Cinemorphosis

Tag: life

  • Buy Now, Cry Later: A Watch Addict’s Morning Routine

    Buy Now, Cry Later: A Watch Addict’s Morning Routine

    This morning, I sprang from bed at 5:50 like a man trying to outrun his own restlessness. Coffee in one hand, buckwheat groats in the other—my monkish morning ritual. By 6:20, I was deep into David Brooks’ New York Times lament over the death of the novel, parsing his elegy like a coroner looking for signs of life in a genre comatose under TikTok’s reign.

    I then pivoted to writing a YouTube essay on how to discover your watch identity without torching your bank account or your sanity. This required revisiting my own horological spiral, which could be summarized as: “I bought all the watches so you don’t have to.”

    Then, somewhere between the second paragraph and the first pangs of self-loathing, a thought struck me with the force of a stale TED Talk: I despise one-word-title books. You know the type—Grit, Blink, Regret, Drive, Trust—as if a single syllable can carry the weight of human experience. These are not books; they are glorified blog posts wearing a lab coat. They stretch one mediocre insight across 300 pages like butter scraped over too much toast. Malcolm Gladwell may not have invented this genre, but he certainly weaponized it.

    To be fair, a few have earned their keep: Testosterone, Breathe, and Dopamine Nation didn’t insult my intelligence. But the rest? They’re just placebo pills for the terminally curious.

    By 8:30, my family was still asleep, and I had hit the boredom wall with a dull thud. To numb the ennui, I began configuring a Toyota Camry online—my version of sniffing glue. I checked Southern California inventory as if I were a buyer, even though I won’t be pulling the trigger for at least a year. Classic FOMO, no doubt stirred by my best friend’s recent $70K Lexus purchase. His automotive flex triggered my inner consumer gremlin.

    Next came the Seiko browsing—Astrons, King Seikos, shiny little lies I tell myself in stainless steel form. I’m a man pushing into his 60s. I should be downsizing my neuroses, not accessorizing them.

    Right on cue, a depression fog rolled in. The psychic hangover of retail fantasy. I remembered a dream I’d had the night before: I was adding tofu to someone’s salad to increase their protein. They devoured it like they hadn’t eaten in days. Later in the same dream, I was at a party, where a couple asked me to mentor their autistic daughter. I smiled politely, feeling like a fraud. Me? A mentor? I can barely manage my own dopamine addiction.

    That’s when the epiphany hit like a steel bracelet to the skull: the urge to buy a watch hits hardest when you’re bored, self-pitying, or both. In those moments, a $2,000 watch becomes emotional currency—a metal antidepressant disguised as self-expression. And like all impulsive purchases, it cures nothing but your momentary discomfort.

    I hovered over the “Buy Now” button. Then, mercy. I pulled back.

    At 9:00, one of my twin daughters wandered into the kitchen and asked what happened to the leftover buttermilk pancakes from yesterday. I told her the truth: she’d left the door open when she went to ask the neighbors about babysitting their granddaughter, and a massive fly invited itself in. I saw it licking the pancakes like a dog at a water bowl. Into the trash they went. She laughed. I suggested Cheerios with a scoop of strawberry protein powder. She agreed. In that small, domestic exchange—an absurd fly, a ruined pancake, a shared laugh—I found myself re-entering the land of the living.

    Gratitude, not consumption, had done the trick.

    So now, I prepare for my kettlebell workout, towel in hand, wondering which podcast will offer the most delicious repartee to sweat by. My soul has steadied, for now.

  • Don’t Let Brotoxification Ruin Your Watch Hobby

    Don’t Let Brotoxification Ruin Your Watch Hobby

    I’ve been both a watch enthusiast and a watch addict for over two decades—long enough to know the difference between a genuine passion and a performance art piece in a wrist-sized frame.

    Some of my collecting history is noble. Some of it’s embarrassing. I’ve chased watches for the right reasons: fascination with engineering, aesthetics, a deeply personal sense of style. But I’ve also chased them for the wrong reasons: hero cosplay, status projection, and the sad, sweaty hope that someone—anyone—might think I was cool for wearing a submersible chunk of steel on my wrist.

