I’m not entirely sure where the best jumping off point is for this, but I’m a firm believer that you just have to get started and the details will work themselves out in time – so here goes nothing: As for most of you, the COVID-19 Pandemic has been a pivotal turning point in my life. All of us, whether we’d like to admit it or not, were forced to suddenly and unceremoniously come to terms with a certain kind of ugliness that has been hidden behind the curtain of society for most of our lives. The kind of stuff you would read about in history books, but never had to witness firsthand before. We also had to confront the always present possibility, and long-term inevitability, of our own deaths. How awesome is that?!

I think having spent the first nine months of the pandemic in New York City, which for an extended time was not only the epicenter of the pandemic in this country but the whole world, offered me a unique experience denied to many throughout this time period. You probably saw it on TV and worried yourself in imagination by consuming the fear that news networks were churning out around the clock without hesitation – painting the apocalyptic pictures for you that you otherwise would never be privy to from the comfort of your living room. “Will I ever be able to wipe my ass again?” probably crossed your mind at least a few times.

I have since established this as truth, having had the opportunity to discuss the experience of others during the pandemic in many places around the country. The level of destruction, death, and in-your-face misery was nowhere near the same level in other places as the place I was living when the shit hit the fan. It was like living in a war zone, but the bombs were silent. I’m sure I’ll share detailed glimpses into my personal experience with this when it ties into relevant topics, but I’ll save that for later.

As a millennial born in 1994, I think the insane opportunity to be born in the richest country on earth well into two centuries of unrivaled prosperity really flew over my head. I was just another kid that took so much of what I had for granted and never thought twice about whether I deserved the life I was given or really considered what types of alternative living conditions existed in the world. For me, this manifested itself in a lack of gratitude and maybe a slightly delusional idea that the good times would just keep rolling and all I had to do was be here and look pretty to enjoy the ride.

As Americans, I think we really fuck up our happiness quotients by always being concerned with doing better, making more, and having more. We constantly reinforce what we don’t have and rarely take the time to appreciate what we do have. That mindset is the life force of American capitalism – which does, admittedly, have many benefits (when it works fairly for everyone). But although the abundance of opportunity and stuff we have offers so much in the way of distraction, it offers very little in the way of true perspective. Sure, we have problems, who doesn’t? But until we were thrust straight into survival mode without warning during the recent shakeup of reality, I don’t think a lot of us knew what real problems were.

Prior to the pandemic I felt lost, but I didn’t even realize it at the time. I knew I was unhappy, spending most of my time trying to make a buck so I could spend it drinking myself under the table and bullshitting myself and everyone around me into thinking that was genuinely fun for me… but I never really thought deeply about why I was unhappy. Now that I’ve had nearly two years to absorb and digest the trauma of my experiences during the pandemic and reflect on my life up until this moment in its entirety, I think I have better insight into this. It was painful and involuntary – and I would certainly never want to go through it again – but the internal growth has been evident. I feel more in tune with my inner-self and understand my true nature in a way I never had before (is this what spirituality feels like? Gross.) I would even go as far as to stay that I am grateful for what having endured this experience has given me.

But before you run away thinking I’m going to encourage you to walk barefoot through the forest or to start putting a rose quartz suppository up your ass every night before bed, I promise you I’m not. As much as the name implies, this is merely a side project of mine to provoke thoughts and help create a dialogue around many aspects of human life and the world that we deny in the modern day. It’s as much for me to process and articulate my thoughts and feelings as it is for you to hopefully gain value and new ideas or perspectives from. I read somewhere recently that we’re living in a world that is drowning in information and starving for wisdom, and that really resonated with me. The older I get, the more I realize that human beings are simultaneously the most impressive and unremarkable species on the planet. Somehow, we collectively know everything that is known, and yet, seemingly lack basic understanding of simple concepts. We are incredibly simple creatures with a terrible tendency to overcomplicate… well, just about everything. Many people struggle to tell the difference between good and bad, and the majority of us shy away from accountability like it’s a prostate exam. Both of those qualities we are neglecting at scale are instrumental to creating a better future for ourselves and the world. I think it’s easier to try navigating this bumpy and unpredictable terrain together – even if we’re thousands of miles away from each other and experiencing that connection through computer screens.

As a disclaimer, I wouldn’t expect this to be regularly updated (at least not at first). I am currently helping to build and manage a company that is gaining international recognition and growing rapidly. I also have other interests to pursue (mainly reading philosophy and learning everything I can about investing – and hopefully, traveling the world again if covid fucks off so I don’t get locked in a hotel room in Thailand for a forced quarantine – I’m not willing to risk it yet). So, it’s safe to say that I have a lot on my plate right now and this is more of a way to share my ideas with those who care to listen. I will probably pivot directions at times and may even post short stories and personal theories on an array of topics I find interesting – whatever I think is useful to you or expressive of my true thoughts, really. Writing has always been a naturally gifted ability for me and as I learn to leverage that ability and hone into it successfully in the business world, I also want to use it to communicate with the real world effectively. Some people are naturally gifted speakers – and some people feel great on camera… I’m a writer. This is how we’re doing it.

