166 / Big Changes To The Newsletter

Hello!

This is a new edition of The Third Something, the newsletter by me, Adam Westbrook. Incredibly, this begins the eighth year of writing to you, first on Substack (2019-2023) then via Beehiiv (2023-2025).

Those of you who’ve been here a while know 2025 was a year of big change in my life. Today that change is rippling up to this newsletter. I’m updating both the format and the delivery of The Third Something, I hope you’ll come with me!

The top line, as we say in news, is that I have switched my newsletter provider again and my letters will arrive to you now through a service called Buttondown. For anyone who is interested in the mechanics of publishing newsletters in the 2020s, I’ve gone into some detail about the switch here, but I’ll spare the rest of you the details.

You don’t need to do anything to continue to receive these emails!

A new format

I started the newsletter back in 2019 because my work at The New York Times was taking up most of my creative energy and I wasn’t able to make my own videos. But I still wanted a place, one little patch of grass to call my own, where I could say something when the inspiration came. For seven years that’s been this newsletter.

Now that I am a free agent once again, I am returning to what I love to do most: making and sharing my own art. I’m entering an experimental phase where I’ll be following my intuition and trying all kinds of projects.

I can’t make promises about what this will look like, and there will be many failures; but I can say this with confidence: I am sitting on something big — and I am as close as I’ve ever been to finding it.

So here’s what I’d like to try: I’ll email you once a month to show you what I have made in the previous 30 days. It might be words, pictures, stories, a zine, dare I say, even music. You might like some things and cringe at others. That’s OK! I hope you’ll be entertained enough to stick around for another month.

New work – January 2026

I have three things I’d love to show you this month!

1. A new-ish comic
In 2023, I wrote and drew a one-page comic about art and A.I. for an anthology called Change. I’ve never shared it outside of the book, but it’s now available to read on my website. The comic is also responsive, in that it will adjust its layout for the best reading experience, depending on your device. Neat! Here’s the comic!

2. A theory about how art gets made
My hope for this new format is it allows me to publish ideas without the pressure of them being newsletter-worthy. This article is a perfect example of something I’ve been wanting to get off my chest for years, but that felt too in-the-weeds for a newsletter. It attempts to answer the question ‘why do some art forms continue to surprise us, while others grow stale?’ and leads me to make the case in favour of A.I. video tools. You can read it here.

“At some point — I feel like it’ll be this year — someone with no connections to Hollywood, but an original story in their heart and an ear for dialogue, will get their hands on these tools and make an honest-to-god original drama. It will be deeply flawed I’m sure, but free to noodle in their bedroom, this filmmaker will create something visually and narratively inventive, that does something a film has never done before.”

Both of the above are responses to A.I. and its impact on artists. One piece is critical, the other kind-of positive: a good reflection on my see-sawing feelings about this technology!

3. A home for my midlife story
I am very proud of the series of letters I wrote at the end of last year: it’s some of the most personal and intimate writing I have done. It cost me a bunch of subscribers, but I received so many heartfelt emails from you, that I feel it was worth it — thank you. I’ve created a new home for these articles where they are neatly presented in the correct order with an introduction. I might also add an audiobook version in the future. If you haven’t read the series you can now enjoy it in full here.

If any of these pieces give you thoughts or feelings I would be so grateful if you would share them with friends, family, on your social networks and your own newsletters. It really makes a difference! ❤️‍🔥

Links

In this new format, I might occasionally share links to other pieces that have stuck with me. The bar will be high!

Have you heard of pronoia before? It is the opposite of paranoia. Whereas paranoia is a belief that people are conspiring to harm you, pronoia is a belief that people are conspiring to help you.

“Although we don’t deserve it, and have done nothing to merit it, we have been offered a glorious ride on this planet, if only we accept it. To receive the gift requires the same humble position a hitchhiker gets into when he stands shivering on the side of the empty highway, cardboard sign flapping in the cold wind, and says, ‘How will the miracle happen today?’”

It’s just one of several toasty ideas in this recent essay by internet sage, Kevin Kelly about miracles, which resonate with my personal gratitude attitude. (via his RSS feed).

This quote from a Substack called Anima Mundi was sent to me by Alina, a costume designer in Egypt.

“The regenerative farming people talk about restoring soil. It takes years. The first year looks like nothing. The second year looks like failure. Somewhere around year five, the mycorrhizal networks reconnect and suddenly the land holds water again. Most restoration—of land, of psyche, of culture—follows this pattern. Long period of invisible work. Long period of looking like you’re losing. Then a phase shift that was actually prepared by everything before. The problem is we’ve built a civilization with quarterly reporting. Nobody funds year three of looking like nothing.”

I think the most important sentence here is “The second year looks like failure.” So many creative projects are abandoned in year two because of this, whereas if the artist had just held faith that those mycorrhizal networks were busy at work!

If agriculture related creative inspiration is your thing, chase this with Antony Hopkins’ wonderful monologue ‘Dig the ditches and the rain will come’.. He speaks the truth.

I hope you’ll stick around to see where this new direction takes me. It doesn’t seem like much now, but I’m digging ditches.

Look out for the next letter on or around the 1st of March.

Until another Sunday soon,