Hi,
This morning the house was unusually quiet.
Penelope was back at work. The girls were off at their summer jobs. I had nothing planned.
After my meditation, coffee, and protein smoothie, I was sitting there looking out at the yard. The weather was beautiful. Unusually warm for here. Two hummingbirds were fighting each other for access to the feeder. And instead of feeling clear, I felt strangely unmoored.
It should have felt peaceful.
In some ways, it did.
But underneath that calm, I could feel something else. A kind of restlessness.
Not because something was wrong.
Not because I was unhappy.
Not because I needed another project.
Just a strange feeling that once you create a little more space in your life, another question appears.
Not what project should I do next.
What deserves my attention?
That feels like a different question.
Over the last year, I’ve been redesigning my life.
At first I thought I was searching for balance.
Then I thought I was searching for calm.
Then I thought I was searching for meaning.
Lately I’m wondering if those were all pointing toward a bigger question:
What does it mean to live fully?
That feels like the thread that has been running through The Calm Society all along.
The first phase of this year was recovery.
After years of striving, deadlines, launches, growth targets, and always having something to push, I needed to slow down. I needed more room. Better health. Better attention. More time in nature. More connection. Less noise.
That led me toward many of the themes that shaped Calm Society in the first place: purpose, pace, attention, relationships, place.
The goal was becoming more human again.
But then something surprising happened.
As my health improved, my calendar opened up, and life became more intentional, a new question emerged.
The challenge was no longer creating space.
The challenge was deciding what to do with it.
Last week, in “AI Can’t Ride the Leopard For Us,” I wrote that AI can help us build, create, and move faster, but it cannot tell us what is worth giving our lives to.
Looking back, I think there was an unanswered question hidden inside that post.
If AI can’t ride the leopard for us, what are we riding toward?
That question has been sitting with me.
And then I noticed something funny.
My Instagram bio.
Three little phrases I’ve had there for years:
Coastal explorer. Sunset chaser. Proud dad.
I don’t remember writing them. I am sure it was just spontaneous.
But looking at them now, I wonder if I’ve been carrying around the answer all along.
Coastal explorer.
Not coastal expert. Not coastal influencer. Explorer.
Someone drawn to curiosity. Discovery. New paths. New perspectives.
Looking back, I realise I’ve always been more interested in exploration than certainty.
Whether it was storytelling, technology, media, travel, business, or AI, the medium keeps changing.
The curiosity stays the same.
Sunset chaser.
This one surprised me.
A sunset has no utility.
You can’t optimise it. You can’t scale it. You can’t own it.
You stop and watch because it makes you feel alive.
Because it’s beautiful.
Because for a moment, you are fully present.
In a culture obsessed with efficiency, sunsets are almost a form of rebellion.
And then, proud Dad.
That one is the deepest of all.
Relationships. Love. Family. The people who matter.
The things that won’t show up on a LinkedIn profile but are the things that matter the most.
The more I sat with those three phrases, the more I realised they describe a lot of what I’ve actually been exploring with The Calm Society.
Exploration.
Beauty.
Relationships.
Meaning.
Presence.
Attention.
Place.
Maybe that’s why I’ve spent the last couple of months writing about friction, nonna maxxing, AI, attention, ambition, and the good life.
On the surface they may look like different topics.
Lately I’m realising they may all be different ways of circling the same question:
What does it mean to live fully?
As a young man, before the beard and long before software and startups, I wanted to tell stories.
I was fascinated by documentaries, mythology, Joseph Campbell, Marshall McLuhan, and the power of media to help us understand ourselves and the world.
Looking back, I wonder if I’ve been circling the same question for decades.
Not how do we become more productive.
Not how do we become more successful.
How do we become more alive?
I think this question isn’t just personal to me, but something that applies more broadly to how many of us are thinking about our lives.
As technology makes more things possible, as AI creates more capacity, and as building becomes easier, the challenge shifts.
The question is no longer simply can we build it.
The question becomes should we.
And eventually, I think, it becomes something even deeper:
What deserves our finite attention, effort, and life?
The more capable our tools become, the more important those questions become.
For a while I thought The Calm Society was about slowing down.
Now I think slowing down was simply creating enough space to notice what mattered.
Enough space to notice what made me feel alive.
Enough space to ask a better question.
What does it mean to live fully?
That’s the question I’m exploring now.
And I have a feeling I’m not the only one.
More exploring soon,
Cameron