It’s been about a year and a half since I made the leap into full time self-employment. There are three areas that God has been really refining in me over this last season, helping me to learn more about myself so that I can understand what to do going forward. These are the three pillars that I want to focus on with my content.

CREATIVE CALLING

You know this part of the story. I’m almost 40 years old. I lost my job about a year and a half ago, and I was the sole provider for my family, four kids. And I decided not to go and get a full time job again, because I’d had enough.

I said, I need to do what God is calling me to do, and that is to create. To be an artist.

I’m a musician. I’m a filmmaker. I have this background in art, and I’ve never really committed to it. I’ve never really gone all in on it, because of all these various excuses and reasons. Some of them good. Some of them just based out of fear.

So this last year I decided to bet on myself and double down on what God created me to do.

And the channel started to grow pretty much overnight. From zero to about 30,000 subscribers on YouTube, and a now a best selling Substack.

I know what it takes to grow social media channels. I’ve done that for my career. I’ve done it for other people and businesses, and now I’ve been doing it for myself. I know the strategies. I know how the algorithm works, how to create thumbnails, craft the right headlines, create content with hooks and keep people engaged.

And it’s okay if somebody decides they want to take that path and grow their channels as broadly as they can, as big as they can.

But I feel like God created me to be an artist.

And when I think about what an artist is, and what their role is in this world, it’s to be someone who sees the world in a very particular way and then translates that to other people.

The reason artists are called to do that is because artists have been gifted in a way that allows them to see more deeply into reality. They can make sense of things, because of the intuitive sensitivity of their soul and their perception. They’re able to see beneath the surface. They can see sacramentally. They can draw things out that others can’t.

So they have this gift, and what I think is a certain obligation, to see the world and then to share what they’re seeing.

The best work I’ve ever created as an artist always comes from just: what am I seeing in the world? What lived experience am I going through where I can try to find insight and a story, or a way of articulating that through a medium of music, film, writing, whatever my canvas is? How can I put that onto the canvas in a way that inspires, that informs, that reaches other people in a powerful way?

That really, to me, is the simplest definition of an artist. And it’s the truest articulation of my calling.

But when you’re trying to grow a platform, you come up against this tension. Either you keep trying to grow your channel using the strategies and the formulas and the tactics it requires, or you stay true to the integrity and the inspiration that you feel as an artist.

Those two things eventually come to a head. Because in order to keep the growth going, there are things you have to do that compromise that integrity. If I want to tap into the algorithm, if I want to keep up on trends, if I want to keep people watching or get them hooked into my content, there are things I have to do that I don’t feel aligned with what it means to be creating from that place of authentic inspiration.

I’m not saying I’ll never engage in those tactics. But here’s what I’m gaining clarity.

I don’t want to be the most successful YouTuber in the world. My goal is not to make this channel reach a million subscribers. If it ever gets there, great. If not, that’s fine. But that’s not what I’m optimizing for.

What I’m trying to do is share my story as an artist who feels that call to be a seer. To be that voice in the wilderness, and then to live that out, and to show what it actually looks like to take the steps to live it out authentically.

Because more and more, we’re living in a world where we’re losing sight of that. Everything is becoming about information. Everything is becoming the attention economy. Getting people to watch your stuff, getting people to consume what you have to say by any means necessary, keeping them scrolling, keeping them engaged, hijacking their attention.

And I do not want to participate in that.

I want to live my call as an artist. And if that means I’m sharing my art in a room with ten people, but I have their full attention, and it’s inspiring them, and it’s for them — that’s fine with me.

Again, I’m not saying I don’t want to reach as many people as I can. It’s a dance.

But I’ll be honest about what it’s cost. I’ve watched the numbers go down this year. Last year my videos were doing hundreds of thousands of views. This year, not so much.

And that’s been hard, because I was getting caught up in this allegiance to the algorithm. I found myself creating from a place of how can I get people hooked, how can I get more views. And it just didn’t feel right. It felt kind of disingenuous. I felt myself getting caught up in this algorithm game, this view game, this click rate game.

Letting go of that has brought a lot of clarity as I’ve been thinking about where this channel goes.

AN INVITATION

I haven’t done a lot of selling or monetizing, and that’s because I’ve wanted to keep this authentic and informal. But it’s getting to the point where, in order to continue doing this work and building this community, I need your help.

So I want to take this opportunity to invite you deeper.

Paid membership gets you every members-only post, the private chat, and free access to the live workshops.

Founding membership ($125/year) gets you all of that, plus a 45-minute 1:1 call with me. We can talk about whatever you want — the business you’re building, your music, your art, the creative content you want to start, branding and marketing. I’m willing to give whatever insight and expertise I have in the areas I’ve experienced. But sometimes these calls are just great ways to get to know each other, for you to share your story, for me to hear it and encourage you, and for you to do the same for me.

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MENTAL HEALTH

When I lost my job a year and a half ago, that was the seventh time in 12 years that I had either quit a job, lost a job, or somehow had the full time job my family was depending on come to an end — creating a gap in employment that put my family and me in a really hard spot.

So this was becoming a chronic pattern.

If you go back and watch those first videos I made, I was really just venting about it. I was fed up with corporate environments, and the system, and the 9 to 5 default that we live in. I voiced a lot of frustration with the university system, with the default path that society offers us, and how that wasn’t really working for me and just didn’t fit.

Which is all true. There are a lot of things about our modern society that are broken when it comes to catering to creative people and finding work that’s more meaningful. All of that is still true.

But part of that process for me was also starting to look more interior and ask: why am I having such a hard time holding a job?

Yes, there have been some jobs and some really messed up situations. I’ve been in toxic cultures and environments. But there’s also been this pattern. And I can’t put the blame completely on everybody else. I have to look inside and ask what areas I might be struggling in.

That started a whole rabbit hole.

It started with going to therapy every week for basically a whole year and starting to work through some of my mental health stuff. I knew I had some things going on. I had a pretty rough childhood. There were things growing up that were really, really hard. My father was an addict and an alcoholic. There were some things I experienced that were fairly traumatic.

I knew those experiences and struggles were there. I knew they had affected me. I just didn’t understand how deeply they were actually playing out in my adult life.

Long story short: through therapy, and through really diving into and researching these different areas of mental health, I came to discover that I have been dealing with ADHD, depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

All four of those things have been operating in the background for me for the last 20 years or so. And for a long time, I was kind of able to hold it all together.

As I’ve learned more about trauma, I’ve understood that you develop these coping mechanisms and you learn how to survive. You get into survival mode, and you’re living in this state of hypervigilance and hyperstimulation just to figure out how to get through. And sometimes we can get pretty good at doing that. In many ways I was able to keep it together.

But looking back, there was this pattern of burnt bridges and job loss and relational carnage that had been happening for most of my adult life.

Starting to learn about how trauma impacts the brain, and about neurodivergence, and going through therapy, and finally starting to work with a trauma informed therapist for the first time in my life — all of these things have been incredibly relieving. To understand some of what has actually been at play in this process.

And it’s been very affirming in a lot of ways. When I found out I had ADHD, it was overwhelming. It was a bit of a shock. But it was also: okay, this explains a lot. This explains why I get hyperfocused on one thing that I’m interested in, but when it comes to things I don’t really care about or don’t have a lot of passion for, I can be a pretty terrible performer.

It’s explained some of these patterns that have been there. And now I can say, all right, I know this about myself. I’m more aware, and I can start to figure out the tools and resources I need to put myself in the best position and the best environment to thrive.

At the same time, it’s been overwhelming.

A lot of these consequences from complex trauma — the things I’ve dealt with relationally, in my marriage, in my family — a lot of it went unaddressed, and it’s caused a lot of destruction. And that doesn’t just heal overnight. It doesn’t just go away because you’ve got a diagnosis now.

I’m learning how to be more empathetic with myself. More patient and gentle and kind to myself, which has honestly been a first for me in my life. But the reality is that it’s having consequences, and it’s been this up and down journey. It’s not a linear healing process. It’s a couple steps forward, a step back.

Over this last year I’ve really been doing my best to allow this process to unfold, and to invest in this area for myself and for my family.

My goal is to prioritize mental health. Creativity is important. Doing the art I feel called to is important. Having a good job that’s meaningful is really important.

But what’s even more important is me being the best father I can be. And me learning how to love myself so that I can actually love the people around me.

If I can’t love myself first, if I can’t be whole and healed and integrated first myself, it’s going to be very hard for me to serve others. To be that rock, that dependable source of security and stability that I want to be for the people around me.

SPIRITUALITY

Many of you are fellow believers. Many of you are Christians of different denominations. Some of you are more seeking, or come from eastern religion or spirituality. And that’s been amazing too.

I’ve never really pigeonholed myself into anything here, and that’s been intentional. I’m not a preacher. I’m not a pastor. I’ve simply shared authentically from the perspective and the faith tradition that I come from, which is Christian.

My whole adult life, my relationship with God has informed everything that I do, and it’s really been the most important aspect of who I am as a person.

But over this last year and a half, what I thought was an exploration of creativity and creative calling — God has just continued to go deeper with me. Into the mental health. And now into the spirituality as well.

He’s not just calling me into the type of work I should be doing. He’s excavating and refining me at a core level, both in my identity and my spirituality.

And a lot of that work has opened up further conversation and dialogue with God, and with other people, about some of the questions I’ve had.

There have been a lot of deeper questions about faith and spirituality that are honestly hard for me to have. There are doubts. There are theological questions that I want to talk about. There are experiences I’ve had within my own faith tradition that have been really hard, and that I think are tied up in this whole area of trauma and mental health.

I’m trying to sift through that without throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Really examining myself. What are my values? What do I really believe? And what does that faith life look like?

Now, my goal isn’t to make this a theological newsletter. It’s not to debate people. I’m not trying to convert anybody or persuade them.

