How It Works

opensourcebs is a refusal.

It is a refusal to keep consuming ever-larger portions of externally packaged “wisdom” under the assumption that we are fundamentally incomplete. It is a refusal to accept that becoming a tolerable human being requires constant optimization, perpetual self-surveillance, or subscription-based enlightenment.

The modern self-help industry thrives on an unspoken premise: that there is a finish line called making it, and that everyone else is behind. That premise is not neutral. It manufactures dissatisfaction, then sells relief in increasingly supersized doses - books, programs, retreats, frameworks, acronyms, morning routines. Each promising clarity just beyond the next purchase.

opensourcebs exists to challenge that loop.

This is not an argument against growth, reflection, or care. There is real trauma in the world. There are moments when professional, structured help is necessary and life-saving. That work matters. This project is not a substitute for it, and it does not pretend to be.

This is not a justification for bad behavior. You are not "whole and complete" if you are causing physical, emotional, or psychological harm on another being. If you are causing harm, there is work to be done, and this likely requires some professional help to get moving in the right direction. This is NOT Big Self Help acting to tell you to consume and consume and consume. These are professional health providers ready to help you see past your blind spots and we highly recommend you be gentle with yourself and others while you do so.

What opensourcebs is about is the average person who is already functioning, already thinking, already trying, yet feels perpetually behind because they have been told improvement must be constant, visible, and never complete. The idea of “Constant and Never-Ending Improvement” has been normalized to the point where stopping feels like failure, and contentment feels suspicious.

We reject that framing.

You are not a beta version of yourself.
You are not a backlog of fixes.
You are not required to optimize your personality to justify your existence.

opensourcebs is a rallying cry to step out of this phantom race. To notice how often dissatisfaction is taught rather than discovered on one's own. To question whether the pressure to improve is actually making us better or just busier, noisier, and easier to sell to.

This project uses satire, essays, revisions, and open discussion to expose the mechanics of “Big Self Help” without replacing it with another system you’re supposed to follow. There is no program here to complete. No promised transformation. No ideal version of you waiting on the other side of compliance.

There is only an invitation: Look inward, find and love who you are, consume advice on "improvement" with the proper amount of skepticism, and trust that being whole is not something you earn after enough work - it is your starting condition.

If that resonates, you are already participating.

How this spreads is intentionally simple.

opensourcebs does not rely on virality, funnels, or conversion tactics. It spreads the way ideas always have - through people reminding other people that they are allowed to stop chasing ghosts.

That starts locally. In conversations. In moments where someone is quietly exhausted by the pressure to become “better” and needs permission to stand still without apology. If this project resonates with you, the first way to help is to say so out loud to someone else.

The second way is physical.

We place opensourcebs books into independently owned bookstores, free of charge. Not as consignment. Not as a sales experiment. As a deliberate interruption in a space that still values browsing, curiosity, and unconscious consumption. We hope to disrupt a bad pattern and show a good pattern is possible, inexpensively and with care. The bookstores may then charge what they wish. It is 100% profit for them (and maybe just a smidge of embarrassment).

If you want to help get the word out, you can help fund the placement of these books. Your contribution covers printing and distribution. Nothing more elaborate than that. In doing so, you may also recommend which independent bookstores receive copies. The only requirement is that they are locally owned. No chain stores. No algorithms. No bulk buyers dictating taste. No players already interested in providing more sales for Big Self Help and perpetuating the cycle we hope to disrupt.

This is not about scale for scale’s sake. It is about presence. A book encountered by accident. A voice that sends them relating with themselves in a loving way as a complete work of art. A sentence read without being targeted. A reminder found on a shelf that does not ask the reader to become someone else before they are allowed to rest.

If that feels worth supporting, this is one way to do it.