This seems like the absolute perfect time to stop making a mistake I keep making. Your nascence is what makes the timing so right (welcome to the world, btw) because it is expected that the youthful need advice. And it’s the entire advice-giving enterprise where I continue to err.

Quite quickly you will begin to explore the world. Exploration will bring you much joy; it will also bring questions. In need of answers, you may well turn to adults, and, perhaps, you may turn to me at some point. I would be honored by an inquiry. Glowing from the request – Me?!? I can’t believe xxxxxxxxx thinks so highly of me – I’ll be tempted to answer with facts, figures, wisdom, and anything else that counts as “advice.” After all, I’m the adult here, the man with all this knowledge, and the least I can do is share with you. This logic feels right. It will even feel right to you. I asked for advice, so give it to me. No longer will I oblige.

(more…)

There is always a temptation to think you have the answer for someone else. Consumed by this noble desire to help, it’s easy to forget that most problems are not information problems – the fat person is rarely confused about what constitutes healthy eating. Which means that action is the issue, and how to inspire action is as elusive an answer as any.

With you, though, action is unlikely to be lacking either. This puts you squarely in an elite genre of people who are both willing to try and deeply understand the world, and who then possess the will to carry out the prescribed behaviors.

Still, the temptation emerged: Let me get xxxxxxxxx a good book of philosophy. But no, I am the master of my fate, the captain of my soul, and I shall not give in to this desire.

So I give you this book because it is très lolz. That’s it. No grand message. No deeper purpose. Just an enjoyable way to spend some time.

Be well. Or not. But do laugh. If that doesn’t happen, I’ve done something wrong.

Kids used to be beaten. Fortunately, this practice has largely been abandoned as parental gentleness has won out over “tough love.”

A trend away from aggression has also occurred in youth itself. And again, there are victories to be celebrated as unsafe, risky behaviors become less common.

This transformation, though, is not without at least one major downside. While I do not doubt that your wonderful parents will create a loving, compassionate, and fun environment, that you will be encouraged and supported endlessly, growing up shall still be an angsty process. You’ll need an outlet as you grapple with your place in a world. I dare say that the greatest such outlet is really loud and really “violent” music that is screamed along to while driving fast (but not too fast) with all the windows down. But in society’s rush toward softness, the genres of music most appropriate for this great outlet have all but disappeared. No harsh guitars. No dominating vocals. No epic darkness.

Sometimes it’s okay to look back. Progress winds imperfectly, thus what used to be can indeed trump what is. So, like your father before you, when the messiness of life seems too much, Nine Inch Nails will not let you down, will not make you hurt.

Running a four-minute mile is hard. Being happy is hard. But these are distinct types of “hard,” and remembering that truth is vital.

The first type of hard is Never Done Before (NDB). Even for the most adventurous, the most risk-loving, and the most challenge-oriented, unique difficulty accompanies first attempts. For as much as you may believe in yourself, and as much as you may possess a rich resume of success, an inner voice of doubt (IVD) whispering Yea, but you may not be able to do this will be waiting for you upon an NDB undertaking. There are some near-universal NDBs, like running a four-minute mile, but every individual’s complete NDB list remains unique. This helps explain why the same activity can be so easy for one person (non-NDB) and so arduous for another (NDB).

Another type of hard is Please, Do That Again (PDTA). Unlike NDB, you have indeed successfully done That. Yet, you remain skeptical about your abilities since you lack understanding regarding how triumph occurred – you feel “lucky.” Thus, a replication crisis grips you such that if you are asked to perform That again, IVD will appear whispering essentially the same message it gives for NDB.

(more…)

You haven’t gotten enough respect. At least not from me. At least not until now.

I have rather enjoyed this simplified quarantine life. I play guitar, read, write, cook, go on long walks, and work out. While it’s true I am an extreme extrovert, no part of me has been longing for human interaction.

On weekends, I break the routine a bit and watch a movie or two. I’m not one who often opts into “classics,” but the fact that I had never seen The Godfather seemed like an oversight worth correcting. And so I did. The film and its sequel were most notable not for their celebrated cinematic landmarks, but because they made me think of you.

I, like any high school graduate, “studied” history. I, like any member of any family, heard stories of what had to happen for me to be comfortable. So I know the tales of the immigrant life, the poor life, the making-something-better-of-my-life life and how you embody all of them. Still, I never really felt the meaning or achievement of it all. Perhaps this is an inevitable failing of trying to understand anything that is so distant from one’s own existence.

(more…)

In isolation, it’s tempting to think you have it all figured out. That’s right, you’ve got the answers, the philosophy, the explanations, and even the tidy rationalizations to sweep away points of confusion. It’s all quite comfortable. Knowledge of confirmation bias provides nonexistent inoculation against this pathology.

