Rant No. 15: The Drive-Thru Novice

There’s an unspoken contract when you roll into a drive-thru: you keep it moving. You get in line, you glance at the glowing menu board, you make your choice, and when it’s your turn at the speaker box, you order with confidence. That’s the deal and the whole point of a drive-thru.

So tell me why, after waiting in line for ten solid minutes behind a parade of SUVs and pick-up trucks the size of Mount Everest, I get stuck behind the Drive-Thru Novice. The one who, after sitting idle the entire time, suddenly decides this is their moment to start studying the menu like it’s the SAT exam.

“Uh… hmmm… okay… what comes on the cheeseburger?” What comes on the cheeseburger? It’s a cheeseburger! The clue is in the name. Cheese. Same standard condiments as on a hamburger. Done. Yet there they are, grilling the poor teenager on the headset about ingredient lists, portion sizes, and whether the fries are gluten-free. Meanwhile, the rest of us are debating whether it would be faster to abandon ship and go forage in the wilderness for food.

And then comes the panic pivot. After five minutes of indecision, they settle on something. “I’ll have the chicken sandwich.” But as soon as the cashier repeats it back, they backpedal. “Actually… no, wait… do you have wraps? Oh, you do? What kind? Hmm, okay, maybe I’ll go with…” The line is now backed up to the street. Horns are honking. Children are crying. The entire concept of “fast food” is dying a slow, painful death.

Let’s not forget the add-on parade. They finally settle on an order, but instead of letting it ride, they tack on item after item like they’re building a Lego set. “And can I add a small fry? Actually, make that large. Oh, and a shake. Do you still have those seasonal pies? No? Okay, never mind. Wait – do you have apple slices? You do? Okay, throw those in.” At this point, the cashier deserves combat pay.

And then they reach the window. This is when the true performance begins. Out comes the fumbling for the wallet. Digging through the cup holder for change. The “Oh shoot, I think I have a gift card somewhere in here” routine. They’ve had ten minutes in line to prepare, but only now, when the entire operation rests on their payment, do they start rummaging through their belongings like raccoons in a dumpster. Just use a damn credit or debit card like everyone else and have it ready.

By the time they drive off, victory bag in hand, you’re questioning every choice that led you here. And you’re trying not to make eye contact with the car behind you, whose driver is surely debating whether it would be socially acceptable to ram your bumper just to escape. And in a way, you wouldn’t blame him. 

I get that menus and options are big. Sometimes you panic. But the drive-thru is not the place for soul-searching. It is not the place to discover yourself. It is not the place to explore your culinary boundaries. This is a pit stop, not a pilgrimage.

I propose a solution: a drive-thru license test. You have to pass a basic exam before you’re allowed in line. It’s simple. Multiple choice. Question one: You’ve been in line for eight minutes. When do you decide what you want? A) Right now. B) At the speaker box, after much dithering. C) Never, because life is meaningless. The correct answer is A. Fail, and you’re banished from all drive-thrus for six months until you learn how society works.

Maybe even better: separate lanes. One for people who know what they’re doing. One for the novices. The “I need to see a menu first” lane, complete with a holding pen and maybe a life coach to walk them through their order at their own pace. That way, the rest of us can keep civilization running.

Because the drive-thru is sacred, it’s fast food in its purest form. In, out, gone. But when the novices roll in, hemming and hawing, second-guessing, fumbling, and dragging us all down, they betray the one rule that matters most: keep it moving.

So, dear Drive-Thru Novices, respect the line. Study the menu as if it were scripture before you hit the speaker box. Have your money ready. And for the love of cheeseburgers, stop treating the drive-thru like it’s your personal episode of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. No lifelines. No do-overs. Just order and move on.

Why We Crave the Ballpark Dog: The Story of Baseball’s Iconic Snack

With the baseball playoffs down to crunch time, I thought I’d take a look at the humble hot dog and why and how it became a staple at every Major League ballpark. The relationship between baseball and hot dogs is one of America’s great love affairs. For many fans, a trip to the stadium isn’t complete without that first bite of a grilled or steamed frank tucked into a soft, often slightly soggy bun, slathered in mustard, relish, or chili. It’s a culinary tradition so deeply ingrained that Major League Baseball fans consume an estimated 20 million hot dogs annually. But how did this humble German sausage become the undisputed, go-to food of America’s pastime?

The story of the ballpark hot dog is a classic tale of immigrant ingenuity, simple convenience, and a bit of disputed entrepreneurial history, all starting in the late 1800s.

Before they were “hot dogs,” they were simply “frankfurters” or “dachshund sausages.” These cured, seasoned sausages were brought to the U.S. by the massive wave of German immigrants in the 19th century and quickly became popular street food. They were cheap, satisfying, and easy to cook, and they could be sold from pushcarts in bustling urban centers like New York and Chicago.