This is just a further conviction of how I want to authentically show up here. To be a little bit more honest about some of the struggles I’ve had within the church, and some of the questions I’ve had with my faith.

I’m still going to church. I don’t want to get anything twisted here — I love God. This for me is just about the process of seeking him, and seeking truth, and continuing to go deeper with him.

I want to share some of the things I’ve been learning and some of the conversations I’m having. I’m starting to interview other creatives and artists who are asking some of these same questions. I want to create a safe place of dialogue, where people with different viewpoints and different experiences — creators, artists, entrepreneurs, people doing interesting things — can come together and talk about the intersection and the overlap of these different areas. Have honest conversations with each other, and maybe learn something from one another.

Because we live in a world that’s more and more hostile and more and more tribal. People are planting their flags within different identities. And I think there’s this need for people to be able to come together who don’t necessarily see everything the same way, but who are able to have productive conversations and feel like they have permission to talk about their questions and their challenges in an authentic way.

Up until now a lot of this has been based around creativity and artistic calling. A lot of you are faithful believers, faithful Christians, and I still want to continue to serve you.

WHERE THINGS ARE GOING

I really do feel like God is putting this vision on my life — to be authentic, to share in real time, and to not sugarcoat what this journey looks like.

We’ve got enough gurus. We’ve got enough picture perfect curated feeds out there. What we need is people who are sharing honestly. Who are being authentic. Who are sharing what it really looks like.

Life is not perfect. Life is messy. There are ups and downs. None of us have it figured out.

I want to think deeply about these things. I want to have honest conversations and dialogue. I want this to be a place of deep contemplation and interior listening. That’s what you can expect going forward from The Contemplative Dad.

Thank you for being here.

— Max

Seven years ago I went into the woods to have it out with God.

That was the year the wheels first came off. My nervous system was starting to short-circuit from years of hypervigilance and unprocessed trauma. I had stopped going to church for the first time in my adult life. And I was considering leaving my marriage.

At the peak of the worst of it, I decided to go on retreat by myself, to a hermitage in the middle of the woods. I was at a point of desperation. I needed to make a decision, and before I made it, I wanted to be alone with God in solitude. I spent about seventy-two hours in silence, off grid, in a little cabin by myself.

For most of that time, I didn’t hear much back.

But toward the end, during a particular period of contemplation and listening, I vividly heard God say something to me. And what I heard was completely counterintuitive to anything I thought I knew about being a good Christian.

“What do you want?”

My entire relationship with God up until that point had been predicated on the opposite question: God, what do you want? It never entered my consciousness that God would ever give me that type of permission.

So I gave him a rebuttal. Something like:

“Well I’m getting divorced. So there. What do you think about that, Mr. Cosmic Authoritarian?”

And God simply replied:

“If you get divorced, it’s going to be okay. Your kids are going to be fine. And I’m going to take care of it. And if you stay, everything is also going to be fine. It’s going to be okay. Either way, I’m going to take care of it.”

I had to do a spiritual double take. It was borderline scandalous.

In my experience, if people love you, they want to control you. And if you want them to keep loving you, you have to let them. So naturally, I assumed the creator of all these control freaks must be the ultimate grandmaster of supreme control.

So then why wasn’t he controlling me?

Once I got through the initial dissonance, I realized it wasn’t confusing at all. I was experiencing a truth I had heard a thousand times but had never actually understood. God gives us free will. Not free will as a formality, but free will with no strings attached, no manipulation, and no coercion.

At the time, I chose to stay married and I started going back to church. But I have returned to that encounter in the woods over and over since, whenever I need to remind myself who God really is.

My locus of control is loco

Apparently, God doesn’t lose sleep over the decisions we make.

Me? Not so much.

In my second session with my therapist, I told her I’ve been struggling with racing thoughts. If there’s an open loop in a relationship — some unresolved conflict — it keeps me up. On nights like that, my brain races with an obsessive urgency to repair the damage, by any means necessary, right now.

My therapist followed that up with an Internal Family Systems question. What part of you is causing these racing thoughts?

I knew the answer before she finished asking. It’s the controller.

I also knew exactly where it lives — right in the center of my forehead, above my eyes, where I have a permanently indented line fused into my skin from almost forty years of a furrowed brow.

Ever since that conversation, I’ve been meditating on the complicated relationship that humans have with control. Through a trauma lens, it’s obvious that grasping for control has caused immense damage in my life. It’s not sustainable. But conversely, so much of recovery is about learning to master your thoughts and take back your personal sovereignty.

So we seem to be facing a double-edged sword. Do we need our foot on the pedal or the break?

According to the self-help gurus I’ve read, there are two types of people in the world.

People with an external locus of control. (Bad)

People with an internal locus of control. (Good)

If you have an external locus of control, you tend to place the blame for your circumstances on things outside of you. If you have an internal locus of control, you tend to feel that you have agency over the things that happen to you, and more of a disposition toward determining your own fate.

At first glance this seems like a helpful insight, because it can inspire a person to stop scapegoating and placing the blame on everything and everyone around them, and rather to take control of their life. Start putting in the work. Eating the right things. Making the right decisions.

The problem is that it’s not quite that simple.

As much as a person does and should have an internal locus of control when it comes to certain areas of their life, it can be a dangerous ideology to think that you are solely responsible for manifesting the reality you desire into existence.

I remember seeing an interview with Will Smith decades ago, at the peak of his success, where he confidently stated that the universe is like water, and it will move for you. At the time, things were going quite well for him. I’m sure it felt like he could do no wrong.

I was reminded of that quote as I watched him stride onto the stage and come unhinged on the most important night of his career. And I thought to myself:

Yes, the universe will move for you. Just like Chris Rock’s face moved as your hand swiftly slapped him across it in front of millions of viewers, immediately ruining your reputation and discrediting your public image.

The wisdom to know the difference

Part of the fuckery with control comes down to this. Human beings love to control the wrong things. Let me give you an example from my own life.

I inherited a fear of flying from my father. When he married my stepmom, we took a train twenty hours out to North Carolina because he was too afraid to get on a plane. That instilled in me, from a young age, the belief that flying was far more dangerous than being on the ground.

There’s nothing rational about it. I will gladly drive across the country by myself, through a blizzard, weaving between semi-trucks, distracted by cows and sunsets. But every time I get on a plane, I’m certain I’m saying goodbye to my kids for the last time.

The difference comes down to one thing. I hate not being in control.

When I’m in the plane, I can’t see the pilot. I don’t know who’s flying it. If something goes wrong up there, I have no say in the outcome. I can tell myself the statistics over and over, but my nervous system doesn’t care.

Much of my life has been spent desperately trying to control the wrong things, which explains why so much of that effort has been counterproductive. And also why I suffer from a chronic case of lockjaw. So to help resolve this conundrum of control, I found myself revisiting a prayer that has always deeply resonated with me.

Anyone who has been through Alcoholics Anonymous, or watched a family member go through it, knows the Serenity Prayer.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

This is a prayer for drug addicts and alcoholics. But it resonates with everyone, because we are all addicts for control. And it’s that last line that really gives us an antidote.

Because when do you need the courage to change something? And when do you need the serenity to let it go? It’s not always so black and white. And wisdom to know the difference is needed, precisely because there isn’t always a clear answer.

And I’d suffice to say it’s this type of wisdom that Jesus demonstrated when he was agonizing in a garden the night before he died.

The agony of surrender

The agony at Gethsemane often gets overlooked, but it’s the turning point in the whole story. Everything after it is a victory march.

When Christ says, your will, not mine, be done, I don’t think we’re watching God’s well behaved son just do what he’s told. I don’t think he was scared of getting killed. The agony came from somewhere deeper.

From the minute Adam and Eve reached for the apple, humanity started grasping for godlike control. And the tragic part of that grasping is that the thing being grasped for doesn’t exist, while the consequences of chasing it are entirely real.

I keep thinking about how Christ had every opportunity to control his circumstances, yet he chose not to. The onlookers questioned his divinity for that exact reason. Surely he would come down off the cross if he were truly God. I certainly would have considered that option.

But undoubtedly Jesus held a wisdom beyond our understanding as to what he needed serenity for, and where he needed courage. It was not a posture of weakness. It was the posture of the highest power in the universe.

Look at almost any great spiritual tradition and much of it points back toward our relationship with control — from seeking nirvana, to wu-wei, to losing your life in order to find it. When human beings learn the wisdom to know the difference, that becomes the path of divinization.

Friends, this work is my only source of income right now, and it’s my goal to keep sharing my story in real time and building a community of fellow creative pilgrims. If you’d like to support me in this journey, consider becoming a paid member. Founding members also get a free 45-minute call with me. No agenda, just a conversation between two people on the road. Those calls have become one of the best parts of my week.

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The mystical wisdom of not-knowing

A few weeks ago I walked into my sister’s bathroom and a framed picture of an owl fell off the shelf. It didn’t feel like an accident. I looked down and saw the owl and immediately noticed it.

The next day I was sitting out on the deck at my parents’ house with my stepdad, and we heard an owl hooting in the woods next to the house. He said it had been living out there. It was making noise and wouldn’t stop. A week later I was back on that deck and I asked him about the owl. He said he hadn’t noticed it. In fact, he said, he hadn’t even heard it since the day I was there.

Then I kept seeing images of owls as I drove around the city, on billboards, trucks, through conversations with friends. Owls were showing up everywhere! It was clear to me that the symbol of the owl was trying to say something to me in regards to this area of control.

So I did some research on owls, and I started seeing connections all over the place.

For one, an owl can’t move its eyes. They’re fixed in its skull. So an owl has to turn his whole head to look at anything. It cannot just glance in the periphery. Whatever it wants to see, it has to face directly.

Secondly, most of its hunting consists of listening. It’s contemplative and still. But that stillness turns into decisive action when the time is right. Owls are devastating hunters. And all of their action comes out of a state of contemplative silence.

