Taste into the future you

Michelangelo was 54 when he painted The Last Judgement.

Not a young man’s breakthrough. Or a first album hit.
The work of someone who's done enough to know what mattered - and what didn’t.

It shows.

There’s an ease to it. A confidence. A kind of mischief.
He bends the rules. Paints friends and enemies into the scene. God is naked.

It’s not careful work.
It’s free work.

And it’s in service of something bigger than him. Not just technique or reputation - but meaning. The union of inner and outer life, writ large. An ode to Catholicism.

I’ve been thinking about that recently.

Because there’s a phase many people find themselves in - often after things have gone well.

From the outside, life looks fine. Maybe even successful. But inside, it's thinner.

The work doesn’t quite fit like it used to.
Energy dips.
There’s a kind of low level flatness.

You keep going. Of course you do.

But something’s off.

Most people respond by adding.

More ideas. More plans. More effort.
Try to think their way back into clarity.

It rarely works.

Because the issue isn’t a lack of direction.

It’s a lack of space. Too much thinking from the wrong place.

This the first in a new series of emails.

Over the coming weeks, I'll write you to this.

Not adding more.
But trimming, removing what’s in the way - letting the old die so the new has room to bloom. Like the once sprinkled now shooting bluebells in my garden.

This need not mean burning the metaphorical house down.

But it will be a weekly provocation. A short story, an insight.

Just enough to interrupt your drift.

And with it, over the next 12 weeks, create space enough to taste your way into your own Last Judgment, however big or small that might be.

We’ll start next week.