At the latest of my usual chess social events, a friend walks over to me after losing a game. He tells me, mostly jokingly, that he was fairly upset about the loss, but that his opponent seemed so thrilled by her win that her excitement exceeded his frustration. He could have lost on purpose, he continued, considering that the sum of their two reactions resulted in net positivity. This is an interesting way to view the result of any competition.

He was joking, but since then I have thought more about whether it is ever okay to let someone win, at chess or at anything worth competing in. Imagining myself on the other side of the table, a win would not feel half as wholesome or rewarding as it should if I knew it was freely given, out of pity or out of anything else. I do not want to play a game with someone who will knowingly let me win and I feel strongly that you should never allow yourself to lose intentionally.

Take, for instance, a father teaching his son how to play chess. Over many sessions, the son learns the basics of the game, having been defeated countless times. While there are occasional mid-game victories, like taking a blundered queen, loss after loss continues. Finally, having played off and on for a few years, and on the third game of the day, the son prevails over his own father, a master in his eyes, and someone he was all but certain he would never in his life defeat. There is hardly a worthy description for this feeling. Had the father sandbagged even one game in the son’s favor, he would have poisoned the well of a properly earned victory.

I won’t be so cruel as to say that open handicapping is forbidden. For the sake of teaching, the father playing without a queen for a game or two can teach both of them a thing or two. Most importantly, the open handicap puts a firm lid on the emotions felt following a game you were winning before you even started. Knowing you defeated someone when they were missing the most powerful piece in the game is objectively far less satisfying than knowing that they played their best game.

Whether you are playing a new friend who is still learning the game, or teaching your own son to play chess, where you draw the line on a clean and proper victory is up to you. Wherever this line is drawn, draw it openly. I can say wholeheartedly that if you ever have the chance to play me at anything, and if you defeat me, know that you earned it.

During a conversation at a happy hour recently, the man I was talking with and I both stopped and said, “I have definitely seen you before.” I told him that I had noticed him more than once on my evening walk around the neighborhood, always at about the same hour. As it turns out, he had noticed me on his walk too, and neither of us had ever thought to mention it to anyone. We proceeded to have a funny conversation about whether or not he is an NPC, a non-playable character, as it’s known in video games. This is what a character is called if they say the same things, do the same things, or otherwise don’t really deviate from their usual operations.

Beyond going for a walk every evening at the same hour, to the same places, I thought about what else that someone does or says could be NPC-like. The way in which you introduce yourself to someone for the first time is worth considering. I realized that it very much depends upon the audience. At a happy hour or social setting where each new person I meet could work in any number of fields, I often start by saying that I work in finance. Then I tailor the extent to which I elaborate from there based on their knowledge of, or interest in, finance. At a conference, on the other hand, I’m likely to jump right into what I do in much more specific terms, explaining that I manage portfolios investing in corporate bonds primarily collateralized by commercial aircraft.

In continuing this analysis, I then thought that my initial conversation with someone could be at least partially explained via a dialogue tree, or an if-then programmed algorithm. Very simply put, if I don’t know what this person does, then say I work in finance. If I am very confident that I know this person works in finance, I feel free to explain my work in greater detail. This tree-branching consideration has me again thinking what if I am an NPC, just with a large table of variable answers?

I then began thinking about how often we repeat the same lines, and how that repetition influences the persona of the person saying them. When I tell every new person I meet the same key things about me, it reinforces the extent to which my identity is tied to those things. Each time you introduce yourself, you are making a small commitment to yourself to keep being that person.

The man from the happy hour and I will most likely pass each other on our walks again within the next week, at the usual hour and on the same side of the street. I’m still deciding what the right amount of consistency in my life is. If walking on the other side of the street, or leaving for my evening stroll a half hour later than usual is the only agency I have, then I’ll take that. I’d ask what in your life is eerily consistent, and what choices you have to prove it is still a choice.

My colleague recently passed Level III of the CFA exam. While I am proud of him and know how hard he worked to accomplish this, I was reminded of when I took and did not pass Level II. While I needed a magnifying glass to see that my score was one pixel below the passing line, I like to think that I put a great deal of studying in just to accomplish that. Thinking back and being somewhat critical of myself, I could have reviewed the assigned curriculum more intently, and have spent less time on the third-party exam prep provider materials (the “shortcut”). Regardless of the results, I did learn a lot, more so about life in general than how to calculate the duration or convexity of a bond.

I have thought a lot lately about how shortcuts in life don’t really exist. They don’t exist in the sense that you do not arrive at the same place as you would if you hadn’t chosen to take the shortcut. Sure, you will arrive at the finish line in a shorter amount of time, or having used lesser resources, but after closer inspection, you may realize it’s not the finish line you thought it was.