And lastly, of course, the most obvious connection of all. The wise old owl.

A few months ago, a priest reached out to me and wanted to meet up. I went into that meeting with my guard up, because I knew he had gotten wind of some of my circumstances and had probably been watching my content online. As we started talking, that instinct turned out to be correct.

At one point he stopped and asked me: what is the mission of your life?

I immediately felt unsafe. Intuitively I could tell the question wasn’t coming from a place of genuine curiosity and non-judgment, but from a place of expectation for the correct answer. So, feeling caught off guard, I gave him some pious babble about getting my family to heaven.

On the inside, I knew the answer was I don’t know.

One thing I do know however, is that you cannot control what someone else thinks of you. You are going to have critics. Especially if you chose to be the man in the arena who actually does the work. And living your life based on what someone else thinks about you is about as rational as driving instead of flying because you feel safer.

The more I listen to the actual voice of God, and not to fickle and judgmental human beings who have no context for what I’m going through or where I’ve been, the more I’m reminded that it’s okay not to know.

Right now I don’t know how I’m going to pay the bills. I don’t know where I’m going to live. In many ways I’m rebuilding the foundation of my life. But just as the owl looks into the dark void, listens, and then has the wisdom to know when to put itself into action and go for the kill, I feel like that time is coming. I get the sense that on the other side of this surrender is everything I’ve been longing for and anticipating.

I keep writing these posts and second-guessing whether I’m oversharing. Part of me wants to shell up in a hole and come back when I’ve got it all figured out. But I keep landing on the conviction that my job here is to be a pilgrim on the way. It may be that my whole role is to never arrive, and simply to look to either side at the other travelers and say: I know what you’re going through. Here’s what I’m learning. Let’s keep walking together.

And that sounds like a good mission.

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WHAT I’M BEING INSPIRED BY

Tom Petty, “Crawling Back to You.” Undoubtedly a name you’ll hear if you follow this newsletter long enough. His music has been a staple in my life since about age five, when I would play Full Moon Fever on repeat from my mom’s record collection. And I’ve always felt like his songs provide some kind of prophetic soundtrack for the narrative of my life as it unfolds.

This is a lesser-known one that popped up on my playlist recently. It’s a fairly poetic narrative about a man who keeps running back to something, and the lyrics get suddenly more explicit in the last lines.

I’m so tired of being tired,
As sure as night will follow day,
Most things I worry about,
Never happen anyway.

I’m not sure of the precise meaning, but the feeling I got listening to it was that this is a song about control.

KPop Demon Hunters. I watched it for movie night with my kiddos this week. It had been on our watch list for a while, and since we were staying at my mom’s house with access to Netflix, we pulled the trigger.

The animation and the K-pop soundtrack are a bit more bubblegum than my usual aesthetic. But I found the lyrics and the narrative of the story to be striking when it comes to the psychological forces at play in our society around particular taboos. I’m sure many people will watch it and come away with different interpretations. But as someone who has struggled with my own identity and belonging, I found it to contain an incredibly powerful approach to self-discovery and integration. It’s clear the writers of both the film and the songs were trying to put their finger on the pulse of something.

Owl City. Given the numerous coincidences I mentioned above, it seemed fitting to share a music video I directed some years ago. This was one of six I made for Adam Young during my stint as an independent film director and editor.

Enjoy.

About five years ago — before I made the leap into the great abyss of full-time artistry and creative work — I met one of those pilgrims. His name is Nick Wroblewski.

For Nick, the creative life comes second nature.

We’re both from Minneapolis — a culturally eclectic art scene, and one of the more diverse cities in the country — and Nick, for a stretch of his childhood, lived in something akin to an artist commune. In a lot of ways, his family was ahead of their time — the crunchy, organic lifestyle habits a lot of us have only recently come around to, his family was already living.

One thing that stood out to me from our conversation is that Nick never felt discouraged in his call to the arts. He was just called to be an artist, and that was that. I was struck by how countercultural that is — and for a young person to come into adulthood and be encouraged toward something as seemingly “useless” as dedicating your life to chiseling little pieces out of wood, is rare.

I was delighted to finally sit down with Nick and record one of our conversations. We covered his upbringing, the technical side of his craft, and how to build a slower lifestyle in a world that’s more and more obsessed with speed and efficiency.

If you’re aspiring to take your art full-time, or just toward a way of life that’s richer and more meaningful — Nick’s example is going to be inspiring and edifying for you.

In this conversation, Nick and I talk about:
Growing up in a traveling puppet theater, floating down the Mississippi at age 12
Why he chose one of the slowest, most technical form of art there is — woodblock printmaking — after being trained in abstract, conceptual work
Why rules and limitations make the work better, not worse (”if there are no rules, then what’s the point?”)
His shift from an anti-church upbringing into orthodox Christianity
Why he thinks the real challenge for modern artists is making things slow and human on purpose

If you want to learn more about Nick and the work he’s doing, head over to his website, NickWroblewski.com, to see some of his work, and follow him on Instagram, where his son helps him capture viral videos in the workshop.

Enjoy.

MORE ABOUT NICK

Nick Wroblewski was born into a lively community of artists in Minneapolis, Minnesota. His innate drive to make art was fostered through early experiences in puppetry, painting and performance, including an iconic circus tour with In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theater that traveled down the Mississippi River in an old houseboat in the golden years before the internet. Inspired by idealists, Nick's commitment to art has never wavered.

Through art classes as a child, arts high school as a teen, and a degree in fine arts from Bennington College in Vermont, Nick explored the full scope of creative mediums before finding his place in printmaking, where he combines his love of sculpture, painting and composition into a single artistic process. While his focus is on large, multicolor reduction prints, he still tinkers with the intricacies of pop-up mechanics and paper mache sculptures. He currently lives with his wife and two children in Boise, Idaho.

If that makes you uncomfortable, I get it. But if you’re along for the ride, understand that you’re watching a man fighting generational dragons. Feel how you will about the bloodbath unfolding in front of you — you are not obliged to agree with everything you read here. But you can’t call me a coward.

Hello friends,

I was pretty quiet in July, and there’s a reason for that.

We’re moving back to Minnesota, and between packing boxes and everything else, I haven’t been able to write or make video as often as I’d like. Another reason I’ve been quiet is the mental health journey I opened up about in Part 1 of this series. I’ve been intentionally spending less time online so I can be present to my own thoughts and practice the new skills I’m learning to heal my brain.

It also means giving myself grace to have the hard conversations, to look the elephants in the room in the face and no longer run from them, but rather jump on those sons of bitches, put them in a chokehold, and say: something needs to be done here, and we’re going to talk about it.

MY FIRST TRAUMA INFORMED THERAPY SESSION

Last week, I started 1:1 therapy with a trauma-informed therapist.

The session was supposed to be purely diagnostic, but she immediately recognized the need to jump right in, and in those 60 minutes I probably got more benefit than from years of talk therapy in the past.

This isn’t to place blame on prior therapists. But man, what a difference it makes when you find the right fit, someone who actually has the skills and tools designed for your particular brand of crazy.

One of her modalities is IFS — Internal Family Systems — which I’ve been curious about for a while, given my lucid imagination and rich inner life. Thinking about yourself as a multiplicity of persons, or managers, just intuitively makes sense to me, and the exercises are easily graspable.

For example: one piece of homework was placing any parts of me that are unhelpful into a virtual waiting room, which I gleefully put into practice immediately.

As a result of the lack of physical and emotional safety I experienced as a child, I deal with a squad of hyper-vigilant manager parts that I was forced to develop in order to protect myself. The problem is that these over-caffeinated worry warts tend to manifest as insomnia-inducing racing thoughts, catastrophizing, and crippling self-guilt.

So having a safe place to put these well-intentioned but cortisol-raising little buggers into timeout has made me feel like an emotionally regulated jedi in training. Whenever I hear those voices unmindfully mumbling their way into the center of my consciousness, I simply and gently say to them:

I know why you’re here. You’re trying to protect me. We will get around to your concerns, but right now I am safe, and you’re being unhelpful. Please go into the waiting room.

I WILL NOT FIGHT FAIR

It’s in my nature to speak kindly to these parts. They’ve been working together, doing their best. And from the little I’ve learned about IFS so far, the goal is to gradually integrate them in a healthy way.

But then there’s the inner critic, the monster within my mind who mutated as a result of years of toxic shame. As far as I’m concerned, he doesn’t get a polite invitation to the virtual waiting room. No, that bastard gets a direct exile back to the psychological sewer dwellings he emerged from in the first place.

This has come with a steady dose of choice words, insults of all sorts, and the occasional maniacal laughter as I launch devastating attacks, returning violence for violence for the first time in my life, much to his surprise and my own delight. A welcome and temporary vulgarity, though maybe not so temporary — I guess we’ll see what vocabulary emerges from the phoenix that flies out of these ashes when it’s all said and done, though it will never be done.

Any battle won is a small victory, but it’s a step toward his ultimate defeat at some undetermined future phase of life, which most likely won’t be a dramatic moment of awareness, but more likely a mundane stroll down the street when I suddenly realize: hey, I haven’t heard from this prick in a long time. I wonder what ever happened to him. With a shrug and a smile.

WHERE THE PERMISSION CAME FROM

I was never once beaten or hit by my parents, but at times I would have preferred that over the emotional and mental violence I experienced, because blood dries up and bruises fade away. It’s the deeply engrained neural pathways that become hardwired into your brain matter that become seemingly insurmountable patterns to break.

The injustice of what happened to you is not your fault. And the belief that it is, that is the diabolical messaging of the toxic shame and guilt that corrodes a person’s view of themselves over years of repeated abuse and neglect.

And of course that doesn’t get the last word — there’s hope for healing and recovery. Fortunately our brains have an uncanny ability to rewire themselves through the miracle of neuro-plasticity. But the tragedy is real, and it has to be grieved before a person can make healthy strides forward.

