Atlanta, GA

February 16, 2026

[NB: The following is excerpted from the Introduction to my new release, Unconventional Wisdom: The Best and Worst U.S. Presidents, now available here.]

Years ago, tired of conventional wisdom and political propaganda, I wrote some sketches of prominent presidents to whom almost everyone pays reflexive homage.

As I did, I realized that the universal admiration (or revulsion) many of these men receive says more about our modern sensibilities than it does of the constitutional merits of any president’s performance.

Most of the men we’re supposed to consider “great” regularly engaged in outright atrocities and undertook actions that in the private sphere would be condemned as criminal. But because these acts were committed from behind a presidential seal, the repulsive policies made “statesmen” of the executives who authorized them.

Likewise, the presidents Court historians least respect are those who held back, respected limits, and deferred to state or legislative authority. Our modern Plutarchs view these men as weaklings who shrank from the moment. Accordingly, they occupy the bottom rungs of the presidential rankings.

Alter-Ego

Everyone likes to compile and argue about lists: Who are the best pitchers of all time? The greatest quarterbacks? Our favorite cities? Best composers? Greatest basketball player? Top movies? Best rock albums? Best winemakers? Favorite books?

These are the debates we love to have, at the bar, over dinner… or in silly essays. In this volume we consult our inner-Schlesinger, and catalog the most worthy and repulsive U.S. presidents. But our inner-Schlesinger is an alter-ego of those Establishment historians… père et fils… who popularized presidential rankings in the 20th century.

Unlike those hagiographers, we are wary of righteous rulers, and contemptuous of those who have all the answers to every problem… most of which they themselves imagined or caused. We want leaders who appreciate their own ignorance and respect their own doubts. We value humility over grandiosity, fidelity above certainty.

We shouldn’t honor presidents per se. Having a holiday for them seems un-American. The annual commemoration had an honorable origin. But, like fine wine at a frat party, it was defiled, diluted, and debased till it finally went bad. It has been perverted from a worthy occasion honoring a great man into a long weekend commemorating an assortment of awful ones.

Subterranean Speakeasy

The third Monday in February is still officially designated Washington’s Birthday, but is known colloquially as “Presidents Day”, as if being president was Washington’s most notable accomplishment.

The best thing he did as president was to stop being president. Voluntarily giving up power after a second term set an admirable precedent, and echoed his earlier act of relinquishing his commission and retiring his sword.

When he did so, King George couldn’t believe it. “If this is true”, said the mad monarch, “then he is truly the greatest man who ever lived.”

Washington was a great man. But was he a great president? Relative to the host of charlatans, hacks, and crooks that infest our own era, he was Solon and Solomon rolled into one. Still…like a subterranean Speakeasy…that’s a low bar.

Our criteria will be loftier, yet simple. We will judge presidents by how well they upheld their oath of office, how much wealth they left untouched, and how few people they managed to kill. That alone should whittle from the list most of the deadwood that’s piled up since Calvin Coolidge.

Let’s start with this disclaimer: I don’t think there should be a president. I am more a fan of the Articles of Confederation than of the US Constitution.

I realize that under the Articles there were eight presidents “under Congress assembled”. But none of them ever presumed to launch a war or meddle in the affairs of individual citizens. We don’t know who they were. Most alive at the time didn’t either. That’s as it should be.

But even under the Constitution, we’d probably be fine if only that moribund document were followed. Alas, it hasn’t been for over a century and a half.

Rouge’s Gallery

Yet that doesn’t let the Constitution off the hook. As Lysander Spooner said, the Constitution either permits what has happened or has been powerless to stop it. Either way, it is unfit to exist.

But it does exist…on paper at least. And it includes a president. Since the Constitution was adopted, there have been forty-five of them (not forty-seven: Grover Cleveland wasn’t two different guys; neither is Donald Trump).

It’s hard to come up with ten good presidents, and difficult to limit ourselves to ten bad ones. Since the branches hang heavy with foul fruit, let’s first relieve the tree of its rotten apples.

A good heuristic when evaluating presidents is that the ones Academia, the Literati, and establishment historians consider “great”…those who are universally admired by both sides of our narrow political spectrum …are almost invariably scoundrels. As Lord Acton said, “great men are almost always bad men.”

Which brings us, in chronological order, to our rouge’s gallery…with a brief explanation of why each reprobate made the roster.