    Let’s call it what it is: I’ve bought watches to feel like a man. That instinct isn’t always authentic—it’s often a costume. And in the world of collecting, nothing poisons the well faster than performative masculinity dressed up as personal style.

    So I started trying to pare things down. Simplify. Get to the core of what I actually like, and keep a small, personal collection that reflects who I am—not who I want Instagram to think I am.

    Easier said than done.

    Because in today’s world, “authenticity” has become just another algorithmic trend, another pantomime we perform for likes and approval. The word phony doesn’t even do justice to the industrial-strength fakery we’re marinating in. It’s beyond phony. It’s Olympic-level insincerity with corporate backing and PowerPoint slides.

    We now live in a cultural ecosystem where people are so fake, their attempts at being authentic create new layers of fakery. It’s not just that they’re inauthentic—they’re meta-inauthentic. They study authenticity like it’s a language exam, and the harder they try to sound fluent, the more their accent bleeds through.

    Take, for example, the great frauds of my TV-watching youth.

    Eddie Haskell—Leave It to Beaver’s oily teenage suck-up—mastered the art of smiling at your mother while plotting your destruction behind the garage. He didn’t just imitate politeness; he weaponized it.

    Then there was Dr. Smith from Lost in Space—the preening, verbose con man who brought zero medical skills to the spaceship but still managed to insult the robot with Shakespearean flair:
    “You clumsy, colossal clod!”
    “You insidious ignoramus!”
    “You bubble-headed booby!”

    Ironically, Dr. Smith’s insults turned me on to language itself. I owe the man my English degree. Which just proves: sometimes even a fraud can inspire something real.

    Fast-forward to today’s most delicious case of catastrophic phoniness: the political operatives who realized they had alienated the male vote. After years of condescension, virtue signaling, and high-minded lectures, they finally realized men were tuning them out—if not outright recoiling.

    So what did they do?

    They flew to Half Moon Bay, checked into a luxury resort, and held a think tank retreat to rebrand masculinity. Picture it: Ivy League consultants in cashmere sweaters eating lobster rolls and sipping Pinot Noir while spitballing ways to reconnect with the “working man.” They treated young men like they were a rare species of jungle ape. Field notes were probably taken.

    This level of cluelessness isn’t just tone-deaf—it’s operatic. If the writers of Succession pitched this as a storyline, HBO would tell them to tone it down for realism.

    We need a name for this kind of oblivious, polished, self-defeating fakery. I call it Brotoxification: the act of rebranding yourself to appeal to men—but doing it with such manicured insincerity that you repel the very people you’re trying to win back.

    I work with young men every day—college football players, ex-military students, guys grinding through school because life didn’t hand them a shortcut. They don’t want coddling. They want three things: structure, discipline, and real-life skills. The last thing they need is a smug consultant in designer sneakers telling them how to “be seen.”

    And this circles back to watches.

    A few ground rules for keeping your watch hobby clean:

    1. Don’t overthink it.
    If a watch keeps whispering to you at 2 a.m., it probably belongs on your wrist. Trust your gut. You don’t need a panel of experts or a YouTube breakdown.

    2. Never buy a watch because you think it’ll earn you applause.
    If you’re trying to impress the crowd, the crowd will sniff out your desperation and laugh behind your back. Buying a “manly watch” to look tough is like buying cologne to smell rich. It doesn’t fool anyone.

    3. You don’t need to be rich.
    A $200 G-Shock Rangeman, worn with conviction, beats a $10,000 showpiece worn like a rented tux. Living within your means isn’t just practical—it’s masculine. It’s called integrity.

    In the end, authenticity can’t be strategized. It’s not something you workshop in a resort ballroom between keynote speakers and complimentary wine pairings. It’s not a brand refresh. And it sure as hell isn’t something you can outsource to consultants.

    Whether we’re talking about politics, masculinity, or watch collecting, the minute you start performing sincerity is the minute you’ve already lost it.

    So do yourself a favor: Keep your hobby honest. Reject the Brotox. And wear your damn watch because you love it—not because you’re hoping someone else will.

  • The Fever Swamp of Watch Collecting

    The Fever Swamp of Watch Collecting

    Once upon a time—last week, to be precise—I made a YouTube video arguing that a man should not chase variety in his watch collection but instead find his signature style and whittle his hoard down to a tasteful few. Like a monk with only one robe. Or a chef with one good knife. Or a middle-aged guy who knows that buying yet another GMT won’t fix his marriage.

