The Gentle Rebel Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

Would you like to develop more creative confidence? Have you ever embarked on, or considered, a sketching practice?

In this episode of The Gentle Rebel Podcast, we explore the link between the two in conversation with artist, printmaker, and creative coach Sam Marshall.

Sam is based here in the UK and has recently released a beautiful book called Sketch: A Project Guide To Drawing With Confidence. I was fortunate enough to receive a digital copy last year and honestly, wow. It inspires, equips, and gently mentors people to start a drawing practice and engage with their natural creativity.

What I love most about the book is its emphasis on helping you find your own creative voice. This is supported by Sam’s Sketch Squad, a small group of participants who work through the exercises together. Seeing the same prompts interpreted in wildly different ways has a surprisingly powerful effect. For me, the most helpful part was witnessing the sheer range of styles, approaches, and ways of noticing the world.

https://youtu.be/yfiDlMKtMQA Creative Confidence and the Beauty of Difference

A huge part of creative confidence is realising that differences in how we see, what we notice, and what we care about are not flaws.

This is why art and creativity sit at the heart of being human. Creative expression is our collective humanity experiencing itself in all its weird and wonderful variety. I was reminded of this recently while talking about map-making as a way to understand our relationship with different areas of life. If you give the same prompt to 100 people, you do not get a single map done well. You get a hundred completely different maps.

That is what I hope people take into and out of this conversation. Difference is beautiful. It is not about doing it right. What Sam offers through this book is a sketching practice that gives us tracks along which to see, feel, and experience the world in a more alive and interesting way than when we are stuck in ultra-productivity mode, trying to make everything efficient and easy.

Why a Sketching Practice Builds Creative Confidence

A drawing practice helps us slow down, observe, and engage our creative spirit through process rather than outcome.

There is something gently rebellious about sketching in the digital age, where the default response is to pull out a phone and take a photo. There is a difference between capturing something quickly so we can hoard and move on, and drawing as a way of anchoring ourselves in the environment.

Drawing asks us to stay. To notice. To let time pass while the world happens around us. Light shifts. Shadows move. People come and go. Smells, sounds, and sensations change. Rather than consuming the environment, we are engaging with it.

Sam shares a lovely story about drawing in public and finding herself surrounded by Japanese school children. It creates a beautiful image of the quiet, magnetic energy that people who are deeply engaged with life often carry. Perhaps we are drawn to them because they are interesting. Or perhaps because they are moving at a pace many of us are craving.

Practice Over Skill

Focusing on practice rather than skill also reshapes what success means in art.

Instead of achievement, accomplishment, or the finished piece, success becomes about rhythm, consistency, and an ongoing relationship with seeing and making. Letting go of outcome-oriented art is not about lowering standards. It is about shifting attention.

It is not about producing pretty drawings. Rather, it is about sitting down with your sketchbook and using it as a tool for observing. Drawing anchors us in space and time, allowing us to witness change as it unfolds.

The Sketching Exercises Sam Walks Us Through

In the conversation, Sam takes us through the thinking behind the book’s exercises, each designed to build creative confidence through experience.

In the Home

Starting where you are. Noticing objects and spaces you have spent years with, perhaps without really seeing them.

Outside the Home

Venturing out to see the walls of your world from the outside. Noticing what is close by and reconnecting with physical space. It reveals details in neighbourhoods and communities that often go unseen.

The Stories We Tell Ourselves About Drawing

Sam explores some of the beliefs that hold people back, such as:
“What if I am not good enough?”
“I do not want to look silly or draw like a five-year-old.”

Portraits

Portraits were the most challenging exercise for many Sketch Squad members. They require vulnerability. You ask something of another person, and you share something personal in return. This is something we see in Tuula’s Photoyoga For Your Mind Experience.

25 Days of Drawing

Simple prompts designed to build a habit and keep you drawing without overthinking it.

Drawing in Public

Another edge for many people. Being seen doing something personal and slightly unusual in a culture that loves to judge creative effort.

Drawing on Holiday

Experiencing places through the slowness of drawing adds depth to memory. Sam shares a sketchbook from her recent trip to Japan, which holds far more meaning for her than a photo album ever could. A helpful reminder for any habit, too. Start on the first day away. Intentions turn into behaviours quickly, for better or worse.

Drawing From Paintings

A way of engaging critically with art as part of the human story, not just as a product. It teaches us about history, context, and what we might want to bring into our own practice.

Experimental Drawing

Combining senses. Drawing from music, film, collage, and even dreams.

The Personal Project

Turning the practice into a chosen project that marks a pause between chapters. Sam explains why she calls this a personal project rather than a final assignment.

How Creative Confidence Actually Grows

Creative confidence does not arrive before we start. It emerges along the way. Through consistency, we become confident in what we notice and why we care. For experimental types, confidence is not something we can fake into existence. But we can trust that playful, curious engagement with something like a sketching practice develops capacities we do not yet have language for.

I hope you enjoy the conversation. Thank you again to Sam for giving her time so generously and for walking us through the thinking behind, beneath, and within the book. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Connect with Sam through her website and on her Instagram.

https://serenityisland.me/

I saw a reel earlier that made me notice how burnout spreads. An entrepreneurial self-help influencer told followers to demand more power, money, and visibility for themselves. You may be familiar with this flavour of message…

“How dare you keep your impact hidden?” they said, “given the state of things right now.” They criticised viewers, demanding that they stop letting fear of what others think rule them. “Start the business, write the book, and share it with a world that needs to encounter it.”

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with the underlying sentiment. But I felt troubled by the burnout energy evident in the speaker. I watched with the sound off at first, which intensified the impact of their eyes and hand gestures on my nervous system. There was a sense of panic and hype, which felt completely at odds with what is required for deep courage to meet the very real need being spoken about.

I didn’t feel inspired or grounded in creative motivation. Instead, I was overcome by frenetic urgency and the indiscriminate demand to do more, driven by competition and fear. Things we already have in abundance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWf-FGZqIyE What Burnout Energy Pushes Us Toward

There are enough people waving their arms and shouting demands about what we should be doing, using, and spending our finite resources on. What we need is space to slow down, take a breath, and listen deeply to that still, quiet voice within. This inner voice shows us what matters and why. Then we can choose how we bring it all to life.

We need leaders who lead from that place, so we might be infused with and infected by the gentleness required to move out of that evident stuckness. That stuckness causes wheels to spin in the cycle of hurry, rush, and reactive firefighting mode.

