2026-08-05 22:00:20
Over the course of my radical weight loss journey I’ve learned a lot. The most important lesson in my opinion has been developing an uncompromising growth mindset. It is clear to me that such a mindset is very applicable to things far beyond personal health. This is my attempt to generalize some of these lessons to the bigger picture.
It is completely understandable that people are overwhelmed (if not outright paralyzed) by the torrent of troubles in our time. These days, it certainly seems that anyone who cares deeply about any particular domain of our lives is sounding dire alarms. Everywhere one chooses to pay attention, there is an endless chorus of urgent calls to action. This exists both on the large and the small scale: from large structural problems like wars and financial havoc to localized hazards and shared personal difficulties. There is no shortage of crucial causes in much need of diligent and discerning effort. These days my pet priorities are focused around health and digital freedom, but these are certainly not the only areas where real work is needed.
Any one of us is just a mere individual.
No matter how capable and equipped we may be, we have limits.
What needs to be done feels incomprehensibly daunting and what we can accomplish often gives little comfort.
What is the point of ’taking action’ if ultimately, the sum of my best efforts are guaranteed to fall short?
Much of these problems are driven by structures and systems that are far beyond any individual. It makes sense that people would simply join one or many movements aiming to improve things. Sadly, just as quickly as movements would rise to the challenge, they would inevitably become infested with the same rot that corrupts the institutions and structures they sought to reform or abolish. Over time, this transforms the most ambitious idealists into jaded cynics. You talk to any experienced activist and they’ll have endless stories about how a hot new trend is actually an old trap that has been sprung over and over.
What’s worse is that everything is so complex. Those deeply knowledgeable about particular topics are often incomprehensible to the general public. Expertise isolates and being comprehensible is an expensive commodity. The more one peers into any serious human endeavor, the more the game looks overtly and harshly rigged. It would certainly appear that our efforts are best placed merely trying to endure the storm and pray that it passes over us. When that doesn’t work we can always numb ourselves out from the pain.
I think what makes our times so difficult to endure is the inherent isolation baked into the structures driving the dysfunction: bureaucracy, algorithmic social media, and now artificial intelligence. This creates a profound sense of hopelessness, because if it’s up to us then it is already lost. The great news is that there actually are other great, kind, smart, and creative people out there. With a bit of patience and courage, a lot more can change than we think.
One of the more difficult challenges in even beginning to wrestle with difficult problems is facing the situation plainly. We need to meet people, problems, and systems how they actually are, rather than where we would like them to be. We don’t have the luxury of ideal circumstances, Through history we have all inherited conditions not of our choosing that carry consequences we can’t fully comprehend. When it comes to addressing things that matter, the enemies of sanity are certainty, catharsis, and completeness.
It is absolutely important to be sure in your convictions, on its own there’s nothing wrong with that. Certainty without acknowledging our mental and emotional confines is a recipe for wearing intellectual blinders. Being open to positive and negative surprises is fundamental to meaningfully growing and changing. We can’t truly expect to make any meaningful improvements anywhere if we’ve already given up on improving ourselves. Learning and the capacity to adapt are non-negotiable in chaotic environments. Actual learning is more than just playing with ideas, it’s about being willing to put them to the test and make changes when necessary.
Some people have to ask themselves if they actually want change, or if they just want to feel something. Catharsis seduces the mind into endless distraction with fanciful pleasures. Both gazing at the abyss of horrific evil, and daydreaming of utopia can easily cause your sense of perspective to slip away without notice. Being aware of dangers and horrors is important, and so too is understanding what better outcomes look like. The problem isn’t about awareness, the real danger comes from letting our unexamined feelings drive our decisions. This opens us up to manipulation, because powers in high places certainly know how to pull people’s strings. A fine understanding of how you’re wound up can absolutely help from getting stuck in similar traps over and over.
All-or-nothing thinking feels very clean and elegant in the abstract, but leads to terrible results in reality. You can learn good things from bad people, and great people can make mistakes. Corrupt and failing institutions can still serve important functions, and even the most robust systems can have dangerous flaws. Reforms that are wholly insufficient may still be necessary. We have to be open to change not just in our own lives, but also in the world around us. Treating others (and ourselves) as beyond repair is just as foolish as presuming anyone’s perfection. Time is a huge part of the equation. Some things can’t be accomplished all at once, and require meticulous work over longer stretches.
