Justis Devan

The Chosen One frowned.

CO: It's a lot to take in.

The Higher Being smiled patiently.

HB: Take your time. I am happy to answer any questions.

CO: Sure. First, why me? I think I'm pretty ordinary. Do I have the greatest latent potential somehow, like do you look across multiple futures, or see straight through to my heart of hearts, or...?

HB: Heavens, no. You were chosen at random. The Chosen One's domain is spiritual. All human beings have equal spiritual potential, at your very cores. So it wouldn't make sense to play favorites.

The Chosen One's features softened.

CO: What a relief! I was worried you thought I was...

The Chosen One frowned again.

CO: Hang on. Random over... all people?

HB: That's right, my child. Anyone could have been--

CO: Seems awfully convenient, right? I mean, you mentioned earlier that honing my spirit would require traveling to shrines throughout the world. So if you chose a like, 74 year old arthritic lower class Bangladeshi...

The Higher Being shifted uncomfortably, but maintained its smile.

CO: I mean, sure, 5% of people in the world are American, that's just a Nat 20 in terms of passport convenience. But young, able bodied, not obviously mentally ill...

The Higher Being cleared its translucent throat, which the Chosen One ignored entirely.

CO: Okay, no, I don't buy it. You said the fate of the world was at stake. There's no way you actually sampled at random over the distribution of all humans. You could have gotten a baby!

HB: There's... in the event that we happen to choose someone who'd be unable or unwilling to fulfil the duties...

CO: Aha!

HB: Look, we really do care about being inclusive here, it's a total coincidence you're, you know, white, for instance, and you are a woman, so.

CO: It is not a total coincidence! Unless you're telling me you controlled for it somehow, because there's no way the proportion of the population that can easily travel the world and climb up stairs to secluded shrines and memorize incantations is like, anywhere near racially representative. Not getting into neoreactionary bullshit, but subsistence farmers have repetitive strain injuries, and cities in recently industrialized nations are smoggy, and we've already been over the passport thing.

HB: I mean there's no active preference for your being white! It's...

CO: Yeah, yeah, it's structural. Hardly exonerating.

There was a brief silence.

CO: And don't think you got away with the whole 'you're a woman' thing. Come on.

HB: Must be nice in the peanut gallery. Taking potshots, grading any functional organization against an impossible standard, not even taking a moment to be grateful for the fact that of all people on Earth, you are its selected champion.

CO: Functional? I'm sorry, but wasn't your entire opening spiel about how the Earth was in fundamental danger, and how I needed to work around the clock, with mandatory travel, to get your organization's core project on track?

HB: The forces of darkness are--

CO: Oh yeah, sure, blame the market.

HB: I'm sorry, do you not want the job?

CO: What are the benefits?

HB: Salvation. Inner peace.

Another brief silence. The Chosen One sat cross legged in her bed. The Higher Being hovered, its many gleaming eyes on its wristwatch.

HB: You can also take one college course per semester. Free of charge.

Mc Donald. Coextensive with McDonald's, but not McDonald's.

The McDonald's is quite normal:

3.8 stars, with 1,229 reviews. Indeed. A picture of a McDonald's. Nothing to see here.

What about Mc Donald?

Somewhat cropped Dr. Pepper can be obtained at Mc Donald. Very good. And no, I cannot confirm this. How could I bear for Mc Donald, with its perfect 5.0 rating (one review), to be closed? Also look! You can order online!

What if I click the "Order online" button, actually?

Okay...

Hmm, those two links just go to McDonald's. Easy to see how they'd make the mistake, I guess, given the coextensiveness of McDonald's with Mc Donald.

What about the one perfect review?

Oh, I see. Not perfect. But Ela Z has correctly realized that, given their own metric, the score of 4 and 2/3 rounds up to 5. Fair enough. Or maybe Atmosphere is just not that important to them.

I do like this review, and am, I suppose, sharing it. What else has Ela Z reviewed? Do they use the same rubric in their other two reviews?

Among my favorite meal types, dinner. No mention of atmosphere for Porto's. Does Ela Z simply give everything five stars?

No. In fact, they want choose no star in some cases. They do only give either 5 stars or 1 star, though. Strong opinions.

I wonder if Ela Z created Mc Donald. Or if Mc Donald existed before McDonald's, even, present quietly for all 1,229 reviews of its conjoined twin, only to be reviewed by the ever-extreme Ela Z this very week.

A heaping serving of mysteries, this life.

I will tell you a secret. You knew it when you were small. Maybe you still do. It is that every year, every month, every week, is special and fleeting.

I know this because I was away from my baby for two weeks. I came back, and she was speaking in fuller sentences. I cannot describe the difference succinctly. But there was one. And my heart ached, to have missed this tiny sliver of time, this vanishingly small fragment of a life.

