will become the status signal in a world full of burnout. And good on it. **x. Cook like you care.** We live in a world where its much easier to watch good cooking on Netflix, then it is to actually do it. And so I say: go to the market, smell the wares, weigh the vegetables in your hand, and generally pretend to know what you’re doing. Put on some music, open a bottle of something nice, and cook something complex. There’s something mythical and timeless about this experience—savour it. Lean *against* the grain of convenience, and do things by hand. Mid-way through, spontaneously invite some friends over (don’t do it beforehand: this way you can be chill and not overthink it). Light a candle, put on a record. Make light art of the gathering. **xi. Be in ‘nature’.** Hrmm. This is an odd one, as ‘nature’ is an unhelpful and artificial construct that emphasises a false dichotomy. But you know what I mean. Get outdoors—so much of our lives exists in screen-bound contexts, with artificial lighting in climate controlled rooms. Get out there and smell the loaminess of the soil after it rains. Sit in the park and watch the dogs play. Find a windy place to sit and watch the sky. Escape light pollution and look up/down upon the stars. And so on. (It’s quite noticeable, the effect that a good hike can have on one’s perception of ‘busyness’—it’s mostly uncomfortable at first, but then the discomfort dissolves into a pleasantly numb monotony, and then after a while the mind—starved of its usual distractions and stories—begins to open up and discover new things. Hedonistic adaptation kicks in favourably: a flat rock becomes the source of immense comfort. A muesli bar becomes rich with flavour and nuance. And so on.) I’m sure there are plenty more ways to mitigate the insidious notion of ‘busyness’ (and I worry that only the first seven suggestions above are in service to this). Anyhoo: ace question. I hope my thoughts help in some way. ### Q3\. On the benefits of ‘not-not doing’ > *Thinking vs reflection. You talk about the importance of deep thinking time. Again, I agree. I like to talk about reflection though, as to me "thinking" implies a strongly cognitive process. "Reflection" brings in more intuition to blend with the cognition, which I believe results in much more innovative results. You may mean the same thing when you say "thinking" though. Or not, in which case I'd be curious about your views on intuition and cognition.* Yeah I’m with you. I think I say ‘thinking’ as a proxy for the antonym of ‘doing’. The dominant narrative in much of the business world is ‘taking action’, ‘making shit happen’, ‘failing fast’ and similar such. ‘Thinking’—to many—can seem like a ‘waste of time’. Theory (ways of seeing) is often met with derision under this regime. The world wants to be ‘practical’. They want ‘top tips’ that can be applied immediately at work. All of this is an anathema to my own ethos, and the hallmarks of minds trapped within some sort of dull torpor. And so I buck against such, trying to champion an alternative to relentless ‘doing’. ‘Thinking’ is the word I tend to use, as the world seems reticent, in my experience, to embrace ‘reflection’ (which is considered placid, wistful and nostalgic). I’d like to say ‘reflection’—it would just depend upon the context, and what ‘meaning-tone’ it might be given. When I say ‘thinking’ I actually mean: reasoning/reflecting/musing/pondering/sensing/exploring and most of all *allowing* (or sometimes: coaxing) new perspectives/options/avenues to emerge and take shape. This ‘thinking’, ironically, is still somewhat of a ‘doing’ thing—though not in the direct, measurable and observable manner favoured by modernity. Perhaps a good way to think of this is is: ‘not not-doing’.°\* > \* Here’s a quote from Sheila Heti’s wondrously written book, [Motherhood](https://www.amazon.com/Motherhood-Novel-Sheila-Heti/dp/1627790772?ref=foxwizard.com). *“And I don’t want ‘not a mother’ to be part of who I am—for my identity to be the negative of someone else’s positive identity. Then maybe instead of being ‘not a mother’ I could be not ‘not a mother.’ I could be not not. // If I am not not, then I am what I am. The negative cancels out the negative and I simply am. I am what I positively am, for the not before the not shields me from being simply not a mother. And to those who would say, You’re not a mother, I would reply, ‘In fact, I am not not a mother.’ By which I mean I am not ‘not a mother.’ Yet someone who is called a mother could also say, ‘In fact, I am not not a mother.’ Which means she is a mother, for the not cancels out the not. To be not not is what the mothers can be, and what the women who are not mothers can be. This is the term we can share. In this way, we can be the same.”* And so, in answer to your question, I guess what I’m trying to say is that ‘thinking’ is often the word I use for ‘not not-doing’, but that could easily be ‘reflection’ or similar such, pending the context and the linguistic palette of the audience. ### Q4\. Social capital (hope for hipsters?) > *I lost your comment about cultural capital in a sea of bagels. Curious to know what point you were going to make there.* I can’t remember the exact point I was attempting to make, but I suspect it was something along the lines of how cultural capital is increasingly important—those with more ‘cultural capital’ will outcompete those with more ‘financial capital’. Our world is largely a media landscape now, in which attention is the precious finite resource. In the competition for our attention, it is those who are more creative and imaginative that get the upper hand (not the richest or most ‘proper’). From [*The Listening Society*](https://www.amazon.com/Listening-Society-Metamodern-Politics-Guides/dp/8799973901/ref=tmm%5Fpap%5Fswatch%5F0?%5Fencoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=&ref=foxwizard.com) *“Cultural capital… is a measure of the extent to which people possess a sensitive, intimate understanding of the time they live in.”