John_Whittemore
John Whittemore

Physician and Writer. You may know me from Twitter @John_Whittemore

My novel “The Making Of The World” is represented by Talcott-Notch Literary Agency.

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npub1cnzjj450akkxzhe3kn4ffqre9gpvswj0cnduxgew3y885dn3nxfs42xq6z

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nprofile1qqsvf3ff2687mtrptucmf655spuj5qkg8f8ufk7ryvhgjrn6xecenycpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dsyarcr7

Publishing to

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

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Last Notes

2026-03-16 20:59:12 UTC

The most difficult things are often exactly what our souls need, even though we shrink from them.

2026-03-09 14:30:51 UTC

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Protect them both

2026-02-28 11:30:19 UTC

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Be safe

2026-02-25 21:09:14 UTC

When we bought chicks for this year, my wife noticed a chick that was too weak to stand. She chose to buy that chick specifically, and spent the whole day holding it and feeding it with a dropper.
It died snuggles against her.
I’m reminded of how much I love her.
https://blossom.primal.net/da5856d468e1280b17d95500a760969bb3d7f0441d6cf2b84a4fbf015459dddb.jpg

2026-02-09 15:58:23 UTC

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So who is making a Nostr-based discord alternative?

2026-01-30 22:03:55 UTC

The imperial boomerang from Gaza is coming back already.
Our leaders are corrupt and now average citizens are “terrorists” they abuse at will.
Dark times for our nation…

2026-01-26 05:36:16 UTC

We said goodbye to you tonight

2026-01-11 14:34:40 UTC

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You’ll need this memory when he’s a teenager!

2026-01-09 18:49:43 UTC

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I feel the same way about Nostr. It’s the lone, chaotic bright spot in the otherwise corporate-captured internet!

2025-12-25 02:38:20 UTC

Jesus sought me when a stranger, wandering from the fold of God.
He, to rescue me from danger, interposed his precious blood.

2025-12-22 03:42:20 UTC

I was born in darkness but I leave in light

2025-12-13 13:11:16 UTC

Hope drives away despair, just like light erases darkness

2025-12-03 00:58:41 UTC

I can’t bear to lose you again

2025-10-29 04:47:26 UTC

I wish I could rewrite your story. You put the gun in your mouth but instead it misfired. You called me back and said you were sorry. You lived to be old. You were beautiful and good.
If I could write that it feels like I could keep you alive, but I'm not good enough a writer.

2025-10-19 02:53:03 UTC

I miss you so much already

2025-10-16 19:41:42 UTC

May all of your suffering be a prelude to joy…

2025-10-09 02:11:03 UTC

So much of life feels like throwing a party where everyone RSVPs but no one shows up

2025-10-01 18:01:47 UTC

Just finished a short story.
Tomorrow it will be time to reread it with fresh eyes and decide if it's worth editing to the point that others can read

2025-09-29 22:18:41 UTC

We look into each other’s eyes and believe we understand that which is looking back at us, but we do not...
We are gazing into a mystery that may only known through reverence and love.

2025-09-23 22:03:33 UTC

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I think people enjoyed it because it was silly and campy like the old Superman movies. It may have been mid, but compared to the race to the bottom of all superhero movies to be the darkest and grittiest it felt like a relief

2025-09-11 04:07:21 UTC

The world is flooding with rage bait. They want us all convinced that we are surrounded by enemies who must be destroyed before they destroy us.
Instead choose peace…
“Love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you.”

2025-09-08 14:53:47 UTC

I care about too many people, so life is a constant heartache.
I wouldn’t have it any other way.

2025-09-04 03:41:14 UTC

Atlanta in September
https://blossom.primal.net/9cd7806f1e06f87a2f49aefb4404ef19b31de485b744c8f4f0bdd2e51f27ecbd.mov

2025-08-31 13:37:54 UTC

I still think of you

2025-08-27 12:54:49 UTC

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“The Unbearable Lightness of Being” by Kundera, or “The Buried Giant” by Ishiguro

2025-08-17 04:50:20 UTC

What ever happened to free spirits?

2025-08-15 02:16:02 UTC

Backyard urban farming
https://blossom.primal.net/d864d8cbd38410da97fbb3a4174be68e276a1dca968ed979ad83c2ae118c26a1.jpg

2025-08-06 16:18:28 UTC

All the agonies were just so we could finally recognize the glory

2025-08-01 14:25:19 UTC

We all love severely flawed people.
This is the nature of love.

2025-07-15 12:02:57 UTC

We live in a world that buries us in distractions to protect us from the spiritual agonies of being lost and saved.
I need no more noise… Give me quiet agonies instead.

2025-07-06 04:21:20 UTC

A little chaos is good for the soul

2025-06-29 23:41:05 UTC

The biggest trick the devil ever pulled was assuring us we could change the world.
We can only change ourselves.

2025-06-29 00:20:51 UTC

We bragged on our sins
…and then wondered why we hurt all the people we ever loved.

