Campbell Walker (struthless)

I’ve been following Campbell Walker and his Youtube channel struthless for a bit over a year now, since I felt mental unease last fall. He has a wonderful sense of humor, tells stories and touches on subjects that are genuinely new to me, and has re-introduced journaling to me, which plays a big part in my reclaimed sense of mental clarity. I am currently reading his book Your Head Is a Houseboat and I love his ability to turn his perception of life and the observations he’s making into (1) hilarious similes and (2) tangible advice.

Today, I watched his video This book has no words. Can you read it?, which I have kept on the back burner for way too long. Shame, because it is a wild 16-minute ride that I massively enjoyed: From the admittedly click-baity title, that refers to Joe Hale’s Wonderland, over Nuclear Semiotics and the dream of a universal language, to emojis and the concept of Enantiodromia.

Told you—a wild ride! It touches on linguistics, history, literature, cultural studies, philosophy, and at the end weaves back into creativity, mental health, and sobriety. Maybe a bit much for little over quarter of an hour, one might argue, but exactly the right amount of time to whet my appetite for more. That’s the kind of online content that inspires me and that I seek: Not an exhaustive lecture on a matter (Which of course also have their rightful place!), but piecemeal input that leaves echos that follow me for days and gaps that I can fill with my own thoughts, research, and creative work.