So yes, The Contemplative Dad would like to Zen his way through this process to stay on brand, but I’m recognizing the need for a good old fashioned dose of righteous anger. The permission to get a little t’d off comes right from the bible on CPTSD, Pete Walker’s book, which I introduced in Part 1.

Reading through it, I was taken aback by how openly and critically the author speaks, recounting examples of patients he encouraged to unleash onslaughts of criticism, to place the blame on the shitty parenting of the caregivers responsible for the abusive and toxic environments they grew up in.

This initially struck me as counterintuitive, particularly given my WWJD, turn-the-other-cheek default response toward the people who hurt me, and the people-pleasing tendencies that keep me from rightfully putting abusers in their place. (That’s a fawn response btw, one of the Four F trauma responses: fight, flight, freeze, fawn.)

There is a point in time when a “love your enemy” response is noble and appropriate, if it’s wielded from a place of security and intention. But before Christ hung on the cross, he had a fair amount to say about greed, hypocrisy, and putting millstones around the necks of those who harm little ones. It’s that more momma bear side of Jesus that I’m currently choosing to deploy when it comes to standing up for the little boy inside of me. Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do — but they did it. And I am of one human substance, lacking the consubstantial fabric of your only begotten Son.

So excuse me for a few high-flying f-bombs and swift kicks to the groin. I will not fight fair in this round.

ESCAPING THE TRUMAN SHOW

Healing from your trauma and breaking generational cycles can at times feel like escaping from the Truman Show.

The obvious play on the name is Truman, becoming the true man. But I’ve recently been struck by how closely Truman resembles another word: trauma. I wonder if the writer didn’t intend that connection too.

If you’ve seen the movie than you know that every part of Truman’s world is set up to gaslight him, twenty-four hours a day. And at the beginning he doesn’t understand that. For the early part of his life and well into adulthood, he has no idea the world he’s living in is a constructed facade meant to keep him trapped.

But eventually he starts to catch on. He starts seeing through the scenery. He picks up on the disingenuousness of the actors around him.

And that’s when he faces an almost impossible task, because this is all he’s ever known. And much of the status quo has been established through fear. He’s had reminders around him his whole life that leaving is not safe, and therefore there’s no good reason to want to leave the walls that were built for his own protection.

Right now, I feel like I’m at the point in the movie where Christof, the producer of the entire show, is looking down on Truman as he nearly drowns in the waves, ratcheting up the intensity of the storm, nearly killing him. When one of his crew protests that he’s about to kill the guy on live television, he doesn’t flinch. Earlier in the film, defending what he’s done to Truman’s whole life, he had already said it plainly:

He could leave at any time. If he was absolutely determined to discover the truth, there’s no way we could prevent him.

That’s what happens when you’re attempting to leave the gaslit world of complex trauma as well. There is a period of time, when you’re first breaking free from the coordinated narratives and false constructs built up around you, when the finger gets pointed at you. For a while, you will be the crazy one. Look at this madman. Look at her. They’re losing it.

Now, I’m no conspiracy theorist. I don’t think there are people behind the scenes writing the script, even if it feels that way sometimes. Your family and friends aren’t paid actors conspiring together to keep you trapped in a never ending infomercial.

But we do live in a world similar to Truman’s, a world that is not set up for us to know ourselves authentically. And there are endless obstacles. Toxic relationships that drain your energy and keep you from growing. Purchasing decisions that lock you into a lifestyles that doesn’t fit. Jobs that give you just enough perks to keep you chained to a desk for forty years.

Wherever you are on the spectrum, we are all living with the consequences of a world built on toxicity and trauma. By default, if we simply allow ourselves to go with the flow, and particularly if we’re carrying significant trauma, we end up living in a world that keeps pressing its finger into the wound. A world that continually gaslights us, intentionally or not.

For those of you who’ve been along for the journey, things have evolved since the origins of The Contemplative Dad. What started as a kind of apologetics-meets-creative-calling reflection has become a path to interior integration, self-discovery, and spiritual exploration.

As I said in Part 1, this is not a cry for help, and it is not cause for The Contemplative Dad to be institutionalized. This is healthy individuation. Ideally it should have taken place during a period of initiation into adulthood, but guess what, folks — our culture doesn’t work that way anymore, and we’ve all been impacted by it.

This journey is going to be, at times, a great adventure, and at times there are going to be bumps in the road and unexpected byproducts of transformation that I’ll share as they unfold. But as I’ve said before, I’m being discerning about what I share while I navigate the impact this awakening is having on me and the people around me, spiritually, relationally, and creatively.

What I feel called to right now, in my heart of hearts, is to join the other pilgrims out there, people who are determined to discover the truth about themselves and exit stage left.

If that’s you — let’s keep walking together.

— Max

WHAT I’M BEING INSPIRED BY

🎵 “Perfect” — Alanis Morissette. I was listening to the Tim Ferris podcast where he interviewed Guy Oseary, the A&R executive who signed Alanis. According to the interviewee, this was the song she played for him in his office, the one that eventually catapulted her to global fame and becoming one best selling female recording artists of all time. I found it was fitting for the season of healing I’ve been discussing here. See the lyrics below.

Sometimes it’s never quite enough, If you’re flawless, then you’ll win my love
Don’t forget to win first place, Don’t forget to keep that smile on your face
Be a good boy, Try a little harder, You’ve got to measure up, Make me prouder
How long before you screw it up, How many times do I have to tell you to hurry up,
With everything I do for you, The least you can do is keep quiet
Be a good girl, You’ve gotta try a little harder, That simply wasn’t good enough,
To make us proud, I’ll live through you, I’ll make you what I never was,
If you’re the best, then maybe so am I,
Compared to him, compared to her, I’m doing this for your own damn good,
You’ll make up for what I blew, What’s the problem, why are you crying
Be a good boy, Push a little farther now, That wasn’t fast enough, To make us happy
We’ll love you just the way you are, If you’re perfect

🎬 The Odyssey — Directed by Christopher Nolan. Yes, I did go by myself to see it, and I was thoroughly entertained for all three hours. I only first read the Iliad last year, and beyond the Trojan Horse I didn’t have much exposure to Greek mythology, but I’ve been very intrigued during this healing process by myth and the role it plays in our subconscious experience of our own stories playing out. I know it’s gotten mixed reviews, but I went in with zero expectations and the whole movie felt like a dream sequence, which from my point of view is what every movie should be. Despite the critics, Christopher Nolan doesn’t know how to make boring movies, so I’d highly recommend you experience this one in the theater if you can.

“I’m not home. Not yet. It’s not always an easy thing, a homecoming.” - Odysseus

AN INVITATION TO GO DEEPER

Back in June, over 20 of you became founding members of this Substack, which meant I don’t have to go back and look for full-time work. Thank you.

If you’ve been walking with me and want to go deeper, consider becoming a member. Paid membership includes every members-only post and free access to all the live workshops. Founding members ($125/year) get all of that plus a 45-minute 1:1 call with me to talk about whatever you want.

I continue to be blown away by these conversations, which is why I made the 1:1 call a permanent benefit. There’s no formal agenda. Some people want to talk through a project or business they’re building. Some want specific advice on marketing, content, or growing an audience. But most of the time it’s simply a inspiring conversation with another traveler on the road.

This post marks the beginning of a brand new, deeply personal series about my mental health journey and how it has been completely reshaping the lens through which I view my life up until this point.

If you've been following along this past year, you know I've been documenting my story of burning out from my marketing career and finally stepping into the creative work I feel called to do.

But over the last year, as I’ve remained committed to really taking a hard look at the challenges I’ve had in my marriage, my relationships, and my career — it’s led to some deeper insights that I haven’t talked about much up until now. So today’s post begins to reveal what has been, for me, a monumental awakening.

A couple of disclaimers before I dive into the chaos.

I know people reading these articles will be affected by what I share, either because they relate or because they recognize something familiar in themselves. That’s ultimately a good thing, but as someone with a certain level of influence, I don’t take it lightly.

If you find yourself reading my story, please understand that much of what I’m sharing is the culmination of intense therapy and years of lived experience. If you are navigating mental health issues of your own, please seek professional support and gather the resources you need to make wise, discerning decisions for your own life.

Another note…

My commitment to sharing my story vulnerably, although typically well received, at times causes concern or patronization from onlookers. So just to give some context and say: this is not a cry for help. I’m in a good place and I’m being discerning about what I share to protect the privacy of the people walking this road with me.

So now that I've prefaced this heavyweight topic with a bit of preemptive self-acquittal — let's talk about my history with complex trauma.

IT’S COMPLICATED

When I first came across the term CPTSD — Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder — it didn’t sink in right away. I’d always thought PTSD was relegated to war veterans or extreme physical abuse. I understood trauma with a lowercase t and figured I had some of that, but nothing more.

For those of you who have never come across this term, here is a brief definition from one of the best resources I’ve found, Dr. Pete Walker’s book Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving:

“CPTSD is a more severe form of post-traumatic stress disorder. It is delineated from this better known trauma syndrome by five of its most common and troublesome features: emotional flashbacks, toxic shame, self-abandonment, a vicious inner critic, and social anxiety.”

Although many people who suffer from CPTSD went through intense experiences of ongoing physical abuse, it can also manifest through chronic emotional abuse and neglect.

Which brings me to my childhood.

I grew up in a chaotic back-and-forth environment between two households — marked by emotional abuse, fractured family relationships, and addiction. Growing up, I experienced multiple near-death — or what felt like near-death — events at the hands of a primary caregiver. Any one of those instances, on its own, would be enough to trigger a post-traumatic stress response.

But here’s where the complex component comes in: those experiences were accompanied by ongoing emotional neglect and a total lack of acknowledgment that the trauma was even happening. I felt trapped, with no end in sight and nowhere to go, because no one around me was attuned to the harm being done.

