Something must happen

Even after 35 trips around the Sun, I’m still left wondering what to do here. I hope that’s not a surprise. No one else has it figured out either.

Because of the Internet, though, we think we could know it all. Or at least we can look it up.

More than a decade ago, stand-up comic Pete Holmes was joking about this idea on Conan. He proposed that with everything at our fingertips, we’re not a lick smarter for it. Holmes said that “the time between not knowing and knowing is so brief that knowing feels exactly like not knowing. So life is meaningless.”

Jokes aside, Holmes drove home the point when he said, “There is no time for mystery or wonder.”

Or, as author Arthur Camus once wrote, “Something must happen – and that explains most human commitments. Something must happen, even loveless slavery, even war or death."

We’re supposed to do nothing but seize the day. Especially in America.

Food is fuel. Meditation is a productivity tool. And traveling for an engaging Instagram photo is a worthwhile pursuit. But taking the time to daydream or journal or, god forbid, be a little bored - well, that’s unacceptable.

This isn’t some elaborate way to say I didn’t celebrate turning 36 a few weeks back. I had a great time! Some of my bestest friends and I ate pizza and talked nonsense in the park. My girlfriend ordered me a mint chocolate chip ice cream cake. The sun even cooperated and didn’t feel quite like a burning hot laser beam for an early September afternoon.

Now, though, there is time for mystery and wonder.

I’m curious how to define a good life going forward without being compelled to know everything all of the time?

Forget pedophilic pizza joints or pharmaceutical fortunes, the ultimate conspiracy is against the slightest bit of boredom. They used to want your money, now they want your attention. And in exchange, they give us everything we think we want. Or worse, what they think we think we want.

Author Mark Manson explained on his blog how endless information has jaded us and desensitized us with choice:

If I read an article today telling me that processed grains are harmful, there will be three articles telling me tomorrow that they’re fine, and then another article telling me why all of the previous articles were wrong. By now, I don’t even care anymore. I don’t trust any of them. The abundance of contradicting information scrambles my brain and makes me just want to go play Mario Kart for an hour.

We think we need the answers right now. All of them.

But they’re not always out there to discover. Sometimes they’re inside you.

And sometimes, on birthdays, you need to sit down and reflect.

Author and artist Austin Kleon wrote, "What you do determines what kind of attention you pay to the world. What kind of attention you pay to the world determines what you find in it."

There is time for mystery and wonder, if you make it.

And, hey, while we’re at it, I’m trying to figure something out without looking it up. You know that one-hit wonder by Harvey Wallbanger? It has the line - “I’m paranoid, I’m paranoid, that everybody’s coming to get me”? What movie was that featured in? Was it Can’t Hardly Wait? Or American Pie? Or some cool zombie movie I forget?

Let me know when you find some time.

Taking notes again

It’s been awhile, huh?

What have I been doing!? What have you been doing, buddy? Get off my back!

I gave up writing almost weekly back on my 34th birthday. It wasn't some catastrophic goodbye, I just took a step back. Maybe you didn't even notice. Like author Steven Pressfield once said,  “It isn’t that people are mean or cruel. They’re just busy. Nobody wants to read your shit.”

It's cool. I've been busy too. With stuff. But here I am writing again, and here you are reading it again.

What's the big idea?

Well, since you’re reading this, you know I’ve written a lot about goals and productivity in the past. And, with the new year high motivating us all, you'd think I’d start that shit up again. But, honestly, I’m still not certain I know what I’m talking about. I’ve accomplished some things in my life, sure, but I’m no expert.

Instead, I want to start taking notes again. I want to nudge my curiosity. I want to explore.

What can you expect? Well, I've also written about parasites, choice paralysis, psycho-cybernetics, and drilling a hole through your skull to unleash the creative juices. So, something like that, I suppose. 

Psychologist Steven Pinker said, “When you write, you should pretend that you, the writer, see something in the world that’s interesting, that you are directing the attention of your reader to that thing in the world, and that you are doing so by means of conversation.” And that's what I want to do.

Because life is so much more than your resolutions. Hell, most people are done with them in less than three weeks. Ordinary life settles back in. And we can always use a reminder to make the most of that. Author Ryan Holiday wrote about this everyday beauty: “The soft pawprints of a cat on the dusty trunk of a car. The hot steam wafting from the sewer grates on a New York City morning. The smell of asphalt just as the rain begins to fall. No one would say these things compare to the Everglades or a violet sunset over a decaying ruin or a chance to witness a virtuosic performance. But which is more common? Which will you find in front of you more often?"

That's the deal. I'm here to share my notes. I hope you enjoy.

And with that being said, check out these notes from the week:

• Need a new documentary? Hulu delivers with Vice's Dark Side of the 90s series.

• GoPro isn't always X Games mode. They recently shared their Top 10 Animal Encounters.

• Angry Harrison Ford points at stuff too. Like a lot.

• If you're still hungry for some goal-setting resolution goodness, I like this Struthless and his most recent video "How to Change Your Life in 2022"

Getting steps in on the staircase of consciousness

Last year, before I went quiet, I wrote about the Ziegarnik Effect, or our desire as human beings to complete unresolved tasks, to close loops.

One year later, and turning 35, I can still see plenty of evidence to support it. I happily got vaccinated against coronavirus. I returned to jiu-jitsu and the gym and seeing my family and friends without worrying I'd be contagious. The company I work for got acquired. Another company I worked for went public. My brother got engaged. My best friend moved to Texas. I started dating again. And I'm still flipping toys on eBay.

What's the plan for this 35th year around the Sun?

Well, I still have plenty of things I want to do. Thank god. And turning one year older is a great opportunity to bring my attention back. To exhale the troubles of the world and the habits I didn't know I didn't need and start fresh.

One thing I didn't do much of in my 34th year was write. As a matter of fact, I didn't write any weekly emails here at all. Funny how life can fly by.

Initially, I took the time away to work on my business. And while I'm still doing that, I'm waking up to the need to write again. In one of the best books I ever read on writing and life, Bird by Bird, author Anne Lammott said, "Becoming a writer is about becoming conscious." How could I not use more of that?

Lammott also writes, "You look up and stare out the window again, but this time you are drumming your fingers on the desk, and you don’t care about those first three pages; those you will throw out, those you needed to write to get to that fourth page, to get to that one long paragraph that was what you had in mind when you started, only you didn’t know that, couldn’t know that until you got to it."

Maybe I needed to take time off, maybe I didn't. But here we are with a new chapter and I'm ready.

And, naturally, as consciousness-seeking goes, I always end up back at the ultimate question - What are we all doing here?

Neuroscientist Andrew Huberman tried to describe how he saw the meaning of life on the Lex Fridman podcast. He noted that human beings have been able to find significance in the depths of space or from the dirt floor of a jail cell. Astronauts have experienced the Overview effect, a shift in consciousness while flying outside the Earth's grasp, while historical figures like Viktor Frankl and Nelson Mandela have found purpose in the absolute worst of conditions. Huberman concludes that it could very well be that our purpose in this universe is to travel that ladder of consciousness, gathering wisdom from the big picture and the immediate present, going back and forth as often as we can.

With all that being said, turning one year older doesn't automatically bring some revelation. Tomorrow won't be wildly different from today. It's the slow accumulation of it all. You have tons of chances to step back, reflect, and move forward. I have plenty of aspirations and I have some writing to do. I want my 35th year to be more curious, more generous, and more patient. And it all begins now.

Thanks for reading,
Dan

Closing the loop on 33

It's been a weird year for us all. I'm happy to report, though, that there is some satisfaction in finishing my 33rd trip around the big burning ball in the center of our universe.

Every new beginning comes from some other beginnings' end, so now I find myself back at the start with renewed energy.

You could chalk this, and so much more, up to the Zeigarnik Effect - a psychological phenomenon that explains how unfinished tasks are harder to forget. If we open the loop, we want to make sure we close it. It's the reason we're drawn to cliff-hangers, clickbait, and that thing you can't remember that you need to do and the gnawing sensation that you'll never figure it out. YouTuber Will Schoder described the Zeigarnik Effect as a "desire for cognitive closure". 

