What's Up, Doctopher?
January, 2025
“What’s Up, Doctopher?” is a free occasional newsletter. To gain access to bonus content including BROMAs, TOMAs, travel updates, AMAs, What Makes this Book Great?, the DJCPR series, and a monthly open thread where you can interact with the Tangentially Speaking community, please consider becoming a paid subscriber for $5/month or $50/year (which is less than a buck a week!). If you’ve already subscribed, much obliged. If you’d like to join the party but can’t afford it right now, just let me know and we’ll hook you up.
This past month, I was a guest on the Flourish FM podcast, hosted by Dr. Jon Beale and Dr. Nick Holton. These guys are associated with Harvard and Oxford, so I tried to tone down my anti-elite instincts and keep the subversive messaging to a minimum, but you know, I gotta be me. They seemed ok with it, but it’s not easy to tell guys who make their living teaching business people how to get better at their jobs that most of those jobs are meaningless at best, and hastening the apocalypse at worst.
(I thought you might be interested in some of the emails I get. Let me know if you think this kind of thing would be interesting every once in a while.)
Drew: “Just wanted to say thank you for rebroadcasting that episode where you interviewed comedian Nikki Glaser. There was SO much in that episode I needed to hear. … Your work on this planet is so appreciated by this 54 year old white male from the deep south of these United States.”
I got some initial push-back on the rebroadcast, but it’s been pretty positive since then. I’m glad you found value in it, Drew. I’ll only repost episodes that I think deserve another listen.
Glenn: “I’m writing to ask if I could join the kitchen party. I don’t have a great job at the moment and money is tight but I get a lot of value out of the podcast and was wondering if you’d gift me a subscription for a time. I will become a $5 a month member at some point but I need every penny I have right now.”
Hell yeah! The point of the permeable pay-wall is to promote community cohesion rather than audience growth. So if you wanna be part of the community (or already are), but can’t afford the fee, just let me know. All are welcome. If you can afford to pay more, please do. But if you can’t, don’t sweat it.
Red Pill Junkie shared this thought: “One of my favorite quotes by The Bard (Terence McKenna) is the one that says that we are so currently alienated from our own soul, that when we finally get in contact with it we’ll feel it came from another star system.”
To the extent that all perception is arguably projection of inner states, it is interesting to think that all this external weirdness we’re experiencing is generated by inner weirdnesses spreading through human consciousness like some kind of virus. McKenna makes a similar point here:
I was wondering if there is anywhere on this substack where I could find book recommendations maybe? I am currently reading the Happiness Fantasy and I am looking for more books and reading material around capitalism, happiness, community, interdependence - those kind of concepts. Thanks!