    Now, did I believe what I was saying? Not entirely. I was, to be honest, talking myself off the ledge. It was a kind of public self-hypnosis: say it enough times on camera, and maybe I’ll stop buying watches I never wear. But I’ll admit—the thought experiment was stimulating, like sniffing ammonia salts just to feel something. Most commenters agreed, saying peace of mind only arrived after purging the herd. But not all. Some insisted that a large, diverse collection brings them genuine joy. Fair. Not everyone needs to live like a horological monk.

    Still, I enjoyed making the video. It felt like intellectual calisthenics for the soul, even if it didn’t convert me.

    One viewer, the formidable “Captain Nolan,” asked a deceptively simple question that demands more than a quick reply:

    “How can you discover your identity without trying watches in every category—divers, pilots, field watches, dress, digital, mechanical, quartz, and so on?”

    By “identity,” he means your taste. What fits your lifestyle, your aesthetic, your internal brand. A fair question. And at first, I answered like a smug adolescent. I said, “You know what you like the same way I knew Raquel Welch was the apex of female beauty when I was nine. One glance. No need to watch Love American Style reruns or thumb through Vogue. Case closed.”

    But that answer is glib. And idiotic. Taste in watches—unlike adolescent lust—is not a hormonal thunderclap. It’s a process.

    So here’s the grown-up answer: yes, you do need to try different styles, just like trying on jackets at Nordstrom. Some are flattering, some make you look like a Bulgarian hitman. It’s tactile. Visceral. And wildly expensive. To really figure out your taste, you may end up spending $5,000 to $10,000 just to land in the right neighborhood. You might call this the Fitting Room Narrative—the idea that trying on a wide range of watches will help you find the “real you.”

    It sounds rational. Comforting, even. But I don’t believe in it.

    The problem is the human brain. It’s not a spreadsheet. It’s a haunted house full of desires, delusions, and marketing fumes. So let me propose a more honest alternative: The Fever Swamp Narrative.

    Here’s how it works:

    You fall headfirst into the hobby. You start buying watches the way a toddler grabs Halloween candy. You buy microbrand divers, G-Shocks, Speedmasters, and maybe a Rolex or two if your credit limit allows it. You tell yourself each one serves a “purpose.” You start spending a grand a month, easy. Over ten years, you’ve spent more than most people do on therapy. And God knows you need therapy.

    Eventually, the collection metastasizes. Dozens of watches, each one representing a temporary high. You stop wearing half of them. You obsess over straps, bezels, lume. Your identity fuses with your hobby. You’re no longer a man who wears watches; you’re a man being worn by them.

    Then comes the collapse: financial strain, marital tension, the vacant stare of a man wondering why he owns three identical Seikos. Maybe you go through a breakup or foreclosure. Maybe your friends stage an intervention. Maybe your dog leaves you. Think about that. Your watch obsession got so bad your dog abandoned you. 

    You finally tap out. Sell the collection. Keep three. Or two. Or one. You tell yourself you’re “cured.”

    Except… maybe you’re not. Maybe, like Bell’s palsy or a bad ex, the obsession lies dormant. All it takes is one random trigger—a stressful day, a YouTube thumbnail, a flash sale—and you relapse. Buy a Sinn. Then a Squale. Then you’re back in the swamp.

    Why do we cling to the Fitting Room Narrative when it’s so obviously false? Because it has a tidy structure. A clean arc. Beginning, middle, resolution. We’re narrative junkies. We want our Luke Skywalkers to finish Jedi school and never regress. 

    Same with watch collectors. We want the Watch Ninja to overcome his demons and live a Zen life with a single Grand Seiko. If he relapses, we unsubscribe. He becomes a punchline. Another Liver King of horology.

    Still don’t believe me? Consider Pete Rose. In the ‘70s, he was “Charlie Hustle,” the human embodiment of work ethic. But zoom out, and the myth crumbles. Pete wasn’t disciplined—he was compulsive. He gambled, lied, betrayed friends. The man was a walking cautionary tale wrapped in a Cincinnati Reds jersey.