Next week, for a different purpose, I will be back in California. I will eat dinner with different people. I will spend time with at least one person I really like, who told me over dinner at a hotel bar the best way to interrogate someone, from experience. I remember some but not all of this advice. I don't think I'd be great at interrogation. I believe everything, at first.

I know this too, the secret, because of the last month. It was bright like a star in extreme fast motion. It was born. It grew. And now it bursts. What strange matter it produced and flung into the far reaches of space, or where that matter will end up, is anyone's guess. From last time, a radio play is in the works. And a friendship of at least three people, who will visit Japan together.

What did I get? Some money. Friends, I dare to hope. And a secret third thing. These are things I like. But even when you get what you like, time passes. I once wrote about this phenomenon, filtered through Homestuck. I can't be bothered to find the link.

I read so many posts. Over six hundred and fifty posts. The most posts, probably, unless someone caught up to me as I convalesced at the tail end. I read stories, and explainers, and raw personal writing, hidden from the world. Jokes and performative vulnerability and the real thing. So many open letters. I like to think mine was the most ill advised, but of course it's hard to say.

I played Pokemon random battles with two other people who had once been in the top 10 on Earth. Three of us, in a room together. A room called The Winner's Lounge.

Ah! But none of us, I forgot to mention, has ever been number one.

I digress.

Through the posts, in such great numbers, emerged a heartbeat. Maybe this was only a hallucination, a desperate ploy by my brain to make sense of the deluge, the flood, the intense desire, at scale, to come to know someone. Do I know you, errant bloggers? I hope I do, a little bit. I know you enough that I did - sincerely, badly, sometimes desperately - want to help.

I can't put the heartbeat into words. It was a steady thing, though it raced with hidden desires. To be read. To be understood. To be understandable, even to the self. To change and grow. To put down roots, an anchor, to be definite. To have some kind of record. To make number go up. Or to hide. Or both.

I read you, O bloggers. I hope you know that I was there, and glad for the nourishment.

Interviewer: So, how are your core competencies?

Candidate: Bad. I have at least once slipped up.

The interviewer's eyebrows raise, and he marks something down on his clipboard.

Interviewer: Are you aware that this job requires being on your feet for several hours a day?

Candidate: No.

Interviewer: Please state the weight of clothing that you would be unable to wear, for the duration of a 12 hour shift.

Candidate: I couldn't handle 50 pounds.

Interviewer: Oh no, no, I can set your mind at ease. We're well funded. The helmets are a little bulky, but the shirt is chain. The whole ensemble is maybe, oh, 15 pounds. Nobody ever attacks, anyway.

Candidate: That's a shame.

The interviewer gives the candidate a strange look. Then he lets out a brief aspiration, nods quietly, and returns to the clipboard.

Interviewer: Work well on a team of two?

Candidate: I have fewer than ten years of experience of doing so.

Interviewer: And what were you doing before this?

Candidate: I wasn't one of two henchmen for a warlord, one of whom was tall and skinny and the other short and fat, that's for sure.

The interviewer studies the candidate's physique for a moment, trying to determine from a seated position whether this neither-skinny-nor-fat guy is tall.

Candidate: I was the fat one.

Interviewer: You understand that you'd have to rein in the repartee for this role, yes?

Candidate: I refuse to do this.

Interviewer: Can you be a little clearer?

Candidate: I will speak out of turn.

Interviewer: Perfect. Really all I needed. Well, seems like the serum is working great, no signs of allergy, so as far as I'm concerned, you can start today. Any questions for me?

The candidate shifts in his seat, and clears his throat.

Candidate: What if they ask me if there's a God?

The interview frowns at his clipboard. He hasn't been interviewing for this role for very long, and his predecessor didn't leave very good notes. He clears his throat.

Candidate: What if they ask me what the other guy wouldn't say, if they asked him the meaning of life? Or if they ask me if they should get married to each other, if it's a couple?

The interviewer interjects, still rifling through his notes.

Interviewer: We almost never get couples.

Candidate: What if they ask me whether good or evil is greater on balance, or whether there is greater beauty in the sunset or sunrise, or how best to live?

Interviewer: Oh come on. That last one's easy. Just tell them to drink cyanide every morning, or to burn down their own house every night.

Candidate: The gap between is and ought is so easily crossed.

Interviewer: Oh, I don't know. Just tell them you know the answer.

As he says this, the interviewer finds the place in his notes that says that this role must not demur in such a way.

Interviewer: Scratch that. Come on, man. They won't ask any of that. They'll ask about the doors. They know you're not, like, an oracle.

Candidate: I didn't go to oracle school.