You never have to be isolated, of course – there’s infinite information out there just begging for consumption. But the tricky stuff is not easily changed through dissenting voices and long hours in the library, because the tricky stuff is not a matter of facts per se. Rather, the tricky stuff is another way of saying “life philosophy” which is another way of saying the stuff you really, really want to get right but to which objective answers are fleeting.

And so, you sort through aphorisms and religions (and a whole lot in between) searching for what feels right. Toss in your experiences and the hard-won lessons of youth, and the tricky stuff may not feel that tricky anymore. It’s at this juncture where people trend toward being stuck in their ways, an isolation where new information is easily dismissed.

(more…)

Everybody’s got boring lives so they just sit around and talk about someone else’s.

she understood the presidential premium on flexibility.

Obama’s attitude could be seen a cavalier – or deeply cynical. But is also reflected an instinctive disdain for the conventional rules of politics. To Obama, the ritual parsing of these kind of statements was a tedious preoccupation of the media, an obsession few Americans shared.

No one ever thinks they don’t have the experience to do this. No one thinks that way. He wouldn’t have gotten tot his point and then said, “Oh, I don’t have the experience.” You don’t think about your weaknesses. You think about your strengths.

(more…)

Gratitude is easy. In fact, it’s so easy, one wonders how a billion-dollar self-help industry can ruthlessly support itself by continually selling “secrets” to gratitude – from journals to meditation. Here, I’ll give the ultimate “secret” away for free: if you covet gratitude, enter a state of deprivation. That’s it, that’s all. Want to appreciate tiresome home-cooked meals? Fast for a few days. Want to adore the jogs your therapist firmly suggested? Break your leg and suffer through immobility for 6-8 weeks. And on and on. The examples are endless. The truth is undeniable. For those last remaining skeptics, the ones tempted to spend $19.95 on that new book Kendall Jenner blurbed with, “I must have bought 15 of these books and gave them out to people!!! I believe this book might have saved my life,” just stick ‘em in quarantine and they’ll swiftly fall in line.

(more…)

I didn’t turn the light on. I should have. Or rather, the programming built into any middle-class child like myself reads =if (and(>=dusk, walk into room), “lights on”). But I’m not some robot. No siree. Like anyone, there is malleability within me deeply connected to my openness to change. Easier said than done since programming is très comfortable and forking, even with promises of potential upside, requires considerable kwH.

Fortunately, less individual energy is required in an isolated system if someone else enters and shares the burden, thereby making isolation not the dreaded variety, just the thermodynamic one. In the case of =if (and(>=dusk, walk into room), “lights on”), you made it oh so easy for code rewriting. For you noticed things I’d never before considered. Texture, angle, color, and the fundamental, vital question: Why are you turning on the light right now? New code crafted itself as a result. Naturally, whenever I fork to post-xxxxxxxxx =if (and(>=dusk, walk into room, light amplitude is predicted to be moderate, visibility is seriously compromised in only sunlight, the beam angles are optimal), “minimal number of lights on”, “no lights on”), I think of you.

Much is lost without human contact. While I haven’t really felt this effect (Will I? Could I go years without touch? Decades? Ha), I have come to think extensively about something that’s diminished in quarantine: the ability to be understood. “Being understood” is usually presented in reference to “serious” personal truths. I now wonder if this focus misses something basic and vital.

(more…)

There’s some girl in pants costing no less than $125.95 standing at the x, posing for a few selfies pre-run. Once she sees me humming, the faux smile fades, the camera slides into a nifty side pocket, and she begins running in earnest. For she thinks she knows what’s coming. She thinks I’m going B-A-B, a popular route, no doubt, and she, like any person raised in this brutal dog-eat-dog world, wants to win. Still, while getting passed with her considerable head start would be unpleasant, it’s salvageable under some invented story about my genetically advantaged lung capacity. If that unfortunate outcome did indeed occur, she’d still probably receive credit from her friends for trying so hard on a Saturday when they themselves were busy indulging in “mindless” activities. What this poor victim didn’t know, however, was that I was going B-A-C-B, and losing the race to B given my impossible handicap would not be at all o.k.

Worse still, because she decided to never turn around, whereby she could have quickly understood I wasn’t going B-A-B and appreciated the humiliation risk in play, she assumed the lack of huffing and/or footsteps behind her meant the race, with 100 meters to go, was hers. Her mind thus drifted to which witty line or two to place underneath those pre-run selfies she now simply could not wait to post. The BE IN THE MOMENT gospel misses the beauty of daydreams like this. The moment was filled with one final climb, and she’d rather just skip ahead, in her mind, to what was to follow. No sensible person could blame her. Unfortunately, she happened to be dealing with a true menace, a menace who cares not about sensibilities or loyal IG followers.

The last anyone saw her, she was headed to xxxxxxxxx. I sure do hope they aren’t out of ventilators.