This week’s newsletter marks the one year anniversary of this project. It’s the 53rd edition, but since I skipped one a few weeks back I figured it’s only fair to wait until now to note the milestone. I’m surprised to have kept this up for the past year, but if I’m being honest it really doesn’t feel like it’s been all that long. If I make it to two years as quickly as I made it to one, I might have to stop the whole thing altogether. Life moves too fast.
I’ve already reflected on the newsletter this year, and don’t feel I have much to add. I haven’t felt all that great about it in 2021, which seems driven in part by burnout, but also by the fact that I haven’t been writing nearly as much since January as I did in 2020. It’s clear that the less I write, the worse I feel about the things I do get down on paper.
I talk a lot about liking all of your replies each week, but the truth is I like your affirmative responses much better than I like your dissents. That’s to be expected – it’s a weird type of sadist who prefers their writing to be disliked – but I’ve surprised myself in how little I’ve adapted to negative replies. I wrote last week about the elephant and the rider (a problematic metaphor, as one reader pointed out, since elephant rides are never ok), and this is a perfect example of that phenomenon. I know that a dissenting opinion is not harmful to me in any way, but that doesn’t mean my biological response to the first line in that reply email isn’t nausea and adrenaline.
I share this for three reasons. The first is that it would be dishonest to claim this vulnerability came easily all of the time. It doesn’t. While I absolutely want to hear your unvarnished opinions of what I write, the ability to react impartially to feedback is a muscle that needs to be built up. Just ask Anne how I’ve handled those times when she’s read a draft edition and said “I’m not sure I get it.” It’s a tough pill to swallow.
The second reason is that there’s a silver lining to that vulnerability. Because what the last year has shown me is that, to quote Jamie Foxx, there’s nothing on the other side of my fear. In the past I’ve been reluctant to open up and share, not because anything’s particularly controversial, but because I’m self-conscious of what other people will think. And so this newsletter has exposed that fear for what it is: a bunch of nothing. I’ve shared with all of you, and sometimes you’ve liked it, sometimes you haven’t, and sometimes you probably haven’t thought much about it, or even read it. It goes back to one of my favorite Tim Urban lines: “No one really cares that much about what you’re doing. People are highly self-absorbed.” Half of the internet opinions I disagree with get no more than a shrug and a deletion from my inbox. So why should I think my writing is being treated any differently?
Finally, I bring it up because, even at this point in the journey, I’m still unsure about sharing all of this with a wider audience. Part of me has hoped my extended network would somehow stumble upon the website and save me the band-aid rip of actually having to share it with more people. Another part of me thinks I need to just suck it up and post it on Facebook, because (for the second time): “No one really cares that much about what you’re doing. People are highly self-absorbed.” But there is something undeniably different about sharing this project with close friends and family and sharing it with everyone else. If I make a mistake among all of you, I can trust that you know me well enough to give me the benefit of the doubt. But out in the real world, that’s the exception, not the rule.
At some point it will happen. I’ve told myself I’d wait for it to spread organically, and I intend to do so for the near future. But one of my goals for this year is to just be brave and rip the band-aid.
Everywhere Is Walking Distance If You Have the Time
On Saturday, some friends and I went on a long walk. I’ve written about these excursions before – to Bay Ridge on my birthday last year, a virtual Great Saunter last October – but it’s worth repeating why I love them so much:
“The opportunity to talk to each other, uninterrupted for an entire day, is so rare. As we walked, I could feel myself filling up with all the positive offshoots of so much direct companionship: happiness, joy, thankfulness, excitement, pure physical energy. The greatest thing about the Saunter is that, despite the tedium and eventual pain of walking so damn much, you are able to feel so positive for so long.”
We walked from DUMBO to Astoria, a round trip of 15 miles that, due to my poor sense of direction, strayed somewhat off track. In attendance was a motley crew of friends: two coworkers, a past NYC roommate, two of Anne’s high school classmates and a fellow Wake Forest alum and his girlfriend. A mixed bag like that occurs occasionally at weddings, or housewarming parties – but how often do you actually talk to everyone in those settings? Only while walking can you eliminate all distractions and just be with each other.
