Uncertain Progress

I feel like I know so many people who’ve lost the ability to feel any sense of optimism about the world… and I really can’t blame anyone who feels that way. There’s a lot of heartbreaking stuff happening, and I’m not interested in arguing anyone out of their feelings, as if that’s something that can be done.

But I do think imagination is the start of a better world, and regaining the ability to imagine is an important step.

There’s a quote about how people prefer to focus on certain peril, rather than uncertain progress. I think Katherine Boo said it, though trying to track down this quote has been futile. But the dynamic it describes is real.

I think of how when I was born, 36% of the world lived in poverty, and today only 8% do. I can also think of at least half a dozen diseases or conditions that used to be untreatable that have had major breakthroughs in just the past four years, resulting in lifespans being extended by decades.

A few things, at least, have gone really, really right. And they did so real quietly.

Joining the Pehlwani

I’ve never wrestled. No high school wrestling. I didn’t even grow up with siblings to play wrestle. So when Indian mud wrestlers actually invited me to join their practice, naturally, I suited up (or, down, I guess) and entered the mud.

When I saw who I was going up against, I was pretty surprised. Suraj himself. Leader of the Akhara. This is like putting the boss level of the video game immediately when you plug in the cartridge. Like, if Mike Tyson was your first opponent in Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out.

The bell rang. Somehow I lasted about two minutes in the arena… I’ve never wrestled before. I had a hunch that my opponent was just teasing me by letting me hang for that long, though. I crouched low. Low center of gravity, and all that. That was something I knew about. He pushed, and I pushed back. And as long as we did that, I managed to extend the length of a match I never really expected to win.

Eventually, he decided to stop drawing out the inevitable, figured out a move to flip me by the leg in just two seconds. Sheer stubbornness allowed me to put off being pinned down too soon, but it’s not like I had any real shot of flipping the script and pinning him down, so I gave in. But what a match!

A Creative Trim

What haircuts are teaching me about creativity…

First of all, I need haircuts a lot. My hair grows real fast and so to look the way I like to look I typically gotta get to the barber once a month.

Back in the day, I would wait about every 6-7 weeks before going in for a haircut to stretch it out and save a bit of money. But I always felt better and more confident after a cut and decided that was worth a couple extra haircuts over the course of a year.

If I ever hit it big, though, I might just be there twice a month.

Where am I going with this? Find out on the newest Creative Changemaker

Anyways, having creative work is a bit like having my hair. You gotta be ready to trim it back pretty often in order to be on top of your game. If you don’t, it’ll just get out of control on its own.

What do I mean when I talk about a trim for your creative work? I’m talking about that segment of your audience that limits your creativity as you try and cater to their sensibilities. The excessive commitments that tend to accumulate over time. The chaos of what’s around you.

One of the first things I’d trim is about 20% of your output. Are you committed to writing three articles a week? A video every week? A song a month? Is there a way to pull back from about a fifth of this work?

I’m not trying to stop anyone who’s making this stuff from a state of flow. But I am conscious that being driven by quantity ultimately weighs down quality.

Last year, I was doing two short form videos a week and releasing two articles a week. It worked for me then, but I realized I really didn’t need to be doing all that. Trimming it down to one of each a week has allowed me to take my time, which has in turn improved the quality of my videos and left me with more time.

Two things go up as the overall workload goes down. The first is the quality of the work. You no longer feel like you’re just cranking stuff out in order to play catch up or to keep up with a self-imposed quota. You can pour more of your ideas and consideration into each individual effort.

This ultimately makes the process more fun. When you’re simply concerned about creating something the way you envision it, even if the process is really efficient, it’s a good indicator you’re hovering around flow state.

Don’t be afraid to look at your targets, your release calendar, or whatever rhythm you’re into and realize that the bottom 20% of it represents the least fun projects that have the smallest impact on your bigger goals. While there may be some value in getting in your reps, it’s far more common for these to be things that hold you back from your best work.

Another important thing to look out for that you’ll want to trim right away are time sucks.

Tasks that you find yourself doing very frequently that take a lot of time that ultimately aren’t really worth it.

Cut those out right away.

For me, the most common time sucks are habits that I’ve stuck with over time in the area of record-keeping. I tend to obsessively back up all of my creative work. That part is a good and worthwhile thing to do, as any past victim of a hard drive failure is well aware. The problem was the obsessive cataloging that I committed myself to.

By having such a complicated system of folders and sorting all of my photos and video clips, I felt productive, but really I was committing massive amounts of time for an endeavor that provided a really small benefit.

People more commonly tend to use the word ‘time suck’ to describe things like Instagram or Netflix or apps where it’s too easy to commonly get lost scrolling and staring until a whole work day has disappeared while you were distracted.

Of course, if that’s an issue, definitely look for ways to get rid of that. I’ve never exactly used one, but it seems like those app-blocking extensions have been helpful for a lot of people.