What Does Safety Make Possible?

The word “safe” is used a lot today. To some degree, it has become diluted, making it difficult to define. But it’s worth exploring because it sits at the heart of this issue.

Maybe we have a desire to change something about ourselves, our lives, or the world. Or perhaps we’ve created, or are creating, something that could make a meaningful difference to other people.

We now consider another buzzword of our times: vulnerability. It can feel vulnerable to be honest about what we want in life and to share what matters to us with those who matter to us. It can be scary to admit what we care about and what burns within us. That’s because it can disrupt the status quo and challenge the image people have of us. It’s vulnerable because we cannot be certain how people will react.

Vulnerability Is More Than a Mindset

Likewise, it may leave us genuinely physically vulnerable if we choose to stand up for what we believe is right, for example, through art or activism. This vulnerability isn’t imagined. It’s not simply an issue of mindset, limiting beliefs to overcome, or a conditioned cultural message we just need to override with reframe hacks. We know there are real-world threats out there.

What struck me about the reel was that it failed to provide the support needed to underpin its demands. In fact, it undermined the courage, conviction, and energy required to speak up in a world that might be unreceptive or even hostile to what we have to say.

The finger-wagging shame that comes from an influencer demanding we do more because it’s cruel to hide from people who need to see us, however well-intentioned, will ultimately crumble and fold under its own weight. As a result, it creates the very passivity and inaction it warns against.

Safety isn’t about comfort or avoidance. It’s the internal condition that enables honest reflection, creative movement, and sustained courage. This isn’t about mindset or thinking. It starts with the context of the stories we swim in, the supportive structures beneath us, and the material conditions that sustain life.

Safety is Also Contagious

One of the things I have consistently heard from people over the years who have connected with what I do, especially in The Haven and through the Serenity Island course, is the word safety. I’m always curious about what it means to those who use it, because it’s not something I think about explicitly.

When I started sharing The Return to Serenity Island at the start of 2021, I received messages from people that put words to the experience:

“Oh my word, it is incredible! A really unique mixture of sound and sensory experience, coaching, imaginative play and informal, companionable talks. I’m absolutely hooked. I just did a module and cried like a baby because I felt so safe and seen. It is really special. That kind of cry you do when you’re a kid, not because you’re afraid anymore, but because you’ve been PICKED UP, and the relief just comes flooding out.” – Josie

This spoke of safety not as the opposite of courage, but as the cornerstone around which courageous action can be sustained. A cornerstone we can return to and draw from without conditions on our intrinsic worth as humans. Safety, then, is feeling held as you are, without expectation or demand to prove yourself or fight for a sense of value.

A Step Back From Burnout Energy

This is a key value that underpins The Return to Serenity Island. It was a response to a feeling I had while doing my old year-end practice. I needed something that broke with the message of self-optimisation, personal productivity, and motivational resources, which, with an emphasis on striving, adding, and growing simply because it’s what you’re “supposed” to do, carried a creeping burnout energy.

Tuula wrote,

“Serenity Island has been the most powerful and lovely thing I have ever experienced. Andy has created an amazing adventure, cleverly weaving together incredibly beautiful soundscapes and deeply touching story narrative, which ignites your imagination, activates all senses and sends you on a journey of a lifetime on this island of your wildest dreams.

It is playful and also a very useful creative project, which continues to evolve and grow with me. This Island work and its ripple effects have sneaked quietly and effectively into so many areas of my life already. I could not have found more effective and gentle coaching than with Andy.”

The course is not something that comes with easy-to-market promises and packaged outcomes that everyone walks away with in the same way. Everyone who goes through it seems to encounter it from a different angle.

But there is a common denominator of safety, which underpins everyone’s response to it.

Safety as a foundation for reflection, observation, and planning. A way to let what sits within us speak, and to give ourselves the best chance of hearing it. And as such, it’s not a way to withdraw from reality. Instead, it helps us locate and root ourselves more firmly within it, so we can find strength, courage, and clarity about who we are, what we want to tend to and nurture, and how we will stand in the face of the forces that may take us away from ourselves.

An Invitation to Serenity Island

The Return to Serenity Island is a self-paced guided voyage with optional Zoom “Picnics”. These provide us with time and space for further reflection, support, and in-person connection along the way.

This is a perfect time to grab a passport if this stuff feels right for you. The Serenity Island Passport gives you access to all materials and picnics for the next 12 months.

And speaking of safety, I’ve made the course available on a choose-your-own-price basis. I know many people are navigating changing financial circumstances, and I truly mean it when I say: choose the amount that feels right for you. No minimum, no need to explain or justify your choice. I just want you there if you feel the pull.

Arriving Through The Fog | A Narrated Soundscape

It’s much easier to show than describe, so I’ll share the first of these six pieces that supplement the course materials.

“Arriving through the fog soundscape is the most brilliant thing I have witnessed as a gateway into myself. If I stopped here, at the harbour to the Island, it would already be worth it for me. Thank you for this. It’s filled with magic.” – Zoie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSBXlLgPuTQ

Welcome home!

https://serenityisland.me/

Do you have a heart for change but find that the loud, confrontational, and extroverted norms of traditional activism don’t suit your natural temperament?

In this episode of The Gentle Rebel Podcast, I talk with Sarah P Corbett, the award-winning activist, author, and founder of the Craftivist Collective.

I’ve been following Sarah for years on Instagram, and after seeing she was Craftivist in Residence at Greenbelt Festival, I thought I’d reach out and see if she fancied a chat. This episode works as a companion piece to my conversation with Dorcas Cheng-Tozun, author of Social Justice for the Sensitive Soul, which includes quotes from Sarah (something I only realised later!).

Sarah’s philosophy of Gentle Protest shows that there are many other tools we can carry in our activism toolbox, and that campaigning can be quietly relational rather than transactional or performative endeavour.

https://youtu.be/8EgDlswKn1k What Is Gentle Protest?

Sarah says that Gentle Protest invites us to challenge injustice through curiosity, empathy, and imagination rather than shame, aggression, or polarity.

Instead of fighting fire with fire, Gentle Protest asks:

• What if activism could entice, intrigue, and attract people to ask questions rather than shout them down?
• What if change could be built through dialogue, beauty, and patience?

This philosophy is rooted in gentleness as a form of strength, not passivity. It’s about engaging people, including those in power, with respect and relational awareness, creating conditions where meaningful change can take root.