    Or take Sedona. Supposedly a spiritual vortex. In reality, a commercialized fever dream of overpriced crystals, green juice, and pseudo-mystical hokum. You arrive expecting transcendence and leave with a maxed-out credit card and lower back pain from a “chakra realignment.”

    We love myths because they sell. But real life is more complicated. Messier. Less flattering.

    So I could tell you a satisfying tale about finding my “true self” through curating a humble collection of retro divers and minimalist field watches. I could wrap it all up with a bow. But I won’t. Because that would be fiction.

    And honestly, haven’t we had enough of that?

  • The Stories We Tell About Finding Happiness Are Probably False

    The Stories We Tell About Finding Happiness Are Probably False

    The other night, I released a video arguing that variety in a watch collection is overrated. Instead of chasing endless categories—divers, pilots, field watches, dress pieces, and the like—we should focus on our personal style and keep our collections small, tight, and true. That was the premise.

    But if I’m honest, I’m not sure I fully believe it. The video was part thought experiment, part self-intervention—an attempt to persuade myself to stop buying watches I don’t have the time (or wrist real estate) to wear. The argument had internal logic. It also had a faint scent of self-justifying desperation.

    And that’s okay. I enjoyed making it. Wrestling with the ideas sharpened my thoughts, and the feedback I received from many of you helped me realize something essential: passion without dialogue is narcissism. Ideas need to be tested by others—challenged, probed, broken open. That’s how belief is forged. Not in solitude, but in the noisy, messy public square.

    It was gratifying to hear from so many who, like me, have felt tormented by a sprawling watch collection—agonizing over wrist time, managing rotations like a circus act, and wondering if maybe the hobby was no longer bringing joy but anxiety in disguise.

    Then came a comment from one of you—Captain Nolan—who posed a question that cut through all my watch-reducing rhetoric:

    “How can you discover what your identity is without trying out watches in the various categories (divers, pilots, field, dress, digital, quartz, mechanical, etc., etc.)?”

    It’s a fair question. One I initially wanted to swat away with a tight two-sentence reply and move on. But I couldn’t. The question lingered—because it isn’t really about watches. It’s about identity. And once you start poking at identity, you’re no longer in YouTube comment territory. You’ve stepped into the philosophical deep end—an arena better suited for Aristotle than for a guy with a camera and a strap obsession.

    The second reason I hesitated is more personal: I only make videos when there’s a spark of fun, curiosity, or joy. The idea of producing a moody think-piece on self-discovery sounded like a slog. Dull. Pretentious. The video equivalent of being cornered by someone at a party who wants to discuss their enneagram type.

    Still, Captain Nolan’s question lodged itself in my mind. How do we figure out what we actually like in watches? And how—after two decades of collecting—did I land where I am now?

    The answer is both simple and brutal:

    There’s the true answer, and there’s the false answer.

    And most people—including YouTubers, influencers, and algorithm-chasing content creators—prefer the false one.

    The False Answer

    The false answer is a story. A myth. A satisfying narrative that wraps things up in a bow. We’ve been telling these stories for millennia. They bring moral clarity, personal triumph, and a happy ending. They sell. They go viral. They’re designed for applause.

    In the watch hobby, this tidy fable is called The Purification Myth.

    It goes something like this:

    You start off as a giddy newbie, blown away by the sheer number of watches out there. You binge. You buy everything from entry-level divers to Swiss Grails. You accumulate far too many watches to wear, and you convince yourself that this is happiness.

    But then comes the crash—maybe financial, maybe emotional, maybe romantic. The fever breaks. You wake up, ashamed of your bloated collection and the dopamine-fueled mania that built it. You sell off everything except a small, tasteful core collection. Peace is restored. Cue soft jazz. Fade to black.

    It’s a good story. It even has some truth in it. But like most recovery narratives, it’s cleaner than reality.

    Because in real life, the fever doesn’t always break for good. You relapse. You sell everything and then buy it all back. You swear off watches on bracelets, only to fall for a titanium chrono six months later. You go minimalist—and then buy a G-Shock with solar charging, atomic syncing, and more features than a fighter jet. Your tastes mutate.

    This is the part the Purification Myth leaves out: people are irrational, compulsive, and deeply inconsistent. And the stories they tell—about clarity, simplicity, “knowing what they want”—are often PR campaigns for whatever identity they’ve temporarily settled into.

