Grokkist Newsletter #58

Hey friends,

We’re back with a fresh new look for 2025! The Grokkist Newsletter has had a bit of a glow-up, and this issue is a little bigger than usual—we’ve had a few weeks off, and there’s so much to share.

I’m excited to kick off the year by reflecting on something that’s been on my mind.

Lately, I’ve been reflecting on the kinds of feedback I receive during Unlock Your Grok-style conversations. (If you’re curious about what that is, here’s a link.) A lot of it boils down to some version of this paradox:

“I hate this. Thank you.”

It’s often framed as a playful complaint about how uncomfortable they feel at certain points in the process—something like the animal with a thorn in its paw that I wrote about back in Newsletter 49—but it’s paired with gratitude in the same breath.

What people usually say is, “I need accountability.” They talk about wanting someone to hold them to their commitments, to keep them on track.

But I don’t think that’s what they really mean.

Accountability is the word we’ve learned to use, but the feeling beneath it is something much closer to a child by the pool yelling, “Watch me! Watch me!” before launching into a wobbly somersault. Or a golden retriever pretending it needs help getting into the car when it really just wants to be noticed.

What’s being asked for isn’t accountability—it’s attention.

Most of the time we're perfectly capable of Doing the Thing ourselves. What holds us back isn’t a lack of skill, organisation, or follow-through. It’s the quiet fear that we’ll pour ourselves out in public and no one will see. That no one will care.

We’ve all been taught that “needing attention” is somehow shameful, so we call it anything else. But why should needing attention be bad?

Attention is care. It’s being witnessed.

What if I make something, and it’s ignored? That feels worse than being laughed at or rejected. It’s as if I never existed at all.

So instead, we stay in the limbo of “working towards” something—the infinite loop of preparation (look that up in our new glossary of grokkistry!)—telling ourselves we’re just not ready yet.

But often, the only thing that’s really needed is close personal supervision—the care of someone keeping us company while we do the thing. Someone who gives us pats, tells us what we did well, and helps us feel seen.

I’ve come to realise that’s what so much of the work at Grokkist is about. It’s not about holding people accountable; it’s about noticing them. Paying attention. Saying, “I see you, and it matters.” So when someone says, “I hate this. Thank you,” what they’re really saying is:

“I hate risking being truly seen. But thank you for seeing me anyway.”

This is something I’ve been learning to sit with myself. This week I gave a talk to CACOR about Shaping the Future with Curiosity and Care: What It Means to Be a Grokkist. It was an opportunity to step forward as the front man of Grokkist and say, “Hey, look at this thing I’ve made happen!”

And while that kind of showing up can sometimes feel vulnerable, this time it was different. I felt a surprising comfort in it—like the talk and the audience were meeting me right where I was. It was fun, even.

A reminder that being seen isn’t always about discomfort; sometimes, it’s about connection and sharing something you’re proud of.

Aren’t we beautifully odd creatures?

Meanwhile, we’ve been busy creating spaces where this kind of care and attention can happen. The Press has had a refresh, with a redesigned layout and a new topics page you can browse like a cozy bookstore. The Network is hosting events where we unpack ideas like this in a relational way, like our upcoming guest café on protecting our attention in a world designed to distract us.

Thank you for being part of this journey—one where we practice noticing, sharing, and showing up for each other, thorns and all. Here’s to a year of connection, curiosity, and being seen.

With curiosity and care,
Danu

Hot off the Press

I’m thrilled to share something that’s been on my wish list for a long time: a Glossary of Grokkistry! This feels like a real milestone—a way to share, showcase, and invite others into the unique language and ideas that shape Grokkist. Let me know your favourite entry!

I’m also delighted to introduce something brand new for 2025: Flirting with Wisdom, a weekly series from our resident treasure, Peter Gilderdale.

Wisdom rarely shows itself on demand. Like a wild animal, it tends to appear skittishly, in flashes—moments triggered by something particular, often when least expected.

Peter’s Flirting with Wisdom series gathers these fleeting encounters, weaving together personal narrative, cultural observation, and philosophical inquiry, offering metaphors and approaches that don’t claim finality but instead invite curiosity, connection, and quiet revelation.