Whether skipping straight to the cheat-sheet when studying for exams, buying lottery tickets, or taking a jab of a GLP-1, there are countless shortcuts that present themselves to us throughout our lives.

While I have certainly played the lottery before, the hardest part about winning would be deciding how to thoughtfully spend the winnings. You’d have forgone all that you would have learned about allocating larger amounts of capital as you skipped so many steps on the ladder.

The same can be said of GLP-1s. When you lose weight the long way, you build formidable skills in sitting with the desire to eat while not acting on it. This skill of self-control and constraint is something that cannot be given with a shot or a pill. It can only be built through your own work.

I wouldn’t wish for anyone to skip past the most difficult times of their lives, nor shortcut around the times when they will persevere and learn the most. It is in these times when we grow. Ask yourself what shortcut life is presenting you with, and if you decided to take it, to which finish line would it lead?

At a chess club one evening this week, I arrived fashionably late, scouted the room, and found but one empty seat. It belonged to a table occupied by a gentleman named Walt, with whom I ended up playing three games. Walt could have been my Dad. He wore a nice watch and had just polished off an old fashioned. It was my first time at this particular club, and having known nearly no one, I thought for sure I was in for some rough games. My first opponent struck me as a serious and skilled player. As I quickly found out, there is something about who you are sitting across the table from that can seriously influence your performance.

The first third of the game, I like to think I played perfect book moves. Then the middlegame arrived and I noticed my heart rate rising. I had this feeling that I was facing some very real competition, and a combination of fear of losing and excitement of winning came over me. It was hard to tell exactly how much of each, though I would say 51% fear, at least in the first game. Walt took the win on game one, so I carried a chip on my shoulder into game two. Late in the middlegame, I was ahead on material and feeling 51% excitement this time. Then he checked me, and in doing so, left his own Queen sitting where mine could take it. Reacting quickly to the imminent threat, I moved my King to safety. He promptly took my Queen while politely reminding me that I could have taken his with mine. I shook my head, knowing that blunder cost me the game. Despite playing the majority of the second game more confidently and accurately than my opponent, he capitalized on a single mistake.

I entered the third and final game feeling determined, and comfortable after sharing a few laughs with Walt between rounds. By the time the endgame arrived, I breathed a calm but not yet fully deserved sigh of relief, as I surely had the upper hand. I kept reminding myself not to blunder and to take it easy, and the game would be mine. That is exactly what I did. Thankfully, for the sake of my honor, I defeated him, not swiftly but surely. After two straight losses, seeing him gently lay his King down was the highlight of my night.

These few games reminded me that very often our performance is influenced by who we are performing for, against, or in front of. It’s safe to say I was a bit intimidated when I sat down and I left having earned my seat at the table. Consider who is sitting across the table from you, in whatever your version of chess is, and whether and how much the fear and excitement you feel belongs to that person or to the game itself. Regardless of my answer or yours, I am striving to play my best against every opponent and I suggest you do the same.

I was sharing an essay that I had recently written with my cousin at a family cookout and afterwards he said that I am quite the Renaissance Man. I didn’t know exactly what to think, though knew it was very well intended. I thought about the term and what it meant in my still relatively short life. I have high standards and tend to think that only highly accomplished champions of their industries and philanthropists could earn such a title.

For a while, I sometimes heard the phrase as not being exceptional at any one field, but being a jack-of-many-trades, which I did not think of as much of a compliment. With time I’ve come to realize that, each time it’s been said, it was a compliment. I now see the phrase as a way of saying they are inspired by my deep passion for many topics.

The power of this approach becomes clear when you consider the math involving the combination of interests. Let’s say there are 1,000 different fields of interest, and if each person chooses three fields they love, that would lead to over 166 million unique combinations of “Renaissance.” If the ordering of the three fields matters, which it probably would as we tend to hold one interest above others, then it works out to just under one billion different combinations. When considering there are many more than 1,000 different fields of interest, and that some people will be uniquely gifted at more than three of them, it’s easy to see how specializing in a handful of areas can make you one-of-a-kind.

As often as I still think I am not yet deserving of the title, what is most important is that I have set my direction and begun my journey to become one. I’d like to think that, over the recent few years, my dedication to any number of interests has made the lives of others a little better.

We are all capable of becoming our own Renaissance Men and Women. It is up to you to uncover and thoughtfully combine the fields through which your talents can shine. If you find yourself only able to think of one or two, consider what learning a new skill or diving into an unfamiliar topic might add to your combination. It is entirely possible that no one else on Earth merges your particular three.

Thank you for reading Logic & Levity!