The interviewer and candidate exchange a look, as if to say to each other, well of course you're here, then, applying for this might as well be minimum wage role in the middle of nowhere, because both know the job prospects for a typical graduate of oracle school.

Interviewer: Oh, actually, it's right here. The first time a question is off topic, you're supposed to be silent. The second time a booming voice will warn them to stay on topic. The third time you still aren't supposed to answer, but it counts as their question and they have to guess with no information.

Candidate: Great. Sorry for the trouble.

Interviewer: Oh come on, don't be like that. Do you want the job or not?

Candidate: No.

They shake hands, and the candidate reports to his post that very day. A band of adventurers arrives not long after.

Even if you feel like everyone wants the same thing, all else equal, you should make clear that you want that thing. Just telling companies you care about money and find it motivating will sometimes get you raises you wouldn't have otherwise. Notice that this is very different than "I'm only in it for the money" - you don't need to rank your preferences. Strict approval voting. Just tell 'em what you like.

For example, I like money, compliments, kisses, feeling included, feeling special, naturally expiring gifts like flowers, letters (including digital ones i.e. heartfelt emails), sweets, hearing from people, talking about my baby, and being invited places.

I think all of these are pretty common things to like, to the point that if you asked "do you like X" for most things on the list the person you asked would suspect they were being pranked or Socrates'd or something.

Even so, people routinely have vague positive feelings about other people (maybe even you), and are not sure how to act on them, and if there's a big bright sign that says "this thing will work" then they might try that thing. People are busy and wrapped up in their own stuff and often spare cognitive capacity is the bottleneck. Find a way to remind people of your name, and what you like.

FAQ

Q: What if what I like is relevant to Dating?

A: I don't know. I was cursed/blessed (blessed) by a magnificent medallion that made it impossible for me to contribute to dating discourse, sorry, you are on your own

Q: What if I like something embarrassing?

A: A little bravery is often charming but you can also just focus on the stuff that you like that is totally safe

Q: What if I am afraid of putting myself out there, and thereby making it feel more painful if I don't get the thing I like?

A: Knock that off

Q: How do I gracefully fit this into conversation?

A: That's the neat part! You don't. You can just assert it baldly. Like a three year old.

Q: Really?

A: Yeah. A lot of happiness is just orienting towards what you like, rather than orienting to what you don't like. Also, happiness is infectious. If you say "I like ice cream" you are actually doing everyone around you a favor, by reminding them of ice cream, and liking

Q: Won't it seem like I'm tacitly making demands?

Although I think flight prices in general are quite reasonable, I am like everyone annoyed by all the nickel and diming. It's especially egregious how major airlines will charge for the first checked bag, but then 70% of the time force you to check it for free anyway. A real worst case scenario system, there, where nobody can happily and reliably get their preference. I'll never pay for a first checked bag when I really don't have to just on principle, since the current equilibrium is so bad.

I don't feel as irritated about most of the other optional charges, though I likewise refuse them. Upgrading to first class/business is right out for me, but I don't begrudge airlines for offering the option at all. I never see empty first class or business, so the airlines are pricing them correctly, and it makes me feel sorta happy that there are so many people in my society doing so well that they can afford to spend $1,000 on a moderately more comfortable 4 hour experience. Trip insurance is basically just a scam: always self insure for small things like that, come on. Refundable tickets have their place but most of the time I'm pretty confident if and when I need to fly.

But there is a specter haunting my airline playbook: I never choose my seat. Choosing a specific bad seat for some reason (really strong preference for aisle or window?) is like $30. A good seat - at least one modestly better than the default - is often between $50-$80. For long flights where it really matters, let's round it off to $100. These seats generally have a little more leg room, which is the main benefit. And ones at the front of a section have a lot more leg room, with the minor corresponding downside that you won't have an outlet to plug in your phone or whatever.

I am really uncertain if it's worth it or not for me to spend $100 to increase my odds of sleeping on a red eye. Even a 5 hour flight in the middle of the day I think I'd rather suck it up; saving $20 for each hour of feeling cramped is in and of itself satisfying. But last night I had a five hour flight with a default seat, and I am 6'3, and I just, could not fit. There was no orientation of my body where sleep was possible. I missed a night's sleep.

A guaranteed mediocre night's sleep vs. no night's sleep is probably worth $100 to me. But is a lottery ticket where I might sleep a few hours, or I might feel guilty that I paid and then didn't manage to get comfy anyway, worth $100? I don't know! Unlike the rest of the upgrade options in the modern air travel customer flow, this one I feel like I'm vaguely messing up no matter what path I take. To spend good money on the most vanishing sliver of an upgrade is obvious sucker behavior, ripe to be harvested as regret. But to sit in a horrid pretzel, unable to pitch forward or properly lean back, wondering if a moderate fee could have spared me that fate... that sounds like it's for suckers, too.