Accepting that things are as they are is not the same as acceptance of those things. The point is to witness the problems, not endlessly wallow over them. Being capable of comprehending the issues is vitally important to meaningfully addressing them. That said, the line between constructively minding a problem as opposed to letting it set your reason ablaze is very fine. Even in the best of times the embers of grief need to be properly tended to, or we risk losing far more than just our minds. It is necessary to not succumb to the temptation of avoiding real problems. It can all be a lot worse than you can imagine, yet still not be hopeless.
Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist.
Children already know that dragons exist.
Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.G.K. Chesterton
This is not a command, but an invitation to consider just being too stubborn to give up. On some level, that’s all that’s required. Whatever your dream, cause, or ambition, facing every obstacle with a mindset of “this too, can be overcome” is the simplest distillation of the perspective required. But I’ve learned enough to ask for more. I don’t just want you to toil away endlessly against the darkness I want you to be joyful while doing it. It is clear to me that these dark times call for a radically different approach to the novel circumstances we face.
Expecting more shouldn’t be about judgement, but about hope. Acknowledging where things fall short is necessary, but so is precise care. Being clear about where criticisms come from, while avoiding inflammatory harshness can make the difference between an honest conversation and an endless brawl. Clearly understanding our own goals and values are what allows us to properly articulate what is important when disagreements arise. Even when diverging goals are in play, there is often still room to find common benefit from something.
There is value in encouraging potential that is yet unrealized, but there does need to be a real path to actualizing it. Shortcomings in particular tactics and initiatives can make the effort a non-starter. On the other hand, that’s not the same as saying there’s nothing to be learned from the exercise. Being open-minded about judgement-free analysis can help spot rare opportunities. We are naturally invested in our approaches, so it can pay to be dispassionate when evaluating them.
Wanting the best is always compatible with at least a touch of kindness. Leave the control, harshness, and venom for the tyrants. An enduring desire for things to improve can just as easily come from compassion rather than rage, if we allow it. Building up your capacity to nurture what you want to see can go a lot further than playing offense all the time. Failure is to be endured, harm is to be pruned with maximum prejudice.
One of the hardest things for most people to wrestle with in our time is that we’re simply not playing the same game as the way things used to be. We’re in a radically different environment than what people in living memory grew up with. These changes need to be accounted for. People often have so much less capacity for things than we would like to have, but this can be built up over time. It can be a lot more valuable to identify steps between where we want to be and where we actually are, rather than obsessing over a complete and total overhaul.
Putting in the work to diligently set the stage for changes can do a lot more good than taking on too much and being disappointed. Preparation goes a long way to make things easier, and small things absolutely snowball into bigger efforts. When things aren’t as we would like them to be, it is important to think about what little changes can clear the way to an easier path. It can be all too easy to be enthralled by the spectacle of things rather than being properly devoted to the substance. Keeping priorities in focus and being gentle about it can often be the difference between success and catastrophic burnout.
The best strategy in most circumstances is to find way to expand the time horizon. Panic can create unnecessary urgency that sneaks in compromise and sub-optimal decisions. Buying time can be a very valuable tactic so long as we are clear-minded about what we’re buying time for. In most cases a touch of patience in the face of difficulty can do wonders for staying the course. Again, being patient in enduring circumstances is not the same as accepting them. Being focused on what needs to be done in the moment is a major pre-requisite to making actual changes. As the stakes rise, harm reduction can often be as good a victory as can be reasonably achieved.
Every non-trivial project is going to involve other people. Taking out your frustration on those around you is at best counter-productive and at worst will leave you entirely isolated. In difficult times stress rises and it takes a toll on everyone. Being mindful of our own capacity as well as that of other people is needed to make practical decisions. Far more interactions can be a negotiation rather than an outright fight. Conflict is inevitable, but we can all decide which battles we will judiciously escalate or diffuse.
There’s no “magic-fix” to any real problem, but there surely is sorcery to be found once you understand anything deeply enough. The vast majority of people think of things in simplistic linear ways: “I do X, Y happens”. This drives a lot of shaming behavior “Just stop doing X”, or “If everyone did Y, Z would happen”. This very often entirely ignores the incredible power of compounding effects. People rarely dig too deeply into the root causes and struggle to articulate reasonable steps to get from where they are to where they want to be. This creates a scenario where most people are trapped in shame spirals “why can’t I fix it?” and concede to hopelessness and despair.
