My annual listicle roundup

Insights from a year of letting things be as they are

Jan 11, 2025

Last week, I sat down to write this annual roundup and something unexpected happened—the intro sprouted legs and wandered off into its own essay. So I let it go. Which, perhaps, is the biggest lesson I’ve learned this year, not just from parenting, but from existence itself: to let things be as they are.

And now, keeping with tradition, I present you with my annual (hopefully fun and allegedly very dope) listicle roundup.

My life in a listicle:

We had a baby boy. Wrote about it here, here, and here. Talked about it here. The former degenerate in me is still pinching myself daily.
Sons of Now, the men’s group I founded, hit its stride this year. I led two retreats and have expansion plans in the works for 2025. Read a beautiful essay from one of our members about his experience in the group here.
I launched Life Not Wasted, my first self-paced course on living free from distraction and numbing agents. It’s built on a foundation of my practical, somatic, and meditative teachings. A bunch of people have taken it now with good results. I’m hoping to market it more next year.
Coaching and somatic therapy feel better and more natural than ever. I started seeing local clients in my home office, too—a simple change that’s made a real difference. After years of supervision, my Hakomi certification is on the horizon (a rigorous, multi-year process requiring mastery evaluation from multiple lead trainers).
The meditation piece clarified significantly this year. I attended two retreats with my teachers, Michael Taft and Jason Bartlett. While I’ve been writing about non-conceptual awareness and awakening tangentially for years, I’m ready to address it more directly. I wanted to wait until the insights integrated, and now I’m excited to share my experience through essays that make these practices simple, accessible, and practical for others.

