Grokkist Newsletter #72
A steady rhythm of curiosity and care, delivered every two weeks.
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Grokkist Press
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Make senseEntangled Vale
🛠️ Why Are We Lying to Young People About Work?
Somewhere between the gospel of 'do what you love' and the cynicism of 'it's just a job' lies the messier truth about work, and Maalvika plants her flag right there. Her essay dismantles the myth that passion makes effort disappear, reframing work as a kind of sacred maintenance — meaningf
ImagineMaker's Forge
🍫 Everyday Things with Personality
From her south London home studio, photo-stylist-turned-illustrator Charlotte Love turns everyday snacks and objects into cheerful characters with a wink of surreal silliness. A small, reliable hit of delight — proof of how little it takes to make the familiar suddenly grin back at you.
Move meSoma Isles
⛏️ The Mana of Digging a Grave
In Aotearoa New Zealand, tangi are traditional Māori funerals that mix deep ceremony with everyday acts of service. What starts as Liam Rātana's memory of digging his first grave becomes a meditation on the physical, emotional and cultural weight of the role — a window into tikanga around
Make senseWild Margin
✊ The Activist Handbook
A wiki for world-changers — less manifesto, more how-to — covering everything from organising a protest to surviving burnout. You can dip into comms strategies, facilitation tips, or the fine art of not accidentally replicating the very systems you're resisting. Collaborative, scrappy and
WonderMaker's Forge
🦋 Street Art That Looks Like Science
French street artist Mantra creates large-scale murals of insects, birds and natural specimens with near-photographic detail — often depicting creatures as preserved specimens, accurate down to the wing veins and antennae. A decorative commentary on biodiversity loss and the way urban spac
Grokkist Newsletter #71
A steady rhythm of curiosity and care, delivered every two weeks.
Surprise meUnfolding Realm
🚲 Imposter Syndrome Isn't Yours to Solve
For anyone still wrestling with self-doubt in spaces that weren't built for them. Reshma Saujani reframes imposter syndrome not as a personal failing but as a scheme rooted in systemic bias — tracing its cousin to 'bicycle face,' a fake medical condition invented in the 1890s to scare wome
WonderEntangled Vale
💊 No Active Ingredients Whatsoever
A wide-ranging reflection on the strange theatre of the placebo — how it works because of what we project onto it. Placebos aren't lies, Rob Horning suggests, but collaborative fictions: their magic lies in context, ritual and the choreography of care. He goes further — what if art, advert
Surprise meWild Margin
🔬 The Rise and Fall of Peer Review
Adam Mastroianni takes a hard look at peer review — the backbone of how science claims to know what's true — and argues that after sixty years it has largely failed its own experiment: missing errors and fraud, slowing progress, pressuring scientists to play safe. But he invites us to trea
ImagineMaker's Forge
💀 Chats with the Void
'A world where everyone leaves their mark is a world full of craters.' Chats with the Void is a small comic about existentialism and skulls by Seattle-based artist Skullbird — featuring, in their words, 'shameless amounts of colorful talking animals.' Gentle, funny, and quietly profound.
GroundedMaker's Forge
🗡️ The Samurai and the Fly
A short animation of a samurai whose meditation is disturbed by an annoying fly. Peace, it suggests, doesn't have to mean being somewhere with no noise, trouble or hard work — it can mean being in the midst of those things and still calm in your heart.