Walking and Talking with Henry

The Fourth of July marks 250 years since a handful of colonists declared that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. Two and a half centuries later — amid deep political division, eroding trust in institutions, and rapid technological upheaval — that founding question feels newly unsettled: what is government actually for? This week, writer Henry Sullivan and author Kristine Madera sit down to wrestle with it. Henry brings the lens of Coliseum, his political-fiction miniseries set in a fractured, arena-driven America — a story built on what happens when the structures meant to hold a society together start to fail. Kristine, a novelist, hypnotherapist, and self-described "pro-topian" who believes everyone plays a part in imagining our collective future, brings her focus on consciousness, belonging, and the stories we live by. Together they explore government as protector, oppressor, social contract, and shared story — asking whether a 250-year-old experiment still serves the people it was built for, and what it might need to become. Is government a necessary guarantor of freedom, a threat to it, or something we're each responsible for reimagining? Join the conversation live and add your voice.

Work has long been where many people get both money and meaning. But as AI, automation, rising costs, college debt, and a shrinking entry-level job market put pressure on traditional employment, we may need to ask a bigger question: what is work actually for? In this conversation, we explore work as income, identity, dignity, contribution, and survival—and whether a future shaped by AI requires a new story about human worth, economic security, and meaningful participation in society.

Thank you to everyone who tuned into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app.

Here’s the link for people to get the Next Wave Guide and the Ethical Digital Nomad GPT: https://kristinemadera.com/try-the-next-wave-destination-finder/

How to Use the Ethical Digital Nomad Destination Finder

Most digital nomad advice begins with: Where should I go? It is a useful question because you do need to think about budget, Wi-Fi, visas, time zones, safety, healthcare, climate, and whether a place can actually support your work and daily life. But destination choice doesn’t end there. A place isn’t just a backdrop for your digital nomad lifestyle; it’s a system already in motion. It has housing patterns, local wages, cultural rhythms, political realities, seasonal pressures, social tensions, and existing relationships between residents, visitors, expats, tourists, and newcomers. When you arrive, you enter a place that is already alive. Recognizing that is the starting point of ethical digital nomadism.

In this conversation, we explore simulation theory as a provocative thought experiment that can reveal and collapse inherited beliefs, hidden authority structures, and the old scripts that invisibly shape what we think is possible.

Unpopular policies, major backlash, and a country in flux. People are angry, but we’re not all angry about the same things, and we don’t express our anger in the same ways. Many are wondering: What comes next? Join Henry Sullivan and Kristine Madera for a live, unfiltered conversation about our uncertain future.

What do you call it when someone in power is so gleeful at the prospect of harming the people under his authority that he drapes a flag around his shoulders like a cape on his way to the vote?

Or when, in discussing a threat made by the President of the United States, a TV personality asks the question, “This deadline that President Trump has set, 8:00 p.m., has threatened to destroy a civilization. How does an investor process that? Is it a bigger upside risk or downside risk?”

In a conversation on April 17th with Kristine Madera, I presented vice and virtue as two separate worlds, one that includes common habits like smoking, drinking, and gambling, and another that includes healthy eating, exercise, and time spent enjoying the outdoors. To people who judge personal habits, I cite Kristine’s article as a rebuttal.

I also cite my own rant, which makes the point in a slightly different way.

In this video, I propose the Virtue Machine, a program that encourages people to publicly commit to their values.

It’s clear that our society is grappling with the moral failing of a corrupt elite. Some are gleeful of the societal collapse they are creating. Others are indifferent to that collapse and watch it with the casualness of a spectator at a sporting event.

Others are discussing the matter in the context of moral failing. I don’t recall hearing that word vice, but, as I implied at the beginning of this article, we need a term for that moral failing.

The Christian Nationalist Revolution that has been executed in the United States of America is ostensibly predicated on the idea that our society is suffering from an epidemic of common vices. It is a political movement that glorifies the idea of a traditional wife as a woman who joyfully submits to her husband, while condemning the common vice of sex between consenting adults who share the same gender, or the common vice of publishing and watching videos of sex between consenting adults. The backlash to banning pornography would be intense, which is probably why the radicals behind the Christian Nationalist Revolution haven’t implemented that part of the plan yet.

The Virtue Machine is a way to confront the moral/ethical vices that plague our country. I believe that most Americans are hungry for a pathway to becoming their virtuous selves, one that does not fixate on common vices, but rather elevates the virtues of courage, temperance, generosity, friendliness, truthfulness, and patience. The video is less than 10 minutes long, and I believe the idea can be implemented through a platform like Substack.

I mention these channels in this video - muji ono - @jiaamalia20, Jia Survival skills - @Jiasurvival, putri sunda - @putrisunda1602, and Made Rusmi - @MadeRusmi_ - because I subscribe to them, and I believe they helped me to better understand the YouTube Algorithm.

Walking through New York on a beautiful day

Thank you to everyone who tuned into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app.

Come walk with me for a few minutes.

Today I’m talking about the part of the writing journey nobody warns you about — the waiting. The long stretches where nothing seems to be happening, and you start wondering if you’re wasting your time.

But here’s the truth: the waiting is the work. Publishing moves slowly. Growth moves slowly. Careers move slowly. And none of that means you’re failing.

In this episode of Walking & Talking with Henry, I share what I’ve learned about patience, progress, and why “slow” is often the exact pace you need.

If you’ve been feeling behind, this is your reminder that you’re right on schedule.