The critical turning point came when these convenient street snacks were introduced to the burgeoning sports crowds.

The earliest, and often credited, pioneer was Chris Von der Ahe, a German immigrant and the owner of the St. Louis Browns (now the Cardinals). By the 1890s, Von der Ahe, who also owned a popular saloon, started selling his franks to fans at his stadium. He understood that baseball games created a captive audience looking for something quick and affordable to eat while watching the action.

While Von der Ahe may have started the trend in the Midwest, the snack was cemented as an iconic East Coast ballpark staple thanks to another visionary: Harry M. Stevens. A British immigrant, Stevens began his career selling baseball scorecards before transitioning into stadium concessions, where he realized the need for a wider variety of food.

The famous legend involves a cold day in New York City at the Polo Grounds (home of the Giants) around 1901. It was too chilly to sell the usual ice cream, so Stevens had his vendors swap their cold desserts for warm “dachshund sausages.” The vendors supposedly began shouting, “Get your red hot dachshund sausages!”

This is where the name supposedly stuck. A newspaper cartoonist named Thomas Aloysius “Tad” Dorgan was present that day. He observed the scene and drew a cartoon of the vendors selling the sausage, but legend says he couldn’t remember or couldn’t spell the long German word “dachshund.” Instead, he simply captioned his illustration with the now-immortalized phrase: “Get your hot dogs!”

Though the exact origin of the term “hot dog” is still debated – some claim it was used as early as the 1890s to refer to the long, thin sausage – it was Stevens’ concession success and Dorgan’s cartoon that firmly linked the frankfurter, the bun, and the name “hot dog” to the American sporting experience.

Ultimately, the hot dog’s enduring popularity is no accident of history; it is the perfectly engineered stadium snack. It’s a complete meal (I didn’t say a particularly healthy one) of protein, bread, and condiments, perfectly packaged for consumption while seated, requiring zero utensils.

Vendors can quickly prepare and sell hundreds of them, which can be easily hawked through the stands, minimizing the time a fan has to spend away from the game. Unlike the latest trendy craft beer or burger, the hot dog is a timeless baseball classic. It links generations of fans, evoking a deep sense of tradition, summer, and the simple joy of a day at the ballpark.

From St. Louis to Fenway Park and beyond, the hot dog became a standardized, dependable part of the baseball experience, providing warmth and fuel on a chilly night or a salty, comforting bite on a hot afternoon. So, the next time you hear the vendor yell, “Hot dogs! Get your hot dogs here!” remember you’re not just buying a sausage in a bun – you’re participating in a delicious, long-time American tradition.

Rant No. 14: The “Reply All” Abuser

There’s a special kind of chaos that comes when one person, with a single misguided click, detonates the nuclear option in email communication: the dreaded Reply All.

We’ve all been there. You’re minding your own business, sipping coffee, trying to plow through your inbox, when suddenly a little ping announces itself. Fine, an email. Then another ping. Then another. And suddenly, your inbox is lighting up like a pinball machine because some careless soul who should know better hit ‘Reply All’ instead of ‘Reply’.

At first, you think maybe it’s useful. Perhaps it’s an important update. Possibly the original sender intended to gather everyone’s input. You’re optimistic. But no. What you get instead is a tidal wave of “Thanks!” “Got it!” “Sounds good to me!” – each one sent to the entire distribution list of 87 people.

This is the email version of standing in a crowded theater and applauding every time someone sneezes. Nobody asked for this, and nobody needs it. Yet here we are, watching our productivity sink while the dopamine meter in some Reply All addict’s brain lights up because they just had to show they’re engaged.

And don’t even get me started on the “unsubscribe” guy. Every Reply All storm has one. Some poor soul, already annoyed, decides to fight back by replying to the entire list: “Please remove me from this chain.” Congratulations, you’ve now multiplied the problem. Instead of quietly suffering, we all get to witness your futile cry for help. And you know what happens next? Someone replies to that with “Same.” Then another person chimes in: “Me too.” Now the fire has jumped to the next building.

But the real pièce de résistance? The mistaken reply that should’ve been private. I once saw someone send their catered lunch order – “I’ll have the turkey on rye with extra mayo, and the vegetable soup” to 37 people. Another time, half the company was treated to a rant about a boss because the employee had forgotten they weren’t just sending it to their friend; they were sending it to the VP, the entire department, and the folks down in IT.

Email is supposed to be functional. It’s not a town hall meeting or open mic night. If the original message wasn’t explicitly addressed to you with a question, odds are, you don’t need to hit Reply All. Yet every office, every organization, every community listserv has that one person who treats Reply All like it’s their personal megaphone.