Alas, it shouldn’t take a few glasses of Bollinger La Grande Année to feel as grateful as I do right now, but here I am. An unusual set of circumstances led me here today, from accepting a ‘hey, what would you think of an interview for a position as my junior,’ proceeding to work for the aforementioned friend for four years, then replacing him in his then-senior role. He has since remained a great friend.

As I watch the plane fill up, about ten boy scouts in uniform walk past me. Seeing them march by makes me keenly aware of how grateful I am for where I’m sitting. I’m half tempted to tap one on the shoulder and tell him to switch seats with me, for the larger net effect of him telling his friends, “You won’t believe what happened to me” than me experiencing this first-class seat for myself, where none other than my immediate family know of my seat and rightfully couldn’t care less.

This seat is not quite making a difference to me as opposed to the back of the plane, though I cannot say for certain that I would have the physical space, energy, or patience to write this if I were in something like 29F. At least for these few hours, this seat is mine. The golden rays of the afternoon sun hit just enough of my notebook to pique my attention and draw me in to continue spilling my mind.

Regardless of the quantity or quality of champagne, it should, in fact, not take so much as a single bubble to feel grateful. Reflecting on the experience, what I believe it should take is a little airplane mode combined with a clear mind. While quality bubbles tend to lend themselves to a clear mind, so does a quiet walk in nature, which I will be doing the moment I get back home.

I’m realizing that, all along, I am grateful for so much, yet it is only in certain circumstances when my gratitude is fully revealed to me. What is your quiet walk in nature, whether a specific route, a specific place, a state of mind, or a set of company? For me, I have just the route in mind, along the bay, that will have me reaching for the upper band of gratitude yet again.

I remember not too long ago when daylight saving time began. The first morning after the clocks sprang forward an hour, I woke up early. That day, I caught the sunrise and the sunset and it felt like an incredibly long and productive day. The only thing that really changed was the clock, and nothing to do with nature. Conversely, today is the summer solstice, the day which receives the longest amount of sunlight of the year. For some reason, I have a feeling that the artificially lengthened day will manage to feel longer than the actual longest day.

I recently had dinner with a very successful entrepreneur and something struck me about what he was, or was not wearing. Notably, he was not wearing a watch. Despite running ten or more businesses, he did not pick up his phone to tend to any notifications once. I thought to myself how he could manage to be on time to anything without a watch, as I looked down at my vintage Casio.

The point that I left that dinner with is that he did not need to constantly check what time it was. I’m sure he was well aware of the time in a relative sense, but it did not demand his attention in the same way that it so often does of mine. A watch can train you to check it more often than you should. Checking the time too often, can have the opposite effect on your experience of it. When you want time to go by faster, checking it constantly simply makes it go by slower. Conversely, when you want it to go by slower, checking it makes it fly by.

Before I begin asking you questions about how you spend your days, I’m going to attempt to analyze how I spend mine. Despite the Apple Watch or Casio on my wrist most days, some of them still manage to slip through my fingers. On occasion, I’ll lay my head down at the end of the night wondering where the day went. A day can disappear without any single hour feeling obviously wasted. It might start with sleeping in, a few emails, a workout, a forgettable meal, some obligatory mindless scrolling, and suddenly you realize the sun is quickly setting. Most of my days are filled with purpose, pursuing passions, and learning new things, but some simply fly by. I wonder if I could benefit from leaving my watches at home sometimes.

What are you planning to do with this extra sunlight the world has given you? Will you blink and let the longest day of the year pass like any other, or will you leave your watch at home as you enjoy every moment of the extra daylight?

I spent some time with my family this past week and gave my Dad a bottle of scotch as an early Father’s Day gift. One night, we had some company over, old friends we had not seen in years. Though I had intended for him to wait and enjoy it back home with his friends, it did not take long for him to decide to open it and share it with our company. Of course, I enjoyed a glass with him, and I could not blame him for cracking it open that night.

It is a nice feeling to buy something without knowing exactly when, where, or with whom you will eventually share it, whether that is a top shelf bottle of wine, some Father’s Day whiskey, or something entirely different. Sometimes, it could be something as simple as a chocolate bar that you do not quite know when you will want to enjoy later. Then your future self one day will thank you for having the foresight to purchase it, and the patience to not have immediately enjoyed it.

The same can be said for someone who saves their nice wines a little too carefully. At first, there is nothing wrong with saving something for the right occasion. There is something disciplined about restraint. Not everything needs to be consumed the moment it enters your life. Some things are made better by anticipation, which could come on a birthday, holiday, or another special occasion. A bottle on the shelf can become a promise to your future self that there will be a moment worth opening it for.

Sometimes, the standard for opening that special bottle can creep higher with each consideration. A date night at home is not deemed worthy, nor is a friend stopping by. A birthday normally works, but then you wonder whether it should be saved for a bigger one. The special bottle remains unopened, because no moments meet the mark.