Without further ado, let’s begin the lists, which can be found (with in-depth overviews of each entry on both rosters) in this book (or click image below):

JD

[NB: A few months ago, I completed a Preparation anchor course at the Shelter Institute. One of the readings I assigned myself was De Architectura by Vitruvius. I last read it a few decades ago, at the College of Architecture at Georgia Tech. This is my assessment after absorbing it again.]

Atlanta, GA

February 9, 2026

“We should build beautiful buildings …

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Atlanta, GA

January 13, 2026

About thirty years ago, I started transcribing my thoughts. I was in my twenties, so most were infantile. Over the years, they matured into toddlers.

As if filling a diary, I mostly wrote of mundane events about which only I would care. I occasionally delved into economics, history, and current events (tho’ those tendencies accelerated later). But much of my writing was about where I went.

I never liked most travel guides. They usually emphasized restaurant reviews, tourist attractions, and superlative adjectives for every site.

My interest veered toward where a place had been. How did it get here? Who bequeathed it to us? And what should we think of what’s happened to the inheritance?

As I initially compiled my thoughts for my own recollection, I recently decided I should compile them for posterity. Not that they’re anything “History” would want. But they might be of interest to those closest to me.

The compilation I’ve recently published was initially intended for my family. But anyone might (or might not) welcome my perspectives. Since subscribers have been kind enough to support my work, I wanted to make them aware this book is here.

The volume is an anthology of my historical, economic and cultural observations, insights, and vignettes from various places around the world.

I don’t expect anyone to care about my opinions on any of those things. But since you’ve read this far, perhaps you’d be interested in reading the book.

If not, no hard feelings. I’ll still be here, expressing opinions as occasions arise. I’m just grateful you’re along for the ride.

JD

Atlanta, GA

December 1, 2025

Among the key insights of Austrian economics are that humans act and value is subjective. These observations seem obvious and uncontroversial…essentially truisms. But they’re often forgotten, neglected, or misunderstood.

Each person’s perspective is informed by innumerable variables that influence his values. An Englishman thinks a hundred miles is a long way. An American believes a hundred years is a long time. Is either, neither, or each of them right? Who’s to say?

Would a woman rather receive a diamond ring or a gallon of water? As a former president of Harvard might put it, context matters. Is the lady sitting with her boyfriend on a beach, or stranded alone in the Sahara?

Some of us are willing to jump from a plane. Others can’t bring ourselves to board one. Fear of flying forces many people to drive, which puts them at greater statistical risk of ending up dead.

But they don’t care, even if they know the odds. People making such “illogical” choices are less concerned with probabilities of death than with easing their mind however long they’re alive.

Fair enough. To these people…as with those who toss salt over their shoulders or avoid sidewalk cracks to spare their mother’s back…peace of mind, even if analytically dubious, is worth looking superstitious or silly.

The “Greater Good”

Their choices may seem irrational, but they’re not necessarily unreasonable. Our basket of preferences are a blend of desires and aversions composing a unique recipe for each individual.

This is why a “greater good” is impossible to impose. This elusive concept exists only as an evolving compilation of personal preferences. No one (nor any group of people) can decree what it is, because it can only be known after each person makes uncoerced decisions he thinks will enhance his happiness.

The “greater good” is merely an amalgamation of each individual’s unique desires, which are revealed only thru action, and are otherwise impossible for even their closest friends or nearest relatives to surmise.

Much of the time, we don’t even know them ourselves! That a few elected or appointed officials could know what’s best for millions (or billions!) of people they’ll never meet is preposterous.

Passing laws prohibiting or requiring that everyone conform to an arbitrary “common interest” will require people give up something they value more than whatever edict elected or appointed officials decree.

This doesn’t improve society. It reduces standards of living (except for that of anointed authorities enforcing their own preferences).

The only way to reveal what everyone wants is to leave them free to make choices for themselves. Popular desire is revealed only thru individual decisions reflected in voluntary actions.

No one engages in activities he thinks will make him worse off, regardless whether anyone else would make the same decision.

We do things because we think they’ll improve our circumstances…sooner or later. Each person’s preferences are relative, unique, and fluid over time. If they weren’t, exchange would be impossible.

If everyone valued everything equally, trade could only benefit one party by harming another. But since valuation varies, markets materialize…because participants believe what they give is worth less than what they get. Otherwise, they wouldn’t swap.