Once you’ve taken in a broad perspective of a complex issue, pay close attention to the feedback loops. There are self-perpetuating cycles, often for and even against particular trends. By focusing your efforts on slowing down the negative feedback loops and reinforcing the positive ones, you can accomplish transformative results that look ‘magical’ from the outside. Understanding these feedback loops can really improve your ability to connect the micro scale to the macro scale. Big problems often have smaller scale iterations, and vice versa. Understanding this can give you a far wider space to take action in than a binary choice between the biggest fights or being entirely solitary.
Rather than obsessing over total defeat or complete victory, consider both positive and negative momentum and drag. What’s currently making things better? What’s slowing those down? What are the things making everything worse? How can they be mitigated or reversed? These are much more pragmatic questions than trying to build an immovable object to halt an unstoppable force. In reality most things fit neither category. There’s always some meaningful ‘slack’ in any direction that can be addressed on any scale.
If it is all already entirely up to me or you alone, rest assured that all hope is lost. First and foremost you have to release yourself from complete responsibility for the state of things in the world, or even in your life for that matter. Our own agency is powerful, but it’s not the only factor at play. We’re on this planet with over 8 billion other people. Life is not a ‘single-player’ game and there are no bonus points for doing everything alone. Solitude is necessary and valuable in the right dose and circumstances, but it is certainly not the answer to everything all the time. If we help each other out, we may radically transform our ability to resolve these problems together.
Giving up on ourselves and others only gives tyrants an easy win. Encouragement is the best kind of ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’. People forget what they’re capable of. Inspiring and raising others up is a meaningful force multiplier against the evils of our time. Connecting with others is about so much more than just gaining perspective, it’s about reforging our natural defenses against so many of our modern ills. This means we have to take the time to recognize the potential, talents, and even weaknesses of those around us, as well as ourselves.
Finding ways to win together is often much more valuable than trying to endure it all alone. You would be pleasantly surprised what people get out of the smallest things. These days it is more important than ever to be a “team player”, yet also able to be selective about which team is worth playing for. Cooperation should never mean being oblivious to what’s happening before our eyes. Unlike abstract systems and ideals, real people are complicated. Building up the people-skills to navigate that complexity is as urgent as it is difficult.
You can’t compete with someone who is having fun.
The biggest fallacy of consistency is believing that all meticulous work on a difficult challenge has to be a miserable slog. Finding the joy and spreading cheer in good efforts is its own victory. In the right circumstances, people with enough bandwidth can find a thrill in solving difficult problems. This is an under-appreciated way to accelerate people’s desire to do whatever needs to be done. Taking the time to celebrate small victories, or even just show some appreciation can make even the most dire of situations more enjoyable.
Being radically tough mentally and emotionally demands the ability to pull strength from a place that can’t be exhausted. You should dream bigger, but put focused energy into the simpler things. Having a grim understanding of dire realities does not need to steal joy from every moment. If anything, having open eyes to tragedy and despair can make the smallest joys far more precious. It is not at all easy, but it is a disposition very much worth developing.
Thank you for reading this through RSS 📡
Your thoughts and feedback are both very important to me.
Get in touch!
2026-07-10 08:00:00
There’s no real “finish line” on this whole building a healthy lifestyle thing, but I’m finally at the point where the immense amount of work put in feels worthwhile. I can now bike again, which feels incredible. After putting it off for some time I finally got my old bicycle (lots of sentimental value there) repaired. I spent many years very despairing that I would never ride again.
I’ve also lost the big 300 now. I started this journey over 576lbs and this morning I weighed in at 273.4 with my latest low last weekend being 270. Starting I didn’t know it was even possible, now I realize I couldn’t imagine what it would demand of me. I can personally attest that none of this is easy.
I’m still recovering from some challenging times, but I’m very much looking forward to sharing more moving forward. I’ve learned a lot in this process, and certainty have a great deal to share. I hope you enjoy this attempt to record some thoughts while being able to ride again. It is very good to be rolling.
Thank you for reading this through RSS 📡
Your thoughts and feedback are both very important to me.
Get in touch!
2026-06-23 18:41:39
It has been a while since I’ve published one of these off-the-cuff walking monologues. In short, I’ve been worn down from the disappointment of continuing to reach higher, and feeling punished when minor injuries accumulate into feeling trapped again. Progress remains steady, but I still have a long way to go.
