We All Believe
Why do some people believe in God while others don't?
The Bible gives a weird answer that I didn’t understand for a long time.
If I were writing the Bible, here are verses I would include:
"Some people are just more inclined to religion than others"
“We're all just doing our best with the evidence in front of us"
But those verses aren’t in the bible.
Here's what is in the bible:
“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.”
-Romans 1:18-20 (my emphasis added)
That is a controversial description of belief in God.
The writer is saying that:
Every human believes in God (v.20)
His existence is plain to anyone who's living in the world (v.19)
Rather than embracing God, humans suppress the knowledge of God (v. 18)
For years, I thought this was silly. Was Paul really saying that Richard Dawkins (or [insert your favorite atheist here]) is really some sort of closet evangelical?
Kind of.
He's saying that God has baked his "invisible attributes" into "the things that have been made" (i.e. us and the world). We don't need to be scholars or philosophers to perceive him- the answers are right there in our everyday lives - in how we live.
Things like free will, good and evil, human rights, logic, beauty, meaning, love, the existence of matter itself. These things aren't the end of a syllogism. They are perceived by professor and plumber alike (v. 20). And those things don’t make sense without God.
We all live like God exists. But because of what acknowledging God might entail, we simply take these features of God’s world - and deny the God who made it. We embrace cognitive dissonance.
So secular conservatives point out government corruption, the importance of free "choice", and the inherent "evil" of totalitarian states. Secular liberals argue that Black Lives "Matter" and fight for abortion "rights" and denounce corporate greed. Even Richard Dawkins can't help going on moral crusades despite his moral-less universe.
Without God, all of this is inconsistent foolishness. It's denial.
Once I understood this Bible passage, I started seeing it all over.
A gay rights rally? Just an odd way of people saying they believe in God (from whom do rights come?).
Someone calling out Donald Trump for his latest scandal? Another profession of faith (from where does morality come?).
Black Lives Matter.
Women's right to choose.
#MeToo
Immigration.
Environment.
God, God, God, and more God.
"But this is just sloppy thinking on the part of non-theists" you might respond. "Surely, the more thoughtful among us can avoid this." Not so. We all live like God exists.
Here's what Romans 1 looks like in high-profile intellectuals who are clearly not fans of God - but live as though He is real as their mothers.
Bertrand Russell on Morality
I have no difficulty in practical moral judgments, which I find I make on a roughly hedonistic basis, but, when it comes to the philosophy of moral judgments, I am impelled in two opposite directions and remain perplexed.
-Bertrand Russell
Possibly the most famous atheist of the 20th century, Russell was famous for his vocal, wide-ranging moral stances on world government, women’s rights, marriage, and war. He also didn't understand how someone could believe in objective morality.
Galen Strawson on Free Will
"[The impossiblity of Free will] can be proved with complete certainty"
...
"I can't really live with this fact from day to day. Can you, really?""
- Freedom and Belief
Albert Camus on Meaning
“There is only one really serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide."
Despite Camus’ academic views on the meaningless of his (and everyone’s) life, he would work tirelessly towards multiple causes throughout his life including the French Resistance in WWII and a wide range of moral issues.
Christopher Hitchens on Human Rights
Christopher Hitchens was a well known atheist (of New Atheist Fame). While he would make a career out of arguing for God’s non-existence (his magnum-opus on the topic being “God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything”), he also would take a number of moral stances throughout his life - including, surprisingly, being against abortion.
We don’t always want to believe in God, we just have to live like he’s there.
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The Inescapable God
It's hard to live like there's no God - it might be impossible.
Many in the west are dropping God from their worldview. They may or may not realize that they are picking up a new worldview (one without God).
Few that adopt a God-less worldview work out its implications. Fewer still live by those implications.
Most of us (actually all of us as we'll see) believe in things like free will, human rights, morality, justice, and meaning. These things make perfect sense within a Judeo-Christian worldview. Made in the image of God, we are given a purpose, dignity and worth, and a moral sense to comprehend the moral law that permeates the world.
If there is no God, none of those things are real. Free will, morality, human rights, and meaning in life are fictions.
What's wrong with believing that?
Nothing... except real life.
Free Will
There is no free will in a universe without God. We are just biology. Biology arises from chemistry, chemistry arises from physics, and physics tells us that we are simply a bundle of atoms.
Atoms don't choose. Their location and velocity depends on prior location and velocity. There's no "free will variable" in Newton's laws or quantum theory - it’s already determined. In a universe without God, it turns out that we are robots.
But try to live a day denying that you have free will.
Try it in the burrito line at Chipotle. Notice when convincing a friend to watch a TV show or come to a party. Consider when you criticize the president for what he did or didn't do.
You're assuming that you, your friend, and the president have a choice. If it was determined, why argue anything? It's already determined.
My personal favorite is when someone tries to convince someone else that free will is not real (cue Alanis Morissette).
Is this an accurate description of the world and our experience?
In the philosophy room, it's easy to dismiss God. But real life is stubborn. It grabs us by the collar and forces us to believe in things like free will. We can't function without it.
But for free will we need a worldview that includes God. When we make a choice, when we argue or protest someone's actions, we are believing that free will is real.
We live like God exists.
Morality
There is no morality in a universe without God. Matter is all that is... and it just is. Arguments over morality are like arguments over which color is the best - one person's feelings against another's.
But try living a day without morality.
Read about the latest murder. Remember armed jihadists taking over a plane of terrified travelers and crashing it into a skyscraper. Let the reality of millions of little boys and girls on the trains to Auschwitz (and those bringing them there) sink in.
Think too about the social workers, policeman, and teachers working to make our world a better place. Think about the firefighters climbing up World Trade Center stairs, saving lives and giving their own. Think about families across Europe risking their lives to harbor their Jewish neighbors.
Is the firefighters' bravery the same morally as the Jihadists' murder? Are Adolf Hitler and Josef Mengele the same morally as Mother Theresa?
They are in a universe without God.
In a world without God, might is what makes right. Without God, survival of the fittest is our ethic and there's a strong case to be made that the Nazis were performing a moral good.
Is this an accurate description of the world and our experience?
If God exists, there is a transcendent moral code that exists across space and time - and we know it. If God exists, we can condemn slavery or the Holocaust even though those in power believed it was right at the time. If God does not exist, we can't.
When we condemn war, child abuse or genocide, we are saying that morality is real.
We live like God exists.
Human Rights
There are no human rights without God. A person has the same instrinsic value as a puddle of mud. A child is as valuable as a lawn ornament.
But try living a day without believing in human rights.
"Black Lives Matter". "Blue Lives Matter". Without God, the only lawn sign that makes sense is one that says "No Lives Matter".
Gay rights, civil rights, women's rights - all fiction.
What are "rights" in a material universe? When did they come into existence? How do you know they are there? Why should we abide by them?
In a world without God, a society that wanted to get rid of a people group, could simply decide that it brings utility to the rest and get rid of them - without argument. It would be the right thing to do.
Is this an accurate description of the world and our experience?
If there is a God, humans do have rights. Justice is something we are supposed to work for because black lives, blue lives, young, old, democrat, republican, gay straight, Muslim, Buddhist, all have tremendous value. They matter.
So when we condemn slavery and genocide, when we stand up for people's rights, when we protect the vulnerable, we are saying that humans have inherent value and rights (which only make sense if we're made in the image of God).
We live like God exists.
Meaning
Life has no meaning if God does not exist. We will die and so will humanity. Our achievements and our wars, our art, technology, and progress will be forgotten without witness as our sun burns down alongside the wider universe.
But try living a day like life has no meaning.
Why do you get out of bed? Why pour yourselves into work? Or kids? Or a cause?
We can delude ourselves with ideas like "subjective meaning" but subjective meaning is no meaning at all.
Albert Camus, the 20th century authority on meaning without God, summed up his life's work well - “There is only one really serious philosophical question, and that is suicide.”
Without God, nothing matters.
Is this an accurate description of the world and our experience?
With God, everything matters.
Our work, our parenting, our struggle for a better world are all of utmost importance. We are partnering with God on things that will last into eternity for people who will last into eternity. Even our incomplete, imperfect work awaits the day where God will complete what he's started in us.
In 1974, Ernest Becker won a Pulitzer prize for his book "The Denial of Death". Its core thesis: it is impossible for humans - religious or otherwise - to live as if life has no lasting meaning. We simply can't do it.
Does your life matter? My bet is that you live like it does - we can't help it. When we wake up, go to work, raise our kids, fight to make our world a better place we are saying that life has meaning.
We live like God exists.
Conclusion
Few non-theists work out the implications of their worldview. Fewer still have grappled with the incompatibility of those implications with real life.
If our boots have leaks, we need different boots. If our worldview can't account for reality, we need a different worldview.
A worldview without God has no room for fundamental aspects of our lives - and our humanity. Furthermore, it doesn't provide helpful guidance for living a good life. If anything, the opposite is true.
Back in the thick of my doubt, there were days where I was sure that God didn't exist. But I noticed something. Even on the days that I dismissed religion as a silly, inherited set of beliefs, I saw that it didn't really matter what theoretical conclusions I had reached about the existence or non-existence of God. I couldn't escape living as though God was real. It's just part of being human.
We live like God exists.
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Hiking Boots and Worldviews
I was panicking on a cold Alaskan mountain.
My hiking boots had just soaked through. The temperature started to drop.
The realization sank in.
"What have I done?"
Boots
I was Caribou hunting in remote mountains east of Fairbanks. I was ill-equipped.
In planning for the trip, I had considered a few different hiking boots for the rugged Alaska terrain. It was unclear to me which boots were the best, so I chose some old cheap ones.
Big mistake.
On the first day, as we ascended the mountain, it rained. And then it rained some more. I felt my socks dampening. Then they saturated. As we climbed, the temperature cooled to near-freezing.
I would survive (and even get a Caribou), but the mist and showers would continue for the rest of the trip. My boots would never recover. I had to borrow from friends - socks, fire supplies (I ended up melting the boots trying to dry them out :/).