Lately, I’ve found myself eager to have a reason to share what I have with friends, new and old. Recently, a colleague visited and said he would have what I was having, which is the polite way of saying we do not need to have the nicest thing you have. I reached for the Don Julio 1942 and opened it, which we both proceeded to enjoy. Sure, the bottle is open now, but that does not mean the rest will not still be shared and enjoyed.

A certain fear comes with saving nice things for too long. What if we do not see the day when they are finally used? What if the perfect reason we envision for opening that bottle never arrives? The value of these things is released through use. They are best enjoyed with those we love and care for.

The harder question is what is worth saving, who is worth sharing with, and how long we are willing to wait before deciding the moment has arrived. My bet is that most people are worth sharing with, and sometimes opening the bottle is enough to make the occasion.

I remember when I got the call from my current boss that I got the job in Miami. I was at my office in D.C. and had to step into a conference room to take it. I remember after hearing the news that I had been looking to hear for a month and feeling my head spin. It was mostly good feelings, of excitement and wonder at what could come of taking this job, but also all of the work that would go into wrapping up my life as it stood. That first five minutes after the call, I can never go back and re-live. I had made up my mind that I would take the job by the time I went to sleep that night. The following days and weeks only reaffirmed my gut thinking.

Think back to the last big decision that comes to mind. Deciding to put yourself in for the promotion, or to take a new job. It could have been deciding to ask that someone out, or deciding to get married. Whatever the occasion, what was your immediate reaction when you were told the news or asked the question? Chances are your body reacted before your mind did. That first sudden onset of feelings including excitement, calm, relief, or resistance can greatly inform your decision, and deciding just how much to trust your gut is a fine art honed through a life well lived.

That gut feeling is most pronounced within the first few minutes of considering a big decision. It might fade gradually over five minutes, an hour, or a day, but you know how you felt. As time fades and we’ve yet to make a decision, our mind enters and starts to consider alternative scenarios that don’t yet exist. If enough time passes, our mind can very well begin to outweigh and even completely silence our gut. Sometimes, more time solidifies what your gut told you to begin with. This is the best case. Other times, we might talk ourselves gradually out of the decision that we made initially and quickly.

Daniel Kahneman, in his book “Thinking, Fast and Slow,” writes that, when confronted with a major decision, we should pause our “System 1” reactionary thinking and allow time for our slower, more deliberate “System 2” to begin to analyze the situation. Specifically, he states, “Intuition cannot be trusted in the absence of stable regularities in the environment.” This means you should trust your gut when you find yourself in defined games like playing chess or during a poker match.

When there are no prior experiences given the infinite variables in life, slowing down just gives you time to overthink problems. Only you have the most information about your life. You have the knowledge of all of the prior decisions that you have ever made. Another person’s advice only goes so far because they inherently have much less information than you do. Your gut knows things that your mind does not, things that are difficult or nearly impossible to put into words. Now, deciding what you know is the best answer to a difficult decision is one thing. Having the courage and faith to break the tie in determining whether or not to act on your gut feelings is another.

Let’s say the day comes when we are confronted with another intelligent species. How will we know whether they are someone rather than something? They certainly will not be “human,” but to attempt to determine what makes something someone is becoming a worthy consideration.

Yesterday, I gave a homeless man french fries and he looked at me and said a simple “thank you.” I walked down the street to the crosswalk, glanced back to see him eating them, and smiled. A few things happened before, during, and after this exchange. Beforehand, I felt empathetic as I considered the situation this man was in. During, he immediately expressed simple gratitude. Afterwards, I felt thankful to be in the position where I could offer that small gesture. It was a very human exchange that led me to think of what I think makes us human.

Intelligence alone is not a defining characteristic of humanity, though it is a contributing factor. More profound signals are the less-tangible qualities like empathy, gratitude, morality, responsibility, accountability, and the ability to form relationships. This brings to mind another important consideration. Infants, and those with certain neurological disabilities, may not be able to feel or express either empathy or gratitude. Therefore, these qualities cannot define humanity by themselves, but they can still serve as major contributing factors.

For a moment, I wondered whether the first connection between two neurons might signal the beginning of humanity, or at least intelligence. It didn’t take long to see that this is simply a marker of biological complexity that can be found in many other organisms, and many that are microscopic. The daily advances in artificial intelligence are forcing us to consider these questions. A large language model can sound extremely intelligent and has already performed well in Turing-style studies to be mistaken for a human in short text-based conversations. This tells us that language alone cannot be a determining factor in deciding what is human.

Can these AI systems feel empathetic when being exposed to someone’s suffering? Can they feel grateful when someone does something altruistic? These are difficult questions to answer, as the best language models are highly trained in imitating natural human empathy and gratitude through extensive training data, including more-or-less the entirety of the internet.