An Essential Insight

This is an essential insight, and the key theme of a terrific book. The Secret of Selling Anything is a compilation of a couple unpublished manuscripts investor, philosopher, and two-time presidential candidate Harry Browne wrote in the late 1960s. After half a century, the lessons are timeless and his message endures.

Browne asserts successful selling isn’t about being slick, manipulative, or smooth. The best salesmen needn’t be (and usually aren’t) overly enthusiastic or naturally extroverted.

Nor must they “motivate” their prospects. They merely need to discover what already motivates them. This is done by asking some questions, and understanding a few basic laws of human nature.

Foremost among these is that all humans seek happiness. Everything they do is intended to increase what Browne calls their “mental feeling of well-being”. Individuals take no action without thinking it’ll make them better off.

People are always seeking “profit”, which Browne defines as an increase in happiness by replacing one situation with another. Yet happiness is relative, and resources scarce.

Each person has different desires he thinks will improve his condition, yet no one has infinite time, property, energy, or knowledge to bring endless demand to ultimate fruition.

For unforced exchange to occur, all parties must believe they will profit. In a free market, no one will intentionally sacrifice his happiness to satisfy someone else. He may forgo physical comfort or monetary reward, but only if ceding those pleasures increases his overall contentment.

We must serve others to sustain our lives. Very little of what we need to survive is the exclusive product of our own efforts. That’s especially true for most Americans.

In a higher order civilization dependent on division of labor, exchange is essential. We serve others to receive what we want. The more efficiently we do so, the greater profit (be it financial or psychic) we realize and higher success we attain.

What matters is the value other parties place on the services we provide. How much our offerings are desired is reflected in prices people are willing to pay. And that is part of what salesmen need to sell.

As a corporate pricing professional for a couple decades, I consistently tried to make this point. Regardless how beneficial we think our offering is…or how much effort we expend providing it…if potential customers find it irrelevant or objectionable, they won’t accept it for whatever compensation we seek.

How to Sell Anything

Each person’s happiness depends on the value ultimate consumers place on his services. Whatever any particular production, distribution, sales, or marketing process is worth ultimately derives from the subjective benefit end users receive.

No one buys a product. He buys the solution the product provides. Customers don’t care about a vendor’s lawnmower; they’re concerned about their own lawn.

This is one of the essential precepts of economics, and of Browne’s book. Another is that most people ignore this point, and install their personal preferences in place of what other people want.

Too many entrepreneurs start businesses because they crave status or want wealth. But what matters is how well businessmen can decipher pain points of potential buyers, and how many people they can assist by supplying superior solutions with quality service at reasonable prices.

If they do, all parties will profit by the exchange. To make a sale, we must know what’s in it for the other guy, and why he should want to pay what we choose to charge.

Relationships and commerce are based on mutual advantage. In a free market, no one can get without giving.

Those who understand that can sell anything.

JD

Bath, ME

November 5, 2025

Remember, remember the Fifth of November

The Gunpowder Treason and Plot

I know of no reason

Why the Gunpowder Treason

Should ever be forgot

– John Milton

When King James VI of Scotland became King James I of England, the petitions rolled in. Catholics and Puritans sought royal protection for their practices, and overt favors for their faiths.

James despised both groups. He hated the Calvinists who’d controlled his native Scotland since Knox. And, notwithstanding the mother he never knew, the King expressed “utter detestation” of Catholicism.

On the English throne, he relished his role as head of a subservient church. After an initial relaxation upon claiming his Crown, James resumed persecution of “Papists”, restored recusancy fines on Catholics, and banished Jesuits from the realm.

James instructed his judges to enforce anti-Catholic laws “with all possible severity”. The Elizabethan oppression of the “Roman religion” would apparently persist, and likely intensify, under the Stuart succession.

This prompted a predictable, if misguided, response. After a half century of oppression, several committed Catholics could no longer condone harried lives in perpetual hiding with no hope of relief.

Gunpowder Plot

In May 1605, with Parliament prorogued due to plague, a half dozen or so of the dissidents met in London, and plotted to blow up the building on the day it reconvened.

The plot was discovered and, on November 4, Guy Fawkes was captured in the Westminster Palace cellar, allegedly with gunpowder to be used for the next day’s deed.