Looking back, I can’t say the people in my life didn’t love me. My parents did many things right. But that’s exactly what makes complex trauma so complex: the harm comes from the very people who are supposed to be keeping you safe and secure.

And yet — somehow — I would manage to get through my life seemingly unscathed. From the outside, you might meet me and think: Hey, this is a normal guy. He’s not living on the streets, has a wife and kids, seems like he’s figured it out. But underneath, a scared little boy has been living in constant hyper-vigilance — desperately trying to survive, propelled by an insatiable need for love and belonging.

I vividly remember sitting down and having coffee with a spiritual mentor in my mid-20s. I shared some bits of my childhood, and at the end of the conversation he looked at me and said, “Wow. For everything you’ve been through, I can’t believe you’re as well put together as you are.”

Hearing him say that, it felt as if he were looking right through my skin and into my soul. Whether he knew it or not, I’m not sure. It seemed like he saw it intuitively, gently nudging me to acknowledge where I actually was beneath the intricate narratives I had spun for so long. All I could do was nod, but inside a small voice of truth was saying: Yea, I’m not ok.

The first real signs of the wheels coming off arrived a few years later.

In 2017, just after our first son was born — I was working for the Archdiocese of Washington, one of the biggest Catholic organizations in the country, when the shocking abuse allegations against Cardinal McCarrick, the archdiocese’s former cardinal, broke.

As a lifelong Catholic, I was no stranger to the Church’s scandals. But being that close to it triggered a sudden flight response. I quit my job with the archdiocese, I stopped going to church for about a year, and it sparked the first serious crisis of my marriage.

My experience of it at the time was pure chaos. I had no idea why it was happening. Looking back now, I can see that it was my nervous system finally starting to short circuit. The old way wasn’t going to hold up much longer.

It was also the first time I went to therapy. In one of my first sessions, the therapist told me I had come into adulthood “half-baked.” Which I guess was, in a certain sense, true — but maybe not the most insightful way of articulating what was actually happening in me.

Somehow, I managed to cycle through several different therapists over the years that followed. I was taught some helpful breathing exercises. I even did one session of EMDR. At one point, a therapist looked me in the eye and said: “I’ve seen veterans who have come back from war. I don’t use the word trauma lightly — and you are dealing with significant trauma.”

And yet, through all of it, I never once heard the words complex trauma. No one used any language around emotional regulation or the inner child, or pointed me toward somatic modalities, IFS, or medications.

It seems to me there’s quite a bit of work to be done among mental health care professionals in learning how to better identify and support those struggling with CPTSD.

Needless to say, coming out of that first season of burnout was rough. And the unfortunate reality is that, with no one able to clearly name what was actually happening in me, all I could do was keep surviving the only way I knew how. The old mask was starting to come off, but I was not yet at rock bottom. That would take another seven years, multiple layoffs, and a second marital crisis — which brings us to this last year.

MEETING THE PUPPETEER

Now in the spirit of full transparency: I have not received a formal diagnosis for this thing. CPTSD isn’t in the DSM, the manual American clinicians diagnose from, which is a big part of why so many of us can cycle through therapists for years without ever hearing the words.

In fact, it wasn’t until I ran my story through Claude AI that I got the clearest picture yet of what I was dealing with — and what the best next steps would be for finding a trauma-informed approach to therapy and recovery. As strange and sad as it sounds, I felt the most seen I ever had in my life during a 20-minute back-and-forth conversation with an LLM.

Thankfully, there are also a lot of online resources — podcasts, books, Youtube channels — that have been incredibly helpful in leading me toward a deeper understanding of myself and how to recover.

It might sound dramatic, but after almost forty trips around the sun, I feel like I’m finally getting to know myself for the first time. I’m getting permission to be gentle with myself, to vocalize my needs, and set boundaries — you know, all the normal things a healthy person is supposed to do.

From the outside looking in, you might question whether this is a mental break or some sort of midlife crisis. Certainly, you can’t really begin to know yourself for the first time at 39 years old?

To that, I say: it’s complicated. It is difficult to describe exactly how it feels unless you’ve dealt with this type of trauma yourself, and I don’t expect even the most sympathetic onlookers to fully get it.

The best way I can describe it is the experience of a puppet finally meeting his puppeteer.

Early on, it’s nearly impossible to distinguish your own movements from the strings pulling you — strings that are, involuntarily and unconsciously, the power source behind every move, every behavior, and every reaction to life.

But as time goes on, the strings become visible. You begin to intuitively perceive that you aren’t the one in control of your decisions. You don’t understand this all at once; it’s a gradual, non-linear waking up. It becomes glaringly obvious when you encounter non-puppets — and you recognize what true freedom looks like. And you realize it’s something entirely foreign to you.

It might look like a total 180, but this has been anything but overnight. The strings don’t get cut one at a time. The faulty wiring of complex trauma doesn’t get clipped methodically. It’s a functional collapse. And in a season of rockbottom burnout, the fragile house of cards I had built to protect my inner child came crashing down around me.

Now I stand face to face with this new freedom, but also completely present to the wreckage left behind: the shattered glass, the holes in the walls, the pictures lying on the ground. Everything I thought was real is being stripped entirely down to the studs, with only the foundation remaining to be rebuilt upon.

Now that I’ve seen it, I can’t unsee it. And nothing will ever be the same.

GOING DEEPER

I don’t know what drew you here or what keeps you reading. Maybe you’re a blocked artist. Maybe you’re quitting a job. Maybe you’re a father with kids, trying to make it all work.

Whatever brought you here — if this next season of my story doesn’t resonate with you that’s fine. But honestly, I think the community that’s been gravitating around these ideas has been subconsciously finding one another.

If you look back at the last year of content I’ve created, even though I haven’t directly been talking about trauma or healing, you might have intuitively picked up on it already. Themes like creativity, play, the inner-voice — they all go hand in hand with healing. So this next chapter seems to make a lot of sense.

And even if we don’t share the exact same challenges, I think we’re experiencing this world together. We see the battle we’re up against.

As this series unfolds, I’ll be sharing deeper insights into what I’m learning through the process of integration and healing. I expect that this new chapter is going to be a seamless continuation of our creative journey together.

I WANT TO MEET YOU

If you’re still reading this, there’s a good chance we might really enjoy talking to one another.

Last month, I launched the founding member tier of this community. Many of you jumped right in, and I’ve spent the last few weeks on 1:1 calls —hearing incredible stories of people leaving jobs to build their dreams, navigating massive transitions, or reclaiming their lives from burnout.

Originally, I only intended to offer these 1:1 calls during the month of June. But the conversations have completely blown me away. Every time I get off a call, I feel inspired, edified, and deeply reminded that none of us are on this journey alone. I’m getting just as much out of them as you are.

Because of that, I’m changing the rules: I am continuing this benefit indefinitely. The 1:1 call is now a permanent fixture of the founding tier.

If you’ve been walking with me this past year, I’d love for you to join us as the road goes deeper:

• Paid Membership: Supports this work and unlocks every members-only post, the private chat group, and live-workshops as this next season unfolds.

• Founding Membership ($125/year): Gets you full access to everything, plus a dedicated 45-minute 1:1 call with me to talk about whatever you want.

  
  Become a founding member →

Subscribe now

The journey continues.

— Max, The Contemplative Dad

1 Pick up a copy of Dr. Pete Walker’s foundational book, Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving, on Amazon.

2 A big thanks to Heidi Priebe’s YouTube channel. I highly recommend her work for anyone dealing with trauma or relational challenges related to trauma.

3 I’d argue the movie Good Will Hunting does a beautiful job identifying the emotional and relational effects of CPTSD and what is necessary to begin healing. This is particularly true in the scene where Robin Williams’ character embraces Will in tears, repeating “It’s not your fault” while Will weeps in his arms.

4 Learn more about the specific definitions and symptoms of complex trauma at Beauty After Bruises. For the nerdy folks out there who want more clinical and scientific info on CPTSD vs PTSD, you can read the deep dive on PMC.

Hey friends,

First off, we hit it. 20 new founding members. Thank you!

For those of you who have been following my journey here on Substack, you know that this past season has been challenging. But this community is getting real and it’s giving me the support and energy to keep going.

I’ve been having some really good 1:1 calls with new founding members over the past week — people from all over the world who are trying to build something of their own, follow God’s call, figure out what the next chapter looks like.

For those still considering an upgrade to founding member, I’m setting a stretch goal of 25 members before June ends. The exclusive offer is still open for one more week. Sign up now and you can still get your free 45-minute 1:1 coaching call with me to talk about whatever you want.

---
In other news, I just dropped a new YouTube video on how to navigate screen addiction, creative inspiration, and building an online audience.

It’s really about moving from passively consuming to actively creating on social media. There’s a story about Peter walking on water and some beautiful scenery from Northern Minnesota.

I hope this video inspires you to get out and create something new. Once again, thank you for being here. I’m honored to be on this journey with you.

More soon,

— Max

The Contemplative Dad

I think my favorite part was when my four …

Read more

We’re at 14 of 20 founding members. Six more founding members and we hit the goal I set for June. And there’s still half the month left.

If you missed the story behind why I’m doing this, you can catch up here: I Made a Deal with My Wife

If you’ve been on the fence, here’s some extra incentive to sign up today.

Tonight at 7:30pm Eastern is our first live workshop — a gathering of faithful creators, dozens of us in one room, talking through what it actually looks like to build something meaningful online without losing your soul. Founding members and paid members get in free.

And if you become a founding member this month, you also get a free 45 minute 1:1 call with me — that offer is only available through the end of June.

If you’ve been encouraged by this journey and want to be one of the final six, now’s the moment.

I’m up in Northern Minnesota right now filming some new content for the YouTube channel. Your support this past couple of weeks has been so energizing. I’ve also been having some incredible conversations with artists and entrepreneurs that I can’t wait to share.

