Month: July 2026

Ep.101 – The Pull & The Pendulum: How We Belong Without Losing Ourselves (Peek Behind the Patreon Paywall)

After seven months away from the main feed, I'm back with an update and a peek behind the Patreon paywall. Over the course of this podcast, particularly the 'cult'ure series, we developed shorthand for something that's hard to name: "the drift" — the way ordinary cultures, well-intentioned ones, gradually erode personal agency without anyone intending harm. Not bad actors. Just systems that reward compliance and quietly punish deviation....

The Pull & The Pendulum: How We Belong Without Losing Ourselves

After years of documenting how ordinary cultures erode personal agency — wellness spaces, workplaces, intimate relationships — I kept hitting the same wall. Understanding how "the drift" happens isn't enough. There has to be an alternative. And it can't just be try harder or find better people. In this solo drop, I use a recent social media pile-on as a jumping-off point to unpack why the conversation keeps collapsing into two bad options...