Yep. It’s over. It was a great run while it lasted.
If you, like me, were impressed with yourself for knowing the common Gen Z parlance of “Rizz,” that time has come to an end. Trust me, if I use it in a blog post, its best days are behind it.
Rizz is officially out of style. The youths will have to find another word to rebel with.
Rizz comes from the word charizzma. It describes a person changing their personality to woo a mate. Turning on the charm, if you will.
In days not so long gone by, meeting your significant other in a bar or at a party was a commonly recounted anecdote from couples.
The idealized version goes something like: “I saw her from across the bar and I just knew I had to talk to her. So I walked up, laid down my best pickup line, got her laughing, and we just felt this instant connection.”
The more realistic version goes something like: “I was pretty drunk. I accidentally bumped into her. I said something stupid. She laughed out of pity, and beer goggles did the heavy lifting.”
Either way, the dating currency of the day was some combination of attraction, chemistry, and alcohol.
Unfortunately, the person you have felt the most chemistry with may just be a charismatic person who generates chemistry with everyone. Or worse still, they could be faking it and manipulating you by using skills they don’t naturally have.
The internet has also enabled us to switch from an ‘attraction’ mindset to a ‘filter’ mindset by providing us with countless dating apps and services to find a perfectly curated match.
Anyone who has spent time on dating apps can tell you it’s not a big improvement. Someone checks all your boxes, but 3 minutes in, you can tell it ain’t it.
No matter how many boxes you have checked, you will be frustrated to find a general lack of attraction. Whatever list of features you convince yourself you need will be insufficient when actualized.
Filter mindset also ignores the fact that love is path-dependent. There might be a great fit you miss out on because you met them while in a bad mood. Or the wrong conversation leads you to prematurely dismiss them. Or the timing was off.
Love is a dynamic dance. Not a math equation. Connection over perfection.
So what is the way through?
For the “attraction” mindset, sure, I guess you can try to be charismatic, but only if it comes from an honest place.
For the “filter” mindset, I have given up on hard filters. I have eliminated them from my thinking.
My experience with hard filters is that they are very dehumanizing and prevent you from having an honest relationship. I have soft filters that relate to my life principles.
But, the more I have thought about it, there is something lacking in both these mindsets. And there’s a third way that I hadn’t thought of as much.
The other reason people get together is that they are there. Present. Right in front of you. You can’t fall in love with someone if you never meet them.
Historically, this is the most common reason for falling in love. She grew up in your village. She was in your kindergarten class. The girl next door…
It may not feel like the grandest and most romantic reason in the modern world. To some, it may look like settling.
But, It’s a reminder that love may be many things, but one of them is that it’s a choice. More important than any of our silly filters and fancies is choosing every day to love the people you spend time with. And see the good in them.
Life Update: I had a nice trip to Ireland despite the Florida State score. Drank a few too many Guinness.
Whiskey and Water. Blood and Bone. Rivers and Roads.
Aside from my asinine attempt at alliteration, these words are among many tokens that ground most folk and bluegrass songs. They call back oft-forgotten memories deep in our subconscious that tie us to life: the harsh and liberating realities of nature, the essentials and accidents of life, and our roots.
Most endearingly, however, these words evoke a specific place, a home.
Every place I go, most of the people I meet have a genuine love for their home. They are excited to greet a nomad and tell me about the lovely local spots. They want me to enjoy their home as much as they do.
I envy this perspective, as I often struggle to feel at home. But even more so, I admire it.
The easiest way to see the transformational power of love is to look at the transformation of places. When a group of people take pride in and love their home, they will beautify it—not just aesthetically but into a community that can come together and support each other.
Or as Chesterton put it, “Men did not love Rome because she was great. She was great because they had loved her.”
Jacksonville was built into a beach. Austin didn’t spring up from the ground one day, even if it feels that way. Raleigh’s sloping paths, which gently curve through the tree-covered hills, were formed with a purpose.
It’s a cliche in Europe that the size of the oldest church or cathedral correlates perfectly with the city’s population.