My boots looked good in theory from the comfort of my house. But they weren't ready to handle all that the real world threw at them. It was foolish and dangerous.
Worldview
Choosing a worldview is like choosing a hiking boot for an adventure. You think, you debate, and then you pick. Finally, you step out into the world to see how it works.
Choose well and you'll be ready for anything. Choose poorly and you'll find frustration and misery. You'll need to borrow from someone else.
What’s in a (Good) Worldview?
Oxford defines worldview as "a particular philosophy of life or conception of the world". Some get theirs from religion, philosophy, or their own brain. Many distract themselves so they never have to think about it.
What makes a good worldview? I think back to my own story and what I was looking for.
My searching boiled down to two questions:
What's true?
How do I live? (in light of what's true)
Some worldviews are better than others. Just like boots, some look cool and some are a little funky. For boots and worldviews, we need one that works. We need one that explains the world well and guides our lives.
If it can't do those things, we are in for discomfort and maybe even danger.
Many assume that if we simply walk away from God, then we don't have to worry about belief (or worldview) anymore.
But that's not how worldviews work. You don't abandon. You exchange. We've all got our mountain to climb, and barefoot is a choice (a very leaky one).
You can distract and ignore, but the worldview game is one that we all must play.
In my intro to this series, I mentioned a new worldview on the rise in America: the "nones" - call it atheism or agnosticism, the deconstructed or the deconverted.
In our next post, let’s put this view under the microscope.
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How I (almost) Lost my Faith
“I’m convinced that we could divide Christians into three groups. The first would consist of those who have doubted.
The second would be those who haven’t doubted yet but who will. The third group would be those who have completely shut off their brains!”
-Lee Strobel
How could a billion people be wrong?
That was the question that started my doubt.
After my life-changing sophomore semester, I left on my first overseas trip: a three-week study abroad program to China. The journey would expand my view of the world- and nearly shatter my simple Christian faith.
China
While touring this strange land, a few questions started to bubble up.
How much did I really understand the world?
What was this place? Why were the people (and their crazy government) so different? What do they believe about God and life?
After the drama of last semester, I thought I had finally figured out the world. But here I was walking through the biggest, oldest civilization on the planet and I knew nothing about its history or people.
Maybe there was more to life than what I knew.
If Christianity is Right, Other Religions (and People) are Wrong
I’d seen pictures of temples in Asia, but what were they but architecturally interesting houses with funny statues?
Something changed when I was in Beijing.
I remember watching an older lady walking up to thousand-year-old Buddha statue, incense in hand. Bowing. Praying.
It was just one lady. But it wasn't just one lady. To me, she represented the hundreds of millions of real people, past and present-, mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers who believed completely differently than me.
In becoming a Christian, was I saying this woman (and millions like her) were wrong?
What happened to the people that are wrong?
There are serious consequences in the bible for people who reject Jesus. Growing up in a “Christian land”, though, I didn’t really have to worry about it.
What a wake-up call to get off the plane to one billion souls who did not believe in Jesus, many of whom hadn’t even heard about him.
What would happen to them?
How did I know that any of this Christian stuff was true?
If you noticed, nowhere in my “spiritual voyage” of the last semester did I question whether Christianity was objectively true.
The “battle” of my previous semester was a battle of the will. My study-abroad created something new - a battle of the mind.
The questions started gushing out:
Why do I trust this book called the bible?
Was I interpreting my spiritual experience correctly?
What about the Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism I had seen (not to mention Islam, Mormonism and all the rest).
What did my new faith say about all these people?
The summer ahead would only water the seeds of confusion.
A World of Ideas
Back in the US, my internship left me alone for the summer in a small town, hours from everyone I knew. I was determined to use the summer to make sense of what was true about life and God.
Here was my plan for the summer:
June: Study World Religions
July: Study Philosophy (history, and current options)
August: Come to a conclusion
Surely three months would be plenty of time to understand the history of human thought and leave me with a clear, satisfying conclusion.
Well, I tried.
From "The Idiot's Guide to World Religions" to selections from the Q'uran and the Bhagavad Gita, then Plato and Bertrand Russell to countless Wikipedia bunny trails, I soaked up books and articles like a sponge.
Unfortunately, the more I looked, the more confused I became. It was like I was searching for a pearl of truth at the bottom of a muddy pond. The more I frantically searched, the muddier the water became.
The Agony of Doubt
This was the first time I had really thought about what life was and what eternity might entail. It was the first time I had stared down the barrel of meaninglessness or felt the weight of an idea like eternal suffering. I felt alone on the journey. It was miserable.
By the end of the summer, I was wondering things like, “How do you pray when you don't think anyone’s listening?” “How do I move forward with my life when so many fundamental questions are still unsettled?”
Coming back to school wasn’t much help, at least right away. I needed community, but I also needed answers - answers to questions that no one around me was asking.
The Slow Ascent
One of the hardest things about this life is that the most important topics are oftentimes the least clear. Out here in the wild landscape of deep truth there is no proof, only pointers. Faith will always be required (no matter what you believe).
Eventually, I made it back to committed faith.
My journey would take me through Descartes and Darwin, Calvin and Camus. It would require more time, effort, and intellectual discomfort than I could have dreamed when I set out during that lonely summer of 2007. But I have no doubt that the journey has left me with stronger faith, clearer thinking, and more compassion for people who haven’t figured it all out.
Let me share some things I’ve found along the way.
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What Happened When I Became a Christian
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone… and give you a heart of flesh.
-God (Ez.36)
Every day in the northeast corner of Lake Erie, there are fish whose lives are changed forever.
The fish live their entire life in the cool, calm depths of the great lake.
Then one day things change. They find a new spot with a new sensation: current. Something is happening to them.
While some swim back to familiar waters, others forge ahead. Before they can get used to this new normal, there's a noise.
A distant rumble. Then a sudden roar.
Then they are hurtling through the air, unable to breathe, gills pinned to guts as they brace for impact.
They've just plunged 180’ down Niagara Falls. They're in an entirely new place and will never return.
That's kind of what my faith story was like - chance encounters, a new current, a dramatic plunge… and then a new life.
I looked the same. I lived in the same room and took the same classes. But over the weeks that followed, friends would ask what had happened to me.
This post is the answer to that question - it’s what I found downstream.
Spiritually
Bible: Worst to first
Before I walked home from the fateful dinner, I agreed to go with a friend to a church service the next day. It was one of my first times attending a Sunday service in college.
The sermon topic was marriage, a topic that I cared approximately zero about at age 19. But as the pastor began, I was riveted. This was the best sermon spoken message I'd ever heard. The bible was alive for the first time.
And that insufferable weekly study that had made me so miserable for all of first semester? Starting that week, the study became the best, most anticipated event on my calendar.
First semester, the bible had somehow inspired boredom and guilt at the same time. Now I was addicted.
To Be Good
There's a paradox at the heart of the gospel. When you become a Christian, all your sin is forgiven - past, present, and future. This raises an important question: then why be good at all?
I had sensed and lived that tension for the last year and a half. In the blink of an eye, the tension was gone. I wanted to be good.
There was no “shoulding” ("well I'm a full-blown Christian now so I should shape up"). While my sin was still there, alongside it was a new desire - not to numb my conscience like before, but rather to live a holy life, powered not by moral fortitude but by God living in me.
So I changed spiritually - big surprise. But the changes didn't end there.
Intellectually
The "heady" Brett that my friends know was born at this time.
Confession: up until this point, I had been a bit of a closet "romantic". I was smart enough in some ways, but when it came down to it, life was about following your heart and embracing wherever your path (and feelings) took you.
The first book I picked up flew in the face of all of that. It was a pragmatic book on a topic that I didn't think pragmatism applied to. The book was called “Boundaries in Dating" and its central message was that while your emotions are good, they can blind you to reality if you let them.
If you knew how my mind worked up until that point, it was crazy that I read that book. It was even crazier that I listened to it.
Thus began a seismic shift, not just in my dating views, but how I approached life in general. The game had changed. Things didn’t need to “feel right” - they needed to make sense. Life wasn’t just about “fun and feeling good”, it was something to be understood - the books, conversations, and classes that could get me there became the priority.
The only changes bigger than those happening in my head were the ones happening in my heart.
Emotionally
There was a lot going on inside during these years. Anxiety and occasional depression were tips of the iceberg that was my emotional life. Being a good Minnesotan I had learned that if I could just ignore those things long enough, I might be able to get through my whole life without ever having to deal with them.
I quickly realized that if I was to walk this untrodden path of becoming a better version of myself, I was going to need to learn some new, terrifying skills: vulnerability and introspection.
After spurning the advances of my bible study in first semester, I still remember sitting down at Potbelly's sandwiches, of my own volition, and asking my friend if he wanted to meet up for weekly prayer and accountability.
We added another close friend and started meeting weekly. I didn't know it at the time, but this group would become the greenhouse where the seeds of a new life could grow. We laughed shot the breeze, we confessed sin, we let our guard down and we pushed each other.
For me, this group wasn't a new weekly activity, it was a new plane of existence - one where the deepest parts of ourselves didn't have to live alone, unknown in darkness. Light could come in.
Vulnerability was just the start. Over the next two years, through classes, books, conversations and programs, I'd learn about critical concepts like attachment, family of origin issues, neurochemistry and the incredible power of self-talk (CBT). This journey would not be quick, but the seeds that were planted during those weeks in November would set things in motion that would leave me anxiety and depression-free within about three years.
Into the Summer
That semester was the most transformative time of my life. A simple decision led to a fairly dramatic spiritual experience, setting off massive changes to the deepest parts of my life. The drama and intensity of those first weeks and months would eventually wear out, but the new direction would continue.
At the end of the school year, I sailed off into the sunset and life was puppies and rainbows from then on.
Yeah, that didn't happen. That summer would take me far from my safe haven of Christian community, first to a country with state-sponsored atheism before coming home to the most isolating, lonely months of my life.
What I didn't know was that in four months, my faith would be on the brink of disappearing.
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If you’re a Christian reading this - what was your faith story like? Quick and dramatic? Slow and “boring”?
