Many other enlightened thinkers have spoken similarly about the importance of finding one’s identity and the necessity for the subsequent unapologetic expression of that identity. In the case of Nietzsche and Pindar, these are not casual comments but a charge, a task, a thing we must do. It is admittedly a strange request that begs the fundamental questions of who you are and how you become something you already are.

As esoteric and enigmatic as this journey may seem, it is something each of us is doing whether we are cognizant of it or not. We are all, in our own way, constantly answering this question with the actions we take, goals we set, and the societal roles we take on.

Generally speaking, people like titles — mother, doctor, basketball player, millennial — and we like labels — happy, disciplined, talented, funny — anything that is desirable that describes us, anything that gives us value or purpose, anything that sets us apart and gives us some identity to cling to.

It is also part of the human condition to want to change things about ourselves, to want to be more or less of something, or to constantly strive for lofty cultural ideals that are thrust upon us. Young people, especially, are surrounded by suspect influences and hucksters peddling soft dopamine hits and illusions of progress towards generic, often detrimental, identities that distract them from becoming who they are, yet feel dangerously close to the real thing.

This desire to change comes with a big temptation to cut out, starve, hide, or deny parts of ourselves that don’t align with who we think we are or who we think we should be. It pushes some of us to go to extremes and try to mold ourselves to meet other people’s expectations. It pushes us to emulate our heroes and role models consciously or otherwise, and essentially strive to become someone else or at least steal the parts of them we admire sometimes to deleterious effect.

But what if instead of changing or cutting out the seemingly undesirable parts of ourselves, progress meant the opposite? What if it meant accepting and integrating the different sides of us to become MORE of who we are? Carl Jung, the father of analytical psychology (and a smart chap), thought the same thing. More specifically, he thought the more we individualized ourselves by shedding what he called collective norms, archetypes, and personas, and integrating the disparate sides of ourselves, the more we enabled ourselves to live authentically, express ourselves creatively, and feel psychologically secure. To Jung, “The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.”

Jung wanted us to be as individualized as we could be through a process called individuation, the goal of which was to become “whole,” and put simply, we can’t afford to lose parts of ourselves to be whole. “Wholeness is not achieved by cutting off a portion of one’s being, but by integration of the contraries,” he said. This lauded psychic wholeness was the result of becoming more of a singular individual, not the result of changing who you are, denying parts of yourself, or imitating the habits and personality of someone else.

As the old psychoanalytic maxim goes, anything that we repress will return with a vengeance. What we don’t address, integrate, and control comes back tenfold. This is not to say that we shouldn’t identify weaknesses or have heroes or exemplars to follow. But when striving to be like others, we will find discontent in trying to shove ourselves into a mold of someone else. We ought to follow the sage advice of the Japanese poet, Matsuo Basho, when he said, “Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise; seek what they sought.” In other words, don’t seek to sacrifice yourself to try and become something you are not. Seek what the people we admire sought. Security in who they are. A maximization of their talents and strengths and a curbing and integration of their perceived weaknesses.

Now Jung’s first step in becoming whole was to befriend what he called the shadow. But what is your shadow? In Jungian philosophy, it’s typically described as all the unconscious parts of ourselves we are embarrassed by, things we hate, repress, disown, or fear as being a part of us. It is everything that we are that is incompatible with who we think we are — our childish impulses, aggression, selfishness, taboo desires, and all our capacities for evil and violence.

A common misconception is that your shadow is all the parts of you that are base and evil. According to Jung himself, “the unconscious man, that is, his shadow, does not consist only of morally reprehensible tendencies, but also displays a number of good qualities, such as normal instincts, appropriate reactions, realistic insights, creative impulses, etc.” This is a rather broad definition that is full of wonderful, genuine traits that just might need a bit of refinement and attention to become character-defining strengths once we find their eudaemonic center. Like heroes and villains, weaknesses and strengths are derived from the same origins.

Integrating opposites and befriending and treating all the parts of ourselves with grace comes after acknowledging and accepting our faults, strengths, and the idiosyncratic quirks — everything that is us. To know them and gracefully familiarize ourselves with all the parts of ourselves until we are secure, comfortable, and able to acknowledge and utilize them correctly. Albert Camus said, “A man should know himself like the palm of his hand, know the exact number of his defects and qualities, know how far he can go, foretell his failures - be what he is, and, above all, accept these things.”

We will be better people for all the seemingly negative traits and thoughts that we control, accept, and integrate into one cohesive being. It is not praiseworthy to be innocent or naive about our faults but to be intensely aware and actively accepting of them.1 If we ignore our weaknesses we are more likely to have them manifest unchecked at the most inopportune times in our lives.

Wholeness isn’t just the subject of mid-1900s psychoanalytic writings but makes appearances in the Bible as well. In the New Testament, the adjective form of the old Greek word teleios is used 17 times. The word teleios is often translated as “perfect,” which, ironically, is an imperfect definition. The word is used to denote something complete, mature, fully formed, or whole, not something that is just flawless or unblemished.

It is used in famous verses, like “Perfect love casteth out all fear” (1 John 4:18), “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48), and “If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor” (Matthew 19:21).

Becoming whole is to become more individualized, and becoming whole and more individualized is an act of repentance. It is the turning toward and partaking of our innate divine natures. Some people say that repentance is the unnatural changing of ourselves or a contortion of ourselves to meet some arbitrary standard to “become a new creature,” but a reimagining of the line, “become a new creature in Christ,” could simply look like, “integrate our divine natures until we are whole and perfected in Christ.” Becoming who we are in this sense is the full realization of divine potential with the help of the Divine.

We’ve quoted a lot of people, but remember that these quotes used thus far aren’t meant to make us transform into something alien or change us into some Platonic ideal. They are just asking us to be who we are, ALL of who we are. The journey of self-healing is really one of self-discovery. It is the opportunity to be additive, not subtractive, prescriptive instead of proscriptive, the opportunity to nurture, build, and grow, not limit, diminish, or rip out. It is at once terrifying and exhilarating and a perspective and journey I hope that we will consciously indulge in.

P.S.

Last thing: this isn’t doctrine or a perspective I’m married to, but I hope it is at least a helpful paradigm to see your life and identity through.

Relevant quotes that I couldn’t fit in the essay and footnotes:

“You will be forgotten either way. So live in such a manner that, while you remain, you belong to yourself” — Marcus Aurelius

“The most terrifying thing is to accept oneself completely.” — Carl Jung

“The acceptance of oneself is the essence of the whole moral problem and the epitome of a whole outlook on life.” — Carl Jung

“Know all the theories, master all the techniques, but as you touch a human soul be just another human soul.” — It’s often apocryphally attributed to Carl Jung

“A man does not become bitter because life defeats him. He becomes bitter because he abandons the self he was meant to become.” — Carl Jung

Branches of Christianity and Judaism took this charge to give our best when serving the Lord and bastardized it into an extremely unhealthy scrupulosity (scrupulosity being defined as being excessively concerned with minute details of morality and feeling guilt over minor or imagined sins), and while many other Christians and Jews aren’t encouraged to live under oppressively scrupulous doctrine and standards, there is still often the puritanical impulse to excessively doubt whether we are doing enough or if our efforts are acceptable.

Something being important, time-consuming, or effortful, and making sure to be careful, respectful, and deliberate in carrying out our service, is not made better when tainted with an ever-present tincture of doubt, anxiety, or fear. Many times, we entertain self-deprecatory comments or thoughts and nervously worry to show outwardly or inwardly that we care. It’s almost like there is a badge of honor or stamp of approval when we work ourselves into exhaustion or are hypercritical of ourselves instead of focusing on the end goals of our labors. These unhealthy behaviors can warp ideas on what worthy and good service entails, and take the focus from others and put it on ourselves, and that’s not good. It is helpful to no one, and it makes our efforts less impactful.

There is a big difference between serving anxiously and being anxiously engaged in a good cause. This anxiety of engagement is like being excited, almost like being anxious to get back home, or a longing to get back to something we enjoy. If we need any anxiety at all, this outwardly facing, non-stagnating anxiety is the only acceptable kind.

The Lord tells us to prepare, to gird our loins, not to tighten our sphincters and worry so much that we lose sleep. He never tells us to rush or run faster than we have strength. Instead, He asks us to thrust in our sickles with all our might; He asks us to labor with Him, to use our free will to bring to pass much righteousness, to pray over our flocks and fields, and to plan ahead, but He never asks us to despair or to punish ourselves. He commands us to lift our heads, look unto Him, sing His praises, to doubt not and fear not, and to remember, always remember, the love and compassion He has demonstrated through the entirety of the human race.

Great prophets of the past were great despite their anxiety, fear, and doubt, not because of them. We must look upon those with anxiety in the scriptures with understanding, comfort, and hope, but must not confuse it with a desirable trait or as a sign of devotion or saintliness. The unholy trifecta of anxiety, fear, and doubt is an element of the human condition that is meant to be overcome. These feelings are the opposite of the fruits of the Spirit, and they don’t come from the Lord. So don’t deaden an otherwise bright, curious, and godly psyche with negative rumination. Release yourselves from that cognitive load so you can use it to go about doing good. Giving service to others and to God will be better without the all too human—nay, the all too satanic—amalgam of doubt and fear.

Inspiration and the highest expression of ourselves and our talents come when we are relaxed, flexible, present, and focused, not when we are full of rigidity, stress, punitive self-talk, or pride. Doing our best for the Lord is difficult, but it should also be satisfying, joyful, and ideally anxiety-free.

The people of Utah are highly entrepreneurial and has successfully taken several companies public. But whether it’s due to limited access to eager institutional investors, a lack of long-term vision, or short-term, risk-averse thinking, many Utah companies and products seem overly promotional but light on impact. Given the state’s strong emphasis on being pro-business, you’d think they would have started more interesting or meaningful companies than those focused on texting customers, recognizing employees, or organizing armies of door-to-door salespeople. With few exceptions, the prevailing wisdom of the so-called Silicon Slopes is to play small—to work in a “boring business” or corner a small segment of an obscure market, scale it up and cash in a check as fast as possible so you can do what you actually want to do.