The first two entries are already live, including A is for Acceleration, where Peter reflects on the peculiar irritation of having a brilliant idea—you know, the kind that grabs you by the collar and insists, “Do something about me!” In his words, great ideas have a way of being “both a gift and a nuisance” because now you have to act on them. It’s a delightful, thought-provoking series I know you’ll enjoy.

Glossary of grokkistry

By Danu Poyner (35 min read)

A treasure trove of language that reflects the grokkist ethos, equipping grokkists with curiosity, care, and integrative thinking to navigate a world of complexity.

Go to the glossary ↗

Philosophy of the Interrobang

by Peter Gilderdale (4 min read)

If wisdom lives in the tension between certainty and inquiry, can typography and the interrobang embody the beauty of unfinished thinking?

Go to the article ↗

Upcoming Events

🟢 Free Writing Workshop

🗓️ Thur 16 Jan | 4–5.30pm PT (UTC-8) (view in your timezone)
Facilitated by Jeanne Whitesides

Join us for a creative writing session! I will guide our practice by giving us lines from a selected poem or novel that is unrelated to what we might be working through – to free ourselves and find surprise in our writing.

An example might be – This entire story starts with a single line, and that's, “I’ve been waiting years to be funny again.”

Write the prompt at the top of your paper and just keep writing. Let it be a liberatory and laboratory process. This is a safe place to explore, practice the art of recall, and share some of your writing with others, if you’re feeling it.

Event Details and RSVP ↗

🟠 Intro to NeuroGraphica: Transform Your Inner Landscape

🗓️ Tue 28 Jan | 6.30–8.30pm GMT (UTC-0) (view in your timezone)
Facilitated by Margarita Steinberg

Have you ever wished for a way to shift how you feel—right in the moment—without needing a breakthrough or a big solution? Neurographica offers a uniquely powerful tool for transforming your emotional state and gaining clarity through the simple act of drawing.

By the end of this workshop, you’ll have:

• A personal drawing that reflects your journey with the theme you’ve chosen.
• A new, visceral understanding of how Neurographica can shift your emotional and mental state.
• Practical tools to bring this technique into your everyday life to support your well-being and creativity.

Come with curiosity and an open heart. Leave with a sense of possibility and the beginnings of a profound new relationship with yourself.

Event Details and RSVP ↗

Other Upcoming Events

• 21 Jan | 🟣 Red Thread Circle
• 22 Jan | 🟢 Hospicing Modernity | Themed Cafe
• 30 Jan | 🟢 Grok Cafe [1st for 2025]
• 6 Feb | 🟢 AI, Social Media, and Rehumanising Attention | Themed Cafe

Featured Course

Unlock Your Grok

1:1 Guided Personal Growth Experience with Community Support

What if your best story is the one you haven’t told yet? It’s time to bring out the part of you that’s been waiting.

Unlock Your Grok is a hands-on, guided journey designed to help you transform your untapped potential into purposeful action.

Starting with a series of self-paced activities to spark your creativity and reconnect you with what truly lights you up, you’ll be supported by a personal 1:1 guide as you shape your unique wisdom into a meaningful project.

🔖 Suggested Tuition: USD$199*

Explore 'Unlock Your Grok' ↗

#1 - Single at heart

Growing up, I never knew there was such a thing as choosing to stay happily single. I did know what people believed: that no one really wants to be single, or at least not for long; if they think they do, they are just fooling themselves. And if they really do stay single, they are going to grow increasingly sad and lonely as they age. Now I know better. I don’t just live single; I am also a scholar of single life.

At 70 years old, Bella DePaulo has lived alone her entire adult life. In her talk and essay, she explores what it means to be “single at heart”—not as a fallback, but as a deliberate and fulfilling way of life. She challenges the idea that coupledom is the ultimate path to happiness, reflecting on how single people often cultivate other kinds of love and connection—through friendships, community, and chosen families. She acknowledges the trade-offs but doesn’t frame them as losses—more as the choices you make when you’re living in accordance with your values.

#2 - Political Long Covid

How Covid changed politics | David Runciman

The long read: Four years on from the start of the pandemic, the drama may have subsided but the lingering effects go on. Are we suffering from political long Covid?