He was broken on the rack, and confessed the intended crime. Fawkes was to be hanged, drawn, and quartered, but fell from the scaffold before he could suffer his sentence.

For three centuries, Fawkes was inseparably linked in the English mind to an intractable endemic of Catholic “treason”. For a few hundred years, propaganda against the “Papists” was everywhere, and anti-Catholic laws spread around the realm.

After the plot failed, King James required loyalty oaths of all Catholics, and ordered every priest out of England and Ireland.

Till the the twentieth century, the English celebrated Guy Fawkes Day by execrating Catholics. Until 1854, the Book of Common Prayer contained a Thanksgiving Service for the deliverance of November 5.

To this day, on that evening in England bonfires and fireworks pierce the darkness, sparked by effigies of “guys” that represent a specific villain in their history, and that gave a generic term to our common language. It also influenced a 2005 film that’s pertinent now.

V for Vendetta

V for Vendetta depicts dystopian London in the year 2020 (!), under an Orwellian rule that arose in response to war, terrorism, and a deadly virus (!)…all orchestrated and manipulated by the government itself, as pretext for imposing an oppressive surveillance state.

The historian Will Durant wrote that “there is always, in any society, a minority whose instincts rejoice in the permission to persecute; it is a release from civilization.” V for Vendetta manifests this authoritarian mindset, as do our own daily papers, social media, nosy neighbors, and public officials.

Adapted from a comic book series of the same name, the movie lifts thematic elements from The Count of Monte Cristo, The Phantom of the Opera, and 1984, while prophetically incorporating much of what we’re enduring today and tending toward tomorrow.

With overt intent, the film reflected contemporary events from the time it was made, and anticipated the totalitarian tactics infecting our own. “Terrorism”, torture, war, surveillance, media manipulation, and corporate corruption are taken for granted under a regime that manufactures fear to consolidate power.

The people are complaisant – lowering their voices, hiding their heads, and following their orders. Resistance is futile, and rare…till one night a masked vigilante defends a young woman being accosted after curfew by secret police. He dispenses with the assailants, and saves the girl.

It’s the anniversary of the Gunpowder plot, and the stranger…who wears a Guy Fawkes face and identifies himself only as “V”…asks the young woman to accompany him to a performance he’s about to give. She does, and watches from a rooftop as he destroys a government building to the cadence of fireworks and the 1812 Overture.

V assures her that this was but a precursor to the same night the next year, when he will fulfill the Gunpowder Plot by blowing up Parliament. Meanwhile, he’ll use the intervening twelve months to exact revenge on the political, media, religious, educational, and medical leaders who once used the pretext of an infectious virus to disfigure him and deform society.

Contemporary Parallels

Watching this movie, it’s hard not to sympathize with one man’s hunt for justice, fight for freedom, quest for revenge, and noble search for worthy ideas from behind a mocking mask. The acting is terrific, the cinematography captivating, and the dialog top-notch.

But it is the contemporary parallels that give us pause. A novel virus, false flags, state-induced fear, media disinformation, official obfuscation, electronic surveillance, authoritarian tactics, and public capitulation. It’s all there…as it’s all here.

Clearly, there’s no “V” for whom to vote. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t out there. He could simply be biding his time, sensing his moment will arrive after the results roll in.

JD

Atlanta, GA

August 24, 2025

Last week, we reviewed a unique new book. Today, we recall another work the first one recommends.

Whenever I’m asked what a novice should read as an introduction to economics, I’ve always suggested Henry Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson. For its brevity and clarity, I still do…

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Atlanta, GA

August 17, 2025

“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”

-Robert Heinlein, quoted in The Preparation

In the heat of August, another year slowly melts away. With each solar circumnavigation, standing takes longer, bedtime inches earlier, and loud music inclines us more to call the cops than join the party.

Age can encrust attitudes and harden habits, trapping us in deepening ruts of weary routine. We carve these grooves thru the course of our lives, often in orchestrated trails we’re supposed to take.

Over time, we expect everyone else to follow them too. Without thinking, most of us do.

For several generations, the recommended road has been heavily choreographed: Finish high school, go to college, find a job, get married, buy (i.e., mortgage) a home, have kids, raise them to follow the prescribed path, and retire to Florida after forty years racing rats.

But in recent decades, the conventional career track can seem like quicksand, leaving modern graduates feeling stuck in the mud.

