So, it’s been about two weeks since the last time I published. My apologies—it’s just that hypocrisy has been taking up a lot of my time.
I’ve actually been keeping up an aggressive writing schedule. Only, you know, without the publishing part. Why no publishing? Because: no perfection.
If you’re anywhere within earshot of the self-improvement space, you’ve heard the words, “Completion over perfection.” I’d wholeheartedly agree with that—and then I go ahead and delay until perfection is achieved which, of course, never hapens.
It’s all Andrew Pudewa’s fault. (Let me just go ahead and add blame-shifting and/or gaslighting to it.) He’s the founder behind the Institute for Excellence in Writing and, I would say, a friend. He puts out these great Facebook/Instagram Reels like he’s been doing it his whole life. One of this latest Reels was about how writing improves critical thinking, and how the editing process gets rid of bad ideas. In short, you dump everything into your first draft, and you pull the weeds in the editing process.
Well, it turns out that my latest piece had mostly bad weeds. Or ideas that weren’t as insightful as they initially seemed. Or maybe they were all like each other but not really like each other. (As my LEGO YouTube star son would say, they’re like off-brand plastic bricks trying to look like LEGO.)
So, I wrote a piece two weeks ago and have been editing the life out of it since. I showed the draft to a dear friend I’ve known since the early 90s. I always share things with her that I need a second opinion on because I know she’ll pull no punches. She did not disappoint this time, either. “This is dark,” she said.
Hmm…I was going for inspirational on a dark topic. But when my point goes all Patty Hearst with the dark material, I know it’s time for another draft.
My point in all of this: I was striving for perfection, that serial killer of all entrepreneurial initiative or creative impulses. Rookie mistake.
Hey, readers, this is self-improvement in real time. It’s not pretty.
Another thing I’ve struggled massively with is the direction of this newsletter, which is of course tied to what the hell I’m doing in general. Every one of you flipped me a bit of currency in the form of trust and/or actual coin. That’s huge. I can’t believe you’d rent me a space in your inbox to blather on about girl troubles and funny stories in which I’m the buffoon.
Originally I’d intended this to be a project that helps guys overcome various crises in their lives. Maybe work out some of my own BS. That is still my intention, but the intention goes broader and deeper than that now. To the extent that I’m able or even qualified, I want this to be a tool that helps Christian men not just cope with tragedy, but stand tall as leaders, protectors, and providers. As our time slides into a dark age, we need to become like the monks that kept the flame of civilization alive more than a thousand years ago.
More than that, we need to relearn how to fight. We need to be warrior monks.
There’s a ton of work to do, and I have no illusions of grandeur. This is just a silly little newsletter, and one among many others that I would say are far better.
Anyway, the creative struggle has been to address this need while respecting the audience that’s already here. This platform doesn’t break down the audience by anything other than location, but I think most of you dear readers are men. However, a significant number are women, and many of you are my friends in real life or in the digital spaces.
It’s a mixed bag, in other words. The direction I’m going may not be for everyone, and so: struggle.
I don’t intend anything bombastic. This isn’t going to become a “red pill” or misogynistic effort. In fact, I reject “red pillism” almost completely—men and women need each other. However, some of what I’ll be writing about—and the way I write it—may seem a little different.
If you stick around, awesome. If not, thank you for supporting this effort for this long.
Last quick note…
The last newsletter was about “believing in the choice.” That’s one of the things I struggled with. It was more of a point or a side note, not a 1200-word piece. The point was simply this: most depressed men are not capable of even conceiving that there’s a choice whether or not to be depressed. There’s either:
Endure it
End it
I believe it is impossible to truly heal from it when you don’t believe—deep-spine believe—that it is possible to heal and rise above the darkness. A man can, at best, treat the symptoms for a few years before he dies. If he’s lucky, he doesn’t go on living much longer after he does so.
Believing in the choice is about far more than depression. We can choose to be stronger, better, more successful, and most importantly, saints. It’s within our grasp—certainly not by doing it completely alone. (In fact, without God and community, it’ll be 10X harder). But it starts by recognizing that there is a choice, and there is literally nothing between you and choosing the good right now. Today.
Them’s my thoughts for the day. Let’s go do some cool stuff.
" As our time slides into a dark age, we need to become like the monks that kept the flame of civilization alive more than a thousand years ago."
Or like St. Joseph. Holy and obedient to the Lord, wherever God put him. <3