The World Isn't Ending. It Never Has.

Why subscribe to Past Passport?

Open your phone. Count the headlines saying the world is ending.

I’ll wait.

Doom sells clicks. Scroll long enough, and you might believe you’re living through history’s worst chapter.

You aren’t.

Things have been much worse, and people survived anyway.

A 2023 review of more than 1,000 adults found that doomscrolling was associated with poorer mental well-being and lower life satisfaction. Even unrelated worries feel worse after consuming a steady diet of bad news.

Past Passport is the antidote to the daily doom in your hand.

1918 Nearly Broke Us. 1920 We Danced

A flu ward in 1918. A saxophonist in 1925. Seven years apart.

Every generation believes its problems are unprecedented. Almost none are.

In 1918, a flu pandemic killed roughly 50 million people worldwide. About 675,000 Americans died in a country of only 103 million. World War I had already killed millions.

Two years later, the freewheeling Roaring Twenties began.

Three times a week, I find the historical version of today’s anxiety and show how people lived through it. The past was often brutal. Human beings made it, anyway.

You Never Reach the Bottom of History

History is like a lake with unexpected drop-offs. Just when you think you've reached solid ground, you find another one.

That’s what makes history endlessly rewarding. The more you learn, the more you realize how much you don’t know.

History Isn't the Only Old Lesson We Teach

Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor. He wrote his private notebook — later called Meditations — while commanding wars on the frontier and losing several of his own children, never intending anyone else to read it.

Past Passport covers more than history as an antidote to bad news.

Each week I also write about Stoicism, the ancient philosophy built for bad moments. And because we’re living through another major technological shift, I write about AI from the perspective of a non-technical creator who uses it every day.

Every generation has feared a new technology would change everything. AI belongs in that story too. I’ll show you how I use these tools, what they’re good at, and where they’re overhyped.

History answers hard moments by looking backward. Stoicism answers by looking inward. AI lets us test whether those old lessons still work in this newest chapter.

What You’ll Receive When You Subscribe

For $5 per month:

• Three history essays a week that uncover a moment from the past echoing today’s world, and show how people came through it.

• One weekly Stoic essay with practical ideas for your next hard week. A recent Stoic piece covered how I used Stoic tools to deal with my mother’s death.

• Three AI updates per week about how I use AI as a non-technical creator. You’ll learn how to make your AI text sound like you, and how to get the most out of the latest Claude updates.

• A monthly subscriber Q&A in the DMs where your questions get explored through history and Stoicism, not generic self-help.

• A community of historical optimists who’d rather challenge their assumptions than doomscroll through someone else’s.

If your news feed keeps insisting civilization is collapsing, spend a few minutes with people who know civilizations have survived far worse.

History has been here before. And humanity kept going.

Subscribe today!