See some of you tonight at 7:30 Eastern.

More soon.

— Max
The Contemplative Dad

I’m blown away.

In the first 24 hours, five new founding members. Twenty five percent to the goal in a single day. New subscribers, shares, and engagement helped push this account to #8 on Substack.

And even from people who couldn’t make the investment, I got encouraging emails and DMs that meant just as much.

If you missed yesterday’s post where I shared the full story behind all of this, you can read it here. I Made a Deal with My Wife

I’m so grateful. It’s giving me the purpose and energy I need to keep this thing going.

We’re living in a world that is changing and uncertain. And for those of us creative souls feeling trapped in a one size fits all, career driven world — we’re hungry for something deeper.

This goes beyond starting a business or getting rich. It’s about creating a life that gives us the freedom to respond to the gifts God has put in us. The dreams, the vision, the work we feel called to do.

And your response yesterday was a sign that I’m not alone in feeling this way.

If you’re still considering becoming a founding member, I’m looking for 15 more this month.

If the founding member investment isn’t right for you right now, a monthly or annual membership means just as much. And if you want to continue as a free subscriber, I’ll continue to share lessons and reflections from this journey in real time.

Either way, I’m glad you’re here.

More soon.

— Max The Contemplative Dad

We’d been through job transitions before, but this one felt different. It forced me to look at myself in the mirror and ask some hard questions. I’ve made an effort to be honest about this journey over the past year, but the reality is that some of it has been too heavy and raw to share in full detail.

But today I’m going to pull back the curtain on some of the messy stuff.

When my first video took off on YouTube a year ago, I didn’t expect things to go viral. I didn’t have a business plan or a revenue model for how I would make a living from it. But even without knowing exactly what I was doing, an actual business started to grow from that.

Over the past year, dozens of people have reached out to share how the content I’ve created here has impacted them. People have quit jobs, started businesses, and finally taken action on projects they’d been neglecting for years.

It’s extremely humbling. But it also comes with a heavy dose of imposter syndrome.

The Contemplative Dad has been a real time experiment. And the honest truth is, I haven’t always been sure it’s going to work. It’s been over a year since I had a full time job. We have four kids to feed. We’re trying to sell a house we bought when I had a six figure salary, and we’re leaking thousands of dollars a month.

I don’t regret staying self-employed. I’m grateful for this past year, for getting some help that was long overdue, for slowing down and listening to God’s voice.

But there’s no other way to say it — it’s come at a cost. It’s been hard on my family, and it’s been stretching me in ways I didn’t see coming.

So the clock is ticking.

Up until now I’ve been bootstrapping this on the side, squeezing it in between freelance work and contracts that pay the bills. But you can’t build something like this going half in. At a certain point you have to commit and go for it. And that reality is staring me straight in the face.

Our current situation is not sustainable, and at the end of the day I’ll do what I need to do for my family — even if that means giving this up and going back to a full time job. But I know what’s happening here is a real opportunity. And in my heart I want to keep committing myself to it.

So my wife and I made a deal — if I don’t hit a specific revenue goal by the end of June, I’ll start applying for jobs.

That’s where you come in.

If the work I’m doing here has impacted you in some way and you want to see it continue to grow, this is your opportunity to partner with me.

My Goal: 20 new founding members this month.

As a founding member you’ll get everything that comes with a paid membership — paid posts, personal updates, and live workshops including the first one that is filling up quickly on June 17th.

But founding members will also get something more personal: a free 45 minute 1:1 call with me. We can talk about your story, how to grow an audience, or just get to know each other better.

As an investor in this work, you’re helping me build a community for contemplative creators all over the world. I’ve already been talking to many of them and their stories are incredible.

Books are being written. Businesses are being launched. Content is being created.

And you’ll be grandfathered into that community with lifetime access when it launches — at no additional cost.

At a moment that feels like the darkest before the dawn, I'm asking you directly — will you participate in what God is doing here? If you’re willing to be one of the twenty, I would be so grateful.

It’s an honor to be on this creative pilgrimage with you.

More soon.

— Max The Contemplative Dad

Hey friend,

If you’ve been following along this past year, you’ve had a front row seat to what it actually looks like to take the leap.

I've tried to be as honest as I can about this journey, the last thing I want is to position myself as some kind of creative guru with a polished formula to sell you. I'm still very much figuring this out myself.

But here’s what I’m noticing. This path can be lonely.

When I look around at the people in my life, I don’t always find others who can relate. Some people seem genuinely content floating along in a comfortable job, coasting toward retirement without much friction.

Maybe you’re hearing a call to write a book, make music, launch a business, or start making content. You know it’s time to start taking steps, but you also know the road ahead won’t be easy. The self-doubt and resistance are always close by.

As this community has gathered over the past year, I’ve realized there’s a real opportunity for those of us in this season to do something about it. To come together in community, learn from one another, and find the support we need to keep moving forward in our mission.

That’s why I’m launching the first ever Creative Pilgrim Workshop.

The Creative Pilgrim Workshop Wednesday, June 17th | 7:30pm Eastern | Live on Zoom

A 90 minute live gathering where I'll be sharing from twenty years of creative work and over 100 million views on Youtube, alongside a couple of community members who will share their own stories. Expect honest conversation, practical insight, and a space to simply be together.

Two ways to join the workshop:

→ Become a paid Substack member — $65/year The best way to be part of everything. As a paid member you’ll get access to this workshop completely free. I’ll send you the registration link automatically when you sign up. Plus, you’ll get free access to all future workshops, paid posts, and my private chat group.

Join The Community

→ Workshop only — $29 A one time payment for June 17th. Replay included. No ongoing commitment.

Grab Your Seat

Seats are limited, so grab yours before it fills up.

If you’ve been waiting for a sign that it’s time to take the next step, maybe this is it. I’d love nothing more than to spend this time with you and see what God does when a group of faithful creators decide to stop waiting and start moving together.

More soon,

— Max
The Contemplative Dad

I’m excited to share a new interview series on my YouTube channel. The idea: learn from artists and entrepreneurs about how they’re actually building a life around their spiritual calling.

Subscribe now

In this episode, I sat down with one of my favorite musicians, Propaganda. If you don’t know him, he’s a rapper and poet who’s been making music in and around the Christian scene for over two decades.

Here’s some of what we got into:

• What it actually takes to make a living as a working artist. Prop’s take: “You clock in, then you clock out. If you feel like the only time you’re doing God’s will is when you’re on stage, you’re missing it. You’re always in your call.”

• His complicated relationship with the Christian music industry — including the rumors he’s no longer a Christian. His response: “Five years ago you had me on your festivals. So which one of us changed? I didn’t. You did. It was never about my faith in the first place. It was about whether I fit into your industry.”

• His new album, This Is Our Fellowship, and why “the boys are not okay.” We got into masculinity, therapy, and a line from his new album“You’re not good at vulnerability. You’re good at disclosure.”

• His friendship with Lecrae and what it looks like to stay close to someone whose career has gone in a very different direction than yours.

Ultimately, I was blown away by this conversation and I think you will be too. Grab a cup of coffee, settle in, and prepare to be inspired.

And if you know someone who needs to hear it, please send it their way.

— Max

I’m not naturally a salesman. I’m an artist at heart, and the purist in me doesn’t naturally think about how to monetize or scale the financial end of things. I don’t like having ads on my YouTube videos. I don’t necessarily see myself as some sort of guru or coach. But as my audience has continued to grow, I’ve tried to experiment with ways of providing value beyond just the free content I’m creating.

Honestly, if I didn’t need to feed my family, I’d prefer to give everything away.

But as I continue trying to balance creative integrity with the necessity of providing for my family, one thing that does come very naturally is the desire to simply share more deeply about my ongoing journey of following the creative call in real time.

For the past 10 years I’ve been the sole provider for our family, and this past season has been trying in many ways. From another job loss, to an unexpected mental health diagnosis (more on that later), to discerning yet another move to another state for my family, it’s been anything but smooth.

My goal has never been to preach from a mountaintop or provide some formula for how to make a living as a creator. Yes, I’ve done the whole course and coaching thing a couple times, but honestly, it’s never felt like the long-term aim for me.

There’s this whole world of pyramid schemes and influencers teaching people how to teach people that just doesn’t sit right with me. Even if I could capitalize on that opportunity, it often feels disingenuous to the way I want to show up here.

More and more, I’m convinced that what I want to do with this Contemplative Dad project is simply document, as honestly and authentically as possible, what stepping into this creative calling actually looks like in real time.

Every time I release a video on YouTube, I get emails from dads and creative people who are in a very similar position. And as humbling as it can be to share the journey this vulnerably, I can tell that God is using that honesty and transparency to make people feel a little less alone.

So what does feel authentic to what’s happening here is the idea of a community. A tribe of creative misfits and sojourners doing what they can to walk together, encouraging one another and putting one foot in front of the other.

That, I can get behind.

With all that being said, I’m going to start doing more in-depth personal updates for my paid subscribers. I’ve done a few of these in the past, but mostly sporadically here and there.

Much is unfolding for my family and me right now, and as hard as it’s been, it feels like a way I can provide some level of support and encouragement to others who are on a similar path.

So for those of you who are here as free members, thank you. I’ll never pressure you to upgrade.

And for those of you who are paid members, my hope is that this space can become a place for us to walk together.

For me, this is an opportunity to say: I’m stepping out in faith, and I’m taking the risk. If you’re doing something similar, I’m with you. Here’s what’s working for me. Here are the wins, the losses, the glory, and the heartbreak along the way. I don’t have all the answers. But I’m here with you.

With that being said, below is a very personal update #01.

Read more

I’ve been thinking a lot about what Jesus meant when He said we have to become like little children to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

There’s something about that state of creative innocence that we were never meant to lose. And I think part of what it means to follow God’s creative call in our lives is learning how to return to that child like place again.