Drop a thought below!
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How I Became A Christian
The Prodigal Son at least walked home on his own feet. But who can duly adore that Love which will open the high gates to a prodigal who is brought in kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance of escape?
-C.S. Lewis
Should I hide?
I could hear him coming down the hallway, getting closer. I knew what he was after.
Could I squeeze into my closet? Or under the desk? Too late.
"Hey man, bible study's about to start - come on out!"
Shoot.
It was my freshman year of college. I had hoped to distance myself from “the religious thing”. I was failing.
It's not that I had a bad experience with faith growing up. I'm thankful for my Lutheran roots - hotdish, ham buns and all. I had gone to Sunday school, been confirmed, and even played in a youth group worship band.
But college was here. It was time for freedom.
Freshman Year: The Freedom
The only snag was that my freshman dorm hall advisor was starting a bible study for anyone who was interested.
I was not. But he wore me down. Over the first few months of school, his enthusiasm and persistence won out and I checked out the bible study.
When my next door neighbor joined up (and subsequently swung by my room every Wednesday to pick me up), it appeared there was no way out. I was as flaky as I could manage to be, but somehow I managed to keep attending through my freshman year.
Oh yeah, one more thing about my freshman year - I was partying.
Not like a rockstar. More like an idiot kid who had never had alcohol trying to figure out why droves of 18 year olds were jamming themselves into nasty frat house basements, drinking piss-tasting beer and then standing around like they knew what they were doing.
It wasn’t a word yet, but my FOMO was running the show.
So that was freshman year. Wednesday nights were bible study with my Christian friends. Friday nights I was doing shots with the marching band.
I didn't feel like a hypocrite. Cultural Christianity was still a thing at this time in the US and so for every truly practicing Christian I knew up to that point, I probably knew three (or more?) nominal Christians. These were nice folks who popped into church on the occasional Sunday and then just did whatever they wanted with the rest of their lives. Their faith didn't dramatically change how they thought or felt or lived. Maybe I could just be like that.
So everything was great - until sophomore year.
Sophomore Year: The Tension
When I came back for my second year, the seams holding my double life together began to fray.
My “party life” had started to solidify with friends and routines that ensured I could find a beer pong game every Friday and Saturday night. I had even started dating girls from these circles. I was getting in deeper.
At the same time, my "religious life” was pulling me in its own direction. The light, topical bible study material of freshman year had been replaced with deeper, more challenging content. We were talking about topics like the "Lordship of Christ". Basically I was learning that Jesus isn't a spoke on the wheel of a Christian’s life - he is to be the “hub” around which everything else turns. That didn’t sound like freedom to me and it certainly didn’t sound like fun.
We learned about fighting sin in our lives. Most of all, I was starting to understand the gospel message - about who Jesus was, why his death was so important and what it called us to.
Worse yet, I started to meet people - lots of people - who were really committed to Jesus. Their lives did revolve around him. While their joy, peace, and vibrant community were attractive, c'mon- these were the weird "way too into it" religious folks. Who wants to end up like that?
Things came to a head about halfway through the year.
The Breaking Point
I had grown increasingly uncomfortable with bible study. Between the girl I was dating and the alcohol and partying that my weekend life was centered around, I knew these things were what these Christians called sin.
As we sat in bible study, talking about the seriousness of sin and our need to fight it, I felt about as comfortable as a pregnant nun at mass. Each week, I’d count the minutes until the study was over. Always I felt awkward. Sometimes the inner dissonance was so bad I'd almost feel sick.
I told the guy leading it that I wanted out.
He was surprised but accepted my request. His only ask was that I stick around until the end of the semester.
Those next two months would change my life forever.
Everything went wrong. My study abroad plans for second semester fell through. My engineering classes got extremely hard and started to seem pointless. I wondered if I was in the right major (though I was almost halfway through college).
Then came the anxiety. I remember sitting in a study room one night, heart pounding out of my chest in full fight-or-flight panic attack mode. I had no idea what was going on, no one to talk to, and no words to explain it even if I did.
The unfortunate events of first semester culminated when the girl I was seeing broke up with me. I thought it was going to break me.
The weird thing was that it didn't.
The Surprise
Two weeks before the breakup, the wider Christian campus group kicked off a seemingly arbitrary challenge to spend extended time "with God". For whatever reason, I decided that this would be the first non-bible study activity that I’d go along with. The structure was open-ended, so I decided to just read a few bible verses and then sit quietly “listening for God” for about half an hour.
Nothing magical happened. But by the end of the two weeks, I was starting to feel a sense of peace and an increasing sense that God was walking with me through my day.
Then I got dumped.
I felt like existential barf.
The next day, as I descended into the abyss of self-pity, my Christian friends interrupted me. Wasn't I going to the Valentine's dinner that night?
Well, that sounded about as fun as a sledgehammer to the kneecap.
Whether it was the fear of being by myself at such a low point or the promise of a free dinner, they somehow pulled me from "not a chance" to "fine, I'll go".
The dinner was unremarkable. The guys served the girls a big dinner and there was a dance at the end.
What was remarkable was that somewhere in the process of bussing tables and forcing myself to dance like an idiot, all the heaviness of my life lifted. I felt light.
I had thought my life was unraveling- this didn’t make sense. It felt like something was happening to me.
Surrender
On the walk home, I ran it all through in my head. My wrong major. My study abroad that wasn't. My failed relationship. The anxiety and all the dissonant tension of my double life.
This is where my best thinking had got me.
Then the question. Whether it was Someone putting the thought in my mind or just my subconscious bubbling up what was needed, I don't know. But there it was.
"Do you surrender?"
It's the question I had been confronted with all year, the question I had said "no" to, consciously, many times.
This time, though, I was seeing things differently. I had no idea what God wanted to do with me. But maybe he had something better than this life that I had conjured on my own.
A simple midnight prayer on University Avenue. "Alright God, my life is yours." I went back to my dorm and slept.
Then everything changed.
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Intro: Faith In the 21st Century
I hadn’t met him yet. Now he was gone.
Three months ago, our property manager found a tenant for our rental property. He was a 21-year-old musician and athlete applying for my apartment while he figured out his next steps in life.
Before moving in, he wanted to do one more trip up north with a friend. This decision would prove to be tragic.
An unexpected windstorm, a poorly equipped canoe, and a series of unfortunate events later and the young man had died.
We cancelled the lease. As we put the deposit check into the mail, I thought of the boy’s mom on the other side of the address. A woman about to bury her own son.
The sadness came. And then the question.
What did his life mean? What do any of our lives mean?
We plan, we dream, we assume eighty years or so, but each one of us lives on the edge of eternity.
What's the purpose of it all?
I first asked this question in college.
My College Struggle
There’s not a reason young adults question their beliefs in college - there’s many. There’s the agnostic kid across the hallway (who’s a better person than you). There’s the classes that seem to explain all mysteries of the universe but don’t seem to mention the God in charge of it all.
More than anything it’s the unique choices set before students every day - and what lay behind them.
For me, daily decisions were the tips of massive icebergs, each with their own set of assumptions about life and the world.
For instance, I could probably get drunk and hook up with someone at a party. But could I safely assume Christianity isn't true, its sexual ethics don't apply, and there's no consequences in this life or the next?
Or I could go to a faith meeting and sing songs of worship and praise to God. But what an insane thing to do if we're just advanced apes trying to survive and reproduce in a cold, indifferent universe.
Everything - friends, hobbies, career choices and calendar were ready to fall into line depending on what I believed to be true. I might be confused as hell (which I was), but the dividing lines between opposing lifestyles will never be more clear.
Behind everyday options are deep questions that deserve years of careful thought. In college, though, this is Thursday night. Your choice.
For me, college was an incredible, formative, and agonizing time. Underneath my education and social life, a war was quietly raging;. The war was between competing worldviews and I was the battlefield. My simple Lutheran upbringing came into conflict with my secular surroundings. Only one ideology would be going home alive.
Fast forward to today, and I’m on the fast track towards being an old guy. The deep internal struggle has slowly been replaced by a tentative confidence as I’ve read, studied and prayed my way through the last fifteen years.
For many Americans, though, the battle for what to believe is reaching a fever pitch.
The American Struggle
We are at a turning point in America.
The cultural tailwind that Christianity has enjoyed since the birth of our nation has become a formidable headwind almost overnight. In the last twenty years, the number of practicing Christians has been cut in half (1 in 2 has become 1 in 4), while the "nones" (atheists, agnostics with no religious belief ) have doubled.
These are massive changes. More incredible than the scale of the changes is the speed at which they’ve come. This isn’t a slow generational change. Baby boomers and Gen-Z alike are quietly walking away from the faith that has held sway in the western world for the last two millenia.
We are witnessing a majority of Americans quietly remaking the deepest parts of themselves.
What is behind these shifts? Where will they lead us? How do we think through these big questions?
Where we’re Going
First, a confession: the posts on this blog so far have been a bit of a warm-up.
I really do love bikes and index funds. But finances and transportation are just window dressings on a worldview. It's time to start laying the foundation - what is life all about? What's the point?
Over the next few posts, I want to dig into the topic that I’ve been thinking about for the last fifteen years: Faith in the 21st century
Does God Exist?
Is Faith important?
Why should I believe?
What does faith look like in the digital age?
Why is society shifting so much and so fast?
What about [insert objection here]?
I'm not a pastor or a priest. I’m not a paragon of moral virtue or a brilliant philosopher. All I have is my own story, the perspective of a guy who’s descended into the shadowy valley of doubt only to re-emerge on mountaintop of faith.
Over the years, I’ve dizzied myself with confusion and trembled as the foundations below my feet felt ready to open up and swallow me whole.
The hope of heaven, the fear of hell, the dread of eternal nothingness are not strangers.
And yet, somehow, I've come out on the other side.
I don't know if my words can help navigate the fog of life's deepest questions. But if they can, I'm willing to share what light I've found.
Let's go.