When I think about what’s been troubling me lately a great deal of it boils down to trying to ‘fly too close to the sun’. This entire time I’ve been desperate to actually get moving, now that I’m capable of it I have a very difficult time holding myself back. Some of it’s pressure, some of it is struggling to sit with background frustrations and fears. Looking back, it’s no mystery, but in the moment I feel driven by a very unfamiliar set of compulsions.
Now that I can be much more active than I ever have been, I feel compelled to take it for all it’s worth. For this entire journey every advance has been met with a desire to push even harder. I have certainly hit my limits before, but the severity and damage was limited by my lack of overall capability. Now I feel like I can do significant and lasting damage when I’m not careful and I realize how careless pressure and frustration can make me.
I am still recovering from going ’too hard’ on a couple of rollerblading sessions that included some falls. It’s really not the physical injury that bothers me as much as the regret of not being able to keep going. Each day I’m not back to “100%” consumes me with guilt that is nearly impossible to dismiss without doing something active that only delays recovery. I know this is a problem, sadly I am currently at a loss of how to disentangle it.
It has been surprising, but never before in this journey has the temptation to outright quit been higher. In part I am very disappointed that getting this far hasn’t ‘fixed everything’. In my less optimistic moments I’m angered that I’ve been given a cruel taste of what I am still unable to do. This spirals into despair that I may never actually fix this. It has been made crystal clear to me how strong the negative feedback loop to regaining weight is, but it seems I’m unable to gracefully go the other direction.
It all feels so far above me. This process has taken far more out of me than what I expected. I have some new grey hairs to show for it. It is clear that I need to find the right balance or a new equilibrium will be forced on me. So much of my present despair has to do with the fact that it does feel like everything I’ve done to get to this point has more or less been for nothing. It’s possible that I’m just being greedy. I need to have the patience and gratitude to accept that this is just going to take more time than I would like. On the other hand, I worry that this process itself can break me.
A pleasant shift is that I have discovered that the tactical use of carbohydrates can do wonders for mental clarity. In the past particularly demanding days would have me feeling significantly mentally exhausted on top of the physical exhaustion. With some success, I’ve been able to prevent that effect by properly fueling my body with some berries and fruits during difficult days. I’m definitely eager to learn more how how to precisely and efficiently use this to stay lucid despite trying to be more active. In the past I had noticed that doing a lot of exercise after a significant meal feels very good, my hope is that I can time things to take advantage of that.
On the mental side I’m doing what I can to take some of the pressure off. I’ve felt a great deal of frustration for not publishing more, especially because of some of the relevant big picture moves going on right now. I am trying to be patient with myself as I catch up, but it does get me down quite a bit. This feels like the point in the cycle where I have to rediscover inspiration again. I need to find positive reasons to press on and remind myself of where things can go from here.
I realize I need to rest reevaluate, and refocus my efforts. Lately I’ve been prioritizing sleep, which I think is making a positive impact. Sometime soon I hope to more concretely plan out a slightly different approach. If nothing else I need to figure out how to properly restrain my over-zealousness.
Thank you for reading this through RSS 📡
Your thoughts and feedback are both very important to me.
Get in touch!
2026-05-28 09:55:09
Lately I’ve had the pleasure of taking a vacation to Vancouver. I got to meet one of my great friends Liam Sturgess as well as others from the good fight of those difficult covid years. As far as ‘internet friends’ go, it felt great that they are every bit as amazing in person. Long overdue, but I’m very grateful I was able to make it to the occasion that brought this together. In addition to the main celebration, I got to spend some much needed quality time with my other half, who took charge of much of the planning on our end. She was very excited to experience the richness of nature out on the west coast, and I was thrilled to be schooled on the beauty that is out there. It was very lovely to breathe fresher air and be surrounded by so much lushness and color.
This was also a fantastic opportunity for me to take a bit of a break from my intense weight loss journey and get even further out of my comfort zone in other ways. Last time I flew, I was visiting family when I was over 500lbs. That was a massive ordeal and was very close in mind during this trip. I definitely appreciate the advantages of having gotten below 300lbs. In hindsight, the trip felt like the best way to celebrate truly transforming my life, and what waits for me as I progress further.
