⏸️ Hitting pause

Lately I’ve been reconsidering the structure and content for what I want this newsletter to become. While the general elements are quick to write and easy to consume, I’ve become increasingly uncertain that what I’ve published represents what I intended when I started writing a weekly newsletter.

That said, given all the traveling I will be doing over the next couple of months, I’ve determined that I’m going to pause sending further weekly publications until Thursday, December 4th, 2025. Taking this time will allow me to determine a new content direction and structure that I believe will better align to what I intended to write from the beginning.

Please note: this newsletter adheres to Daniel Miessler’s AI Influence Level (AIL) Zero

Sometimes you need to pause in order to progress; whether it’s to recover, to plot-out your path forward, or reassess your situation – it’s worth taking a pause.

Make time for reflection; It’s easy to mindlessly follow a path forward – even when it might not be the path you intended. Reflection helps you remember why you started.

Be true to yourself; it’s the most direct path to happiness.

The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. “Our job in this life is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it.” Feeling it this week for sure.

Slow Down by Kohei Saitō. “We once worked for a few hours a day and then, once our needs were met, spent the rest of the day at leisure. We napped, played, talked to each other. These days, though, we are forced to work long hours at the behest of another just to receive a little money. Time has become money. Which means time has become scarce—we cannot afford to waste even a minute of it, not even a second.”

Limits to Growth by the Club of Rome. “Taking no action . . . is equivalent to taking strong action. Every day of continued exponential growth brings the world system closer to the ultimate limits to that growth. A decision to do nothing is a decision to increase the risk of collapse.”

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos says AI bubble is real, but so is the technology. “Add Amazon (AMZN) founder Jeff Bezos to the growing list of people calling Wall Street's AI craze a bubble. During a conversation at Italian Tech Week, Bezos said the artificial intelligence hype cycle is pushing investors to spend billions on both good and bad ideas.”

Many employees are are using AI to create ‘workslop’, Stanford study says. “’It created a situation where I had to decide whether I would rewrite it myself, make him rewrite it, or just call it good enough,’ one finance industry respondent told the surveyors. ‘It is furthering the agenda of creating a mentally lazy, slow-thinking society that will become wholly dependent [sic] upon outside forces.’”

The Compound Effect of Consistency. “Success is being the kind of person who can keep going without that attention. Because the attention always vanishes eventually, and you are left with yourself again. If you built yourself on recognition alone, you collapse when the recognition moves elsewhere. But if you built yourself on the invisible years, you keep moving regardless.”

After more than a decade of practicing Zen meditation, I’ve slowly managed to learn to become aware of – and pay attention – to my inner thoughts and feelings.

When I started to first catch glimpses of this, it felt really chaotic. It’s amazing just how fast thoughts can flow! But over time, I’ve learned to move within the flow of thoughts without being pulled away by them.

So when I started feeling uncertain about the newsletter thus far, I didn’t just shrug it off. I spent time with those thoughts, trying to understand where they are coming from – and how to make peace with them.

Anyway – that’s how I came to the decision to hit pause for a couple of months with the newsletter.

What did you realize the last time you paused to reflect?

Let me know what you think.

– Keith