It's pretty simple - finish what you start. Stomp the small fires. Clear your mind. 

Some loops close themselves, like another year alive and well. But others are not so simple. If the Zeigarnik Effect explains why we do what we do, no wonder we're equal parts stupefied and fascinated by the ultimate mystery of all - consciousness.  Without a shred of evidence to confidently close this loop, we're left to answer it for ourselves.

We connect the dots and make up stories. That's all it is. And whether we're right or wrong, it's so easy to forget. Maybe by design. Joe Rogan explained it best in one of his earlier comedy specials and I've never been able to shake it - "You know as much as anyone about what life is all about as anybody whose ever lived ever."

I've been realizing lately how much my mind tells me I'm doing it all "wrong". I punish myself with how I might fall short - not reading enough, writing enough, lifting enough, or dating enough. But if no one can confidently say why we're here, who says I'm doing it all wrong too? Why not change the story so it works for me?

Because as philosopher Alan Watts said, "Making plans for the future is of use only to people who are capable of living completely in the present."

And right now I'm 34 and still happy to keep trying to figure it out.

One day, we'll get there.

A weekend of thinking like a freak

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A weekend away was definitely needed. And then I came home to some sweater weather vibes, and it was even better.

I went upstate this weekend to visit one of my best friends, Jess. Another friend, Danielle, and I drove four hours up to Jess' house, not far from the Canadian border. She moved up there for the room to mush. Jess has nine dogs (mostly huskies) and she writes about her adventures. Plus, she recently acquired a gaggle of chickens. She has a small garden too and she even fed Danielle and I a salad of her own growing!

It was a quick weekend for the amount of driving we did, but we made the most of it. We caught a few eyefuls of a meteor shower one night. We went into town for some diner breakfast (in a local park) and then rooted around a antique & flea market. We chased the dogs around her property, took a few tours with her ATV, floated around the local reservoir, and grilled up some burgers before sitting in front of the fire.

I don't know if you necessarily ever signed up for this newsletter to read about my adventures, but there they are. As a matter of fact, I can't say I know why anyone has subscribed to my newsletter. (Most likely you know me or knew me at some point.) For years now, my writing has been all over the place. It all started during a cross-country roadtrip and morphed into my musings about personal development. Lately, I've tried to offer some sliver of perspective in this wild and crazy world. But this week I don't have anything profound planned and I don't think I can sort it out before the weekly machine gets cranking again.

Right now, I'm just happy. And I think that's the ticket. Sometimes it's too much to worry about all the big stuff. Call me irresponsible, but lately I think we can all agree the world is much bigger than one person can handle. We can all shout from the rooftops, but at the beginning of the day, you still need to feed the chickens and let the dogs out.

This weekend made me recall a bit in Think Like a Freak, another book from the Freakonomics' authors Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt. They described the premise of thinking like a freak as thinking small, not big. Why? "For starters, every big problem has been thought about endlessly by people much smarter than we are."

I'm ready to think like a freak. I'm ready to write about the small stuff in my life. And have more fun.

That's not easy for me to say. I feel like I should always do whatever I can to make the world a better place. But somewhere along the way, we started convincing ourselves we needed to be serious to make an impact. Dubner and Levitt thought differently and I think I'm taking notice. They wrote, “Why do so many frown so sternly at the idea of having fun? Perhaps out of fear that it connotes you aren’t serious. But best as we can tell, there is no correlation between appearing to be serious and actually being good at what you do. In fact an argument can be made that the opposite is true.”

With that being said, let's check out some links from the past week:

Just like me, Casey Neistat admits "i don't know what im doing anymore"

Comedian Andrew Schulz drops the hammer once again - TikTok & Ellen Share Evil Secret

I frickin' love Dan Soder's word choice. Check out his stand-up bit - A Week with Grandma

If you watched Love on the Spectrum on Netflix and you need more, you're welcome - Where are they now?

Rob Lowe was an incredible guest on the Joe Rogan Experience recently. He has an infectious zest for life and a ton of killer stories and insight from the decades of his successful career. Here is a piece - "What's the Point of Being Famous Today?"

Until next time...

The satisfaction of stomping small fires

There will always be dishes. There will always be dust.

I try to keep this as a mantra to remember that there will always be problems to solve.

Responsibility can be one of those maddening realities of life. No matter how hard you work out, ice cream won't be healthy. Driving a thousand miles won't make your car any cleaner. Leaving your kid in the woods won't guarantee wolves will raise them. Bills need to be paid and toilets need scrubbing.

We pretend that's not the reality, right? Somehow there must be a solution for everything! If there isn't some form of technology or tool to fix the problem yet, we need to get working on it. Dishwashers take care of the dishes, unless you get all your food delivered. A car or a bike or a scooter are all available to rent and save you the trouble of walking anywhere. And who reads books? Why can't you just look it up?

We want to speed toward some near future where robots will do everything for us, so we can do what exactly? If you didn't need to cross off the duties of adult living, do you think you'd get down to the deeper stuff? Or would you make more little problems for yourself?

Size aside, problems are part of being human. Whatever fire inside us that led the party out of Africa is the same one burning while we live through this godforsaken year. Why fight it? Why not take comfort in the fact that there is no way around the dishes, the dust, and wiping your butt?

There is satisfaction in it all. We might be good at finding problems but that's only because we're up for the challenge of solving them. There is a life-fueling energy associated with putting on a big ol' boot and stamping out a decent boot-sized fire.

Author and artist Austin Kleon wrote about this topic in a blog post titled The cube (in praise of solvable problems). Reflecting on solving a Rubik's cube and the process of replacing doorknobs in his home, Kleon wrote:

“When so many of life’s problems are unsolvable, solvable problems are a wonderful distraction. When so many things seem unfixable, fixing something feels amazing.”

While our country fights to reform the police and corral a deadly pandemic with no clear end, a problem with a clear solution is a treasure to behold.

I'll give you an example that had me thinking about all this. Last week I found myself glued to my living room table. With a strange shortage of thoughts in my head, I focused everything I had on making sure a thrift store puzzle had all its pieces. In the time I put 300 pieces in order, the sun went down and my take-out pizza definitely got a little cold waiting for me to pick her up. I just had to finish.

But this clearly human endeavor does not mean we pick up the sword every time. As satisfying as seeing a solution through can be, when we're left without a solution, we become drained. It can sabotage the present moment. You can be vacationing in paradise but you can't stop thinking about that memo you left unsigned or that email you left unsent.

We need to pick and choose. We can't solve them all. We can't even attempt it. If you task yourself with one too many, maybe saving the world and watching all of Netflix, you're bound to head for trouble.

You can only handle what you can. So why not seek out some small fires?

With that being said, let's take a look at the interesting stuff I found this week:

Looks like the deadline for TikTok is fast approaching. But all the talk about banning the Chinese app had me wondering what the big deal is. Enter: The Atlantic - Why America is Afraid of TikTok.

Late July, Congress questioned big tech on the expanse of their power. It was a perfect time to revisit this NYTimes article: I Tried to Live Without the Tech Giants. It Was Impossible.

Netflix recommendation: Love on the Spectrum

I've often found Stephen Crowder's Change My Mind series really interesting. Not because anyone successfully can change his mind (usually on a college campus), but that he articulates a controversial (usually conservative) perspective so well. It's a welcome change to the mindless shouting points on both sides. Check out: The COVID Death Count is Inflated.

Need some lighter fodder? Watch people do what they do best - Failarmy: What a mess.

Until next time...

Exhausted by info

By the end of the day, I just want to watch something stupid. Something mindless. My brain is completely spent.

The Internet Age offers up everything that's going on in this world with no end in sight. But because we’re able to plug it in and digest, we think we can handle the enormity of it all. Newsflash: We can't.

The issue was never the information itself. The world has always been too large for one person to fathom. The issue is we try. We squeeze stories where they don’t belong, in between the seconds of our already complex lives. You could be enjoying a nice meal and still guzzle down some violence on the other side of the globe. You could wake up and wonder what your friends are doing on social media, only to hear about some natural disaster tearing up communities not too far and not too different than your own. 

You’ve been on the internet, you know this. I’m not saying anything new here. 