Sixteen insights from 2024

Meeting people where they actually are (instead of where you think they should be) is relationship magic.
If you are energetic + curious + aware, you will be unstoppable—the world is your infinite playground.
Motherhood is criminally underrated in our society. Witnessing firsthand what a woman goes through—growing a child, birthing them, then nursing and raising them—has been humbling beyond words. Yes, parenting is intense for both parents, but it’s an entirely different dimension for mothers. They should receive paid support for each year of child-rearing, not just for a few weeks. They should get VIP parking spots everywhere. They should be celebrated as the sacred life-force of humanity.
My advice to fathers-to-be: work smart and hard leading up to birth, build as much momentum in your meditation practice as possible, strengthen your back muscles (never skip leg day), expect to get 3x less done after birth, take time to ground your nervous system daily, and remember your primary job in the early days is supporting the mother.
It’s better to workout, run, walk, or do dishes without podcasts or music in your ears.
I’m careful about screen time: I don’t check my phone for hours after waking, use blue light blockers at night, average only 1.5 hours of phone screen time per week, and have a strong ability to concentrate (discovered during ADHD testing as a bored, acting-out kid). Yet I still spend too much time on my computer, even while teaching others how to mindfully avoid this trap. When reading online, I’ve recently caught myself skipping sentences, defaulting to “skim fast mode.” This cannot continue.
My motivation to write has changed substantially, and not just from having less time. Some shifts in consciousness have made me less interested in “churning” on essay ideas in my mind for days and weeks. I realize now this was a subtle thought addiction keeping me from the present, and a way to avoid some of my emotional wounds. Writing these days must emerge more spontaneously; it has to catch fire in the moment, as it has now.
Tangentially, judgments—of which I have many, ones that often give my writing its edge—have been one of my biggest teachers this year. Just as I’ve stopped churning on essay ideas in my mind, I’m seeing how constant critiques of writing and culture are often merely the shadow side of an unexpressed artist. That’s exactly how I began: stuck in a career that stifled my spirit, with endless critiques and ideas bouncing around my head. But lately, I’m practicing just letting these judgments be there without trying to fix or transform them through metta or other practices. Because I’ve now clearly seen how every reaction is really just my mind’s reflection—not just triggering my wounded spots, but literally reflecting the nature of my mind itself. Like waking from a dream and realizing every character was woven from the same fabric consciousness, where you know everything you experienced was simply “you” (as I wrote about here).
Relatedly, forgiveness meditation is also underrated. This has become my favorite, along with the mantra: “I forgive myself for not understanding.” Technically, it refers to forgiving yourself for not understanding the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism, but whispering these words in a mindful state hits potently, often triggering unexpected emotional release. All the tension I carry, all the judgments I hold—they’re just symptoms of not understanding the way things are, the way people are, the way reality is.
As one of my teachers reminds me, after waking up, there are two modes of consciousness: one that’s aware, and one that’s not. Consciousness itself is continuous and uninterrupted. So there’s no problem if you’re unaware—both awareness and unawareness occur naturally, without our control. Thus, there’s no need to force awareness; it will arise on its own. And while both states are completely natural and undifferentiated, it’s more pleasant and interesting to spend time aware.
The way to actually improve society isn’t through posting about far-away issues—it’s through living deeply in your local reality. Cultural problems and collective issues feel less confusing and pressing when you’re rooted in presence, love, and community. Ironically, living this way not only makes your life richer, but also increases your capacity to genuinely help with those far-away causes.
AI is going to be as transformative as everyone says, perhaps even more so than the hype. Countless jobs are in jeopardy. I’ve been using Claude (not ChatGPT, for aesthetic reasons) and am thoroughly impressed. Its ease of use will atrophy too many of our key skills, but the biggest risk I see is still epistemic—how it will accelerate an already addictive attention economy where people are increasingly trapped in reality tunnels that reinforce extremism and radicalization. Meanwhile, Claude’s potential for therapy is stunning. I now believe AI therapy will be an enormously effective tool for human growth, as bittersweet as that feels. The successful therapists of the future will differentiate themselves through presence, not through knowledge of psychological frameworks. Regarding the AGI hype and consciousness debates: from an idealist perspective like Donald Hoffman’s, AI can never be truly conscious since consciousness is fundamental, not emergent from computation. You can’t create consciousness by stacking more computation—it’s the other way around. Maybe I should write more about this.
The function of meditation is to release your addiction to ideas as the primary vehicle of truth, and instead become seduced by the wonders of direct experience. When you stop believing this moment needs to be different than it is, that’s awakening—the subtlest and ultimate recovery path. It’s about doing less, not more.
For the last five years since leaving my tech career to go independent, I’ve prioritized what lights me up over what makes money. It’s been a fulfilling, quite enjoyable experiment, able to sustain life in the Bay Area without compromising my values. I couldn’t imagine parenting without the flexibility I’ve created. But now, responsible for a family, I’m ready to step up my game as a capitalist while keeping my commitment to dharmic, heart-centered work—seeing the money piece as just that, a game to be played skillfully. The next chapter is about proving you can do deeply meaningful work and earn a fantastic living. No compromises needed.
Reality, experience, consciousness—whatever you call it—is always “on.” The thinking mind can only grasp a tiny fraction of what’s actually present: the vast field of vision, the rich soundscapes, the ghost-like sensations, the felt atmospheric vibes of each moment, the spaciousness that holds it all. There’s always infinitely more happening than what we can think about or describe. Notice this.
You are probably clenching your lower belly and/or butt without realizing it. Let go, relax.

Essays

I published 18 essays this year, a number understandably lower than previous years, but still including some solid work. Highlights:

No Better Time to Wake Up (became one of my most-read pieces and sparked my podcast with
Daniel Pinchbeck
)
The Menu Is Not the Meal
Where Zen Meets Inbox Zero
Let’s Talk About How Often We Pickup Our Phones
What Trump’s victory reveals about us
Raw and gentle

And for the detailed-oriented: yes, midway through the year, I stopped capitalizing my essay titles. I’m now in a more playful blogger phase.

Deep Fix pod

This was the first real year doing the podcast! I love this medium, and sense there’s something in my future around speaking and expressing in this manner. It is, however, far more work than I anticipated, and parenting made scheduling difficult.

Thus far, I haven’t leveraged a consistent schedule or growth strategy—I just put out conversations I’m excited about when they’re ready, and it really warms my heart to hear that people are listening, enjoying, and discovering them. I’m planning to keep at it and hopefully find a producer (anyone?!). Some favorites from this year:

Three of my values, not goals, for 2025

Annual reviews have been a cornerstone of my life since getting sober. For the past five years, I’ve used my friend

Steven Schlafman

’s review process alongside my own dharma inquiry to assess how I’m living. This year, Schlaf gave his review a major upgrade, shifting from goals to an Acceptance Commitment Therapy (ACT) style values orientation. It’s brilliant—as his team’s work at Downshift, a company I was fortunate to have a front-row seat as he birthed it the last two years.