I have ended this essay with far more questions than answers. I am circling back to the man saying thank you, though. I wonder how long until an AI can convincingly imitate that interaction? Maybe in a decade an Optimus bot will be able to fool me into thinking it’s a homeless person. Won’t that be a world. Until then, I am finding myself valuing these brief, very human interactions more and more.

I met a new neighbor the other day who moved here a few months ago from London. We have no friends in common and no other apparent connections. Like most strangers, we both could be whoever we want to the other. I found myself returning to a familiar thought I had a few years ago. When you move somewhere new, you free yourself of your past anchors and predispositions. You can choose to leave old ways behind, or make a point to be more intentional.

When I first had this thought, I felt that the freedom to choose who you are to new people, sometimes in new places, was relieving and empowering. I often thought that to each new person, if I was just a little bit more friendly, patient, and understanding, I would become those things naturally. I also found it freeing to be able to explain my background and experiences from different perspectives. This is likely because I was still growing into the various parts of my personality that I am now most confident about and proud of.

As I said in my very first essay, whichever persona you choose to be to someone new depends, in part, on how true to that persona you expect to remain in each future interaction. If you are certain you will only ever meet someone once, there is an argument to make that presenting yourself differently than you normally would will not cause any harm. While I don’t subscribe to this, it’s a worthy thought experiment. A colleague sometimes goes by a different name each time we order coffee and I’m nearly certain the baristas have yet to catch on.

More recently, I have come to find myself thinking about who I want to be to new people a lot less. In the past few years, I’ve become more confident in who I am and, consequently, it’s become that much easier to introduce myself. I have no desire to be, or even temporarily pretend to be, someone who I’m not. While I highly value my friends and do intend to make new friends, I am also more at peace with the idea that the right people tend to value honesty and consistency. If you change yourself to appease another, you might miss out on someone else who would have appreciated you as you were before.

This freedom to decide who you want the main character to be is an important perspective, and it serves us well while we are still developing the person who will eventually earn that role. Before you know it, the once-long line of possible versions of yourself begins to vanish, leaving just you, content that the former freedom to choose has slowly transformed into confidence in who remains.

So often, freedom is placed on a pedestal, as if it is the only thing to seek. We seek freedom in space, time, money, and choices. Lately, I’m realizing that a clear sense of direction is more valuable than simply having more choices. What we really want is to understand our own desires more clearly, while still having the freedom to act on them.

Let’s take an example you may be familiar with, like going out for ice cream. You always order the pistachio ice cream (great choice). All of the other ice creams in the bins may as well be completely fake, the sort of mall food court level plastic but still real looking kind. Ninety nine times out of one hundred, that would be perfectly fine. You would be blissfully ignorant to whether the other flavors were real at all, and you probably would not care, because they still had your pistachio. “Freedom” in these ninety nine instances is found in conviction and the certainty of knowing what you desire. That one hundredth time, though, is equally as important because it proves the choice was still yours.

The ice cream shop is a small version of a much larger problem. The same tension can apply to a day, a year, or a career. We have all heard the quips about analysis paralysis, decision overload, or simply, the Cheesecake Factory menu. There is something uniquely satisfying about looking at an endless list of options and knowing that you want nothing other than one item.

The irony is that we often chase freedom as though freedom itself is the sole objective. We tell ourselves we want a responsibility-free Saturday, yet when this freedom finally does arrive, we don’t know what to do with it. When we take stock of how we spent the day and we can hardly think of what we did besides endlessly scrolling on our phones. This mindset leads to blinking and that “free” Saturday ends without feeling pride that anything worthwhile was accomplished.

This feeling of being compelled towards something becomes more meaningful taken beyond what to do with a single day. Knowing what you want does take time, which adds to the irony. As we age we tend to be both more and less free. We may be more free financially, yet less free in the sense of having responsibilities of providing for our family and potentially raising children. Most proud parents will tell you that they would make this trade-off of freedom for responsibilities again every time. Instead of being the goal, freedom should be viewed as something to trade with. In this instance, trading freedom for purpose and a profound sense of direction sounds like a worthy exchange.

In each of these examples, freedom becomes meaningful when it is directly connected to desire. With direction, our choices are made confidently. I do not think that the most well-lived lives are without freedom. The best version of our lives may be one in which we have enough freedom to choose combined with the desire to know which choices are worth choosing.

When Lex Fridman asked Kanye West what he hoped his legacy would be, Kanye responded by saying he hopes to be forgotten. This is a strange answer from someone who has built his career by compounding his personal brand. He goes on to discuss several ubiquitous objects like sidewalks, water fountains, stop signs, and stop lights. Almost no one knows who invented them, improved them, or helped bring them into our daily lives. Those inventors and workers are honored daily through the use of their creations even though they remain unknown.