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Investing Follow-up: FAQs
The content of my investing post is far from original. If you know about index funds, this is old news. My hope is that through that article a few readers came away with a better understanding of investing (and index funds). If that’s true, you’ve probably got some questions.
1 or 2% fee - what's the big deal?
1% sounds small. But in the world of investing, the results are MASSIVE - particularly over time.
For instance, just a 1% fee on a 10,000/year investment over 40 years would lose $600,000 in value. You read that right.
If you're paying a one percent fee you are making a half-million dollar donation to the richest people on the planet.
In a world where fund managers don't matter, the FEE is the thing you need to pay attention to.
What do I mean by a tax-advantaged account?
If you think 1 or 2% fees can wreak havoc on investment gains, imagine what 15 or 20% taxes can do. Thankfully there's a number of ways to significantly soften the blow in the US.
But what about my nephew who made $100,000 on ____ stock?
People make it big all the time on individual stocks. People lose their shirt all the time on individual stocks. That ones who make it big make the papers (or just tell everyone). The ones who lose everything don't.
Buying individual stocks can be fun, but should be treated a bit like going to the casino. Your odds are actually much better than the casino depending on the stock- but because you don't know the future - and stock prices are subject to all the emotions and irrationality of humans - they can fluctuate wildly and trying to predict this over time is futile.
The biggest benefit of a basic index fund is that your mind is now freed up from thinking about what to invest in, analyzing companies, etc. to focus on making lifestyle changes so you can contribute more (picking up biking for instance).
What about crypto?
I actually know someone who is up $100,000 in a month on a $10,000 crypto purchase. I’m not going to try and replicate it and neither should you.
For cryptocurrencies, take all of the irrationality and craziness and price fluctuations around an asset like stocks. Now take away the underlying asset that has real value and keep all the gambling and weird psychology (with a heavy dose of FOMO) around them. Boom. You've got cryptocurrency.
Remember that stocks have real inherent value - that Ford stock means you really own factories and intellectual property and everything that Ford owns. With crypto, there is no inherent value.
While blockchain is an intriguing technology that may or may not play a role in the 21st century, crypto currencies are something different altogether.
By definition they are not an asset. They don't produce anything over time - and they don't try to.
Unfortunately, they're not even currency. Until a crypto currency is a store of value, unit of account, and medium of exchange (the marks of "money") it is nothing more than a fascinating zero-sum experiment in human psychology, FOMO, and Greater Fools. Like with any speculative game, many will make money and any will lose money. Of course, feel free to play the game as much as you want with money you could comfortably lose.
Just don’t call it investing!
What about Warren Buffett?
I love Warren Buffett’s story. He is one of the few people who has beaten the market over his career and also he’s just an interesting person. Does that mean I should try and imitate him?
Probably not.
First off, he’s brilliant.
Second, he’s spent his entire life reading over financial documents - since he was about ten years old reading over financial statements. It’s his favorite hobby.
Third, how did he make his money? 99.99% of the time, the rules of the index funds are all you need to crush other funds. Every once in a great while, though, there are times when a very smart, cool-headed, cash-heavy independent thinker can outperform. Generally it’s in a crash.
Warren Buffett’s made a number of good investments over the years (though he’s been crushed by the index over the last fifteen years). But his best investing moments were stepping into what appeared to be a burning building and buying shares in that building for dirt cheap as people ran out screaming.
Fourth, the most underrated aspect of his success is his longevity (he’s invested in stocks from age 10 to 90, with 90+% of his net worth coming after age 70).
Fifth, here’s what he recommends to people (including his wife for after he dies) about making money in the stock market:
“I recommend the S&P 500 index fund”
Warren Buffett
I already know this stuff. Anything more advanced?
Sure. If you want extra credit (by that, I mean extra money), there are some advanced stuff you can learn about. Note that the advanced stuff isn’t about stock picking - it’s about lifestyle design and tax minimization:
Design Life to Maximize Contributions
If you’re able to bump up your savings rate beyond the 15% you can retire earlier- much earlier. In fact “years left working” is simply a function of one variable that’s in your control: your savings rate.
Ride a bike: After housing, transporation is the second biggest budget item for Americans. Luckily, you can reduce or eliminate it completely through biking.
The best resource on designing an efficient life is Mr. Money Mustache. It is truly the PhD in personal finance and what is possible for those who can live a bit more simply.
Avoid taxes altogether:
Roth Conversion Ladder: You can combine the power of your 401k and your Roth IRA to pay no tax going in AND no tax going out. It's called a "Roth Conversion Ladder" and while it's been in effect for decades, it's currently on the chopping block as a loophole Biden wants to close.
HSA: The Ultimate Retirement Account: Log your HSA expenses right away - but don't reimburse yourself until you need the money (preferably after retirement). Result: Tax free contributions, tax free growth, tax free withdrawals. Crazy.
Small-Cap Allocation: While the principle of index rules are more or less perfect, what’s not yet perfect is the weighting of the stocks in that index. VTI weights by market cap (the bigger the company, the more VTI has of that company). This means that most of what you buy in VTI is Apple, Amazon, and the other huge tech companies. By shifting the weighting towards smaller companies (but still using Vanguard index funds), there’s a good chance that you could outperform VTI in the long run.
Buy a Rental Property: If you’re willing to take on a bit of hassle, you can get returns that can crush Warren Buffett. And you might become a better person in the process (see link).
Retire in your 30s: That’s right. Most middle-class Americans can retire in their 30s if they're willing to put their extra money towards freedom instead of stuff. There’s a whole movement behind it.
What questions did you have around index funds or investing?
Investing: A Simple Zero-to-Hero Guide
"Over the years, I've often been asked for investment advice, and in the process of answering I've learned a good deal about human behavior. My regular recommendation has been a low-cost S&P 500 index fund,"
-Warren Buffett
There is a whole industry dedicated to increasing people’s height with pills. It's as scammy as you think it would be.
But I think back to when I played basketball. Back in ninth grade, basketball was my life. The problem? I was only 5'3". I needed to grow and I didn’t know much about what made people grow taller. Had I known about height pills, there’s a non-zero chance I might have fallen for them.
If I had bought ‘height pills’, I'd be out money. At worst, I would actually hinder my attempts to grow or even compromise my health.
So what do scammy placebo pills have to do with investing?
While most of us realize the stupidity of wasting money on something as pointless as height pills, this is exactly what most people do with their investing.
The difference is that with the pills we’ll be out a few hundred bucks. With our retirement accounts, it means losing out on hundreds of thousands of dollars over your lifetime.
In the investing world, these expensive placebos are called:
Mutual fund managers
Mutual fund fees
This usually costs investors far more than they understand. This happens because otherwise smart people lack a few simple concepts.
In this post, we’ll:
Take a whirlwind tour of what investing is
Recommend a single, practical action to give you maximum returns with almost no effort.
This action will allow you to retire with way more money in your pocket. If you’re young enough, this will most likely make you an automatic multimillionaire.
Investing Lessons from 20th Century
Back in the late 1800s, stocks became a thing. For the first time, average proletariat Joes could easily become capitalists, owning shares in massive, powerful companies for just a few dollars.
Stocks
A stock is part-ownership in a company. If you buy a share of Ford, you own a small sliver of their factories, the cars in stock, their intellectual property - and most importantly, you are entitled to your share of their profit, called a dividend.
Sounds pretty good, right? It is. That's why people are willing to pay for shares of Ford - about $18/share at the time of this writing.
As the company gets more productive and population grows (so there’s more people to sell to), the dividends get bigger and the price of the stock goes up.
The problem with individual stocks is that they were (and are) risky. A company can blow up 10x - or they can just blow up - to zero.
The question "What's a good stock to buy and at what price?" is hugely complex - and futile, as we'll see.
Mutual Funds
To solve the problem of concentrated risk, investment companies came up with a great idea in the 1920s. What if a bunch of investors got together to "mutually fund" the purchase of a wide number of stocks? It would allow ordinary people to get the gains of the stock market while spreading the risk over hundreds of companies instead of just one. The mutual fund was born.
The companies would then put an expert "fund manager" in charge of the picking, buying and selling the best stocks for the fund so Joe Schmoe investors could participate without having to know anything about investing and still profit.
Even though significant fees were involved to pay the fund manager and package the investment, the mutual fund was a huge step forward for the average investor.
Pointless Millionaires
Things progressed this way for a long time, with many people benefitting - particularly the fund managers. But in the middle of the century, some astute researchers started to notice something that was as unexpected as it was important.
Incredibly, they noticed that no fund or fund manager was regularly beating the market. For all the time and effort that smart, Harvard-educated Wall Street fund managers put in, they couldn’t pick stocks that were better than a simple average of the big companies in America (S&P 500).
Sure, on a given year, some beat the “index” - but most didn’t. And the ones that did beat the index quickly became the ones that didn’t. The ability of a fund to beat the simple average of the market was random.
In other words, all the billions of dollars in fees paid were a complete waste of money.
You read that right. Throwing darts at the "Stock" section of the Wall Street Journal will produce the same result over time as hotshot fund managers, even with the help of legions of analysts, corporate middlemen and brick and mortar locations on the most expensive island in the world (Manhattan).
This was a watershed moment - or it should have been.
These findings raised a question - THE question: "Why are we paying them so much then?"
The rational (and ethical) action for investment companies to take was to inform the public that their fees were pointless, shutter their doors, and turn off their personal trillion dollar firehoses that were making them the richest people to ever walk planet earth.
They promptly made the tough call to fire their fund managers and return the money back to the investors.
You didn’t really buy that, did you?
Wall Street firms changed nothing. They kept offering their funds, complete with hefty fees, and almost no one was the wiser. They’ve done it for decades and continue to this day.
Index Funds
Back in the seventies, one man decided to do the right thing. His name was Jack Bogle. In 1975, Bogle started a company called Vanguard. Bogle put into practice what we now know about the inability of even the smartest people to pick stocks.
Bogle took pride in not being a billionaire
Instead of hiring a hotshot manager with a team of expensive analysts, he replaced the traditional fund manager with a set of rules: "Own the 500 largest companies in America". Instead of paying someone to try and beat the market, he set out to be the market, providing the historical 8% returns without any of the expensive fees. When you include fees in the return, this new “passive” fund crushed other actively managed funds over time.