A friend in the Utah VC scene once told me the biggest problem with Utah startups is that “they want to sell too early and spend time with family.” And while that is an admirable goal, venture capital thrives on companies growing to billion-dollar valuations and beyond—businesses built for the long haul. Many Utah startups begin with the goal of being “strategically acquired,” which typically makes them less personally invested in long term success. They want to hit an eight or nine figure valuation and then throw the hot potato over the fence by getting bought out or going public so they can retire early.

With enough money to retire early options open up to travel and spend time with your kids, but you can’t do that forever. Kids need to go to school and traveling half the year can become more of an unfulfilling chore the longer it goes. Man was made to work. Man was made to spend our lives in the pursuit of something, not retire at 35 and idle away their time.

Work is a fundamental human need. It’s part of a happy life. It’s part of the deal that we eat bread by the sweat of our brow, but most people simply work to not work. Which is a raw deal: working most of your life, especially the young and healthy years, doing soul-sucking work just so you can worry if you saved enough to sustain your lifestyle as you wait to die. But that need not be the case. Pick something that you’re not sure you will want to retire from. Something where, if given the choice at 65, you would want to continue doing aspects of it in your free time—and chances are it’s something you have a natural affinity for, that is meaningful to you, and helpful to others.

Apart from the secondary or tertiary forms of meaning that come from providing for your family and occasionally funding things you enjoy (admittedly both very important things), onboarding someone else’s clients onto some janky software or going door-to-door selling someone else’s product day after day (no shade to anyone that does those) simply become ever annoying obstacles to getting your life-sustaining paycheck, not a way to render service, grow, or accomplish great things.

There is nothing wrong with those jobs; people like them, they enjoy the people they work with, and if the work isn’t too demanding and it allows them to live the life they want outside of work, more power to them. But your life doesn’t have to start at 5 p.m., and as long as you’re committing a minimum of 40 hours a week towards something, commit to becoming something and doing something you would be proud of.

From experience, it’s hard to derive deep meaning and satisfaction from small ideas, and as I mentioned above, that is what I think the problem is with the majority of both Utah companies and the often very capable people they employ. They play too small. As long as you’re going through the very painful process of starting a company where you plan on aiming for multiple seed rounds or series funding or participating in the growth of such a company, why not aim for solving a problem that is cool, sexy, and inspiring—something that will make money and a difference to the world?

Paul Graham, one of the founders of Y Combinator, wrote an incredible essay called “How to Do Great Work” (it’s long but definitely worth the read) where he outlines the prerequisites for great work as something you have a natural aptitude for, that you have a deep interest in, and that offers scope to do great work. Small ideas make your aptitude in it insignificant, harder to find interesting, and don’t offer the scope for great work to be done. Small ideas attract people that are less invested, burned out, or stuck and will thus produce average or below-average results.

Great ideas, on the other hand, make your aptitude in a field invaluable, foster interest and energy, and are the very bedrock of great work. Great ideas create great work, which attracts great people. The work might be harder than traditional work, but great ideas and great people have a momentum that elevates your work and makes the time go faster. That’s the quick and dirty mental heuristic to finding what you should do: understanding that interesting work and solving meaningful problems give energy and breed creative thought; they don’t take it away.

Big ideas have their own gravity and momentum, which make it easy to hire a compelling team that is willing to give significant discretionary effort. It will pull away the talent that is working on something inconsequential, boring, and stressful. With small ideas, people aren’t motivated to manage the work, so instead they manage people, meetings, and KPIs or focus on career progression and will leave for other slightly better opportunities. This fills organizations with mercenaries that do enough to feel good about themselves and not get fired. There are some glib people that think success, whatever that means to them, can come regardless of the company or type of work, but I disagree. Some companies and some work just suck, and it’s hard to do great, fulfilling work when you don’t like what you do. Work should not be a white-knuckling exercise in eating shit and seeing who can do it the longest.

Don’t give up on the idea that you can find work that calls to you, work that fulfills you, and work that you are proud of. Something that makes you want to be your best. It’s your life, and this is all a calculation on where you will spend your time. This isn’t a call to quit your job and join your friend’s pre-revenue SaaS AI startup in a fit of midlife crisis, but a call to examine where and how you plan on spending your time for the rest of your working career. The capitalistic model we live in is first and foremost characterized by the freedom to choose: freedom to choose what you want to do, the freedom to switch careers, the freedom to buy in and participate in what you want to do.

Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle, once said, “Financial independence means you no longer need to trade time for money. But once you’ve been liberated, the freedom that comes afterwards can be difficult to manage. The good news is that suddenly you have all these choices. The bad news is that suddenly you have all these choices. So you’ve got to figure out what it is you really love to do, because there’s no other justification for doing it. And if you can’t find anything you love, you have to settle for doing something that’s important.”

Larry is talking from the perspective of the current 6th richest man in the world and the freedom that comes after making a stupid amount of money, but the ideas in his quote can also inform what we do before complete financial freedom. Do what you love, as if there were no other justification for doing it, and be the best at it; and if you can’t do that, settle for doing something important.

Now that isn’t to say you’re not going to have crappy days, long hours, and aspects of your job that are unpleasant or tedious when working on big things. Hard problems worth solving are complicated and require herculean effort, but how freeing it is to know that all that effort isn’t wasted—it’s going towards furthering a cause that you believe in. The nice part is that big ideas attract money, but after a certain amount, the money becomes a secondary consideration that is subservient to meaning, autonomy, growth, impact, and connection inherent in your job (shout out to my DW friends).

The analogy of war is used a lot in the startup space (War rooms, battle cards, etc) because you are fighting to create and justify something that you feel like needs to exist in the world despite a hostile market, the laws of entropy, and the general human aversion to change. Through grit, spit, and a whole lot of duct tape, you can make almost any business struggle to moderate success, but without a mission that speaks to people, it probably won’t be worth it.

The only willing participants in a war are those that believe what they are doing is right, worth the sacrifice, or something that will benefit the world. It attracts mission-based employees, which are often the best employees in the world because they will not balk at adverse work conditions or struggle. Starting, growing, and maintaining businesses or working for one is very hard, so think carefully and pick something that is very worth your pain and time.

Post Script: This is an opinion piece; it is how I feel, but I know it might not be the objective truth. This post stems heavily from my experience in personally working at a tech “Silicon Slopes” company. It doesn’t apply to every company in Utah, and this is not an indictment of Utah business owners/employees or a critique of their lives, but more of an observation and something that is directed more at me than anyone else. In fact, know that if something in this post made you uncomfortable or felt directed particularly at you, I probably feel more personally attacked by this post than you do.

The story of Sisyphus is hard to source; it comes from a couple of ancient texts and is a story pieced together from allusions, fragments of epic poems, and works by ancient historians. But the mostly agreed-upon story of Sisyphus is this: Sisyphus was the once clever and hubris-filled king of Ephyra (also known as Corinth) that incurred the ire of Zeus over foiling one of his plans and was subsequently sentenced to death by the gods. Through his cunning, Sisyphus thwarts their plans and cheats death twice, eventually dying a natural death in his old age. After his death, the gods, frustrated at being bested during Sisyphus’s life, arranged a punishment for him to forever push a boulder uphill only for the boulder to roll back down the mountain whenever Sisyphus nears the top, forcing him to restart the odious, never-ending journey.

The French author and Nobel laureate Albert Camus was a very eccentric guy known for his contributions to literature, one of which was the philosophical essay called “The Myth of Sisyphus.” Camus was fascinated by this ancient king and admired him as a hero, probably because he lived a tumultuous Sisyphean life himself.

Being born in a small, working-class French Algerian village shortly before the commencement of WWI, he lived a tough life. His father was killed before he was a year old in the Great War, and without a father to help provide for the family, Camus grew up in harsh postwar conditions, which deeply affected him throughout his life. He suffered from tuberculosis and other persistent health issues and then faced the hardship of the Great Depression in war-torn Europe, the Nazi terrors of WWII, and the Algerian French war, which was rife with war crimes and guerrilla tactics that left him deeply conflicted.

His life was full of uphill pushes against forces much bigger than him, and his writings—especially his most famous work, The Stranger—take on the personally pervasive themes of social isolation and alienation, nihilism, emotional detachment, and passivity. He started writing The Myth of Sisyphus around the same time as The Stranger, which was also around the same time as the embarrassingly precipitous capitulation of France in WWII. He published both works in Nazi-occupied 1942 France. With the publishing of his essay, he subsequently and inadvertently fathered the philosophical movement of absurdism, a kind of happier offshoot from the schools of existentialism and nihilism, although it was a movement he never acknowledged or participated in during his lifetime. I believe The Myth of Sisyphus was Camus’ recalcitrant answer to the suffocating nihilism and depression from a hard life that threatened to crush him.

Sisyphus was deemed what Camus called an “absurd hero”—absurd because Camus viewed the world as a place of inherent meaninglessness, irrationality, and unfeeling indifference that was juxtaposed to the deeply human desire for meaning. Camus found that life had only two certainties—suffering and an inevitable death. He thought hope and meaning were forms of escapism and avoidance of the reality of the human condition and titled this universal dissonance between the need for meaning and a world that lacked it “the absurd condition.” With this backdrop, he starts his essay with the line: “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.”

Super depressing, I know, but you’ll be glad to know he ultimately rejects suicide as a viable option in this philosophical problem. Instead, he proposes that we accept the absurd condition with eyes wide open—fully accepting, with lucidity and courage, the responsibility for our freedom, the finding of subjective meaning in our lives, and a full frontal rebellion against futility and meaninglessness through authentic living.

In Camus’ godless and lugubrious world, he has eked out life and meaning out of a callous, proverbial primordial ooze. The last paragraph of Camus’ essay reads:

The hallmark line and the last line of The Myth of Sisyphus is, “One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” If Sisyphus, Oedipus, Camus, or a litany of other absurd heroes could dare to smile and dare to persevere in spite of futility and tragedy, those of us that aren’t pushing a boulder or living under Nazi rule can do the same. A smile, a glimpse of happiness in the midst of an ostensibly unfeeling world can be the most rebellious act in the face of Sisyphean.

In the 2002 movie adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’s masterpiece, The Count of Monte Cristo, the main character, Edmond Dantes, unknowingly toasts his son (also a French guy named Albert) by saying, “Life is a storm, my young friend. You will bask in the sunlight one moment, be shattered on the rocks the next. What makes you a man is what you do when that storm comes. You must look into that storm and shout as you did in Rome. Do your worst, for I will do mine! Then the fates will know you as we know you.” Like Albert, like the great absurd heroes of history, we must all smile and occasionally shout into an unfeeling night or at the base of an unforgiving mountain, “Do your worst, for I will do mine!”