You can’t help but feel the pride many hold for Kentucky. There are shady red brick neighborhoods. There’s a clash of Southern and Midwestern architecture. (and accents, for that matter)
But, the people here love their Bourbon. Given my Irish roots, I appreciate taking pride in whiskey. Yeah Yeah… it messes up your sleep, can be abused, and gives us old folks debilitating hangovers. However, it also spreads cheer, social connection, and memories(even if they are a bit hazy).
‘Whiskey’ comes from the Irish word ‘Uisce Beatha,’ which means ‘Water of Life.’ Maybe because it makes you the life of the party. I don’t know.
But, it is a perfect segue to bluegrass music, since ‘Water of Life’ would be a killer name for a bluegrass song.
If anything makes my gypsy soul feel at home, it is folk and bluegrass music. Irish and English folk music, as well as the blues, are the strongest influences on it.
You can admire it for its playful story-telling style or the acoustic sounds that tickle your ears at a live venue. But for me, the real power of folk music is that it lives in the tension of things.
In every chord, melancholy interweaves with joy. You remember the friends who are no longer with you and yet be present to the ones sitting right in front of you. There is a sadness for the time that has passed and a hope for what is to come.
Thematically, the token words repeated over and over in folk music will hammer messages of romance, life, and death. However, its most profound message may be about the transformational nature of our love for home. When we sincerely love a place, beauty, community, and flourishing will soon follow.
Here are a few folk and bluegrass songs that bring the post home:
A couple of years ago, I saw a woman post her credit score on her dating profile. While her credit card number, PIN, and SS number would have been more useful, I laughed.
It turned out this became a viral internet trend. It was more endearing than most dating content, but it still exemplifies many of the problems with online dating. Issues like: what gets measured gets managed, a transactional mindset towards relationships, and, the focus of this post, failing the mirror test.
Frequently, when people talk about relationships with me, they either say, “Never lower your standards. You deserve the world…” or something like that. Or they say, “Stop looking for someone who is perfect. Relationships are a work in progress.”
Like many single people, I hear the same advice over and over, and usually, the two pieces of advice contradict one another. I don’t mind it.
The first one miffs me. Lots of people have unrealistic, shallow, or downright silly standards, which have exploded in the age of the internet and dating app filtering.
Looking for someone with a certain height, weight, job, or eye color has never been easier. Those shallow filters have always been challenging to search for and harder to find. But I will post about the filtering mindset later.
The problem is that our interactions with social media, internet content, and dating apps distort our view of ourselves.
When you post an Instagram story (I still can’t figure out how those work…) that doesn’t get likes or views, your self-confidence dips. When you get a match with someone out of your league, you get cocky. When that same person ghosts you on the first date, you feel like a fool, and the negative voice in your head says, “I told you so.”
Then, you decide to post AI-modified pictures to fix your crooked smile and sunburn and make the background sparkle. You get more matches with good-looking people who never call you back after the first date, justifying the inner voice even more.
While this self-talk existed in the past, it is now justified on a macro level. The entire friend group, city, or internet has judged you to be inferior. You’re now not only failing in a relationship but failing by the world’s standards.
Seeking external validation has always been a tricky problem.
If you are searching for the hottest, richest, and “Rizziest” person, you will be a slave to other people’s opinions. You have chosen to value what everyone wants, so the competition is fierce.
If you are looking for someone who is kind, consistent, and compatible with your values, you might get a good deal.
Butttt, this is a distraction from “the Mirror Test.” Whether it’s your shallow standards or your moral standards, you should still be able to honestly look in the mirror and ask what you bring to a relationship. The best standard for what you’ll get out of a relationship is what you bring to the relationship.
You want someone funny, you better be funny. You want someone hot, it’s easier if you are too. If you want someone who cares for others, it’s time to sign up for some charity work.
Amusingly, using the credit score on dating profiles example, you saw people complain on social media that people with 600 credit scores expected to date 800+ers.
Most relationships have differences, and people bring different things to the table. However, healthy relationships are rarely strongly imbalanced. It’s better to go in with a realistic and positive vision of yourself.
The goal of a relationship is not to get a “good deal.” It’s to be a good deal.
Finally, if you want someone who lives with purpose, it’s time to pursue your own purpose.
Life Update: My brother Jay finished an Olympic triathlon! I was happily eating a hot dog and drinking a beer.
