Obviously I have one theme, and it's even in the book I'm working on right now. It's not that I have such original ideas, just that I'm good at doing variations on the same idea over and over again.
JONATHAN COTT
I write about many and various topics here at the C-Blog. This comes from a decision many years ago to not confine myself to one of those single topic type blogs. For instance, I could have wrote about minimalism or politics or religion. Why not write about all of these things? Why live in service to a single thing? Obviously, there is more to life than a single topic, so I write about anything and everything. Along the way, I noticed three recurring themes in my writing, and I share them here.
1. Overrated/Underrated
A good portion of my life and thinking is spent separating hype from reality. I'm not sure when or where this began, but my life is a story of being fooled by the overrated thing until I discover the underrated thing. The most recent example I can give is my evolved understanding of fitness. I will share the story.
I took up running for fitness in college and continued it into my twenties until my 12 hour work days put an end to that madness. In my late thirties, I flirted with taking it up again, but I had a Haglund's deformity on my right heel that put the brake on that project. I still have that deformity today, but my walking routine has caused zero aggravation there. I would prefer to not get the required surgery for that thing. But I digress. . .
As a Knight of Columbus, I volunteered to help out on a color run for the pro-life cause. It was a run/walk thing, and I think it was just a 5K. I remember running 5Ks in my twenties, and I felt bad for being fat and out of shape. I envied the runners in the event while being amused by the housewife walkers wearing FitBits and pushing baby strollers. In my mind, the ones who were running were the real athletes while the walkers were just pretenders. It was OK because it was all for a good cause. Today, I think running is overrated while walking is underrated. The walkers had it right while the runners were idiots. How did I get here?
After my accident and TBI, I had to learn how to walk again. I still have trouble in this area, but I am committed to walking as my primary fitness activity. In doing this, I did some research on walking and accidentally came across the profound benefits of a simple walk. I never knew them. I regret that it took a TBI to make me appreciate the value of walking, and I wish I had spent my running years dedicated to walking for fitness. I would have stuck with that because I enjoy it more.
My advice to people is to switch from reading Runner's World and pick up Prevention magazine instead. There is no dedicated walking magazine, but Prevention comes closest. The irony is that both magazines were published by Rodale who later sold to Hearst. Runner's World is the hype man for running which is how you get so many people doing this overrated activity. I now think running is generally bad for you, and you are better off with walking.
That story is emblematic of so many things I changed my mind about in life. I took the bait of the hype until I wised up. Consequently, I question everything from conventional wisdom to consumer products to lifestyle choices to see what other overrated things I have swallowed in my ignorance. Then, they become material for my blog posts.
2. Confidence/Unintimidation
As I studied up on overrated things, I noticed a certain pattern emerging among men. I noticed guys would go for some hyped overrated thing not based on facts but on how it made them feel as men. Lacking a better term, I chose "confidence" as my descriptor for this. For instance, a man wearing a leather biker jacket is going to feel more confidence in a bar than if he entered the same establishment wearing a Mr. Rodgers sweater. Nevermind that he might feel a bit colder and chillier in the process. If you dress like a bad ass, you will feel like a bad ass. But are you really a bad ass? That's where unintimidation comes in. A bad ass knows he is a bad ass and has no problems wearing the sweater because he knows what he knows. The jacket does not make you a bad ass, and the sweater does not change that you are a bad ass.
Men with an unintimidation mindset don't care about such silly things. Men with a confidence mindset do care about those silly things. My best example of confidence versus unintimidation is the Jeep versus the old pickup truck. Men desperate to feel confidence will buy an expensive Jeep with all of the accoutrements for offroading except they probably never leave the pavement. When they do leave the pavement, they tend to flip these things over in the backcountry on groups rides and whine about the damage to their overpriced vehicles. I despise Jeeps and the idiocy of the Jeep subculture. But confidence comes from a place of desperation. They blow a lot of money on this vanity because it makes them feel good as men.
I am down with a good old fashioned pickup truck. I like seeing an old square body Dodge truck from the 1970s at Lowe's or Home Depot. That is a real man's truck. The real man is usually an old man with gray hair, but he doesn't care what you think about him. He knows what he is and doesn't need to pretend or try to impress other people. He is just a blue collar working man who uses his truck for work and not play. Those types of men have my undying respect and admiration, and I aspire to be just like them. They are my heroes in life. If Saint Joseph was here with us, he would be driving that old Dodge. He certainly wouldn't be in an impractical Jeep.
3. The G.U.T.
My Grand Unifying Theory is my belief that every endeavor in life has a simple and effective strategy. It could be a plan of action or a useful tool or whatnot. What makes men embrace these simple strategies is unintimidation. What makes them reject these strategies is a loss of confidence usually from falling prey to some hype.
My best example I can give of the G.U.T. is my style of writing. I write simple sentences. I know big words and adjectives, but I choose not to use them. I am influenced by Strunk and White and the writing style of Ernest Hemingway. Ultimately, writing is communication. Simple writing is effective writing. If you keep it simple, you will communicate better. To me, it is a no-brainer.
I had a friend in college who was struggling to pass his English class. He was a pharmacy major, and this English class was one of those classes that everyone had to pass to get the degree. He was great at subjects like chemistry, but he couldn't write well at all. He made F's on his English papers and papers for other classes because he couldn't write.
I agreed to tutor him at no charge because he was a friend. His problem was that he was trying to sound brilliant in his papers, but he didn't have the skill set to pull it off. He was trying to do literary acrobatics, but he couldn't stand on one foot without falling over. I pointed out to him that he only needed to stand on the one foot. Leave the acrobatics to the circus performers.
I had my friend simplify his writing to the most extreme level possible. The sentences sounded like something from Dick and Jane. But I knew what I was doing. His next paper got an A. The professor was so impressed by the paper that she had him read it aloud to the class. His classmates gave him the nickname "Hemingway." He made A's on every paper after that until the end of the semester. Then, he got stupid. He went back to writing in his old way because that felt "smarter" or whatever. He got a big fat F on that paper. The A's on the previous papers gave him a C average for the semester allowing him to move on in his academic career towards a pharmacy degree.
When I give someone a strategy, I know they will get the same results that I do. I took an F student to an A student. His desire for confidence took him from an A back to an F. It's the same way that Wilt Chamberlain became a good free throw shooter with the granny shot but went back to being an awful free throw shooter because he didn't want to use a "sissy" technique that was an effective strategy. I can't help men like this. They are too stupid to be reached.
I am always finding things that follow my Grand Unifying Theory. One of those is lasagna gardening. Another is index fund investing. Another is Krav Maga. I can usually find the G.U.T. strategy in an endeavor or create one. There may be better ways, but I am no good at sophisticated strategies. It has to be simple for me. Being a TBI survivor has made that even more important for me. I am never going to win at chess. I can win at checkers.
Conclusion
These three themes go together in a sort of package deal. That was not my intention, but I find myself going through these things over and over again in a mutually reinforcing pattern. Ultimately, I rejected overrated things that seek confidence in favor of underrated things based in unintimidation which yields a solution that fits into my Grand Unifying Theory. This is my whole life in a nutshell. When these themes recur in future posts, you will know my way of thinking. My way and thinking is not for everyone, and I don't really care. I just stick with honesty, simplicity, and humility. I am too old and damaged now to change my path on this.