I made a video about this the other day, and while I was editing it, something hit me in a way that doesn’t usually happen.

I could feel it.

And based on the comments, a lot of other people felt it too.

If that resonates with you at all, I think this one might be worth your time.

watch it here →

As always, I’d love to hear what this brought up for you. Feel free to reply directly.

More soon,

Max
The Contemplative Dad

As an artist with a growing YouTube channel, I feel this constant tension between wanting to make thoughtful, high-quality work and knowing I need to create more consistently if I want the channel to grow.

Lately that tension has been slowing me down. So I gave myself a constraint. I had one day to shoot, edit, and publish my next youtube video.

No perfect script. No endless retakes. No disappearing into weeks of editing. Just make the thing and get it out.

That became the starting point for a bigger reflection in the video about perfectionism, friction, authenticity, and what “quality” really means now, especially in a world where polished visuals are getting easier and easier to fake.

In some ways this video is a small creative experiment. In other ways, it feels like the beginning of a shift for me.

If you’ve ever felt stuck between wanting to make something meaningful and just needing to stop overthinking and create, I think this one will resonate.

You can watch it here:

I’d love to hear from you in the comments, and as always feel free to respond to this email with any thoughts or questions. I read all of them.

More soon,

Max

Something unexpected showed up in my mailbox recently. A copy of an old rap CD I made 18 years ago called “The Mind Is Infinite”.

Honestly, it felt like a sign from God.

For the past year I’ve been making videos about creative calling, and about what happens when we ignore the gifts God put in us. Then this old CD shows up out of nowhere, reminding me of the first time I really felt that call as an artist.

Listening back through those songs brought up a lot of mixed emotions, and the video became a way for me to process some of that in real time. I talk about a concept Julia Cameron calls the “shadow artist”. It’s the idea that when we don’t fully step into our artistic vocation, we often end up living around the call and orbiting it from the edges.

I can’t say for sure that I was supposed to be a rapper, but I can definitely look back and see the ways I kept circling creativity instead of fully stepping into it.

As a way of processing some of this in real time, I invited a couple of really important people in my life into the conversation: my wife, and my best friend Terkaa from high school. They’ve both seen this part of my story up close, and the conversation ended up being really healing for me.

My hope is that it might be helpful for you too.

And one fun side note: back in 2008 when I made this album, we were still listening to music on good old-fashioned CDs, so I decided to upload the songs to all the streaming platforms.

You can listen to them here.

Listen Now

And maybe even more surprisingly, I’ve started writing music again for the first time in a long time. I’m thinking I may put out some new tracks soon, so if you listen, let me know what you think.

Thanks for reading, for watching, and for walking through this season with me. I’m grateful to be on this creative journey with you.

More soon,

Max

In my last post How I Make Viral Content Without Trying, I shared the framework I’ve developed for creating content that feels authentic in a digital world teeming with artificial noise.

In this follow up post, I want to go a little deeper with the paid subscribers and share some of that process in real time.

A couple days ago I posted this note asking you for prayers for my next YouTube script.

And I think the prayers worked because I’ve never had a script come out this close to word for word from the original voice note. Usually it’s more of a wrestling match. This time the thread was there almost immediately. So thank you.

Below I’m going to share the current version of the script, along wiht some other real-time insights from the trenches of my creative journey.

First off, here is a short clip from the voice note from a couple days ago. I apologize in advance for the sniffles... This was recorded on a brisk walk, during allergy season, before anything was cleaned up.

Read more

For most of my life I had the feeling that something about the system didn’t quite make sense.

The rules were always very clear:

Go to school.
Get a job.
Climb the ladder.
Retire.
Play Golf.

If you followed the path correctly, the system would reward you with stability.

I tried to go with the flow. And for a long time I assumed the problem was me.

Maybe I just needed more discipline.
Maybe I needed to try harder to fit.

But over the past year something has become very clear to me.

We are living at the end of an era.

The system we inherited from the Industrial Age, corporate hierarchies, rigid career paths, compliance and predictability, is beginning to collapse.

And something new is emerging in its place.

A world where individuals can build work around their ideas, their story, and their creative gifts.

A world where the scales are tipping back toward the individual creator. And that shift is happening faster than most people realize.

Personally, I don’t think there has ever been a better time to be a creative person.

Over the past year, I’ve been documenting my own journey of trying to create my way out of the 9-5 path and build something more independent.

This new video is probably the clearest explanation I’ve given yet of how I see this transition unfolding.

You can watch it here:

If you feel that tension inside of you, the sense that you were made for something more creative than the path you’ve been given — I think this video will resonate.

If you’re a paid subscriber, I’d love to hear what you think over in the private chat group. ☕️

Subscribe now

Max

I remember about ten years ago having a conversation with a friend. I was early in my career and deeply unhappy in my job (surprise, surprise).

At one point during this episode of lamenting I said, “I’d really like to work for myself.”

He gave a brief smirk, an eye roll, and replied, “Trust me… we all would.”

I’m sure he meant well.

But he probably had no idea his words would stay pinned to my mental bulletin board for the next decade.

More than once, I’ve imagined encountering him again at a social gathering years later — finally free, finally my own boss — peeling the mask away like that scene in Gladiator when Maximus reveals himself to Commodus who thought he was dead.

A dramatic look at me now moment.

But honestly, now that I’m living something closer to that reality, the dominant feeling I have isn’t triumph. It isn’t vindication. And it certainly isn’t revenge.

It’s gratitude.

For years, my restlessness felt like a liability — like a personal deficiency I needed to overcome.

Maybe most people do dream about working for themselves — and for many, it remains just that: a pleasant thought, a “nice to have,” easily set aside in favor of something more predictable.

But for me, it was different.

I wasn’t simply curious about another way of working. Over time, it became clear that remaining where I was came at a cost that was too high.

I assumed I just hadn’t found the right role yet, or learned the right coping mechanisms, or matured enough to tolerate the grind.

But looking back, I’ve come to see that discomfort differently.

Some people love to go with the flow. Others can’t help but swim against it.

My resistance to the rules wasn’t rebellion — it was just that God designed me to play a different game entirely.

That realization came after many years of frustration, false starts, and failure. But in hindsight, I see it as a gift. Because it forced me to look elsewhere.

And now — standing a little further down the road — I feel a responsibility to turn around and speak to the people still standing where I once stood.

The ones who feel the same friction. The same dread on Monday morning. The same sense that something about this doesn’t fit, even if they can’t yet articulate why.

And what I want to say is simple:

The call you’re sensing is real.

For a long time, the idea of working for oneself was a pipe dream. A fairy-tale existence reserved for a privileged few, high-achieving entrepreneurs, or lottery winners.

But here’s the good news.

We’re living in a genuinely unprecedented moment where a neurodivergent dad with a camera, a laptop, and little caffeine can walk into his backyard, start filming… and start a business.

The internet has brought about many innovations — some good, some bad.

But the decentralization of media has made it possible for anyone to build a personal brand around their skills and expertise, and that’s a beautiful thing for people like you and me.

Before I go any further, I want to be very clear about what this post is not.

This is not a dream-life flex from a mountaintop meant to provoke envy. Far from it.

What I’m doing is volatile. We’re paying the bills, yes — but this is very much still a work in progress.

Every day my wife doesn’t walk out on me is another year shaved off her purgatory sentence.

So no — this is not for the faint of heart. And you don’t have to burn the ships all at once.

Some people will Jerry Maguire it — walk out dramatically, goldfish in hand, with nothing lined up and somehow land on their feet.

But most people will need to take the Shawshank Redemption path — gradually tunneling their way out over time. Building skills on the side. Creating margin. Mapping out the escape.

And then one day, almost without announcement, you’re gone.

But I do think that for many people, this is a better way. And I’ve become increasingly convinced that it’s also the most sustainable way to position yourself for a future that is already changing faster than most of us can keep up with.

A single paycheck can feel very stable…

Right up until the day it isn’t.

That’s why I’m writing this.

Not to gloat.
Not to preach.
And not to sell a fantasy.

But to share this experiment in real time — in the hope that it helps others see their misfit instincts not as a problem to be solved, but as a signal pointing toward a different way of building a life.

What follows isn’t a blueprint. It’s an experiment. A risk, yes — but a calculated one.

Before getting into the specific income streams and percentages, I want to lay out the underlying principles that now guide how I think about work, income, and long-term sustainability.

For me, true financial freedom rests on three principles.

Read more

If you’ve been following my journey here on Substack, then you know this past year has been dedicated to intentionally staying unemployed and doing the creative work God has called me to do.

That decision has been necessary, but it’s taken a ton of faith—because I’m a dad with four kids and the sole breadwinner for our family.

But here we are going into a new year, and things are relatively stable.

We’re still alive.
We still have health insurance.
And there’s no sign of us being on the street anytime soon.

I won’t sugarcoat it, though. The escape has not been comfortable. And I still question my sanity at times.

So much of our society is structured around dependence on the 9-to-5 system that leaving it behind has sometimes felt like the flight from Egypt.

I want the freedom—but I’m not exactly thrilled about wandering around in the desert either.

Still, for those of us who aren’t keen to be cogs in the corporate machine, the modern way of work can become a source of spiritual oppression. And I’m more than willing to face a season of short-term volatility if it means loosening the grip of those golden handcuffs once and for all.

To be clear, I would never advocate that every person should quit their job, full stop. For some, it’s a good and noble path.

When I hear the quote, “Leap and the net will appear,” it speaks to who I am—but only because it’s been tempered by years of honest reckoning with what actually works for me, and what doesn’t.

That’s ultimately why I’m writing here on Substack: to share my journey in real time, so others wrestling with the same desire can see what this path looks like and be encouraged in their own discernment.

So as I hit the six-month anniversary of being untethered from employer benefits, I’m cautiously optimistic that this might just work.