Back in February, the Guardian published an article titled A joyless trudge? No, thanks: why I am utterly sick of ‘going for a walk’. Its author, Monica Heisey, was fed up with walking for walking’s sake. On one nightly walk during the pandemic, she recalls, “I saw a woman finish a lap of the park, then turn to her friend and suggest, audibly bored, ‘What do you think, should we have a go round the cemetery?'” To Heisey, this aimless wandering takes the fun out of walking: “Joylessly trudging around the same bit of my neighbourhood, for the fourth day in a row, in the interests of scavenging a crumb of mental health? Thanks, but no.”
I sympathize with Heisey. Every night for the past year, Anne and I have slipped on our shoes, pulled a mask over our faces and asked: “Where should we walk tonight?” Everywhere I’ve spent time this past year – Brooklyn, Baltimore, Stamford, Portland, the Outer Banks, Sedona – has quickly turned into a walking playground. Loops, down and backs, figure eights. A few nights ago Anne and I stumbled onto a street we’d never seen before, after hundreds of walks crisscrossing the same blocks. That’s how aimless our walking has been! We haven’t even canvassed the neighborhood properly. Our arbitrary lefts and rights have served no purpose other than to find somewhere else to continue our conversations.
Part of what feels frustrating about walking is the idea that better things could be happening instead. You could be seeing friends after work, instead of touring your block for the thousandth time. You could be watching a new show, or learning a new skill. Instead it’s eat-walk-sleep-repeat. On its face, it’s not much different than spending every night on the couch, watching the same episode of The Office over and over. At least then you’re close to the fridge.
But of all the things that got us through this past year – breadmaking, Call of Duty, Zoom, puzzles, knitting – walking is the thing I’m most thankful for. It’s a practice that isn’t going away, no matter how “back to normal” my life gets. The nightly walk may change its shape somewhat, as I stay later at the office or plan activities after work, but the decompression that comes from circling the neighborhood is something I’m not sure I can do without in the future. It’s aimless, yes. It can sometimes be joyless as well, particularly in the winter. But it’s also the best way I know to be in the moment, whether that be in conversations with Anne, or my family and friends – even with myself. Nothing clears my mind at the end of a day like a walk through Brooklyn Heights, my head on a swivel. As Dale Carnegie said:
“If you have worries, there is no better way to eliminate them than by walking them off. Just take them out for a walk.”
– Emmett
Recent Posts:
Friday Ramble, April 23rd – More spring flowers, cause I just can’t resist
What I’m Reading:
Extreme Athleticism Is the New Midlife Crisis – Paul Flannery, 2018
“I’ve finally accepted that I can’t outrun my depression, and I can’t live passively with them. So, I’m making it my training partner. It keeps me motivated to avoid the lows and grounded when I get too high. It will be with me for the rest of my life. All I can do is keep moving.”
April 19th, 2021 – Letters From An American, Heather Cox Richardson
“The idea of individuals standing against a dangerous government became central to the Republican Party. By the 1990s, men increasingly vowed to take up arms against the government that talk radio hosts told them was bringing socialism to America. After April 19, 1993, when federal officers stormed the compound of a religious cult whose former members reported that their leader, David Koresh, was stockpiling weapons, talk radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh and Alex Jones warned that the government was about to impose martial law. Angry opponents of the government began to organize as well-armed ‘militias.'”
Why the Filet-O-Fish Is My Gold Standard for Fast Food – Jane Hu, New York Times
“Maybe what makes the sandwich beloved isn’t its taste at all, but the juxtaposition of its elements: A single fillet of fried fish, topped with a thin slice of American cheese and tartar sauce, all of it cradled in a bun whose impossible roundness suggests the triumph of industrial food production.”
What I’m Listening To:
Gary Keller: How to Focus on the One Thing – Tim Ferriss Show
“What’s the one thing I could do with my wife when I walk in the door such that by doing it, everything else for the rest of the night will be easier or unnecessary? The answer is go find her and kiss her. That’s the answer, and it’s actually that simple.”
Ryan Serhant: How to Transform Your Mindset Around Money & Negotiating – The School of Greatness Podcast, Lewis Howes
“People want to work with people they like. Kindness will always take you further than any other emotion.”
Bad Company – Five Finger Death Punch (Spotify, Youtube)
45 – Shinedown (Spotify, Youtube)
I Will Not Bow – Breaking Benjamin (Spotify, Youtube)