I have yet to hear of another ‘digital nomad dater.’ If you have, keep it to yourself. I rather cherish the idea of being the first to have publicly done so. I am sure many people have moved to cities to meet potential partners. Others surely have digitally nomadded and found romance.
However, I wonder if anyone has yet been foolish enough to publically announce their intention beforehand.
A little over a year into my journey, I reflect on the experience and thought I’d share.
We’ll start with the journey’s unique characteristic, intentionality. Being intentional consistently puts more pressure on me.
Most conversations with family and long-time friends center on my dating life. It can be uncomfortable because, despite this blog, I am usually a private person. Upon meeting new people, it often comes up quicker than I’d like. Upon going on a date, it complicates some of the conversation.
I also put pressure on myself. In a strange new city, I feel obligated to socialize constantly to meet as many new people as possible. It would help if I were strongly extroverted, but I am only moderately so.
But, there are many benefits to intentionality. I skip the small talk. I make quick friends. Lots of people find it exciting and want to share their thoughts. I get to show people a sincere part of myself quickly. Some people think I am crazy, but I accept those are not the people for me anyway.
Regarding dating, I have gone on roughly 25 first dates. It’s the correct number to make progress but not be emotionally exhausted. Twenty of those have been through online dating. Five have been people I met in person or set up. Four of those went on to second dates, but none after that.
Most of the girls are cool people, but for one reason or another, it’s fairly obvious it’s not a good fit even after one date. I happily became friends with several girls afterward. A couple of the dates have been trainwrecks.
I got excited about seven girls. All of them I met in person, which is encouraging for someone who doesn’t like dating apps. However, six of the seven were in relationships, and the other lived far away and was only visiting, which is discouraging for someone who doesn’t like dating apps.
I get discouraged occasionally, but overall, it hasn’t been far off what I expected. I figured finding the right person would take a year or two. I have a unique energy and am looking for something uncommon. Digital nomad daters are quirky bunch in my experience.
Now for the practical parts of the journey. Adult life is still routine. I work, cook, and hit the gym each day. I love my beauty sleep, so I get to bed around 10:30 on weekdays and 11:30 on weekends.
While I am always down for spontaneous social events and adventures, having weekly events like sports teams, book clubs, or improv is nice. Weekly pick-up events are the best because you can go each week but feel no pressure if you have to miss.
Occasionally, I go to pickleball/volleyball courts, bars, and dance halls alone. This can induce social anxiety. However, given the absurdity of my life choices, I can reframe it as a social experiment, so I don’t mind much. I have also met loads of interesting people this way and gotten myself into amusing situations.
Long-term Airbnb rentals are fantastic, especially when the hosts are cool (shout out to Sid and Marie). They are super flexible and only 10%- 15% higher than renting. You get a room, workspace, and access to the kitchen.
Lastly, the mindset is quite different than normal life.
It’s the opposite of the Camino, where everyone comes for an adventure. I am on an adventure amidst a mass of everyday life. Others aren’t going to bring the same openness and energy. In many ways, it feels like the movie Yes Man.
Planning is undoubtedly a challenge. The intentionality of the journey forces you back to the moment. The journey doesn’t make much sense if you plan too far ahead. You just have to be open to all the opportunities that present themselves from moment to moment.
Early on, I put too much pressure on myself, essentially making social life a second job. But being more forgiving of myself puts me in a better frame of mind.
Overall, I love it. Adventures allow me to be fully myself. My greatest aspiration in life is to participate in meaning. There is nothing like the feeling that you are in the right place, at the right time, and doing the right thing.
From making breakfast in the morning to writing a blog post to deciding which city to move to, my life choices align with my values. What could be better than that?
I’d recommend it to anyone who feels the call to do it and make it their own.
Life Update: AI Conferences and the family vacation are over. I am moving to Louisville, where my brother lives, for at least a few months. After that, I am considering a long stint in Atlanta or Tampa.
If you are one of the rare few left who don’t want to live in a virtual world, I am preaching to the choir. Effectively communicating what you want/need/believe is true is still crucial to accomplishing anything in work or relationships.