The idea of a limit should be enough to remind us that we can’t save the world. We can only shift one slice at a time. To care about everything means you care about nothing because to genuinely care requires time and attention. And we know there is only so much of that stuff. 

I get the irony of sharing my own thoughts, but I started wondering about all this after reading an Atlantic article titled Hygiene Theater is a Huge Waste of Time. Author Derek Thompson wrote, "COVID-19 has reawakened America’s spirit of misdirected anxiety, inspiring businesses and families to obsess over risk-reduction rituals that make us feel safer but don’t actually do much to reduce risk—even as more dangerous activities are still allowed. This is hygiene theater."

We yearn to do something, anything in the face of this confusing void of existential dread. And we've decided on disinfecting shopping carts. Now get out there!

Echoing the thoughts of a Rutgers microbiology professor, Thompson continued , "...an obsession with contaminated surfaces distracts from more effective ways to combat COVID-19. ‘People have prevention fatigue,’ Goldman told me. ‘They’re exhausted by all the information we’re throwing at them. We have to communicate priorities clearly; otherwise, they’ll be overloaded.’"

It's too hard for us to admit - it might be better to know less. We feel like we're being bad people by not subjecting ourselves to awful things. It's not to say you should shield yourself from every injustice, but you need energy to fight some fights, not all of them. And opening your heart to the entire world’s woes will never end well.

I'm not suggesting we all throw our phones in a lake, or go full nihilist and watch the world burn. We can just turn the faucet down a bit. Because maybe we would be better to one another if we weren't so zapped of our energy all the time.

I'll end here with a small personal victory I didn't know I achieved until it was happening. In the light of the pandemic, I've started to call my parents daily. Separately. Mom in the morning, pops in the evening. And it's been nice just to catch up and say hey, especially since neither of them are working. But what I've found with my father is not what I expected. In the light of a global pandemic and a renewed fight for civil rights, we end chatting about anything but the weather.  We've bounced from child psychology to redlining neighborhoods to the heyday of WWF wrestling to the return of national sports. And on more than one occasion, I've been surprised in the best way possible. I don't know if it's age or grandchildren or something different in his diet, but he has softened. Or at least tried to see some things from another perspective. It's subtle but it means something. 

With that being said, check out some of the best links I found this week:

It's been so long since the days of Step Brothers, Tropic Thunder, and Pineapple Express. It's hard to accept that they might not come back.

Andrew Kirby makes a case that habits are overrated and we should instead make the main thing the main thing.

When Wokes and Racists Actually Agree on Everything (video)

Sometimes I feel like if I've seen one parkour video, I've seen them all, but this New York Rooftop POV footage had me locked in as soon as it started.

Mark Manson on How Information Overload Can Destroy Your Mind

Nerdwriter never fails and when he decides to tackle action director John Woo, you know you're in for a treat.  

Until next time...

It just does

"I have an immune system. It will take care of it."

That's the kind of quack medical assurance I've heard from several middle-aged people who think they got this global pandemic thing licked. Close to 150,000 dead, but they know their immune system well enough to declare victory. Well, blow me down. 

It must be nice to have such faith in your body. The same body that betrays you every time you drink one too many or think that burrito will land in your stomach just right this time. Why not go ahead and play in a junkyard or a sewage plant while you're at it? Don't worry, you'll walk out fine.

No one is saying you can't strengthen your immune system, but this is not what these confident idiots are doing. They're simply building up faith in something invisible, something unpredictable, and something even doctors don't fully understand. Why do some people get this virus? Why do some shake it off? And why do others suffer? No one knows for sure.

Leaving your responsibility to a system you don't understand means you're free to do whatever you'd like. The system will take care. And these people are not alone, I'm including myself. Before the pandemic, I thought prolific use of hand sanitizer did more harm than good. I believed jiu-jitsu was one of the best ways to stay healthy, despite the high probability of injury. I figured mediation wasn't for me cause I tried it for a month and saw not one superpower. 

Joe Dirt discovered this deflection of responsibility too. In arguably one of my favorite films of all time, Joe finally found himself in front of his parents. He had been searching for them ever since he was young and the family separated during a trip to the Grand Canyon. But when Joe found them, as an adult man, he also found the courage to confront them about how exactly they didn't go right back to the Grand Canyon when they found out he was missing. Dirt's father nonsensically replies, "Hey, how exactly is a rainbow made? How exactly does the sun set? How exactly does the Posi-track rear end on a Plymouth work!? It just does."

But of course we know rainbows are made when the sun is behind you and water particles in the sky refract the sunlight at different angles. And we know a sunset happens when the Earth rotates enough so the sun peeks out its head and wakes up way too early. And Posi-Track? Well, that's a shortened generic term for the GM-branded name "Positraction." It is a type of limited slip differential. Duh.

Just because something has a name doesn't mean we understand it. 

Benjamin Hoff points this concept out simply in The Tao of Pooh:

Curious: "Why do birds fly South for the winter?"
Scientist: "Instinct."

It means, "We don't know."

What I'm trying to say this time around is we should all be sure of what we don't know. We don't know how this virus works. Or how our immune system functions. We might know how a rainbow is made, but why? That's only a guess. All we can do is what we've evolved to do - explore. Just like Dirty Joe Dirt, we need to keep searching and never settle for less.

And with that being said, let's check out some other cool stuff I found this week:

A big inspiration for this week's piece was the animation for John Lloyd's TED talk - What's invisible? More than you think.

The YouTube algorithm got me with this title - New Study Reveals Why You Procrastinate (Not Laziness or Time-Management) It's an interesting perspective for something we've all already talked about a million times over.

If you have $4 and you need a 90's action comedy, I highly recommend renting Three Ninjas on YouTube. I watched it like crazy when I was a kid but kidnapping surfer dudes getting murdelized still gets me. 

Did you know if you get high enough you can see that rainbow isn't a bow at all? It's a circle. Dude.

Talkin' about invisibility, why is no one rich and powerful acknowledging the horror of Ghislaine Maxwell? Comedian Andrew Schulz might have a theory.

Until next time...

To feel like a robot

We all know what's good for us. Some water, some veggies. Maybe a little bit of exercise. Sunscreen.

But do we always make sure we get enough? No. Why? Because we don't feel like it.

It might sound selfish or stupid but I'm starting to think that it's true.

I've been reading Mark Manson's Everything is Fucked, A Book about Hope. What better time than now, am I right? But Manson doesn't break down civil unrest or capitalist alternatives, he examines what could be at the core of our problems and solutions. Manson explains what he labels the Classic Assumption - that our feelings have always been inconsequential, in the way, and meant to be squashed by our superior Thinking Brain. A bunch of philosophers (and others) thought this way for a very, very long time and it still creeps into modern life. Manson explains:

“We want to believe that the ability to do something is as simple as deciding to do it and mustering enough willpower to get there.”

But if you've ever tried to do anything at all in life, you'll know there is more to anything than just driving top-speed head-first to victory. It turns out the Classic Assumption ignores what's at our core - our Feeling Brain. That's right, all that mushy stuff. But it makes us uncomfortable to remember that beyond our meat suits, we're full of squishy feelings too. We aspire to be robotic. 

But the world is not only made of thoughts, and no matter how hard we suppress our feelings, they exist. Why not recognize them and their worth?

I'll give you an example of my own. I must have gained weight during this pandemic. I just ate so much ice cream. Okay, maybe not too much. Just, enough. Consistently. Like every night. But no matter how much I tell myself I want to lose weight, I keep resorting to that dairy goodness. Now, I could either think about this as the core failure of my Thinking Brain, a constant miscommunication of willpower, or I could recognize that I want ice cream comfort more than a flat stomach right now. And maybe until I want to feel fit more than I want that glorious desert every night, I won't make a change.

It's clear feelings can be stupid sometimes too. We all need to know that by this point. Our ancestral impulses are toward sugar and violence. And there is no shortage of reasons to eat candy and punch assholes. Sometimes we just need the discipline to power through. 

