No one benefits from you scrolling and feeling sad

A conversation with Adam Mastroianni of Experimental History

We made a limited edition print publication!

In case you missed it, you can read the announcement here.

Our first print run sold out, but we’ve launched a 2nd edition with a… mystery colored cover! Plus, we’ve made a limited set of copies available to our international friends here.

In the coming weeks, we’ll be releasing excerpts from a few conversations digitally.

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Today we bring you an excerpt from my conversation with

Adam Mastroianni

, the writer behind one of Substack’s most popular newsletters Experimental History.

In a world that often feels dark and cynical, I asked Adam how we might find optimism and hope.

His answer has been playing on repeat in my mind these last few days.

I think the root of the problem is the globalization of all problems.

Now, it feels like anything bad that happens anywhere in the world is somehow relevant to me and my responsibility. It’s like, I’m not allowed to be happy as long as someone, somewhere, is having a bad time.

Especially with global problems, it’s like, how are you allowed to smile when there’s climate change? These problems are really bad, but you can’t change everything yourself.

No one benefits from you scrolling on your phone and feeling sad and then going to Starbucks.

The antidote is figuring out what you care about, what you're good at, and what you like doing that can make the world a little bit better.

Then, really do that thing.

You can’t do everything, but there are a few things you can do really well. You have to hope that others are doing their part too, and through the miracle of human diversity, their "things" won’t be the same as yours, and we’ll cover most of the bases.

For me, I care a lot about how we conduct and communicate science. I care a lot about the stuff I write about on the blog. I feel like my place is to help train people, develop ideas that are useful, and maintain my relationships.

For everything else, I just applaud the people working on it. I’ve got my thing, you’ve got yours. I might give you some money sometimes, but it can’t be my responsibility.

I'm not going to expect everyone to care about my thing. That's why I don't say, "Hey, if you care about climate change, you have to care about scientific stagnation too." Not everyone needs to be in on this one. There are plenty of other problems to pick from.

I don’t think problems get solved when people beat themselves up about them.

Fear and spite can only take you so far. It’s caring about something that gets you over the finish line.

To read, listen, and watch the full conversation, get your copy.

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