Here are my three values for the year:

Three books

I read less this year, but I still managed to sneak in some incredible books. And, for the third year straight, dharma books dominated my interests—consider yourself warned!

Best memoir: Earlier this year, I devoured One Blade of Grass: Finding the Old Road of the Heart, a Zen Memoir by Henry Shukman.
Best fiction: I was seeking a fun read, and finally gave Brandon Sanderson, the fantasy legend, a try. I’m starting with Mistborn: The Final Empire.
Best dharma books: Peter Brown, a criminally unknown maverick non-dual teacher, cracked my world open this year. If you’re into this sort of thing, read everything by him immediately. But I’d suggest going into this order: Dirty Enlightenment, The Yoga of Radiant Presence, and then The Astounding Nature of Experience.

Regarding #3: If you want to hear a fun and esoteric convo of me jamming about Peter Brown and non-dual philosophy, I just had the pleasure of going on

jordan bates 🦦

‘s podcast (Jordan is an OG creator and a seriously creative soul). It was a wonderfully refreshing convo that spanned awakening, the shadow side of spirituality, men’s work, and fatherhood. Listen here.

Three pods

I remember scoffing at messages about how multi-hour podcast episodes were an insult to parents. Now, much to my chagrin (and my former self’s horror), I totally get it. I only have time for pods while commuting or rarefied nap times. These were my favorites this year:

Dr. Christopher Wallis’s (Hareesh) Tantra Illuminated, a masterful deep dive into tantric philosophy.
Theo Von’s entire catalog, including his Timothée Chalamet interview. His episode with Tim Dillon had Grace and me crying with laughter during our road trip, as does every episode with Bobby Lee.
Wystan Bryant-Scott
’s Natural Awakening podcast, a fresh perspective on consciousness and awakening from someone with deep experiential knowledge of the terrain. Especially this episode on dharmic parenting with Michael Taft and Vince Horn.

Best documentary

I’ve seen most ayahuasca documentaries out there, and this one stands apart. The meditative footage brings you right to the source: a Shipibo village with their maestra. If you want a look at authentic indigenous healing, not watered-down Western stuff, this is it. Plus, it’s made by my friend

Victoria Lynn Carroll

! I’m so impressed.

Best new app

My friend Jowo, a brilliant serial entrepreneur, spent years building an app to help people live saner, more organized, and connected lives. I’ve been testing The InnerWebs for the past year, and it’s become essential to my workflow—from capturing lightning-bolt ideas to remembering diapers. Think: the most intuitive to-do list and note tracker you can imagine. Simple voice commands like “Hey Siri, remind me to buy diapers” integrate seamlessly. And that’s just the start.

Best shares

This year, I experimented with quickly channeling creative energy towards medium-length notes on Substack Notes and Twitter (X). Some of them have generated interest on both platforms, and should perhaps be turned into longer essays. I know a lot of you don’t check Substack Notes, so here’s one of my favs:

Tunes

For the new folks joining us here, I am a former DJ, though I sold my turntables and the best action I get these days is curating a Spotify playlist journey that people seem to dig.

Submit your questions AMA

Next year, I’m going to start answering Ask Me Anything style submissions in written and podcast form. Whether you’re looking for advice, need practical spiritual/recovery/psychedelic guidance, have existential concerns about cultural collapse, want to jam on meditation insights, or want my (possibly questionable) hot takes—I’d love to hear from you. No question is off limits. This isn’t about me giving advice from some elevated perch—it’s about directly engaging with what’s alive in your mind and heart.

Ask Deep Fix

One last thing

I’m insanely grateful I get to do this work, and that you take the time to read and engage with it. This newsletter is the backbone of everything I do. Here’s to an incredible 2025. Let me know your thoughts on this year’s listicle and whether, like me, you needed to remind yourself again to unclench your lower belly (read: butt).

Deep Fix