Since I don’t know when I’ll be making a second addition to this, I feel like I should give your brain something juicy to chew on right here in the introduction. Much of the shift that has taken place in my way of thinking over the past few years centers around each individual taking action to identify their role in the world (finding purpose) and then using it to improve themselves, and then the world. This is achieved by taking an active role in public life and contributing through donating time, money, and committing random acts of kindness on an intentional and consistent basis. An ancient stoic viewpoint that I’ve gravitated to recently is that the world is like a city in which all human beings are citizens, with all the duties inherent to citizenship. Basically, the thinking is that as human beings, we are part of nature and our duty (or purpose generally speaking) is to “live as nature requires.” To not be passive participants with the life we were given, but rather to engage in active cooperation with the world around us, and more importantly, with other human beings. Marcus Aurelius, a Roman Emperor who lived thousands of years ago and who was a diligent student of Greek philosophy, surmised that we were created not for ourselves but for others. That human nature is fundamentally unselfish and that we must work for the collective good while treating every other person justly and fairly as individuals. And although the role of each person in the world may not be equal, we all have a role to play in the vast design of the cosmos. I personally find this idea profoundly beautiful.

Whether or not I fully believe that in my heart of hearts, I do not know. But I do believe that being a fatalist is of secondary importance to understanding the intellectual undercurrent of the concept and how we can apply it in our every day lives to make the world around us a better, stronger, and more unified place for everyone. I was really struggling mentally and emotionally when I relocated down to Charlotte about ten months ago – trying to process and make sense of the prior year didn’t come naturally to me and was a psychologically painful endeavor. But I have made a lot of progress in this area since and I find myself having a deeper appreciation for everything in life lately, and particularly my view of other people has undergone a radical change. I could have easily chosen to lean into the negativity of it all and give anger and resentment a fertile breeding ground within my heart and mind, but I chose to pursue the opposite.

I find myself trying to make eye contact with every person I see and say hello to them – trying to feed this new internal desire to make sure every person feels seen and genuinely appreciated. I care for people I do not know in a subtle and unspoken way that didn’t exist within me previously. Not that I didn’t care for them before, but it just never even occurred to me. I was so wrapped up in my little bubble of narcissistic desires and every problem I had seemed more important than the world itself. I now have the humility to realize how small and unimportant I am in the grand scheme of things, but that I also have the power to change and impact the lives of others in meaningful ways. I hope that through this project I can stimulate that thought process in some of you as well – and ultimately inspire you to take more action and to increase your focus on what is going on outside of your insular experience and to contribute to it. The goal is never to be perfect, but to embrace being a very imperfect practitioner of idealistic values. What I find separates success from failure in my life is truthfully just conscious effort to apply what I know at every turn and to make the best possible decision I can when decisiveness is demanded of me. To rely on the instruments of the heart and mind when I don’t have a definitive answer and to trust that making a mistake and moving forward is better than being paralyzed by fear into a state of inaction. It’s quite simple, but as we’ll discuss in later entries – simple is not always synonymous with easy.

I’m not sure if it’s the country bumpkin in me or not, but I feel this is a strong analogy, so I’m going with it: Watching the pandemic unfold was like watching an anthill get kicked over. Things were organized and people were on autopilot – going about their lives like busy worker ants. Then COVID-19 came in like a hillbilly’s work boot and sent everything into a tailspin. Chaos ensued, people lost their fucking minds, and what we witnessed was much like watching a colony of ants scrambling to try and figure out what to do in the midst of unexpected destruction – except instead of “protect the Queen!” it was more like “hoard the toilet paper!”

I think what stood out to me the most was how fragile our world really is. We saw how easily what seemed cordial (at least on the surface) can turn venomous and violent quickly when you introduce stress and adversity into the ecosystem. Society fractured along its fault lines and although things have calmed down, at least momentarily, I think we would be wise to understand that things are currently held together by scotch tape. If we truly want to create a just society that works for all of humanity, we must understand the responsibility of the individual (of ourselves) to care for others and to nurture that reality – strengthening the weakest points of it in ways that will be better equipped to handle future hardship without completely falling apart. Otherwise, we’re teetering on a potentially ominous chapter in human history that will leave everyone emptyhanded and in a position to lose everything they value – all at the behest of indulging their desire to be right, morally superior, dominant, etc. The ability of human beings to adapt and solve problems is unparalleled. We have figured out an answer to pretty much everything besides how to be kind to each other. For me, I feel like the answer must be rooted in focusing on what is within our control as individuals and not drawing lines in the sand and identifying ourselves into factions – the idea that you can disagree with (and even dislike) people while still caring for their general well-being. It’s a cornerstone of humanity, and it’s the cost of admission if you want to have a functioning democracy.

