Hi, everybody. I've made a kind of radical decision, which is not to run ads on this story,

and hopefully the next one. The people in these episodes live with generations of inherited trauma,

and they're trying to create something beautiful and hopeful and community-driven and collaborative

and healing, and the spirit of their work could not be more

counter to the ugliest aspects of late-stage capitalism that were surrounded by right now.

And for me, sandwiching these stories in between ads just felt wrong.

When I launched this series, I actually thought about doing the whole thing without

ads and just asking those of you who could to become paying subscribers on Patreon or Substack,

but wise people advised me against it. You'll look too rich if you forego ads, said one friend,

and another one said, you know, the endless tin cupping is kind of annoying too.

And I thought those were good points.

But the same number of ad impressions that would have made me about $5,000 in the old ad market

is currently making me $500 or $600 about a tenth of what it was, which means I have to

deal the tin cupping regardless.

And a third friend of mine said, you know, you're also taking away an incentive for

people to become paying subscribers if they're already getting the stories without ads,

without paying. And I thought,

yeah, she's right. But in the spirit of the episodes I'm about to share, I'm choosing to think that

we aren't always so transactional in our motivation to support something. So if you'd like to

support my work because you like it and you can,

then I'd be so grateful. And yes, you'll also get a bunch of stuff. If you want to be transactional,

you'll get 80 episodes that are only available there and you'll get invitations to a lot of fun

...