Dear Friends,

Happy New Year! I hope you are all doing well and enjoying January. You might notice this newsletter looking a lil’ different, because I moved it off from Substack onto Buttondown. 

1. Why did I move away from Substack when that’s where everyone’s hanging out?

I’m trying to be more mindful about the platforms I support. So many online “homes” for creators are VC-funded distribution machines. These platforms get to control who anybody can reach. More saliently, they also pick who gets to reach more people, and some of them do not have humanistic values that I support.

Therefore, I remade my entire website from "scratch" with the following colophon bullet:

This homepage adheres to Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere principles. I had dabbled in the past and finally committed to doing this. (Let’s just say it was a pain re-gathering all my writing from various social platforms and I wouldn’t wish it upon others!)

As mentioned, I’m also switching from Substack to Buttondown, with the goal of eventually moving to my own email domain. (It was a bit of a disaster “jumping” directly to using my own email domain, as there are several technical “warm up” steps that are needed to make the switch. I am in communication with the Buttondown technical support team to make this transition slowly.)

There are a few of us "noseless" rebels (or weirdos) who are making the tough choice of valuing creative independence and values alignment over distribution advantages. I grew up in the 90s internet, so I still have a memory of when the internet was free and everyone had more-or-less equitable access to each other, and projects were charming and whimsical.

A specific "noseless" friend I admire is Brian David Hall who only does email now, and barely even texting! But I don't find him hard to reach because he's just an email away, though I am notorious for sending him subject-line only rambles.

2. What I’m up to right now

A) OK Banger Show (and Community!)

Cameron and I are now 63 ok banger episodes in with 274 videos total and we’re still having a ridiculous amount of fun. A lot of what Cameron and I circle every week is the question of how to do good creative work in the face of the current trajectory of the world without turning into a doomer or a soulless content machine. 

YouTube livestream: every Friday 7AM PT / 10AM ET / 3PM UTC

You can also listen at any time here as a podcast (it’s hosted on Spotify but you can use any podcast player)

There’s also a thriving Discord community with 152 members and counting, where we chat about silly topics like definition of a soup vs a stew vs a sauce, to hard questions like the prediction markets/casino-ification of everything and what to do about that as a society. You are very welcome to join us!

B) Reframe Science (and a ~Daily Health Digest)

As a quick refresher, I’ve been running a health discussion community called Reframe Science and publishing a daily news digest called Reframe Daily (which you can subscribe here if you’d like–5 pieces of optimistic and credible health research updates you won’t find in most popular news outlets, from sources scientists and healthcare providers read and trust.) 

I’m now slowly working on a manuscript compiling all the topics that have arisen since the community’s inception. The goal of the book is to empower individuals to understand the healthcare industry enough to think for themselves, without completely distrusting the parts of the healthcare system that does work to support us. I’ll be sure to let you all know when the draft is available for your comment and review here.

C) Dharma Leader Training at Insight Meditation Center with Gil Fronsdal and Ines Freedman

Through a series of lovely coincidental events that occurred, I am embarking along my lifelong goal of training further in the insight meditation tradition. I’m going on a meditation/training retreat at the end of this month in pursuant to this goal, and hoping to enroll in the program proper next year. In the meantime I am mentoring for the eightfold path program at insight meditation center, and continue to share tidbits of dharma through the OK Banger Show in disguised comedic ways. 

I’m also working on another manuscript tentatively titled The Creator’s Way–an homage to the Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, while modernizing it to address how creative work can be a way to get in touch with our inner life in light of the hyper-content-machine-pressures that one is subjected to in capitalistic societies. I’m taking my time with this book since I’m prioritizing the Reframe Science book first, but I hope this book to be a distillation of my writings thus far on related topics. If you have read the Artist’s Way and have thoughts about it, please let me know and we can have a chat! :)

In Gratitude

I’m thankful that you read this far! If I owe you a correspondence–deep apologies 🙇🏻‍♀️ In truth, last half of 2025 had been a bit crazy and I’ve had to reset several offerings in alignment with my available energy levels. The above three items are what I’m concentrating on for the foreseeable future and I’m still working on further simplifying commitments. I hope that you are also able to focus on what you want to work on for 2026!

Warm Wishes,

Christin

P.S. In theory, you can reply directly to this email and I read every reply! In fact I sent this newsletter directly from my gmail and I hope it made it to your inbox... P.P.S. Please always feel free to *unsubscribe* from my mailings--no hard feelings!