Relationships Over Transactions

For Sarah, this kind of activism is not about noise or confrontation. It’s about relationship-building. Gentle Protest works by diffusing defensiveness and replacing finger-wagging with curiosity and creative connection.

When protest becomes relational, it stops being about winning arguments and starts being about transforming understanding. It allows for mutual learning and a recognition of our shared humanity, even in disagreement.

The Firm Backbone of Gentleness

Gentleness is often mistaken for weakness, but as Sarah puts it, it actually requires maturity, emotional intelligence, and depth.

To practice Gentle Protest is to treat people as equals while respecting the realities of their workload, their blind spots, and their humanity. It’s a strategic and pragmatic approach that asks: Who can bring about the change we seek? and How can we engage them in ways that build trust, not tension?

This isn’t about letting things slide. It’s about working intelligently, relationally, and with purpose.

Craftivism is a Tool, Not a Taskmaster

In the Gentle Protest Toolkit, craftivism is one potential tool rather than a catchall dogma. It’s about finding creative methods that fit each situation, rather than repeating the same tactics out of habit.

Sarah uses these questions to help people work backwards when figuring out the best approach for their campaign:

1. What’s the problem?
2. What’s the desired outcome?
3. Who are the decision-makers?
4. Who influences them?
5. What creative medium could best reach them?

If craftivism fits, use it. If not, find another way. The key is flexibility, imagination, and a commitment to relationships.

Letting Go of Perfection

Perfectionism can quietly strangle our ability to act. Sarah reminds us that activism isn’t about knowing everything or producing perfect work; it’s about participating in something bigger than ourselves.

The moment we make a campaign about personal performance, we lose sight of its purpose and make it less impactful. Gentle Protest frees us from that pressure, allowing imperfection and humanity to shine through.

The “Golden Thread of Gentleness”

What runs through everything Sarah does is what she calls the golden thread of gentleness.

Gentle Protest challenges the false dichotomy between soft and strong, showing that kindness can be an act of rebellion when the world rewards cruelty.

In this sense, gentleness is a radical choice we can make in the face of power. It is not passive or submissive, but profoundly and existentially creative.

About Sarah P Corbett

An award-winning activist, author and Ashoka fellow, Sarah P Corbett founded the global Craftivist Collective in 2009 and coined ‘Gentle Protest’ as her unique methodology. Corbett creates products and services for individuals, groups and organisations to do effective craftivism (craft + activism) prioritising audiences who have never done activism before.

Sarah’s pioneering work has helped change government laws, business policies as well as hearts and minds. She has worked with V&A, Tate, Craft Council, Climate Coalition, Helsinki Design Week, Save the Children and Secret Cinema amongst others. One of her campaigns directly led to 50,000 staff of Marks and Spencers receiving the real Living Wage. Plus WWF used Corbett’s 10-point manifesto to create their own successful craftivism campaign that led to a change in law to protect migrating birds in Spain.

Her TED x talk ‘Activism Needs Introverts’ was chosen as a TED Talk Of The Day. Corbett Co-created the Girlguiding Craftivism badge and her third book The Craftivist Collective Handbook was published 2nd May 2024 and won ‘best multimedia book’ at 2025’s The Creative Book Awards.

Connect with Sarah

Find Sarah on Instagram (@craftivists and @sarahpcorbett), Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and subscribe to receive the Craftivist Collective newsletter.

It’s time to dive back into the history of self-help and consider its impact on our understanding of how and who we are. In this episode of The Gentle Rebel Podcast, we are looking at the 1937 book, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.

Think and Grow Rich sits on millions of bookshelves worldwide. It has remained one of the most enduring self-help books since its publication during the Great Depression. Despite documented controversies and allegations concerning the author, Napoleon Hill is still regarded by many contemporary self-help influencers as an important figure.

For this special episode, Napoleon Hill invited me to meet with him, where he promised to reveal the secret to becoming a successful self-help guru. He tasked me with turning this into a formula, which I could then share with the world. If you are ready to hear this secret, you will. But not all are. Which is why, despite it being mentioned in every part of the episode, I have not spelt it out in the starkest terms. For to do so would diminish its potency.

https://youtu.be/Cn6H17AFwPU 12 Steps To Thinking and Growing Rich as a Self-Help Influencer

We will explore these twelve keys to becoming a successful self-help grifter—sorry, I mean self-help guru—that we can learn from Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich.

Step 1: Lay Out Your Recipe for Success

Your recipe should promise clarity, control, and a sense of certainty in an uncertain world.

Step 2: Parade Yourself As Living Proof

Don’t be shy about telling people how your life changed from implementing your now tried and tested formula.

Step 3: Build Fail-Safe Principles

Be flexible with your words so that in the face of pushback and criticism, you can use them as reinforcement rather than undermining your idea.

Step 4: Establish Your Inner Circle

Join (or build) a fortifed circle of mutual back-scratching allies to grow authority by association and encourage aspirational sycophancy in your readers who dream of one day belonging to it.

Step 5: Drip Your Secret Sauce

Create and nurture a mystical secret, which sustains in your reader the sense that there is still something graspable they haven’t quite embodied – reinforce this with testimonials from those who appear to get it

Step 6: Nail Your Origin Story

Your appeal hinges on your origin story, which should follow a hero’s journey arc that starts with you in the reader’s current position (facing a challenge, wishing for change, etc). Describe the moment when everything changed for you and how this epiphany led your life to transform into what it is now. Firmly suggest that reading your book might be that wake-up call for the reader’s own heroic journey towards the life they’ve dreamed of but never yet dared follow.

Step 7: Use Confidence as Currency

Speak with confidence even if you are full of doubt and fear. The human mind is suggestible; the projection of confidence creates the perception of confidence. If you believe in your idea, it doesn’t matter if it’s true or not; you know that it’s for the ultimate good of your reader to trust and follow you. Confidence is also what you are selling – people want to feel more of it, so if they see you wearing it, they will follow you.

Step 8: Turn Your Beliefs into Facts

Reinforce a picture of the world your readers want to believe in. Pick stories, metaphors, and research that move the frame of reality to one where your idea can be universally applied, and would be if all people were receptive to its power.

Step 9: Present The Pen of Destiny

Empower your readers to see reality primarily created by them as individuals. Emphasise the power of mindset, desire, and hard work, reinforcing the idea that taking personal responsibility for the quality of their life is what will bring the change they desire.