    Let me give you some real-life examples.

    The Myth of Pete Rose

    I grew up on the myth of Charlie Hustle–Pete Rose, the man who played baseball like his hair was on fire. The story was simple: if you hustle like Pete, greatness will follow. The world will respect you. You’ll win.

    Turns out Pete Rose hustled only on the field. Off the field when it came to examining his moral flaws, he was a lazy, selfish, self-mythologizing gambler who bet recklessly and burned bridges like he lit cigars with them.

    The moral? The story was inspiring. It just wasn’t true.

    The Sedona Illusion

    My family recently went to Sedona, Arizona—a place that sells its own myth: come sip matcha, get a mud massage, and experience spiritual rebirth in the vortexes.

    What you get is overpriced kitsch, fake mysticism, and conspicuous consumerism wearing a tie-dyed robe. Crystals, smoothies, celebrities in Lamborghinis. It’s Disneyland for people who think they’re too enlightened for Disneyland.

    So yes, I could tell you a satisfying story about how I finally landed on a curated set of Seiko divers, all on straps, and how I found inner peace. But I won’t. Because that’s not the whole truth.

    The real story is messier, and ongoing. It contradicts itself. It evolves. Sometimes it forgets what it believes and remembers something else entirely.

    If you want to find your identity—watch or otherwise—know this: you won’t find it in a story. And you certainly won’t find it in someone else’s.

    You find it in the space between obsessions. In the quiet after the hype fades. In the awkwardness of realizing the thing you thought would make you whole… just doesn’t.

    That’s where identity lives. Not in clarity, but in contradiction.

  • The Farmer’s Carry and Other Acts of Suburban Defiance

    The Farmer’s Carry and Other Acts of Suburban Defiance

    Last night I had dinner at The Kebab Shop with an old friend—a former boxing champion turned engineer, the kind of guy who looks like he could build a bridge in the morning and break your nose that afternoon, all while discussing Tolstoy.

    He recently broke up with his girlfriend and confessed something strange and honest:

    “I feel like I’m chasing the sad,” he said. “Just so I’ll feel better about myself.”

    I told him not to worry—he’s sad, alright. Sometimes pain is too large to register. Like being so exhausted you can’t fall asleep, or so depleted you can’t even feel tired.
    He nodded, then casually dropped the bomb: he just bought a Lexus. I assumed an SUV—some respectable adult-mobile with storage. Nope. He turned his phone toward me and grinned. It was an obsidian black Lexus RC350 coupe, a low-slung, 311-horsepower statement of rebellion against mediocrity and middle age. Price tag? A cool $70,000.

    Why? Because he gets bored. Easily. He’s cursed with a mind that needs friction. His current job is too easy, and when things get too easy, life feels mechanical. He’s planning to move on—to another job, another city, more challenge, more money, more meaning.
    He told me staying home to watch TV feels like soul rot. So instead, he journals (in a real book, with prompts—who knew that was a thing?), plays soccer on weekends, and takes private dance lessons. Yes, dance. This man has better time management than most monasteries.

    I told him I admire him. I mean it. He’s not surrendering to entropy; he’s interrogating it with pen, ball, and motion. He’s writing his way out of the void. I might need to follow his lead when I retire in two years. No matter our age, we either rage our fists at mortality or we start sinking into the upholstery.

    I then told my friend that I nearly bought a $2,000 recliner last week. A magnificent beast of engineered comfort. But the moment I imagined myself melting into it, day after day, I envisioned not rest—but early burial. A leather sarcophagus with cupholders. I backed away like it was a cursed object.

    I was inspired by my friend’s hunger for adventure, so the next morning I punished myself with a new exercise: the Farmer’s Carry–two kettlebells, one in each hand, pacing in circles across my front lawn like a rogue warlord in gym shorts. Neighbors peeked through their blinds to watch this 63-year-old Larry Csonka doppelgänger lumbering across the grass like I was either training for something… or losing a very public battle with aging.

    The exercise nearly broke me. I’ll keep it in rotation, but with moderation. I train to feel alive, not to hemorrhage my last remaining Life Force into the turf of suburban California.

