Hi friends,

Greetings from Austin!

Warning: I went a little crazy with today's Friday Finds. At Write of Passage, I've been transitioning from an Operating CEO towards a Creator CEO, which has me back in Writing Beast Mode.™

As part of going full-time creator again, all my mornings are now devoted to writing, and I spent a good chunk of today recording a bunch of casual videos to share on Twitter. But the biggest news of all is the launch of my new podcast, How I Write.

Imagine if every prominent writer recorded their own audio version of On Writing by Stephen King. That's what this show is all about. Or you can think of it like Chef's Table for writers. I've already recorded 16 interviews, featuring Balaji Srinivasan, Tyler Cowen, Gretchen Rubin, and Derek Sivers. Eventually, it’ll be a who’s who of online writers. Once the show launches, I'll be publishing a new episode every week, the vast majority of which will be filmed in person.

Want to lead the project? Or know somebody who does? If so, I'm hiring a Podcast Lead to manage the show. You must be podcast-obsessed, a brilliantly effective project manager, and hell-bent on building the world’s biggest writing-focused podcast.

Today's Finds

​Nietzsche's Critique of Christianity: One of the most famous critics of Christianity, Nietzsche, even called himself The Anti-christ. He had grand ambitions as a writer. He aimed to supplant the morals and values of a Christ-centric Western culture — to go beyond good and evil. Nietzsche took a naturalistic approach to morality rather than the metaphysical one prominent in the Western world at the time of his writing. Borrowing from Darwin, Nietzsche didn't believe in the intrinsic value of humans (opposing the Christian idea that every human is made in the image of God and therefore has inherent value). Christian morality is service-based and self-sacrificial, which is why it focuses so much on kindness and compassion. Nietzsche had a darker interpretation though. Reading the Bible prompted him to ask, "Who's interests do these morals serve?" He claims that Christian morals serve the feeble, poor, weak, and inferior. Nietzsche dubbed Christian ethics as a "slave morality," saying that it was a way to take revenge on the strong and powerful people in Ancient Rome. He saw the story of Jesus as a way for the oppressed to oppress their oppressors. Nietzsche may have published Beyond Good and Evil in 1886, but our fiercest debates today — from the purpose of education to who should pay for healthcare — point back to his 19th-century critique of Christianity and the clash of these Western systems of morality. For a deeper examination of these ideas, I recommend Michael Sugrue's lectures on the Geneology of Morals and the death of God.

​Tim Keller's 'Questioning Christianity' Lectures: I attended these lectures live while living in New York, and they became my main entry point into Christianity. Keller's core skill is explaining Christian ideas to a skeptical and secular audience. In particular, I recommend two episodes: Identity and Morality. Historically, our identities were given to us at birth. We were defined by our birthplaces and our family names. To the modern mind, this classic relationship with identity is oppressive and limiting, because modern life is different. We want to be unconstrained. Our identities come from within. But what we end up doing is measuring our worth by our level of achievement and our latest successes. In the absence of God, we manufacture our own identities, which can cause us to conflate self-worth with social status. Keller's other lecture, on morality, sent me down a rabbit hole of the intellectual underpinnings of the founding American ideas, as codified in the Declaration of Independence. The canonical line reads: “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.” The problem is that human equality isn't self-evident at all. It only becomes self-evident when your worldview assumes the existence of a Creator who created every human in His image. Throw away God and you throw away moral absolutes. If you want to pull on this thread, I explore it at length in Why You're Christian.

​Adam Lane Smith on Relationships: This short video radically changed the way I think about relationships. I've always assumed that asking for what I want makes life harder for other people. Not wanting to hurt people's feelings, I avoided expressing what I did and didn't like. When I wanted something from somebody, I wouldn't ask because I didn't want to burden them. And if I ever did ask for something, I'd do it by dropping vague, cryptic "hints." Now, when I need something from a colleague or significant other, I aim to state it calmly and clearly. If they do something I don't like, I tell them as soon as I can and assume good intentions. Then, when things go well, I explain what I appreciate and why. Instead of withholding feedback and dumping all my dissatisfactions on people at once, I aim to give feedback consistently, so that the people in my life know what works for me. Everybody has needs. Stating them kindly is a gift for others and an opportunity to grow together, while boosting each other's confidence and self-esteem.

​The Pathless Path: Part memoir, part perspective-shifting thesis. This book was written by Paul Millerd, and I hope to see him succeed. If aliens arrived on Earth, they'd be shocked by how many humans are unconsciously following default life scripts. They're doing work they don't care about with people who don't inspire them. Driven by fear and sleepwalking through life, they follow the illusion of prestige instead of surrendering to their nature and doing things that actually interest them. Paul's book offers an alternative: the pathless path, where you can focus on feeling alive instead of getting ahead. Work becomes an end in itself instead of a means to an end. And instead of outsourcing your life script to the demands of your parents or society, you take charge of how you want to live and of the person you want to become. Fortunately, the Internet makes the pathless path possible like never before. When you share ideas on the Internet, you can work from anywhere in the world and create opportunities from the comfort of your couch. Your rate of learning is limited only by your curiosity and thirst for knowledge. I know Paul's ideas are legit because he lives what he preaches. He's my neighbor in Austin, and whenever I run into him, he's in a state of blissful joy while I'm slaving away on some challenging project. For an entry point into Paul's work, I recommend this article on how he stepped off the default path and forged a life of his own. If you want my take on his philosophy, here's the podcast episode I recorded with him.

​The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows: Heavy edition today, so let's close with something light — a delightful compilation of oddly specific words to describe oddly specific emotions. Here are a few stand-out words. Sonder reflects "the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own." Then there's etterath, "the feeling of emptiness after a long and arduous process is finally complete — having finished school, recovered from surgery, or gone home at the end of your wedding— which leaves you relieved that it’s over but missing the stress that organized your life into a mission." Check out the blog, and if you want more of it, I recommend this beautiful book.