My new year is off to the races. Made it to a Rad Reads meetup this week…
(I’m the one triumphantly brandishing that neon coconut absinthe thing like a big dork)
I also spoke - and emailed - with 9 clients this week. I am genuinely thankful to be spending 2020 doing work that’s meaningful to me.
Speaking of emailing clients… I also finally found the time to write a couple thousand words about my latest professional experiment.
For the past several months, I’ve been beta testing doing my philosophical life coaching thing via email.
Coaching by email is superficially innovative - but it’s also old. People have been writing thoughtful letters to each other for a very long time. Writing is just careful thinking.
For the right clients, working together over email can indeed provide substantial value. Thus I am delighted to turn coaching & conversation by email into a standing Life Coach for Smart People offering. Read all about it here:
Introducing: Interlocutor as a Service
Don’t feel like reading my stuff? Read someone else’s stuff!
Depressive Realism
We keep chasing happiness, but true clarity comes from depression and existential angst. Admit that life is hell, and be free
This edgy Aeon piece has been making the rounds. There’s something true in there, and yet…
Against Depressive Realism
This link between depression and an elevated state of consciousness, and happiness with a superficial one, is a great formula for living a tough and damaging life.
We can easily allow that excessive positivity is distorting without insisting that the distortions of negativity are somehow better. But there’s no edginess appeal to a more nuanced view.
Have you ever enjoyed a meaty, philosophical email conversation? Did you depression turn you onto Truth?
Just hit reply, I’d love to hear from you.
Until next time,
Pamela
2020: Issue 2 of 52