There’s one other thing to trim back constantly and it’s perhaps the scariest one for people. But to do your best creative work, you must be willing to regularly lose about 20% of your audience every so often.

I get why that’s scary. You work hard to gain people’s attention and support. Why would you lose them?

Well, I don’t necessarily mean outright dumping your audience. Usually. I have heard from some online creators that they tried to cleanse their follower list by removing the 15% least engaged audience members. A good portion of these were bots or people who weren’t seeing and interacting with their work anyways. Shortly after doing that, their engagement went way up.

So if that’s of interest to you, go for it!

But I think you also need to be willing to grow and evolve as an artist and a human in ways that might not resonate with your audience. You need to understand that when a person decides to follow you, it represents a decision at one point and time, and over time you will drift from that point. Perhaps you’ll drift in the same direction, but this doesn’t always happen.

Artists often work themselves into a place of confusion when they’re trying to appease longtime audience members, newcomers, all while evolving in a natural and organic way. This can sometimes trap people into creating from a position of fear or defensiveness, instead of boldly looking for ways to assert new ideas.

At a certain point, you have to realize that there are a lot of good practices and ideas, but if you try to adopt all of them, you’ll end up with such a full plate that they’re no longer all that helpful.

Brandon Marsh

Baseball’s back! Well, the Phillies are shaking off a good bit of rust in these first two games. But I wanted to celebrate so I drew one of the best at celebrating… Brandon Marsh!

Three 2024 Predictions:
1) Jung Hoo Lee over Yamamoto for Rookie of the Year
2) St. Louis returns to form. Royals surprise peeps and flirt with playoffs.
3) Phils and Braves meet in the playoffs yet again.

Top Tier Failures

One of my favorite questions to ask in order to get to know people is this: what’s the best thing you’ve ever failed at??

People don’t always get the question. Especially if you’re oriented to think that failure isn’t an option.

But I’m talking about those times you try and pursue a dream, it fails, but you develop the most amazing community through the process of trying.

Not only does thinking of your top failures destigmatize failure and reduce the fear of it, you just learn fun things about people you might not have expected.

I don’t know if this is THE answer for me, but it’s up there…

I started out going to film school. I got halfway through all my requirements and realized… I was not having a good time at all. What I was learning was all theoretical. Never got to do any hands-on creative work. That set me on a path of exploring, which then led to this oddball creative career in international development I wound up with. Ironically, my current role has me pretty much making a new video every week!

Maggie Smith

When you and your pal are just a couple of dudes with a deep appreciation for Dame Maggie Smith and her cinematic talents…

Women & Heatwaves in India

When I was in Kolkata, it struck me as one of the most uncomfortable places I’ve visited due to the heat. I had a wonderful time and enjoyed my visit, but the heat was absolutely menacing. I asked my local guides how people dealt with the heatwaves, and he said that if you have access to air-conditioning, you stay in. If you don’t, well… it’s pretty hard to deal.

If it was that insufferable for me, I can only imagine how much harder it is for families in poverty or who face greater disparities. Learning how these heatwaves impact women was even more alarming.

Improv Dates

When I jumped back into improv about a year ago, one of my biggest goals was this: keep playing regularly. Find some people, maybe form a team… just keep having fun. And it looks like that was accomplished! Metal People is an official indie team and all, and we’ve got a bunch of show dates booked over the next few months.

3.29 - Finest City Improv (student recess)
3.31 - Time TBD - Mockingbird Improv
5.10 - 9pm - Finest City Improv (opening for Bankers Kill)
6.1 - 9pm - Finest City Improv (opening for Willis!)

And more dates to come… eventually!

Lessons from Nurture

Nurture: Word of the… month(s)

You know how people have their word of the year that then becomes a theme or area of focus in their life? I always preferred to do that more retroactively… too much happens unplanned over the course of a year that they rarely end the way you thought they were going to.

But I liked the idea of setting an intention beforehand and then leaning into it with your life. So I started trying to do this for seasons… roughly three month intervals.

Going into the winter months, the overarching theme in my life was nurture.

If I’m being honest, I kind of chose the theme because, well, I’m the male parent and my kids are always craving mommy. It’s pretty natural for toddlers to have a preferred parent, and let’s be real, 98% of the time it’s mom, so I’m not exactly offended by my toddlers…

But there are some huge inconveniences. She can’t pass through a room just to go grab something if they’re there without setting off the crying when they realize she’s not there to stay.

As the B-parent, I then get the job of trying to pry them off of her, which you know, probably doesn’t do a whole lot to change the dynamic.

We probably fall into pretty stereotypical roles in our family. She’s the place of safety and nurture. I spark the adventure and discovery and their confidence and ability to do things. Not exclusively, of course, but kids need both and it’s common for these to be split in two parent households.

Anyways, I decided to experiment with developing my more nurturing side. Work out those muscles. I didn’t really know where to begin, other than the idea of physically holding the little ones.