That isn’t their fault.

Unfair Criticism

Like any generation, the latest crop has its foibles and flaws. But criticism they receive is often unfair.

They were born after the wave of post-war prosperity began to break. Today’s college-age students weren’t alive on 9/11. Few remember the Great Recession. But they feel its effects.

Diluted dollars, incessant spending, relentless regulation, unrelenting debt, and collapsing quality have pulverized purchasing power of most Americans. Those who own the least are hit hardest. That includes most young adults.

They don’t bear responsibility for this. Yet they bear the brunt of the burden. Consequences of calamitous covid responses and the rapid upheavals of Artificial Intelligence enlarge the load. But the victims are finally getting wise to the racket.

As they wander into the world, many of them sense they’ve been led astray. Those who stripped the mine gave them the shaft… and now tell them to stop whining as the ladder is lifted.

Not whining is good advice as far as it goes. But more high school graduates are following it while going their own way.

The Guinea Pig

They’re beginning to realize college isn’t for everyone, or even for most.

In certain situations… especially for science, math, or engineering… higher education might make sense. I went that route. So did our sons. One graduated; the other’s halfway there.

Yet many students are misallocating time and resources, accumulating debt to waste four years. Last Fall, I learned of a remarkable young man who shunned university for an unconventional route.

It wasn’t merely the road less travelled. It was one that didn’t exist.

How could it? The path is personal. Anyone taking it must clear it himself. That’s the point. The main obstacle is having the guts to grab a machete.

Maxim Smith did. Now other young men can follow his trail and use his compass.

Maxim’s father is Matt Smith, a serial entrepreneur and brilliant thinker with whom I contributed some essays for Doug Casey last year.

Casey is renowned internationally as (among countless other accomplishments) a philosopher, author, and speculator. For years, he’s contemplated “a radical alternative to college”.

He envisioned compiling his ideas into a book to guide prospective Renaissance Men … by which is meant polymath generalists who specialize in connecting dots. That book is now complete, and was released today.

As technology threatens to render many “secure” careers worthless, The Preparation offers an unconventional alternative in an evolving world. Casey co-authored the book with Matt and Maxim, who’s also the “beta tester” for “The Preparation”… a project launched when Maxim left high school.

Not being interested in college, he sought other options… and decided to try Casey’s approach. As Donald Trump said of his healthcare proposal, it was then more a “concept” than a “plan.”

But Maxim decided to give it a shot, and make it his own. He’d be the guinea pig for whatever this was.

More than a manual of activities replacing a university curriculum, the book pours conceptual concrete that forms philosophical foundations. It mixes development of a “personal code”, the importance of “patrons” (as opposed to “mentors”), and primers on economics, wealth, and how to fund The Preparation without debt… and at a fraction the cost of traditional college.

Only then do the authors chronicle some of Maxim’s experiences that others can emulate. They provide potential “cycles” to select, offer others that may be more appropriate to the reader, and suggest ways to manage mindset while becoming accountable.

Comprising a four-year series of sixteen cycles (e.g., “Medic”, “Pilot”, “Builder”, “Entrepreneur”, “Investor”, “Welder”, “Sailor”, “Survivalist”, “Fighter”, “Farmer”, “Chef”) that each include an “anchor course”, reading recommendations, “fun shit”, extensive travel, and options to earn money along the way, The Preparation is what Matt Smith describes as

“… a spider’s web, each thread representing a competency or connection. The more threads you weave, the stronger your web becomes. Even if one thread breaks, others support you. By contrast, a [corporate] ladder offers no backup; one slip and you fall…. A ladder makes you reliant on a single path. If it breaks, you’re stuck…. By contrast, a web is like a net. Each thread represents a skill, a connection, or an opportunity you’ve created. If one thread breaks, others hold strong, and web continues to function.”

The Preparation was written for young men, but is useful for those of any age. It lays what Matt Smith calls “the building blocks… [of] Character, Virtue, and Capabilities.” The “curriculum” could be accomplished anywhere, and can carry the “student” everywhere.

As Maxim’s experience has proven, the framework instills real skills and genuine confidence thru hands-on experience, international travel, and a global network of accomplished acquaintances.

Designed to broaden horizons by molding morals, invigorating virtue, acquiring skills, and expanding minds, the book inspires introspection, courage, and creativity. To supply additional stimulation, it supplements its cycles with scores of courses, a catalogue of classical music, and an impressive assortment of recommended movies.

