Healthcare, capitalism, prisons, education. I didn't set out to find a common thread. But one keeps showing up. These systems disconnect us from the things that make us whole.

When I left my job at 29 to start a company, the fear that almost kept me from making the leap wasn't failure. It was losing my health insurance. How much creativity and love never enters the world because of a fear-based system?

The US spends roughly twice as much per person on healthcare as other wealthy nations. We rank dead last in outcomes. What does a system built on fear actually produce?

I had a conversation with a friend who is an emergency room doctor. She told me about a system designed to heal people that is actually built on fear. Fear of lawsuits. Fear of missing something.

John Biewen is the host of Scene on Radio, one of the most important podcast series I've encountered. Sitting across a campfire from him was surreal. He didn't let me stay comfortable.

I emailed Matthew McConaughey. Yes, that Matthew McConaughey. And no, he hasn't responded. But the story of why I sent it is really about what happens when love overrides the fear of looking ridiculous.

A family friend made a claim during a car ride about immigration that didn't sound right. Instead of arguing, I did what the adventure has been teaching me: check the facts before reacting.

Kharma Amos is a UU minister who came out in 1990s Tulsa, Oklahoma. This Campfire Conversation explored queering as a verb, the fear of freedom, and why love sometimes looks like resistance.

This was the first time on the adventure that I shared someone else's words instead of my own. David NeSmith wrote a poem that asks the question at the heart of this exploration: who deserves love?

After weeks of researching money and capitalism, I needed to talk with someone who thinks about money for a living but doesn't think about it the way most people do.

I spent weeks researching the history of money. What I found was a story about how a tool we invented to serve human connection became a system that controls human behavior.

This is the deep dive companion to my piece asking "What is Money?" It traces 5,000 years of monetary history from Mesopotamian clay tablets to modern fiat currency, with 52 citations.

Have you ever thought about what it takes to stay connected to the people closest to you? I hadn't. Not until I started exchanging messages with someone behind bars.

Tremayne Seymour is an artist incarcerated at Lawrenceville Correctional Center. We connected through a painting. What started as a simple exchange turned into one of the most meaningful friendships of my life.

A white guy from Maine gets invited to speak with 80 incarcerated men in Virginia about leading with love. What happened inside was one of the most powerful experiences of my life.

A couple months ago I got a text from my friend Sam Harris. It was a simple yes or no question: "Have you ever been inside a prison?" I hadn't. And the fact that I hadn't felt significant.

I'd written about Chris Lombard earlier after watching him work with Tally at the Common Ground Fair. This Campfire Conversation went deeper into what horses teach about trust and leadership.

Every Saturday morning I go to Reverie. It's a coffee shop in Brunswick, Maine. It's my anchor. But Reverie is more than a coffee shop. It's what sociologists call a third place.

As the year ends, I've been sitting with a question that won't let go: is love a feeling or a way of being? Four months of exploration have changed my answer.

I've been asking men about their emotional lives for months. They'll talk about almost anything. But ask them what they're afraid of, and the air changes. The silence isn't empty. It's full.