I am writing this post at a conference on artificial intelligence (Yes! It is basically Revenge of the Nerds).
While I am bullish on AI helping us solve crucial technological problems, improve human material well-being, and open up daring new possibilities, I dread the continued degradation of human social life the internet has brought about.
The internet of all things, sitting in our smartphones, in our pockets, has enabled us to cluster into echo chambers where we get cheap validations on our mental ruminations from strangers the world across. It tempts us with a diverse collage of dopamine hits every minute of the day. From cat videos to political drama to porn to dating apps, we can hardly breathe for being entertained.
We can hardly feel uncomfortable for a moment without that familiar reach to the pocket for cellular comfort.
This saga illustrates how AI continues the trend of technology distracting us from our negative emotions.
Worse still is our desire to control our relationships.
One of my favorite films is Ruby Sparks. Paul Dano plays an author who overcomes writer’s block when a girl comes to him in a dream, and he writes about her. She upends his life by becoming real and, subsequently, his girlfriend. Thus, he is in a controlling situation where he can make her do whatever he wants by writing it into being. Like excess clinginess…
I won’t spoil the movie, but it reflects on ego and control.
AI will tempt us to create ‘perfect’ relationships where we specify exactly what we want. Always maintaining control.
These relationships will never be real. Human relationships require struggle through negative interactions. To be surprised by people. To find beauty in the brokenness of people.
Social situations are anxiety-producing because, heck, most things in life are anxiety-producing. When we meet another person, we are confronting yearning and chaotic souls. We don’t know what opinions, questions, and energy we will face. That’s just how it is.
If we avoid, distract ourselves, or control others, we will miss out on the bliss of human connection.
All of my fondest memories in life were in the presence of others: Sitting around listening to a guitar, playing with ideas in a philosophical convo, or exploring vulnerabilities, hopes, and dreams with a close friend.
I know these experiences are becoming rarer, but we will hold on to them. They are in our nature.
Life Update:
I have left Austin, went to the FSU Super Regional in Tallahassee, and of course went to San Francisco.
Taking a nice vacation from the Journey. Here’s me with AI Rafa Nadal:
When talking to people in 5+ year relationships, they almost uniformly dismiss it out of hand as romantic nonsense. To single people, they say, “Why don’t you date this person X? Or person Y?” Most often, the answer single people give is they just don’t feel any attraction or chemistry towards person X or Y.
Dating podcasts/books/coaches are similarly frustrated by the spark. Cynically, this is because the spark cannot be easily manufactured, controlled, or integrated into self-development strategies. However, their frustration comes from a real place.
Experience says that the spark is just as likely to turn into an explosion that burns your whole life to the ground as it is to develop into a comforting fire that warms you on a cold night.
Sometimes, we only want what we can’t have. In this case, someone right for us comes across as boring.
Searching for the spark can doom us to a scarcity mindset.
Since it is so rare to feel the spark, we do anything possible not to mess it up when we do feel it. This leads to desperation. Suddenly, we allow our boundaries to be trampled upon, become people-pleasers, and move all of our plans to see this person. This lowers our value to the other person. When the other person starts pulling away, we double down and panic to try and keep them.
Dating podcasts call these common patterns ‘trauma bonding.’ We’d like to bond with a partner based on kindness, consistency, and mutual giving, but instead, we bond through jealousy, fear, and insecurities.
Add to that, some people are naturally charismatic and ‘sparky.’ They just have a way of getting people to fall for them. Usually, these people leave a trail of broken hearts through fake bonding.
In other words, the reputation is well-earned. However, the baby cannot be thrown out.
Despite its bad reputation, most singles feel that lack of chemistry is holding them back. Love is not a primarily rational thing. It’s difficult to think yourself into spending your life with someone. That’s why most successful relationships start with ‘It just felt right.’ Trusting your intuition is much easier than reasoning your way into it.
I entirely admit this is a different process, depending on the person. Some expect love at first sight and instant chemistry. Others look for the slow burn and will grow more sure with time. For some, love must be passionate, spontaneous, and adventurous. Others just want to feel safe and comfortable. Some people aren’t very intuitive and find spark talk foreign.