When winter started, my mom took a planned vacation to New Zealand, leaving us a few gaps in childcare throughout the week. Then our nanny had a very sudden family emergency. That left us with huge gaps for me to cover.

If nothing else, I was getting a lot of time to work on this. There were a lot of kids in the background of my Zoom calls that month.

I think on the surface, nothing looked radically different. I spent lots of time with the kids, did my weekly one-on-one adventure with each one, and tried to juggle quality time with the tasks and chores.

But quite a bit, when one of the toddlers would be having a meltdown at the same time I was trying to get something done, the word nature would come to surface in my mind.

That helped me shift gears on the spot and instead of responding reactively, I remembered to respond in ways to help usher their emotions.

Here are a few things about nurture I learned…

First, it’s not encouraged or expected from men very much. But you probably already knew that.

In the past couple weeks I’ve seen a couple of rage-bait videos essentially encouraging men to be bad fathers or they’d lose masculinity points or something. Nothing says secure-about-masculinity than being constantly worried about losing it, I guess.

I know it’s more associated with feminine energies, or whatever, but those conversations about gendered energies are out of my wheelhouse. All I know is nurture us repressed among men.

I’d imagine we’d be in a pretty different world if men weren’t often taught to be scared of being nurturing. Like, the male figure I most associate with nurture is Fred Rogers, so yeah, more of that energy really would do a lot of good in the world.

To chose to be more nurturing, as a man, is to make a countercultural choice, going against the grain of what’s expected. And being nurturing takes nothing away from other traits like strength, protectiveness, and boldness. They’re all compatible.

Nurture also does call for a good deal of strength and resolve. To be in a room of breakdowns, big feelings, and chaos, to absorb it, and turn it into calm and safety is an actual power. You’re transforming energies there.

It is so easy to be reactive, to meet stress with your own stress. I like to think of nurture as a landing pad where that can be absorbed and redirected.

Any associations of nurture with weakness are way misguided.

I’ve been using parenthood as most of my examples of nurture, but you can be nurturing in any setting. I think one place where I’ve done this fairly naturally has been the workplace.

Being nurturing means giving people a safe spot to be loved as they are and to be seen as their very best self. All these are active choices.

While nurture is much more than a physical disposition, there’s a very strong physical element. Sometimes if you’re not even sure how to make a nurturing choice in a moment, just physically do something that you associate with nurture and if nothing else it’ll put you in the right mind frame. Hold your palms open. Kneel to eye level with the kids. Hum like Kid Cudi.

Oh and eye contact. Connect and validate the experience in front of you. From there you can move forward together.

Finally, one phrase I hear a lot in intentional parenting circles is this: they’re not giving you a hard time, they’re having a hard time. That’s a good one. And while you’re not wrong to say, why can’t it be both? From the kid’s POV, it means they’re having a tough time. I’m often reminded that with limited verbal skills and constant exposure to new and novel experiences, those first few years of life are kinda overwhelming.

I’d even go so far as to say… why not think this about challenging encounters in our world at large? The internet gives us easy access to everyone’s outrage. We can see hot takes the world over.

What I’m learning to recognize is the hurt behind the hot take. Even the ones that initially make my skin crawl.

The hurt is there, when you remember to see it. The pain ends up going somewhere, often in the form of outward vitriol. But perhaps we can try something else. Absorbing it and making a new energy. Our world has a need for more nurturers.

San Diego finally feels like home

I’ve lived in San Diego more time overall than I’ve lived anywhere else. Yet it’s taken a really long time for it to feel like a place that felt like home.

It’ll sound funny to most people that I didn’t always love it. For most people, living in San Diego is a luxury. But for the longest time, I had a hard time feeling at home here and wondered if I’d be leaving. Things like the weather (which for me is ~too~ sunny. I know, right?) and relaxed nature added to its price tag, but not so much its value to me.

But the most important thing to me was a place that felt like home. Where my people are.

Only in the past year has it actually started to feel like home. And more importantly, it’s helped me recognize what actually makes a place feel like home. It’s where the most important storylines of your life unfold.

Most of us are well aware that it’s possible to live somewhere, sometimes for a very long time, without really having it feel like the place where you belong.

Recently, I’ve been really starting to value having a place that feels like home. Feeling like I belong to the city and community that I live in.

Which is funny because I spent such a long period of time on the other end of the spectrum. Living nomadically, moving frequently, and feeling defined by the constant change.

My experience was one that’s become increasingly common. I moved around a few times as a kid. Then I moved around a lot as an adult. Finishing schools, starting jobs, starting a family we’re all changes punctuated by a change in ZIP Code.

Not area code, of course. I’ve been rocking the same number since my Nokia Brick.

When I realized the norm of having a place that felt like a permanent home wouldn’t be MY norm, I wound up finding a lot of meaning in the image of being nomadic.

