Where are the haters? When will they show themselves? It will hurt, at least at first. But if I am to really shine in my work, I will encounter that unbridled dethusiasm. Is that a word? “Dethusiasm.” I’ve never encountered it but it makes enough sense to me and I Read more…
On the eve of Father’s Day, I went to sleep thinking of how my dad used to sing to me when I was a young boy. The one song I remember him singing, that I still can call back to feeling him singing, was Edelweiss, from the Rodgers and Hammerstein Read more…
We crossed the imaginary line into panhandle Texas, having rolled down from the peaks of Colorado and dogearred the corner of New Mexico, almost immediately a story of Texas being written across our windshield, our vision increasingly consumed by the corpses of winged insects, cataracts clarifying the point, as if Read more…
I don’t know if I’m autistic or not. But that knowing hardly feels relevant to me. It very much might to others and I support that. What I’m about to say expresses why I do not feel inclined to seek affirmation/rejection for myself through diagnosis. I hesitate to publicly use Read more…
It’s been at least five years since I’ve fly fished. My tween-aged son is drawing me back into it by way of his emerging spinner rod fishing obsession. Now I cast, standing alone in the Arkansas River while he is at school. My first time in a river, fly rod Read more…
I often write, speak and art as a hopeful means of connecting with some new snippet of clarity about some age-old idea. Nothing original, I assume, though it carries a sense of seeming newness to my way of thinking at that moment. I scratch out thoughts on scraps of paper Read more…
In Steven Pressfield’s memoir, Govt Cheese, he opens chapter 47, “Art Is Artifice,” with these lines: I’ve heard that birds sing out of pure joy. I don’t believe it. I don’t believe writers write or painters paint because they’re bursting with the exuberance of life. They write because they’re in Read more…
I’ve described my approach to vulnerability in podcast conversations this way: It’s like a high flag staked in the ground or a flare shot into the sky, a signal to others who want connection to come this way. Maybe it’s orange. Or white. I visualize this happening in a flat, Read more…
I’ve long told myself, “I’ll know I’m getting somewhere when the haters start hatin’.” I create public-facing work in various capacities. As a writer, photographer, podcaster and visual artist. By the nature of being an individual who puts his name on his subjective work and sends it out into public, Read more…
UPDATE: See Among Other Things Part of me wants to write a memoir. For my sons. And my sins, if that’d help. That is, maybe also for me. In part, because I think we all have one in us. Probably more. And they are worth sharing. But where would the Read more…
As you might know, I have podcast conversations regularly. You know, being a podcast producer and host and such. Only occasionally am I a guest on someone else’s podcast. A few months ago, however, I was a guest on Ryan Short’s CivicBrand podcast, “Eyes on the Street.” I was invited Read more…
UPDATED: I originally wrote the short blog post below in Nov. 2022. This update highlights the embedded audio players, so the resulting We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream podcast conversation I had with Beck Cerón, as mentioned in the post below, is available here. I’ve also included the player for Part Read more…
I’ve struggled for decades as a creative person who devalued his creativity if it wasn’t packaged with absolutes that could explain why I did things the way I did them. I felt as if I needed to make a lawyerly case to gain external validation for them, for myself. I Read more…
First of all, Humanitou and We Are Chaffee: Looking Upstream are essentially the same podcast. Different names, same me leading them. Same humanness and vulnerability and awesomeness of the show guests. A short explanation of why I started out as Humanitou, for podcasting and various creating under that name, almost Read more…
I was listening to The Rich Roll Podcast the other day. His guest was comedian and fellow podcaster Pete Holmes. Midway through their conversation, they hit on something close to home for me: why I host conversational podcasts, and why I do it the way that I do. I’m an Read more…
What we create isn’t for the haters. So forget ’em. Haters gonna hate. No matter what you show them, offer them, give them, bare to them. So dismiss ’em; they lack credibility. We create and share and make ourselves vulnerable first for ourselves. With courage haters can’t imagine. And then Read more…
I wrote on the blog in February about my first attempt to check into all the hype over writing with artificially intelligent chatbots, like ChatGPT. I couldn’t break through the waiting line then. I’ve now gone back to see what the buzz was/is about and test out a few things. Read more…
I wrote about the impulsive kickoff to a yearslong creative idea in a recent blog post: “Basketball Hoops: A Photography Project.” These are more of my forming thoughts on the work as it continues to unfold. (See #showyourwork and the creative ethic behind a post like this.) This project can Read more…
I don’t have the energy for this blog post. But my mind keeps trying to write it, so here we go … The other day, I came across a comment from months ago from an unsubscriber who wanted me to know why she was quitting the Humanitou newsletter. She wrote, Read more…
Everyday my kids go to school and we don’t know if they’ll come home. Because that’s who we all are. That’s what we allow and enable and vote for and avoid uncomfortable conversations about. My 12-year-old son said to me one morning sometime during this school year, “You guys tell Read more…