I am quite shocked to say I managed to cross the Capilano Suspension Bridge and did a large amount of hiking on much steeper terrain than I’m used to. Despite still being obese, It was so very gratifying to be able to do so many activities without feeling at all constrained by my size and cardiovascular capacity. The outings I took part in really showed me not only how important every pound lost was, but also the major difference the fitness level I’ve reached makes. In many ways this trip was a productive “body image reset” because I’ve gone from feeling like I’m ‘basically done’ to having a more firm grasp of what would be different from where I am to where I aim to be.
With all this in mind, I wanted to share a large collection of photos and videos from the various outings. I’ve painstakingly prepared this page to not use an absurd amount of bandwidth thanks to some very witty use of shortcodes. The images are compressed, and the videos won’t load unless you hover over them. For the full(er) detail, you can click on any item to view the full video/image.
Of the following images and video, feel free to use any of them as CC BY-NC-SA please.
We were very lucky to stay at a place in North Vancouver close to the beautifully scenic Lynn Valley LINK. What astonished us immediately on arriving to North Vancouver is how tall the trees are. Due to rarely spending time outdoors, small things like trees growing on stumps and moss on the trees was pretty new for me to see up close.
I can only imagine how great it would be to be able to regularly walk along this trail. It’s pretty steep in parts so it can absolutely be a great workout. As far as a relaxing get away goes, it was really great to have easy access to such a lovely place.
This trail alone made the visit very nice and refreshing, now I want to spend time looking for the nice trails near me.
Since we were flying across the country, it only made sense to go a little wild. It was great to get on the water and see some wildlife up close. I was a bit nervous about the open canopy at the front but got used to it pretty quickly. This is where it was most apparent that photos and video hardly do the real thing any justice. It was amazing to see the harbor seals with the binoculars, I even tried to take a close-up with them. It was janky but it worked somewhat.
Sadly we didn’t get to see any orcas, but it was pretty neat to follow a humpback whale for a tiny bit.
This outing was where I really decided to push my luck. Earlier that week, a local resident overheard us talking about politics and encouraged us to attend a protest against AI datacenters that weekend. The tour guide was very nice and great for answering people’s questions, so I took that as an opportunity. I simply asked the guide if “datacenters are net-positive or net-negative” for the whales. Obviously a pretty loaded question to put someone on the spot with. Her answer was pretty diplomatic, the guide stated that while she is against AI as a whole it does have valuable uses in research. This interaction told me that even at the front lines of conservation, students are much softer against technological consolidation than I thought. I would have assumed that the vast majority of those working in these fields would have a zero tolerance for such an egregious imposition. Personally, I am quite skeptical that using an astronomical amount of compute to decode whale calls will outweigh the clear ecological impacts. I would certainly like someone much more knowledgeable about the issues at hand to explain to me the trade-offs in detail.
The next outing was her favorite, the Vancouver Aquarium. I was surprised at how much there was to see. It was a very nice walk along Stanley Park to get to it, and we were very lucky to have quite nice weather for the entire trip.
I definitely took a liking to the jellyfish, it was very nice to see them go and be rotated around the large tanks.
The highlight of the stay was absolutely the otters, which were astoundingly adorable. It was great to watch them being fed and to learn about them.
Frogs!
Big stuff!
Of course I decided to push my luck again. Inside they had a section where you could (gently) touch jellyfish and other sea creatures. I decided to once again pop my question about AI datacenters to the two aquarium employees. I got similarly diplomatic answers with even more optimism regarding the benefits of research for conservation and ecology. I shared my concerns about the technological consolidation and they shared their concerns about impacts on students learning capabilities.
I really had a great time. I did not expect to have both my understanding of how far I’ve come, and how much further I had to go put into perspective at the same time. Up until this point, the more progress I made the less clear future changes seemed. As I continued to make new lows, it became easier to take the changes for granted. I can’t express how blessed I feel to have had the chance to go from feeling almost entirely isolated and immobile, to doing all these fascinating outdoor activities. So many of the smallest experiences really stood out to me in different ways. Some highlighted how great it was to be more capable, others made it explicitly clear to me that there is still a great deal of benefits to shedding the extra weight I still carry that felt normal for so much of my life.