I have no plans of applying for jobs anytime soon. I can see the promised land, and even if the bread can’t rise right now, I trust the manna will come down from heaven in due time.

Which brings me, somewhat unexpectedly, to sourdough.

An Unexpected Desire

One desire that bubbled up during this extended season of discernment and awareness has been baking sourdough bread.

I still don’t quite know what to make of it.

If I’m honest, it pokes at the more insecure parts of my masculine ego.

Baking? Really? Are you Martha Stewart now?

How about we go a little more Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor—build something, hammer something, cut down a tree?

Why sourdough?

Well, for one thing, it’s trendy. Somewhere between backyard chickens and raw milk discourse, sourdough has become a thing.

But more practically, I deal with gluten sensitivity. I haven’t been able to eat fresh baked bread for more than two years.

Missing out on that feels almost like an offense against God. (And let’s be honest—He does seem to favor this particular food reference in more than a few important ways.)

So hearing that sourdough can be easier on people with gluten sensitivity felt like an open door to indulge once again.

And knowing that my wife appreciates thoughtful gifts, I had the grand idea to learn sourdough this year as a Christmas gift for her—Hopefully a small act of restitution after another year of being married to an artistically temperamental, neurodivergent, serial job-quitter like me.

Which is how I got here.

Post-Christmas, I’m now seven loaves in. I’m completely hooked. And my stomach has handled it just fine.

Not only am I enjoying fresh bread again—but I’ve really enjoyed baking.

I heard a lot of people say that working with sourdough can be tricky, so I expected a failed experiment or two. But it’s actually been fairly straightforward, and every loaf thus far has been edible.

It just takes a bit more patience, time, and attention.

Which, if I’m honest, has been a good exercise for my easily wandering frontal lobe.

On top of that, it’s been inspiring some powerful ideas about what it takes to break free from the 9-to-5 career grind, and how I’m approaching my creative process.

So let’s dive in.

Becoming an Active Starter

One of the first things you hear when you begin learning about sourdough is the starter. And at first, the added layer of complexity intimidated me a bit.

But determined to get my first loaf in the oven, I went down to a small, homegrown grocery store and asked if they had a starter.

The nice gal behind the desk said she could put in a request and I could pick one up the next day.

I returned the following afternoon and sure enough, there she was with a small bag of gooey-looking gunk.

I had no idea what to do with it, and she could tell.

Smiling again, she gave me a quick lesson:

Feed it.
Flour and water.
Put it in the fridge.
Keep it alive.
Keep it active.

That was it.

Once I got home and finally took the time to figure it out, I quickly started to understand the importance of a good active starter. What started as a cumbersome part of the process soon became the most meaningful.

Because it turns out the starter is the key ingredient.

It’s what makes sourdough different. It gives the bread its one-of-a-kind rise and distinct flavor.

When I look back over the last ten to fifteen years of my career, being someone who can get curious, take initiative, and begin without permission has been one of the defining traits that’s carried me forward.

If you look at anyone who’s built something meaningful, you’ll find a season where they started without much help.

No audience. No validation. Just showing up and doing the work.

There’s a reason breaking out of the default 9-to-5 system is hard. It’s comfortable. It’s predictable. It provides a sense of security.

So it’s going to take some serious energy and activation if we’re going to have the courage to step outside of it.

So when people tell me they feel called to create, to build, to make something of their own, the first question I ask is simple:

Are you actually doing the thing you say you’re called to do?

Is there evidence?
A portfolio?
Something you can point to?

Are you putting time into it—weekly, daily—however small?

If not, it’s time to have an honest conversation about what’s holding you back. Because this is where it begins.

You just have to start.

Strength, Durability, and the Long Game

Another vital and unique part of the sourdough process is the stretch-and-fold phase.

It’s not like kneading bread where you roll it out, squeeze it, and beat it.

You simply take the dough, lift it up, stretch it, fold it—building strength in the gluten fibers so the dough can withstand what’s coming.

You do a round, wait thirty minutes, do another, wait thirty minutes. Usually repeating this four times over a couple hours.

And by the end, you should be able to stretch the dough without it tearing at all. And this brings up a lesson I’ve learned the hard way in my own life.

If the “active starter” represents activation—energy, ideas, motivation, the initial burst of creative fire—stretch and fold represents what’s just as necessary:

Strength to sustain it.

I’ve failed over and over again in my life. I’ve had multiple false starts where I started something, saw traction, saw initial growth—and then ultimately failed.

And the failure wasn’t because I lacked talent. It wasn’t because I lacked good ideas. It wasn’t because I didn’t create good work.

Time and time again, it was the same thing:

I quit too early.

I didn’t understand the stamina and consistency required to sustain the activity once the excitement wore off. I wasn’t mentally and emotionally equipped. I wasn’t conditioned for the long game.

And I’ve seen it over and over again: it’s not always the most talented, the most energetic, or the people with the best ideas.

It’s the people who are strong enough to withstand the ups and downs that will inevitably come down the road.

The ability to pace yourself, put your head down, and show up and ship over and over again—without expectation of massive success overnight.

Every overnight success took ten years.

That’s how I’m approaching my journey this time around. A year ago, I launched a YouTube channel. I put my head down and created videos when nobody was watching.

I told myself: if no one pays attention, I’m good. I’m here to create. I’m doing this because I feel called.

This time it’s different for me because I’ve failed before, and I understand what caused the failure.

The younger version of me had talent. He had vision. He had the courage to go for it.

But he didn’t understand how the real grind works. He didn’t understand how much mental, emotional, and spiritual strength he would need.

And that’s what I’m optimizing for now.

Not massive growth.
Not hustle.
Not status.

I’m optimizing for longevity and sustainability.

Doing the work God has actually given me to do, while still building a life that includes exercise, taking care of my body, my mind, my soul, my family, —without burning out.

Stretch and fold.

We stretch.
We fail.
We fold.
We try again.

And over time, we build endurance. We build wisdom. We develop calluses.

This is what it takes to sustain the activity—and to see the vision come to life.

Rhythm, Ritual, and Attention

Yes, sourdough definitely takes up time and attention. But I really love that part of it.

The process unfolds throughout the entire day. It requires a certain level of attentiveness, but then periodic spaces of waiting where I can turn my thoughts somewhere else and then come back.

As someone with a high level of creative temperament mixed with ADHD, one of the biggest challenges I’ve found in my work life is where to focus my attention.

For many people, modern life consists of waking up, driving to the office, sitting at a desk, doing the same thing all day, driving home, sleeping, and repeating.

That just doesn’t work for me.

I need to shift environments on a weekly and even daily basis. I love having an ebb and a flow between activities. I flourish best when I’m working in deep sprints—concentrated focus for a period of time—and then shifting into another mode.

Exercise for an hour.
Read or pray.
Creative work at the computer for two hours.
Take a break—eat something, run an errand, pick up the kids, go for a walk, hug my wife.
Finish the day with another deep work session.

That kind of dynamic works so much better for me. This has been present since I was in school and hated sitting in a classroom.

When I sit down and do the same activity, in the same office, with the same people forty hours a week, it completely drains my mind, body, and soul.

If we allow ourselves to be ushered down the default paths of western work culture, we end up locked into that way of life.

And to me, it’s a form of slavery.

Of course I don’t mean to equate it with concentration camps or the African slave trade. But it is a form of creative and professional captivity when you don’t have autonomy—when you can’t structure your day in a way that works for you.

And this is what I like about sourdough: it takes all day, but it can be incorporated into my workday, into my creative process—while editing a video, writing an article, running errands, picking up kids.

You leave it.
You return.
You notice change.

There’s something deeply grounding about that.

The Final Rise

The most satisfying part of the process is, obviously, the culmination of all the work.

But it would feel a bit too obvious to turn this into a grand metaphor about “rising to the top.” That’s not really what this process has been teaching me.

Don’t get me wrong—the bread is wonderful, and it feels great to see the end product.

It comes out of the oven.
I slice into it.
That first bite is incredible.

But then… it’s gone.

Compared to the hours of waiting, tending, stretching, folding, and paying attention, the payoff is brief. And before long, I’m already thinking about the next loaf.

Not because I’m chasing the reward again—but because I want to return to the process.

That’s been the unexpected gift: realizing I’ve found something I actually want to keep doing. Something that can remain a constant in my creative life—where the work itself is sustaining, and the success arrives almost as a byproduct.

And that realization reframed the rest of the process for me.

Take scoring, for example.

The first few times, it made me feel clumsy.

For whatever reason, handcrafted artwork has always been a nagging insecurity of mine. I still hear echoes of my first-grade teacher scolding me for not coloring between the lines.

But sourdough is surprisingly forgiving.

You can completely botch the scoring and still end up with a beautiful loaf.

It turns out, all you really need is a single cut—some opening—to let the pressure escape. Almost any line you score ends up blooming into something beautiful across the surface of the crust.

And honestly, a loaf of fresh sourdough just looks amazing.

When you get a good rise and that dark, chestnut crust—with the crackle and character from the score—it genuinely feels like you’ve made something artful.

But the deeper discovery is this: you can keep going deeper without ever exhausting the work.

And I think that’s something many of us are missing now.

So few people have anything left to master.
So few opportunities to become craftsmen or artisans of anything real.

That kind of patient, slow acquisition of skill has been largely stripped out of modern life.

And if I’m honest, it’s something I’ve deeply desired.

Not another achievement.
Not another title.
Not another person to manage.

But a practice I can return to for a lifetime.

Closing

So yes—this is a post about sourdough bread. But it’s really about the kind of life I’m building.

As I continue this journey toward creative freedom, I’m realizing it’s about much more than finding a dream job—it’s about how work fits into a deeper, more contemplative life.

I don’t know what comes next, but I have a feeling it will include baking a lot of bread.

Thanks for being on this journey with me.

— Max