In high school and college it was tennis courts, for a stupid reason. A girl I had a crush on, a just absolutely brutal endless crush that I fed and fed and fed, liked The Prince of Tennis. Perhaps later she became a boy. I'm not sure. I digress.

But anyway it was tennis courts. When I was pining for something. I'd pace around the nearest tennis courts. The girl I dated the longest in high school, we had our last kiss on the tennis courts. I remember it raining but it can't have been, can it? I did love her. She was a wonderful girlfriend to me. We played Melee together and dated for months before we once made out. I broke up with her when another girl said she loved me at a drum circle around a fire, and I loved her too, and I did not intend to date that other girl nor did it ever come to pass, but the raw force of the feeling jolted me out of my life.

College had tennis courts too. I'd been writing novels since I was 13 and was still comfortably at the age where that was only a good thing, a feather in the cap, automatically impressive and not wearying to any given listener. There was one creative writing class at my college. The professor and I got along really well, and he called me sui generis. He made an offhand comment about how you could write a book as long as one of the books he assigned us to read, in one semester, and so I did, sort of as a prank, but the book itself was not a prank, and I dedicated it to both my grandfather, who had only just died, and my girlfriend, who is now my wife. And anyway I'd pace around on the tennis courts, wondering if I would try to get this book, my fifth, published. If my connection with this professor, or my mom's professional involvement in the alt literary scene, would turn into something, would cast my words across the world.

I don't think I dreamed of MFA programs, but it was one thing that might have been next, and I dutifully took and loved the GRE, and was waitlisted twice from a fully funded program (plus rejected from two others) and it didn't hurt much, really, except the way the waitlist was necessarily drawn out, both times, and funny the second time, and by then I was tutoring the GRE, and my dreams were pulled sideways, and I wrote the book that made my mother proudest.

Eventually I dreamed of babies. I have one now and another on the way, with my wife and two other parents, one of whom told me she loved me by the fire, those many years ago. Life is so charmed, almost impossible to believe, and also I have all these books, twelve of them, and they grow heavy. And I don't know if the time is now, or soon, or ever, to try and cast their words across the world.

In the past, being in the SF area has made me feel more in touch with girl mode. Probably because there are trans girls just, like, everywhere. These days that effect is diminished. I think this is mostly due to my hairline.

In boy mode emotional terms, I went through the ~normal balding trajectory. I didn't notice it was happening for a while, then I saw myself in the mirror and was like "uhh, what the fuck," then adjusted. As a male I think my receded hairline probably makes me like 1 point out of 10 less attractive, maybe 1.5, but I'm really tall with long eyelashes so my baseline was already good, and also I'm married and my wife and I are really attracted to each other, so whatever, no big deal.

But a receded hairline is just like, disastrous for girl-shaped attractiveness. In college I could just like, throw on a slinky dress for the kiss your crush party and have my hair be everywhere and it wasn't really "now I am trans" so much as "now I am fucking around with gender and can be approached in a girl-esque way" and like 30 people would ask to kiss me. Now I feel like in addition to no longer being like 20 (famously tougher for girl-attractiveness than boy-attractiveness in general), my hair is very much not everywhere.

I should probably figure out how to get the pills to make my hairline stop where it is today. The side effects sound rare and not too scary, and I like how my hair looks pretty well right now as a boy mode presentation. If I could gain just a tiny bit of ground back, so much the better, but I don't like pain and am not up for surgery. If there's an occasion where messing around with gender presentation is encouraged and a dress feels right in the future, probably some ostentatious wig is the way to go. That sounds pretty fun, actually.

One of the tougher parts of hair loss is this vague sense of shame, like I've failed to look after myself in a core way by letting it get to this point. It's extra tough out in the Bay Area, since so many people are in their 20s or solidly trans, and thus have really luxurious hair. In my youth, I often had the most ostentatious hair in any group, but now I'm just about the least. But I never paid consistent attention to my appearance when I was younger, and other than being roasted momentarily in a particular discord, I just didn't notice it was happening at all until it was far along. And "stop the bleeding and stay in a state of partial diminishment vs. just accept the whole ride" is emotionally tougher to square than "accept maintenance and keep full solvency vs. just accept the whole ride." Given my basic personality and degree of attention to the aesthetic side of personal grooming over the years, I suppose it was always going to be this way.