However, for most people, that intuitive ‘just feels right’ feeling is a healthy and necessary part of building a long-term romantic relationship. Being in a relationship means that you are bonded to that person. Otherwise, when things get complicated, you will leave.
It just doesn’t do to be indifferent to your life partner. That’s settling.
I don’t know if there is an ultimate solution to this problem. For me, I focus on living by my principles and being dead honest with myself about who I am. Life is best when my intuition and analytical brain are in sync.
Often, we can feel when our intuition is out of tune. It doesn’t align with our best selves. That’s when you have to do some digging.
If I intuitively feel something is not quite right with someone, it takes me some time to understand why. But, usually, my head and heart come to an agreement.
Don’t chase feelings. Don’t deify them. Don’t ignore them. Try to get to a place where you can trust them.
Update: My team won the Pickleball championship. It’s about damn time. I have done so many of these freaking social leagues to finally win one. Very fun season!
This summer, I will be taking a break from the journey as I have a lot of travel planned. I am going to San Francisco for an AI conference and have a couple of family vacations planned.
There is a cliche in Austin that everyone thinks the city became overpopulated right after they moved in. This is crazy because, in my opinion, it only really got out of control after I moved here in January.
On my first day in Austin, I took a long walk through the city. One of the first things to catch my eye was stickers posted on signage that read ‘F*** New Austin.’
It was unsurprising. A brief stroll through East Austin shows a fast-changing neighborhood.
Every other house is what I call a ‘Soulless Tech House.’ Two-story sleek houses with flat wooden walls painted with a single deep color, huge windows, a tall fence, a security system, outdoor LED lights, and a small driveway with two Teslas parked side by side.
Or you have the old Texas houses built of cement brick painted multiple shallow colors, a short see-through fence, Cacti and Yuccas adorning the landscape, either a pair of longhorns attached to the wall or a mural of Our Lady of Guadalupe painted somewhere on the property, and finished off with a pickup in the driveway.
East Austin is still littered with grungy Mexican restaurants, eclectic street art, and food trucks as far as the eye can see. Bars are full. Zilker Park is packed. Dog walkers have invaded. Many young professionals bring an energy you don’t see in other cities.
But with this energy it has become land of pickleball. Basketball courts and Tennis courts are painted over in the name of pickleball.
Pickleball is a digital nomad’s dream. After work, head down to the courts and play some pickup pickleball. You quickly get inducted into pickleball groups that play and go out for drinks. Pickleball captures the transient young professional ethos unlike anything. Maybe that’s why it has taken over Austin.
Austin Natives I talk to have varied perspectives on the newcomers. Many love the energy, the jobs, and the increase in the value of their houses. Others resent the displacement of the culture, neighborhoods, and people.
The USA seems to abide by the mottos: ‘New is always better’ and ‘live in the future, die in the past.’ We may be nostalgic for a world gone by, but the communities we love usually go the way of the dodo to make way for the new thing of the day.
Unlike most countries, Power is always on the side of a certain kind of change in the US of A. It’s up to us as individuals to preserve what we love.
What makes me feel most conflicted about my adventure is its transience. I want to respect what is local and be as present to the community as possible, no matter how short my stay.
FYI: Pickleball championship this weekend. We are in 1st place and I always get 2nd or 3rd in social leagues. Pressure is on…
You look across the living room and see your dog has fallen asleep in a rather absurd position next to its toys. Legs splayed out—hardly a care in the world.
You type into YouTube: ‘cute puppy.’ The next 15 minutes watching adorable puppies do silly things are a roller coaster of emotions.
Then, you come across a video of a puppy drenched in oil. The video shows a do-gooder YouTuber rescuing a starved puppy from an oil spill and slowly nursing it back to life over an accelerated 90-day timeline. Your eyes get a little misty.
Over the next few days, the algorithm takes over, and hungry oily puppy rescue videos spam your feed everywhere you look. You subscribe to the Youtuber to help her cause.
But, the following day, you awake to a video recommendation of your YouTuber vociferously defending herself against slanderous allegations, emphasizing her good intentions amidst the backlash. A quick Google search reveals that she is accused of abusing puppies for the sake of the videos.