Recognizing the distinctions between your brains reduces goals down to getting clear with yourself. You need to recognize your feelings and impulses and the cockamamie narratives swirling all around you. You need to prepare a plan of attack despite your emotions. And at the end of the day, maybe it's okay to let your brain argue with itself. Somehow we'll get through it all.

With that being said, feel free to take a look at some more cool stuff I found this week:

Radiolab has told stories that left their audience in awe and in thought over the years. Now, in a new TED talk, Radiolab host Jad Abumrad reflects on how Dolly Parton showed him a third way.

This week, Joe Rogan interviewed journalist and author James Nestor about breathing. Yes, breathing. The two left me wondering about the most fundamental of life's actions.

Talk about robots - NPR wrote about a COVID-19 Success Story In Rwanda: Free Testing, Robot Caregivers

Ironically, Better Ideas starts slow with his latest video, How overstimulation is ruining your life, but it hits the core of what we all could use right now.  

2:30am at a 7-11 near Disney World - 1987 (video)

Until next time...

You need space to be curious

Since the world shut down, it's never been easier for me to write consistently. Beginning back in March, I could hole myself up in my apartment and grab ideas out of thin air, sometimes as late as Saturday morning. Even as America started to loosen up a bit more amidst worrying pockets of outbreak, I kept the publishing habit alive. This week was different. It has been the hardest week yet for me to figure out what I wanted to say.

I started to wonder if I should be sharing my thoughts at all on a weekly basis. It was a consequence of more than a couple people unsubscribing lately. I get it. Most were friends of careers past. I don't blame them for not needing another voice in their heads. But a few more people deciding they don't need my thoughts made me wonder if we all needed a bit of space. After all, here I am writing about my writing process. Do you really need this?

Maybe you're curious. I know I am. That's why I write. To understand. To explore. But the world never stops delivering, and sometimes that can cause more harm than good. Information is so instantaneous it almost sucks the fun out of it. There is no time left to wonder and see where our weirdest thoughts might go. 

Plus, to know it all doesn't mean we understand it all. Having the world in our hands does not mean it makes sense in our minds. UC San Diego professor Dr. Barbara Oakley highlights some of these "Illusions of Competence":

• Seeing or reading an argument doesn't mean you understand it or how to get to it.

• Googling tricks your brain into thinking you have the information in your head.

• Spending a lot of time with material doesn't mean you understand it.

But with a world moving at breakneck speed, we crave certainty more than ever. We want someone to box up the justification for our feelings with statistics and zingers and a bow on top. 

What we really need is exactly what we don't get - quiet and time and space. Maybe there is such a thing as too much, but we're only stretched in a thousand directions because think we need to be. We make bold statements of certainty because that's what we expect.

What if it was our job to discover things we didn't know? And what if all the good stuff took time? What would we do then? 

I'm trying to find out. 

See ya next week. Maybe.

With that being said, here are some videos that gave me food for thought:

Nathaniel Drew is probably the reason I recently started thinking about curiosity as a concept. He considers it the key to a more interesting life. I have to agree.

Diogenes: The Philosopher Who Urinated on People (The Less You Want, The Happier You'll Be) (video)

Need some laughs? Billy on the Street never disappoints. In this clip, he drags around Lin-Manuel Miranda and it's adorable.

In this clip, author/artist Austin Kleon talks about his inspiration, Corita Kent (video).

Until next time...

Stretched along the superficial

Five hours.

Last week I started recording my screen time and now I know that I average almost five hours of every day looking at my phone. Like Hootie and the Blowfish famously sang, "Time, why you punish me?"

Of course, there is no correct amount of time to fiddle on a phone, but it left me wondering - what's my intention here?

We all know the unique allure of modern technology. You're reading this email after all. We're all addicted, what's there left to say? But five hours is not just five hours. It is the consistent warping of our neural circuits. How can you ignore a black mirror that offers the entire world on a technicolor treadmill?

Because of this immense power, though, we end up reacting to the world instead of taking part in it. Author, chess prodigy, and martial arts champion Josh Waitzkin said it this way: "We obviously live in a world that bombards us with information, and we feel the need to respond to stimulus as it comes in. The problem with this is that we get stretched along the superficial outer layers of many things."

And that's by design. Even before Silicon Valley took note, we've been compelled by novelty. It's so much easier to react. Like a Roman emperor, we feel empowered by the direction we point our thumbs.

To go deep requires more - more energy, more thought, more attention.

Technology offers to think for us. It takes the heavy mental load off of imagining what we truly want. In return, we offer our time and attention. And we can't help it, as humans, we take the shortcut. After all, you need to spend a day somehow and French philosopher Blaise Pascal said it best, way before the internet was even a spark in your mom's eye: "All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone."

Without technology, you're left to your own devices. You have to rely on your own brain to figure out how to spend the day. And I don't know about you but I own a whole bunch of movies I've never seen and I still scroll through Netflix without picking anything.

It's not easy, but it can be simple. Imagine the power of knowing what you really want to do instead of just reacting to what you don't. Imagine using technology instead of it using you. Imagine taking a second before spending the next.

There is potential in technology, we just need to know how to use it. Only then can we do the hard work to get to the bottom of things.

With that being said, let's check out some of that good content that makes you think thoughts like these:

Amidst all the uncomfortable social media arguments, there is potential in technology - Google Sees Surge in “Am I Racist” Searches Amid Protests

I love watching people lose it while laughing. If you do too, enjoy comedians Tom Segura and Bert Chrysler loose it over the fact that Bert drinks a gallon of Kool Aid every day.

Need more comedy? Hannibal Buress dropped a brand-new red-hot special called Miami Nights. On top of being hilarious, Buress uses some dope editing and audio tricks that make it feel even more special.

Blogger/author Mark Manson dropped a new article this week and I felt like it was meant for me. But maybe it was meant for you too - 3 Reasons Why You Make Terrible Decisions (And How to Stop)

I finally took the time to watch a years-old Will Schoder video entitled How To Remember Everything You Learn and I was not disappointed. I'm going to be thinking about this one for a while.

I've never wanted a house more until I realized I could have a "garage bar". See what I mean in this New York Post video.

If you're curious about the journey of my reselling side-hustle, Flipshark, you can check out my June monthly report.

Until next time...

Believing your own bullshit

I don't think we talk enough about the voices in our heads. I'm sure we're talking around them when we're uncertain about the state of the country or annoyed by what someone close to us did. But recognizing those voices on an individual basis requires a bit more focus.

Every moment of every waking day your mind is chattering on. Sometimes you notice it, sometimes you don't. Sometimes you just go along for the ride, but other times, if you just sit quietly enough for a minute, you can see how scrambled the signal can be.

I remember when I experimented starting a regular meditation practice many moons ago, my mind would make a desperate attempt to get a reaction. I would notice and try my best to release the thoughts about how to spend my day or how my body felt at the moment, and then my mind would dig deeper for some stranger thoughts to throw out. I'd be reminded of a time I bullied someone in my childhood. Or my very short stint working at Blockbuster. Or a quiet picnic lunch I had one time in Canada.

But the best, and arguably the most challenging, characteristic about this whole slot machine of thoughts is that you can decide how to decipher them. You don't need to believe everything you think.

A woman named Cecilia once shared a frightening example of this on an episode of Special Books by Special Kids, a YouTube interview show with people in the disability and neurodiversity community.  Cecilia explained to Chris, the interviewer, the circumstances of her life with schizophrenic hallucinations, and how she lives with regular visions of a violent clown.

Fuck.

Of course, it's an extreme example of an unfortunate disorder, but I think it stands to show us we can harness this incredible strength too. We can decide how to interpret the world around us. We can choose not to overreact. Your initial observation doesn't need to be your final conclusion. You can take a minute and a breath. You can ask yourself some questions.

And I find that to be the weirdest and also the most powerful part. You can question yourself. Your mind can fire off thoughts left and right, but you still have the ability to wonder right back, "Is that true, or am I just hungry?" Or, when faced with a particularly complex problem, you can ask yourself what author and entrepreneur Tim Ferriss regularly prescribes, "What would this look like if it was easy?"