A quite nice silver lining is that, with my hairline limiting my gender presentation options, I've gotten a lot more in touch with what I'll generously call my fashion sense. I like loud colors and ridiculous patterns, and have really leaned into that. So while it's harder than in the past to feel attractive while messing around with a wide range of gender presentation, I have improved significantly over recent years in looking how I want to look in the sartorial dimension. It's satisfying to actually put together an outfit most days, and stand by it, rather than just randomly selecting a pair of undifferentiated shorts and shirts. I've never really known how to master girl dressing, in part because when I've crossdressed historically most people made a big deal out of that simple fact rather than judging the outfit qua outfit (and the modern progressive "let's figure out the pronouns" reaction is sweet but not much help here), so being softlocked to boy mode has made it much easier to follow the fashion signal and get those sweet sweet compliments.

If you run a month-long residency a couple of times, you notice that "people with a month to spare" are a highly selected group. One thing they're selected for is uniqueness; it's mostly unusual people who are both willing and able to uproot their lives for several weeks. Still, there are patterns. I shall taxonomize:

The True Believers

Some people will do a month-long thing because they really, really care about the focus of the thing. Maybe their professional life is already built around that focus, or they're trying hard to make it so. Maybe they're just so passionate about the thing that they will make it work, no matter what logistical obstacles get in their way. These people have spillover benefits for everyone, because they make the vibe much more serious and energized. Also, the other categories all have at least a sliver of this energy, because a month is a big investment in general.

The Retired

Some people are retired because they worked for 30 years or so, the good old fashioned way. Others worked extremely intense or lucrative jobs for shorter periods. Others came into money through crypto or other turns of fortune. Finally, some believe the world will probably end in a couple of years, and they have enough money to stay solvent for that long. In any case, these people are often trying to figure out what to do next. The fact that your thing is a month long is actually sort of a benefit, rather than a cost; this group is often looking for interesting ways to spend their abundant freedom.

The Up-And-Comer

People on gap years, either before or after college. People taking sabbatical from grad programs, or even just able to take a decent-sized break in the middle of an active stint of research. The up-and-comer is sometimes open to becoming a true believer, but not always. Like the retired, they're looking for enriching ways to spend their time, but there's somewhat more edge because they also need to build a life pretty soon. In the best case, they have almost as much passion as the true believers, but sabotage themselves less because they have less riding on success.

The Adrift

People on involuntary gap years. The AI-displaced, the laid off and taking a few months to take stock, the burnt out. Nothing wrong with that: the desire to participate in your thing despite significant life uncertainty is an asset rather than a liability. You want to be here to figure out what's next? That's an honor!

There is of course overlap between all of the last three categories. Suppose someone in their mid twenties has 200k in the bank and quit their job last year due to burnout. They aren't retired, nor do they feel desperate to find work, and they have youthful energy. This person might emotionally pattern-match to each of these categories as their energy levels wax and wane throughout the day.

The Freelancer

Pretty simple. If you're your own boss, you can to some extent just do whatever. Coaches, consultants, artists, grant-funded tech guys. They often have interesting jobs and job histories, and bring some exciting energy to the group. They're also somewhat less selected for than the other categories; it's not so much that they have a spare month right now, as that they kind of usually have a spare part-time month, and can move a few tings around.

People with seasonal work, like teachers, also fit in here. But I haven't run month-long things during the summer, so not in my experience.

Coda

Third link in the Breakfast Investigator Blogoverse chain

It had been a long day at work for Agni Halfthorsson, the head of global security at Conrad-Hilton International. As was every day. He returned home, which to him meant the penthouse suite of the nearest Conrad-Hilton property. The nearest that was unoccupied, more specifically. It was three days until Christmas, so he'd been driving for 3 hours. There'd been other rooms. But that wouldn't work for Agni. Other rooms reminded him of the fucking war.

Agni sat down at the minibar, and looked out the window at the office parks of Jacksonville. They stretched to the horizon, interrupted only by the nation's most polluted river. He poured himself a shot of whisky, downed it in one gulp, and ran his meaty fingers through the sharp stubble of his crew cut.

Fuck.

He didn't give a shit about the dog. Really, he didn't. Sure, he'd had a border collie as a kid. Who hadn't? Standard issue dog, far as he was concerned. And sure he'd cried when Little Marshmallow got the big C and had to be put to sleep. When his dad hadn't been able to make it because of work, so it was just him and mama, and mama couldn't handle shit like that, just blubbering and screaming and saying "no, no, maybe we shouldn't" until he, the eleven year old, had to stop her from shaking, and only got the chance to cry when he was back alone in bed, quietly, because if mom heard she'd cry louder, harder, worse, and if dad heard...

Another shot. Fuck. Piece of shit petty criminal. No, he wasn't upset about the dog. He didn't give a shit. It was fine that when he hit the Breakfast Investigator on the side of the head, a few pieces of chocolate had fallen on the floor, and Nellie had gotten them, and...

It was fine. He was just mad that it spooked the lawyers. That they'd backed off. "He can't keep doing it without the dog, anyway," they said. "It doesn't really matter, honestly," they said.