Step 10: Expose The Inner Enemy

Help your readers focus attention inwards to expose the biggest enemies of personal progress: fear, doubt, and indecision. Use militarised language to impress the urgency of the situation, which your method will help them emerge victorious.

Step 11: Feed The Lone Wolf

Stoke the fire of individual power by showing the reader that they are the protagonist and other people are supporting characters (obstacles or aids) in their life.

Step 12: Divide and Conquer

Nurture loyalty in your readers by turning them into followers, so they will defend you and your ideas if envious people criticise and attack you. And always remember that your people are your easiest source of future profit.

Self-Help is a Form, Not a Topic

Of course, while these might sound absurd, they’re the very mechanisms that keep the self-help industry turning.

Think and Grow Rich is an excellent demonstration of the technical tricks at play. A picture is beginning to form of how, as a genre, self-help is about more than its content. It’s about influencing beliefs and behaviours about ourselves, one another, and the way the world works.

Hill’s techniques rely on narrative, authority, perception, and engagement rather than the presentation of researched and documented knowledge. And when we view it in its historical context, we can see how important that was in the success of Think and Grow Rich. People were in vulnerable positions, still suffering from the effects of the Great Depression in the wake of the Wall Street Crash. They were seeking hope and practical solutions to the real material precarity created by a crisis inherent in the capitalist system. But rather than looking to the cause of that crisis and organising collectively for accountability to the real causes, and to ensure a safer future, Hill sold a story of individuals as personally responsible for the crash and responsible for pulling themselves up and following their dream to riches and success.

Hill’s formula has been replicated, adapted, and updated by thousands of self-help authors in the years since.

Further Reading/Viewing:

If you want to dive deeper into the truth about Napoleon Hill and the context of Think and Grow Rich, several resources do a great job highlighting the pattern of deception, fraud, and opportunism that was his true legacy. Think and Grow Rich isn’t an exception to that pattern – along with his other books, his emergence as a self-help success author sits squarely in his life as a con artist and snake oil salesman.

I hope that, by showcasing some of the techniques Hill employed in his self-help writing, we might be better equipped to recognise these same tactics used by influencers and gurus today. And to help those who are vulnerable to its allure, to notice before they spend thousands of dollars on promises that can’t come true.

In tracing its roots, we can begin to see how the mythology of self-help continues to shape our understanding of who and how we are today.

• The Untold Story of Napoleon Hill, the Greatest Self-Help Scammer of All Time (Matt Novak) (Article)
• The Untold Truth of Napoleon Hill – History’s Most Beloved Con-Man (Coffeezilla) (Video)
• Think and Grow Duped | The Dream (Podcast)
• Napoleon Hill: The Grifter Who Invented ‘The Secret’ & Donald Trump (BTB – Part One) (Video)
• Napoleon Hill: The Grifter Who Invented ‘The Secret’ & Donald Trump (BTB – Part Two) (Video)

In this episode of The Gentle Rebel Podcast , I speak with psychiatrist and author Dr Judith Orloff about her new book, The Highly Sensitive Rabbit . She wrote it to help sensitive children, their parents, and educators see sensitivity as a natural trait rather than a problem to be solved. She describes it as an invitation to reconnect with the sensitive inner child within each of us; the part that remembers how to play, imagine, and wonder.

https://youtu.be/0Q7AJGKBbIg Rediscovering the Magic of Life

Life can easily become overly serious, mundane, and disconnected from its natural magic. Judith’s story sets out to remind us to stay in touch with the loving, curious, and deep parts of ourselves. Creativity, she says, begins when we release our expectations and allow things to unfold. Writing a children’s book challenged her to express complex ideas in short sentences, paired with illustrations (by Katy Tanis) that speak directly to the heart.

It’s a lovely example of trying new ways to communicate familiar truths. How would you explain your favourite ideas if you were talking to a five-year-old?

Reading the Book to People

Judith often read The Highly Sensitive Rabbit aloud in different settings to see how people responded. This wasn’t a formal research process, but a natural extension of her curiosity. It was a way to sense how the story landed with children and adults alike.

What Do You Love to Do?

At the heart of the book lies a simple question: What do you love to do?
Through the character of Aurora, a gentle rabbit who prefers quiet and reflection to the boisterous games of her siblings, Judith highlights the importance of honouring individual needs. Aurora shows what it looks like to follow her own rhythm, even when others don’t understand.

This is an invitation for sensitive children (and the adults guiding them) to trust intuition and stay close to what feels true, even when it seems different from the norm.

Opening Up Conversation Instead of Judgement

In one scene, Aurora’s mother worries about her spending too much time alone. Her siblings complain, “She cries all the time.” Their reactions mirror common misunderstandings about sensitivity.

It’s easy to assume that solitude means loneliness, or that tears signal weakness. However, without genuine communication, we cannot determine whether someone’s withdrawal is a healthy choice, meeting a need, or responding through fear. Judith’s story reminds us to stay curious rather than judgmental; to ask, listen, and support instead of prescribing what “should” be.

Supporting a sensitive child means helping them identify their needs, manage their emotions, and develop simple strategies to cope with overwhelm.

Learning to Care for Yourself

Judith offers suggestions for children (and adults) to manage big feelings and model healthy boundaries:

• Take a slow breath when you feel stressed.
• Step away before speaking when you’re upset.
• Try a short three-minute meditation: close your eyes, focus on something beautiful, and take a few deep breaths.

These practices cultivate self-awareness early in life, enabling children to grow up knowing how to take care of themselves.

The Bigger Vision

The Highly Sensitive Rabbit expresses Judith’s wider mission to equip highly sensitive people with tools for thriving in an overstimulating world. When children learn early that their sensitivity is natural, they no longer need to define themselves by it later. It simply becomes part of who they are.

Knowing You’re Highly Sensitive Is the First Step

I asked Judith if there are plans for a sequel. It would be interesting to see Aurora explore her sensitivity through different experiences, applying it through friendships, challenging current events, and creativity. Many adults who discover their sensitivity have that same question: now what? Recognising it is one thing; integrating and normalising it is something else.

https://the-haven.co/zine

Is the audience more than a gaggle of consumers? What role do they play in the creative process of an artist? Should they, as Rick Rubin says, “come last”? Are they always right? Or is there a more nuanced and sustaining way to approach this question?

In this episode of The Gentle Rebel , I explore this question with Steve Lawson.

