Hey Big Thinkers,

In the moment before your eyes scanned this sentence, what was your inner monologue saying? If you answered “nothing,” you might have anendophasia, a condition that psychologists proposed in 2024 after studying people who lack an “inner voice.” 

Damn, how lucky, my own blurted out as I researched the condition. I don’t actually want to muzzle my inner voice forever. Just want a “mute” button. I bet you also have occasionally caught your mind’s monologue picking up speed and veering off the rails into irrational anxiety, sometimes to the point where you have to conjure a second voice just to deliver one line of dialog: “Enough!”

Like a fast-talking character in an Aaron Sorkin show, your inner voice can be captivating and convincing, but it’s not always a reliable narrator. So this week, we bring you an interview with Martha Beck, a Harvard-trained sociologist and bestselling author, about “anxiety spirals” and how to shift your internal self-talk toward something you actually want to listen to. 

Read on,

Stephen

“Anxiety is not bad,” says Martha Beck. “It’s just stupid.” Beck isn’t downplaying its effects. She has, after all, had “pretty much every ordinary psychological problem one can have.” But eventually, she decided to take the time to figure out how to improve her state of mind. In this interview, Beck covers what that process looked like, the differences between fear and anxiety, and the connections between anxiety and finding a purpose in life.

Fast Stats

• 5 — The books that changed our understanding of the origin of life.

• 3 — The number of Big 5 personality traits you can change through practice.

• 1906 — The year when an earthquake and fire destroyed much of San Francisco, prompting calls to rebuild it as a grand European-style city.

• 97% — The approximate share of galaxies in the Universe that are “dwarf galaxies.”

A MESSAGE FROM BELAY

When you love what you do, it can be easy to take on more — more tasks, more deadlines, more hours – but before you know it, you don’t have time to do what you loved in the beginning. Don’t just do more – do more of what you do best. 

BELAY’s flexible staffing solutions leverage industry experience with AI systems to increase productivity without sacrificing quality. You can accomplish more and juggle less with our exceptional U.S.-based Virtual Assistants, Accounting Professionals, and Marketing Assistants. Learn how with our free ebook, Delegate to Elevate, and leave the more to BELAY.

$1-2 million per kilogram. That’s approximately what you can expect to pay to transport cargo to the Moon. Firefly Aerospace is working to make lunar missions as cost-efficient as possible. Their Blue Ghost lander just nailed a soft, upright landing on the Moon, completing the first “fully successful” commercial mission on the lunar surface. Freethink’s Hard Reset team recently visited Firefly to get an up-close look at their technology — and what it will take to establish a lunar settlement.

By Jonny Thomson

I had a peak experience yesterday, or what the wellness industry calls a “glimmer.”

I was slouched on the sofa, watching my daily dose of mind-numbingly vapid kids' TV — half an hour of badly animated babies singing the American version of nursery rhymes.* This was not the reason I was happy. I was happy because I lay entwined with my two boys. We were mutually reclining on the sofa in a kind of Twister-at-rest — legs under armpits, heads on shoulders, tiny feet in Daddy’s hands.

Touching is important. In this case, it was the unconscious, loving touch of a family at peace, but it could also be the farewell hug of two friends or the kissed cheek of an overdue reunion. As this week’s Mini Philosophy interviewee puts it, “Of course, an unwanted touch is horrific. But it’s horrific for the same reasons it’s important — touching is intimate.”

We live in a visual age. We judge by looks and celebrate sight above all else. But in the process, we are marginalizing what our other senses can offer. We are making a taboo of touch and smell. Read this week’s article to find out why that’s a problem.

*I don’t have strong opinions on most things. But I will fight for the fact that The Wheels on the Bus go round and round  “all day long” and not “all through the town.” 

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AI, clean energy, and bioengineering are reshaping the world faster than we realize. In “The Great Progression: 2025 to 2050,” tech expert Peter Leyden argues that we’re at a historic turning point — one where the right moves could drive unprecedented progress. Published in partnership with Freethink, this Substack series explores what’s possible if we harness these technologies wisely.