My short walk and seemingly capricious decision to check out the museum went from a cursory look to one of the more spiritual experiences I had at BYU. The exhibit had 80 blown-up Pulitzer Prize-winning photographs with descriptions, along with interactive kiosks that either played recorded interviews or rotated about 1,000 other Pulitzer Prize finalists. We have all likely seen a few photos that were at least in consideration for Pulitzer prizes, like “Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima” or the famous “Tank Man” of the brutal 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, but there are so many more Pulitzer Prize-caliber photographs you should see when you are emotionally prepared. I’m sure you’ll learn something about your own humanity and that of the world. (Warning: some of the pictures, although are very impactful and thought-provoking, are also extremely disturbing.)

***Skip the next paragraph if you don’t want to hear about some of the disturbing terrors of the Vietnam War.***

One of the most impactful images featured in the exhibit was Nick Ut’s 1973 photograph, “The Terrors of War,” where a naked 9-year-old girl named Phan Thi Kim Phuc is running down a South Vietnamese road and away from one of the most horrific experiences of her life. Moments earlier, she had to tear her burning, napalm-coated clothes off her body and she was not alone; many innocent civilians were victims of a napalm strike that was mistakenly dropped on civilians, including children fleeing the village. Severe third-degree burns covered a third of her small body, but more than anything, you see her thin arms splayed as she runs and the abject terror plastered on her face. The picture is taken mid-scream and in the midst of a tragedy that was utterly and absolutely preventable. Shortly after the photograph was taken, Nick rushed her to a hospital where she received extensive treatment and eventually survived.

I read of and more importantly saw this and other dramatic displays of humanity at its best and worst. I walked into that exhibit a poor, unprepared, naive college sophomore worried about finals, and when I left an hour and a half later, I was different. By looking into the faces and situations of real-life people and for a brief second, I felt a modicum of what they felt. I smiled when they smiled, tears filled my eyes when they cried, and I unconsciously imagined the utter exhaustion on their faces or the triumph of the moment. I got lumps in my throat, my heart swelled with pride, and I felt sick to my stomach when I realized what was happening in those pictures. It felt like I had lived a couple of different lifetimes with ranges of emotions that were so different from what I experienced day to day, but so familiar and resonant to the human experience. Some of those images were taken under extreme duress with odious subject matter, but those images ended up changing societal perspectives and government actions — they changed the world.

Those pictures were so moving, and some of them so deeply disturbing, that I wandered out of that exhibit lost in thought. It was an experience with so much gravity I didn’t know what to do with myself afterward. I needed a buffer from the almost traumatizing experience to my now seemingly comfortable, banal life. So I walked into the neighboring exhibit, the only one I hadn’t visited yet, and almost as if by design, I wandered right into the middle of an exhibit called “To Magnify the Lord: Six Centuries of Art and Devotion.” It was essentially the Christian past’s equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize through the ages but for Christ-centered art. It housed original pieces from Ridolfo Ghirlandaio, Rembrandt, Edward Poynter, and other less-known luminaries.

I saw Christ being wrongly accused, comforting others, teaching disciples, and being tortured and crucified. I saw the efforts of six centuries of master artists honoring the Lord and earnestly trying to capture His essence. Rembrandt’s “Head of Jesus” mirrored the somber faces I had seen moments earlier in the Pulitzer Photo exhibit, and while some of the paintings were austere and evoked reverence, they still buoyed my spirits and helped me recover from the shock and melancholy I felt from the Pulitzer exhibit.

The Lord knows what is going on. He knows more intimately than I do the sufferings of His people because He experienced them and He knows all will not only be made right but be made better. Those pictures so effectively capture the range of human emotions from triumph, exhaustion, pain, and fear to complete and utter despair amd the paintings showed a God, my God, suffering right alongside us.

I always thought that spreading awareness was a trite solution to the problems of the world. After all what could a picture do for the abandoned victims of the 1980s AIDS epidemic or a Kurdish man living under the harsh realities of a 1980s Iranian regime? Right now, they can do nothing for those people. I can’t do anything for them, but they did do something for me. There is power in being aware and mourning with those who mourn and finding joy in others joy. Many of the subjects of Pulitzer Prize finalists and winners are long dead, but we still feel the emotions they felt, and my life and my perceptions have changed years after those photos were taken.

I feel more human and more sympathetic to the peoples of the world. They make me want to do something important and meaningful, and as often as I am saddened by those photos, I am in equal part encouraged and determined to help mankind. These photos are a showcase of the highs and lows of common humanity but they are also a reflection of us. When we look into the faces of those people, for a moment, we are just as broken and just as triumphant as they are. As Anaïs Nin, the French writer, perfectly said, “We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.”

Teddy Roosevelt lived during many such instances of political upheaval, and at the turn of the 20th century, he found himself thrust into the presidency after his predecessor was assassinated. A little more than a short decade later, he himself would be shot square in the chest while campaigning for an unprecedented third term. A seasoned campaigner and as the indefatigable head of the newly formed Bull Moose Party, he attracted large crowds to his rallies. At one such event in Milwaukee, a troubled man named John Schrank pushed his way to the front of the crowd and fired a Colt revolver within feet of the stage.

The bullet hit Teddy’s glasses case and a copy of his speech, slowing the bullet enough to preserve his life. After a cursory self-examination, he correctly concluded that, because he was not coughing up blood, the bullet hadn’t reached his lung. After ensuring the growing mob did not kill the would-be assassin, he proceeded to give a rousing 90-minute speech, exclaiming, “I have just been shot—but it takes more than that to kill a bull moose!”

Roosevelt lived one of the most dramatic and impressive lives in American history, and he accomplished so much by striving to live what he called “the strenuous life”— which was also the title of one of his books. He had many episodes in his life that showcased his genteel character and inner mettle. For that reason, I love a good biography—not for the platitudinous trivia of where someone grew up or how many siblings they had, but for the juicy vignettes and the desperate struggles that show who they truly were as a person.

Robert McKee, a prominent author, tells us that, “True character is revealed in the choices a human being makes under pressure—the greater the pressure, the deeper the revelation, the truer the choice to the character’s essential nature.” For a good story, characters (fictional or otherwise) must go through moral dilemmas or crucible moments that reveal who they are. In this way, movies and books that span days or years can effectively show you, in a single instance, what type of person someone is by how they react in their extremity.

The important thing to remember is that when a person shows you who they really are, you should believe them and act accordingly. In the prequels, we like Anakin, but once we figured out that, in his grief, he callously and extrajudicially murdered an entire Tusken Raider camp—including the women and children—we should have been able to piece together that he had the makings of someone who could wantonly murder younglings, respected colleagues, and later even choke his pregnant wife in anger (without her consent :/). It was pretty obvious in hindsight.

If Anakin has taught us anything, it’s that humans are social creatures and are very easily influenced. That’s why it’s vital to consciously choose heroes and “influencers” who are truly representative of who we want to be. Serious moral infractions are so commonly swept aside and excused with fame, power, or money. Many of the people who are shilling advice to massive audiences and wielding vast amounts of social capital are not good people. If you don’t pick your own heroes by virtue of the media you consume, a hero will be thrust upon you, and it’s usually not someone worthy of emulation. The media generally concentrates on those who are the loudest, not those who are the best.

George Washington and a great many Founding Fathers chose their influences carefully and admired and emulated great philosophers and good Roman statesmen like Cato the Younger and Cincinnatus1 —eventually following their examples by abdicating power at the end of their terms and administrating justly during them. While Hitler and many other dictators, while extremely talented, tended to admire and emulate much less scrupulous men—like Julius Caesar or Napoleon. Talent alone should never be a suitable substitute for moral fortitude and integrity, and raw ambition must be focused and tempered a thousand ways for fear that it can be used selfishly and to the detriment of others. We can admire the talent and the feats of great and terrible men while choosing not to see them as moral paragons. Great men come along in every society and interest, but great men who are good are much rarer. It is on us to learn of, admire, and emulate the right people for the right reasons and realize that ambition is godly and good only so far as the ambitions themselves are godly and good.

So, examine yourselves. Who are your heroes? Consciously or not, who are the people you listen to and emulate the most, and why? Do we admire and follow people solely because of a person’s humor, physical beauty, social positioning, or money? We shouldn’t be. Our admiration needs to be linked to more basal virtues like honesty, courage, and moral restraint. Many of these people who influence by garnering admiration or attention are corrupted by the very attention they crave. It’s usually a compensatory behavior that drives them to bigger and grander displays for views and validation. Healthy people don’t typically like to be famous, and famous people live lives a healthy person would never want to live. Darren Hardy, the author of The Compound Effect, is famous for saying, “We shouldn’t take advice from those you wouldn’t switch places with.”

Remember that your life is your responsibility and should not be built on the advice from ostensible real estate moguls who have to sell you a course to get by, or others who try to leverage their excellence in athletics or business to influence you to do things that aren’t good for you. It’s your responsibility to act well and recognize and reject bad and unsound influences. This is not to say we can’t follow the examples of good people with weaknesses, but to always be wary and on the lookout for cracks in the thin porcelain veneer of the integrity of others.

This has evolved the economy of filmmaking so that seemingly only nine-figure blockbuster sequels, remakes, and part IIs are considered worth the investment (a practice that I sincerely hope will eventually succumb to new and innovative market pressures). Studios have consequently increased their underwriting standards and have slowly bastardized or suffocated any creative venture deemed too risky.

Moviemakers and show writers, needing to justify their work under this increased scrutiny, scramble to find metrics and other shiny pitch-deck justifications to prove why they won’t lose money, as that is now the industry's primary concern. They often substitute good storytelling and character development with cheap, sterile, and formulaic imitations. Forcibly injecting themselves into films with studio-overseen rewrites, political diatribes, market analytics, CGI, vivid color saturation, and other visual gimmicks—all of which cannot make a bad movie good.