And it doesn’t stop with offices. Community boards, volunteer groups, fantasy football leagues — if there’s a mass email list, there’s a Reply All abuser lurking. It’s like they can’t help themselves. They see the button, and their finger just twitches toward it, like a moth to a flame.

I honestly believe this deserves consequences. Forget email etiquette seminars. Those clearly don’t work. I’m talking real punishment. You hit Reply All twice in a week? You’re automatically signed up for an “Introduction to Boundaries” workshop and deducted one day’s pay. Three times? That’s it – banished to BCC-only purgatory where your messages are filtered into the void until you’ve earned back society’s trust.

I’m not saying we need to end Reply All entirely. It has a place. Occasionally, it’s necessary to coordinate to ensure everyone is literally on the same page. But the keyword there is occasionally. Not for “Got it.” Not for “Thanks.” Not for “Me too.” And definitely not for “I’ll have the turkey on rye.”

The next time you feel the urge to hit Reply All, ask yourself: Does every single person in this chain really need to know what I’m about to say? If the answer is no, then spare us all the suffering. Click Reply. Just Reply. Do it for your coworkers. Do it for your sanity. Do it for the greater good.

Because when you hit Reply All without cause, you’re not just adding clutter to an inbox. You’re declaring, loudly and proudly, that your need to be seen outweighs 87 other people’s need for peace. And frankly, that deserves less of a thank-you and more of a slow clap – the sarcastic kind.

Struggle and Why Some People Don’t Know What It Means

I’ve always had a complicated relationship with the word struggle. Real struggle is grinding away at something with no guarantees, scraping by when the payoff is uncertain, and getting judged for it along the way. What pisses me off is when people who’ve never had to deal with any of that toss the word around casually, as if late-night gaming in their childhood bedroom counts as hardship. 

I know guys who lived at home well into their thirties, with mom still folding laundry and making sandwiches. Their biggest struggle was deciding what kind of jam to put on toast or deciding where to get their oil changed. When they finally moved out, it wasn’t because they were financially independent. It was because they got married, and their wife stepped into the role their mother had always filled. That’s not independence – that’s just trading caretakers. And if they were doing well financially, it’s because they paid only a modicum of rent while living at home, and meals were free – they had never gone grocery shopping in their life.

What really stings is how differently people view those who actually do step out and take risks. In 2000, after a downsizing, I returned to school through a government program designed to help individuals upgrade their skills. The deal was simple: they paid a modest income for the year, and the course fees, but I couldn’t take a side job or I’d lose the funding. So I stuck to the rules. And yet the rumors started: “He has afternoons off, he could be working.” Lazy. Unmotivated. Taking advantage. None of it is true. I spent afternoons doing homework online. 

Later, when I was building my freelance business in the early 2000s, it was the same thing. Long days of pitching, writing, barely scraping by – and the whispers came back: “He should just get a real job.” It’s funny how people respected my ex-father-in-law when he built his electrical contracting business from scratch after being downsized, struggling through lean years with his wife and three young kids at home. That was noble. That was grit. But when I went through lean years doing the same with my now ex-wife and one (step)son? Lazy. Doesn’t want to work. A loser.

Then, of course, when I landed the PGA Tour Americas job, along with its affiliates, numerous major magazine features on contract, and later Christie, suddenly I had “cool jobs.” The very people who dismissed and disparaged me before suddenly wanted a piece of it – some corporate swag, free tickets to a golf tournament, deeply discounted green fees, or golf paraphernalia. And I’ll be honest: part of me wanted to tell them all to screw off.

That’s the thing – no one sees the grind. No one sees the sweat, the rejection, the late nights at the desk when you’re not sure how you’ll pay the bills next month. They only see the highlight reel, not the bloopers.

Rome wasn’t built in a day, but people seem to forget that Rome wasn’t built in silence, either. There were years of scaffolding, labor, and setbacks. The same goes for business – whether it’s Ray Kroc finding McDonald’s in his fifties, Dave Thomas flipping burgers before Wendy’s, or Colonel Sanders hauling his chicken recipe around and getting rejected a thousand times. Everyone celebrates the billion-dollar outcome, but no one wants to watch the part where you’re living in a cramped apartment, doubting yourself, and wondering if you’ll ever catch a break.

That’s the invisible grind. And if you’ve never lived it, you don’t get to talk down to those who have.

There’s nothing wrong with stability. If you lived at home into adulthood, that’s your story. If your wife became “mom 2.0,” that’s your story. If you never moved more than a few blocks from where your parents still live and the familial tit to one extent or another, fine. But don’t call it a struggle. And don’t diminish people who’ve taken the harder road, because you’ve never walked it.