The rules made sure that its investors were invested in the most successful companies in the world without the downside risks of individual stocks. The best part was that the "rules" managing the fund didn't require a 200-foot yacht or a 4-story penthouse in the upper east-side.
His miniscule fee was just enough to pay his salary and run his office in Pennsylvania. The savings he gave back to the investor.
By doing this, he effectively passed over tremendous personal wealth as another hotshot fund manager, instead transferring trillions back to investors.
This is why Bogle has been called the greatest undercover philanthropist of all time and the index fund as sitting alongside “the invention of the wheel, the alphabet, Gutenberg printing press and wine and cheese.”
Crazy story, right? What does it mean for you?
Put it Into Practice
For most people (who don’t want the higher-work and higher-returns of rental properties), a Vanguard S&P index fund should be where you put your money. It turns out that all the findings of the last century can be applied with one simple action:
Buy as much VTI as you can in a tax-advantaged account and leave it there as long as you can.
VTI is Vanguard’s flagship total market index fund. You can go to vanguard and set up an account right now. Even better, set it to auto-invest 15% of your paycheck or so to ensure future millionaire status. Mix in some bonds (30-40%) close to retirement.
The arguments for this simple strategy have been borne out over much data, research and time. See:
Simple Path to Wealth (Book by JL Collins)
Little Common Sense Book on Investing (Short book by Jack Bogle himself)
How to Make Money in the Stock Market (Blog post by Mr. Money Mustache)
Just to name a few.
This advice shouldn’t be controversial, but there will always be people in the investing industry who still profit from ignorance. Don’t be surprised to find a few still selling the idea that they or someone they know can beat the market over time - though a few minutes of research will prove them wrong.
Conclusion
Investing has come a long way in the last century, both in our understanding and the products available to the average investor. Index funds have made it extremely easy for people to maximize stock market returns over time.
Way back in ninth grade, I stayed the course. Even while I stayed at 5’3” and people got taller around me, I drank my milk, ate a lot of food and most importantly I didn’t pay some guru promising “extra growth” for a hefty fee. The result? By junior year I had grown an entire foot. By simply taking what my genes gave me I grew more than I thought was possible. We need to do the same with our investing.
Buy index funds, forget the headlines, and let the magic of markets do the rest.
Got Questions?
If this is your first time learning about investing or index funds I’ve put together an FAQ to answer some of the questions that I had when I first heard about index funds. Read it here - cheers!
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Parental Sacrifice in the Age of Opportunity
"What's better than a baby?"
Wait- what?
It was our first ultrasound. After a few minutes of poking around, our nurse gasped loudly (and my heart skipped a beat) as she asked us this strange, life-altering question.
So, what is better than a baby? The answer is two babies. We were having twins.
Seven short months later I found myself overwhelmed with joy - and just overwhelmed.
One sleepless night bled into another. Day and night blended together as synapses slowed to a halt. We were too tired to talk. Work happened in a fog.
Our marriage was reduced to indiscernible grunts as we passed in the hallway to tag in and out. With every day that passed, friendships, hobbies - my identity itself - withered on the vine. Slowly, the realization dawned that my life was not going to be the same. My life had not been “tweaked”. My life had been replaced. The old Brett was dead - killed by his own children.
Why do we do it to ourselves? Why does anyone choose to have kids?
It's a question - the question - the world is now asking. Once confined to places like Japan and Europe, declining birth rates are poised to take center stage as we near the middle of this century.
Rising (Opportunity) Costs
From the US to China, Mexico to India, we are quickly falling well below replacement value birth rates.
Excellent map created by reddit user Areat
Why is this?
While typical journalism focuses on economics, family policy, and climate change, the deeper reality that gets ignored is that children are puzzle pieces that simply don't fit into our age of expressive individualism.
[Expressive Individualism] suggests not only a desire to pursue one’s own path but also a yearning for fulfillment through the definition and articulation of one’s own identity. It is a drive both to be more like whatever you already are and also to live in society by fully asserting who you are. The capacity of individuals to define the terms of their own existence by defining their personal identities is increasingly equated with liberty and with the meaning of some of our basic rights, and it is given pride of place in our self-understanding.
-Yuval Levin, The Fractured Republic
Growing wealth coupled with the ever-growing power of the internet has opened up exponentially more opportunity than at any point in human history. Middle class workers can afford to travel (and live!) anywhere, date anyone, find any job. We have entered a new era in human opportunity.
The stairway up Maslow's hierarchy of needs has never been so widely available, accessible, and attractive. As a result, the opportunity costs of kids have never been so high.
Expressive Individualism + Kids : Oil + Water
Even for those who do become parents, a quick survey of popular online forums (e.g.) gives a glimpse into why many of us in the modern world have made this decision. Many parents attempt to fit their decision into the self-fulfillment ethic of our age.
Common Reasons include:
The Great Experience (this was mine :))
"Someone to take care of me when I'm older"
"Someone to share my life with"
"An anchor in an uncertain world"
In this view, there's an ROI to all this work and ultimately kids exist for our own sense of fulfillment.
As a dad of five years and a child of 30+ years, I’ll share one thing I have learned about parenting. Your kids’ debt to you will never be repaid. There are incredible rewards for those who become parents, but the sleepless nights, effort, the worry, the sacrifice will never be returned in this lifetime.
So the question remains - why do it? Why have kids?
Turns out, there are good answers - answers that would appear obvious to most people at most points in history. For us to understand them, though, we need to try and get outside the “life as personal fulfillment” fishbowl that we swim in everyday.
The Case for Kids
The Greatest Gift (theirs - not yours)
Why take on such a demanding lifelong project? What will get you through those dark nights of the soul filled with 3am wails and threenager defiance?
What won't help you is the hope for some future gift they may bestow on you decades from now.
Kids are an incredible gift - but when things get tough, the key is not to try and convince yourself of “what’s in it for you”. Trust me - it doesn’t work. Instead, the key is to remember the ultimate gift that you are giving them - the gift of life.
In having a child, you are buying a ticket. It’s not for you, but it’s a ticket for one soul to take in all that we call life. To witness a quiet sunset, to wonder at the night sky. To search for God, to fall in love. To discover, to laugh, to cry, and to learn. Maybe even to go through the joy and pain of having kids of their own.
Every experience you’ve ever known - the warmth of a mother's love, your first day at school, dancing at your friend’s wedding - is life - a life given as a gift because two people made a decision to bring you into the world and (if they did it right) to make hard sacrifices for you to give you a decent shot at it.
With every meal prepared, tantrum endured, and opportunity foregone, parents are buying their dearest little ones tickets to the greatest ride in the universe.
2. The World Needs Kids
All over the world, countries are confronting population stagnation and a fertility bust, a dizzying reversal unmatched in recorded history that will make first-birthday parties a rarer sight than funerals, and empty homes a common eyesore.
Maternity wards are already shutting down in Italy. Ghost cities are appearing in northeastern China. Universities in South Korea can’t find enough students, and in Germany, hundreds of thousands of properties have been razed, with the land turned into parks.
Like an avalanche, the demographic forces — pushing toward more deaths than births — seem to be expanding and accelerating. Though some countries continue to see their populations grow, especially in Africa, fertility rates are falling nearly everywhere else. Demographers now predict that by the latter half of the century or possibly earlier, the global population will enter a sustained decline for the first time.
-Long Population Slide Looms for World Population, Damien Cave, New York Times
Ever since God told Adam to "fill the earth and subdue it", humans have been doing just that - until... well, now.
Hugely influential book you’ve probably never heard of
While Paul Ehrlich’s Population Bomb of 1968 created seismic shifts in the way we think about children and birth rates, the world with few exceptions (see China) lumbered on. It is only now in the 21st century that we are finally taking Ehrlich's prescription for childbearing restraint.
The problem is that we might be overdosing on it.
After a population surge in the middle of the century, we will face a falling population for the first time in the history of civilization. While many would agree that less people would be a good thing, the effects of population decline will be as bizarre as they will be difficult - particularly if the change happens quickly.
"Imagine entire regions where everyone is 70 or older. Imagine governments laying out huge bonuses for immigrants and mothers with lots of children. Imagine a gig economy filled with grandparents and Super Bowl ads promoting procreation."
-Long Population Slide Looms for World Population, Damien Cave, New York Times
Ideas like retirement assume that other humans will be there to keep the world going while we bow out of the workforce. What does retirement look when workers, stock market gains, and real estate appreciation disappear?
"The biggest problem the world will face in twenty years is population collapse - not explosion - collapse."
So - we have kids to give the gift of life, we have kids for the world, and finally, we have kids for us - but not in the way you might think.
3. The Ultimate Character Builder
In 2014, I traveled to Peru and hiked the 3-day Inca trail to Macchu Picchu. It was incredible - and at times, tortuous. I still remember the second day, waking up to take on the 14,000 ft. ladder section called "Dead Woman Pass". I was sure it was going to be the dead Brett pass.
Peru, 2014 - Sweaty and shivering atop Dead Woman Pass
Cold sweat dripped down my face despite the 40 degree mountain chill. I sucked the thin air like I was suffocating as I took on twenty feet at a time up this brutal trail. What had I gotten myself into so far from the comfort of my home?
I don't remember that trip because it was easy. I remember it because it was hard.
That's why we went. We dug deep, we leaned on each other, and in-spite because of the voluntary trouble and cost we took on, we walked away with a once-in-a-lifetime experience that would form us for the rest of our lives.
Parenting is hard. It is a powerful jackhammer to our self-centeredness, the ultimate pressure cooker of sacrificial love. Kids will test your will, your marriage, your very soul. But if you are willing to head out on the trail and see it through to the end, you will emerge a tougher, more compassionate, more humble, vastly wiser version of yourself than you could possibly imagine.
People don't climb Mount Everest because it's easy. We didn't go to the moon because it was easy. We do these things because they are hard.