Studios have also accepted the idea that making movies more violent, crude, disturbing or dark, will bring them money and acclaim. When what audiences really want is a captivating story and interesting characters they can connect with—someone they can understand, hate, advocate for, or learn something from. Investors and executives that step outside of their sphere of competency and get involved in the creative process taint, dilute, overproduce, and ultimately choose to greenlight movies they believe will appeal to their contrived and amorphous version of the common person, thinking that this will make them the most profit. But the common person is a myth; they don’t exist. Humanity is not so one-dimensional that we can cater to all the perfectly average interests of the so-called common person without making something of absolutely no consequence that, in the end, caters to no one.

Who are the best movie directors of our time? The ones with talent in spades, impeccable taste, and the license to have an uncompromising and idiosyncratic vision. Typically, this leaves room for little more than those who had enough early box-office success in the fertile grounds of the ’90s and early 2000s to be deemed a justifiable risk in today’s cinematic climate: the Tarantinos, Nolans, Andersons, Coens, Camerons, and Spielbergs, etc. Most of which made a name for themselves with enormously successful independent films, away from the prying hands of large studios. There are, of course, newer directors who have been able to break through and showcase their talent and creative vision, but it is much harder because it requires directors, small independent studios, or outside investors to take on enormous risk.

So how do these directors catch lightning in a bottle? How do they create something amazing despite overwhelming external pressures? How do they get their cohesive and distinct styles to show through in something they are proud of, something they think is funny, inspiring, innovative, or meaningful? I think there are two creative principles that span industries that will illuminate us.

Music is different from the film industry in part because the barriers to entry are lower, leaving higher upside and margin, which consequently leaves more room for individuality, risk, and creative freedom. So the challenge lies in getting noticed and creating something that appeals to the masses—although, if you are backed by a large music label, you will likely face similar issues and pressures as the film industry. But regardless, how do you create something beautiful for the masses that we are proud of?

The legendary American music producer Rick Rubin has helped produce some of the most influential albums of all time and in the context of creating music is known for saying, “The audience comes last.” He explained that statement in an interview by supplementing it with, “What's funny about it is the audience comes last in service to the audience. It's not that we don't care about the audience—it’s that if we want to make the best thing we can, we can't care about the audience.” He then goes on to explain that if you cater to the audience and what they respond to, you can only make things that have already been done before—nothing new, nothing interesting. He then takes this idea further by saying, “I will say my long career has been a testament to me making music that's purely for myself and maybe something I'm excited to play for a close friend. That's it—never considering past that.”

How does your life in any way relate to Eminem’s broken Detroit or the crucible of Kendrick Lamar’s violence-ridden Compton? How exactly do you find meaning in the words of Paul McCartney, Freddie Mercury, or Neil Young? They are nothing like you, and they didn’t create their music for you. They made something they loved, something veritably authentic that they would be proud to show their friends. We respond to art that is genuinely human and meaningful on an individual level and that is true for any artistic pursuit.

Paul Graham of the illustrious VC firm Y Combinator has also championed this idea of having a more myopic view in start-ups. When counseling a young Brian Chesky, the CEO of Airbnb, he suggested that he should, “Build something 100 people love, not something 1 million people kind of like.” And Chesky executed the idea brilliantly. Reflecting on Graham’s advice, Chesky has said, “How do you make something for a million people? I don’t know where to start. If you want to create a great product, just focus on one person. Make that one person have the most amazing experience ever.” And I’d argue that you need to make that one person yourself.

The iPhone is a work of art because Steve Jobs wanted to love the product and held his team to that near-impossible but uncompromised standard. Successful directors, artists, and entrepreneurs tickle our collective fancy and they do it by creating things that first excite and thrill them. They don’t follow or predict trends, they make them and they originate their innovations from a refined and confident individual taste. They take risks and we should too because when we do, we risk being groundbreaking.

Young artists quit when the only “good” art allowed is what has already been created. It puts them in a box but that isn’t to say that there is never a time or place for imitation or parity. The time for imitation is when you’re learning and starting to master your craft. So learn all you can and then be yourself.

So, is there ever a time to be selfish? Yes, in matters of taste. When it comes to artistic ventures—speeches, essays, films, music, poems, photographs, paintings, or the way you decorate your room—be completely and utterly selfish. Don’t kowtow to the god of prestige or money, because it might destroy what might otherwise be good, desirable, and original. It will turn your work into a proverbial mess of pottage and the flashy but muddled mess of a thousand competing visions. As the common phrase goes, if you want to conduct the orchestra, you must turn your back on the audience.

So use your creative flair in a concerted effort with taste, energy, and boldness to create something you genuinely think is good—something you would be proud to share with friends and critics alike. Create something approaching what you believe to be the closest thing you can call a masterpiece, and the approval of others will become just an ancillary benefit. Do not pander to what you think the imaginary collective will like because good art comes not from great considerations of what you think people want, but from a replete and earnest reflection of yourself. Not everything you make will be a masterpiece but all masterpieces come from a place of authenticity so make the very best thing you can that first and foremost thrills you.

Postscript:
Just some afterthoughts. I believe that some of the disparaging comments I made about large, bloated studios and music labels might have soured your thoughts on private equity, which often can present similar issues in many other industries. Private equity acquisitions are often the harbinger of belt-tightening and hand-wringing. Many of us have seen that it can produce inferior products, service, and employee satisfaction by squeezing everything in the name of profits and ROI.

Like all industries, there are people and organizations that are good at their jobs and those that are bad at it. There are good private equity firms that benefit society by culling the herd of inefficient, predatory, or badly run businesses and turning the remainder into competitive companies that provide great jobs and great products and services for everyone. Good business comes from being a genuinely good business. Money can never become both the means and the end, otherwise you miss the whole point of what you are doing—you end up killing the golden goose which by definition would make you a bad business.

Now, in the case of industries with entrenched monopolies, monopsonies (often government contractors or geographically isolated businesses), or even just fields with a top-heavy concentration in market share that are controlled by bad actors, it’s a different story. They can misbehave with reckless abandon to the chagrin of the consumer, and that is what I hint at in this post. Lucky most of these badly behaving behemoth businesses will succumb over time to the disruption of new technologies, business models, and better products.

Also, I lost my sources for the interviews etc so sorry i didn’t site anything!

Kierkegaard’s “existential boredom” was “the root of all evil”— the destructive kind of boredom characterized by profound disconnection and emptiness: a life full of numbness, exhaustion, and, as Leo Tolstoy put it, a “desire for desires”—a psychological state of simultaneous yearning and disinterest. This form of boredom exposes a life devoid of meaning and drives some people to ever more destructive or trivial pursuits just to escape it. And it’s true: boredom has been used as a justification for many deleterious activities. However, there is also a healthy type of boredom—a more casual, productive kind. These are the wanderings of a healthy mind which, when experienced and directed by a moral person, become a powerful, self-motivating catalyst for positive change: the power to initiate motion in a good direction.

Jerry Seinfeld, the billionaire author and writer of Seinfeld, writes a lot, and even though I find his comedy painfully mediocre, the only way I have found to consistently eke out blogs is by following his very simple advice for writing — “You don’t have to write, but you can’t do anything else.” I give myself dedicated time to write, and then I write or do nothing. I just have to sit there: no phone, no sleeping, just sitting there until I am bored enough that writing, even bad writing, is the only better alternative. In this way, boredom and stillness alchemize into energy and action.

So why do we struggle so much with just a few minutes of doing nothing? Boredom is an age-old, proverbial thorn in our side that we have tried in earnest to eliminate. Humans weren’t made for idleness; we’re not good at it. It’s uncomfortable, and impulsively we often fill it with the wrong things. With the ubiquitous temptations of technology and the happy and sundry demands of life, it is nearly impossible to be bored nowadays. The modern attention economy has become so predatory that every scrap of spare time is being aggressively pursued by apps, games, and shows that demand to be used, played, and watched. The subsequent technology addiction and accompanying sleep deprivation and low attention spans not only zombify the population but also prevent us from realizing our profound digital pacification. In modern life, we don’t have time to be bored, contemplate life, or thoughtfully redirect our energies because, knowingly or unknowingly, our time is being sucked away by useless and time-consuming nothings.

Psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl said, “When a person can’t find a deep sense of meaning, they distract themselves with pleasure,” and amen to that. We have to fight that impulse; we can’t be so distracted by social media and the minutiae of life that we don’t realize that we’re running the wrong way or stuck somewhere we don’t want to be. People don’t fail to do a lot of beneficial and important things because they don’t want to; most of the time, they simply allow their world to be filled with cheap forms of pleasure.

Everyone has a latent curiosity and originality in them, and if we haven’t discovered ours, we probably haven’t been bored enough, long enough. Productive boredom is the compass point that will lead to immersive stimulation and engagement. When was the last time you knew, in a vacuum, where your thoughts and inclinations naturally flow? Boredom isn’t something inherently bad or something to be desperately avoided. It is a fertile ground upon which our natural curiosities flourish and where great ideas and passions can materialize. It is a quick and dirty internal litmus test for finding something enjoyable, meaningful, and hopefully worthy of our time. Boredom will help us ponder and distill ourselves onto previously unconscious but important thoughts and feelings that are bubbling under the surface of a hurried and forever entertained, but unfulfilled, consciousness.

Of course, healthy boredom is not easy to achieve. Boredom is a privilege, and it sits high up on the mental hierarchy of needs because it comes after the pervasive feelings of loneliness, stress, burnout, fear, anxiety, existential dread, etc., are resolved or kept under acceptable levels. We must be free of the thought debt from things we struggle with but haven’t taken the mental bandwidth to confront. We only really need boredom when we are listless, burnt out, and stuck, but won’t have the capacity for it until we are rested, refreshed, and ready to be engaged. Healthy boredom is a sign you are ready for higher levels of engagement and have taken care of your baser needs. Boredom in this iteration should be a safe stillness that eventually becomes uncomfortable, which often isn’t possible unless we exorcize our demons.

Now, this is not a call to be bored ALL the time, but to allow ourselves time and space to potentially be productively bored. It is a call to protect the rarified air of those insight-dense, low-stimuli environments that give you the capacity and space to think without pressure. Boredom is cannibalistic; it will eat itself the moment it isn’t needed anymore. If you have something positive that takes every scrap of downtime because you are obsessed (and not outwardly compelled to do so), then great! That is the goal, that is the good stuff — you don’t need to be bored.