And to be honest, there’s a LOT there.

Pilgrimages.

The Alchemist.

Thrice’s song In Exile.

So spiritually rich.

I especially found a lot of growth, meaning, and soul level nourishment from travel. On some of my earliest trips as an adult, I felt so much connection to others and the world at large along with so much self discovery, that it seemed to really reaffirm my sense of identity as a nomad.

For a short period of time, I even had nomad as my actual job title. It was kind of a well branded internship, but as a nomad for a nonprofit organization, my job was to live in a van and raise awareness of the North Korean refugee crisis while traveling.

There are years on my timeline where I can’t even say where I lived, because I would leave one city after saving up enough to put my few possessions in a storage closet except for those that would go backpacking with me for months.

One of my earliest travel experiences as an adult came as a student, during a semester in Italy. Part of what was awesome about that experience was that I anchored myself in Siena while taking a side trip on weekends to any one of Italy’s other iconic destinations. Venice. Verona. Bologna. Milan. 

I’m glad I did it that way, because Italy has so much to see. And because coming back to Siena, small in size despite its cultural footprint, always felt like a cozy return.

I’d come back from the excitement of a city’s nightclubs or a villa’s wineries and feel a little more relaxed in Siena. I loved having regular visits to the same ordinary supermarket. That helped me feel more like I was actually living there. Faces I saw on my morning walk everyday became familiar. I could navigate without a map. It felt like where I belonged.

It was the smallest sample taste of somewhere feeling like home.

I got a much larger scoop after that semester abroad.

I returned to my actual college town. Santa Barbara.

As I drove into town and saw the familiar coastline… then the familiar shop signs… even the goofy font on all the brown street signs… I felt like I was back in my proper environment.

I couldn’t wait to reconnect with my people and swap stories from that summer.

I realized that Santa Barbara was the place where I would find all the open storylines of my life. The girl I’d been talking to. The friendships that were taking root. New projects I was creating.

The funny thing was, I was literally without a house. I returned from Italy at an awkward time that led to me couch surfing for months.

(Long story very short… I kinda met my wife that way!)

Anyways, Santa Barbara at the time truly felt like home. But it would be the last place I’d feel totally at home for a good while.

School ends. People graduate. And super expensive towns without entry level jobs have a way of ushering you out.

I’d move to Bakersfield, San Diego, Oregon, South Africa, LA, a van, and several hostels, each feeling temporary.

But I began to recognize that feeling of returning to Santa Barbara and being eager to reconnect with my people as a sign that a place feels like home.

When something as basic and goofy as kitschy brown street signs feel electric, that’s how you know you’re going somewhere that has meaning to you.

This is how I’ve come upon my favorite definition of what makes a place a home.

It’s where the active storylines of your life are unfolding.

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When a place starts feeling like home

Finally feeling that way about San Diego

PHILIPPE LAZARO

MAR 15

READ IN APP

What makes somewhere feel like home?

Most of us are well aware that it’s possible to live somewhere, sometimes for a very long time, without really having it feel like the place where you belong.

Recently, I’ve been really starting to value having a place that feels like home. Feeling like I belong to the city and community that I live in.

Which is funny because I spent such a long period of time on the other end of the spectrum. Living nomadically, moving frequently, and feeling defined by the constant change.

Why did San Diego just start to feel like home? Find out on my latest video.

Watch it here

My experience was one that’s become increasingly common. I moved around a few times as a kid. Then I moved around a lot as an adult. Finishing schools, starting jobs, starting a family we’re all changes punctuated by a change in ZIP Code.

Not area code, of course. I’ve been rocking the same number since my Nokia Brick.

When I realized the norm of having a place that felt like a permanent home wouldn’t be MY norm, I wound up finding a lot of meaning in the image of being nomadic.

And to be honest, there’s a LOT there.

Pilgrimages.

The Alchemist.

Thrice’s song In Exile.

So spiritually rich.

I especially found a lot of growth, meaning, and soul level nourishment from travel. On some of my earliest trips as an adult, I felt so much connection to others and the world at large along with so much self discovery, that it seemed to really reaffirm my sense of identity as a nomad.

For a short period of time, I even had nomad as my actual job title. It was kind of a well branded internship, but as a nomad for a nonprofit organization, my job was to live in a van and raise awareness of the North Korean refugee crisis while traveling.

There are years on my timeline where I can’t even say where I lived, because I would leave one city after saving up enough to put my few possessions in a storage closet except for those that would go backpacking with me for months.

One of my earliest travel experiences as an adult came as a student, during a semester in Italy. Part of what was awesome about that experience was that I anchored myself in Siena while taking a side trip on weekends to any one of Italy’s other iconic destinations. Venice. Verona. Bologna. Milan. 

I’m glad I did it that way, because Italy has so much to see. And because coming back to Siena, small in size despite its cultural footprint, always felt like a cozy return.

