the mind is a terrible thing to waste

Men tend not to talk about what’s on their mind in healthy, constructive ways. With smartphones in our pockets dropping dopamine and delivering distraction, we have more ways to avoid reading physical books and that isn’t healthy either. We’re here to change that. Included below are a few selected pieces on the topic along with ways to engage.

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tell me how you really feel

When I was a boy, I cried. Over everything. It may have been an innocent slight on the playground (it was my turn on the swing); calling me Germy instead of Jeremy (even if, like my youngest, it’s simply how one attempts to pronounce my name); a not-so-good test result shared with my mom (always the perfectionist, always running to my mom); bursting into tears when a friend cut the video recording of my choreographed U Can’t Touch This music video in 5th grade before we made an “M.C.” with our bodies (Hammer, don’t hurt ‘em); or a neighborhood boy making fun of my jacked-up tube socks and tucked-in polo shirt into even more jacked-up shorts (eat your hearts out, hipsters).  

Brandi Carlile made me ugly cry

I need to call my Mother more

Being a Dad has been real work so far - but it’s the minor leagues.  Mom’s are fucking superheroes.  I didn’t realize that as much as I should have as a son - but holy smokes. Just thinking about a day in my wife’s life makes me want to take a nap.

I thought I was pretty tough. I am not

Having a daughter has turned me into a walking puddle. My wife once joked I should try having an emotion someday…to see what it was like. Fair criticism for most of my life. One daughter later and I’m glassy eyed at literally anything that features A) a dad and B) a daughter. TV commercial, photograph, song…doesn’t matter. Total softy.

Some Lessons From Fatherhood - Year 1

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asking for help

I didn’t know what to expect. We’re a bunch of guys in our thirties and forties who talk mostly about the monthly challenges and exercise and gear tips. I could count a couple of them as my closest friends, but many of them are nascent friendships - new but full of potential. But I had crossed the Rubicon; there was no turning back.

And then it started. I received a series of voice messages from one, relating how he was feeling and offering words of encouragement.  A flurry of messages then came in: some sharing advice, some commiserating. One suggestion that became a reality while writing this week’s newsletter: on Sundays, let’s write a “what fucking sucks” message to the group to “get it out of our heads and our hearts”. To sum it up, as one said to me directly: 

I expected crickets. I’m blown away.

My reply:

Dude. Same.

the second saddest story known to man

a way to engage

Too many men are shit at asking for help. Let’s change that. We’ve got a private community of men who may be able to help.

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the power of the written word

Despite what Jerry says, books are magic. Full stop. But I didn’t always think so.

I hated reading as a kid. I would rather do laundry, clean dishes or pull weeds than sit and read a book. Other than a school assignment that required reading more than Cliff’s Notes or the summer when I read a few Matt Christopher books - I still remember acting like the main character in Miracle at the Plate by attempting to bat cross-handed - I rarely met a book I didn’t loathe.  

That was until I lived with my sister in Queens the summer after my sophomore year of college. Filling my hour commute on the E train down to World Trade Center with a book from the library she accumulated as an English major was the jump start I needed. I read ten books that summer, and I’ve been making up for lost time ever since. 

Taking it a step further, buying used books and finding someone else’s name, their notes and underlined passages, deepens the appeal to me.  These books in particular tell two stories: that of the writer and that of the reader.

let’s barter books like tapers traded tapes

two ways to engage

We’ve got a service to help learn and pay that learning forward with a book barter. Sure it’s more complicated than it needs to be, but it’s more fun that way.

We tend to recommend quite a few books. Anything we recommend will be put on our bookshelf at bookshop.org. Instead of funding Bozos’¹ next trip to outer space, we would prefer to guide you to your local indie bookstore instead. When you buy from them, 10% goes to building project kathekon, too.

1. You know who I mean.