So if you need it, seek out boredom. Foster the capacity to be still and avoid distractions until boredom comes, and then reap the accompanying positive externalities of action, creativity, patience, dopamine detox, etc. This is a call to escape the temptations of modern escapism. Tolerate the uncomfiness of doing nothing. A call to turn the audiobook off and just sit in traffic, to put the phone down and turn off the TV and see where your night takes you. Be bored enough to start a band, start a club, learn an instrument, or pick up woodworking — whatever strikes your fancy. For goodness’ sake just do anything other than scroll through tiktok compulsively.

The penultimate song on the album is a cute love song called “You + I” where every verse is a snapshot of a couple's life together — their shy beginnings, hectic young married life, and then an aged, tested romance. I remember listening to the song through old, beat up, Lexus speakers on a sweaty August afternoon during the COVID lockdown where the line, “There's a reason we don’t live forever,” seemed oddly accentuated to me. It repeats a few times in every chorus as the couple ages throughout the song and as I listened it struck me why that line was emphasized, it was the simple realization that death makes life valuable.

Death and the fragility of life push us forward to things that are good for us that we would rather not do, whether it's asking that guy or girl out or applying to that master’s program. There are good things, things that we can only do now, that we are procrastinating. If it wasn’t for death we wouldn’t have any incentive to do anything risky or worthwhile in this life because we could always procrastinate with no repercussions. The knowledge that death will come pushes us to confront and overcome our fears and forces us to make the best decisions we can, both of which are essential skills to develop and both of which are at the heart of important Godly directives in the Plan of Salvation.

This notion of remembering that you will die or in Latin “memento mori” is an idea that was a driving force reflected through art and literature heavily during modernity with the resurgence of Roman idealism. This idea is as heavy as it is old, the phrase memento mori finds its origins in Antiquity but philosophers and prophets have reflected deeply on the importance of death from the creation of human consciousness. Death is a burden and gift whose import we all will have to contend with and accept hopefully sooner rather than later.

Death comes for all of us yet it is so far removed in modern life. Unless we are healthcare workers or butchers, an encounter with death is something we don’t experience often. And even for butchers and doctors, it's almost a job requirement to become desensitized to the full significance of death. For the rest of us, funerals are a jarring but inconsistent reminder that people die, that we will die. But sadly for most, it's just a time to mourn and then forget. My shameless plug is that we all fill the measure of our lives by remembering we will die, this is our one shot to do something important and meaningful.

I think Neil DeGrasse Tyson said it well when he said "It is the knowledge that I am going to die that creates the focus that I bring to being alive. The urgency of accomplishment. The need to express love — now, not later. If we live forever, why even get out of bed in the morning? Because we always have tomorrow. That's not the type of life I want to lead."

In his speech Scalia goes over the constitutional convention, who was there, the unprecedented structure of the meetings, and some of the quotes that were uttered during the convention. In just a few pages of reading, I found myself so grateful for the Founding Fathers and the forethought and energy they put into the organization of the federal government. Scalia goes on to mention that the most favored and most oft-mentioned part of the Constitution is the Bill of Rights, which oddly enough was kind of an afterthought to the Constitution as it was ratified some three or four years after the original document.

Some of the most learned men in the world met together in a convention for, as Scalia puts it, “five or six hours a day, six days a week, from mid-May to mid-September—almost an entire baseball season!” to draft a governmental structure and the mechanistic provisions that its branches must abide by. The 7 articles that outline the structure of the government ultimately became the greatest four pages ever penned in our nation’s history. The newly minted document that so much mental capital was put towards was ratified on September 17, 1787, but the Founding Fathers collective distilled genius did NOT originally include the Bill of Rights. Many nations have tried and failed to replicate the security and freedom assured by the US Constitution. Of those governments that sought to model their governments after the US many of them have admirably tried to prodigiously expand the rights of their citizens in clearer and more in-depth language than our own Bill of Rights.

To illustrate this point Justice Scalia specifically read excerpts from the more modern constitution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) that gave similar and seemingly better, more clearly written, rights to its citizens than the US Bill of Rights. He then points out that he would never trade the US Constitution for that of the Soviet one because the structural Constitution, the boring original document that calls for a bicameral congress, the parts that outline the structure of the three branches of government and their subsequent checks and balances, the less sexy counterpart to the lauded Bill of Rights that everyone usually skips, wasn’t included in the Soviet constitution. Thus, the Soviet Union did not have the structure to uphold, enforce, or effectively protect the rights of its citizens or the rule of law. In recent Russian history, we have seen their government routinely highjacked by one man and his harem of oligarchic elite because the structure of the government was not strong enough to prevent it.

Structure is king. Structure is everything. It was the brilliance of the Founding Fathers that drafted a governmental structure in which, “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition,” (James Madison) so that no one person or part of the government could take over. They realized that it didn’t matter how eloquently the rights of citizens were written if there was no structure that would ensure staunch adherence to the defense of those rights. Scalia emphasizes through his speech that the Bill of Rights and subsequent amendments are the fruits of the Constitution and that the stable structures that ensure their survival are the roots on which our nation rests. Without the right structure, we foolishly rely solely on the moral scruples or compunction of those who are privy to the foibles of human folly.

Systems and structures govern great portions of our lives. The roadway system, school system, legal system, and more informally the way we run our homes, how we interact on social media, or the mechanisms by which we gain admission to clubs or lack thereof is in some way systematized. If something goes wrong regularly within those structures it was in essence allowed to go wrong through a weak structure that allowed the misweilding of power.

The lion’s share of large-scale fraud couldn’t exist if the structure didn’t allow great opportunities for fraud. For example, you shouldn’t have governmental bodies that regulate certain industries to be funded by those industries they regulate (duh!), or when a police officer abuses their power and is sued it shouldn’t be paid for by taxpayers, it should come out of their police pension or something more directly consequential to the police force. It is simpler when structural issues are called out like that but in the heat of the moment, we frequently latch onto the oft-fugacious rectitude of individuals or organizations that put forth or have similar structural issues to the one we are fighting.

We don’t live in a perfect world but good structures will help make it better, often a good structure is really the only difference between corrupt 3rd world countries and their flourishing 1st world counterparts. Once we start seeing problems through the lens of structure there is a temptation to try and change the structural flaws we see in the world immediately but the best place we can start affecting change is in our personal systems. We need to have checks and balances applied to our lives because we are fallible just like everyone that makes up the government and other organizations. Good structural changes will be built in such a way that they endure and a good structure will help you do more good and prevent more wrong than white-knuckling or hoping for the best ever will. You will get further looking for structural solutions that make good things easy and bad things harder rather than demanding better judgment or more intelligent or moral problem-solving.

That being said and while I would never advocate for the censorship of books there are two books that have been banned in several US prisons called, “The 48 Laws of Power,” and “The Art of Seduction,” both by Robert Greene that I wouldn’t mind if people didn’t read (mind you, I wouldn’t try to threaten or physically try to stop people from reading them but hopefully I can convince you against it with my words). I find those books and their popularity pretty disturbing. Both have a very machiavellian/satanic bend to them. They essentially teach people how to amorally gain power over and/or seduce their “victims” (Robert Greene’s word, not mine). While some people claim to read the books to inoculate themselves against power-hungry and manipulative individuals, I find that to be a very convenient excuse to conceal your intentions (Law 3) or keep your hands clean (Law 26). (MY GOSH that book makes me want to throw up!)

It would be negligent for us to not understand, be weary of, and preemptively defend ourselves against the dangers of manipulation, the misuse of power, or the problems that come from underestimating just how ugly and evil people can be, but we should not learn how to defend ourselves in a format that lionizes, instructs (with tips and literal step by step instructions for application), and promotes wicked uses of power. There are better sources and more uplifting ways to learn history and appropriate defensive measures without constantly being tempted and encouraged to take advantage of others.

Are you an evil person for reading the book? No, probably not (can’t be sure though lol). And I’m sure a lot of the information is pertinent and useful, but it makes me feel sick when I read it. That is not the type of “power” that I aspire to. Implementing these so-called laws of power is short-sighted and will make you trade “power” via abuse and manipulation for low-quality relationships and worse long-term quality of life. No one smart and capable wants to be close to manipulative assholes or people who are constantly scheming against them no matter what they can give them.

The reason this way of thinking and instruction is banned in certain places and the reason it makes me so uneasy and openly hostile towards them is because it is so manipulative and ultimately extremely selfish. It desecrates the gift of human agency and our right to choose, which is the preeminent prerequisite for the first law of heaven (obedience to God). Any violation of our innate right of individual sovereignty and choice is wrong. The most egregious and flagrant violations of celestial law and the human experience is the subjugation of will particularly if it is precipitated by violence or manipulation. Manipulation being the more dangerous of the two because of its subtle nature. It is important to remember that any form of coercion is anathema to those who have a shred of philanthropy and wield any sense of empathy and justice.

When responsibility calls upon you to instruct or invite others to do good if you cannot use your powers of logic, reasoning, and any other righteous capacity to educate, advocate, and form your requests into invitations (not demands or mandates) you are at best lazy, incompetent, and inconsiderate and at worst unscrupulous, pernicious, and dangerous. That is why it is so important to ASK. It is our moral imperative to treat everyone as if they are free, conscious, and able to come to their own conclusions on what is best for them.

It is a noble thing to assuage fears, encourage others, comfort people, and guide them with the strength of your words. We should try and make a difference wherever we are and genuinely try and help others especially if they are within our sphere of responsibility (i.e. your children, work subordinates, etc.) but never at the cost of anything that approaches violating their will. Paraphrasing the wisdom of scripture, “No power or influence can or ought to be maintained… only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned; By kindness, and pure knowledge without hypocrisy and without guile.” (D&C 121:41-42)

Humans are free agents. In the world of passive engagement, noncommitment, lazy and ineffectual libertarianism, and going with the flow it is easy to forget that everything is a choice and that choices are done voluntarily. All of the important choices that we make should be done consciously and at one’s discretion and we should encourage others to do so as well. Plenty of people throughout history had to die for that right because it is a right that is so easily and willfully forfeited or taken away by others.

I know this is longer than my typical word count, but take a deep breath, and go get some water, we’re going to keep going bc I think this is really important.