Beyond the questions for your spastic, bubbling mind, there is the ability to get ahead of everything with the power of intention. You might anticipate your mind to act in a certain way but you can choose to drown it out. In a study out of the University of Kent in Canterbury, England, researchers found that cyclists coached in encouraging self-talk could stave off their personal exhaustion levels longer than those without. Basically, they learned to focus on encouraging words, or mantras, like "feeling good", to almost coax their mind that exhaustion was not a necessary option at the moment.

I'm sure there is so much more to what I'm trying to say, but I'm glad to get this bit out. To know that just a few words could turn the tide is reassuring. It's simple but it's not always that easy. But, hey, at least I'm feeling good.

With that being said, why not let your mind ponder the best finds of the week?

Gary Vaynerchuk can be a polarizing character, but I think video rings true to the anxious ambitious types and it's worth watching Watch This Before You Make Another Decision (video)

Kelly Stamps drops some sassy modern philosophy with how i remain unbothered (video).

We all know I adore Mark Manson, author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck. His latest video (Why You Will Never Be Completely Happy) brings down the hammer on the hedonic treadmill and explains how we might be able to jump off it.

And if you liked that, check out Ryan Holiday's latest - You Must Live an Interesting Life

Until next time...

Don't choose tomorrow

My worse days are those without plans. I know that's probably nonsense to most, but I know I'm not alone. I tend to short-circuit. My brain just cannot wrap itself around catching up on reading, taking an extra-long bike ride, tackling a freelance writing project, or completely crashing on the couch to watch something ridiculous.

When presented with a choice, philosopher Alan Watts said, you can never take in enough information. There is an infinite number of future scenarios to build in either direction. A mandala domino butterfly effect your brain can't possibly fathom.

But for reasons I'm sure any back-alley therapist could tease out, my obsession with making the best possible choice is a reverence for the future. Every step of the way you're taught to work for something beyond now. You work hard to graduate with honors. You work hard to get into a college. You work hard to get a job. And then you work hard to succeed with all the other things adults do. Except now you have a brain hard-wired to look forward instead of relish the opportunity to chill right fuckin' now.

If I could calm down, I'd recognize a good day is several cups of coffee, maybe an opportunity to clean up my place, a visit to a few thrift stores, a movie screening, some ice cream with friends, and not too much social media before bed. But there are plenty of days where I'm disappointed in myself for not doing something bigger and something more (whatever that means).

The Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius said it simply, “You could be good today. But instead you choose tomorrow.”

Author Ryan Holiday echoed the idea on his blog when considering the dreams of adults - "I’ve always found it’s better to think about what I want my ordinary life to look like most of the time. Then I try to make decisions based on the simple metric of whether they allow for more or less of that right now."

We're all striving to some extraordinary greatness, some singular moment, but what if we recognized that it's more difficult to just be? Wouldn't that be the more impressive feat? To transcend our monkey minds? You're going to have many more ordinary days in your life. Why not make them better? After all, what good is achievement if you can't enjoy it?

There are examples of this struggle everywhere. Besides my own, I saw two this past week alone.

On the latest season of Queer Eye, the Fab Five help a young woman in college realize that the amount of stress she's put on herself to combat climate change is ruining her time on present-day Earth. She cares so much about the cause that she's painfully wound up. There are no boundaries between work and play because she lives with other volunteers. It's hard to watch. But of course JVN and the crew show her how to take some time for self-care and why it can only end helping her fight the good fight.

I also caught a Gary Vaynerchuk clip where a young man approaches Vaynerchuk somewhat privately to thank him for his time and also ask what to do with his life. The young man explains that he grew up in a turbulent home and turned it all around by growing a 100 million dollar company from scratch. But he still wakes up every morning with a chip on his shoulder. In his trademark snap judgment, Vaynerchuk barely flinches and suggests he go deeper. He mentions therapy and the young man flinches. Vaynerchuk doubles down - "You gotta get the poison out."

There is deep, internal work to do. There is definitely always regular work to do too, but if we want to get ahead of all the future plans and enjoy our precious time here, we need to start paying attention.

With that being said, let's enjoy what else the week brought:

The School of Life: Why You Don't Need to Be Exceptional (video)

In one of the most bizarre stories of the recent past, Hellboy actor Ron Perlman challenges Ted Cruz to $50,000 charity wrestling bout.

VICE: COVID-19 Broke the Economy. What If We Don’t Fix It?

Another celebrity here to tell us that getting everything means nothing - Rapper J.Cole on The Disease of More

I started off this week thinking I'd write about propaganda and subtle cultural signals. as time went on, my thoughts morphed to what you just read, but Cold Crash Pictures' video "Sticking it to Poor People in Real Life and THEY LIVE (1988)" still has me thinking. Plus I need to watch They Live!

Until next time...

Jumping In The Lake Instead Of Laughing

Imagine you bought yourself a new, expensive outfit. You're feeling real good about your choices in life, so you decide to strut your stuff and show the neighborhood what's up.

Suddenly, you notice a child, all alone, struggling to stay afloat in a nearby lake. No one is around. Now, they look like they're drowning. Naturally, you know if you don't do anything, this child won't make it. Would you jump in?

Of course, you would! You're no monster - clothes be damned. But ethicist and philosopher Peter Singer developed this ethical thought experiment to ask something else. If you can't ignore a drowning child in front of you, how can you ignore those in trouble all around the world?

It's an uncomfortable realization, to know you're not and you can't do everything to help those most vulnerable among us. We're more than seven billion strong, there is no way one person can do it all. Besides, you have to put on your own mask first, right?

We're tasked with the impossible - to balance the responsibility of staying informed about our world on fire and meanwhile trying not to lose sleep or our minds. It can be too much. We're forced to make smaller circles, to focus on "our own".  To draw a line, even for a drowning child somewhere else, because it's "not my problem". It has to become a little bit of everyone's problem. And that's why we have society. The expectation is we could all chip in and take care of the least fortunate among us.

But there is an even more insidious flaw to the system - schadenfreude.

You might not know the word but you've felt it. If you grew up with America's Funniest Videos or even giggle as much as I do when someone trips, that's schadenfreude. It is the German word for taking pleasure in others' misfortune.

The Nerdwriter made a fantastic video on the idea back in June 2017. Which, to be honest, feels like a lifetime ago. He explained that schadenfreude might exist as a reaction to our constant internal comparison to others. When someone else experiences an innocent misfortune, we get a little boost. Almost like "thank god I'm better off." Or maybe it's more wholesome, and we just like to see someone struggle and realize we're not alone.

But what The Nerdwriter explained was how Trump unknowingly introduced schadenfreude to politics. He didn't do it on purpose. He's not smart enough for that. He was just his arrogant, bombastic self on the political trail. Media, both social and traditional, registered our delight in watching him look stupid as genuine interest. And they fed the country more and more. Until he won.

Almost four years later, it's not funny anymore. It can't be. We can't even laugh at an unpolished orange when he can't drink water properly because we're too busy noticing all the children in the lakes.

What schadenfreude sidesteps and this thought experiment highlights is that if we strip it all away, we're on the same team. You can take pleasure in the misfortune of your enemies but that doesn't make anyone better. It only fuels the fire between us.

We need leaders that care. We need the people that will jump in the lake. And I know that's a tall order, especially with our current choices, but I want to see some heart. I no longer want to be entertained 24/7.

Dave Chappelle knows. With his latest special "8:46", arguably the best comedian of all time gathered people, outside, not far from his Ohio neighborhood, and didn't try to make them laugh. He channeled the world's pain, bridging gaps, the only way he could, between stories of his own and others, stories of history and our current struggles. He even took the time to ask the audience - "Is this weird?" And you have to wonder too - is it weird to not want to be entertained anymore?

Okay, that was a heavy one but, like everything else it needed to be said. I hope I can find more fun for next week. In the meantime, let's check out some of the cool shit I found on the internet:

Scientifically-sound advice is hard to come by during a novel pandemic. This week, The New York Times provided a guide to hugging and I think it's what plenty of us need right now.

In need of some more responsible journalism about our nation's current debate - Police: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver

Some say a film is made three times. We know the directors and the writers, but we never celebrate the editors. With that being said, there is probably a very important filmmaker you've never heard of and it's probably because she was a woman.

