Welcome to Third Factor

Supporting the Life of the Mind and the Search for the Higher Path

Maybe you’ve been told you were too sensitive, too intense, that you think too much, are too much in your head. Maybe you’re still trying to figure out why things that roll off other people’s backs leave you shaken, or why your best ideas seem to arrive just before bed with an undertow that pulls you down another spiral of meaning-making.

If so, I’d love to invite you to join me.

Third Factor is a publication for those whose minds, emotions, and imaginations run a little (or a lot) hotter than average. It takes a lot to harness and channel this kind of energy, but in the years I’ve been in this discourse space, I’ve come to focus on four key concepts:

🧭 Questioning in pursuit of what’s Good and True.
🎨 Creativity as necessity for life.
🧱 Character as built, not bestowed.
🔥 Courage to follow the higher path — especially when it’s lonely, winding, or steep.

I write essays, reflections, and stories that explore these themes — sometimes philosophical, sometimes personal, often both. My original inspiration in this area of thought is the theory of positive disintegration, developed by Kazimierz Dabrowski, a Polish psychiatrist who saw this sensitivity not as pathology, but as a potential gateway to growth. That’s what I’m after here: not comfort, not conformity, but transformation. Not diagnosis, but development.

For all the focus on identity out there these days, I’d rather talk about what I call the paradox of weirdness: how the ways we are different feel enormous to us, even while we remain perfectly normal in other ways. We are rare use cases, yes; and we’re also ordinary people trying to live meaningful lives. I’d rather talk about values than identities.

That’s why I want to talk about the higher path. Because while all the above may sound fun and colorful and energetic (and it is!), I also find that trying to meet the needs of the excitable temperament can lead to some risky places. I’m talking about what it means to be in activism. I’m talking about creative spaces. There’s a sweet spot—and it’s easy to overshoot it. Sometimes we burn too hot. Sometimes we follow charisma over character. Sometimes we lose sight of our own values in pursuit of belonging or impact.

Now’s a good time to explain the meaning of our title, for those of you who are new here. In the theory of positive disintegration, the first factor of development is your genetic endowment — your nature. The second factor is your environment — your nurture. The third factor of development, though, is what you choose to do with that. Dabrowski recognized that this emerged out of first and second factors; it wasn’t independent. Still, there’s something to be said for recognizing our capacity for choice in who we become.

With that in mind, I want to bring moral language back into the conversation. Many are on this path because of a harsh inner critic: a voice that tells us we’re never good enough, or too much, or fundamentally broken. The climb out of that inner abyss is hard-won, but it also gives us clarity about real danger in the outer world — especially the psychological and social forces that twist our sense of truth, connection, and integrity.

I want to talk about that, too: evil, the traits of what some call the “Cluster B society,” and what it means to face darkness without becoming it. To build on Dabrowski’s work, I’ve been influenced by thinkers including M. Scott Peck, Erich Fromm, and Andrzej Lobaczewski. Back behind the Iron Curtain, as Dabrowski tried to understand why some people risked their lives saving Jews from Nazis, Lobaczewski was looking at what made so many people go along with institutionalized evil. I believe that evil is real and we are right to fight it, but will we fight it right? I admire and sympathize with people across the political spectrum, and I find plenty to fear across it as well.

I also expect to talk a fair bit about AI. In a world increasingly shaped by generative tools and synthetic voices, those of us with hyperactive minds and intense inner lives are going to have to navigate new questions. Though I grant that it’s complicated, I’m an optimist. I want to counter the doom and gloom that’s all the rage in the media now, even as I, too, see areas of concern. I’m fascinated by the task of working out what healthy adoption of AI will look like for society — and, especially, for those of us with the intense minds, hearts, and imaginations I described earlier.

Oh, and by the way: I also have an alter ego (and a day job) as the Director of Debates for Braver Angels, a political depolarization organization. Though I try to keep my Third Factor and Braver Angels hats separate, what it means to speak freely and fully without fear, as we say over at BA, will certainly be woven into this space as well. If that floats your boat, you could also subscribe to the Debate Dispatch, our program’s Substack.

I also have been a Google Policy Fellow, with a Masters of Science in Information from the University of Michigan; and I’ve been a CIA Leadership Analyst, a fascinating role that I’m honored to have had and that taught me a lot about psychology and biography. In the end, I left in search of something more personal — a freer space to explore what makes people tick and how meaning is made.

And so here I am, welcoming you to Third Factor.

If anything here resonates, I hope you’ll stick around — or better yet, write back! I believe the most interesting journeys begin with a shared spark.

We’re earnest. We’re quirky. We’re climbing. And we’d love to have you along for the ride.