You will be much better off, and certainly quite a bit less evil, by inviting others and advocating for truth rather than manipulating or demanding that people do what you say, even if it is for something genuinely good. What despots and idealists don’t seem to understand is that the methods and means by which good things are done are JUST AS IMPORTANT as the good act itself. Forcing people to do good is not good. The erudite Charlie Munger advises a better way, "If you always tell people why, they'll understand it better, they'll consider it more important, and they'll be more likely to comply." It seems simple but when people understand why they are doing something on an intuitive level, you do not have to force people to do anything even if the task is fairly ambiguous.

Making helpful suggestions and invitations takes effort because your endorsement of an idea requires that you be right, clear, logically sound, and implicitly useful. Imagine someone needed to pound nails somewhere but they had no tools or concept of a hammer until you were able to provide them with one. You wouldn’t need to convince them to use the hammer, they would see the wisdom in the suggestion and the technology and will use it of their own volition. The truth has a way of being very convincing without a lot of promotion. Edward Murrow said it like this, “To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; to be credible we must be truthful.”

As we engage in asking rather than telling others to do things (when we have the responsibility to do so) we ultimately have to be respectful of their right to refuse. It will be frustrating at times when people (ourselves included) don’t listen to reason but that is all part of the gift of agency and our ability to grow. The truth must be willingly accepted for it to be useful. Nietzsche once wrote, “The strength of a person's spirit would then be measured by how much 'truth' he could tolerate, or more precisely, to what extent he needs to have it diluted, disguised, sweetened, muted, falsified.” You can’t force others to mature or accept the truth and that is part of the beauty and detriment of the human condition. You have to teach, ask, and invite but also exercise patience.

Regarding yourself, your family, coworkers, and in the broader societies we live in we must try our utmost to prevent ourselves and others from violating peoples’ agency and encouraging everyone to proactively use their agency as well. Do you want things to change? Don’t demand it be so, ask, invite, convince, and have people liberally lend their support to causes of their own free will. Pull don’t push and be firm in subject matter but gentle and uncontentious in how you present it.

“We are what we repeatedly do, therefore, excellence is not an act, but a habit”
- Will Durant paraphrasing Aristotle’s ideas in Nicomachean Ethics

The chalked, callused edge of Alex Honnold’s thumb and the friction of his TC Pro climbing shoes on a steep slab are all that held his body from a bone-crunching 1,700ft drop during the first intricate steps of the Huber Boulder Problem. The Boulder Problem is the most technically demanding 10ft section of the 2,900ft Freerider climbing route on the southwest face of El Capitan. Honnold had failed this intricate 10ft dance across the V7 slab on the craggy monolith multiple times before with ropes but on June 3rd, 2017 Honnold was on his second attempt of the unprecedented free solo of the unforgiving rock face without ropes. The Boulder Problem ends with either a karate kick that fully extends his leg out to a perpendicular edge over the chasm or a double dyno, a move that would require a jump that would hopefully lead to a two-handed landing on a thin ledge over what would certainly be a fall to his death.

With even breath and steady eyes, Honnold prudently opted for the karate kick solution to the Boulder Problem finishing that portion of the death-defying climb with a giant grin. He went on to complete the additional 1,200ft of tough climbing to finish the legendary free solo in a nerve-straining 3 hours and 56 minutes. The New York Times called it, “One of the great athletic feats of any kind, ever.” And I agree, no ropeless ascent of that length or difficulty has ever been done. This is a breathtaking accomplishment that most experienced climbers cannot even fathom.

When we hear of great achievements like the free solo of El Cap we can be tempted into thinking of greatness as an act, a singular moment that defines an era, a person, or a team. But Honnold had been breaking records, completing 1000+ ft free solos, and other never-before-done climbing badassery years before this climb. This was just an incredible cherry on top of a still young and budding career. It’s a complete fantasy that greatness ever comes in one monumental push or a single bout of preternatural effort, luck, or desire, it’s against the laws of nature.

Far from being a single lucky act, greatness is based on thousands of meticulous hours of important technical, and qualitative changes, experimentation, discipline, consistency, and creativity. But when thinking of excellence as a concept we hardly ever use the words ordinary, prosaic, typical, or boring to describe acts or individuals we think of as excellent or superlative. But to those that are excellent, excellence is just that — mundane, routine, banal, ordinary, just another Tuesday type shit. For anyone to achieve a level of “greatness,” whatever that means to them, greatness must be demystified. Greatness is as simple and mundane as it is difficult to attain, there aren’t shortcuts, any meaningful amount of talent, or golden lottery tickets to high achievement just consistent hard work, discipline, and qualitative changes in technique and mindset1. You cannot be excellent unless excellence becomes a somewhat expected everyday occurrence, not some far out-of-reach pipe dream.

Because excellence is commonplace to truly high performers quiet confidence and equanimity and their derivatives like humility follow naturally. You see these traits in individuals at the upper echelons of their field because they are operating at a high level within their sphere of competence, usually on the biggest, brightest stages. They are up for the challenge, focused, and confident because they have proven to themselves often that they can habitually and almost instinctually do incredible things — things that most people cannot even imagine attempting. Ego, blame, who gets credit, conniptions, and sycophantic histrionics are not important to those who are great because they don’t have to justify their existence. Outside of when their skills are on display, they don’t want to have the fanfare, the swagger, and the pomp and circumstance because it simply gets in the way of what they do every day.

Don’t be fooled excellence is valued because of its scarcity and it is scarce because it is difficult to be truly excellent at what you do. The paradox of effort or “sprezzatura” is this, the more nonchalant, effortless, or simple, clean, and graceful something appears to be the more focused, intentional, consistent, and effortful one needs to be to develop those skills.

I don’t think greatness, in its many forms, is the quintessence of life but I do believe that wherever you are and whatever you are doing striving for excellence will only make your situation better. Like the old adage, “If it’s worth shooting once, it’s worth shooting twice” so it is with things we need to do, if it’s worth doing it is worth doing well. So be a great parent, be a great businessman or tradesman, be a great painter, writer, or volleyball player. Just be great. Greatness is possible and it’s good for you. Greatness is not out of your reach it just might be outside of your current sphere of competence and that’s okay.

(If you haven’t read the HP books, please repent and do so. This first part of the post is for Harry Potter readers who have finished the 6th book. If that is not you, you can continue to read after the spoilers are over. It will be labeled clearly.)

In the 6th installment of the Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Dumbledore commits to meeting with Harry in a series of important one-on-one meetings in which they unravel Tom Riddle’s twisted past. During their last meeting, Dumbledore reveals the lengths he believes Voldemort has gone to in order to become immortal, and likewise the efforts Harry will have to undertake to defeat him.

Harry, feeling overwhelmed with the daunting task and perhaps a bit disheartened by a prophecy that spells out an ostensibly grim fate for him, airs his grievances about the lack of weapons and tools at his disposal for his seemingly inevitable duel and death at the hands of Lord Voldemort. Dumbledore forcefully disabuses Harry of the notion that he lacks the tools and allows him to see that he isn’t being forced into this fate in the last couple of paragraphs of the 23rd chapter of the book. He imbues Harry with a sense of ownership, determination, and initiative. In what would be one of Dumbledore’s parting gifts and the culmination of all of Dumbledore’s mentoring, he counters Harry’s frustrations by teaching Harry about fate, love, and the power behind voluntarily embracing one’s destiny.

This shift in Harry is what gives him the strength to strike out on his own and willingly shoulder his burdens with dynamism and determination. Up to this point, everything just happened to Harry. He didn’t ask for any of this. He was tossed around by the twists of chance and fate. His parents were killed, his adoptive parents were assholes, and since his birth, the most powerful dark wizard in history has been determined to murder him personally. At the tender age of 11 he was thrown into a fantastical world full of prophecies about him, built-in arch nemeses, and a path that seemingly would only end with suffering, ostracization, and the brutal death of friends, family, and himself. This newfound knowledge that Harry received made his death more certain and his future bleaker than ever but the complete ownership of his choice to voluntarily continue and his self-driven agency to act is what allowed him to move forward with hope, energy, and eventually, victory.

***End of Harry Potter Spoiler***

I am not a believer in fate or destiny in the traditional set-in-stone sense, and neither was Dumbledore. I hate the implications of fatalism and determinism, as they are super depressing and false. What I am a staunch believer in is free will and choice. I believe that no matter what happens to us, it can be for our good, and despite rejecting fate as a concept, I will admit that there will be important moments that are thrust upon us that only we can act on. Things that are unique and specific to our lives that only we can choose how to handle. And the best way to react to these crucial moments, be they painful and unpleasant or exhilarating and joyful, is to enthusiastically welcome whatever they are whenever they come to us. Grief and fear should not find us nervous for another beating but confident, familiar, and with cordial acceptance.

I believe the best way to live life is to consciously, willingly, and wholeheartedly embrace any pain or pleasure, no matter how deep. Hug your cactus, embrace the suck, take up your cross just as much as you embrace, and savor the good fortune that comes your way. I and others like me waste so much time complaining, malingering, and trying to convince the world that we were robbed when we could change all of those into growth opportunities, positive experiences, or at the very least welcome them with gratitude as necessary and expected parts of life.

Wholeheartedness is a skill, and the same people who can’t fully accept pain and sorrow will equally have a hard time fully accepting joy and fun in their lives. It is an internal paradigm shift that will allow you to draw the best from everything that comes to you in life, no matter where you are. It must be done within you and can be done within you despite where you are in life or as Samuel Johnson so eloquently puts it, “The fountain of content must spring up in the mind, and he who hath so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition, will waste his life in fruitless efforts and multiply the grief he proposes to remove.”

At the end of the Oscar award-winning movie, Jojo Rabbit, an excerpt from the German poet, Ranier Rilke’s poem “Go to the Limits of Your Longing” is shown shortly before the movie credits roll. The poem is from “Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Letters to God” where he explores his sometimes tenuous belief in God. The whole poem is great but the excerpt that Waititi includes in the movie is this.

Let everything happen to you
Beauty and terror
Just keep going
No feeling is final

And I agree with Rilke in his direction but not his magnitude, don’t just let it happen to you! Welcome beauty welcome terror, abide in them, and know that the best is yet to come.