The outrage machine has blown up. She’s trending on Twitter and is going on the podcast circuit to clear her name. You quietly unsubscribe… But, keep following the story…
After her podcast appearances, she announces a $1 million sponsorship with Petsmart, and you have given up all hope of goodness in the world.
You meet up with a friend who went hiking in Patagonia off-grid for three weeks. You regale them with the entire viral internet puppy drama and are surprised at their frank disinterest. You are jealous and wish you didn’t care either.
You return home feeling cynical and jaded about the world and yourself for caring. Open the door; your dog excitedly greets you. You reach down to pet it, but in your head, you think, ‘This whole thing is your fault…’
Yes, I jest. I may have dramatized it a bit. But, I call this the clicheification of everything.
News stories and entertainment follow the familiar rise and fall as before, but at a much faster clip.
Our ancestors lived in small tribes and villages. Once a month, they would gather for a feast, and the best singer would get in front of everyone and serenade the gathering with music that felt like it came straight from heaven. It would unite them in their mutual admiration of beauty.
The best storyteller would enchant the tribe with tales of bravery and woe. Reminding them of the challenges they face and the great things they can accomplish together.
The world has changed. Our storytellers are film directors with a lifetime of training and a hundred million dollars at their disposal. Our singers are prodigies who work their whole lives perfecting the craft.
However, the most significant change is that art is now an individualized consumption act instead of a shared communal experience.
We slam the repeat button on the song we love and listen to it 50 times a week with our air pods shutting out the world. We choose one among thousands of selections on Netflix to watch within our homes. And it will be the thousandth movie we have watched. Let alone YouTube or TikTok videos, which we can scroll through dozens in an hour.
Two wheels have touched down on the dopamine highway, and the speed limit is 1000 miles per hour. What does this do to us? Why does it matter?
It fractures our most precious resource: our attention. We find building community in the real world difficult because we prefer screens. Most importantly, it disrupts the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves.
Our self-narratives are shallower and more individual, leading to prolonged periods of cynicism and purposelessness. Whether it’s a cute puppy or a majestic mountain view, our moments of beautiful simplicity give way to hard intellectual takes. Or we repeat the beautiful song so many times that it loses meaning.
A few years ago, I despaired at the lack of good newly released films. A decade earlier, I had given up on superhero and alien space movies. Rom-Coms had cliched themselves to oblivion. Movies boldly putting forward big ideas were not getting made. Instead, we got timid films that were too cynical to give us anything but anger.
Pop music, outside of Taylor Swift, mostly failed. I couldn’t find any good new music in my favorite genre of Indie Folk. It seemed like we ran out of songs to sing. Our new fragmented landscape reduced the depth of art we could create.
I resigned to rewatching Lord of the Rings, Inception, and V for Vendetta. If I wanted something simple and beautiful, I’d have to rewatch Winnie the Pooh.
I was wrong. We can only stew in cliches for so long. There are new stories to be told. And they help us navigate the complex world we have entered.
Some old dead guy, William F. Shakespeare, taught us principles of storytelling that never change: Stories should be told playfully or tragically or else not told at all. We only get stuck in our own cliches when we stop dreaming about tomorrow.
Life Update: Still enjoying Austin. Considering my next move.
Note: Sorry about the long delay between posts. This post is much longer and about an important topic to me. I wanted to make sure I did it justice, so I had a number of discussions with Haitians to get their opinions.
Also, remember to subscribe to the blog:
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When I think of life in Haiti, I remember playing basketball under the coconut and palm trees as the sunset. The sound of Compa music (or All of Me by John Legend, which was the only song on the radio for eight months), motorcycles, with pigs squealing and goats screaming incessantly in the background. Looking up at the stars in the true dark of night, a view you can only get in a developing country.
I remember the security guards playing dominoes and watching futbol matches on the weekends. The easiness of being present with one another, as I didn’t have a smart phone. The joys of community life: cooking for others, cleaning for others, and relying on each other for all of our needs being met.
I fondly remember joking around in class with brilliant and ambitious students, along with several class clowns. They were bright-eyed and hopeful, ready to take advantage of every opportunity. Many would come after class asking me about economics. They saw economics as the way out for a country beset by poverty.