* This, of course, is linked to societal values. In time, those purporting outdated ‘modern’ values will increasingly fail to those with more cultural capital, as these folk will have a greater affinity for the values of our epoch. This is also in part why some of the more traditionally capitalist organisations struggle to recruit top talent, and why talented folks are often quite happy to work for social enterprises at a reduced salary—what they lack for in bonus financial capital they make up for in greater cultural capital, and so on. This is all tied to meta-narratives and is inherently nebulous and fluid—but one can see a pattern at play here. So I guess my point is: even though I remain rather sceptical about the future of humanity, I hold optimistically to a naïve yet well-supported belief that cultural capital will come to eclipse financial capital at some stage in the future. And that in achieving this, we will have made significant progress in righting some of the many wrongs of modernity (without triggering civilisational collapse, and whilst holding onto the good). In the meantime, we all just need continue to invest our time/effort/attention to those with greater cultural capital, when and where we can. Easy, right? (No, of course not. And yet that is what we must do. Or strive to do, most of the time). ### Q5\. Is it time for a new human story? > *And my big question...I believe we need a new human story which brings humanity together and makes a positive future more likely. I reckon it'd be something around recognising we're all interdependent parts of this infinitely complex system we call the Earth, and hence our shared higher purpose is to nurture it. I'm interested to know whether you think we need a shared human story, if so what it might be, how we might spread it...and how we would need to reshape our paradigms (e.g. of work and money) to support it.* Ah, Crone-of-the-Grove, you feel it too? Wonderful. You are giving voice to that which a small but growing number are sensing. This perilously doomed yet utterly vital quest for a better future. I’m with you. I’m not sure there is a singular story we can rally around—but if there was, it might look something like ‘metamodernism’, which is nebulous AF, and of which I find myself quite the advocate. Not sure what this is? The best primer, I contend, is [*The Listening Society*](https://www.amazon.com/Listening-Society-Metamodern-Politics-Guides/dp/8799973901/ref=tmm%5Fpap%5Fswatch%5F0?%5Fencoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=&ref=foxwizard.com) by Hanzi Freinacht.\* > *\* See? I keep referencing this book. It’s ridiculous.* But while we are here:— > *“Metamodernity is the next cultural paradigm: the post-Postmodernity. At its core is the self-reflexive re-emergence of myth, meaning and purpose. In other words: the resurrection of the Holy Spirit and Santa Claus. It is the dream of a common future for all of humanity, characterized by dignity, personal growth, responsibility, and faith in a better tomorrow.* > > *Metamodernity entered the scene once the dominance of Internet and social media met an economy where many of us no longer partake directly in the production and distribution of industrial goods. It is a worldview which combines the modern faith in progress with the postmodern critique. What you get is a view of reality in which people are on an intergenerational developmental journey towards greater complexity and existential depth.* > > *The metamodern philosophy is a whole world of ideas and suppositions that are counter-intuitive to modern and postmodern people alike. But since both the modern and postmodern philosophies are increasingly outdated, these metamodern ideas are set to develop, take hold, and spread. One day, they may become as dominant as modern philosophy is today.”* Anyways! I don’t have a singular answer to your Big Question (and it’s a good one)—but you’ll be heartened to know that I am working at it (like you, and the many few). Or rather: I am attempting to align as much of my work to contribute toward it. Whatever ‘it’ is. That thing we can feel but don’t have quite the language to describe—that. ### 🍂 Social Media is Dying. What’s next? URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/social-media-is-dying/ Last updated: 2024-10-03T11:26:24.000Z Personal ponderings on how to navigate this new frontier (part 1) _This post is for subscribers only._ ### 🍂 Gamification and the opposite of hack URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/opposite-hack/ Last updated: 2024-09-27T03:35:58.000Z A bit of an educated rant. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### 🍂How to ruin your next conference panel URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/conference-panel/ Last updated: 2024-09-27T02:06:18.000Z A recipe for underwhelming success. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### 🍂Why HR ought rebrand... to HR URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/museletter-human-resourcefulness/ Last updated: 2024-09-27T02:05:39.000Z The future of Human Resources is Human Resourcefulness _This post is for subscribers only._ ### 🍂 In Praise of Your Comfort Zone URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/comfort-zone/ Last updated: 2024-09-27T03:42:09.000Z _This post is for subscribers only._ ### 🍂Why motivation is always awkward URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/awkward-motivation/ Last updated: 2024-09-27T02:05:04.000Z Also: we've launched a tea towel. _This post is for subscribers only._ ### 🍂 The perils of a neatly-defined Purpose URL: https://www.foxwizard.com/perils-of-purpose/ Last updated: 2024-10-03T11:15:07.000Z Note: this is An Olde Museletter, from a different time and place: some links may no longer work and some ideas may no longer be ‘as true’. Read at your own peril. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/bf/97/bf97584c-3329-4c78-9441-9117defff6e1/content/images/2023/08/b4bb7e6c-f0e2-42b5-bc96-0c302378855c.png) Having a profound sense of “purpose” has become Quite The Thing now. You wouldn’t want to leave home without one. It’s now almost essential to have an answer to the question: *“What’s your Purpose?”* (or *“What’s your Why?”*). Hip agencies, startups and solo consultants love this question. So do I, kind of—it’s sometimes quite fascinating to hear the driving intent behind people’s behaviour. And we know that purpose is inherently linked to intrinsic motivation. But… I’m not sure we need the answer to this question—‘what’s your purpose?’— to be served ‘neat’. In fact, I worry when it is. _This post is for subscribers only._