Hello Reader,

Last week I wrote about watching the Foo Fighters play for three hours, and how nobody in that stadium was counting. I’ve kept thinking about what was powering that set. It wasn’t a schedule. It wasn’t a quota. Whatever kept them going that long came from somewhere deeper than discipline.

That question sent me back to the name of this newsletter.

When I told you why I called it The Lantern, I talked about carried light: a lantern shows you the next few steps, not the whole road, and it only works if someone tends it. What I left out is that the name is also a quiet nod to the Lanterns of the comics I grew up loving.

And not just the green ones.

In that mythology there’s a whole emotional spectrum. Green runs on will. Yellow on fear. Red on rage, orange on avarice, blue on hope, indigo on compassion, violet on love. Each colour powers its own corps. Seven lights, and every one of them is something you’ve felt this week.

That’s the part I find most honest. None of those colours is foreign to us. We all carry some rage, some wanting, some fear, some hope. The question isn’t whether they’re in there. It’s which one you’ve handed the controls to.

Productivity culture tends to run on two colours. Orange, the wanting of more: more output, more done, more to show for it. And yellow, the fear of falling behind. Those two can get a lot done. They just can’t do it for three hours with a grin on your face, and they can’t do it for thirty years.

Productiveness doesn’t ask you to switch off the other colours. It asks you to notice which light you’re working by. Some days it’s hope. Some days it’s love for the work, and that’s the one I’d bet was on stage in Vancouver. And some days, honestly, it’s fear. That’s human too.

Next Saturday is Halloween, the one night a year we invite fear in on purpose. The clocks fall back that night, and November arrives in the dark. So next week, fear gets its turn, along with the colour that’s supposed to answer it.

For now: what colour has your work been running on lately? Hit reply and tell me.

The Final Flicker

Every emotion gives off some light. Choose which one you read by.

See you later,
Mike

P.S. New here, or curious how this newsletter got its name? Here’s the story.​

Thanks for reading. Your time is valuable, and I don’t take it for granted. In a world pulling us in all directions, thanks for choosing The Lantern.