I bumped into Steve towards the end of the summer at Greenbelt Festival. We rapidly got deep in conversation about his recently completed PhD, A Study Towards a New Model for Subscriber Audience Involvement in Improvised Music .

Steve’s approach to music-making and creative practice has always resonated with me. Over the past twenty-five years, he has carved out a living as a solo improvisational bass player, developing a thoughtful and sustainable model for art that resists the common assumptions that drive an obsession with numbers and scale. His thesis turns that lived experience into a lens for questioning many of the assumptions baked into how we think about creativity today.

https://youtu.be/BB362bVySiI

Notes from our conversation…

The Audience Comes With

What happens if we treat the audience as part of the story that shapes and sustains our practice?

A way of looking at the influential relationship between artist and audience is to create spaces where the rationale (the philosophical approach) can be presented, and work can emerge as part of a conversation with the audience. For Steve, listening to how people (who respect your work) engage with it, whether “that reminds me of…” or “my Dad just died and all I can listen to is you,” becomes so much more meaningful than having a reviewer who doesn’t know what you are doing or why, and place it in a pile of other CDs. What matters is how people relate it to their lives, and what it means to them. Creating spaces for this dialogue became central: a mailing list, website forum, Twitter, and eventually a subscription model through Bandcamp.

Non-Algorithmically Defined Community Spaces

This meant integrating community with the economic rationale for making music. The audience emotionally sustains the music and financially supports its creation, along with the maintenance of the space where both artist and audience belong as equals. When the audience has already paid for the music before it is made, there is no need to rationalise it with hype or spectacle. Instead, it connects with people who already share the philosophical approach. This is a form of patronage, supporting the artist because of how they create, not only what they make.

Scenius (Brian Eno)

Genius is not an individual trait but the manifestation of the collective intelligence of a scene. Famous names are simply the visible tip of a larger iceberg, as with Russian painters in the early twentieth century.

Reception Theory (Stuart Hall)

Audiences actively interpret media texts by encoding and decoding. They may align with the intended meaning (dominant reading), reject it (oppositional reading), or negotiate it. Instrumental music does not encode meaning in a concrete way. Its sense of meaning emerges cumulatively, with artist and audience encoding together. Decoding and recoding become a collective process, shaped by new work and ongoing observations.

The Space of the Talkaboutable (David Darke)

Great works expand the “space of the talkaboutable,” an invitation to discuss ideas and broaden horizons. While Darke sees this as arriving around the work, Steve sees the space as built first (through mailing lists, forums, Twitter, Bandcamp), with the work then released into it. Meaning is collectively encoded, decoded, and recoded in this shared space.

“The Audience Comes Last”

The PhD began with the desire to make better music. What became clear was how much the audience contributes to the process, and what happens when that is denied. Rubin’s statement that the audience should be ignored overlooks the wisdom, care, and vulnerability that listeners bring. If the artist reflects the collective experience of a community, then the soundtrack emerges from what is shared.

This model does not scale, and that is the point. It does not rely on 200,000 monthly Spotify listeners or disconnected fame. That pressure brings entitlement and expectation. Within the subscriber community, no one tells the artist what to do. Even when people do not understand, they ask in good faith why, rather than demanding change.

From a Transactional to a Relational Audience

In transactional dynamics, the audience and the artist are set against each other, either dictating the work or being ignored. But a community of practice is about shared growth around a central practice. Interest in process can deepen listening and appreciation, rather than feeding competitiveness or exclusivity.

In a culture of shortcuts and AI-generated outputs, curiosity about how something is done can add depth. Seeing how a sound is made can enhance enjoyment, provided it is not reduced to transactional comparison.

Algorithmic Sensationalism

When everyone strives for spectacle, nuance disappears. Storytellers risk being drowned out by carnival barkers. The demand for more outrageous content comes at the cost of honesty and integrity. In this context, honesty itself becomes an act of resistance.

Transformative and Incremental Change

Incremental change adds more of what already exists, such as new ways to sell CDs. Transformative change shifts the whole landscape, such as the move from a scarcity economy to a digital economy. Streaming services illustrate this. It takes 100 premium streams or 600 free streams to equal one paid download in the UK charts. A fan listening 50 times counts for little. This model discourages deep audience and artist relationships, favouring scale and safety over innovation and depth.

Value and Meaning

“Art is how we decorate space, and music is how we decorate time” (Basquiat).

The value of music is not in how it is made or delivered, but in what it does to us when we hear it. It lives in memory and anticipation carried in the present moment of listening.

How Can I Keep Doing This?

“ How can I keep doing this? ” Creators want to make meaningful work in ways that are true to their vision and voice. But the new market risks corrupting that relationship, bending art to serve algorithms and demand. The pressure for novelty creates a treadmill of spectacle rather than depth.

The Stagnating Affect of Uninterrogated Nostalgia

Nostalgia plays a powerful, often unexamined, role in media consumption. While loving music from the past is natural, unexamined nostalgia can become life sapping, pulling us into yearning for an imagined past at the cost of present possibility. Complaints that “nobody writes like X anymore” undermine new work, and algorithms rarely prioritise sharing others’ new music.

Community in Practice

When Steve was diagnosed with cancer, he recorded a piece immediately after leaving hospital and shared it on Bandcamp. The audience was present, part of his journey, and the music carried meaning in that shared context. It was not “music about cancer” from a safe distance. It was a raw reflection of his brain on cancer, sparking connection and healing with those who were already part of the story.

Listen

Steve’s music

Emily Baker

Dirty Loops (Henrik Linder)

House of Waters (Moto Fukushima)

In this week’s episode of The Gentle Rebel Podcast, we look at the relationship between sensory processing sensitivity and hypervigilance.

As we finish our journey through the first HSP Owner’s Guide , we turn our attention to hypervigilance. that feeling of being permanently “switched on,” unable to stop scanning for danger, even when we’re safe.

For highly sensitive people, vigilance is a natural part of sensory processing sensitivity. It helps us read the room, pick up subtle cues, and stay attuned to what is happening beneath the surface. But when vigilance tips into hypervigilance, it can leave us in a state of chronic over-arousal, disconnection, and exhaustion.