So often, after someone achieves significant wealth, they become a philanthropist, donating tens or hundreds of millions of dollars to universities, hospitals, museums, or other institutions. This philanthropy can do tremendous good. These donations educate students, care for patients, and preserve culture. Still, they almost always include naming the new school or building after the donor. The concept of associating your name with something you created can certainly lead to good. It can inspire the next generation to persevere and strive to achieve their own successes so that they, too, can leave something behind.

I have been trying to apply this thinking to my own life, even though I’ve yet to amass enough wealth to name a building after myself. The harder question is whether I can create, build, give, or donate something meaningful without making my name the reason for doing so. I have even considered this with my writings. There is certainly some irony in publishing under my own name and writing about wanting to be forgotten. That is not lost on me.

I hope that, through enough practice and refinement, my writing will eventually become recognizable as mine. I publish my essays and thoughtfully consider every subsequent topic. The goal may be to seek to do work that speaks for itself, regardless of whether or not it has your name on it.

I have a close friend from high school who recently had his third kid. He is happily married and lives in a single-family home with his wife, kids, and even a few dogs. I have found myself reflecting on how different our lives are, despite how similar our upbringings were. He and I grew up in the same small town and attended the same public high school. We were both good students but attended different universities. This is where our paths initially diverged.

From there, countless decisions were made, resulting in the vastly different positions we are both in today. His priorities are providing for his family, showing up for his kids, and being a good husband. The decisions about how to spend his time and energy are already largely made for him. On occasion, I find I’m envious of his clear direction and sense of purpose. Similarly, I have heard him say the opposite about my situation, regarding the freedom that I have, both with time and finances.

Meanwhile, I am thirty-two and single with no children or dogs of my own. I have the freedom to book a flight to see a friend on a whim. I can go to nicer restaurants because it is just me and maybe a date. I can splurge on a first-class seat because there is only one ticket to buy. From the outside and from a certain perspective, my life looks pretty good to him, in the same mirrored kind of way that his life looks pretty good to me.

We are both climbing the same mountain, thinking the other is closer to the top than they really are. This tendency to view another’s situation with any semblance of desire often discounts what it took to get there and the responsibilities and daily costs of what it takes to have that opposite life. Both of our lives have their own trade-offs which are hard to see from where we stand. The grass on the other side is most often a different shade of green, complete with its own unique set of weeds.

I sometimes wish that I could buy a plot of land and build a swing set for the kids I am yet to have. As nice as this sounds, only God knows if there will be a kid for each swing. This is where the strange tension is present. Some things can be built before they are needed, but most things in life, whether physical or relational, should be assembled when the time is right. A house can be bought and a swing set built, but the family that plays on it cannot be assembled in a weekend. Until that season comes into my life, the best I can do is to build myself into the man I want to be to support that life.

For now, looking ahead to these times with inspiration, hope, and wonder is all that I can ask for. I am standing beside a busy street waiting patiently for the crosswalk to turn. I look down to appreciate the corner that I am standing on, while knowing well that, in time, I will be on the other side. I remind myself that every life contains something that another life is missing, and that we should each be grateful for what we have.

My grandmother, quite literally on her death bed, says to my mother before they both go to sleep, “If my eyes are still closed in the morning, don’t wake me up because I’m trying to die.” Knowing my grandmother, she said it gently and matter-of-fact. A small part of her knows that her speaking literally like this brings a certain levity to the moment. Considering her passing made me think that until the final moment she retained the dignity of being the same person she always was, literally and figuratively. I get the feeling that all of us may not have that same dignity.

I have been wrestling with how to comprehend death, especially watching her approach it so directly. In the new age we are entering, death feels further away each day as AI advances. After processing the acceptance that she showed that night, the solution to this wrestling became clear to me. Death knocked gently and this time she opened the door willingly, inviting him in. This acceptance echoes in my comprehension of what will one day be my own death.

The deliberation of how to define death in this new world has, until now, eluded me. I always find myself circling back to the Ship of Theseus. I have concluded that when the ship returns to shore after having replaced all of the planks, it is a different ship. If it is a different ship, then the original no longer exists.

If identity depends on continuity rather than components, then the gradual replacement of every part eventually breaks that continuity. This logic allows me to sleep soundly knowing that even if I do end up “living forever” in a sense that my mind is uploaded to the cloud, or if I get an entirely new and younger body to accompany my aging mind, I will still “meet death” one day.

If what continues resembles me, thinks like me, and believes it is me, but continuity is broken, then it is not me who is continuing but someone new entirely. This day will arrive gradually, once my body no longer resembles its original self and once enough of me has been replaced that continuity can no longer honestly be claimed. Until that day comes, I will continue to live each day to the fullest while accepting that I, too, will one day welcome death when he knocks.