Expected expenses are more than manageable, and defined in detail. Most who think The Preparation is accessible only to “rich kids” shouldn’t even be contemplating college.

The Count of Monte Cristo

When Matt told me what his son was trying, I was intrigued... and envious. With his permission, I called Maxim. That was almost two years ago, and I was instantly impressed.

Six months into The Preparation, the eighteen (now twenty) year-old was mature, intentional, curious, and disciplined. He assured me no one would’ve described him that way when he started the program (what he now calls “a way of life”). His father also admitted as much, marveling how quickly Maxim matured into “a different person”.

Maxim and I spoke more than an hour as I delved into what he was doing. He admitted he wasn’t quite sure. But the gist was he’d learn what he could to be ready for anything. He told me his model was the Count of Monte Cristo.

After years wrongly imprisoned in the Château d'If, Edmund Dantès met a learned priest who accidentally tunneled into his cell. The Abbé helped Dantès use his prison time wisely, instilling knowledge and skills to make his protégé “confident, competent, and dangerous.”

This trilogy of attributes comes not from Alexandre Dumas, but from Matt Smith. The notions of confidence and competence seem self-evident. But “dangerous” might take some people aback. It shouldn’t.

Matt describes it not only as the ability to defend oneself, but to think for oneself…to critically assess and question any information received - particularly what we’re told to believe, and especially what we already do. This is dangerous to professional gatekeepers and arbiters who like to corral options and control thoughts.

Three Lists

Maxim started his quest a few months before our call, with a list Doug Casey provided. On it were groups of games (e.g., chess, poker, bridge), activities (foreign languages, musical instruments, martial arts, husbandry, etc.), and occupational skills (sales, entrepreneurship, economics, speaking, writing) with which any well-rounded man should be adept.

He’d already begun expanding his knowledge and acquiring skills. His father owns a ranch in Uruguay, which afforded opportunities to learn horse riding, cattle rustling, fence-building, and erecting a greenhouse.

He also scheduled time each day to lift weights, play chess, read books, write essays, or study the lives of great men. He made me feel like a lazy bum.

My small contribution was recommending the Michel Thomas Spanish courses, which Maxim repeatedly (and graciously) acknowledged in his outstanding Substack.

Maxim initially published his progress to hold himself accountable. But as he accumulated subscribers, responsibility to fulfill his obligation to readers compelled him to post on a regular schedule. By doing so consistently, he’s developed what obviously was an innate talent.

The Preparation is less about setting goals (which can be unintentionally constrained by our limited imaginations) than by identifying traits of the man we want to become, and cultivating the character and capabilities that person would possess.

The Most Important Verbs

The idea is to give young men broad exposure and experience so they understand how the world works, to help make them into what Matt Smith calls “expert generalists.”

Doug Casey observes that in any language, the most important verbs are “be”, “do”, and “have”. But our culture prioritizes them in the wrong order.

We tend to over-emphasize the “have”. But, as Matt put it, this is the least important consideration. If anything, what we have is simply a symptom of how we approach the other two verbs.

A common question most high school graduates get is “what do you want to do?”

But, as Matt said in this interview (he discusses “Be, Do, Have” after the 0:55 mark), that’s the wrong question. The right one wonders what young man wants to be.

Yet that’s rarely asked. Only when it’s answered can anyone identify the character, skills, and knowledge his mental mentor would possess, and develop a plan to acquire those traits.

Few eighteen year-olds know what they want to do (most forty year-olds don’t either). Yet when the question is posed, it implicitly assumes they should.

If the answer is something like “engineer”, doctor”, “scientist”, or “lawyer” (as many kids assume it’s supposed to be), they’re applauded, with the decision reinforced by effusive praise when they pursue a degree from the “right” school.

But what if our rebellious twenty year-old (like most of us, and almost all of them) is unsure? Suppose instead he dips his toe in several ponds…study economics, speak Spanish, learn jiu-jitsu and scuba diving, how to rope and shoe horses, play chess, climb mountains, herd cattle, fight wildfires, fly a plane, engage in regenerative agriculture, and sail from the Falklands round the Horn, after earning certification as an EMT?

This would probably raise more eyebrows than champagne flutes among disapproving elders who insist college is the only way.

