(Sound of a single, slightly off-key guitar note, followed by the creak of a worn-out office chair.)

Alright. So.

You’re here. I’m here. It’s… whatever time it is. Late. It’s always late. And I’m staring at this… this thing I made. And I’m supposed to tell you about it. I’m supposed to write some… copy. Some description that’s gonna make you get out your credit card and… I don’t know, solve your life.

And the words that come out are just… dead. They’re these hollow, corporate… things. “Check it out.” “Now available.” It’s the same language they use to sell… I don’t know, ergonomic butt pillows or probiotic yogurt. And I’m looking at this thing that came from some… weird, messy, vulnerable place in my gut, and I’m describing it like it’s a commodity. Like it’s a unit of something. A simple measure of something.

And I’m thinking… this is a crime. This is a spiritual crime. I’m taking this… this soul-thing, this artifact of my own neurosis and hope, and I’m slapping a barcode on its forehead. I’m treating a one-of-a-kind key to a specific emotional lock like it’s a bulk pack of paper towels.

It’s not just a lie. It’s a betrayal. And if you’re doing it too… and you probably are… we gotta stop. We just gotta stop. Let’s talk about why.

(A heavy sigh, followed by the sound of tapping a pen nervously against the edge of a desk.)

Why? Because it’s a lie. That’s the core of it. It’s a lie we’re telling ourselves and a lie we’re telling the people who might actually get what we’re doing.

When you describe your work like it’s a product on a shelf, you’re feeding this… this machine. The one that says everything has to be easy, digestible, and instantly understandable. You’re sanding off all the weird, beautiful edges that made you make the thing in the first place. You’re taking the specific, personal ghost that haunted you into creation and you’re turning it into a general-purpose spook that could haunt anybody’s house. And guess what? A general-purpose spook is… boring. It’s not scary. It’s not compelling. It’s just… background noise.

And the people who would actually connect with the real thing? They smell the lie. They can sense the inauthenticity from a mile away. They scroll past your “Check out my new thing!” post because it feels the same as an ad for a mattress. You’re not talking to them. You’re talking to a demographic. A blob.

But the real “why,” the one that keeps me up at night, is that commodity language diminishes the work. It shrinks it down. You spent months, years, in this private, tortured, ecstatic conversation with your own imagination, and you’re summarizing it with the same vocabulary used to sell a foot massager on late-night TV. You’re building a cathedral and then putting up a sign that says “Serviceable Shelter.”

You’re not just failing to sell it. You’re actively disrespecting it. You’re confirming every worst fear your potential buyer has—that maybe this is just a decoration, just a time-waster, just another thing to consume. You’re not making an argument for its value; you’re apologizing for its existence by framing it in the cheapest possible terms.

It’s a race to the bottom of the human spirit. And we’re losing. We’re all losing.

Let’s put some soul back in. Actually, let’s ladle the soul all over our creations. Let it drip with soul. It’s the one main thing the machine doesn’t have: Soul.

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Hey,every Monday I try to pop out a useful list of advice, because some of us could use a little advice right now. Wednesday is my musical guilty pleasures. Friday, I try to purge my mind of all the the thoughts pinging around. If you’re interested then pop an email address in the box below and you’ll get a notification when I post something. And no spam. Who likes spam? No-one.