    And now, I wait for my friend to pull up and take me for a ride in his Lexus. He’s earned it. The man’s been driving the same Corolla for thirteen years. Now it’s his turn to live a little. And me? I’ll tag along, a passenger for a while, enjoying the ride through this strange, accelerating cycle of life.

  • The Ascent of Paper Towel Man

    The Ascent of Paper Towel Man

    Last night, my subconscious staged a farce: I was back on my old college campus, nervously ordering textbooks for my freshman comp classes—because that’s how my brain parties at night. After hours in the academic underworld of ISBNs and course numbers, I stumbled home under a moonless sky only to be seized by a grim realization: I forgot to order a crucial book.

    Panic.

    In this emergency, I reached not for Xanax, but a dark green landline phone, the color of envy or perhaps bureaucratic despair. I called the English Chair. Except in dream logic, the English Chair was not the overworked academic I know—but Scott Galloway, the sarcastic podcaster and economics professor. 

    I told him he had to submit the textbook order by midnight.

    True to form, he lobbed verbal grenades at me. Taunts, jabs, snide remarks. His voice had that tone—the kind that leaves you wondering if you’re being insulted or inducted into a secret society of useful idiots.

    I said, “Don’t joke over the phone. Only mock me in person.”

    He replied, “Fine. Come over. I’m having a dinner party.”

    Naturally.

    So, in the witching hour, I opened my front door—expecting a miles-long slog up a mountain—and instead, in the way only dreams and luxury real estate can allow, I was already at Casa Galloway, perched perilously on stilts over a cliff like some Bond villain’s hideout with a podcast studio.

    He was charming in person—gregarious, warm, practically glowing with hospitality. He led me into a dimly lit dining room where guests laughed and angel hair pasta sat arranged like delicate tumbleweeds on silver trays. White sauce shimmered like divine lubrication.

    “Take as much as you like,” he said, arms open.

    I hesitated. Did he make enough? Should I pretend restraint for the optics? Was this a test of my caloric discipline?

    I took a tiny, tragic portion.

    He raised an eyebrow. I mumbled something about “leaving enough for everyone,” which seemed to impress him. He praised my selflessness, as if I’d just refused seconds at a famine relief banquet.

    After eating my guilt-ridden noodle clump and participating in some effervescent dinner chatter, I left and returned home to my modest flat at the bottom of the hill. But before I could nestle into my bed of neuroses, it hit me: Galloway might be short on paper towels after his soirée.

    And I had a Costco-sized case.

    I threw the rolls under my arm and charged up the mountain like a sentient Amazon Prime delivery. My quads flexed with purpose. I was the Paper Towel Man, delivering absorbency and justice. I swung the rolls from hand to hand like batons of competence.

    I found him on the front porch—a cliffside slab barely larger than a yoga mat, with a waterfall crashing nearby like some sort of capitalist Shangri-La.

    “I’ve brought reinforcements,” I said, brandishing the paper towels like sacred scrolls.

    He smiled, then warned me: “The last fifty feet are treacherous.”

    Of course they were. The final ascent required mountaineering skills I didn’t have—jagged rocks, sudden drops, the kind of climb you’d expect in a spiritual thriller set in Tibet.

    But I was determined. Galloway had ordered my textbook and served me pasta. Reciprocity was sacred. I would reach that porch if it killed me.

    And then I woke up. Standing in my kitchen. Brewing coffee. Scribbling this fever dream into a notebook, trying to decide if it meant anything—or just meant I shouldn’t eat carbs after 9 p.m.

  • Too Good to Sip: My Toxic Romance with Coffee

    Too Good to Sip: My Toxic Romance with Coffee

    I should probably quit drinking coffee—not because it’s bad for me, but because it’s too good, like a lover who ruins you for everyone else.

    This revelation smacked me in the face after a visit to my in-laws in Prescott Valley. There, in the quiet altitude of Arizona suburbia, I encountered coffee nirvana via a Ninja coffee maker—a machine that makes my Keurig taste like it was brewed through a gym sock. The Ninja’s brew was hotter, stronger, bolder. It had the depth of a Russian novel and the intensity of a Quentin Tarantino monologue. I immediately bought one for myself, eager to elevate my mornings into spiritual events. And elevate them I did—too far.