2025-06-26 01:34:58 UTC

Living a life is much harder than it looks

2025-06-26 01:23:36 UTC

Living a life is much harder than it looks

2025-06-24 02:06:59 UTC

We are always dying and being born again
https://blossom.primal.net/a945558d23f1378e836dd7b0eb4b964aaccc9469323900f37dabee03ff453767.jpg
https://blossom.primal.net/8aab52c8b25a1e91173eb5716fb2928cd9299263e2e2bed2eca41764daf50443.jpg
https://blossom.primal.net/f1c95fc3ba595406cf99004d250dc1ec16e8453947ea4bfc6816693ebc2aca79.jpg

2025-06-24 01:50:31 UTC

Please count me out

2025-06-22 03:54:21 UTC

Will killing our fellow human beings really make it better?

2025-06-20 04:04:13 UTC

The sweetest ache is knowing you hold something beautiful, even as it slips through your fingers...

2025-06-18 04:26:55 UTC

The worse the world gets, the more and more thankful I am that she is in it

2025-06-17 12:36:20 UTC

The only war that we should be pursuing is the war with our own inner shadows.

2025-06-17 12:35:51 UTC

"Don't plant me inside your heart. I'd outgrow you."
-Rilke

2025-06-01 14:55:35 UTC

The hope of Resurrection

2025-05-30 11:50:49 UTC

I think my soul is tired

2025-05-25 05:11:27 UTC

Most Americans who reject Christianity do so not because Jesus is intolerable, but because Jesus has become intolerable to American Christians.
We have replaced Jesus Christ with a golden calf of cruel ideology that is the opposite of his teachings.
Shame on us.
We should be rejected.
We should repent.

2025-05-12 14:21:05 UTC

City backyard farming! New additions to the henhouse once they are older.
https://blossom.primal.net/a45f7002904d0aebab43e0e1bc52681b30f91f8061dba2bcc560f5da190eaaba.jpg

2025-04-21 01:08:53 UTC

Because Jesus has passed through death and returned as life itself our story cannot end in death and darkness.
Frailty will break us. Despair will overwhelm us. Death will swallow us.
…but this is cannot the end of any soul’s story because resurrection has come into the world.

2025-04-14 11:24:37 UTC

Last night I had a dream that I was in a cavern in which time passes differently in each place, and I was digging to find a place where time would not pass so quickly.
I imagine this is the kind of dream one can only have in the second half of a lifetime.

2025-03-22 21:06:32 UTC

You find much greater pleasure in life once you realize that a pleasurable life isn’t the goal of living…

2025-03-12 23:36:29 UTC

The best response to the loud, cruel stupidity of our world will always be the quiet, calm resolve to love our neighbor as ourselves despite everything

2025-02-15 04:34:47 UTC

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Compatible belief system aren’t a prerequisite for cooperation and compatible lives. We can love each other without believing the same doctrines. Otherwise it just ends up a war of all against all.

2025-02-15 04:18:52 UTC

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TLDR: If Elon Musk’s grandparents kept the laborers on apartheid reservations and treated them as second class citizens when they had all the economic and political power…
what’s to stop Elon Musk’s grandchildren from doing far worse to our grandchildren when AI gives them all the political and economic power AND all the labor?
Future generations may be dependent on the altruism and egalitarianism of the billionaire class, which currently sounds like a grim prospect

2025-02-09 02:31:42 UTC

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It’s so sad that American Evangelicalism often teaches a cruel dogmatism about God that makes atheism feel like the better alternative

2025-02-09 02:26:55 UTC

There is a kind of peace that is only found after leaving the turmoil

2025-02-06 13:56:05 UTC

Nations rise and fall, but it’s our responsibility to rise regardless

2025-02-05 14:40:10 UTC

I love how Maximus the Confessor describes the final end of the human soul as “ the ever-moving rest.”

2025-02-02 22:19:14 UTC

What if the purpose of life isn’t to have wonderful experiences?

2025-01-29 00:19:20 UTC

Watching the misery parade

2025-01-15 14:39:06 UTC

We live in the most perfect reality possible.
The only flaw has always been ourselves.

2025-01-05 05:20:03 UTC

It is a delight to find contentment in all the little beauties of life you never expected
…like seeing wind making trees gently sway.
How have I live this long and not seen the glory of God in tree branches in soft wind?

2025-01-01 04:52:53 UTC

May this be the year we listen respectfully to those we disagree with…
May it be the year we think charitably about the other…
May this be the year we love our enemies…
…and if the world doesn’t change for the better, then I start by changing myself

2024-12-26 01:45:00 UTC

Pronouncing patients dead on Christmas has me reflecting on the incarnation:
The source of all life became frail and died like us, so that we might be caught up in His life.
May He be born in each of our hearts to bring life and love in all this darkness…

2024-12-03 15:29:25 UTC

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Check out “The Buried Giant” by Ishiguro. It is my favorite fantasy novel

2024-11-30 02:51:14 UTC

The only truly just war is the war with one’s self…
We must always be gentle with all others, but no matter how bruised and bloodied we must never let our worst self defeat us.
This is the only noble struggle.

2024-11-27 02:46:34 UTC

The greatest delusion of the modern mind is its ability to look at living reality that is bursting with purpose and still say “The universe is dead and meaningless.”

