About - Wisdom Workshop with Sean Waters

👋 Hello!

It’s me, Sean Waters. I am delighted you’re here!

I turned 42 in 2024. This Substack explores a midlife emergence, syncopations in my life’s work as an educator, philosopher, and musical artist. I love to write and play and make art, and people have called me a generous host.

I am an educational artist

With the Wisdom Workshop, I’ve designed the courses that I would want to take over and over again. I’m amazed by these testimonials, especially Paul Marcus, a retiring psychotherapist, saying: “It’s the most educational thing I’ve done outside of my education, and the most therapeutic thing I’ve done outside of therapy.”

I write by hand every day

I’m going into year twelve of a daily writing practice. Loosely following The Artist’s Way “Morning pages,” I write for mindfulness practice, self-confidence-care-awareness-acceptance and creative expression. Some writing makes its way to TikTok and YouTube and Clubhouse. I’m on my 247th cranberry red moleskin pocket journal and 6th A5 Muji Open-Flat Lined Notebook. My current favorite pen is a Muji gel ink cap-type ballpoint .38mm.

I teach

At the Department of English at Colorado State University: College Composition (CO150), Writing Arguments (CO300), and Writing in Digital Environments (CO302).

I’ve taught

In the Departments of Philosophy at Colorado State University and the Arts and Letters Department at Front Range Community College. Courses: Logic and Critical Thinking (PL110), World Philosophies (PL170), Introduction to Ethics (PHI113), Introduction to Philosophy (PH114), Introduction to Humanities (E232).

I’m a cosmic librarian

I like to read world-altering books. I wrote my Masters thesis in comparative epistemology: “Metaphysics, epistemology, and depression: the philosophical and pragmatic dimensions of the modern biomedical and Tibetan Buddhist approach to well-being.” I’ve been fascinated with East/West contemplative approaches to living well. I am a pluralist, pragmatist, existentialist, and positive psychology enthusiast. My Master’s thesis in English Education focused on a ways to introduce philosophy using young adult literature.

I am an enterprising creative

I am an active recording and performing artist who has played 1000+ shows and 200k+ streams with Sean Waters & the Sunrise Genius on Spotify or Apple Music or Soundcloud. I’ve been written about in Rolling Stone en Espanol. Most of those shows were logged with a group called the Seers. (Bizarre fact: my mom had a dream she should name me ‘Seers’ when I was in utero. ‘Sean’ was as close as she could get.)

About the Substack

This newsletter is form of educational artistry — I share projects in process, works in personal mastery, and creative approaches to teaching writing, making music, and acclimating to new possibility.

Why subscribe? Why pay?

You’ll be supporting a community of readers, writers, creators, teachers, students, mentors and leaders who care about novel, agile, inspiring and warm approaches to investing in relational infrastructure of cultivating wisdom.

Paid subscribers get enrollment discounts, office hours, quarterly not-so-briefs, pop-up gatherings and select session replays. Also, a paid subscription extended essays and written experiments in pedagogy, de-schooling, practical philosophy and applied positive psychology.