This page was last updated 9/23/2025

This page maps the First Fire project. You can read in chronological order directly on substack. Go to the bottom of that page, click "see all" and then read from the bottom up.

You may also read by topic from this page.

Spark was the first post, and set the tone for the project. This is where I started, and probably a good place for you to start too.

Introduction to the project

• Maybe Even Something True An overview of what I plan to cover, and why
• Stone Doesn't Bend Part introspection, part confession--a look at what happens when poorly-built beliefs meet rational analysis

Theoria

• The Danger of Maps: Cartographers of Delusion How we make reality in our own image.
• From Everything to Nothing: How We Kill Creativity What happens when a divine spark is ground into profane mud by clumsy hands--a reflection on our society's relationship to creativity.
• Pascal’s Wager (Three-Parts: Wager, Against, Beyond) Revisits and re-evaluates Pascal's famous Wager for belief in God. Traces its collapse under modern scrutiny, and ends with Pascal's own "Night of Fire". A three-part sequence that moves from logic, to fracture, to revelation.
• How to Decide Some good tools for making better decisions, and thoughts about truth
• Beyond the Sorting Machine On the limits of rational thought and hints of other ways of knowing
• How Words Trap Us What language can do to us and for us, and the search for meaning
• The Hard Work of Belief You don't believe something because it's true

Visions & Fragments

• Spark The first post, chronologically. A call to examine foundations
• A Story About a Tree Everything might not be as it seems

Mind & Beyond

• To Whom, the Illusion? First steps in understanding mind, experience, and consciousness

Praxis

• Stolen Fire: A Doorway Into Meditation A simple (and equally powerful) way to encounter real meditation, free of apps, gurus, or soundtracks
• Not a Meditation Blog Thoughts on building a practice and expanding the first meditation
• Just Sitting, Just Thinking A cornerstone meditative practice for those looking to go beyond packaged apps and guided sessions and to begin to understand the mind.