I remember shoveling compost, digging holes, and crushing rocks as we built and maintained the school. Altogether, we would sweat while working under the hot Haitian sun. At the end of the week, our community would enjoy a bottle of Prestige or Rhum made right in the heart of the Caribbean.
But most of all, I remember how easy it was to be grateful. Grateful for the food on my plate, the community surrounding me, and the purposefulness of my work. Gratitude comes easy when you are unsure of what will come tomorrow.
Unfortunately, tomorrow has come in Haiti, and it didn’t bring what we had all hoped. Clearly, I have no shortage of words to describe the delight of living in Haiti and all of the great and kind people I met there, but it is also a country that endures unrelenting suffering.
I try to live my life as apolitically as I can. Politics often brings out the worst in people, so I have kept it out of this blog. However, as a disclaimer, this post can’t avoid politics because of the devastation it has wrecked on a country I love. Those who read this blog for its brevity, hopeless romanticism, and light comic touch may want to stop reading.
Usually, Haitian political drama doesn’t find its way into the news as it is a small and poor country. However, in the last few years, the breakdown in society has become so profound that I am sure most of the readers of this blog have seen it pop into the news.
Haiti desperately needed elections to restore leadership and the constitution. But, elections never came as gang violence gripped the country. Many claimed peaceful elections were not possible under the constraints. First, the government needed to regain control of the gangs, and then elections could be scheduled.
Many Haitians have fled to the United States, either trying to cross the border with Mexico or applying for Biden’s 2-year Parole program. This, more than anything, has caused the US to notice Haiti’s descent.
In the past month, Ariel Henry was forced to resign. He traveled to Kenya in the hopes of recruiting Kenyan police to support the government against the gangs.When he tried to re-enter the country, the gangs took over the airport, and his flight was diverted.
The narrative that virtually all of Haiti’s problems can be reduced to foreign interventions is the only one you hear on the news. I don’t contest most of the claims made for this narrative, but there are many benefits provided by some foreign actors.
Non-profits educate many Haitian children in Haiti. Many scholarship programs help Haitians get an education. Despite often crowding out Haitian doctors, many Western healthcare professionals save the lives of the poor.
When I first arrived in Haiti, there was some skepticism among the populace around foreigners, but overall most Haitians were glad to have us and hopeful for collaboration.
But, most of what you see in the media focuses on the many spectacular failures of foreigners.
From its founding to about 70 years ago, Haiti was excluded from the international community for corrupt and often racist reasons.
During the Cold War, the US was friendly with the brutal Duvalier dictatorship to keep communism out of the country. After the Earthquake, the Clinton Foundation, International Red Cross, and UN failed the country spectacularly. Aid did not get where it was supposed to, homelessness was actively facilitated, and a cholera epidemic broke out due to these actors.
Bill Clinton decimated Haitian rice farmers when he convinced the country to drop agricultural tariffs, thus allowing subsidized American rice to flood the market at a lower price.
These are the oft-cited and just criticisms of foreign interference gone awry perpetrated by governments and non-profits, among others.
However, there is another side to the story.
The profound failures of the Haitian political class and private sector, who intentionally dismantled Haitian institutions to protect their power.
After they were overthrown, democracy was established with the help of Jean Bertrand Aristide. He subsequently won the first presidential election in 1991.
What followed was a tumultuous period where the military executed a coup d’etat and sent him into exile. Following his return from exile, he dismantled the military and started siphoning money from state sources to fund gangs that could disrupt the activities of his political opponents.
This started a vicious cycle where using political office to strike corrupt deals to fund gang activities became the norm. The gangs consisted of young male migrants from the countryside who moved into Cite Soleil and had no job prospects. These gangs were often unarmed and mainly functioned as protestors and public nuisances.
Unfortunately, These largely nonviolent gangs are the progenitors to the gangs that have taken over the country today. It has become essential in Haitian politics to use gangs to achieve your ends.
None of this excuses the corruption, incompetence, and exclusion foreign actors have consistently exercised in Haiti. It gives more context to the key problem that has faced Haiti for a long time.
The average Haitian citizen is disempowered from participating in their lives and country on every level.
