When I was 19, I threw a mug of hot coffee at a framed wall tapestry my dad purchased when he was in Italy. The cost in damages was a few thousand for the tapestry, a couple of bucks for the mug and brew, and my ability to continue living there.

The mug exploded, the glass of the frame shattered, and the near-boiling roast spewed out over the elegant threads depicting some fanciful 18th-century scene no one in the heavy air of that living room would ever care about. My dad, ever theatrical, called the cops. They came and cuffed…

Hey buddy.

You know I never mince words, so let’s get this out of the way. You haven’t been writing enough, have you?

You know my voice. I am the guilty conscience of the modern freelance copywriter, the patron saint of the entrepreneurial self-help listicle. I’m the unambiguous quantification of your worth, the not-so-hidden profit motive, and your best damn friend in the universe.

I’m the Stats page.

Would I lie to you? I’m the first to tell you when your latest piece is a big hit. If it’s a dud, I never beat around the bush. I speak in…

It’s hard to create. It’s hard to be.

This is the loop I’ve identified in myself, and it might sound familiar to you:

Shitty moods tank productivity. The shitty mood can originate from pandemic-exacerbated loneliness, could be a kind of ‘recoil’ from quick fixes or a comedown from short-term dopamine spikes that are less potent over time. It might be from stressful dynamics at work, disappointments in personal relationships, or stem from particulars in the brain’s chemical structure. It’s often a general feeling of guilt or anxiety from not producing in the first place.

And so our rational minds, well…

“I’m a writer.” That’s what a voice within me says when I’m prompted about my identity — in bios on dating apps, in long-time-no-see convos with old friends, in the reflection from my mirror.

“Seems sus,” replies another voice from within.

The cynical voice has a compelling argument. I know what the work of real writers looks like, the stuff from literary greats I’ve studied and loved, and the scribbles I produce don’t look like that. Each time I announce to the universe that I’m a writer, I’m implicitly identifying myself as among those people, my work as among theirs…

Hey, love.

Listen. Sometimes depression is just a thing you have. Sometimes it ain’t going anywhere.

You can do all the work and troubleshooting, putting in effort and doing what you should with nutrition, exercise, sleep habits, gratitude, mindfulness, therapy, medication, and so on, and still… you know, have depression. Still have a depressive day, week, year, life.

It can be exhausting perpetually viewing yourself as standing on this hamster wheel where it seems like if you’d only run fast enough, you’d reach, what, normalcy? Basic functionality? See, the “basic” stuff other people seem to do easily — things like…

If you haven’t heard the news, AM radio pioneer, conservative media icon, and spectacularly destructive racist and bigot Rush Limbaugh has died at the age of 70. He spent his career aggressively promoting cultural division on social issues, at times suggesting that marriage equality would lead to bestiality and once running a segment that mocked gay people dying of the AIDS virus.

A world without such a presence is better off. There are people who spend their lives profiting from efforts to undermine society’s ability to grow into a rational space where human well-being can flourish. The spread of the…

Hey, fellas. It’s me, one of you.

A lot of great writers spend their energy challenging oppressive power structures. My favorites take aim at capitalism, imperialism, systemic injustice wherever it happens. Maybe they’ll explore cultural complexities and obsolete beliefs worth hashing out. Often I strive toward a similar purpose, to take complicated ideas and make a case to my readership, to shed light on something unclear. Some concepts take weeks — if not months — of research and call for many nights spent scribbling notes and steel-manning counterarguments. …

Three things, right off the bat:

1. I’m a guy.
2. I go to therapy.
3. This is good.

Whew. There, I said it. It gets easier each time. Like a lot of millennial dudes, I grew up in a pervasive culture of toxic masculinity. Modeled by the behavior of my abusive father, I equated strength with a stoic demeanor. I thought “being a man” involved an unwillingness to reflect upon or talk about my emotions (or to have any, really), never asking for help, and always appearing calm and in control. To never be vulnerable was the pinnacle of manhood.

When life…