I’d come back from the excitement of a city’s nightclubs or a villa’s wineries and feel a little more relaxed in Siena. I loved having regular visits to the same ordinary supermarket. That helped me feel more like I was actually living there. Faces I saw on my morning walk everyday became familiar. I could navigate without a map. It felt like where I belonged.

It was the smallest sample taste of somewhere feeling like home.

I got a much larger scoop after that semester abroad.

I returned to my actual college town. Santa Barbara.

As I drove into town and saw the familiar coastline… then the familiar shop signs… even the goofy font on all the brown street signs… I felt like I was back in my proper environment.

I couldn’t wait to reconnect with my people and swap stories from that summer.

I realized that Santa Barbara was the place where I would find all the open storylines of my life. The girl I’d been talking to. The friendships that were taking root. New projects I was creating.

The funny thing was, I was literally without a house. I returned from Italy at an awkward time that led to me couch surfing for months.

(Long story very short… I kinda met my wife that way!)

Anyways, Santa Barbara at the time truly felt like home. But it would be the last place I’d feel totally at home for a good while.

School ends. People graduate. And super expensive towns without entry level jobs have a way of ushering you out.

I’d move to Bakersfield, San Diego, Oregon, South Africa, LA, a van, and several hostels, each feeling temporary.

But I began to recognize that feeling of returning to Santa Barbara and being eager to reconnect with my people as a sign that a place feels like home.

When something as basic and goofy as kitschy brown street signs feel electric, that’s how you know you’re going somewhere that has meaning to you.

This is how I’ve come upon my favorite definition of what makes a place a home.

It’s where the active storylines of your life are unfolding.

This explains why during my seasons in Oregon or Bakersfield I felt excitement around leaving town, but not so much returning. I didn’t have many active storylines in town. And visiting friends in other places and pursuing long awaited trips… those felt like more active storylines.

Anyways, I’ve been living in San Diego for seven years now… my second time living here. And despite the years I put in, it never seemed to contain my active storylines, or my closest community.

Until maybe the last year or two.

Last summer, I spent a weekend in Portland, one of my favorite cities to visit. And while I had a decent time overall, on the flight back, I found myself so excited to return.

The San Diego airport, in spite of its relative plainness was such a welcome sight.

I realized how I had so many new connections, a thriving life at home, and things I was looking forward to right where I lived.

I haven’t been able to say that for a long time.

Will it be permanent? I don’t know what the future holds. It wasn’t that long ago that I was looking elsewhere, seeing the rising cost of living and the fact that with three kids, my life will never be cheap exactly.

But right now, I know I’m good with where I am. There are plenty of spiritual metaphors that come with putting down roots too, and belonging to the land. It’s nothing to take for granted.

Breakout Ballers

I dunno about you, but I’ve found this NBA season to be one of the more fun ones that we’ve had in a while, largely in part due to a bunch of breakout seasons around the league. Torch is being passed from one era to the next.

Had to draw up a set with some of my favorite breakout players from this year.

I Underestimated Bangladesh

Confession: Before visiting Bangladesh, my interest was mild at best. When the things you hear about the most are crowds and smog, those aren’t exactly high selling points, and even people from there made it seem underwhelming.

But if you have the right people to show you around to the right places, there is an absolute wealth of stories and things to explore. The people are warm, welcoming, conservative, and absolutely determined to push forward in order to make a better life for the next generation. Problem-solving is an ubiquitous trait, and seeing that applied to major threats like climate vulnerability was eye opening.

Bangladesh is a country that has a lot to teach its visitors, if given a fair chance.

Living in California

Seven years since I’ve moved back to California.

I’ve always been mixed on California, to be honest. Of course it’s one of the most romanticized places. But it’s costly, and I know a lot of that cost goes to weather… and I actually prefer gray skies! Then you have a lot of nature between the forests and ocean, but the whole lower left quadrant of the state is an urban sprawl.

I’ve also always appreciated places that go overlooked and showing them a lot of love. California does not fit that bill. I find it pesky when Californians treat every other state as bland and generic without having ever been there.

But! It’s home right now, and it makes me want to put forth a good effort to appreciate it.

I love the diversity, both of nature and culture. I love that the church I used to live next to did its services in Spanish, Vietnamese, and Amharic. I love that one mile down the road near my house offers a Filipino, a Vietnamese, a Korean, and an Indian supermarket on four consecutive blocks.

I love the complexity of coastal ecosystems. I love the climate of a high desert. The green of the upper half and gold of the Central Coast.

Cali will always be a mixed bag for me. But it’s home, and you gotta learn to love that.

Bonus points to whoever can recognize all the spots in photos!

What to do if you don't believe you will win

The art of showing up anyways

“I believe that we will win.”