I did certainly indulge and let loose during this time. I was struggling to make progress before leaving due to particular stressors getting the best of me. Instead of succumbing to a shame spiral, I decided that a week of indulgence is not going to be the thing that makes or breaks my long-term health trajectory. I used the experience as an opportunity to better understand what my remaining challenges with food actually are, and certainly learned a great deal. It would seem that having the luxury of observing my eating decisions without worrying about them helped a great deal. It really gave me a much clearer idea of where I am, and what still needs to change.
It feels thrilling to be rested and motivated to really take on what remains. It was reinvigorating to have the chance to do something radically different and get to experience things far outside my ordinary routine. I feel entirely recharged and I’m ecstatic to push forward on my weight loss journey and my ambitious programming projects. I miss the wonderful and encouraging people from my gym, and I can’t wait to be around them again. With eating back under control, (without the previous stress, pressure and panic!) I feel in a much better position mentally to work on my programming projects and updates.
Thank you for reading this through RSS 📡
Your thoughts and feedback are both very important to me.
Get in touch!
2026-05-10 05:38:25
This Mother’s Day I would like to share a personal thank you to mothers, grandmothers and the wise women out there, even on the World Wide Web. When I was at my peak body weight after the dreadful covid years, I felt a torrent of difficult emotions. When things were at my worst, there was one group of people that consistently showed me a refreshing combination of compassion, understanding, and encouragement. Older ladies, wise from their years have a phenomenal capacity and willingness to recognize and uplift the best of what’s inside us. In my experience, I have noticed that when one is putting in the work to build themselves up, their biggest cheerleaders are what I affectionately dub ‘Granny Squad’. From the covid years, to my weight loss journey (where I’ve already lost more than I currently weigh), I have many lovely ladies to thank. Therefore, I think it is appropriate and necessary that I do so here.
I owe much to the women in my life, in more ways than I know. I believe in these times, it is vital to show appreciation for those who have helped us. Things are chaotic and it is very easy to let thanks go by the wayside. We all have our battles and scars, but it can be helpful to think of those who have tended to our wounds either physically or emotionally and watch over us. It certainly feels that modernity makes orphans of us all, and so I think it is vital that we reinforce the women at the forefront of holding what remains of community together, however we can.
During the covid years, I spent a small amount of time attending in-person meet-ups hoping to participate in changing the tide against the disastrous policy decisions made in that time. At those meet-ups you saw a huge variety of people. Young people like me who got canned for refusing an “emergency use” injection, working people fed up with the chaos imposed on their lives, and elders from many walks of life. I quickly noticed, that when it came to actually helping the people suffering, it was almost exclusively the mothers, grandmothers, and older women who were the most constructive. I began to recognize how the simplest acts of kindness during difficult times can be far more impactful long term than collectively fantasizing about radical action that never materializes. During this time, I was morbidly obese, incredibly stressed out, and quite out of my own depth. I needed something to help me focus that frustration productively, that I could actually accomplish.
I turned to writing. Substack was quite popular in the ‘covid dissident’ circles I frequented. I felt that getting into writing would help me organize my thoughts and feelings, as well as help me share what I had already worked to put into practice. In hindsight, this was absolutely my turning point for the better. Many great things came out of that project, but even from the very start I was lucky to receive thoughtful feedback from ‘Granny Squad’. To my surprise, some of the deepest and most constructive feedback I’ve received has not been the technical minds I expected, but from the wise and well-read ladies online. There is of course quite a bit of overlap between those two that is absolutely worth mentioning. It is my belief that due to the hyper-financial nature of the ‘attention economy’ there is a phenomenal amount of under-recognized insight from so many different sources.
What has transformed my outlook the most was beholding how ‘Granny Squad’ is not only emotionally supportive, intellectually deep, but also the lifeblood of any serious activist endeavor. My first-hand experience attending the Freedom Convoy taught me how remarkably effective they can be when cooperation, coordination, and actual work is involved. During the protests, an abundance of delicious pre-prepared sandwiches were prepared to keep the truckers fed. So many in fact, that they were freely distributed to public spectators on the scene. I am aware, that this is merely the tip of a much larger iceberg of work that went into making what was a brutally cold time warming in its own way.
I believe mothers being uniquely invested in the lives of others gives them an unparalleled capacity to understand people on a much deeper level. They’ve seen what hurt us, where we go wrong, and our triumphs. They see the consequences that bring people down, and the work that it takes to just keep things feeling normal. It is this wider context that puts them in a position to appreciate experiences others wouldn’t spend time thinking about. This highlights to me how much online media and activism is primarily ego-driven theater for clicks.