The ability to do this successfully relies heavily on mastering one’s own mind and practicing particular disciplines that will translate into tangible actions. Actions that require thoughtfulness, sacrifices, and the unwavering belief that what benefits the common good is what benefits us. Unfortunately, I’m noticing that as things gain more of a semblance of “normality” again, the worker ants are tirelessly trying to put things back the way they were – rather than building something better. People are buying into a false sense of security again – perhaps because the mental anguish that accepting reality would cause them is too great a burden to bear. Nevertheless, the amount of people I know personally who have fallen right back into their old patterns is astounding. “Glad that’s over, let’s go have a beer!” seems to be a common mindset. If we fail to acknowledge and learn from the lessons of what we just witnessed and lived through, we are setting ourselves up to repeat our mistakes – and next time could be worse.

Every day when I was forced to walk through the streets of Manhattan and absorb the pain there – really becoming aware of what the world could be, I decided that every day I’m alive and it isn’t like that I’m going to choose to be happy – and also, that I’m going to spend a good portion of my life doing what I can to ensure that it doesn’t ever look like that. I considered those moments during the height of the lockdown as an encumbrance on my life and pitied myself for having to live through them, but I now realize that they were a privilege – I was given the chance to come at life from an entirely new angle because of it. I’m not delusional, I don’t think we can eliminate suffering from the world. I just think we can strengthen ourselves internally to withstand our own suffering and then reach out to lessen the suffering of others. Again, this is about progress, not perfection.

For a while I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it through this intact – in mind, body, or spirit. But I promised myself that if I did, I had no interest in going back to who I was before… and I haven’t. I hope you never have to see that level of destitution or feel that kind of sorrow in your life, but the truth is that you might. The best way to prepare for that possibility is to know yourself fully and build the inner-strength necessary to overcome any level of difficulty or pain the external world can throw at you. I implore you not to revert back to old behaviors and not to ignore what nature has been trying to open our eyes to. Start waking up with intention and valuing each moment and recognize the abundance of opportunity before you and know that you truly have something wonderful to offer the world if only you can find the courage to deliver it. I believe in that, and I believe in you.

When I was a teenager, I was consumed by anger I had harbored since my childhood and what I thought I wanted out of life amounted to millions of dollars so I could have a bunch of things and show everybody that I was worth something – to show certain people they were wrong. I dreamed of being able to show-off and rub it in the faces of those who had doubted or hurt me, and I desperately wanted to reach a point of being the stereotypical arrogant douchebag because I lacked any self-worth at all at the time. Now that I’ve reached a measure of success in my life, I realize I don’t want that at all. I’m not averse to being successful by traditional standards – in fact, I feel confident that my new approach to life will make me infinitely more successful in every meaningful way than I would have been otherwise – but my priorities have changed.

My goal now is constantly trying to prepare myself to deal with anything life throws at me – to approach life with radical acceptance and view my problems as opportunities for personal growth and to exercise my rational thinking and problem-solving abilities – rather than to view them as an excuse to feel sorry for myself and fall into the spiritual poison of self-pity. The advantage of this approach is that as increasingly complex situations arise, my composure does not falter and the confidence in myself to achieve and overcome obstacles grows larger. Repetition is the mother of skill and like anything else, you develop this ability through practice. I almost (admittedly oddly) look forward to the next problem to come my way now because I am intimately aware that more problems are guaranteed to come, and this is an area of life I excel and shine brighter than most at. Rather than to live a life consumed by acquiring materialistic things and status, my dream is simply to live my life as a competent person who solves my own problems and who knows my own mind and spirit without question – unrattled by external judgement and with no fear towards the difficult and unpleasant things that life brings with it. That is my definition of liberty.

You see, the avoidance of pain and adversity is futile – but developing the right tools and understanding how to use them properly can turn even the bleakest circumstances into opportunities to rise above and conquer. As your forward momentum builds off of each triumph and you begin to experience the success that this skillset brings with it, you then have the opportunity to improve the lives of others. This ride that we’re all on isn’t about money, it’s about meaning. What matters most isn’t what we have or don’t have, but each other. We must learn to act like it or suffer the consequences. It is my sincerest belief that life is about attaining freedom (from doubt, from the opinions of others, from the false narrative that our successes in life must come at the expense of someone else’s), to achieve humility, and to learn how to be of service to others. I hope we can uncover truths and practical ways of accomplishing these objectives together.

How’s that for an introduction?