Conclusion
Kids have always required sacrifice. Technological, economic, and philosophical changes in the last three decades have exacerbated the challenge by raising the opportunity costs of parenting to an unprecedented level.
Good answers to the question of “Why Have Kids” require us to get outside of our “What’s in it for me?” mentality.
The decision to have kids only makes sense when we ask questions like:
What’s in it for our kids?
What’s in it for our world?
What’s in it for our character?
Through parenting, we give life, we learn to love unconditionally, and through sacrifice we become the best version of ourselves.
True confession: I expected kids to be easy - or at least not that hard. But kids are not easy. They are incredible- and they are difficult.
That's exactly why we need them.
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The End of Digital Gullibility
When I was a freshman in college, Facebook was irresistible. I was one of the “lucky” new college students whose newfound freedom was laced with a new addition to university life: social media.
Facebook was addicting long before the smartphone and the mini-feed. Sure, we wanted to figure out who the cute girl in our Econ class was, but more than that we wanted to catalog our friends, communicate with them, and keep an eye on what everyone was up to back home. I crafted my profile and let facebook beome a significant part of my life. I was digitally gullible. We all were.
What I didn’t know that I was one of the first lab rats in one of the most seismic social trials in human history.
We Know Better- Right?
Now we know better. If we were too busy scrolling to read The Shallows or Digital Minimalism, we at least harnessed our Netflix addiction to watch The Social Dilemma. We understand that the most powerful companies in the world are hiring attention engineers and using their billions of dollars with one goal- to addict us.
We now know social media is hacking our brain, stealing our time and our happiness, eroding our attention span, and tearing at the social fabric. We now understand that we are not the user- we are the product that social media giants are selling to advertisers.
So why in 2021 are we still spending over three and a half hours on social media per day?
Why are my pre-kindergarten children being issued their first Ipad as I write this? Why do I still have friends buying Apple watches and tablets without a clear use case for them? Why do we spend our entire night- from dinner to bedtime- hypnotized by the glow of our digital drug?
Maybe it's no big deal.
What’s at Stake
Wrong. Just weeks ago, The Wall Street Journal accessed an internal study that Facebook conducted. The stats that came from it aren’t the most damning- they’re just the latest. Here's some gems:
32% of teen girls said that when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made them feel worse.
6% of American users who reported suicidal thoughts traced those desires to Instagram. For British users, it was 13%.
+178%: Suicide deaths for children ages 10 to 14 nearly tripled from 2007 to 2017, when social media saw mass adoption.
Instagram is facebook’s most harmful, yet most profitable app- and, yes, they are coming for our kids.
21st Century Cigarettes
Social media is the cigarette of the 21st century. Today we take for granted that smoking cigarettes is both terribly addicting and terrible for your health. We forget that it took us the better part of half a century to figure that out. For decades, we gave them to our soldiers and smoked them around our kids. Even our doctors prescribed them. Cigarettes were everywhere even though they were slowly killing us.
This naive stage is where we are with social media. We are just beginning to understand the power and the peril of social media- particularly to young people, particularly to teenage girls.
One day we’ll see instagram and twitter for the cigarettes that they are and our habits (and our laws) will reflect that. But what do we in the meantime?
The Solution
If the "cool kids"- first the Marlboro man and now the IG influencer- keep getting us into trouble, then the solution to this epidemic lies with a group who has never been afraid to be uncool- the Amish.
We idealize the Amish in ways I assume are unhealthy, but it’s worth saying they aren’t actually against all modern technology. When a new technology comes into society, they evaluate it from the sidelines. They watch us like scientists watch lab rats with a new drug. Does it make us healthier? Or sick? Is it a net positive or no? They let us volunteer for the human trial. Then they have a community-wide conversation.
We’re still testing [the technology of the last 15 years] out as a species. And the early results are terrifying.
John Mark Comer, Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, p.42-43
“The Amish, it turns out, do something that’s both shockingly radical and simple in our age of impulsive and complicated consumerism: they start with the things they value most, then work backward to ask whether a given new technology performs more harm than good with respect to these values.”
Cal Newport, Digital Minimalism
The Amish like technology just as much as anyone else- but they simply have a conscious process for adopting and using new technologies as they come out. We must do the same.
Whether you take a digital detox, batch your social media to 1x/week, put a blocker on your phone, or completely dismantle your mini-feed like I did is secondary.
The primary step is to simply wake up- to start being intentional. We know that social media companies are being extremely intentional with us.
I'm for the intentional use of social media when we've consciously decided how we will use the product. But we must exert effort to keep the product from using us.
Conclusion
The 20th century saw the rise and fall of the cigarette. We went from celebratory acceptance to addiction. Eventually we realized how cancerous they wereand our behaviors and laws soon followed.
In the 21st century we must again let our intuition and the early science guide the way. This time around, it's not our lungs at risk- it's our minds, hearts- our very souls. For ourselves and those we love- we must end the age of digital gullibility.
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The Dumbing Down of America: An Intro to Neil Postman in 4 Quotes
“Push back against the age as hard as it pushes against you.”
-Flannery O’ Connor
Neil Postman doesn’t unveil a truth that you can’t unsee. Neil Postman gives you a set of glasses that you can’t take off.
For much of my life, I’ve felt like a fish out of water. It’s a feeling that started in high school and reached full germination in college and the years afterward. I’d had what most people would call “a religious experience” my sophomore year which set me on a deep, all-encompassing search for truth that would define the next decade of my life.
But while I set off to join the Great Conversation and hopefully figure out the meaning of life along the way, it seemed that nearly everyone around me was on a different path. Not that I didn’t enjoy a good movie or sporting event, but while I filled my time reading philosophy books and trying to understand the Bible and the Q’uran- I found that my friends were filling their free time watching NFL games and the Bachelor.
It wasn’t that we had different strategies- it was that we were playing a different game. I was simply optimizing my life for maximum understanding while they were optimizing for maximum entertainment.
Then I found Neil. His 1985 classic Amusing Ourselves to Death not only put words to what I was feeling- he gave me the cultural backstory, an expert’s diagnosis and more than anything Postman let me know that I wasn’t alone in the sea of American distractionism.
Let me introduce you to Neil Postman in four ideas through four quotes.
1. The Medium is the Metaphor
[My book] postulates that how we are obliged to conduct our conversations will have the strongest possible influence on what ideas we can conveniently express. And what ideas are convenient to express inevitably become the important content of a culture.
Imagine if Dave Chapelle went into a comedy club, got up onstage and instead of telling edgy, brilliant jokes- he read off a 10 page treatise on particle physics. Or flip it- imagine Stephen Hawking defending his PhD dissertation with one-liners on his professor’s poor haircut.
It doesn’t matter how funny Stephen’s jokes are or how penetrating Dave’s treatise is- they will both be booed off their respective stage.
In communication, the context (or the medium) defines everything.
Postman recognized this and more importantly he recognized that with the mass adoption of the television set, we had gone from the university lecture hall to the comedy club as an entire culture.
TV wasn’t an addition to our lives- it ushered in a completely new intellectual ecosystem- one that eventually produced a much different set of Americans.
2. The Peak of American Intellectual life (was 200 years ago)
“Americans no longer talk to each other, they entertain each other. They do not exchange ideas, they exchange images. They do not argue with propositions; they argue with good looks, celebrities and commercials.”
Abraham Lincoln met Frederick Douglas for a series of debates in the 1850s. The stakes were high and the debate would have been heated with the looming buildup to the civil war. For Postman, though, the stars of the show were not Lincoln and Douglas- it was the audience.
For instance, in 1854, after a 3-hour opening by Douglas:
“Lincoln reminded the audience that it was 5pm, that he would probably require as much time as Douglas and that Douglas was still scheduled for a rebuttal. He proposed, therefore, that the audience go home, have dinner, and return refreshed for four more hours of talk. The audience amiably agreed and matters proceeded as Lincoln had outlined.” (Amusing Ourselves to Death, p. 44)
What kind of audience was this? What kind of America was this where two educated men (not yet presidential or even senatorial candidates) could show up in a small Illinois town and farmers, butchers, and bankers would fill the seats so they could listen to complex oratory for seven hours (with zero pictures, of course).
While our Instagram generation glories in its chronological snobbery, a quick study of history or read of Postman, makes it clear that 19th and 20th century America was infused across class boundaries with a vibrant, literate intellectualism that hadn’t been seen before- and unfortunately- hasn’t been seen since.
3. The News Makes us Dumber
“Television is altering the meaning of 'being informed' by creating a species of information that might properly be called disinformation. Disinformation does not mean false information. It means misleading information - misplaced, irrelevant, fragmented or superficial information - information that creates the illusion of knowing something, but which in fact leads one away from knowing.”
We’re finally coming to grips with the idea that just because information exists does not mean we should take it in. While the science has just started coming in, Tim Ferriss has espoused his “low-information diet” for at least the last decade and Cal Newport has assembled a Digital Minimalist philosophy for our technological moment. While the sheer force of the digital information firehose has never been stronger, the seeds for information overload were planted centuries ago.
On May 24, 1844, Samuel Morse dispatched the first telegraphic message over an experimental line from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore. This ushered in a new age in American communication and facilitated a new connected age in American life.
For the first time a man in Iowa could get real time news of what was happening in Connecticut. The issue was that no one stopped to ask if Iowans needed to know what was going on in Connecticut.
Up until this point, the news and information available was regional and generally practical. The transition from the book to the telegraph introduced massive amounts of irrelevant, unactionable information. The resulting incoherence was not just a new practical problem but one that would alter Americans’ ideas about truth itself.
4. Technology as a Danger to Democracy
“If politics is like show business, then the idea is not to pursue excellence, clarity or honesty but to appear as if you are, which is another matter altogether.”
Where were you when Donald Trump won the US presidential election in 2016? The question on my mind as I sat in my apartment was: “what kind of country would elect Donald Trump?”
This wasn’t left-wing antagonism- it was a genuine question.
What were we looking for in a president? What value do we place on truth in our society? How has the internet age changed us?