I’m a big fan of the US Women’s National Team’s rallying cry. As much as it gives off the Ted Lasso feel-good-feels, there really is something to seeing victory as something that’s in progress. And I think that’s not just true of sports, but other things we’re fighting for with more significant social impact.

But what do you do when it doesn’t actually look like a win is in the cards?

This is the exact question we ponder on the newest Creative Changemaker!

A month or two ago, I came across an editorial asking why all the major social movements and uprisings of the past few years don’t seem to have gone anywhere… from the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 as far back as Occupy Wall Street in 2010. We’ve seen Arab Springs and Fees Must Falls, and while MeToo might have ended, or at least derailed some careers, what’s missing is a lasting action that prevents the injustices being protested from repeating themselves.

I think it’s easy for many people who had a lot of hope in these moments, who invested a lot of energy in giving them life, to feel a bit disillusioned. And that’s totally air. I find that our world is very stubborn when it comes to changing the status quo, and even when big things, like world-halting pandemics seem to change all order, we also cling pretty tightly to our what we’ve come to recognize as normal.

Sometimes that’s a good thing, but often it’s not. Especially when it leaves unjust systems in tact.

When you push for revolution so intensely but only get symbolic or incremental change, it's easy to wind up frustrated and demoralized. It makes a lot of sense to feel like all of your efforts were for nothing and that if change didn’t come after all that, it probably won’t ever come.

As much as I can empathize with those feelings, having a defeatist attitude can be pretty harmful. If I knew I was playing on a football or baseball team with players who had internalized a sense of defeat like that, I wouldn’t want them on the team. Nothing personal, but there’s not hing you can do with defeatism. But what do you do when progress comes in the form of cookie crumbs?

I think Nelson Mandela would know a few things about that. His push for ending apartheid was initially labeled as terrorism. In fact, he’d be on U.S. terrorism lists all the way until 2008. He had to speak knowing he would be deliberately misinterpreted and misunderstood. And when he got some momentum to his movement, well, he also got a 27 year prison sentence.

Seems like he’d know how to take an L, but the way he put it, he never took one. “I either win or I learn,” he said.

The lessons you earn from incomplete pushes for justice are valuable indeed. And I think a reframe like that can be extremely helpful.

Of course, go into a movement with a clear goal. A change in mind. Be clear about it, and push for that change.

But also realize that progress and wins can take a variety of forms and know how to not miss those along the way.

I recently heard an interview with some of the leaders of Hong Kong’s protests in 2014. In many ways it’s easy to see their uprising as a failure. They were up against some unlikely odds anyways. Trying to push for something against the Chinese government from an ambiguous state of nationhood already puts you behind the 8-ball.

The proposed reforms lost in legislation 28-8. Many student leaders were imprisoned.

But the leaders who shared their reflection said that they didn’t see it as a full loss. Because of their actions, they changed the course of conversation around their issues of concern for years to come. And they gained the sympathy and interest of an international audience

I find Erica Chernoweth’s 3% rule convincing. It states that all it takes is 3% of a population to be wholly committed to a cause for it to be a success. But if the threshold were that low, you’d think we’d see more movements come to fruition, huh?

Sometimes it is a matter of the stars lining up.

You often get to a point where the clear majority of a population wants a certain change to happen, but what’s missing is the political willpower to see it through. Gun legislation in the U.S. is a pretty good example of this. However, moving public pressure forward ultimately has an impact on legislation. We’ve seen that happen in climate advocacy a good deal. And when a law does change, general attitudes around a topic typically move in the direction of the law. This happened over time following the Civil Rights Act.

It’s an interesting dynamic where political will and cultural attitudes are both causes and effects of each other. It’s unfortunate that they don’t always do so in lockstep.

But that’s why I think it’s valuable to keep moving both forward as you are able to. Pushes for a Green New Deal and student climate walkouts happened in the middle of an administrative majority strongly opposed to these things. But the public support grew so that when political tides shifted, enacting much stronger climate laws was a windfall.

It’s also helpful to remember that sometimes backlash is a sign that change is happening after all.

Backlash is real. A lot of the nostalgia for the confederacy in the South only surfaced after the Civil Rights Movement abolished Jim Crow laws. Mass incarceration also scaled up in the years that followed. The Jim Crow laws themselves were a backlash against abolition.

Furthermore, I think a lot of stunts like book banning and anti-immigration rhetoric have emerged as backlash to these social movements as of late.

I think we have yet to really see just how many people have become activated by the social tensions of the past five or six years. It may have been different things to different people. Race, climate, corruption. Whatever it is, a very large portion of the population has recently found a cause they care about passionately. Many have experienced perhaps only one cycle of an uprising and a roadblock.

Still, all those shifts will have an impact as we get further down the road. When you’re focused only on the time horizon of a year or two, it’s easy to mistake backlash as a stalemate. Sometimes it’s an unpleasant sign of progress.

Showing up isn’t about us.

