on not getting stale while not moving, and other thoughts.
RWL #366
Greetings from the University of New Hampshire! The leaves are falling here in Durham. Usually by mid-November all but the most recalcitrant oaks are bare. My wife and I went out for a lovely walk on Saturday morning. This is about halfway between the LHH and one corner of UNH. B-lot, where I often park, is basically just past the top of the rise in this picture. Pretty soon I’ll be talking about snow.
It’s my eighth fall in Durham. It’s hard for me to wrap my head around that. I love being here, but sometimes I joke with my wife that we are about five years past our next PCS (permanent change of station - what it was called when we were told to move by the Army). Sometimes I think, wouldn’t it be great to have a new start somewhere else? Wouldn’t it be great to have a massive change to shake things up? Wouldn’t we be just that much sharper and more alive if we moved? Are we getting stale? I was digging through my Evernote files to write today’s letter and I came across this clipping that I really like from Seneca (who was paraphrasing Socrates):
How can you wonder your travels do you no good, when you carry yourself around with you? You are saddled with the very thing that drove you away. And if you want to know why all this running away cannot help you, the answer is simply this: you are running away in your own company.
It’s funny that someone had that same thought 2,000 years ago (or 2,500 if you want to reference Socrates). How do we shake ourselves up while staying in place? That’s the trick. To not get stale while also not being frivolous and wasteful in our efforts. You let me know if you have the answer.
I’ll be back on Sunday with the essay. As usual, willing good for all of you!
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Read
What: FastCompany, ‘I felt like I had checked every box’: Nextdoor CEO Sarah Friar’s career advice for someone who has been passed over for promotion
Why: I am not a perfectionist (as any of you who have been reading this newsletter for a while know), so I didn’t identify with the first part of this article, but I liked her discussion of Ikigai. A friend who knows my passion for looking for meaning in life told me about that word not too long ago. It means finding the intersection of “What you’re good at, what you’re passionate about, what the world needs, and what you can get paid for.” Worth a quick read.
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What: BIG, Why America Is Out of Ammunition
Why: I am generally skeptical of most anti-M&A talk. Mostly because M&A by definition is a private matter. If two firms want to merge, let them merge. I don’t think the government does a particularly good job of determining what a harmful level of concentration is. But the defense industry is complicated because it has one customer: the government. So this isn’t a story of monopoly (one seller, many buyers) but monopsony (one buyer, many sellers). Defense firms also sell to foreign governments, but only if the US government says they can. But “the government” is an amorphous mass with many ways to milk it. And this newsletter makes some good points about the current state of the defense industry - that seem to be more focused on milking than producing.
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Watch
What: Big Think, What the sexual revolution has done to modern families | Richard Reeves, Judith Butler, & more (14 min)
Why: An interesting mash-up of thoughts on modern marriage and family. I read and recommended Richard Reeves’ book, Of Boys and Men a while back. In this video he makes a comment to the effect, “We have to stop thinking of husbands and breadwinners and more as fathers.” Useful consideration now that women have far more economic power than they did 40+ years ago. What can a man contribute when more women get college degrees and have more earning potential, especially in low-SES communities? What are men good for? Other interesting comments and observations. Also check out my interview with Tyler Jamison on Romantic Relationships if you haven’t already!
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Listen
What: The Dispatch Podcast, Worried About Inequality? Fix Marriage (40 min)
What: When you get a book from a Brookings scholar, you know you aren’t getting some right-wing diatribe. The book is The Two-Parent Privilege: How Americans Stopped Getting Married and Started Falling Behind, which I have not read yet, but is now on my list. The principle is pretty straightforward - two parents are better than one. This isn’t a heteronormative argument - it’s more about resources and time that having two parents gives, which I think is pretty obvious. What’s less obvious is how to fix marriage, but the discussion about the benefits is interesting. This pod goes nicely with the Big Think video above.
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What: The Good Fight, Jonathan Rauch on Why Many People Are Unhappy in Middle Age (and How Life Gets Better After Fifty) (68 min)
Why: This is a discussion of the happiness literature as applied to mid-life. I wrote an essay about this in FITW (formerly BITW) here. It’s specifically a discussion about Rauch’s book, The Happiness Curve: Why Life Gets Better After 50, which I also have not read, but is also now on my list. (I have a ridiculously long list, plus a huge pile of books I have already bought and have not yet read.)