Sons of bitches. Didn't know jack shit about security.

A third shot. Nobody there to see his hand shaking. To hear him mutter to himself.

"Trash like that," he said, picturing the Breakfast Investigator in his mind's eye, rotating him like a piece of surveillance software, piercing him with the spear of justice, planning his revenge. If he was a very different man, he might have thought that this man, this former Paralympian, was Jean Valjean, and he Inspector Javert.

But he was the sort of man he was, so he simply grabbed the back of his neck hard, and shook his head under his own rough grip.

"Trash like that never stops," he muttered. He shuffled to the king bed, freshly turned down, and hit the off-white sheets asleep. Where he dreamed of Marshmallow, and woke up gasping for air.

Substack is really easy to set up. So easy, that many people use it with the default settings. But the default settings are probably not quite what you want.

The Double Subscribe Footer

If you don't include a Subscribe button, Substack will try to make you add one. However, Substack also automatically puts a call to subscribe below your post. So if you agree with the suggestion, and leave the generated subscribe button at the bottom of your post, you end up with this debacle:

Sometimes the language is also nearly identical between the two. No good! Put a share button at the bottom instead, or put the call to subscribe earlier in the post. Or just ignore the suggestion altogether.

Get Off Defaults

Substack doesn't make much noise about the about page. But people are likely to occasionally wander by, and it's kind of a turn off if you haven't updated away from the default. Likewise, the default avatars are weird creepy ugly circles; you should probably have a picture for your blog, even if it's something very basic. If you do have a subscribe call to action, it's probably good to change the defaults there, too. There are so many Substacks! Take 5 minutes to make your own unique. Or at least fully set up.

"Pledging" By Default

If you don't disable it, when people try to subscribe to a Substack without a paid tier, they'll be encouraged to "pledge" to pay you money for future posts. Ack! This seems to me to be the worst of both worlds; you scare off someone with a weird prompt about money that will make them enter their credit card information, but even if they do subscribe, you won't actually get any money.

Instead, you should either have paid subs on, or not invite people to pledge. Much simpler.

That is what you're looking for, on the settings page.

Email Stuff

This one is really buried, and extra annoying. Also on the default settings page.

The "welcome email" by default contains no fewer than two buttons, one of which is trying to get the subscriber to use the Substack app, and another of which is inviting them to fill out some kind of survey. What! The header, footer, and opt-out page are basically fine by default, but you may want to tweak them.

My Favorite: Hide the Painful Graph

Under Privacy, this toggle will by default hide the graph that shows your subscribers and post reads over time. You can still do a little click to see it. If you're plateauing or hot off a viral share and pretty sure this month's numbers are a lot lower than last month, you can pop this bad boy on and spare yourself the wailing and gnashing of teeth. I highly recommend it.

Bonus: Do You Want To Have A Bad Time?

Behold. The button.

If I want to play a pokemon random battle with a random opponent on play.pokemonshowdown.com, all I have to do is press the button.

Pressing the button is very easy. If I lose and am feeling cross about that, I can press the button again to have another go. If I win and am feeling like a mastermind, I can likewise have another press.

Self-reinforcing. That's the term.

Goals can crop up as epiphenomena of the button, and the fun the button can bring at a moment's notice. The obvious goal is winning any particular game. But I might also develop goals about achieving a certain rank (#2, as of now, is my peak), or sharpening my skills more generally.

Growing from these goals are strategies. When I was #2 I was in the habit of recording all my games in a Google Doc. Red if I lost, green if I won. Mistakes I made. Good plays. Particular pokemon that felt useful, and how I used them.

Some strategies are much simpler. Like seeing if there are any browser extensions that help provide extra information. There are. It is a 5 minute process to install one. But it is a 1 second process to press the button. So I didn't bother finding the best browser extension for several years. And these days, I don't keep a detailed battle journal, either. They grow from the goals, and the goals grow from the button. The strategies can fall away, leaving the goals. The goals can fall away, too.

Normally, I write a blog post every week. (This month, I do so every day.) It is more effortful, but it has grown into a kind of button. I must press the button. I might develop goals, like attracting more readers or writing about specific topics. I might develop strategies to achieve those goals, like making my titles and first sentences snappier. But even if the strategies and goals fall away, and I have no idea why or what I am writing, the button remains.

The pokemon button and the blog button, in my opinion, are good buttons. I'm happy with their residue upon my brain and life. I hope you are happy with the effects of the blog button, too, which I am about to press. It looks like this:

There are bad buttons, too. Some bad buttons exist inside the mind. Rumination is a pretty bad button. It produces a reliable effect, and creates the conditions for its own pressing in the future. I can always press the rumination button to help move through time when I have a certain feeling. It keeps me still, when maybe my body needs to be still. And it keeps me from taking any action in particular. Ruminating about specific things can grow into more specific buttons, some of which only work for a little while, and others of which can work for years. I don't much like these buttons.

