windmills and white whales

of course they were men

Men today lack accountability, encouragement, and community. Without accountability, men act poorly. Without encouragement, men exhibit laziness, selfishness and poor health. Without community, men cascade towards loneliness, isolation and peril.

We believe a world served by better men - friends, citizens, husbands, humans, fathers, sons, brothers, uncles, colleagues, lovers, workers, and humans - benefits us all.

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Of course they were men.

Written by and about. Miguel de Cervantes¹ and Herman Melville; Don Quixote de La Mancha and Captain Ahab. Both about hubris: Don Quixote blinded by his quest to become a knight; Ahab by the whale that was white. Both written by men who died before their own pursuit of fame was realized—Melville’s death mourned in just one local newspaper.

Something about men and goals. The Ford Pinto was to be the first car under $2,000 and under 2,000 pounds; it was rushed into production, 53 people died, with Lee Iaccoca behind the wheel. With Edward A. Brennan at its helm, Sears Automotive set a target for its mechanics to make $147 per hour causing a public-relations backlash when unneeded repairs were done. When it rains in NYC, yellow cabs are never to be found because drivers - 79% of whom are male - meet their daily goal earlier due to the rain and then decide to call it a day. The ratio of Everest deaths-to-summits is heavily skewed towards the Y-chromosome: 1 death for every 37 women who summit; 1 for every 19 men. And don’t get me started on OKRs (I’m looking at you Mr. Grove).

As I’m sure was the case for most of the men above, my preoccupation with goals started in early adulthood. The soundtrack of my twenties was an endless loop of Mötley Crüe misspoken: Goals, Goals, Goals. My early thirties like a Too Hot for TV viewing of Goals Gone Wild². A focus on fitness starting with the birth of my oldest daughter (d)evolving into an obsession with the birth of my second.

I’m also a reader. Long or short, fiction or fact, I appreciate the written word - printed on paper - and finish what I start. When I turned 40, I set a goal to read a book for every year I was old, inscribing every book I read with my name, my contact information, the start and end date, a one-word description and a score out of ten. The intent was to increase the annual goal by one with each turn of the calendar. I figured as I aged I’d find more time to read. I ended up reading one for every week of that first year, The next, 65 and I’m currently on pace to read 77 this year. This is admirable; this is ridiculous. Things can be two things.

Don Quixote is 992 pages.³ I’m not one to let a daunting literary task go unchecked. Unlike most people I actually did read the copy of Infinite Jest on my book shelf, which required the use of two book markets, one for the main book and one for the footnotes (and the footnoted footnotes). So when

Brandon Gracey

made the suggestion to take on the challenge together in our group chat, I picked up a copy.

A different friend of mine has a rule: if he doesn’t like the book after 30 pages, he stops without regret. I should have listened to that friend. Like Quixote himself, I ignored my own Sancho Panza and kept chasing windmill after windmill.

Nantucket: the center of the Venn Diagram of Windmills and White Whales

Don Quixote. 9/1/2021-11/7/2021. Repetitive. 2 out of 10.⁴

That same friend has a deep love of the classic Moby-Dick; or The Whale, and is known to “dip into it several times a week at random” possibly with a flat white. Having previously read Dracula Daily — emailed the same day as it happened in the classic — when Moby Dick Summer “captained by Kristen Felicetti” appeared in my recommendations last year, I figured the wind was right and decided to sail away. In roughly 30-minute segments on Monday and Wednesday with a Friday recap, just like eating an elephant, I thought taking bites out of the big fish would better float my boat.

And it was.

Moby Dick. 6/12/2022-9/21/2022. Meandering. 8 out of 10.⁵

Our oldest started middle school last year. A time when the green shoots of maturity begin to grow, though still too weak to maintain their roots during a spell of bad weather. She seemed to adjust well to the new school - an amalgamation of five elementary schools now learning as one - her eagerness to join after school clubs and new friends she met bringing joy to our conversations.

Those first few sunny days of school created a sense of complacency in me and my wife. We thought our little girl had matured. Then we checked her grades online and noticed numerous missing assignments. A drought.

Bristling with frustration, I raised my voice (read: yelled) before a decrescendo into the silence of disappointment. My dad was a yeller but there was nothing as upsetting as his complete silence. Apples and trees.

A few months later, a quote from John McPhee somehow brought it together:

“The summit of Mount Everest is marine limestone.”

I saw how I push my daughters on an outcome - a specific test, an assignment - not on the process itself. Mount Everest never set out to become the world’s tallest peak. But it is. If Everest had parents, my guess is she would have remained below the ocean’s surface. And if I were to wager another guess, had I followed a similar process with those 992 pages as I took with Ahab and friends, the outcome may have been better.

Last week, I told Brandon my goal was to ship four newsletters this September. I realized that’s the wrong goal. I’ve had this post in the works since April, with monthly goals of sending two articles a month on my list every damned month since then. Outbox zero.

When Jerry Seinfeld set out to be a better comic, he realized he needed better jokes; to get better jokes, he knew he needed to write everyday. He marked his calendar with a red X on days when he wrote jokes, and yada, yada, yada, he became a success. He wasn’t focused on the outcome, he was focused on the process. So I’m taking his lead and changing my goal to spend just 15 minutes a day writing and putting an X in my Bullet Journal along the way. And I’m telling myself (for the last time) that it’s not even a goal; it’s just a thing that’s on my list to do do everyday.

My kids start the new school year tomorrow. I’m focusing on the process. That seems like a pretty good goal.

I almost didn’t write today. I’ve had a shit couple of weeks and almost gave up before trying. But thought, “fuck it, I can do 15 minutes”. An hour later, I’m still writing. I’ll likely be happier as I write more consistently; I’ll likely read fewer books. Things can be two things.

1. Something you probably didn’t know: de Cervantes means “from a circuitous story that repeats itself with reckless abandon”.

2. Don’t worry, the link is safe work work. Side note: I didn’t realize this was the title of a study until researching the above topics.

3. Roughly 1.5 pounds for those looking to exercise the biceps while reading.

4. Why not a 1? I rounded the weight up to 2 pounds.

5. I thought you read it online, how’d you write inscribe it? Great question: I also write this information in my journal for reference.