The difference is simple: some people live without a safety net. Some don’t. Only one of those groups knows what it feels like to struggle. Truly struggle. 

Maybe I shouldn’t care what the “baby bottle of home” crowd thinks. But I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t still nag at me sometimes. Judgment has a way of sticking, especially when it’s unfair. What I’ve come to realize, though, is that respect doesn’t come from them – it comes from the grind itself. From getting up, showing up, and pushing forward anyway. From knowing that the work I’m doing now – researching, writing, editing, delivering – is mine. Built by me, not handed to me.

In the end, maybe that’s the point. Struggle isn’t about appearances. It isn’t about rumors. It isn’t about who cheers you on. It’s about the unglamorous middle – the scaffolding years no one wants to look at or thinks about. 

That’s where the truth is and where respect should live.

Rant No. 13: Why Do People Have to Make Everything So Complicated?

Have you ever noticed how the simplest things in life somehow become the most unnecessarily complicated? I swear, half my frustration these days doesn’t come from “big problems.” It comes from companies, people, and situations that overthink something that should have been easy.

Think about buying something online. You’d think clicking “Add to Cart” would be simple, right? Wrong. Suddenly, you’re trapped in a labyrinth of upsells, pop-ups, and warranty add-ons, with the question: “Do you want to protect this $12 item for only $4.99 a month?” Excuse me? No, I don’t need a lifetime guarantee for my spatula. Just let me check out without feeling like I’m negotiating an international trade deal.

Another thing: customer service that doesn’t actually serve. You call a company, desperate to talk to a human being, and you get the robot menu of doom: “Press 1 for billing. Press 2 for technical support. Press 3 to go slowly insane.” You pick an option, wait on hold for what feels like forever with distorted elevator music, and then get disconnected.

When you finally reach a human, they transfer you three more times because apparently no one is allowed to answer a straightforward question anymore. By the time you resolve the issue – if you even do – you’ve wasted an entire afternoon and lost faith in humanity.

Let’s talk packaging. Why does everything come encased in plastic strong enough to withstand a nuclear blast? You buy a pair of scissors, and you need another pair of scissors to open them. That is peak irony. Half the time I end up with sore hands, cut fingers, and a newfound respect for whoever invented dynamite, because that’s what it feels like you need to get into these packages.

Work isn’t safe either. Nothing screams “pointless” like a meeting scheduled to plan another meeting. Half the time, the actual issue could have been solved in a two-line email. Instead, you sit there for an hour while people circle the same three points like vultures waiting for something to drop dead. By the time the meeting ends, the only thing accomplished is setting the date for the next one.

And can someone explain why every gadget now needs an app? My toaster doesn’t require Bluetooth. I don’t need push notifications about my bagel. Not everything has to be “smart.” Some things should just do their job quietly without demanding Wi-Fi and a software update.

What really sets me off is this: somewhere along the way, we forgot that life works better when simple things stay simple. Create a password, check out with your groceries, speak with a real person, open a package, send a quick message, and toast your bread. None of these should feel like climbing Everest.

But here we are: frustrated, overcomplicated, and wasting time on nonsense that could’ve been avoided if people just stopped trying to reinvent the wheel every five minutes.

Why Your Own Best Work Never Feels Good Enough

It’s a familiar feeling for many creative professionals: the work you’ve poured your heart and soul into – the piece that has garnered praise from clients, readers, and colleagues – is the one you can’t stand to look at. You get compliments, accolades, and even a paycheck, but a nagging voice in your head tells you it’s flawed, incomplete, or simply not as good as it could be. If you’ve ever felt this way, you’re not alone. This is a common experience among writers, photographers, designers, and artists, and it’s a feeling that can be both maddening and surprisingly productive.

The core of this paradox lies in the unique relationship between a creator and their creation. For a writer, a photographer, or any other artist, a project isn’t just a task; it’s an extension of themselves. It’s born from an idea, shaped by countless decisions, and brought to life with a mix of skill and raw passion. When it’s finally complete, the creator is left with a finished product they are too close to to ever see objectively.

A major reason we dislike our own work is the gap between vision and reality. In your mind, the idea is perfect. It’s a flawless concept, a masterpiece of form and function. But the moment you start translating that vision into reality – whether it’s with words, a camera, or a brush – it inevitably falls short. You see every imperfect sentence, every missed shot, the one spot on the canvas that to you only, screams, Too much lime green! You see every detail that didn’t quite capture the magic of the original idea. A reader or viewer sees the finished product and is impressed, but you see a lesser version of the thing you imagined.