Smoking a cigarette is harder to do than pressing a button, but it has a strong pull. That is the main reason I have never smoked a cigarette. I know how I like buttons, so I don't press ones with little pictures of skulls on them, even a little bit, if I can help it. Though this is harder to avoid when the button is in my own mind, rather than a physical object i can just say no to.

Once I was at a bar (fine, a kava bar) on Halloween. At the next table, someone was talking about writing novels and programming. I was at that time a professional programmer, and remain a big fan of writing novels. I wanted badly to meet this person.

Problem: my costume was totally insane and in line with my wife's preferences for my attire (that is to say, borderline pornographic). Additional problem: the person at the next table was a pretty girl.

Solution: I am married! Thus I approached in an extremely married way. Introduce myself semi-formally with an appeal to our common interests having overheard her, but within a few sentences, before she wastes cycles on "am I being hit on," make clear "organically" that I am here with my wife.

I use techniques like this a lot. It's not disingenuous; I really did want to make friends and I really wasn't hitting on her, and the whole thing went well. But I do feel a sort of breath-fogging-up-the-window wistfulness about the strategy of it all. It's one thing not to have sexual motive. All well and good. But it's another thing to present myself as fundamentally, nigh-ontologically unavailable. To be the gender Someone's Husband (and now, as another handy option, though it wasn't yet then, Someone's Dad).

To be clear, in my younger, single days I could and did approach people to ask them out, or flirt, or whatever. I don't have the form of scrupulosity where I'm terrified of ever displaying attraction, in principle. But there's something about attraction, dating, whatever, that just spreads like a overwhelming fungus, choking everything else out in a thick haze of plausible deniability. It's a fun dance! But if you don't opt out pretty hard, it's easy to opt in, to be pulled into a nebulous field of eros particles. It's not so much that I don't like that; I can like that plenty! But I also like other things, and once the particles get going they command so very much attention.

Dating/sex is the main version of this dynamic, but there are others. Like, I want to make sure I never focus unduly on ways my friends are socially powerful or could give me leverage for this that or the other. If my friend lives with a minor celebrity who I admire, I never ever want to ask anything about the celebrity, lest I seem to be in it for that. Again, not disingenuous! I really am not in it for that. But I wish to be totally above reproach.

I do things for many different reasons. I give away 10% of my income for abstract moral reasons, try hard to keep my word and say precisely true things for nebulous instinctive reasons, and figure out what type of terrain each 8th step falls on for compulsive reasons. I don't think I'm chameleonic in general, and in fact at various times have been considered unusual, offbeat, iconoclastic.

But! When it comes to work, I am motivated by making people happy. Or, to be less gentle with myself, making them like me.

Or, no, that's not quite right. I don't think I especially want to make people like me. When random people don't, I don't much mind. But I want at least some people I'm interacting with to treat me as valuable and special. I like being paid more for its own sake, but on a gut level that's mostly because that means they care about keeping me, and think I'm cool. I also really like being complimented.

Generally, the best way to make people happy is to do a great job. And since I care a lot about being honest, lying/fraud aren't options, which further directs my people pleasing impulse towards diligence.

I don't think everyone is like this, but I bet a lot of people are. As a professional orientation, it has strengths and weaknesses. I'm good at being on time, since people get annoyed when someone is late. I'm good at being highly responsive to messages, since it tends to please people when they don't have to context switch. I'm good at mirroring and expressing empathy, because I sincerely feel it and viscerally try to match someone's energy to set them at ease.

On the other hand, I wither remarkably quickly if I don't get signals that I am doing a good job. Without praise and opportunities to demonstrate worth, I struggle to pay attention. It's harder for me to focus much on the big picture, since the people I interact with directly aren't as affected by that. If someone's excited and not receptive to gentle nudges, it's hard for me not to let them simply run wild. And I'm insecure when interacting with people which don't show much warmth, which is probably annoying.

I don't really notice this trait in my day-to-day life, because I live in a place where it's common. Many people in my hometown care a lot about getting along with others, and use that as motivation for their pursuits. When I visit the San Francisco area, though, most people seem quite motivated by abstractions. I was in a carpool the other day with two separate people who both said they tended to join firms that they felt were working on important problems, and quit as soon as they stopped believing in the mission. Meanwhile, I mostly leave jobs if I don't get enough attaboys. There's a correlation, certainly, since it's easier to get attaboys if I am in a well-functioning environment where there are useful things to do, and harder if I am in a flailing mess where everyone is constantly backbiting and pointing fingers. But I'd leave a perfectly nice place if people were mean to me, and would stay on a burning ship for a while if my crewmates hyped me up.