Need some uniquely funky tunes?

• Louis Cole turns a house upside down to perform - F it up

• MonoNeon performs 'Fallin' and I found my favorite YouTube comment ever below it - "Man that blanket can play."

If you were moved by Chappelle's special and you want to learn more about how history got us here, I highly recommend 13th on Netflix.

An author of more than a dozen books and a personal daily blog running entries into the thousands, Seth Godin is never short on ideas. A recent entry titled invisible insulation is worth reading.

Until next time...

The bottom line

We always forget there is a bigger picture, don't we?

That's probably our biggest problem as human beings. There is just too much to take in and never enough time to make sense of it all. So we become pretty crappy detectives. We sniff out some clues and piece 'em all together with some duct tape and staples. But hopefully we're always learning because not everything is as it seems.

Somebody looks cute on Tinder but that first date reveals some unfortunate breath. A movie trailer gives you chills, but fifteen minutes in you're falling asleep in your popcorn. Cops start hugging protestors and dancing together in the streets. 24 hours later they're cracking skulls on the pavement.

We can't see it all, but we need to keep our eyes open.

Back before peaceful, hard-working Americans went to war with bulletproof pigs, Amy Cooper gave the cops a jingle. Remember her? She was the white lady that wanted to report a black man in Central Park with the audacity to ask her to leash her furry best friend. Christian Cooper, the black man in question, decided to capture the situation on his phone. I don't know much more of the context than anyone else but the video shows plenty. It was broad daylight. Christian was soft-spoken while he captured the situation. No one was touched or even attacked, except maybe the dog as Amy struggled to keep it leashed.

In her apology, Amy Cooper tried to explain the whole thing away. She told CNN: "I'm not a racist. I did not mean to harm that man in any way." Maybe if she took an extra second, though, she would recall how they paved the road to hell.

Christian Cooper did accept her apology after all, but he told CNN, "I'm not sure that in that apology she recognizes that while she may not be or consider herself a racist, that particular act was definitely racist."

And there is the difference. You can perceive yourself one way while the world sees something else.

I can almost understand Amy Cooper. I get it, you spend all day with you, don't you? You choose what to eat and what to binge on Netflix. You forget the bigger picture and you start to convince yourself that you are the personal god of this small world. You couldn't be a racist. You would know if you were a racist, wouldn't you!? You know you try your best, how can someone tell you any different?

Okay, I feel like I'm diving into some seriously deep philosophical waters and I don't know how to swim all that well.

What I can wrap my head around is whatever Stone Cold says. When a fan recently felt the need to justify the Confederate flag on one of Stone Cold's Instagram posts, the beer-chuggin' professional wrestler opened up a fresh one. He responded: "That’s nice and all but if I recall it don’t matter what it means to you because to African Americans everywhere it’s a symbol of oppression, hatred and inequality so your little ‘heritage not hate’ story don’t mean shit because your stupid little heritage was built on the backs of slaves and identifying with that kinda sorta definitely makes you trash in the Texas Rattlesnake’s eyes. So you can continue to spew your bullshit but just know that none of us care ya dumb racist sumbitch and that’s the bottom line."

I can't believe I'm typing this sentence, but what Stone Cold understood and Amy Cooper didn't is that it's not always about you. Marching for racial equality is not about you. Wearing a mask in a global pandemic is not about you. Voting is not about you. It hurts to realize. We are all in this together, but sometimes you could be selfish. It means sometimes you're wrong. And you don't want to accept that the world can see your actions as any different than what you thought they were.

Some people don't even consider this possibility for decades. They have a real tough time swallowing it when the rest of the world is pissed off at the way things are.

But you can always take a step back. People can always change and that's what gives me hope.

And if you really don't know where to start, the beginning is usually a good option. As Austin Kleon wondered on his blog, "What is it about fixing small things when the big things are broken? What is it about solving tiny problems when faced with problems that seem unsolvable?"

You can always do something. It might seem silly and small but you can read a book or watch a movie. Educate yourself in a way you might never have. It's the only way to see the bigger picture, to look outside your view.

If you need me, I'll be doing the same and cracking two Budweisers in solidarity.

With that being said, let's review some wild shit I found this past week:

Movies worth adding to your Watch List for very different reasons: Sorry to Bother You and Jawbreaker

Need some wholesome fun? Biking, Skateboarding & More | People Are Awesome Vs. FailArmy (video)

If you enjoyed the first, Julie Nolke is explaining the pandemic to herself again.

Another example reason to eat more ice cream - Ben and Jerry's statement in response to Black Lives Matter and the death of George Floyd

Need more reasons to question the good of social media? Sure you do:

• The Man Who Built The Retweet: “We Handed A Loaded Weapon To 4-Year-Olds”

• Facebook will pay $52 million in settlement with moderators who developed PTSD on the job

Until next time...

Go beyond the default

This is probably way too big of a topic to start and finish in one week, but it's been on my mind and that's why you're here.

The David Foster Wallace quote I shared last time really sent me for a loop. I can't stop thinking about it, so I'll share it again:

“Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship–be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles–is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.”

For a brief moment in high school, I considered myself a Born Again Christian. I left Christianity behind again when I came to the revelation that everyone chose their religion. (Don't ask why it took so long.) Most times, though, it was just a product of their upbringing, not some personal enlightenment or deep study to find out their way was the one true way.

Now I can't say what I worship. Most days I'm probably unconscious by default. I don't give too much thought to the biggest of questions, even if I'm writing about some of that stuff here. I'm often just going through the motions to make a living, hang out with my friends, try and find a hunny in the midst of a global pandemic, and write a few blog posts. 

It's easy to be unconscious. The easiest, some would say. Because as Russell Brand eloquently points out on his podcast with comedian Duncan Trussell:

“What we have done is acculturated our appetites, the appetites that are just there to ensure the survival of the vehicle we’re in, like eat food or the vehicle will shut down, have sex or that’ll be the end of the line. We have, in a sense, deified through culture those impulses. We’ve sort of sanctified them. In one way, the question is not whether or not there is a divine, it’s where we apply our divine impulse to, what we apply our divine attention to.”

We've gone so deep that you might even consider spirituality taboo. Just the word conjures up images of crystals and tarot and moon phases. Meanwhile, the American capitalist dragon continues to blow flames. We're supposed to keep working with our heads down. 

Both Buddha and the Notorious B.I.G. tried to warn us - more money, more problems. You might tell yourself that one day you'll have enough, but it doesn't work that way. You get used to it all. The hedonic treadmill only has one speed. 

We all know by now how Jim Carrey articulated it, right? He said, "I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it’s not the answer." I don't think Jim Carrey would lie to us. Ace Ventura? No way.

Ultimately, I think the wanting and the getting and the struggle and the sacrifice is all about finding some peace. You want cash because it brings security. For a bit. You want a spouse so you're not alone. Most of the time. And it's not that any of these goals are inherently bad, but they are attempts to find what can only come with worshipping something larger.

It's hard to imagine being fine with being quiet or poor or owning little, but it is possible. We're just so indoctrinated into the message that we should be rich and winning and fed and fucking. We're surrounded by it.

But if you take a breath and a look around, you might just wonder, what's the big picture? Isn't there more to life than just the wanting and getting? Is there more to all of this? I can't say for sure, and you wouldn't believe me if I did. The good news is the choice is yours.

---

With that being said, let's check out some of the other stuff I found this week:

I took some extra time this weekend to articulate how I felt about George Floyd, Black Lives Matter, and the country's current situation.

You might have seen the story by now but nearly half of the Twitter accounts discussing "Reopening America" may be bots. The Internet is not real life.
 

Mask On or Off: You’re Both Wrong | Andrew Schulz

Casey Neistat never fails. Check out his latest video: FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS

What's taboo in your country? | Around the World | Cut 

VICE: Metal Drummer Rethinks Relationship With Satan After Nearly Dying From Coronavirus

If you liked anything I shared here, you might get a bigger kick out of a longer clip between comedian Duncan Trussell and actor Russell Brand

Until next time...

Virus Be Damned

Our ancestors might have made a big mistake a long time ago.

