The Story so Far

Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?

My Kickstarter for Nice Weather for Fish ends in mere minutes, and I really want to hit the stretch goal that will enable me to hire illustrator Rich Tingley. Please back the campaign here. NOW. (Please)

What is this Substack

This series of posts started due to an accident in a Time Machine with a copy of Ian McGilchrist's book The Matter With Things and a quantity of psychoactive mushrooms.

My original intention was to explain life, the universe, and everything, in a series of posts which could be read in under one minute. Of course, I failed. But here are some highlights from the journey…

Primarily, I wanted to explain the problems of trying to explain the universe using words. Of course, explaining this using words was always going to be impossible, which is why I said that I said it best when I said nothing at all. However, I did manage to say a fair bit…

My prime beef is that all words are metaphors. Our belief that it is possible to write a “literal truth” is misplaced. I never managed to write a post that adequately articulated that, although I have about a dozen abandoned drafts. Along the way I explained how words are always changing their meaning, how the verb “to be” is incredibly dangerous, and how nouns are equally deadly.

I’ve not written much about numbers, but I do know that three is magic.

I’ve offered some little mind-expanding exercises along the way. Here’s a game I used to play with my kids which I believe is one of the best ways of cultivating creativity. Here’s how to see the heaven in a wild flower, to speak with fairies, how to cultivate luck and radical gratitude, to exercise courage, to improve your future, to manifest money, why meditating badly is good, and why you should draw, even if (especially if) you are bad at it. Then perhaps learn to teach it.

Oh, and here is a machine for generating synchronicities.

Here’s why you should ignore the news. Here’s why you should avoid being “practical”. And here’s why we are going to Hell in a (self-driving) handcart.

Oh and this is what happens to you when you die.

I wanted to eliminate all traces of my personality from the post – partly because I’m on a doomed mission to destroy my ego (and I believe that listening is more important than talking) and partly because anecdotes are overrated. Hence these posts were written not by Dan Sumption, but by The Mycoleum (mycelium + mausoleum: a story for another time).

Despite that, Dan has popped up here from time-to-time, whether explaining the fool’s leaps which led to his portfolio career or talking about how he came back from depression, with a little help from my Friends .

I will soon be introducing a new “section” to this Substack, for paid subscribers only, where I’ll post short monthly videos on what I’ve been up to. Expect the first one soon.

People say I seem to get a lot done. From inside of me, that’s not how it feels. But I have an explanation for that.

Now, pause, and say thank you to someone.

Then tell me, what about you, what do you enjoy to do? Let’s all embiggen the makers!

PS. I ❤️ T.S. Eliot. Also W.S. Graham’s Beast. And Tim Holmes’ Soup.