In the episode, we explore why hypervigilance is such a common experience for HSPs, how it shows up in everyday life, and ways we might support our nervous systems in returning to a sense of safety and connection. I examine hypervigilance within a social and cultural context for HSPs, rather than from a clinical or individual psychological perspective.

https://youtu.be/RCvrgSJH73I Vigilance vs. Hypervigilance

Vigilance is an intrinsic feature of sensory intelligence. It anchors us in the awareness to notice and predict useful information to help us survive and thrive together.

Hypervigilance is what happens when vigilance overspills, and we get stuck in a state of alertness with limited capability to move our nervous system into a state of connection.

This can have roots in early life (especially for HSPs who are more impacted by their formative environments). But it can also develop over time because of the pressures and rhythms of the modern world, with constant notifications, cultural glorification of busyness, and a never-ending expectation to perform and prove our worth.

Possible Signs of Hypervigilance

Hypervigilance is not always dramatic. Often it shows up quietly and gradually, for example you might notice:

• Feeling flat or detached, as if life is happening behind glass
• Difficulty taking action, even on small plans
• Unusual tearfulness
• Brain fog and trouble focusing
• Ruminating thoughts on repeat
• Disrupted sleep cycles
• Anxiety or panic attacks seemingly “out of nowhere”
• Harsh self-criticism or low self-esteem

If these feel familiar, they may be signs that your nervous system has been in “stay safe” mode for a long time.

Why Hypervigilance Happens

Hypervigilance is the nervous system’s over-lean into the message, “stay safe by staying alert.” This is obviously appropriate in certain contexts, but when we carry this story everywhere, it takes its toll and can be a difficult pattern to get out of.

Some common contributing factors include:

• Early Environments: Growing up in conflict or unpredictability can train the nervous system to always be on guard, especially in volatile environments where safety could be torn away at a moment’s notice.
• Past Experiences: The nervous system may overlearn from painful experiences, remaining alert to avoid “ever letting that happen again.”
• Cultural Pressures: Hustle culture, social media outrage cycles, and global crises all create a background hum of threat.
• Worldview and Meaning-Making: Certain belief systems (political, religious, ideological) can divide the world into “us vs. them,” keeping us in a state of perpetual alertness to nefarious outside actors.
• Physiological Factors: Poor sleep, hormone shifts, or nutritional deficiencies can lower our threshold for perceiving danger.

These are rarely isolated and often overlap in ways that reinforce one another.

Meeting Hypervigilance with Creative Gentleness

A helpful (though, not easy) way to meet everyday hypervigilance is to slow things down. Not necessarily by stopping altogether, but by letting engagement become gentler and more deliberate. Rather than rushing to solve, fix, or control, we can allow space to notice small sensory glimmers, those subtle cues that tell us we are safe, connected, and welcome in the moment.

Sometimes hypervigilance disguises itself as a need to gather more knowledge or prepare more thoroughly before we act. The desire to have the perfect plan, the ideal response, or the flawless understanding can be part of the protective pattern itself. Learning to sit with uncertainty, to laugh about situations (especially with others), and to experiment imperfectly can be a gentle way of softening the grip of hypervigilance.

We do not have to do this work alone. Bringing trusted people into our experiments, letting them see us try, fail, and try again, can help retrain our nervous system to experience safety and belonging in moments of vulnerability. Over time, these practices reshape our inner landscapes, reassuring the nervous system that imperfection is safe.

I had not heard of James Allen before I started exploring this history of self-help. I saw references to his book, “ As a Man Thinketh ”, which was frequently cited as an influential text around the power of thought on manifesting circumstances. With our “It’s the thought that counts” theme in The Haven this month, my curiosity took me into a James Allen rabbit hole.

I read three of his books: From Poverty to Power (his first), The Divine Companion (his last), and As a Man Thinketh (his most famous). I wanted to try getting a sense of where he was coming from in his philosophical worldview. He published around twenty books, all written within an eleven-year period, before he died in 1912 at just 47 years old. I do wonder how his ideas would have evolved if he had lived longer.

In this episode of The Gentle Rebel Podcast , I share my response to As a Man Thinketh. I reflect on Allen’s ideas and their implications for the way we think about ourselves, one another, and the nature of reality.

https://youtu.be/tVtG-Ahrkgw Why Am I Doing This Project?

You may be wondering why I’m exploring self-help…Good question. I’m not completely sure. But I think it’s because I’ve felt an intuitive nudge to explore this world and its function in culture.

I don’t know where it will take me (I have no overriding purpose or vision with it – sorry James!), or what I will find, but I have a sense that there are interesting things to discover by examining, not just the content that is common in the self-help genre, but the role the field plays in how we understand and judge ourselves, others, and the horizons of possibility for the world.

As I find in this book, there are some interesting insights and invitations to explore. But it also carries the potential to be understood, embodied, and applied in dangerous and harmful ways, especially when Allen’s metaphors are mistaken for literal truths. This is where his philosophy, which initially sounds positive and empowering, becomes reductive and destructive when we examine its logical implications.

It demonstrates rhetorical tricks that are echoed in modern-day personal development literature, such as metaphorical literalism. This is where poetic imagery and aphorisms are employed to support and prove otherwise baseless philosophies.

How James Allen Described As a Man Thinketh

As a Man Thinketh is intentionally short. Allen described it as a pocket book with teaching that all can easily grasp and follow. He said it shows how, in their own thought-world, each human holds the key to every condition, good or bad, that enters into our life. By working patiently and intelligently upon our thoughts, we may remake our life and transform our circumstances.

The question I keep coming back to throughout this exploration is, does he mean this as a description or a prescription? And what difference does this make to our reading, interpretation, and application of these ideas?

As a Man Thinketh – Notes Thought and Character

“A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts.”

A person is the product of thought alone. The mantra “change your thoughts, change your life” is still repeated as if it were a scientific law rather than a metaphor.

The Effect of Thought on Circumstances

“Every man is where he is by the law of his being. The thoughts which he has built into his character have brought him there, and in the arrangement of his life there is no element of chance.”

Prosperity and poverty, joy and suffering, always mirror the state of an individual’s mind.

The Effect of Thought on Health and Body

“The body is the servant of the mind. It obeys the operations of the mind, whether they be deliberately chosen or automatically expressed.”

Thought is the source of health and sickness.

Thought and Purpose

“He who has conquered doubt and fear has conquered failure.”

To avoid suffering, an individual needs a central life purpose. We should find the straight pathway to the achievement of purpose, and never deviate from its path.

The Thought-Factor in Achievement

“Before a man can achieve anything, even in worldly things, he must lift his thoughts above slavish animal indulgence.”