This is a powerful and persistent source of dissatisfaction. The image you had in your head of a flawlessly composed photo, for example, is the standard against which you judge the final, published version. You notice the slight blur at the edge, the imperfection in the lighting, or the minor detail you couldn’t quite capture. These tiny flaws, invisible to an outside observer, loom large in your own mind. You picked a photo for an article, and your editor chose a different one, so you end up cursing yourself. Yet, eight times out of ten, they go with the same photo you chose, and somehow it gets dismissed in your mind. 

As the creator, you’re cursed with an intimate knowledge of your work’s entire history. You know the backstory of every decision. You know what you had to cut for word count, the shortcuts you took to meet a deadline, and the parts you rewrote a dozen times because they just weren’t working. This behind-the-scenes knowledge makes it impossible to see the final product with fresh eyes.

For example, a client may rave about a photograph you took, but all you see is the frustration you felt trying to get the lighting right, or the dozen other shots that didn’t work out. This “curse of knowledge” is why many creative people rarely review their own work once it’s published. The thought of revisiting it is painful because it means reliving the struggle, and ugh, the editor changed a couple of things – which is their right. 

Another powerful force at play is imposter syndrome. This is the feeling that you’re a fraud who will one day be “found out.” No matter how many compliments you receive, how many pieces you get published in major magazines, or how many clients tell you your work is exceptional, you still feel like a fake. You attribute your success to luck or to the kindness of others, rather than to your own talent and hard work.

This is especially common in creative fields, where success can feel subjective and intangible. Unlike a job where you can measure your performance with clear metrics, the value of creative work can feel abstract. When a major publication chooses your photo, it’s objective validation, but the imposter in you says, “They must not have had any other options.”

Many creative people are also perfectionists, and their high standards are a double-edged sword. On one hand, it’s what pushes you to excel. It’s what makes you a meticulous writer who hates mistakes, even a simple typo. This attention to detail is a major reason for your success.

On the other hand, perfectionism can be paralyzing. The fear of making a mistake can lead to overworking a piece, or worse, to an inability to appreciate a work that is already excellent. When you’re a professional, the occasional typo or missed edit is an inevitable part of the process. It’s why publications have multiple rounds of editing. But to a perfectionist, that one small error can overshadow the entire piece, making it feel like a complete failure.

The kind of work you do can also affect your feelings. If you’re a professional writer who has worked for years without a byline, the shift back to bylined articles is a significant change. When you ghostwrite, the work is for the client, and your personal emotional investment is lower. But when your name is on the page, you take full ownership. Your success and your flaws feel personal.

The nervousness you’re experiencing with a new client, especially after a career transition, is a normal reaction. It’s a natural part of a professional who cares deeply about their reputation and their craft. The fact that a new editor told you your first piece was “ready to publish as is” with minimal edits is a powerful sign that your skills are already aligned with their needs. The nervousness you feel is simply the stress of adapting to a new system—a feeling that will fade with time and continued success.

Ultimately, the key is to recognize that your self-criticism is not a flaw; it’s a symptom of a highly developed creative mind. The drive to be better, to fix every imperfection, is what makes you good at what you do. The paradox of the creative professional is that the thing that makes you your own worst critic is also the engine that makes you so good at your job. So, next time you’re tempted to tear your own work apart, take a moment to be proud of the professional who created it in the first place. You’ve earned it.

Why Do We Avoid What Makes Us Feel Good?

It’s one of life’s great contradictions: we know what lifts us, what fuels us, what makes us feel whole – yet somehow we drift away from it. We avoid it, procrastinate around it, or convince ourselves it can wait. And then we wonder why the gremlins in our head get louder.

I’ve noticed this in two areas of my life more than anywhere else: spirituality and productivity. Both give me fuel and steady me. Both keep my thoughts from spiraling. And yet, I can go days or weeks stepping around them instead of stepping into them.

As mentioned in a previous entry, when I’m spiritually connected – whether through prayer, scripture, or fellowship – I feel grounded and feel like I am moving forward. It’s not about being perfect or having all the answers. It’s about being reminded that there’s more to life than my frustrations, more to me than my bank balance or to-do list.

But it’s easy to fall off. A missed spiritual service here, an “I don’t feel like it” there, and suddenly it feels like I’m outside looking in. And the strange thing is, when I’m spiritually low, I don’t rush back to what I know helps. I avoid it. Maybe it’s guilt. Perhaps it’s pride. Maybe it’s the nagging voice that says, You failed, why bother going back now?

Yet the truth is simple: every time I return, I feel better. Every time I reconnect, I wonder why I stayed away. But the cycle repeats because being human means sometimes we resist the very medicine we need.