Yuval Noah Harari seems to think so. In his book, Sapiens, Harari declared, "The Agricultural Revolution was history's biggest fraud". Our ancestors, at one time, were forced by a harsh climate to stay still. They had to replace foraging for farming. They went from a world of abundance to obedience. And while this hard work might have meant more food, it also required more people to do the work, until food production and human reproduction rolled into one big continuous mess. It might have been necessary to survive but it left no way to turn back. 

We've come a long way from that transition, but the idea of constant growth has burrowed itself deep in American's roots. We've seen it strike a fever-pitch lately while 100,000 are dead and others are desperate to go back to business as usual.

But comedian Patton Oswalt had a great point this week on the Joe Rogan Experience when he recalled that the only thing that grows forever is cancer.

Or, you know, maybe a global virus.

Did we ever pause to consider if the growth we're working toward is worth it?

Paul Jarvis has been wondering about this for some time. I stumbled on his blog this week. Even though he's been writing since 1997, I guess I never came across him before because he makes it a point not to exalt growth. As a matter of fact, he wrote a piece remembering the days when growth was a byproduct of a blog. If a blog (or anything) was cool enough you'd share it with your friends. Now, growth has become the sole focus. Something is nothing if thousands aren't following. Viral content is the only way to succeed.

But in regards to the goal of making viral content, Jarvis wrote that "creating for everyone means you aren’t creating for anyone specifically. And this the state of content online currently: for it to matter or be valued, it has to be seen by as many people as possible and creators will do almost anything to make that happen."

He continues, "By chasing the current state of content we can lose what made the internet awesome in the first place: unique voices, sharing specific ideas, for a tiny subset of folks interested in them, clicks and viral-ness be damned."

Like our ancestors, we keep going forward until growth is no longer a question.

YouTuber Anna (of Anna's Analysis) explored this idea alongside the online fascination for #vanlife. You've probably had at least one friend dream out loud about making a career by driving a van around the world. But for all the fancy drone footage and beach-side lounging, Anna reminds us that there is a ton of grueling and boring work behind the scenes. Living in a van for the sake of social media means hours of editing videos and getting the perfect photo. If you're driving, you don't stand up for hours. If you don't want to gain a thousand pounds on drive-thru food, you need to learn to cook in an enclosed space. And if you're not stopping at public toilets, you're probably driving your shit around with you.

Worse of all, as Jarvis echoes, you're always subconsciously surrendering your life for content, for clicks, for growth.

Bringing this reality into focus is key. Author David Foster Wallace wrote about it in This is Water: "Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship—be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles—is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive."

Wallace says if you worship money and things, you'll never have enough. Worship beauty and you'll always feel ugly, especially as you get older. He continues, "On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness.”

I think this pandemic is bringing the idea of growth by all means right up to our eyeballs.

Buzzfeed News Reporter Anne Helen Petersen wrote a heavy article titled "I Don't Feel Like Buying Stuff Anymore" about (a duh) what happens when people can't and won't buy things to keep the economy afloat. Among the stories, this 56-year-old Utah woman resonated with me the most:

"Ann misses musicians coming through the area; she’s worried about how dips in tourism will affect everyone she knows. But she also refuses to participate in a plan to revive the economy that places the burden on the consumer. “After 9/11, and again after the 2008 recession, there was the idea that consumers should somehow patriotically spend to revive the economy,” she said. “And who benefited disproportionately? Billionaires. This time, the billionaires can do the heavy lifting, not me.”"

If you're particularly cold-hearted and probably winning, you might say this is how the system works. Some people win and some people lose. But it doesn't need to be this way. Jeff Bezos doesn't need to be a trillionaire while some people in this world can't even get clean water. Fuck outta here.

At the end of the day, maybe the growth of food, of communities, of the world that damned our ancestors is what keeps us together. We're all stuck in this mess right now, but it doesn't mean we can't get out. It doesn't mean we can't find a better way. Maybe all we need to do is seek the truth right in front of us. Recognize it. And find a purpose for all, that won't eat us alive.

And on that weighty note, let's check out some of the cool shit I found surfing the Web this week:

YouTube Karsten Runquist took the time to highlight one of the funniest and absurdist SNL shorts you've probably never seen - "Dear Sister". Find out why.

Comedian Andrew Schulz discovers how Tekashi 6ix9ine and Trump are the same, and how that unfortunately explains everything.

With all this time at home, I've fallen down a deep rabbit hole of Apartment Therapy tiny home tours. It's been great for making me realize how I can make my apartment into my home. And even with most around three minutes long, there are some adorable vignettes of the lives of extraordinary, lovable people. Some of my favorites include: Ashley Ford's Brooklyn Apartment, "Younger" Star Molly Bernard's Brooklyn Home, and A Pop Art Museum In A NYC Apartment.

If you like Paul Jarvis, I recommend subscribing to his newsletter. Or, if you like video, check out his interview with Matt D'Avella - A Minimalist Approach to Business.

Carlos Maza (formerly of Vox) has started making independent videos. Coronavirus and America's death cult is his dark look at neoliberalism (and how you define it). It's worth the watch.

Until next time...

Time Enough at Last

I don't know about you, but I thought the quarantine would be a lot more fun.

If all we had to do was stay home to stay safe, I could watch a few seasons of Community and chow down on some Ellio's pizza for the good of the world. But as we're all finding out, flattening the curve does not mean life is going back to normal right away. And the Internet can't keep us content forever.

I started this week with the idea of writing about the meaning of life. You know, simple stuff. But then I got stuck thinking about a particular Twilight Zone episode - "Time Enough at Last".

Spoiler alert: I'm about to talk about a Twilight Zone episode from the 1960s. If you want to watch it, it's on Netflix right now. It's a twenty minute masterpiece. I'll wait.

Okay, if you didn't end up watching it, this is how the story goes - Bespectacled bank-teller Henry Bemis loves nothing more than books. Enough that it distracts him from his job and makes him the ridicule of the bank customers, his boss, and his wife.  But then, one day, as he steals away, inside the bank vault to read on his lunch break, uninterrupted, a nuclear bomb turns civilization, as he knows it, into toast. He crawls out of the rumble to find silent chaos. When he finds a gun among the rubble and starts to realize how utterly alone he is, he slowly puts the gun to his head. But then he notices the demolished library nearby. With such a disaster, Bemis realizes he has nothing left but time to enjoy the books his old life never let him read. Until suddenly he stumbles and shatters his glasses. Our poor Bemis is left, in solitude, screaming into the void, "It's not fair!"

I feel you, buddy.

Like any good Twilight Zone episode, there is plenty to read into here. But what I'm taking from it is how Bemis had no one to share with. We're left with no clue how he bagged a wife who hates his hobby and his guts, or how he landed a job that required him to work with numbers instead of words. All we know is Bemis loves reading and no one understands or cares.

In one particular scene, Bemis' eyes light up behind his coke-bottle glasses when his wife, uncharacteristically, asks him to read some poetry to her from one of his books. Only when Bemis cracks open the book, he finds that his wife has scribbled all over the pages. (Enough that you can imagine it took her quite a ridiculous amount of time to do.)

Because of Bemis' misfortune, I'm starting to see more than ever that life is not about the things we dream of doing, but how we can share our time with others. Consider it for yourself - If you could do all the things you ever dreamed about, but never share the experiences or the memories with anyone, would you?

I don't think I could. It strangely doesn't feel worth it. If you're thinking that's a bit of a no-brainer from a guy with a weekly blog, you're right. But it's one of those hard truths that always requires a reminder. And unfortunately for now every day delivers.

We all miss the people we're lucky enough to love. And since we can't be around them enough to share our time, we stay home and turn on the tube. But the world is only so entertaining until you smash your glasses.

What I think I'm trying to say here is that we're not going to entertain our way out of this. Life as we know it is being challenged. I don't know how we can be around each other safely just yet, but it's worth a shot. We need to be thoughtful so we can be together.

And hey, I guess, in the end, I did write about the meaning of life after all.