The GuardianDavid Runciman

David Runciman examines the lingering effects of the pandemic on global politics—what he calls “political long Covid.” The pandemic, he argues, was a stress test for political systems, exposing vulnerabilities and intensifying existing problems. The result is a lingering malaise: populism, corruption, and generational divides have deepened, while hopes for global solidarity have largely evaporated. Global risk analyst Ian Bremmer expands on this in The Rest is Politics, framing today’s world as “GZero”—an era where the disintegration of the international order has left a global system marked by instability, competing powers, and a lack of clear leadership.

It’s tempting to read this as a grim confirmation of doom-and-gloom trends. But the truth of uncertainty is just that—it's uncertain. The world’s direction is not set, and we literally don’t know what will happen next. The same forces destabilising the world also leave its future wide open. The pandemic proved how fast the pieces on the board can move. Runciman cautions against simplistic narratives about which systems “succeeded” or “failed” during the pandemic, while Bremmer calls for adaptability in a fragmented, leaderless world. As 2025 begins, perhaps the real lesson is to embrace the flux—stay curious, be ready for surprises, and keep an eye on where transformation might emerge next.

#3 - The Moon’s Quiet Conversation With Earth

Moon – Bartosz Ciechanowski

Interactive article about the Moon

Bartosz Ciechanowski

Let's zoom out. Bartosz Ciechanowski has created a kind of deep grok of everything you could want to know about Earth’s closest celestial neighbour. The Moon isn’t just a passive presence in the night sky—it’s a “fellow companion that gently affects our own existence” and “never leaves us completely alone.” Through stunning visuals and hands-on explanations, Ciechanowski unpacks the Moon’s quiet but profound influence on our world. It affects our tides, stretches Earth itself, and even slows the planet’s rotation over millennia. Its gravitational dance with Earth stabilizes our seasons, while its ancient, scarred surface holds the history of a chaotic Solar System. And it’s always there—tilting, wobbling, and revealing just enough of its hidden face to remind us we’re inextricably linked.

#4 - What we learned about LLMs in 2024

Things we learned about LLMs in 2024

A lot has happened in the world of Large Language Models over the course of 2024. Here’s a review of things we figured out about the field in the past …

AI is more than ChatGPT, and the pace of innovation in this space is staggering—so much so that even the most dedicated watchers can’t keep up. Simon Willison’s roundup of everything we learned about LLMs in 2024 challenges simple narratives around AI while honouring the complexity of this space:

“I think telling people that this whole field is environmentally catastrophic plagiarism machines that constantly make things up is doing a disservice, no matter how much truth that represents. There is genuine value to be had here, but getting to that value is unintuitive and needs guidance.”

This is that guidance. Willison’s piece is a masterful highlight reel of where LLMs have gone in the last year—advances in multimodal capabilities, dropping costs, and staggering accessibility (GPT-4-level models running on personal laptops!) are just the start. But it also acknowledges the challenges: uneven knowledge distribution, ethical concerns, and the need for better criticism to shape what comes next.

For those who are fascinated, this is a fantastic resource to catch up. For those who feel intimidated by the breakneck pace, it’s worth remembering that the world keeps moving, whether we’re keeping up or not. Staying curious about this space opens the door to understanding where it might lead—not just what it might take away.

#5 - A musician who sings to animals

Plumes is a man who’s found a unique way to connect with animals: by singing to them. From cows and meerkats to tapirs and even a shy okapi, his music draws them in, creating moments of quiet connection that are as heartwarming as they are surprising.

“It has changed my perception of the animals. I could see how sensitive they are. They’re the most gentle beings. They’re super receptive to the music.”

The linked video gives a glimpse of his singing in action, and while most of his Instagram and TikTok posts are in French, it doesn’t get in the way of enjoying his beautiful work. It’s a reminder of the universal language of music—and the gentle curiosity of the animals who stop to listen.

Feeling inspired? Become a Member.

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A pair of parting thoughts...

“For last year's words belong to last year's language / And next year's words await another voice.” — T. S. Eliot

“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” — Lao Tzu