It was a normal day after getting home from work. I’m sitting at the counter finishing my dinner when I reach for my phone. I pick it up only to forget why I picked it up in the first place. While my phone is in my hand, I instinctively pop open Insta, because why not?

Modern day social media has starved us of substance and coaxed us into becoming reliant on finely tuned dopamine cycles of ultra-short content. I am pretty sure the endless scroll started with Facebook, but before we knew it, Instagram arrived. Now, it’s almost impossible to find a content or social app that does not utilize the endless scroll. This endless scroll, when combined with algorithms, can be wildly addictive, and it is not natural because it does not have a set end-point. The “book” of social media is never finished.

If you’re curious, like I was, the average length of a scroll in Ancient Rome was around 11 or 12 feet. Let’s convert this to an Instagram equivalent and call it 3–4 per foot, so roughly 50 total. This would take the average Instagram user around five minutes to consume (10 posts at about 6 seconds per post). The math is hardly necessary to see my point. While I won’t go as far as to say that physical page-turning is the only suitable option, I am saying that endless scrolling is working against us.

From those 50 posts, you’re almost certainly not going to be able to recall their content the next day, let alone five minutes later. I’m trying to recall what I saw earlier today, and nothing specific comes to mind, other than knowing that many of them were about cars. You might recall one or two that made you laugh or smile for a couple of seconds, before scrolling to the next post to see if you were again so lucky. Conversely, watch a five-minute talk or podcast on YouTube and you’re very likely going to remember it the next day. Read a book for 20 minutes and you will surely remember its content.

It is both the quantity of content and the rate of consumption that are the culprits in stealing our attention. Books, movies, and a lot of YouTube (but not all of YouTube) require an order-of-magnitude more focus than zooming through Instagram Reels or TikTok’s. This spending of attention ultimately leads to recall after processing.

If you cannot remember what you consumed five minutes ago, it might as well not have been consumed at all. The goal is to leave something behind in your mind, not just pass time.

They say that if time travel ever exists, we will only be able to travel forwards in time, not backwards. I do not know enough about physics to argue with that. I do know enough about myself to find it worthy of consideration. I am sitting here, single, wondering whether or not I would press a golden button that could fast forward me to kissing my wife on the altar of our wedding day. If I could, would I skip right to that moment?

I do think about that day, sometimes more than others. More often than not, I wouldn’t think about pressing the button. On some days though, it would be harder than others. A wedding invitation with a plus one, I think to myself, “wouldn’t it be nice?” Among other days, thinking of traveling, someone to share something new with would be nice. Alas, I like to think that I would never press such a button even if it did exist.

To press the button would be to sacrifice all of the time in-between. God only knows what will happen between now and then. Will it be a year, or a handful of years? Whatever amount of time it may be, I will have countless opportunities to learn more about myself and others in the meantime. I am growing emotionally, spiritually, and physically each day. In every interaction where I choose how to present myself and my values, I am shaping my future self. Every relationship that doesn’t work out, I am better for it. In the most trying of times, we grow the most. The trough of this journey is not to be skipped. This is what makes the rest of it worthwhile.

Learning to embrace the path is easier said than done. Even if I could press the button and arrive at the altar, I would be the wrong man standing there. I would be the man I am today, not the man shaped by whatever is to come. The version of me that belongs at that altar has not been built yet. This button would deliver an unfinished version of me to a moment meant for my future self.

The final piece to this puzzle is that whoever my future wife is, wherever she is, she would not want me to press the button either. The version of me that she falls in love with has endured whatever was necessary to reach that moment. She needs me to go through all of it. She is out there, in her own in-between, being shaped by her own trials. I would not want her to skip hers either.

So the glass remains intact and the golden button stays unpressed. The time spent in-between is where we become who we are supposed to be, for whoever we are supposed to be, and for whenever that may be.

It was a calm Saturday evening, and I was having an early dinner with my friend’s family when something very particular caught my attention. The first time I heard the melody from the live acoustic guitar of the musician in the dining room, I didn’t believe it was true. I thought for sure it was a different song that sounded similar, but after hearing the melody for the second time, I knew that it was none other than the theme song of The Legend of Zelda.

I must have heard this theme song a few hundred times throughout much of my adolescence, and even into the past few years. It helps that I know how to play this song on the piano, but it is simply unforgettable. The two beginning notes before the march up to the high notes hit the most nostalgic of nerves. Hearing these notes, I was instantly transported to my childhood living room, sitting there with my Dad and brother as I watched Link riding his horse Epona, fighting off the villains of Hyrule.