To be continued in Part II

“The inner machinations of my mind are an enigma”

Patrick Star

“I am sorry that I created this”

M. Kim

1. Lists

2. When things aren’t orderly and organized. (It’s most helpful when things are in bulleted or numbered line items)

3. Repetition

4. Unneeded Repetition

5. When people don’t think I can do 1000 pushups in one day #goals

6. People who have weak goals. Like physically weak goals.

7. The word “glands”

8. Contradiction

9. Contractions. The grammatical ones and other ones as well.

10. There once was a guy that met the rapper T.I. and asked, “You T.I.?” To which the rapper answered, “Drink some cranberry juice.”

11. The random and irregular use of puns

12. Skipping numbers in lists

14. Silly superstitions

15. Lists that aren’t in alphabetical order (I’m literally screaming)

16. Overreacting when things aren’t going your way.

17. Irony

18. Misusing the word irony

19. When people say “This cereal is a bit irony. It tastes like quarters.” Quarters are made up of a nickel-copper alloy. Iron has literally nothing to do with it.

20. NCMOs

21. Not kissing girls casually

22. The duality of man

23. Being blown about by every wind of doctrine

24. The fact that I, for a very brief moment, will contemplate making a joke about paraplegics when someone asks me if I like vegetables… Why would I not like vegetables?

25. Jokes that take a long time to tell after all “brevity is the soul of wit” (mah boy Shakespeare, sometime during 1602)

26. Not giving credit where credit is due. Preferably in a proper bibliography and in-text citations.

27. Not not saying mean things on social media. (Pls don’t arrest me the UK or Scotland Yard etc.)

28. Not not making political jokes

29. Double negatives

30. Feeling frustrated by dangling participles, the list seemed less enjoyable.

31. Also, dangling prepositions, I don’t know where my disdain for them comes from.

32. Grammar nazis

33. Not capitalizing proper nouns

34. General inconsistency

35. Incongruity

36. The obnoxious use of synonyms

37. Self-referential lists and literature

38. Contradiction

39. Repetition

40. Callbacks to previous jokes

41. Lists that lack harmony and also good vibes

42. When people use the term “and or” in a sentence

43. When people use “quotations” and or “quote marks” the “wrong way”

44. Using obscure “scientific” sounding words for “parts” of our bodies

45. The thought that dogs and lions and stuff will get food stuck in their teeth and it will just rot and fester there.

46. A lack of an appreciation of our “digits” or “phalanges” and or the advent of “toothpicks” and “floss”

47. A total lack of gratitude or appreciation for our fingers and prehensile extremities. Also, opposable thumbs?? Pretty nice to have.

48. Using lists as a way to combat writer’s block

49. Not releasing your inhibitions and feeling the rain on your skin

50. The weird emojis 💩🧌🧞👨‍🦯🌚🧿 who got paid to make these?

51. Rhetorical questions

52. Platitudes

53. When people say “Just be yourself” or “It could be worse”

54. Answering people multiple times with shrugging. Use words bro! It’s literally not that hard (respectfully)

55. Closing my eyes and trying to navigate my house and doing basic chores without the benefit of sight. Pretty annoying that I do that sometimes.

56. When someone tries to tickle me. Just be a good human and don’t do that.

57. Repetition

58. Repeating the same thing over and over

59. When someone, without me asking, tries to put their hand in my armpit or neck crease or like squeezes my thigh or the vulnerable parts of my torso that are unprotected by my rib cage to try and make me laugh. wth gtfo with that nonsense. Idk but it’s disrespectful imho smh.

60. Using text abbreviations etc.

61. Not being able to crush 12-year-olds on Fortnite

62. When like younger people like around the age of 11-14 don’t have a life and or responsible loving parents that prevent them from getting really good at like video games like Fortnite.

63. People that use the “words” like, like too much

64. Lists that are pretty meta iykyk

65. Adding the letter f to text abbreviations for “emphasis” iyfkyk

66. Trying to type stuff without spell check. I might seriously be dyxlexsic.

67. Not skipping the number of the beast

68. dad gummit

69. The colloquial use of the word tootin’

70. Punching babies. Nfgl it bothers me a bit.

71. In 1692 during the Salem Witch trials, Giles Corey was an old farmer accused of witchcraft and was tortured to get a confession from him. They tortured him by putting a board on him and then putting heavy rocks on it. Essentially, they crushed his body over two days but the only words he would say during those two days and his purported last words were, “More weight.” That’s pretty banf if you ask me.

72. Line items that don’t make sense in the list you are writing. It messes up the consistency and credibility of the list etc.

73. Tight shoes. Like physically they squeeze your feet, not like the cool way people use the word tight to mean like “fly” or “swaggy” or “super dope”

74. When other guys don’t get that girls need more carbs and sleep and love and attention during the late luteal phase #educateyourself

75. I’m also super frustrated with the “pink””tax” like don’t they know that girls NEED that stuff (I’m disgusted, also I’m over 6’ and can bench 315 and also, I don’t like Andrew Tate, and am also single but knows how to be in a loving relationship 👀)

76. F boys. Both the crass directive and the person.

77. Boys who play with girls’ feelings with no real intent to be with them long term but will like pretend like they do in order to “get” with them

78. Defining words like the other person doesn’t know what a word is. I know what words mean.

79. A single distinct meaningful element of speech or writing, used in conjunction with others (but something’s alone (which is kinda sad)) to form a sentence and in writing or print is typically shown with a space on either side.

80. Again, I want to emphasize that I hate repetition here

81. Repetition

82. Contradictions

83. Contradictions in lists and other types of ways that you organize information like spreadsheets or lists or listing things out.

84. Crunching the numbers. You don’t have to be that aggressive with them.

85. Caring about inanimate objects

86. #reallylongandcomplexhashtags#itisoneoftheplaguesofthisgeneration

87. Puppies. Jk. I like them.

88. Not saying what you mean and therefore weakening your stances and list integrity for future lists

89. Child labor. Unless ☝️that child is like streaming games like Fortnite for a living under the responsible tutelage of their parents or parent or stepparent (inclusive). That child is hopefully enjoying themselves and also, if they’re popular, creating generational wealth for their families (plural, can have more than one family if they want) (inclusive)

90. People that aren’t inclusive

91. People who don’t use (parenthesis). How do you do emoticons? :’(

92. People who don’t use emoticons ;(

93. Coronavirus. The new variants just hang around for way too long.

94. Hair. In my mouth. When it’s not mine.

95. Some shades of the color yellow-green I guess

96. People who don’t have strong opinions

97. Literally using the word literally metaphorically

98. “Opening the kimono” over dinner. How about in the sanctity of your own room? It’s literally unhygienic.

99. Germophobic prudes

100. Tickling me without consent and also repetition and contradictions and inconsistency especially in list making (which I literally “loath”)

101. Ending lists on odd numbers

This post is a bit different from our usual content, but it’s something that everyone —boys and girls alike— should learn about. I feel like periods have always been a slightly taboo subject for a lot of people, but I’ve never believed that very many topics should be taboo, especially with something as natural and commonplace as female biology, and even more especially when discussing these topics with trusted friends and family. Keeping things taboo only exacerbates misunderstandings, mistreatment, and worsens taboo subject adjacent problems. So today, we're shining a bright light on the menstrual cycle, and with some luck, we’ll all learn to take advantage of the ovulatory phase with fun dates/gym PRs (for girls), and then remember to help the ladies carb up during the subsequent luteal phase. LFG.

PERIODT

By: Olivia Nelson

The menstrual cycle is an inevitable thing that females must experience during their lives. They can’t choose when it happens, how it happens, or how long it happens. The body is in charge, and the female must follow. For those who have never experienced the menstrual cycle (and for those who wish to understand it better), here are the most important things that you should know.

First and foremost, the menstrual cycle lasts 28–35 days (about one month). It doesn’t always start on the first day of every month because the human body doesn’t sync with the Gregorian calendar or the 24-hour clock; it has its own timing and will start when it wants. Remember, the body is in charge. But since one cycle lasts about one month, it usually starts/ends around the same time each month. For example, if Mary’s cycle started on July 17th last month, this month it will start between August 14–21. 

Now let’s talk about what happens during those 28–35 days. They can be broken down into 4 phases: the menstrual phase, the follicular phase, the ovulatory phase, and the luteal phase. These all require different skills and tools to navigate. Here is what you need to know about each phase:

1. The Menstrual Phase (Days 1–7)

The bleeding days of the cycle. Females are not quite themselves during this phase. Stabbing abdominal and/or back cramps, acne breakouts, and additional pains/soreness in uncomfortable areas of the body might accompany the bleeding. Tools needed to combat the blood are tampons, pads, or menstrual cups, and tools needed to combat accompanying pain are over-the-counter pain relievers and heating pads. Chocolate, comfort food, cozy clothes, easy workouts, and a clear social calendar can also be helpful during this phase.

2. The Follicular Phase (Days 1–12)

Don’t let the overlapping phases confuse you. Part of this phase does happen at the same time as the menstrual phase, but it continues for about 5 additional days — also known as the recovery days of the cycle. The body is recovering from menstruation and is starting to feel more “normal” again. Energy levels are restored, acne is clearing up, and the overall mood is happy. 

3. The Ovulatory Phase (Days 13–16)

The peak days, also the halfway point of the cycle. Energy is high, the overall mood is slightly better than normal, and the body is feeling leaner, glowier, and flirtier. Social outings, romantic expressions, and high-energy workouts are enjoyed most during this phase. 

4. The Luteal Phase (Days 17–28)

The peak is over and she’s hunkering down before bleeding again. During this phase, the female gets progressively more tired, hungry, and irritable. Her weights that she was busting out at the gym during the ovulatory phase are starting to feel heavier. The necessary tools at this time are patience, restful sleeping, and carbs. (Fun fact: The only time this phase is not reached is when the female becomes pregnant.) 

Learning the menstrual cycle in such a simple way can be very beneficial for men (and, of course, women) to understand what women experience month to month. I did not study science, I studied English — hence the lack of scientific explanations behind all of these phenomena. But before you can understand why things happen during the menstrual cycle, you need to know what happens. And all of this is a very simple version of the what.

To the male readers: Use this as a cheat sheet to better perceive the women who are close to you. If one of them seems extra uncomfortable and antisocial, she might just be at the menstrual phase of her cycle. She doesn’t hate you, her body is in charge, and she’s just trying to make it to day 8 to feel normal again. You are also welcome to share this with fellow men who might want/need to learn this information. OR you could always keep this to yourself. No one will ever know that you read this blog post unless you tell them.