That Donald Trump could have become president a hundred years ago- or even ten years ago- is laughable. But in the postmodern milieu of twitter, niche news, and all the rest- it makes perfect sense.
While republicans rejoiced and liberals sulked, my thoughts that election night were entirely on a question raised all the way back in 1985- have we amused ourselves to death?
Conclusion
After college, I tried to get my roommate to read “Amusing Ourselves to Death”. He couldn’t get through it. Too many arguments, not enough... pictures? I don’t know.
So, while the irony of a “quick blogpost” about the importance of medium and the supremacy of the book is not lost on me, perhaps it’s the appetizer our generation needs to the Neil Postman entree that just might keep us alive. Do yourself (and your country) a favor and pick up a copy.
As Neil’s son, Andrew, wrote in the 20th Anniversary edition:
“There’s still time.”
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Images: Chappelle: John Bauld from Toronto, Canada, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons | Tim Ferriss: Julia de Boer / The Next Web, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Biking: The Ultimate Life Hack
Extra money. Healthier body. Happier mood. Connectedness to our community. And throw in a healthier environment to boot. What if there was a tool that could achieve all of these at the same time?
It’s the ultimate life-hack, but it’s not a pill or a mantra or a diet plan. I submit to you the humble bicycle.
My $50 college bike, still rocking after tens of thousands of miles
You’re skeptical. I get it. Here in America, bike transportation is for kids, homeless people, and suburban white guys in spandex.
But functional biking- the kind where you’re actually running errands and living your life on a bike instead of a car- has the power to dramatically impact the most important parts of our lives.
Your Bank Account
Take finances. As a three-kid one-income house we know what it’s like to have a tight budget. And I know that with 40% of Americans living paycheck-to-paycheck I’m not the only one.
So check this out. The IRS (not typically known for lavish generosity) puts the cost of driving at .56/mile.
This means if your coffee shop is just 3 miles away, then according to the IRS you double the cost of the coffee by driving a car ($3 for the coffee, $3 for the ride there and back). Your 15 mile commute? That’s costing you $16 per day- that’s lunch, or a netflix subscription, or a new shirt- Every. Single. Day.
We drivers equate the cost of driving with the cost of gas- but that’s like saying the worst part of smoking is that your clothes smell a little funny. The cost of driving includes gas but it’s also the payments and interest, the oil change, the license and tabs, the parking, the parking ticket, the new tires, the timing belt and on and on and on that puts the cost at .56/mile or more in many cases.
Think of your bike as having an invisible money printer attached to it, printing off a $10 bill every time you hit the 18 mile mark (which for many people is just a daily commute or a trip to their friends’ place).
Americans on average spend $10,000 every year on their automobiles. What would you do with even half of those dollars back?
I’ll end this section with a quote from Mr. Money Mustache, a personal favorite and arguably the king of internet personal finance. Here’s how he would distill all of his personal financial advice spread across his hundreds of blog posts:
If I had to strip [the blog] down as far as possible, down to just one single action, and I wasn’t allowed to talk about anything else, the choice would still be simple: “Ride a Bike”.
Your Health
By now we know that Americans are growing more unhealthy every year. With a 40% obesity rate in the US and 3/4 of us not getting enough exercise it’s clear that modern life makes it hard to stay in shape.
I get it. With three kids, a full-time job, and multiple side hustles, I don’t often have the time and energy to get to a gym.
But I will go to a coffee shop to work. I’ll go to the doctor and the dentist and I’ll bring my kids to the park.
And I can bike to every one of those places.
By turning these car trips into bike rides, it’s not hard to get the 30 minutes of daily exercise that doctors suggest.
Can you sense how sneaky the power of biking is? Rather than trying to add in one more thing, you are building exercise into the fabric of your life.
Your Happiness… and Connection
When’s the last time you had a sense of childlike joy? Of freedom? Of connection with the world around you? If you’re like me, that sort of feeling can be hard to come by. “Adulting” is hard work- and with one in six Americans now getting help from psychiatric drugs (usually for anxiety and depression) it seems we could all use a boost in the happiness department.
I vividly remember my first “functional adult ride” when I pulled out my Peugot back in 2015. In that short ride to Redbox, it was impossible to miss the sheer childlike joy that was injected into this ordinarily-mundane trip. For 23 hours and 45 minutes that day, I was a full-fledged adult. But for 15 minutes I was a kid again.
I also noticed way more along the way. I nodded to neighbors in their yard or on the sidewalk. Instead of hopping into my giant steel box and magically popping out somewhere, I interacted with my route and each house, person, and business I passed.
It’s no wonder that biking is the happiest mode of transportation we have and that too much time in the car makes us miserable.
We’re made to be out there in the sun, wind in our face, lungs breathing deeply- present with our community and present with our world.
Seeing… and Removing The Obstacles
I’m sure you’ve got reasons why you don’t think you can bike- I know I’ve got mine (3 kids, chronic back pain, living in frozen Minnesota, etc. etc. etc.), but they all can be overcome- usually pretty easily.
Just another January ride in Minneapolis
For me, my kids ride in a Burley that I got for $50. For cold weather, there’s another great invention called clothes that help you ride no matter the temperature. For you the excuse might be distance- and you’re in luck! You’re living at the dawn of the affordable ebike- which helps people blaze long distances in little time with literally no sweat.
Of course, my sneaky goal that I’d never tell you on this blog post is to get you to consider a more fundamental shift: living close to work, friends, groceries, and all the places you go. But we’ll save the exponential power of proximity for another post. First we’ve got to get that bike out of the garage.
Conclusion
For some, the benefits of biking are old news. For the rest, I’m hoping that you’re starting to see this two-wheeled throwback from your youth for the wealth-generating, gut-slimming, happiness factory that it is.
Ok- that’s enough sitting for both of us. It’s time to pull our bikes down from the rafters (or Craigslist) and blow off the dust. I’ll see you out there!
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Rental Properties… What’s That Like?
My Investing Story: How one cup of coffee turned into six rental units
My life changed in a coffee shop in 2012.
I was fresh out of school and like any good millenial I was up to my eyeballs in student debt. But I had just taken a “Dave Ramsey'' finance class and for the first time I was thinking about money, work, and freedom.
I had also been on a kick of buying cups of coffee for people who were smarter than me - anyone who could teach me something. When I texted my old college buddy, Pat, to meet up, I had no idea that he was about to fundamentally alter the next decade of my life. As we sat down in our old college cafe, I started sharing about how I was slowly working through my student loans, how I was thinking about opening up a 401k at my job, and all the other standard “financial stuff” when he stopped me.
“Brett, we are in the middle of the biggest real estate clearance sale we will ever see in our life. Mutual funds are great and all, but you need to stop what you’re doing and start buying investment properties. Right now.”
Ok, Pat, I get it. Also… I think you’ve had enough coffee.
At the time I didn’t know that real estate consistently builds more wealth than any other asset class. I didn’t even know that my twenties were an excellent time to invest in real estate. All I had was my conversation with Pat echoing through my head along with an intense desire to kill my student debt so that someday I could start a family. And believe it or not, that was enough.
Six months later, with all of $12,000 to my name, I bought my first house on a 3.5%-down FHA loan. This would kick off a 4-properties-in-4-years buying binge, culminating in owning my own house along with six rental units.
So yeah. We’ve got properties. But that’s not what you’re wondering. What you’re wondering is:
Has real estate investing been worth it?
Benefits: Wealth Rocketship, Priceless Time
In my case, the benefits have been… astonishing.
Over the last nine years, the cash flow from our rental properties has been more than able to dig us out of our terrifying chasm of student debt. The appreciation on the houses rocketed our net worth higher than I ever thought possible. Due to market timing, a heaping pile of luck, and the magic of leverage, we’ve had an ROI on those down payments that would make Warren Buffett shoot Coca-cola out of his hundred-billion-dollar nose.
More important than the dollars we racked up, the modest cashflow from the rentals allowed my wife to quit her job and stay home with our kids through the first pivotal years of their lives. In between all the kid-craziness, she’s been able to nurture them through the baby and toddler years, walking with them through this brief phase that comes only once.
My story isn't an uncommon one. Now in my thirties, one thing I’ve consistently noticed is that the friends who were intentional with their finances in their twenties are seeing their life options increase as they enter their thirties- while at the same time my less intentional friends are seeing their options narrow as kids and mortgages start to cement both calendar and budget.
Now I could end my real estate story here and confirm the rosy story that the get-rich-quick gurus are so quick to tell- but that’s not the whole story.
The (Literal) Crap they Don’t Tell you About
What the books and the gurus won’t tell you is that rental properties aren’t just numbers on a page. You don’t just make a few mouse clicks and get a statement at the end of the month. The minute you buy a rental property you have become a business owner. You are solely responsible for the home of other humans. You need to find and manage tenants and contractors, you need to learn about building maintenance and business systems, taxes and insurance.
Over the years I have replaced toilets, ripped out moldy sheetrock, and installed flooring. I’ve buried dead animals and I’ve literally had to remove ankle-deep sewage from a crawlspace. I’ve met incredible people I’d trust with my life and worked with contractors who have made me question my faith in humanity.
360 days of the year, you’ll wonder why everyone doesn’t invest in real estate- the other 5 days, you’ll wonder why anyone invests in real estate.
But all that brings me to the ultimate benefit of real estate that doesn’t get enough airtime.
Real Estate’s Ultimate (Hidden) Benefit
After reading about all those literally crappy issues, you might be tempted to run back to the Vanguard account from whence you came. Before you do, though, ask yourself a question:
Who do you want to be in ten years?
Not just how much money or what stuff you want to have- what are you trying to do in life?
Are you looking for the easiest path you can find through life? Or are you looking to learn, to grow? To become a smarter, stronger version of yourself, ready to handle anything life throws your way (all while accelerating your financial returns dramatically)?
Over the years, I’ve picked up on a few common traits among the real estate investors I know. As a group, real estate investors are the people that go after the things in life that they want- they don’t just “wish”. They’re usually well-connected (real estate investing is a team sport after all). They’re opportunistic, they’re hard-working, and they’re smart across a huge range of subjects.