2024-11-23 05:22:53 UTC

Whenever I am tempted to despise a person I remember that the whole universe is working to transform them into someone who is radiant with the goodness of God, and even their vileness and its consequences are part of that perfect process
…and the same is happening to me.

2024-11-20 00:52:19 UTC

Life is a hard place and we need each other, so never give up on a friend

2024-11-06 10:43:59 UTC

When people are told they have to pick the lesser of two evils, don’t expect them to always pick your preferred evil.
Americans should actually vote for good candidates (even if they are 3rd party) until major parties either nominate good candidates or become irrelevant.

2024-11-03 15:56:49 UTC

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Rewriting is always the tough part. Can’t wait to read it, Lyn!

2024-11-03 05:44:40 UTC

I spent today riding from Louisiana to Georgia by train and writing a short story.
I can’t think of a better writer’s retreat than that.

2024-11-01 16:34:54 UTC

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Don’t you just hate it when you make a typo and you can’t delete the note?

2024-11-01 16:05:54 UTC

Nostr is so much better than Twitter. I just wish more people I knew and admired where here

2024-09-22 00:05:33 UTC

The more frantic the world becomes the more important it is to meditate on that which is eternal and changeless

2024-09-07 13:31:59 UTC

Love will change the world, but not if we restrict it to merely the love that makes our emotions swell.
It is the love that includes forgiving our enemies, giving with no hope of receiving, and waking at 5 AM even when we are exhausted that will brighten the world for us all.

2024-09-02 12:54:21 UTC

I love to awaken in the mighty and hear her breathing beside me

2024-08-20 03:09:24 UTC

When you have no idea what you are doing, do it confidently!

2024-08-14 12:02:15 UTC

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A Hidden Life

2024-08-14 11:59:53 UTC

Be in the darkness, but never let the darkness be in you

2024-07-24 15:53:58 UTC

I want to tell a story that matters

2024-07-01 20:51:01 UTC

The dilemma of being in one’s late 40s:
Is the world really getting worse or am I just falling into elderly sentimentality?

2024-06-18 15:03:06 UTC

Successful art is art that is a joy to create
…others connecting with that joy or even the the art becoming famous and celebrated is always secondary

2024-05-31 21:55:19 UTC

Live a life infused with love

2024-05-31 21:54:32 UTC

https://m.primal.net/IUQs.jpg

2024-05-28 12:44:11 UTC

“Woman is the creator of the universe,
the universe is her form;
woman is the foundation of the world,
she is the true form of the body.
In woman is the form of all things,
of all that lives and moves in the world.”
-from Shaktisangama Tantra

2024-05-18 21:16:11 UTC

The world is constantly trying to sell you rage, resentment, and anxiety…
Invest in love and forgiveness instead.

2024-05-04 12:12:22 UTC

The world is constantly trying to sell you rage, resentment, and anxiety…
Invest in love and forgiveness instead.

2024-04-23 21:40:56 UTC

None of us have loved deeply enough

2024-04-18 22:32:48 UTC

Learn resilience. Practice discipline.
The path of least resistance will punish you far worse than you ever expect.

2024-03-22 15:09:09 UTC

We live in a commonplace world and yet our stories, both ancient and recent, are rife with magic and miracles…
The external world may be mundane, but we are innately magical beings.
The miracle of our consciousness upends the universe.

2024-03-18 20:18:41 UTC

I am beginning to think happiness is a state of mind, and I'm not going to let any circumstance steal joy away from me

2024-03-15 15:21:13 UTC

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We are here, and I’m loving the replies here for finding the other literary Nostr folk!

2024-03-15 15:13:54 UTC

The splendor of simply being alive is enough

2024-03-08 00:15:07 UTC

I’m really trying here, but it’s a lonely road

2024-01-22 02:57:27 UTC

You broke my heart a thousand different ways, but it always grew back stronger

2024-01-07 02:25:34 UTC

”No being is incurable to the One who created it.”
-Origen of Alexandria

2023-12-29 01:53:44 UTC

“Suffer the little children to come to me”
…because we are all frail children in the face of the immense Love that gave birth to the world.

2023-12-15 04:15:14 UTC

Life is made of miracles and wonders, but you never paid enough attention to recognize them

2023-12-09 20:12:47 UTC

Happiness isn’t having life give us what we want. Life will hurt us in thousand ways, large and small.
Happiness is knowing how to survive the storm and walk out with a smile on our face…

2023-11-08 03:47:55 UTC

I was just thinking how nice Twitter was back in the day
…before corporations, political parties, and a billionaire all decided to manipulate it for their own ends.
It felt like a public square back then. The place you went to discuss and meet anybody in the digital world, the place where you found your particular tribe of misfits. I made so many friends on that app back then!
It felt like it was ours and we could never lose it. Now it’s an emotionally vacuous space full of cynical con men, shrill politics, and viral stupidity. No one really lives there anymore. They just go to gape at the ghastly spectacle.
NOSTR really feels different. It isn’t a public square yet, but it really can become one, because this time it doesn’t just feel like ours.
It is ours.

2023-10-15 16:02:09 UTC

Communicating the incommunicable