About Thoughtspear

This about page (even this paragraph) was crafted through a dialogue between myself and Claude (Anthropic's AI assistant), structured as an interview. The responses are completely my own. I believe in transparency about the tools I use, and since I'm more energized by answering great questions than staring at a blank page, this felt like the perfect approach.

Claude: Let's start with the obvious question everyone wants to know but rarely asks directly: What void in your own life were you trying to fill when you started Thoughtspear?

Claude: Let's start with the obvious question everyone wants to know but rarely asks directly: What void in your own life were you trying to fill when you started Thoughtspear?

I've always needed a creative pursuit. My traditional profession is creative but I need to create on my terms. Writing is one of my passions, which is where this publication comes in. Before Thoughtspear I wrote about craft beer as the Tap Traveler for almost a decade. I burned out on that. There is only so much you can write about the taproom experience. I wanted my next project to allow for anything I wanted to write about. That's what this is. My collective published works, regardless of format or content.

Claude: Most people have dozens of half-formed thoughts every day, but you've committed to sharpening them into something worth reading. What's your filter? How do you decide which thoughts deserve the 'spear' treatment?

I have a healthy "note-taking" habit. I call them thoughts and every day I make them within a daily note. Every week or so I parse those thoughts into other longer term notes. A lot of those are classified as "ideas." This is where thoughts go to simmer. On occasion I write about something that inspires me in the moment, but more often than not I come back to these simmered notes with fresh ideas. This is a signal that there might be more than meets the eye. My best pieces are ones where I've captured many related thoughts over a long period of time.

Claude: The name 'Thoughtspear' suggests precision and force. Are you trying to puncture something specific—conventional wisdom, surface-level thinking, your own assumptions?

Nothing like that. There is a phrase "tip of the spear" which has origins in military operations. It means the most forward position. I've transferred this idea into the name of my publication. It's literally the most forward position of my collective thought.

Claude: Every great newsletter writer has that moment when they realize they're not just shouting into the void—someone's actually listening. What was yours?

The analytics tell me that people are still reading Tap Traveler every day. But honestly, I am not sure I've hit that point yet. I'm aware that there are people that read most of what I write, but they all know me in real life. It counts, but there is something different about someone reading something you wrote that doesn't know you personally.

Claude: If I looked at your browser history and notebook scribbles, what obsessions would I find? What are you reading, watching, or thinking about that your readers might not expect?

My latest pursuit is helping overscrollers minimize their phone use. I'm writing a short book on that topic as well as posting three times a week on YouTube. That means a lot of what I'm thinking about and looking at is related to that. One of my "rules" for using the internet is I can only consume media related to my active goals. It's not hard and fast, but it's mostly effective. As far as the rest of my YouTube feed these days: speedrunning, basketball, golf, mtg, running, and comedy.

Claude: Most people consume information to confirm what they already believe. You seem to be doing something different. What's your relationship with being wrong?

Being wrong is a gift. It's feedback that you're on the wrong path, which is a great signal for you to try another one.

Claude: Five years from now, what would have to be true about Thoughtspear—and about you—for you to consider this whole experiment a success?

In five years I would like to be in a season of life where I have a sustainable posting schedule. The amount of readers isn't that important to me—that comes with time. I would count being able to consistently produce reasonable quality writing as a success.

Claude: Finally, for someone deciding whether to subscribe: What can you promise them, and perhaps more importantly, what should they not expect from you?

I promise that if you pay for a subscription you'll get a post every single week that your subscription is active. That's carefully worded to cover cases where I pause my publication because I can't maintain a weekly posting schedule. Beyond that, I promise to write about what interests me. That sounds silly, but I learned the hard way that writing about something that doesn't interest you is a quick way to burn out. As far as content goes? It's going to be all over the board. You're going to have to find my view on the world interesting enough to subscribe. That's the only thing that will stay consistent from a content perspective.

Subscribe to join the conversation. Every Wednesday, I'll send you something that hopefully makes you think differently about something that matters to me.