Hi,

January always feels like an entire year crammed into four weeks.

For me, January is about laying the groundwork—planning, structuring, getting clear on what I want this year to look like. But February? February is when my first quarter truly begins. The wheels start turning. The energy starts shifting.

February 2nd marks Imbolc, the Pagan holiday that sits at the midpoint between the winter solstice and the spring equinox.

Which means: the light is returning.

So if January felt like a never-ending prologue, maybe it helps to think of February as the actual beginning. The first real stretch of momentum. The thaw before the bloom.

We’re getting there.

DeepSeek & Tech Propaganda

This week, the global AI community had a collective wait, what? moment with the release of DeepSeek, a new open-source Chinese AI model that claims to match the performance of OpenAI and Meta’s most advanced systems—but at a fraction of the cost. Just as everyone was scrambling to process that, the company dropped Janus 7B, an image generation model claiming to rival MidJourney.

The takes came in fast. Some people were calling it China’s “Sputnik moment”—a turning point in the AI arms race that could challenge US tech dominance. Others immediately questioned the hype, pointing out that we don’t yet have independent verification of DeepSeek’s claims. I’m firmly in wait-and-see mode.

AI companies are notorious for grand statements that take months (or years) to be fully vetted, and DeepSeek is no exception. There’s a lot of speculation, but until researchers have time to run real benchmarks, we’re dealing in narratives more than facts.

That hasn’t stopped full-scale market panic. Nvidia lost $460 billion in valuation because DeepSeek claims its models don’t require the highly specialized Nvidia chips that American companies depend on. If true, that’s a massive shift—it means China has found a way to train cutting-edge AI without access to US chip exports. If false, it means DeepSeek is just strategically omitting the part where it acquired 50,000 Nvidia chips (worth billions) before US restrictions kicked in.

Either way, the fact that the market immediately reacted with full-body convulsions over an announcement with zero confirmed benchmarks tells you everything you need to know about how deeply financial speculation is intertwined with the AI race. The idea that markets are “rational” has always been a myth—they are vibes-driven, first and foremost.

Understanding the Real Narrative:

But there’s a much bigger story unfolding here—one that goes beyond corporate rivalry or even US-China tensions. DeepSeek is forcing a long-overdue conversation about the techno-ideologies we’ve been conditioned to accept.

For years, the dominant AI narrative has been defined by Silicon Valley values—the relentless push for billion-dollar valuations, the fetishization of Unicorn startups, the assumption that deregulation is inherently better, the idea that the only path to innovation is through hyper-concentrated corporate power. We’ve been so steeped in this ideology that it barely registers as one—it just feels like reality.

And yet, DeepSeek’s open-source model is throwing a wrench into some of those assumptions. While OpenAI has gone fully closed-source, locking down its models in the name of “safety,” DeepSeek is betting on a collaborative approach, where developers can build on each other’s advances rather than starting from scratch. There are, of course, serious privacy concerns—DeepSeek’s terms of service suggest that all user data (including chat interactions and device info) is stored on Chinese servers and can be accessed by the government at any time. This is a stark contrast to the US and EU, where authorities typically need a warrant. I’ve been testing DeepSeek on a dummy phone, disconnected from all personal information, and I’ve already seen content restrictions—queries about Taiwan or Tiananmen Square return blank responses.

None of this is surprising, but it raises an important question:

Why do we only acknowledge some ideological forces in technology and not others?

The US often frames Chinese tech as a tool of government influence, but American AI is also shaped by ideology—it’s just packaged as inevitability. The framing of AI as an arms race, the glorification of monopolies, the idea that trillion-dollar companies are the natural endgame of innovation—these are not neutral positions. They are specific choices that have been aggressively marketed as the only way forward.

Nowhere is this more obvious than in the EU, where regulators have spent years pushing back against Silicon Valley’s influence. The Digital Services Act and EU AI Act were designed around an entirely different vision of the internet—one that prioritizes privacy, transparency, and accountability over exponential growth.

And yet, when these policies get discussed in American media, they’re often framed as barriers to innovation rather than an alternative model for how technology could operate. It wasn’t until I started reading these laws that I realized how much I had internalized the American techno-capitalist perspective without questioning it.

And this is the real reckoning that DeepSeek is forcing. Not just can China surpass US AI dominance? but how much of the global AI narrative has been shaped by an ideology we’ve mistaken for truth?

Meanwhile, the US government is making its own intentions crystal clear. Trump's Executive Order openly states that US policy is to “sustain and enhance American AI dominance in order to promote human flourishing, economic competitiveness, and national security.” The question now isn’t just whether China can compete—it’s what the rest of the world will do as the AI market increasingly becomes a geopolitical battleground.

And that’s the bigger story here.

More to come as the story unfolds!

Subscription Cycling:

With every streaming platform steadily increasing prices, it’s easy to wake up one day and realize you’re shelling out hundreds of dollars a month just to keep up. But what if we stopped treating subscriptions as a fixed expense and started treating them like a menu—something to curate and rotate rather than accumulate?

At our house, we use a simple system: subscription cycling. Each month, we pick one or two services, cancel when we’re done, and re-subscribe as needed. If you’re an Apple user, this is especially easy to manage through your Apple ID subscriptions.

