Beware the belief that you’re hot shit

This was originally published in my Prime Lenses Newsletter. You can sign-up for a weekly update to your inbox here.

Prime Lenses is a moderately successful podcast. I get messages from listeners all over the world; evidence suggests that we’re at tens of thousands of downloads a month, and in the increasingly light-filled evenings, once the kids are in bed, I potter about making pictures of the fading light and having big ideas about the future of the podcast. It’s a really nice place to be, to hear from folks and feel like you’re putting something out into the world that they like.

You feel good, you walk taller, you’re making something, you’re hot shit!

Then, last week, Dan Milnor posted an episode of Malcolm Gladwell’s podcast, Revisionist History. In it, he stages an intervention in relation to Joe Rogan, a podcaster he enjoys even if he doesn’t agree with everything he says. I’m probably on a similar page to Gladwell in this regard. Rogan’s not really my jam, but I’ve seen enough clips over the years to know that he deserves every success for his work and the way that he has promoted the podcast medium. His bombast, showmanship, and subzero number of fucks have made him into a media titan.

However, I feel that with great power there should also come great responsibility, and, like Gladwell, I think Joe’s fumbling the ball.

The episode of Revisionist History I’m referring to is a masterclass in long-form audio. This shouldn’t be a surprise; he’s been at this for years, but for someone who is likely to soon be spending more and more time on their long form podcast, it was an important reminder that I need to break out of my regular listening bubble and really understand what good looks like in order to continue to make Prime Lenses better. I went into the episode feeling like I was kind of a big deal, an almost entirely unearned feeling, and left the episode having had a wonderful listening experience, and confident that I know nothing.

Then, because these sorts of things come in groups, I received some messages from a listener who was sad about the dismissive way that engineers were being portrayed in some previous conversations. I am increasingly of the belief that creativity lurks in all facets of our lives, whatever we choose to work on, and I shouldn’t really have let those comments slide. I could have called it out in a kind way, and made more of it during the conversation rather than simply accept the statement. That stood out to me from the Gladwell episode too. I don’t have to consider myself a journalist to be a better participant in a conversation, and over time I think you’re all going to expect me to be better at that, maybe represent you all a little more.

Sometimes you’re up, sometimes you’re down, and as Ali Okeefe's Dad used to say, you want to be an amateur for life. I recently learned about the root of that word, from the Latin amator, meaning lover. I really like that; I am doing this for the love of doing it, so why not be an amateur for life!

Always learning, always making and doing it for love, and never too certain for too long, that I’m hot shit.