Now, that we've settled that, let's check out what cool stuff fell in front of my face this week:

• One of my favorite bloggers, Mark Manson, is not putting out some high-quality video. Check out his latest: Why We Do Things We Hate
  

• Last Week Tonight's did a piece of why the United States Post Office is so integral and awesome for our country. It's worth the watch.
  

• I went back and listed to Joe Rogan talk with entrepreneur and angel investor Naval Ravikant. He's a serious thinker and drops some heavy knowledge on how to get rich, fit, and happy.
  

• We're all wanting for some actionable advice in this pandemic and professor Erin Bromage delivers some specifics in a clear, concise way with The Risks - Know Them - Avoid Them.
  

• If you caught the sensation that is Parasite, you might enjoy Lessons from the Screenplay's latest video - Parasite vs. Sunset Boulevard — The Disillusionment Arc.
  

• Hilarious - Everyone is doing social distancing wrong except me

Until next time...

Business as usual?

Everyone craves "normal" right now. Some think it's possible soon. Others question the idea of normal altogether.

You can probably already guess where I'm going with this, right?

Close to a hundred years ago, economist John Maynard Keynes thought the future would be so technologically advanced that the traditional work week would be a thing of the past. He thought we would eventually be able to work 15 hours per week. The defining problem of our lives would not be where we see ourselves working in five years, but what to do with our pretty, little lives right now.

Obviously, Keynes was a moron for even suggesting such a thing. The people need their nails done, you communist!

Because if we're not working, what are we doing? It's a question that's currently terrifying the nation. The need to be productive is in our blood. It's the defining characteristic of humans - we can't sit still. Our minds race our feet to the next destination. And America is #1.

We've brainwashed ourselves to always be productive. Even as our death toll reaches an overwhelming 3,000 per day, there are movements to get the people back to work. But to what end? Author Douglass Rushkoff struck the core of the argument in an article titled We Wish to Inform You That Your Death Is Highly Profitable. He wrote, "Trump’s message is clear: The economy is not here to serve human beings; human beings are here to serve the economy". He continues, "And we’re witnessing how the same exponential growth that gave the billionaires their fortunes is responsible for the fact that 40% of Americans have less than $400 in the bank for an emergency."

Why do we do it? Why don't we fight back by demanding more? Or better yet, sitting still? 

My guess is the uncertainty is worse than a crushing reality. But the reality is it's all a bit uncertain. People just don't know how to live without the norms. We can't imagine not working.

I can barely imagine not being productive at all. Just because I'm writing this doesn't mean I have the answers. I'm not immune. I spent the first hint of spring, a few weekends back, wrestling an existential crisis. It was a beautiful sunny afternoon and I had no idea how to handle it. Not in a "it's so beautiful" way, but more like a "what's the exact right task that would define my life right now" way.

It doesn't help that questioning the Almighty Economy or Things As They Are often results in a sideways glance.

Exactly because I find myself with these regular existential crises, I made the decision to negotiate working four days a week earlier this year. It wasn't a quick decision and it wasn't free. I explained to The Management that my work wouldn't suffer and I was willing to prove it on my own dime. But the worst argument I heard against it was often: "If you could finish five days of work in four, what can you do with five?" 

That's not how this works. A human being is not a productivity machine. A corpse is not a customer.

It's all made up. Five days. Forty hours. Salary with benefits. Just because it's what we do doesn't mean it's what we need to keep doing.

I'm not calling for anarchy, I just want something different. If you look closely enough you catch glimpses. Amazon VP Tim Bray resigned this past week and made it clear in a blog post why. Amazon had fired several workers for demanding better working conditions after some warehouses workers tested positive for coronavirus. Bray saw the firing of the whistleblowers as "evidence of a vein of toxicity running through the company culture." And in a Shakespearean twisting of the dagger, he continued, "I choose neither to serve nor drink that poison."

How do I deal? Whenever I feel myself leaning too far into the capitalist hellscape, I pull The Tao of Pooh off the bookshelf. It's short but powerful book that explains the tents of Taoism through the narrative of our simple Pooh Bear. I re-read it this past week and I've been thinking about the concept of the Bisy Backson a lot. Benjamin Hoff, the author, describes a Backson as someone "almost desperately active". Think Gary Vaynerchuk or Elon Musk. Backsons don't appreciate the simple, the plain, or the calm of nature, like a Taoist Pooh Bear would. Hoff explains, "It's not surprising, therefore, that the Backson thinks of progress in terms of fighting and overcoming. One of his little idiosyncrasies, you might say. Of course, real progress involves growing and developing, which involves changing inside, but that's something the inflexible Backson is unwilling to do."

Maybe that's what we need now. It's not to fight to go back to "normal". It's just about time to re-evaluate what we can do, and not do anything at all. 

But if you still want to do something, why not check out some of the best finds of the week:

• A good companion video to these thoughts is Wisecrack's The Office: How Nonsense Conquered the Workplace
  

• Need a good laugh? This video got me - Explaining the Pandemic to My Past Self
  

• We still don't know much about this virus at all. However, Matt Ridley has been sharing some early data on a hopeful correlation between the severity of Covid symptoms and Vitamin D levels. I figure it's a decent healthy option to try and get more sun anyway. What do you think?
  

• QZ: The only metric of success that really matters is the one we ignore (Spoiler: it's other people.)

Until next time...

The need to stress-test

I've had ice cream almost every day since the pandemic began.

Maybe that's too much. I don't know, I'm not a doctor. But it felt right at the time. Every time.

I've been running too. And as much as I sometimes hate it, exercise has been a habit of mine for a long time. It feels wrong if I go too long without doing something positive for my health.

And if there was ever a time to get serious about our health, this is it, right? I'm not talking about hoarding sanitizing wipes in the hope that we can avoid the inevitable. I'm talking about our immune systems. What are you doing to prevent the other problems that are possible way, way in the future?

I've always been one to point out when a stand-up comedian makes sense and today is no different. The late George Carlin has been floating around social media recently because, back in 1999, he had a stand-up special called You Are All Diseased. Yikes. He joked about our obsession with germs and cleanliness in his classic curmudgeonly way, and reminded the audience that our immune systems need practice fighting germs. He clarified, "And never mind ordinary germs, what are you gonna do when some super virus comes along that turns your vital organs into liquid shit?"

Luckily, we're not there yet, but he had a point. We're fighting the problem in front of us now, but we were caught with our pants down by not preparing for worse.

As a doctor, I see this all the time. We've relied too much on a way of life that's rarely tested. It's the reason why these half-brains across the country can't imagine life without a haircut for a few months. It's all they have and it's all they've ever had.

And while people are paying attention to '99 Carlin, they might have also wished they heard about Nassim Taleb. In 2007, Taleb wrote a book titled The Black Swan. He coined the term to describe those improbable but catastrophic events that plague civilization. But Taleb recently told The New Yorker that he has been "irritated" with the misunderstanding of his work. While no one, including Taleb, could have predicted a virus that won't let us buy groceries without looking like a bank-robber, he argues the systematic threat was there all along. The Black Swan is a warning about the vulnerability, not invincibility, of our interconnected world. We thought the system could always take care of itself. And then, all of a sudden, toilet paper was ripped from the shelves.

Our interconnected world has always been a blessing and a curse. While it may be the reason for our progress, we left too much trust in the illusion of a fail-proof system. What we needed all along was a bit more stress, a bit more exercise.

Let's not rush back to "normal". Let's make sure that what doesn't kill us makes us stronger. Stress-test the system in every way. And, in the meantime, eat some ice cream here and there. 

Enough of that, lets' check out some of the best stuffs from the past week:

• By far, the most interesting YouTube video I've seen in a while: How Documentaries Lie to You.

• A friend recommended the Chinese YouTube sensation Liziqi and I couldn't be more pleased. Her videos feature poetic glimpses into her unique chores and tasks. One of my favorites was Fear not the harsh winter with the cloak made from soft and fluffy wool - her journey to weaving a purple cloak out of lamb's wool, from start to finish.

• I rarely miss a Nerdwriter video. Recently, he published How Marvelman Changed Superheroes.

• Run the Jewels released their latest music video for Ooh LA LA. Give it a listen and a look.

• Need some satisfying video content? Watch a girl carefully trim her horse's hair.

Until next time...