A virtuous life is about achievement, accomplishment, and sacrifice.

Visions and Ideals

“Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become.”

Just as the oak sits in the acorn and the bird in the egg, every life is where it deserves to be based on the way they have manifested their dreams.

Serenity

“Self-control is strength; Right Thought is mastery; Calmness is power.”

Calmness of mind is the hallmark of strength. The serene person is better positioned to achieve power, influence, and moral authority.

Reading As a Man Thinketh today, it’s striking how much of modern self-help traces back to these chapters. Its metaphors endure, and sit in us like self-evident truths.

The appeal of serenity continues in modern stoicism and mindfulness trends.

My Conclusion

Allen’s neat system suggests that thought alone determines who we are and what happens to us. It is an idea that has proven remarkably persistent, even though it collapses under the weight of real life. Human experience is not simple, not consistent, not something we can manage through the power of will. We are shaped by chance, by biology, by history, by one another. To be alive is to live in the contradiction and messiness. Any philosophy that denies this may be comforting for a moment, but it asks us to reject the very things that make us human.

https://the-haven.co/register/

This post elaborates on the ‘overstimulation’ section of The HSP Owner’s Guide.

In this week’s episode of The Gentle Rebel Podcast, we look at the relationship between sensory processing sensitivity and overstimulation.

Overstimulation is a term we often hear when people talk about high sensitivity. It’s the second word in the DOES acronym after Deep Processing and before Emotional Responsiveness or Empathy, and Sensing Subtleties as a description of core characteristics of the trait.

But what do we actually mean by overstimulated? What does it look like? And is there anything we can do about it other than avoiding stimulating environments and situations? At the get-go, I want to answer that question with a resounding yes. We don’t have to write ourselves out of the situations, environments, and experiences that really matter to us. We have the capacity to build sustainable approaches to this stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qy8XxQe7_iU Responsiveness and Stimulation

Because highly sensitive people are all different, it’s important to remember that sensitivity isn’t who we are. It’s more like the rails our nervous system runs on. It is often described as a spectrum of sensory responsiveness. Those on the high end take in a huge amount of sensory data and process it deeply. Those on the low end take in less, and most people are somewhere in the middle. As a species, we have evolved and benefit from individuals existing along this continuum.

Environmental Sensitivity researchers describe this variation through the concept of differential susceptibility. Some individuals are more profoundly influenced by their environment, for better or worse. It’s not about weakness or fragility. It’s about responsiveness and depth of processing. Studies show that highly sensitive individuals flourish in supportive settings but face greater challenges in chaotic ones.

I like to visualise this difference using microphones. A sensitive condenser mic is uniquely effective in quiet, controlled spaces. It picks up every subtle detail. But in a loud environment, it can get overwhelmed by noise. A dynamic mic has a narrower field of responsiveness and can work in almost any environment because it picks up less background noise. Both are useful, but for different purposes. This helps us remember that high sensitivity isn’t a flaw or superpower, it’s just a variation in human temperament, useful in some contexts and less so in others.

What Overstimulation Looks Like

Overstimulation can look different from individual to individual. It is caused by an overload of the nervous system with environmental, emotional, social, or cognitive information.

It’s not always evident to others when a highly sensitive person is overstimulated. Despite appearing calm or composed, HSPs may be grappling with intense physical discomfort or emotional distress due to nervous system overload. Rising levels of stress hormones such as adrenaline, noradrenaline, and cortisol exacerbate this heightened sensitivity, leading to strong reactions to excitement, tension, temperature changes, or sensory stimuli in the environment.

What looks like calmness in a person might be a kind of shutting down. This happens to me when I’ve had too much stimulation – I can look really chilled out, but in actual fact I’m unable to function properly.

You might experience:

Physical symptoms of overstimulation

• Lightheadedness or dizziness
• Internal tremors (feeling shaky inside without visible shaking)
• Heart palpitations or irregular heartbeat sensations
• Nausea or digestive discomfort
• Temperature sensitivity

Cognitive effects of overstimulation

• Difficulty concentrating or focusing on tasks
• Short-term memory lapses
• Mental fog or feeling disconnected from surroundings
• Racing thoughts

Emotional responses

• Irritability disproportionate to the situation
• Sudden emotional surges, such as tears or outbursts of frustration
• Social withdrawal urges
• Heightened startle response

Behavioural changes

• Restlessness or inability to settle
• Increased sensitivity to light, sound, or touch
• Sleep disturbances despite fatigue
• Impulsive decisions to remove oneself from situations

Overstimulation may be subtle. It can build gradually like a low background hum. And sometimes it hits all at once, like flood defences breaking. I remember experiencing it in shops as a child. The fluorescent lights, drudging through aisles, would leave me suddenly feeling drowsy and disconnected, despite being excited at the idea of going shopping.

The Physiology Behind Overstimulation

When overstimulated, the nervous system activates stress responses.

• Neuroception, the subconscious threat detection system, becomes hyper-alert
• Stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline flood the system
• The prefrontal cortex becomes less effective, making rational thinking harder
• Sensory filters become less discriminating, letting in too much information

This explains why two people can enter the same environment and one feels energised while the other feels overwhelmed. It’s as much about the state of your nervous system as the external situation, and also about the cumulative load of stimulation you carry between contexts. This is also why it’s important to consider Deb Dana’s words, “story follows state,” which remind us that for highly sensitive people, it’s not as simple as choosing our mindset. We need to start by selecting environmental elements that lead to a calm and less stimulated nervous system before particular thoughts may be able to change.

How to Regulate When Overstimulation Hits

We might think of regulating overstimulation through two broad filters: proactive and responsive.

Proactive regulation involves preparing your nervous system before entering a stimulating environment or situation:

• Notice environments that tend to overstimulate you (and how it tends to happen)
• Consider the contributing factors, e.g. timing, social energy, and sensory intensity
• Plan strategies ahead of time that help you identify green/red flags when facing invitations/opportunities, prioritising margin and bridging between environments, and planning for realistic preparation/recovery space and time where possible

Responsive regulation is what you do when you feel your nervous system becoming overstimulated. Again, different things work for different people, and what works for one person might make it worse for someone else. It’s about experimenting with things like:

• Finding a quiet space with reduced sensory input
• Calming tools such as earplugs, weighted items, or familiar textures, tastes, smells etc
• Breathing techniques
• Stepping outside or moving your body
• Creative practices like doodling, writing, or playing an instrument
• Co-regulating alongside others away from the source of the stimulation

Long-term adaptation might include:

• Scheduling buffer time between activities (and bridges that help you leave and arrive well)
• Identifying recurring triggers and adjusting environments
• Developing a personal preparation/recovery toolkit

The goal isn’t to shut down your sensitivity or avoid life. It’s to notice, understand, and collaborate with your nervous system so you can navigate stimulating environments more comfortably.