    Now my life has become tragically front-loaded. The coffee is too exquisite. It’s an overachiever. Nothing that follows—emails, errands, workouts, social obligations—can match its rich, scalding glory. My day peaks at 7:12 a.m., and everything after is a slow descent into lukewarm mediocrity. My existence has become a parade of yawns between two cups of perfection.

    This isn’t living. It’s a caffeine cult. And I’m the high priest.

    So what am I to do? Only one solution remains: renounce coffee. Banish the beans. Crawl out of this roasted rut and reinvent myself as a man unshackled from the tyranny of joy. I will become someone who experiences life itself—not just life plus Arabica.

    Or so I’d like to believe. Because deep down, I know I’ll just replace one ritual with another. Like that British expat novelist who lives in Tunisia, the one with the butler who brings him tea and a giant slab of cake every afternoon. That’ll be me. Earl Grey at four, carrot cake on Monday, German chocolate on Tuesday, and so on. I’ll swap a vice, rename it “ritual,” and carry on.

    Coffee may be gone, but the cravings will simply find new costumes.

  • The Gospel of Iron: How Weightlifting Became My Religion

    The Gospel of Iron: How Weightlifting Became My Religion

    In 1974, at the age of thirteen, I began weightlifting under the guidance of Lou Kruk, my junior high P.E. teacher and Junior Olympic weightlifting coach. Lou wasn’t just teaching kids to hoist iron—he was shaping futures. He handed me a barbell and lit the fuse. Soon, I was consuming protein powders and flipping through Strength & Health and Muscle Builder, the gospel according to Bob Hoffman and Joe Weider.

    From garage gyms to commercial ones, from clunky bench presses to rusted barbells, I trained. I flirted briefly with gimmicks—a Bullworker here, a Power Yoga phase there—but nothing kept me grounded like the iron. Eventually, I found kettlebells: odd, compact, brutally effective. And fifty-one years later, I’m still at it. The protein, the lifting—they’re no longer habits; they’re rituals.

    I don’t work out to chase aesthetics or to stave off decay. I train because not training feels like suffocating. My routine gives shape to my days, the way grammar gives shape to language. Without it, life would collapse into chaos. I marvel at those who drift through their hours without structure, snacking at whim, binge-watching shows, darting between texts and chores like pinballs. A life without scaffolding feels not just unsatisfying—it feels dangerous.

    Sometimes I wonder: what if I’d never met Lou Kruk? What if weightlifting had never entered my life? Would I have found some other sacred structure to cling to, or would I have been swallowed by drift? Yes, I play piano. Yes, I write. But I’m no professional writer unless you count me as a “professional navel-gazer.” These activities are merely sidelines—dilettante pursuits. It’s the iron that makes me whole.

    Maybe weightlifting saved my life. Maybe it still does. I could psychoanalyze this, wax poetic about addiction to ritual and the fear of entropy. Or I could walk into the garage, chalk my hands, and get lost in goblet squats and Turkish Get-Ups until the world makes sense again. I think you already know what I’m going to choose.

  • Watch Ownership Is a Letdown; Research Is the High

    Watch Ownership Is a Letdown; Research Is the High

    One of my favorite pastimes is watching YouTube comparison videos of the Toyota Camry vs. the Honda Accord. I’m not shopping for a car. I don’t need a car. I may never buy another car. 

    But these videos? They soothe the savage beast inside of me. They go down like a smooth bourbon, with notes of ABS braking and a smoky finish of fuel economy.

    While others go to YouTube to meditate or do yoga, I fall into the hypnotic cadence of two grown men comparing rear-seat legroom and infotainment systems with the solemnity of Cold War negotiators. 

    I’m riveted. Parsing the pros and cons of these two sedans gives me a focus so intense it borders on religious ecstasy. I study engine specs like they’re verses from Leviticus. My concentration sharpens, my anxiety fades. I am, for a brief and blissful moment, free.

    And then it hits me: I don’t want the car. I want the focus. The Camry and Accord are just placeholders in the temple of obsession.

    This revelation sheds light on my watch obsession. It helps me realize that acquiring a watch in most cases is a bitter letdown. A $3,000 watch on the wrist is like a Tinder date at Denny’s: out of place and super embarrassing. 