People here worry a lot about whether the thing they are working on is an Important Problem, and if they will have an Impact.

Every year I make a YouTube playlist of the songs I listened to that year. It's imperfect, since sometimes YouTube songs get taken down, and some of my tunes are only on Bandcamp. I make the playlist over the course of the year, so 2026's is just getting started. It's here.

I believe I played Silksong last year, but the flow of time is crazy so who knows. I made it to the True Final Boss and then lost interest, because I sort of lost the completionist's spirit and thus my equipment sort of sucks, and I can't be bothered to backtrack from the final boss's lair to get stronger. I think I could beat her if I muster the ol' gamer spirit, but instead I think I will Google "next Atelier game" every week or two.

Anyway I liked the Silksong music pretty good, and I like a lot of InstrumentManiac's stuff, so this is the first track.

This is a cover of a Jaime Paige song. I am a Jaime Page day one fan, and she's pretty much my favorite musician. Now she is getting famous as the world wises up to her excellence, so there are covers of her songs. I am excited about this.

Another Jamie Paige song. I love modernity. I love 2026. What are you talking about everything's great shh shh shh. Shhhh.

Also this one is cheating since I don't repeat songs across yearly playlists, but this is a cover of one I included last year. Of maybe my favorite/main song released last year, actually. It still slaps!

Atmospheric and nostalgic track from an RPG I tried on a whim a couple years ago. Now I am into its whole ridiculous, sprawling series. Why did this one make this list for this year? Because now my wife is playing that same RPG.

Romance!

This song compelled me to start a weird short novella in the style of Middlemarch, but then I got stuck on the second chapter. Bug me about it and maybe I will continue.

It's probably my favorite new song of the year so far, from an open secret mini album called "C Sides." Which is (I think) a reference to Celeste. A great Celeste track was on last year's annual playlist, and I sorta wish I could include it again. Truly are we bound by chains of our own making.

But perhaps... we can be free.

Shut up. Jewel's good. I saw her live in concert once. You're basic! Actually, you're the one who's basic. It's you.

Ok man look I don't know why this song called across the void to me. The heart wants what it wants. And right now it wants, several times each blessed day, to hear the glorious, anemic chorus:

"But can you/Save me

Come on and/Save me

If you could/Save me

From the ranks/Of the freaks/Who suspect

They could never love anyone"

When nothing particularly interesting is going on, it feels obvious that I should prioritize health, good habits, etc. and I feel bad if I fail. But when I'm extremely engaged with work, or romance, or a brilliant piece of art, it suddenly feels fine to sacrifice a good night's sleep, or eat poorly, or whatever.

In slow times it's very good to build up healthy habits, ideally so strongly that some are preserved even when things go pretty wrong (or right). Plus feeling good is good, and health is a big factor in that.

In exciting times, it makes sense to burn down some of the strategic health reserves. Health is so important that there are limits to what makes sense; if you sleep 4 hours a night every night you'll start functioning so poorly that you won't be able to enjoy the excitement. But missing one night's sleep to tear through the last 5 chapters of a great book is a transcendent experience. As is working harder than you could permanently sustain, over a sprint of a few weeks.

I'm naively tempted to gesture toward some kind of implicit value calculation, like that you should carefully weigh how much sacrifice makes sense, and how long you need to go hard, to figure out the optimal behavior. But really my gut feeling is that that entire way of thinking is bored guy mode. Fiddling around the edges, optimizing optionality because there's nothing better to do. The meta work of analyzing options cuts against the object work of seizing the moment, of letting physical systems run on instinct. Full mental engagement feels very different from how you imagine it's supposed to feel, when your heart isn't in it. I didn't worry about my sleep when I had a newborn. I just didn't sleep. Or game. And it was fine. Once I was worrying about my gaming or my sleep, I was back in normal life.

Parenting doesn't fit well into the dichotomy of boredom vs. excitement. Taking care of a baby or toddler is simultaneously boring and exciting. It frequently taxes your health and ability to maintain habits, while also making it much more important that you are healthy and can maintain habits. I'm away from baby for two weeks right now, which is sad; I'm a day in and I already miss her, and keep watching a video of her reuniting with a cat back home. But also, the break from parent duty - the first of this length I will have had since she was born - unleashes a lot of ambition. If I push hard, the worst plausible case is that I sleep in or drop the ball or get sick, which would be bad. But much less bad, viscerally, than doing a bad job taking care of baby. The need to get by with basic baby tasks, to be alert enough to handle mealtimes and bathtime and bedtime, blunts ambition. I don't want to take bets with your energy if losing them makes me a lousy parent. Even if they look like winning bets, from a selfish point of view.