Hello! Nobody Reads This Bit.

I know you’re not reading this. Nobody reads these “welcome to my list” emails. Noooobody. Proper howling into the void stuff, sadly.

Wait - you are reading? Hooray! Gosh. Um.

*clears throat*

WELCOME to Everything Is Amazing, a newsletter about the adventurous science of curiosity, and how it can help you pursue awe, wonder and hope, even in the midst of everyday life.

At the time of writing (May 2025) you’re joining 30,000 readers of EiA *gulp* - and season 7 just began, where we’re looking at the sciences of the sky above our heads, the intrepid lunatics who investigate it and ice like you’ve never seen.

But if you don’t currently have a clue where to even start, try here - and come join this discussion and tell everyone what you wish more people were curious about.

(And if you’re writing a newsletter yourself, or considering starting one, this might help!)

Hold on. “Everything” is clearly NOT “amazing” right now. Have you even seen the news?

Ah, yes. I get this question a lot.

As a science writer, I’m generally upbeat. Which may be due to my own ignorance and unworldliness! This is a newsletter powered by the wonder I feel at discovering things for the first time as an enthusiastic layman, and that supply of cluelessness is never running dry. The more I learn, the less I realise I actually know. This is the great gift of applied curiosity (and science, too).

But - no. Clearly “everything” is not “amazing” when that latter word is used as a synonym for “great”. How could anyone say that, with all the tragedies unfolding in Ukraine and Gaza and elsewhere, and in this overheating world (in more than one sense) with so much cruelty and injustice and problems that need addressing for the good of everything and everyone?

So I’m not saying that. It doesn’t mean that.

Instead, I’m using “amazing” in the other way - in the sense that everything holds the potential to amaze you. There is always, always more to learn about everything.

Look hard enough, even at the most boring, depressing and miserably unwelcome-looking things, and you will eventually find awe and wonder and something that makes your face go 😮 - often in a positive way, but always in the 🤯 way.

That’s the working principle of this newsletter. It’s this GIF, in as much detail as I can dig up:

When you’re amazed like Keanu is up there, you’re reminded - just for a second, but so deeply and so profoundly - that there is still so much to learn about this world around us. So much intriguing possibility within all that daunting uncertainty.

And I truly believe that moments of amazed wonder are where hope creeps into the human heart. Just a tiny bit - but maybe just enough to help get you through your day.

I guess I should now be telling you that I have a rock-solid idea of where we’re all going and how we’re going to get there (I have a few ideas on the About page) - but hey, who knows? That’s the thing about curiosity: you never quite know where you’ll end up.

The main thing about this newsletter is that I’m using science-based stories to try to make you go “wow”.

It’s all about the sciencey wows. I’m trying to discover fascinating and exciting and surprising things (like this incredible ancient flood or these illusory pillars of light) that generate awe and wonder in me, which I’ll do my best to pass along to you.

There is also a paid version of this newsletter. (Currently discounted by 50% for yearly subscriptions!).

I know you’ve only just signed up, and this thing could be nonsense for all you know - so maybe for now you just want to read it for free! Not a problem & never will be.

But as a supporter for $6 a month or $60 $30 a year, you’d get:

• access to all paywalled posts including the ‘seasons within a season’ of this newsletter (most recently, how geology directly affects our lives, here, and an outline of the last one on memory, here).

• [YEARLY SUBSCRIBERS ONLY] free access to “Engage” - my nonfiction storytelling course…

• …and everything coming for paid readers in season 7, including 1-to-1 “curiosity calls” to help you chase your own obsessive interests in whatever form you’re doing using (the details are here)…

• And lastly - I cannot emphasize this enough - you get my undying gratitude for helping me make this thing, because it’s my fulltime job these days (& fully reader-subscription-supported), and it’s the most fun I’ve had in my career as a writer, & I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface.

To become a supporter, click the button below:

50% off a yearly subscription!

(And thank you for believing in this thing I’m doing enough to want to support it. That really means a lot.)

Before we set sail on this voyage of…ineptly-applied nautical metaphors, a few passenger safety announcements:

• you should start receiving updates right here in your Inbox.

• you can also visit the Web version to read the full archives and other posts as they are published - a bit like a blog, really.

• If you can’t find the newsletter in your Inbox, check your spam folder. And please mark this address as ‘not spam.’ If the newsletter isn’t in your spam folder either (ghagh), you should look in the Promotions tab.

• I don’t know what a vestibule is, but smoking is definitely not permitted in it. Thank you.

• If at any point you find yourself experiencing wonder, bafflement, reckless inquisitiveness, obsessive intellectual megalomania and an inability to talk fast enough when you’re explaining interesting things to your long-suffering friends, do not be alarmed. These are features of the journey, not bugs.

Onwards! And thanks for actually reading this.

- Mike