The same thing happens with productivity. When I’m engaged in meaningful work – such as outreach, writing, or making connections – I feel lighter. Even if the pressures are still there, they don’t weigh as much. My mind stays occupied with purpose instead of gnawing at itself.

But there’s a difference between being busy and being productive. Busy is noise. Productivity is progress. Being busy can exhaust you without feeding you. Productive leaves you tired but satisfied.

And still, I avoid it. I’ll sink into overthinking instead of outreach. I know that action is what brings clarity, that motivation begins once you start, and not before. But sometimes I let inaction steal hours or even days that could be used for outreach. And the thing is, outreach doesn’t really take all that much time. Again, the cycle: I avoid what makes me happy. So why do we do this? Why do we pull away from what we know helps?

Part of it is fear. If I pray, what if nothing changes now or in the future? What if God has shut the door on me because there have been times I’ve been angry and vented at him? If I work, what if the effort still isn’t enough? It’s easier to hover in avoidance than to risk disappointment.

Part of it is habit. It’s amazing how quickly inertia takes over. Miss a spiritual meeting once it feels awkward. Miss it three of four consecutive times, and it feels harder. Stop doing outreach for a week; it feels impossible to restart. The longer we avoid, the heavier the return feels.

And part of it is that small, stubborn voice inside that resists discipline. The part of us that says, I’ll do it tomorrow. I’ll get serious later. Later, of course, rarely comes.

Here’s what I keep learning and re-learning. The key isn’t waiting for motivation. The key is action. Do the small thing: open the scripture, send the email, write the first line. When I do that, the fog lifts. The gremlins quiet down.

It’s not about building elaborate systems or tracking everything on a spreadsheet. In fact, sometimes that backfires and just reminds me of all the “failures.” It’s about doing the next right thing, no matter how small. A prayer. A note. A pitch.

And when I fall off? The trick is not to waste more time beating myself up. Just step back on, even if it’s clumsy, even if it’s late, because spirituality and productivity aren’t punishments or chores. They’re gifts. They’re what actually make me happy.

Maybe the real lesson isn’t that I “never learn.” Perhaps it’s that I have to keep learning. Life keeps distracting, discouraging, and derailing. My job is to continually return to God, to meaningful work, and to the habits that bring me peace.

Because at the end of the day, the mystery isn’t why these things make me happy. The mystery is why I keep walking away from them. And the answer, I think, is simply that I’m human. Imperfect, flawed, stubborn. However, I’m still capable of returning, starting again, and finding joy in the things I once resisted.

Working Through the Fog

This week, I’ve been doing the work, but I haven’t been feeling it. You know that difference, don’t you? When the motions and mechanics are there – emails sent, words typed and submitted, and based on the feedback, gold star work, appointments set, boxes ticked – but there’s a hollowness behind it, almost like I’m watching myself from the outside.

I can’t even put my finger on what’s wrong. Nothing catastrophic has happened. The bills are still due, the deadlines are still there, the freelance pay will arrive in my account when it’s time (but man, am I ever impatient, especially at the end of the month), and life hasn’t thrown me a curveball big enough to explain the weight. And yet, something inside me feels muted.

Sometimes the hardest part is not quite knowing why. If I could say, “Oh, I didn’t sleep last night” or “I’m stressed about that one thing,” at least it would have a name. But when it’s just a vague heaviness, I start to question myself. Why am I like this? Why can’t I snap out of it?

That self-questioning only deepens the fog. It makes the day feel longer, the work feel heavier. And it’s frustrating, because I want to care (and deep down, I do, which keeps me going and prevents me from missing deadlines, as my professionalism always kicks in). I want to feel fired up. But the spark just isn’t catching. Perhaps I do know what’s wrong, but I don’t want to admit it. My spirituality has been lacking this week. I mean, nothing at all this week, which doesn’t help and makes matters worse. 

However, what’s been helping me is breaking things into tiny steps. Not “write the article.” Just “open the file.” Not “tackle the whole to-do list.” Just “pick one thing.”

It’s almost comical how tiny I make it. But it works. Because in the middle of this mental drag, a small start feels possible. And once I start, momentum usually comes in.

This week has also reminded me to stop expecting my best on my worst days. I wouldn’t demand a friend to perform at 100 percent if they admitted they were struggling. So why do I demand it of myself? The fog will pass eventually, but beating myself up won’t make it pass any faster.

There are little lifelines I’ve grabbed, such as stepping outside for air on day three without any sun (maybe that’s another reason why I feel shitty – no sun), walking around the block, blasting a song that shakes me awake for three minutes. Sometimes I even talk it out loud to myself: “I’m not feeling it today, but I’m here anyway, grinding it out.” It sounds silly, but voicing it makes me feel less trapped inside it.