For example, I’ll do a month of Disney+, then cancel and switch to HBO Max for a couple of months. Right now, I’m subscribed to Crunchyroll—the anime platform—because, with everything happening in the world, my need for escapism is at an all-time high. And yes, every December, we dedicate a month to the Hallmark Channel for our annual Hallmark Trope Competition, where we predict exactly when a city-girl-turned-small-town-baker will fall in love with a Christmas tree farmer.

The trick? The moment I subscribe to a new platform, I immediately unsubscribe through my iPhone settings. That way, instead of auto-renewing indefinitely, I get a reminder when the month is up, giving me the choice to opt back in rather than defaulting to passive spending.

When I casually mentioned this approach to a friend, he was shocked he hadn’t thought of it before. And that’s not an accident—subscriptions are designed to be forgotten. They count on you setting them up once and letting them quietly charge you forever. But instead of letting them run in the background, I’ve decided to make the system work for me.

I also keep a running note on my phone with shows or movies I want to watch on platforms I’m not currently subscribed to. When that list hits four or five must-sees, I know it’s time to prioritize that service for the next cycle.

But here’s the thing: this isn’t just about saving money on streaming. It’s about being intentional with how we engage with technology.

Take social media. If a platform is going to harvest my data, track my preferences, and try to manipulate me into buying things I don’t need, then the least I can do is ensure that my experience on it is one of connection, learning, and enjoyment—not a relentless dopamine treadmill that makes me want to launch myself into the sun. (I’m actually working on a series of videos about how to design a more intentional social media feed, so stay tuned for that!)

And while we’re on the subject of digital hygiene: delete X. Seriously. At this point, continuing to engage with a platform run by someone who gleefully amplifies hate is a choice we can no longer justify. And please, spare me the emails about how you can “separate the art from the artist.” If your defense starts with, “I know he did a Nazi salute, BUT…”—we’re done. We saw it. He joked about it afterward. It’s gross. I'm currently waiting (still) for my Twitter Archive to be exported and then it's bye bye X and hello BlueSky.

Minimum Viable Progress: How To Tame Your Inner Raccoon

One of the reasons my planning system works is because I build in a sliding scale of productivity standards. On one end, there’s my highly ambitious, polished Unicorn self—the one who meal preps, sticks to a 10-step skincare routine, and effortlessly hits her daily word count. And on the other? My Raccoon Self. The version of me that wants to eat garbage, burrow into the darkness and abandon all structure. (Also, I don't care what anyone says, Trash Pandas, as we affectionally call them in Toronto, are SO CUTE.)

For years, I tried to fight my inner raccoon with shame, because, I needed to get it together,. but I’ve learned that energy, mood, and motivation fluctuate, and it’s impossible to be at 100% every day. So instead of resisting, I started planning for her. I asked myself: What does my Raccoon Self need to make even the smallest bit of progress?

I call this my MVP—Minimum Viable Progress. It’s the lowest-effort version of forward momentum I can maintain when my executive function is on life support. And the key to making it work? Preparation. Setting things up in advance so my Raccoon Self doesn’t totally derail me.

For example, I know I make my worst food choices when I return home from a long trip. So now, whenever I meal prep, I set aside easy-to-reheat meals—soups, frozen veggies, and simple proteins—so Future Raccoon Me has a better option. My Unicorn Self loves 45-minute workouts, five days a week. Raccoon Me? 20 minutes, three times a week, max. I even pre-select workouts so I don’t have to think about it. And if that still feels like too much? I have a 20-minute mobility routine I can do in bed.

Some nights, even my skincare routine feels like a battle, so I moved my LED mask and sheet masks to the den—now I can do them while watching TV. Writing? My best days, I can knock out 5,000 words in one sitting. My lowest? 500. But 500 still adds up to 10,000 words a month.

What I’ve realized is that progress, no matter how small, still counts. For so long, I believed that if I couldn’t operate at full capacity, I had failed. But forcing myself into rigid expectations just made me feel worse. Instead of berating my Raccoon Self for being tired, I started meeting her with compassion (and a little treat).

And it changed everything.

I stopped feeling like I was constantly working against myself and started working with myself. And once I knew my “raccoon days” wouldn’t undo my progress, I relaxed. Everyone wins.

If you're getting into your yearly planning, hit reply and tell me what your inner raccoon needs.

(For those of you new here, when I reference “parts,” I’m talking about Richard Schwartz’s Internal Family Systems (IFS) modality, one of my highest recommendations for self-development. It’s been life-changing for me.)

Odds and Ends: Hit Reply Plz.

I’m headed to Paris next week for the AI Action Summit. As much as I’ve loved being cozied up at the Farm, Paris always calls me back.

Lately, I’ve been debating moving this whole operation to Substack. Are you a Substack user? Do you love it? Hate it? Tell me—would this newsletter feel at home there?

Meanwhile, I’m so close to finishing the second draft of Humane Productivity, but somehow, the last 15% feels like it’s going to take years. If you’ve got a motivational quote that gets you through that final stretch of a big project, send it my way.

Also, my Hyper-Normalization reel on Instagram just passed five million views. Am I famous now? Is this my moment? Should I drop my morning makeup routine?

Next month, I’ll be in Philadelphia, London, and Barcelona—send me your favorite recs, from coffee spots to bookstores to places that make you feel alive.