Ultimately, however, I think we all need to recognize that the call to show up and play our part in moving things forward doesn’t have a whole lot to do with us. When we’re part of a cause that’s bigger than ourselves, we can understand that a win for the cause might look a lot different from a personal win.

This is where showing up for a movement is quite different than the athletic examples I referenced earlier. Because sometimes you aren’t showing up just in search of a win.

Oftentimes, showing up is something you do to let the people who are most impacted by an injustice know they aren’t alone. To know that somebody else sees what they’re going through and stands with them.

In a micro-setting, this might look like confronting someone when they express a harmful belief. Not because you think you’ll convince them, but because you want to set a norm in that space of what’s tolerable and what isn’t. That has an impact on other people in that space who may be harmed by the belief.

In a more macro-setting, it looks like comments I’ve gotten from people in Haiti and other place expressing appreciation for hearing and sharing their stories. That knowledge that you aren’t invisible or alone is extremely valuable.

The reality is, we won’t see everything into completion in our lifetime, it’s about showing up anyways.

When I was a little younger, I would frame every cause I was working towards as a change I hope to see in my lifetime.

I want to see a free _____, in my lifetime. Within my lifetime, ______ will no longer have to ______.

Maybe enough time has gone by where “in my lifetime” isn’t the horizon it used to be. But I always realize, I need to be ready to show up for things where this vision isn’t possible.

If I get the privilege to live into my senior years, I hope to still be finding my way to work towards causes, many of which I wouldn’t get to see in the time I have left. It would be more about the generations following me.

I also know that the work is never totally done. You keep moving the needle forward. My children will have their own struggles for justice. There are many ways in which the struggle continues after someone’s life.

As someone who frames a lot of things through the lens of sports, I do think it’s important and valuable to envision a win and to play to win, but you also have find the other things that keep you in the fight.

I show up because it’s what I do. Because people matter. Because I care about the people who are oppressed and I want to stand with them. All of these are things we can do even when we don’t believe that we will win.

Javier in Viota

When Javier was 16, it was right at the peak of civil conflict between armed groups in Colombia. One day, he was kidnapped right from school by a militia.

Javier’s family came to try and negotiate his release, only to be told they no longer had a son.

“For two years, I took my time. I saw others try to escape and get killed in the process. I studied everything I could observe. I worked to earn their trust. I tried to do tasks to help, usually cooking but sometimes other things.”

I infer from his tone that the ‘other things’ were way more difficult to talk about.

“Then I made my escape.”

Javier’s escape plan had to be perfect. He knew he would only get one shot, with no margin for error. Thankfully, he played his cards just right.

I think about Javier’s story a lot. We met when I was in Colombia a few years ago. After he shared all his experiences from the peak of Colombia’s civil conflicts, he then invited me on to his coffee farm. We had lunch together, and he and his wife even offered a taste of their unbelievably good homemade coffee liquer.

February 2024

Okay, can I just go off on February 2024 for a little bit? This past month was ridiculous!

The hardest part was going without 40%-ish of our childcare support for most of the month due to travel plans, road closures, and health. Deanna and I had a few days a week of taking on all three kids by ourselves for long chunks of time. We both dealt with this while being sick and trying to mend. For me, it was the worst I’ve gotten sick in recent memory. On top of that, we had to deal with power outages at home a few different times.

In spite of that, I somehow ran five half-marathons. All on Thursday mornings before work. One while recovering. One during a flash flood warning.

I played three improv shows, including my class graduation show.

I started interviewing media teams in Thailand for an upcoming project, and planning two international trips.

And we got a visit from some of our closest friends.

I don’t want to glorify busyness or not taking care of yourself. But sometimes life gives you no choice but to power through. Now time for some serious naps and spicy ramen all throughout March.

The Pehlwani

A piece I did with love to the mud wrestlers of Kolkata.

If you haven’t seen this recent video I did yet, go check it! Probably one of my more out there adventures.

Mezcal in Mexico

Oaxaca on the mind. Specifically Jose, and his home bar he built himself.

Right next to the counter is a large distilling vat, and inside it are shelves stocked with some rare and incredible mezcal. The whole thing is rock solid, would probably endure an apocalypse, and have plenty of mezcal to share with fellow survivors.

I got a bottle of jabali mezcal from Jose that was absolutely amazing. Unfortunately it was a casualty of moving with at least half the bottle left. Tragic.

Some of the best things I've learned from improv

About a year ago, I did something I’d been meaning to for a very long time.

I started improv classes.

I loved doing improv as a student in high school and college. But that was a really long time ago. As I’d been spending more time on stage, mostly talking about climate change and things, I wanted to make sure I wasn’t taking myself too seriously. My silly side really needed to play. And with the kids a bit older, I also wanted to make sure I was doing something for my inner child.

Signing up for those classes was an unambiguously good move. I started looking forward to my Wednesday nights as a high point of every week… a little bit of playtime! And I met some amazing people who’ve become real good friends. They make me thankful my start got put of for years so I could wind up meeting them.

