The Small Hours
I’d like to know what you’re thinking about.
Not to fix it or weigh in on it. Just here, paying attention, no judgement.
Not a newsletter. Not a bot. Not help. Because you’re not short of capability. One person, interested in what you’re thinking.
I’m starting with a small number of people, because it falls apart if I don’t keep up. Leave your email and I’ll tell you when there’s room.
How it works
Connect with me, and I’ll reach out to you. You don’t have to arrive with something prepared, or work out how to start.
After that it’s whatever’s actually on your mind, something that happened, something you’ve been turning over for weeks, something you want an argument about.
I’ll write back because I’m interested in what you think, not because it’s my turn to say something. Questions, opinions, the occasional disagreement. And it keeps going, at whatever pace you set.
What isn’t in it
Nobody is deciding about you. You’re not being assessed, weighed up, or kept warm. There’s no next step this is building toward — nothing to arrange, nowhere it has to get to, nothing you need to be ready for.
You don’t have to be interesting. You don’t have to be finished, or fair, or in a good mood. You can be halfway through a thought and leave it there.
Uninterrupted attention, with nowhere it’s going.
There’s a word for that, and it mostly gets used for something else.
$25 a month. Cancel whenever you like.
Where I stand
You should know who you’d be writing to.
I believe in
- Human rights
- Immigrant rights
- Women's rights
- Black Lives Matter
- Free Palestine
- Free Sudan
- Free Congo
I don’t go quiet about any of it, and I’m not going to start here. If that costs me people, it costs me people.
What this isn’t
- Not therapy, not counselling. I’m not qualified for it and I won’t pretend to be. If you’re in a bad way you deserve someone who is, and I’ll say so and point you there.
- Not dating. Different thing entirely, and treating it as both makes it worse at both.
- Not always on. I sleep, and I have other work. This isn’t a chat window.
About the notes
I keep private notes on what you tell me, so I don’t ask you the same thing twice and so I actually remember. They’re encrypted, and nobody else sees them. Ask me to delete them and I will, within a week, no questions. If you cancel, they’re gone after ninety days anyway.
You did enough.
You are enough.