The biggest comfort is remembering that one bad stretch doesn’t define me. A foggy week doesn’t erase years of work or progress. It’s just a patch of road I have to walk through. And maybe that’s the lesson: sometimes we’re not meant to sprint, or even jog. Sometimes we just keep moving, step by step, until the heaviness fades.

This week hasn’t been about brilliance. It’s been about endurance. And that, in its own quiet way, is enough.

Why the Creative Mind Both Thrives and Suffers

It’s always struck me how many of the world’s greatest artists carried heavy shadows. Charles Schulz, creator of Peanuts, often battled depression. Hemingway’s brilliance came with darkness that eventually swallowed him. Beethoven poured both fury and beauty into his music while fighting deafness and despair. And that list could stretch for pages, featuring writers, painters, actors, and musicians, all leaving legacies marked by both genius and struggle.

Why is it that so many creative people wrestle with what we now call mood disorders? Is it a coincidence, or is there something in the creative mind that makes the highs higher and the lows lower?

If there’s one common thread among creatives, it’s sensitivity. We notice things others don’t. The slight hesitation in someone’s voice. The way light filters through blinds. The rhythm of a city street. That sensitivity is the engine of creativity, allowing us to capture truth in words, images, or sound.

But heightened perception cuts both ways. It means joy can be ecstatic, but sadness can feel crushing. Where others shrug off a slight or a setback, a creative mind might carry it for days.  I don’t know how many times I’ve been creative and productive while in the throes of mental health struggles.

There’s also the way we think. Most people swipe a credit card and forget about it. I’ve read about, memorized, and internalized what actually happens in those milliseconds behind the scenes: the authentication, the bank checks, the virtual handshake between machines, “Yeah, he’s good for it.” Ninety-nine percent of people don’t know or care how it all works. 

That relentless curiosity – a desire to understand how everything works – fuels creativity. It’s the drive that makes us dig until we hit something deeper. But it also makes us prone to overthinking. Instead of letting thoughts pass, we endlessly turn them over, analyzing them from every angle until they feel “right.” But they seldom do unless we force our mind to shift elsewhere by sheer act of will. A small problem becomes a sprawling labyrinth.

I’ll give a recent example. I was posting a story for a client and spent over an hour deciding which image they provided would be the main one. I had a choice of four and went back and forth many times. Is this the right one? The background is a touch fuzzy. Is this the better one – yeah, but it doesn’t tell exactly what I want – almost, but not quite. And on it went. Actually, any of them were acceptable to the editor but even after publication (and I did make the right choice, judging by what went live), I was like, “Well, you know, this one …” No wonder my hair started going gray in my twenties. It would likely have been worse had they been my own photos instead of the submitted ones. I don’t usually go quite as far as I did this time, but on occasion, I do. 

For many creatives, it’s not enough for something to simply work; it has to mean something. Schulz didn’t just draw a boy, the neighborhood kids, and his dog; he created a world where loneliness, longing, and hope lived side-by-side with laughter. Hemingway’s prose wasn’t only about fishing trips or war – it was about isolation, courage, and the cost of being human. Beethoven didn’t write music just to fill silence; he poured his soul into symphonies that still make us feel his struggle centuries later.

When your craft depends on plumbing emotional depths, you don’t just dip your toe in the water; you dive. And sometimes, you stay under too long.

Creatives often feel “different.” We see the world at a slant. That’s part of what allows us to bring fresh perspectives, to notice the absurdities, to challenge the obvious. But difference can be isolating. The sense of being on the outside looking in can spark art but it can also feed a part of you that is never fulfilled and probably never can be.

Isolation is fertile ground for mood struggles. The more time we spend in our own heads, the easier it becomes to spiral out of control. And yet, paradoxically, that same sense of otherness is what gives our work its edge.

Of course, it’s not all philosophical. Science has weighed in, too. Studies have shown links between creativity and mood disorders. Creative brains often show irregular patterns in dopamine regulation, higher activity in regions tied to rumination, and sleep cycles that don’t match the rest of society’s. In plain terms: the same wiring that allows a creative leap can also destabilize mood. It’s like running a race car engine. The power is incredible but it’s also more prone to breakdowns.

So what do we make of all this? Should we envy those who “never seem to get down,” the ones who appear steady no matter what? Maybe. But maybe not. Because those who don’t feel the lows may also never experience the same highs.

The creative mind thrives in tension. We suffer because we feel deeply but we create for the very same reason. Our art stems from sensitivity, from analysis, from the relentless search for meaning, from the outsider’s perspective, and even from our neurochemistry. The struggle isn’t separate from the creativity; it’s interwoven with it.