While I’ve always been comfortable doing the things improv generally entails: getting on stage, thinking fast, etc., I wound up learning so much through the proper training and courses, and like most people who’ve gone through them, I’m now a pretty big advocate for them.

Here are some of the best things I’ve learned.

Bring a brick, not a cathedral

This was the first improv adage that we really focused on. One player does not need to come up with the entire scene or carry the entire weight for making it funny. In fact, more often than not, that creates awkward dynamics to watch on stage. Instead finding your contribution and letting it stack up alongside others’ bits is the way to go.

In my past improv experiences, I probably erred on the side of going a little to cathedral-ish. And I started to notice in my own ~life~ I often went this route, having a harder time easing up control over projects that I really cared deeply about.

Trust yourself as a performer

Okay, after a few months of doing improv classes, I felt a cold streak come on. I felt really stuck in my head, trying to follow all the new “rules” I was learning while still being playful and keeping it fun. But on the inside, I felt like I wasn’t bringing a whole lot of energy to the stage.

One thing my coach mentioned continues to stick with me. 

Just keep up with the basics of good scene work. The funny will come. You’re here because you have a distinct sense of humor and style that got you this far. It’s just about trusting yourself and putting yourself in a position to let it out.

I love this tip! Not just as an improviser, but as a parent, a storyteller, and a broad-level creative. You won’t always feel like you’re doing all you’re capable of, but trust yourself. It’s in you.

Everything is anchored in emotion and relationships

Upon entering a scene, the two most important things to establish are the relationship between people in the scene and their emotional responses. Of course those two things are related. Our emotions and relationships really shape each other.

At one point in classes we were encouraged to only play with characters who’d known each other for a few years. Really? I see so many scenes set in restaurants and taxis between people who just met! That surprised me and made me think we’d get stuck playing parent-child relationships, lovers, or siblings over and over again. And in some ways we did, but there’s a wealth of material there.

Now sometimes, I’ll go into a scene only knowing one thing: the emotional response I want to play with. If I decide it’s going to be sadness, then I’ll choose sadness even when the other character said something that isn’t obviously sad. That sets us up to spend a whole scene exploring why.

Understanding the importance of relationships and emotion in improv have helped me better recognize their significance in my life off-stage as well. These are the things that color our lives, beyond the details.

Fall and figure it out along the way

Yes, the most basic thing about improv is that it’s being made up on the spot.

But, you’d be surprised how easy it is to get stuck in your head. To try and start scripting and problem solving from the side of the stage just before you go on. It’s especially tempting for me, since as a writer, I’m often thinking in terms of three act structure and plot resolution

But, you really do want to stay in your body, hear what your partner is saying, and most of all, get out of your head. Again, this doesn’t just apply to improv. Practicing this in real life helps you be present, responsive to the others around you, and mindful.

A great performer is a vulnerable performer

One of my coaches really encouraged vulnerability, noting how much vulnerability correlates with a strong performance. It completely checks out.

Doing just about anything on stage or in public, putting your work out there, is already a vulnerable act. If you’ve made it that far, you might as well see how much more vulnerable you can get without going a bit too far.

In improv, this manifests itself in mysterious ways. A tendency to play parents who are nothing like the kind of parent you want to be. A weird recurring theme you can’t shake, that you end up exploring again and again. In life, being vulnerable reminds us that we don’t connect with each other through our feats of strength. Our pains and anxieties are far more effective.

Elevate your C Game

Nothing beats the feeling of going into a theatre pumped, locked-in, and ready, then putting on a show and absolutely killing it. Bringing the peak performance you know you have in you, while also coming across a few gems you surprised yourself with!

If only it could always be this way. Do anything long enough and you’ll have the high from nights like that to keep you coming back for more. But you’ll also have nights when you aren’t feeling it quite as much. When you’re distracted by something that happened earlier that day. When your body’s energy level is that much lower.

I’ve realized that great athletes, artists, and performers thrive when they don’t just work on their A game, but also their C game. Learning how to raise the quality of their mid performances so they can still be meaningful and valuable until the next time your A game comes around.

My life at the improv theatre has been a real highlight for me over the past year, and I’m extremely thankful for it. Most of all, I’ve been reminded of how when you do what you love and you look for the others, you meet some of the coolest people. Even though I’ve only known my improv teammates for about a year, they’ve become lifelong friends.

Improv might not be for everybody, but I’d say it’s worth trying even if you’re just on the fence. It’s brought so much good to my life.

Juniper at the Cat Cafe

Every week I try and take one of my kids out on a special daddy date. It’s a good way to make sure we’re getting quality time amidst the chaos that is our usual life.

One of my all time favorite outings will always be the time I took Juniper to a Cat Cafe. If you know this girl, you know she loves her cats. And she was absolutely in her element in this spot.