To the female readers: Get to know your own menstrual cycle. Every body is different, and you may or may not experience things the same way or with the same timing as I’ve described them. All of this is just a very simplified, generalized outline to help everyone get started. Figure out what the phases of your cycle look and feel like for you, and then utilize the tools and skills necessary to navigate each phase. 

In conclusion, the menstrual cycle is wild, untimely, and fundamental. It lasts an entire lifetime. However, it CAN be understood. It’s not that hard. Periodt. 

As you would expect, Delta Force selection is grueling, but it is much shorter than their naval counterparts. The process takes about 3-4 weeks and largely consists of long ruck marches and land navigation exercises (basically orienteering through uncultivated mountainous country). Their fitness, planning, and other soft skills are obviously tested to their limits in these exercises, but the real test comes from the isolation, flat affectation from instructors, and the deep and abiding doubt that is built into the selection process. Unlike the heavily regimented military schedules that soldiers are accustomed to, prospective candidates are not told the distance or cut-off time standards for any selection exercises.

Land navigation is done alone through harsh, trailless mountainsides where the only directions given are to show up to the given coordinates as fast as they can, at which point they will be given their next set of coordinates. There is no indication of whether they are getting to their coordinates on time or how many there are left. On the long rucks, they are only stoically told to do their best and to try to beat the mysterious cutoff times that they are not privy to. The rucks are estimated to be anywhere between 20 miles and 50 miles, but no one knows for sure. There is no discouragement or encouragement given throughout the whole process, only a consistent doubt about whether your self-imposed standard is fast enough for selection. In the end, it gives a supreme sense of trust in one’s abilities and others in “The Unit.” Delta selection has attrition rates upwards of 90%, and some Delta operators have mentioned classes where only 1 or 2 candidates make it from 100-180 qualified guys. Thats wild.

Doubt is easy to resent. It’s not fun and doubting one’s abilities in what is essentially a glorified job application process is one thing, but when we are forced to question and doubt important people in our lives or major beliefs that we have built our lives around, the stakes are much, much higher. Doubt makes us balance competing ideas, assumptions, and feelings, which leaves our nerves strained and our minds enervated.

Doubt is like adding horse shit to a barn fire — it makes bad situations worse by engendering further stain and uncertainty on our already overly burdened souls. History has shown us that it is not an uncommon reaction to question literally everything when a seminal pillar of our lives is thrown into doubt (think of the philosophical origins of Descartes, Kant, or William James). As the apocryphal quote (usually attributed to Nietzsche) goes, “When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago.”

We may not like the twin plagues of unease or apprehension that inevitably join doubt, but the journey through doubt is as sacred as it is necessary. Living peacefully without being confronted by or about your beliefs and the way you live your life SEEMS nice, but we also wouldn’t be able to truly trust anything. Doubt is where the rubber hits the road. It is the litmus test for certainty in our lives. It’s where the dross burns. It is the altar upon which we sacrifice anything that doesn’t quite sit right with us. It is the battleground where we are asked to prove ourselves, our ideas, and our faith. It is our wrestle before God and our sojourn in the wilderness. Doubt leads, or rather pushes, us to our personal sacred groves, and it is the way by which we will enter our promised land.

Doubt is sacred. Doubt is good. Doubt is the moment before we find solid footing on something we trust. It is the mechanism by which we meet our God. It’s where we learn to trust Him, and it’s where we learn who He is. And it is ultimately where we find ourselves. Doubt and our reactions to it will show us who we are and where we have work to do. It allows us to choose and learn to live with our decisions. It teaches us to self-soothe without floundering and demanding easy answers. Doubt allows us to grow in confidence in ourselves, others, and God until we can live with it and accept whatever may come.

Doubt is sacred. Doubt is good.

Edison had an indomitable spirit, intense curiosity, and an incredible thirst for life that manifested itself as persistence born from a nearly irrational form of enthusiasm. He worked extremely hard throughout his 84 years and seemingly never lost steam, as evidenced by his 1,093 patents. That’s more than a patent for every month he was alive! Failure after failure, he was able to bounce back with even more enthusiasm and undiminished hope for success. This is contrary to what we typically see; he put in more effort and vigor the more hardship he faced.

Doing things over and over with greater levels of energy and enthusiasm is not some passive divine endowment but rather a learned skill that grows over time, and Edison was a master at it. Edison is quoted saying, “Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up,” and with that mindset, he was able to enthusiastically try over and over, knowing that failure made success more likely than before. When he was confronted about delays in inventing the lightbulb, he countered with, “I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.” To him, no effort, however small or great, was a waste even after 10,000 iterations.

Many people look at individuals with a developed sense of enthusiasm and make the mistake of thinking that those are ethereal, fleeting traits that others are blessed with. Others dismiss those individuals as delusional or self-inflating. Some will see their enthusiasm as a defensive psychological front that protects their ego or a hubristic trance that one has to trick themselves into. To be fair, optimists and those with a deep sense of enthusiasm are wrong far more often than they are right, but they only need to be right once to illuminate the world with the light bulb, cure polio, or develop the next groundbreaking technology. Rather than a feeling you get occasionally or an emotional state, enthusiasm is closer to a combination of a learned reaction to hardship, a change in underlying theories and worldview, and a skill that can be refined through time, effort, experience, and work.

Enthusiasm is more than just a never-ending work ethic, and it’s more than being disciplined, especially if you accept Mike Tyson’s definition that, “Discipline is doing what you hate like you love it.” Enthusiasm is doing something you love like you love it and continuing to choose to love it even when it gets a bit tedious or laborious. I believe that the person with never-ending enthusiasm will outwork the person with a never-ending work ethic and discipline because it’s a different mindset. There are times you will need to put your head down and work, but in the spaces that require creativity, energy, and enthusiasm, you will get much further when you don’t treat yourself like a robot or a beast of burden. Enthusiasm is far more enjoyable; there is no element of suffering involved, and there are tangible benefits and advantages to believing in what you’re doing, getting excited, and actually enjoying what you do time and time again.

Enthusiasm’s Greek root is “entheos” or “en theos,” and the most rudimentary Greek translates that into “in God.” Other translations take it a step further by translating “entheos” into “full of god, inspired, possessed,” or “the god within.” On its face, enthusiasm is playful, inventive, intense, enjoyable, and full of verve, but it draws all of that from our deep spiritual DNA that pushes us to create, progress, and truly revel in things we find deeply meaningful—the things that connect us to God.

Enthusiasm is the lifeblood of innovation and resilience, fueling our journey through failures and triumphs alike. It is not just a trait but a profound expression of our inner divinity, urging us to better the world with our unique contributions. As Edison’s life demonstrates, with unwavering enthusiasm, we can transform setbacks into stepping stones and dreams into reality. Let us believe that within us lies the power to shape the world around us for the better.

Trying Softer

When consoling a close friend who felt lost, Hunter S. Thompson wrote, “That is the question. Whether to float with the tide or swim for a goal.” I scoffed when I read that, why would anyone take their one precious life and choose to simply float?

At the start of the year, I sat down to write my New Year’s resolution and felt the familiar pit in my stomach that insisted that I was not doing enough. I thought of the year that had just come to a close and contemplated all my failings. I was writing my new goals to ensure I wouldn’t feel that way at the end of another year.

I am deeply influenced by productivity culture. A familiar enemy of mine is the feeling I get after I’ve slept my morning away. I’ll roll out of bed, dripping with dread and shame over the wasted morning. I have always pushed and pushed and felt intense guilt when I stopped to take a rest. Truthfully, guilt is a soft word for what I feel. When I slow down, I am greeted with a self-loathing that would make you think I had committed some kind of crime.

Don’t misunderstand me, I love to rest. But I know that the productivity gremlin awaits me when it’s time to return to focus, which causes me to lean further into rest to delay that inevitable feeling.

Last year - the year that felt like a failure - brought a new voice to my forever-yapping internal dialogue. From the pit of despair emerged a voice of intense love and compassion. Finally, a balancing force in the beautiful chaos of my mind.

I don’t fully know where it came from, but it came from deep in my chest and the more I listened, the stronger it would beat. I spent months trying to figure out who the voice was until I realized - it was me. She is some version of myself who is everything I have ever wanted to be. A version of me who oozes love and compassion. I don’t entirely know what happened, but I think a piece of me cracked open and out of pure necessity this version of me emerged.

When I sat down to ‘fix’ my life through goals and achievements, the voice showed up and reminded me that the point is to just be here. I cannot earn my value from doing or being more than I am. My value is my value - and it’s infinite. I am infinite. The rest is a choice. I get to choose the infinite experience I have.

So, I decided to try softer. I’m still trying, but because I care about learning and growing. But it’s oh so much softer. I’m not trying harder, because that is what I have spent my entire life doing. I’m trying softer. I gave myself permission to dip into my savings. I gave myself permission to sleep in. I gave myself permission to not produce every second of the day. It feels like I have been holding my breath and I finally have permission to breathe out and fill every corner of my lungs with fresh air.

I have always felt that I experience the world through higher highs and higher lows than those around me and I have always wished that experience away. But not this year, this year I am allowed to feel. This year, it is a privilege to feel. Dostoevsky said, “To love is to suffer and there can be no love otherwise.” I’m diving into love and all of its suffering.

So, whether to float with the tide or swim for a goal? I’m floating down the river in an inflatable, kicking or paddling with my hand when the time is right. The difference is that I am choosing to kick and paddle, but I know the river will take me where I need to go.

Mark’s Thoughts on Trying Softer:

In a world of grind culture and burnout, a world that emphasizes materialism instead of true wealth, and a world full of sharp corners and hard, unforgiving edges, know that the truly successful live in a sustainable space.

The best work comes from a place where our mind, body, spirit, passions, jobs, and relationships are synergistic. Where we are creating and self-actualizing. Where all the cylinders are firing, and we are energized and full of self-efficacy. It is not born from our white-knuckled anxieties or in the deleterious grips of depression and comparison. It does not come from external expectations or the validation of other mere mortals.

Productivity is a cruel mistress that will always demand more no matter how much we give, and we have to be the ones who put her in check. There will be time enough to work to your extremities and fulfill your potential, but it cannot be to your detriment, and it cannot be every day.