Like John Nash in A Beautiful Mind (the movie version), we learn over time to practice a “diet of the mind” and choose which thoughts to feed, which to starve. It’s not perfect. The shadows don’t disappear. But with practice, the creative learns to live with them, even to turn them into fuel.

The next time you think of Schulz, Hemingway, or Beethoven, don’t see only the suffering. See how they channeled it. They didn’t escape their struggles, but they transformed them into art that continues to move us.

And that’s the quiet truth about creatives: we don’t just endure the lows. We convert them. The same mind that spirals can also rise, create, and leave behind something that helps others feel less alone. That’s not weakness, that’s alchemy.

When Silence Becomes a Necessity

I don’t know exactly when it happened. Somewhere in the last couple of years, I went from tolerating the usual everyday noise of kids running around and doing laps in an establishment, stomping their feet while their parents do nothing, music playing a bit too loud, and a crowded room humming with conversation, to being flat-out sensitive to it. Now, I long for dead quiet. It’s as if my whole nervous system has decided it’s had enough of the clatter and wants to retreat to a monastery in Tibet or become a complete recluse. 

The list of irritants is growing. Kids screaming and stomping around in restaurants and libraries. Cars blasting music as they roll down the street. People eating like pigs, slurping and chomping with no regard for others. Others talking so loud so they can be heard in the next county. Crowds that once felt lively now feel suffocating. Even background music in stores, which I used to tune out, can grate on me. I catch myself wondering: when did I get this way? Am I turning into the cranky old man yelling, “Get off my lawn,” or is there something deeper going on?

For most of my life, noise was just part of the atmosphere. You dealt with it, maybe rolled your eyes, and moved on. Now, it’s like every sound cuts closer to the bone. I’ve read that as people age, their tolerance for noise can decrease. Our hearing changes, our stress levels compound, and what we once brushed off becomes a trigger. But it feels like more than just age. It feels personal, like my system is begging for peace after years of overstimulation. Interestingly, years ago, before we were all connected, a column in the Globe and Mail addressed how someone actually looked forward to winter. Why? Because everything was quieter. Car windows were rolled up, not down. People on the street were scarce because of the cold, and, yes, people actually seemed to have more common courtesy during the colder months.

The last few years, marked by COVID-19, uncertainty, financial strain, and the endless churn of news (which I don’t indulge in much), have made me crave control. And since I can’t control the big things, I latch onto the small. Noise becomes the intruder I can identify and resent, the thing standing between me and a sense of calm.

And yet, life rarely offers silence. It’s a scarce commodity and is becoming more so all the time. Even campsites have turned into music festivals where several visitors crank the tunes until well past the 11 p.m. curfew on noise. Which means I either have to fight for it or adjust my expectations. It’s likely the latter, and I know the traumatic events I have experienced, one piled on top of another in short order, have definitely made me more sensitive when it comes to noise. Believe me, when you are going through a major adverse event, you crave silence to regroup.

Here’s the other piece: noise isn’t always just about sound. Sometimes, it represents what I dislike in people. Kids shrieking in restaurants? It’s not the sound alone – it’s the parents who don’t step in. Music blaring from cars? It’s the self-absorption of thinking everyone else wants to hear it. People eating with their mouths open, their phones on speakerphone, and their loud conversations (which may in part be due to the foreground music in restaurants now)? It’s a lack of basic respect that I know is gone for good. So, the sensitivity isn’t just to decibels – it’s what the noise says about the world around me.

Crowds once meant energy and togetherness. Now, they can feel like chaos, each voice demanding space in a room that’s already full. Maybe it’s because I’m at a point in life where I value quality over quantity: fewer people, fewer conversations, fewer obligations. More quiet moments, more meaningful interactions, more room to just relax and exist without the noise from the (un) civilized world.  

I don’t think I’ll ever love noise again. But I can learn how to live with it. Noise-canceling headphones help. So does walking in nature, where the sounds are gentler. Those sounds don’t irritate me; they soothe me. They remind me that not all noise is bad. Some of it reconnects you to life, rather than draining you.

I’ve also realized I can control more than I thought I could. I can choose where I sit or go. I can avoid peak hours. I can take breaks from crowded environments without feeling guilty about needing space. Most importantly, I can recognize that my sensitivity is a signal, not a flaw. It’s my mind and body saying, “Enough. You need a break. You need peace.”

Strangely, this new sensitivity has made me appreciate silence in a way I never did before. A quiet morning. A still afternoon. Even the brief pause between passing cars. Those moments feel like gifts now, slices of calm in a noisy world.

Maybe that’s the lesson. Noise will always be there: kids talking non-stop, music, crowds, life carrying on. But silence? Silence is precious. And when you finally notice how much you need it, you stop taking it for granted.