If you are a young poor Haitian and defy the odds and get an education, your opportunities are bleak.
As an entrepreneur, you have to fear stepping on the toes of the existing domestic businesses that lash out aggressively at any perceived competition.
As a doctor, you will have difficulty finding work as most healthcare in Haiti is provided by foreign doctors for free. Those foreign doctors rarely provide paid employment for the local doctors. If you happen to get a job at the national hospital, you can expect to get paid years late.
As a journalist, you’ll be constantly threatened and smeared by politicians and gangs, causing you to fear for your life.
As a politician, survival requires funding gangs to support your causes.
I could go on.
Most Haitians are disillusioned. They see the best strategy as keeping their head down, finding small opportunities to scrape a living together for food and water, and surviving until tomorrow. Even this has become increasingly difficult amidst the chaos and insecurity.
I know my voice is inconsequential in this whole conflict. I can only say that I hope the people in power can put their egos aside, end the suffering, and put the common Haitians’ interests above their own.
I still have hope for a future where normal Haitians can work with dignity, participate in civic institutions without fear, and enjoy the beautiful country they can call their own.
My heart is broken. Some suffering is beyond words.
Much of the information in this post came from the book “Haiti Will Not Perish” By Michael Deibert.
In this vast reductive space, we call the ‘internet,’ all single men can safely be categorized as a simp or a pimp.
A simp is a modern meme that, in the olden days, would likely be described as ‘Nice Guy Syndrome’ or a ‘Beta Male.’ Simps can often be found pining after women who have no interest in them, being excessively nice in the hopes of getting others’ approval, and posting complimentary comments on Instagram to models who have no idea who he is.
As you can tell from the above description, it is not flattering, nor is it something to aspire to. Yet, when browsing the interwebs, it can feel like the simpocalypse has occured.
One may object: “What’s wrong with being a nice guy?” Most single women would tell you the problem with “nice” guys is that they are rarely nice. And more often manipulative.
Unfortunately, the underbelly of the internet provides one other alternative. That is to treat women as an enemy to conquer. In the Andrew Tate world, you use pick-up artist hacks to gain control over women, suppress any weak emotions, and hook up with as many women as you can.
In other words, be a pimp—another less-than-inspiring choice.
If you live in certain Reddit forums or Discord servers, this binary is stark. In real life, you will still find these opinions in lesser forms. I daresay I have been accused of both pimping and simping for partaking in this journey, primarily by men.
A few have dubbed my journey ‘the trail of tears,’ presuming I am traveling the country to break a few hearts and carelessly date around. There is skepticism that quality women would date someone in my position because they would see me as flaky, thrill-seeking, or a player.
Others find it the ultimate simp move. Traveling the country seeking the approval of a woman… oof. They think no quality woman would date a guy who is that desperate.
This dramatic juxtaposition is why the ‘manosphere’ has such a bad reputation. The manosphere is a wide expanse of the internet where men congregate. It includes the aforementioned Discord/Reddit and ranges from Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson to Andrew Tate. Heck, Hikaru Nakamura, a chess super grandmaster who streams chess matches on Twitch, could be tangentially included.
In reality, most men who have dated more than a handful of women have probably pimped or simped mildly at some point. Simpyness and pimpyness are common patterns of behavior, but there are principles that provide a third way.
In dating, the difference between desperation and intentionality is holding to standards based on your values.
The difference between approval-seeking niceness and being actively kind to others is setting firm boundaries.
The difference between pick-up artistry tricks and building a genuine connection is articulating a clear and positive vision for your life.
I have been too harsh to the internet in this post because many podcasters and internet influencers advocate for this third way, and many of them are quite popular.
Ultimately, the root cause of simping and pimping is the same: personal insecurity. If you’re simping, you are trying to compensate for your low self-esteem by being excessively friendly. If you’re pimping, you are hiding yourself behind a mask of indifference because you don’t like the look you see in the mirror.
Life Update: Still loving Austin. It is amazing how many things there are to do here.
Did a Bob Ross painting with some friends. Not bad for someone with no artistic talent.
Reminds me of party I went to in College. Yes this photoshopped picture was actually on the invitation:
The Purpose Driven Date 