The Social Side of Overstimulation

Social interaction is a major source of overstimulation. It’s rarely just the conversation. It can be the context, the unknowns, and the processing afterwards (reliving the conversations, wondering why you said what you did and didn’t say what you should have!) You might really enjoy someone’s company and still leave drained.

Noticing red flags and green flags helps. Big groups with unstructured conversation might deplete you, while small gatherings feel energising. Individual differences matter too. Someone might be draining even if you share interests, while another person energises you despite little obvious common ground.

After-care is crucial. Sometimes being fully drained can feel good if recovery time is planned. The real challenge is when life leaves no margin, stacking one overstimulating event on another. For people with full-time caring responsibilities, this lack of margin is a constant reality.

Sensitivity Beyond the Self

I believe sensitivity has an important social role. Highly sensitive people often notice gaps in care and justice, and their responsiveness and empathy support social cohesion. Noticing and responding to sources of stimulation isn’t just about individual survival; it’s tied to our capacity to change the world around us. It’s about shaping communities, environments, and expectations to work for different people. Not least because when we make the world conducive for individuals to flourish, it is good for all of us.

https://the-haven.co/zine

I’m starting a project exploring the history of self-help; where the ideas came from, how they’ve changed over time, and what they mean for us today.

This episode of The Gentle Rebel Podcast is my chance to set some intentions, explain why I feel drawn to do this, and share how you can get involved if you want to join me for the ride.

I’m not starting this project with the end in mind. Sorry, Stephen Covey, but I’m rebelling against the second habit of highly effective people. I honestly don’t know how this will look or where it will take me. I’m just intrigued to dig into the backstory of personal development and positive thinking, and explore how it became an industry worth an estimated around $40 billion in 2024, projected to more than double by 2033.

Self-help shapes how millions of us think about ourselves, our relationships, our struggles, and our potential. I want to look at where it came from, how it works, and what it’s doing to us now.

https://youtu.be/GMowyoc4TeA This isn’t about belittling self-help

I want to approach this with a curious and critical open mind, not a cynical one. I’ve personally gained insight, tools, and practices from authors in the personal development space. So, I have experienced the value of resources and authors under the broad self-help umbrella.

But I do have some questions.

One in particular that has long been on my mind…with the ideas in self-help are as widely adopted as they are, why haven’t they “worked” in the big-picture sense?

Why now feels like a good moment to examine the rise of self-help

We’re living in a strange mix of economic precarity, post-pandemic disorientation, the maturing of influencer culture, and now AI churning out self-help style advice at industrial speed.

If self-help reflects and responds to the anxieties of its time, then this moment feels like a perfect point to ask whether it might be contributing to those same anxieties it claims to ease.

The quote that caught my attention

About 12 years ago, I read The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking by Oliver Burkeman.

One idea in it has stuck with me ever since:

“Perhaps you don’t need telling that self-help books… rarely much help. This is why some self-help publishers refer to the ‘eighteen-month rule’, which states that the person most likely to purchase any given self-help book is someone who, within the previous eighteen months, purchased a self-help book—one that evidently didn’t solve all their problems.”

I was a big reader of personal development books at the time, especially those that spoke to building online businesses around creativity. They gave me a sense of forward momentum and excitement about future possibilities, but I could also feel myself on a treadmill. Old dissatisfaction was replaced with new.

That quote made me wonder if the self-help industry insists on not solving our problems. Which makes sense when you think about it…why would a market secure its own demise? It needs to keep inventing new problems to solve. Otherwise it collapses.

The 18-month rule and endless repackaging

Some people enjoy the sense of growth that comes from reading a new book, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But from my experience, a lot of them say the same thing in different clothing.

Different anecdotes. Different metaphors. Same structure.

So why do we keep reading? And why does the market keep producing more?

The Mel Robbins example

Earlier this year, I looked into whether Mel Robbins had plagiarised a poem by Cassie Phillips and made up the story that inspired her book The Let Them Theory.

I bought and read the book as part of my research. It’s not my usual reading choice, and I hadn’t read a new personal development book in years. Two things struck me:

1. The writing felt more like marketing copy than the work of a writer.
2. The ideas weren’t new; just repackaged versions of stoicism, the serenity prayer, radical acceptance, and Buddhism (which she openly admits, albeit in defence of the plagiarism accusations).

This persuasive, “I’m your friend” style of marketing is common in self-help influencer culture. Whether intended or not, it can exploit people who are in vulnerable and precarious positions. It nurtures parasocial bonds to build and potentially exploit trust.

The History of Self-help in times of turmoil

Another thread I want to follow is whether self-help historically booms during moments of economic, political, and social instability. When the world feels out of control, we can focus on the things we think we can influence, such as our choices, responses, and mindset.

But I also wonder if this helps keep the larger system running as it is, without actually changing anything meaningful.

In Bright-Sided (Smile or Die in the UK), Barbara Ehrenreich wrote about how positive thinking became prevalent as a way to turn responsibility onto employees during times of corporate downsizing. Painting redundancy as an opportunity, rewarding those who keep smiling, performing, and pretending to be fine under the precarious ruthlessness of neoliberal capitalism.

My working definition of self-help

I’m defining self-help books as works that position individual change as the path to life transformation. When built around an author’s personal story or branded method, they often focus on abstract notions like success, wealth, happiness, and fulfilment.

They usually sit at the front of a funnel that leads to courses, coaching, and memberships. The underlying message is: “You alone are responsible for your future success, happiness, and suffering.”

I want to explore what happens when this narrative dominates both individual and cultural thinking.

How the series will (probably) work

I’ll be working through some of the biggest titles in the genre, as well as obscure but influential works. Sometimes one book per episode, sometimes clusters based around particular themes or authors.

I’m aiming for one or two episodes per month. I’d love your suggestions and stories along the way. All of this is subject to evolve and change, but this is the first step I’m taking on this path. I’m sure it will evolve once I get going.

https://the-haven.co/register/