When I bought that 4-plex in 2012 I was a clueless 25-year-old kid- no practical skills, no financial literacy, little confidence and almost nothing by way of life experience.
In my nine years of being a landlord, I’ve learned and grown into a version of myself I couldn’t have imagined when I started. I’ve framed walls, replumbed houses, and wired basements. I’ve hired lawyers and battled with the city. I’ve learned the ins-and-outs of mortgages and the tax code. I’ve met lifelong friends and learned to work with people from all walks of life- rich and poor, contractor, tenant, zoning board member and neighbor. I’ve not only learned financial “savvy”- somewhere along the way I learned responsibility. Grit. Perseverance. Character.
Somewhere in those nine years, I became the person my friends come to for advice on everything from investing and finances to sheetrocking tips and even thorny people situations.
Conclusion
Like many others before me I got into real estate for “passive income”. I was wishing for an escape from work. But real estate tricked me. Through the ups and downs, the work, the growth- I’ve become someone who doesn’t want to spend the rest of his life sitting on the beach with a margarita. I want to learn. I want to grow. I want to provide value to my community.
Let’s shoot straight. Your question wasn’t about me, was it? It was about you. Should you invest in real estate? I say “yes”. If your time of life, your location, your personality, your finances, and your schedule allow, then this is a no-brainer.
I hope you make a ton of money. I hope you join the long line of ordinary people who utterly transformed their finances through real estate. More than that, though, I hope you grow into the most mature, confident, skilled, battle-tested version of yourself you can be.
Maybe the real question is: what would you stand to gain apart from the money if you entered this crazy rabbit hole we call investing?
Who could you become?
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Intro: Why I Am Starting a Blog
In my first post, I laid out all the reasons why I shouldn’t start a blog. It was a real downer- but it ended with the obvious question: So why do it? Why add to the cacophony? Well, in spite of all the reasons why I should just shut my big yapper- I’m going to give it a go. Here’s why:
Sanity
First things first. I’m weird. Imagine that you had a magical mind-reading machine that could read thoughts. What if you pointed it at people walking down the street. What might you hear?
• “I need to add bread and milk to my grocery list”
• “I can’t believe she said that! She is such a brat...”
• “3 more months of busting my butt at this job and I better get a raise”
But what if you took that magical mind-reading machine and pointed it at the tall brown-haired guy sitting on the bench? You’d probably pick up an altogether different set of thoughts. You might even wonder if your machine (or the brain in question) was broken:
“Was Augustine a pre-figure to our post-modern discontent- and does he hold the solution?”
“Is it worth developing a meditation habit- and if so, how would I make it o’bvious, easy, attractive, and satisfying’?”
“What are the real pros and cons of a smartphone and how easily could I mimic the functionality with a laptop?”
How do I say it?
In a world of thinkers, feelers, and doers- I am a thinker (for better-or-worse).
John Steinbeck would say: “Some men think big. Some men think little.” I think big.
David Allen would say I’m a “50,000 ft.” thinker.
Isabel Briggs-Meyers would say I’m an ENTP
Clifton would say my strengths are Input, Ideation, Strategic, Woo, and Connectedness
Most people would say I’m a bit of an absent-minded professor.
I remember one time a college roommate walked into my room, saw me on my couch staring out the window and after puzzling for a second, asked: “Are you just... thinking?”
Yes, Erich. Yes, I was.
If I’m honest, the allure of a blog is simply a place to get my thoughts out of my head. A real-life pensieve that alleviates the pressure of what feels like approximately ten trillion thoughts per day bouncing around between my ears with nowhere to go.
And if I’m lucky the ‘pressure release’ function of this blog could be two-fold by helping facilitate...
Better Conversations
Even if you’re not a ‘thinky’ person, I’m hoping you can at least empathize with this situation:
It generally takes two interested parties to have a conversation about something. But what if your mind is regularly in a different place than the people around you? This isn’t meant to be a sob-story and I actually have a number of people in my life with whom I have great, interesting conversations- but even there, I often find my capacity for exploring ideas is 10x that of those around me - and the overlap with an individual person is hard to encompass the breadth of all that I just find interesting.
I think the reality for people who think about ‘different stuff’ a lot is a sense of loneliness. It’s not a lack of great people in your life- it’s a loneliness of thought- a sense of only really sharing a small portion of who you are.
Even if you are intent on having a conversation of substance, there’s a whole slew of sticky social norms fighting against you. Conversations tend to rise to shallow levels to meet up at some shared common denominator. 2/3 people are generally not interested in abstract thought and even those that are abstract thinkers may not be interested in expressing those abstract thoughts via conversation.
And even if you do happen to be around someone who’s interested in something you’re thinking about- life may not give you the context, time, or energy to have the conversation you’d like to have.
But what if I had a blog? What if my friends and family, at their own leisure, could read with full context all about what is going on behind these eyes?
For one, I would just be thrilled that they read it and that they know. But the other thing that could happen (which would be incredible) would be something like this.
Instead of: “Hey man- how are the kids doing?” one of my friends could lead off the conversation like this:
“Hey man, I read that post on Atomic Habits- where you talked about setting up an environment that facilitates the person you want to be. Do you think that could that help me with my weight loss goal?”
or:
“I read that thing you said about secularization in America and I didn’t agree with that part you said about the differences between America and Europe. Here’s what I think.”
In my wildest fantasies, the presence of this blog would double down on the therapeutic aspect of getting thoughts out of my head. I wouldn’t just be writing my thoughts- but the arc of my conversations could change by giving people a free ‘pre-glimpse’ into who I am and what I think.
We are at a cultural turning point.
A lot of things are getting better and a lot of things are getting worse. Different people will have their opinions on which is which- but no one denies that the world is changing at an ever-increasing rate and that we are living- and will live through- things that our grandparents couldn’t even conceive of.
With all the that’s come in the last twenty years and all that it enables- we are changing- quickly- how we perceive and process the world. Some changes are good. Some are not. This blog could end up being a total dud- but as crazy as it sounds I want to attempt having some kind of positive influence on the conversations that we’re having as a culture.
I will not be around forever (but this blog could be)
What if I got hit by a bus tomorrow? It would be sad. It would be difficult for my wife and kids. And yet, one of the thoughts that strikes me as most sad is that my kids wouldn’t know me. Yeah, they’d have a few pictures and some stories that people would tell. But they wouldn’t know me- my thoughts, how I would have guided them or thought about all the things that life will throw at them. With a blog, they could read and then completely disagree with my take on life and go another way- but at least they would know.
Even if I am around for my kids, the reality is that when they are 18 I’ll be almost 50. But if I write- if I freeze my 33-year-old thoughts before I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be 33… or 18 for that matter- then my grown kids will have access not just to my present 50 year old thoughts, but also my 33 year old thoughts as well.
The reality is the metaphorical bus is heading for all of us- we will die whether it’s tomorrow or in seventy years. Writing and creating has the magical property of being able to transcend time to speak to people years- or generations- into the future.
I’m no Charles Dickens and so while high school classes probably won’t be reading me for 10th grade comp- it’s a crazy thought that my great-great-grandkids will be able to see my facebook profile, watch me grow from a kid to an elderly man through Google Photos and- if I write them down- know my very thoughts.
It might even help someone
Ok, so a lot of those reasons are about me. My desire to ‘express myself’, feel known, have better conversations, etc. etc. A hope, a wish, a prayer, though- is that my writing might help someone live a better life, make sense of things, or even just feel less alone.
So, there you go. Success? Failure? We will see.
Why I Shouldn’t Start a Blog
I’m Brett.
By day, I’m a 33-year-old husband and dad, working at a mid-size software company. By night... I’m trying my hand at writing- and maybe a little video-making too.
Great. Just what the world needs: Another Blog.
You’re right. I probably shouldn’t- and I know all the reasons why.
You’re already overloaded with information: At the time of writing, humans are creating 1.1 trillion MB and consuming 34 gigabytes of data- per day. Every day when you wake up and grab your smartphone you are turning on a full-blast fire hose of information pointing directly at your face. What brilliance do I have to add? Will I be helping make sense of all of this- or just adding to the noise?
I’m (definitely) not a professional: I am not a writer or even an English major. I am not a philosopher- heck I’m not even in MENSA. You read a book like East of Eden (obviously the greatest book in the English language) and you realize that there are humans like John Steinbeck or a thousand others who have both an insight into the human condition and an elegance in expressing that which you likely won’t approximate in your lifetime. Why try?
I don’t have time: Lord knows this dad of 3, full-time worker with rental properties on the side has no business starting a blog. Many days feel like full sprint from the moment I open my eyes to the second I shut them. Where will I squeeze in the time to write?
There’s nothing new under the sun: Even with the dizzying amount of thoughts that careen through my brain on a daily basis, I can say with some level of certainty that I will probably say nothing truly novel. Here we are a few thousand years into recorded history, in a world of eight billion souls. In this world, new thoughts are hard to come by- to say the least.
Even with all this, people every day start blogs, Youtube channels, and podcasts- for many great reasons. Many of those reasons, though, are not my reasons. In thinking through why I want to write, I should clarify why some of the common motivations just “ain’t” mine.
💰: I ain’t doing it for the money. Let’s be real here- if Google wants to send a check to this single-income three kid family I would not rip it up in the name of artistic purity. A side hustle income would of course be pretty sweet, but if I never made a cent I could still be extremely satisfied with this thing.
🤴: I ain’t doing it for the followers. I think that one of the worst things that could happen to someone in 2021 is becoming famous. In the age of always-on smartphones and social media- we are well-past the golden age of being famous (that age was actually pretty short in the history of the world).
🧠: I ain’t doing it because I’m the smartest person on the internet. I do consider myself someone who thinks a lot about what’s true and what living a good life might mean in light of that truth. But I’d be lying to you- and to myself- if I postured myself as someone who knows it all or has it all figured out.
“Ok,” you might be thinking, “This is the biggest bummer of a first post I’ve ever read. You’ve reinforced the argument for not starting a blog… So-why are you starting a blog?”