Many of the wise women I’ve learned from during these years are passionate, articulate veterans of many important social movements. Any eager young activist would do well to appreciate the experience, knowledge, and unique perspective brave moms have in any space. All that wisdom is an under-appreciated resource that is only becoming more critical in our troubling times.
I’ve heard mothers called the “CEO of the home” but I think that’s a lazy and unfavorable comparison. A CEO of a corporation gets renown for the accomplishments of others and has a generous ‘golden parachute’ should anything go wrong. A mother is the person who gets the job done when the stakes are real, and the tolerance for catastrophe is zero. Life is often hard, and circumstances can often be ruinous. Mothers are the group you can rely on to consistently overcome in situations others struggle to comprehend, almost by definition.
This immense capacity has helped all of us survive the horrors of history in some form or another. If you wanted to think of a single bottleneck that holds humanity back, it’s likely not our tools, knowledge, or even resources. I would bet on it being the incredible talents of mothers being drained by assaults on the public, or them specifically. The opportunity costs inherent to parenting are extreme, and that impact is guaranteed for better or worse. Community is one of many things that pre-dates the Internet, stock market, or even the industrial revolution. There are so many intangible forms of wealth that haven’t even begun to be truly allowed to flourish.
While I am appreciative to have found helpful male mentorship during these challenging years, I am especially grateful for the cloud of encouragement and compassion that has helped steer my own life in a better direction. Admittedly my biggest fear in my weight loss journey hasn’t been gaining it back, but to have gone through all that I have and learned nothing. To me, the most valuable lesson has been learning the value of genuine care. Appreciation for the kindness that has been so freely and consistently given to me has me reflecting on the nature of nurturing.
People often associate nurturing with ‘babying’ but there’s a lot more to it than that. When it comes to recognizing value in others, mothers have an eye to see what many of us can’t. When you think about it, that makes them apex investors when it comes to our better qualities. They see the potential in us that we often overlook. I strongly believe that so much of what’s still good in our world is due to the relentless work of women in our communities. We should all be grateful that many of these women take the opportunity to encourage and support others everywhere they go. Their talents for bringing out the best of people often shine in places you would not at all expect.This is never more clear to me than at the gym. Way before I really believed I could change, they were quick to point out progress and share encouragement.
When I think of the future, I can see that our destiny is in the hands of those who have the power to build people up. We can all learn a great deal from the mothers, grandmothers, and aunts in our lives. It is clear to me that many of the qualities required to protect and sustain a genuinely human society are exemplified by the women around us. I hope this Mother’s Day I have helped bring some attention to that.
Thank you for reading this through RSS 📡
Your thoughts and feedback are both very important to me.
Get in touch!
2026-04-13 20:43:49
It really wasn’t that long ago that I even struggled with walking, but I am thrilled to share that I have gone rollerblading for the first time in a long time. A lot of great things are coming together this Spring and I am eager to make the best of it. Last week I made a new low of just a hair below 289. Lately I’ve been looking back at just how hard-won my newfound mobility is and reflecting on how different it feels to be able to glide again.
In truth, I was very anxious to begin roller-blading. I had become so used to everything being a painful and arduous challenge that I was expecting my first attempt to be a humiliating and frustrating experience. Once I got moving, I experienced the exact opposite. Things felt fluid and fun. In that moment it was so hard to believe that I was doing it. Actually having some momentum was a surreal and liberating experience. Feeling the wind against me as I pushed forward made me feel a concrete sense of accomplishment I truly haven’t allowed myself feel until now. It was very helpful that my twin brother sent me a tutorial video on how to avoid common beginner mistakes. I’ve still got a lot to learn but I’m very happy I’ve been able to skate around without any back pain. Hopefully, the weather will cooperate and I can become quite the skating fanatic.
I’ve been trying to have more egg whites in general, but it’s been boring to only have them scrambled.
Lately I’ve been anxious about still not being very far from 300. To be blunt, I don’t quite yet trust that it’s fully behind me. I recently bought some XL shorts not expecting them to fit and to my surprise they did! Despite the scale going slowly it does seem that I’m progressing reasonably well.
The i2p version of my site is back online, if there are any problems please let me know.
Thank you for reading this through RSS 📡
Your thoughts and feedback are both very important to me.
Get in touch!