Before the guitarist had played this song, I hardly noticed that he was playing at all. In the middle of a conversation, these notes pierced through my subconscious and brought me back to so many different times and places. The theme song, present in most if not all of the many games in the series, has surfaced across many of the games that I’ve played, and I can vividly recall when they were and where I was. They are, importantly, all very fond memories of exploration, overcoming challenges, and relaxing with family.

These notes were a set of keys that I didn’t know existed. Maybe it was the live guitar and the simplicity of the notes being played without anything else that made the feeling that much more nostalgic. Whatever it was, it was thirty seconds that felt like an hour of me jumping through the times and places where I have heard that song throughout my life.

I’m sitting here wondering how many more times I will hear these notes played together over the rest of my life. Will sequels be made that will echo this theme song? Undoubtedly, I will continue to play it on the piano until I can’t anymore. I sincerely hope that, well into my old age, hearing this peaceful song brings even more fond memories to mind, transporting me to places that I have yet to even experience.

I was on a short twenty-minute walk on the beach when I had just turned around to head home. Not long into my route back, as I was leisurely placing one foot in front of the other, I realize I’ve just stepped on something seriously sharp. At first, I thought it surely was a small piece of glass. I almost fall over after lifting my foot up to keep it from pushing this sharp object in further. Upon looking down, I find that it was a bee’s stinger that I promptly pulled out. For some reason, I thought that walking into the salty water of the Gulf would ease the pain. To no one’s surprise, it did not, and the sharp pain continued for the next ten minutes.

The following fifty steps or so, I limped while I was assessing the pain and evaluating the distance back to my spot up the beach. Towards the end of those steps, I thought to myself, to hell with my bee-stung foot, let me just walk normally and enjoy the rest of what was otherwise, and will continue to be, a very pleasant walk on the beach.

I decided that instead of stressing to examine all of the brown-ish colored shells in front of me for their similarities to a bee, I would look up at the waves crashing, the sun in the sky, and the scenery along the shore. I very well could have continued to, mostly unnecessarily, limp up the beach while keeping my head down in search of beached bees, but I did not. I decided to focus on what was in front of me and the simultaneously relaxing and energetic nature of my surroundings.

I quickly considered how slim the chances were of stepping on a bee stinger while walking the beach and determined they were remarkably low. Even though I noticed more bees in my path than expected, the risk still felt small. With my head down searching for bees, I completely lost touch with how far I was from home.

Very often, we find that a small incident or issue can distort our view of everything around it. To me, that was the small unpleasant incident of stepping on a bee stinger while on a beach walk in consideration of the otherwise entirely pleasant time. The sharp pain from that one step was definitely felt, though I did not allow that to weigh down the rest of my steps.

Think of the last thing that you purchased. Do you know with certainty why you bought it? To what extent was your purchase influenced by the purpose it serves, how long it will last, or what it signals to others? What compels us to buy a nice watch or a fancy car? Is it fascination with horology, watchmaking, and the technical skill required to assemble such a device, or what it tells others about our level of disposable income? We make excuses for buying these things by telling ourselves it will appreciate over time, it diversifies a portfolio, or that it is built to last forever. Those explanations are often incomplete, and a facade for what lies beneath.

When we first get an itch of an urge that we want something, we should evaluate where that desire came from. Which of our friends, family members, or colleagues also want this? Do others that we regard highly and those who we share values with also want the same thing? In “Wanting,” Luke Burgis writes, “Each one of us has a responsibility to shape the desires of others, just as they shape ours. Each encounter we have with another person enables them, and us, to want more, to want less, or to want differently.”

Part of what we buy and own contributes to our persona and shapes how others see us. Even if we do not want to be defined by what we own, we cannot fully escape the tendency of others to judge us by it. Clothing is often the first example, since it is usually the first thing others see. Next may come accessories, whether temporary, like jewelry, or permanent, like tattoos. What we own and wear becomes part of us.

What we buy often carries meaning beyond its practical use, or what it tells others. A Casio, a Camry, and a cotton tee are all uniquely practical. A Rolex, a Lamborghini, and a Loro Piana sweater serve the same purposes as the former, yet they communicate something entirely different. Economists call some of these status purchases Veblen goods. These are things that ironically become more desirable partly because they are so expensive. Their impracticality and strength of their ability to signal becomes part of their appeal.

A powerful question to ask yourself when considering buying something is if you would still want it even if no one else knew you owned it. That question and your response will bring you closer to the truth of understanding what you desire more fully. Some purchases reflect real admiration for craft, beauty, or durability. Others are driven more by borrowed desire, status, and imitation. Most are probably some mixture of both. The point is not to remove all symbolism from what we own, but rather to understand ourselves well enough to know what we are really buying.