Daryn Kagan's Soft Landing From the Hard-News World

This makes sense, because the bland spirituality we recognize from Successories posters, the spirituality that has seeped into so much of our culture, operates less on biblical principles than Industrial Age ones -- the idea that things naturally go from worse to better and that hope and good old-fashioned American gumption can transform any tragedy into something beautiful. This way of viewing the world has a long legacy, from tent revivals to motivational speakers, from "Queen for a Day" to Oprah.

American optimism, packaged and sold as it is, has its own idiom. Athletes speak the language of uplift when they talk of "playing from the heart," and entrepreneurs when they say "live your dreams." For Kagan, who reads books like "The Power of Intention" and "The Unmistakable Touch of Grace," the language of uplift comes easily. She talks enigmatically about what she considers the crucial difference between "the be's" and "the do's."

"I was always focused on the do," she says. "Oh yeah, here comes another D.A.K.-ism. I'm a recovering do-ist."

What?

"If I could go to Do-aholics Anonymous, I would be, like, the poster child."

Kagan won't talk about her old flame, Rush Limbaugh, from whom she parted ways last year. "I don't discuss Rush," she says. But she is eager to share the "freaky amount" of good things that have happened to her since she started her Web site.

When she needed a publicist, she found out her publicist friend needed a job, and when she needed an editor, she got an e-mail from a fellow who was perfect. When she realized her domain name was already owned by a cyber-squatter, she got it back for free by appealing to the squatter in a loving fashion.

"Let's test this out," she says she decided. "What's this Web site about? Is it about love or hate?"