    I’ve worn $5,000 watches while taking my daughters to YogurtLand and I’ve said to myself, “Dude, you’ve lost the plot.”

    How did I get here with expensive watches that I wear when I’m buying pretzels and diet soda at Target?

    And then I realize. The same drive to focus on Camry-Accord comparisons is the same drive that makes me do “timepiece research.”  Watching my fellow timepiece obsessives drool over bezels and lume shots is the real high. That’s what lights me up. That’s what gets the adrenaline surging through my veins. 

    I’ve spent years confusing consumer acquisition with personal transformation. Getting this thing or that thing will change me inside. I want to be courageous, dignified, courteous, disciplined, fit, and healthy. A watch can’t redeem me. It can’t make me whole. It can’t make me the person I wish I were. Not once have I ever put a new watch on my wrist, gave my wife a wrist shot, and said, “Look, honey, I’ve achieved a metamorphosis.”

    She’ll just look at me and say, “Dude, clean the leaves out of the rain gutters.”

    The material thing in my hands is a letdown because what I really want is the chase and the intense focus. The glorious plunge down a rabbit hole lined with brushed stainless steel and leather-wrapped dashboards. My consumerism isn’t about consumption—it’s about cultivating a state of intense obsession that drowns out the shrieking absurdity of modern life.

    So no more mistaking adrenaline for fulfillment. No more clicking “Buy Now” hoping for transcendence in a shipping box. 

    I’ll keep researching. That’s my Prozac. That’s my monastery. 

    But buying something has proven to be a fool’s errand. And if doing so-called research inflames my consumer appetites, then I should probably put my foot on the brakes when it comes to the research because it can be a prelude to making a purchase I don’t want to make.

    Let me give you an analogy. Let’s say you’re back in high school and you’re at the high school dance, but your girlfriend isn’t there because she’s on a ski trip. While bored at the dance, your ex shows up. She looks more beautiful than you remember her. She approaches you and asks you to dance. “Nothing will happen,” she says. “It will be completely innocent.” You dance with her and something happens. 

    That’s what watch research is like. You tell yourself the research is innocent. You’re just reading forums. Watching a video or two. Maybe checking inventory. 

    But then you wake up and you’re shopping at Target with a $5,000 watch on your wrist and you feel both embarrassed and ashamed.

    Doing research on watches is like having that dance with your ex-girlfriend: Something is going to happen. And it’s not going to be pretty. 

    Have a wonderful day, everyone. Don’t forget to smash that Like button of your soul.

  • Why Reading Is the Last Romantic Act

    Why Reading Is the Last Romantic Act


    If you take my Critical Thinking class, let me set expectations up front: I will not stand at the front of the room and lecture you into becoming an intellectual. That’s not how it works. I can’t command you to read. I can’t install curiosity like a software update.

    What I can tell you is this: the default setting is mediocrity. It’s smooth, seductive, and socially acceptable. The world—especially its algorithmic avatars—is built to exploit that setting. Platforms like OpenAI don’t just offer tools; they offer excuses. They whisper: You don’t have to think. Just prompt.

    You’ll get by on it. You’ll write tolerable essays. You might even land a job—something stable and fluorescent-lit with a breakroom fridge. But if you keep outsourcing your critical thinking to machines and your inner life to streaming platforms, you may slowly congeal into a Non-Player Character: a functionally adequate adult with no self-agency, just dopamine hits from cheap tech and cheaper opinions.

    The world needs thinkers, not task-completers.

    And that’s why I push reading—not as an obligation, but as a doorway to a higher mode of existence. Reading changes the texture of your thoughts. It exposes you to complexity you didn’t ask for and patterns of mind you didn’t inherit. But here’s the inconvenient truth: no one can make you read.

    Reading isn’t a commandment. It’s a love affair—and like any love worth having, it’s irrational, wild, and self-chosen. You don’t read because it’s good for you. You read because at some point a book wrecked you—in the best way possible. It made your brain itch, or your chest tighten, or your worldview crack open like an old floorboard.

    And that’s what I want for you. Not because it makes me feel like a good professor, but because if you don’t fall in love with ideas—on the page, in the margins, in someone else’s wild, flawed sentences—you’ll live a life someone else designed for you.

    And you’ll call it freedom.