Yet these are among the many activities Maxim accomplished since he and I hung up the phone. He’s also become proficient shearing sheep, processing chickens, raising cattle, and butchering cows. In his “spare time”, he reads dozens of books, creates countless videos, and writes scores of articles.

And he’s just turned twenty.

Having chosen Edmund Dantès as his avatar, Maxim picks activities based on who he wanted to be. What he’ll have will take care of itself.

It already is.

The First Cork

Like popping the first cork at an Irish wake, opening one door inevitably cracks the next. By becoming certified as an EMT, Maxim met the man who asked him to fight fires. He spent several months doing so last summer.

That job apparently paid well, and exposed him to other experiences that help guide where he goes next. Regardless what it is, he enters each new chapter with fresh attributes acquired from the last adventure.

Discovering capabilities and people you’d never otherwise find is an underrated benefit of this endeavor. All that’s needed is to get comfortable confronting fear, asking questions, and saying “yes.”

Maxim’s stage of life…with lots of energy, few obligations, and when almost everyone assumes you know nothing and is willing to help…is the ideal time to explore new things. As the book The Defining Decade reminds us, in ten years that won’t be the case.

At that point, there may be a family to feed, a job that can’t be ditched, and expectations among potential mentors that your thirty year-old self has accumulated a few accomplishments and has some idea what he’s doing. They’ll assume anyone who doesn’t by then isn’t serious enough to be worth assisting.

And they’ll probably be right.

JD

Atlanta, GA

Remember, remember the Fifth of November 

The Gunpowder Treason and Plot

I know of no reason

Why the Gunpowder Treason

Should ever be forgot

– John Milton

When King James VI of Scotland became King James I of England, the petitions rolled in. Catholics and Puritans sought royal protection for their practices, and overt favors for th…

Read more

June 10, 2024

Last week we went to a Braves game where Lou Gehrig was honored. For a number of reasons, Gehrig is special. We had a friend who died of his eponymous disease, and have a relative who’s endurin…

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June 5, 2024

Last month, I spent three weeks suffering pneumonia. The only benefit of being out of energy and short of breath is having occasional opportunity to catch up on some reading…whenever persistent …

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Atlanta, GA

Remember, remember the Fifth of November 

The Gunpowder Treason and Plot

I know of no reason

Why the Gunpowder Treason

Should ever be forgot

– John Milton

When King James VI of Scotland became Kin…

Read more

September 30, 2023

[W]e are in process of developing a whole series of techniques, which will enable the controlling oligarchy…to get people to love their servitude.”

-Aldous Huxley

Every country, from the Uni…

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August 24, 2023

“Evil men will burn the world to the ground to rule over the ashes."

-Sun Tzu

From a tree on our property hangs a paper nest. Within and around it are several hundred hornets, a host of bald-fa…

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July 20, 2023

Il faut cultiver nôtre jardin.

- Voltaire, Candide

In a speech re-printed in his wonderful anthology, A Strange Liberty, Jeff Deist recounts the story of philosophers David Gordon and Ronald Hamowy leaving a conference at Stanford University.

A “scraggly-looking person”, hoping for a ride, approached them and asked, “which way are y…

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March 1, 2023

For my parents

who got me out

and on behalf

of all the children

who never did

– Michael Malice, dedicating The White Pill

Years ago, after dinner in Toronto, some colleagues and I went to a bar. When we walked in, I was startled by what I saw. 

Murals of Hitler, Himmler, and Goebbels covered the walls. Swastikas adorned the ceiling. And…

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July 12, 2022

“The level of spending and income in America may be increasing according to government statistics, but if Americans work longer hours than they ever did and their basic nutrition is deteriorating, there must be something seriously wrong with the money they’re using, both as a store and measure of value.”

– Saifedean Ammous, The Fia…

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April 25, 2022

Last week, another brick fell from the wall.

For twenty-four months they’d been mortared into place, two weeks at a time: shelter-in-place, social distance, stay “essential”, swab your nose, work from home, wear a mask, receive a shot, inject another one, get a booster, and follow “the science”.

The masons assured us that the barr…

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Atlanta, GA

Remember, remember the Fifth of November 

The Gunpowder Treason and Plot

I know of no reason

Why the Gunpowder Treason

Should ever be forgot

– John Milton

When King James VI of Scotland became King James I of England, the petitions rolled in. Catholics and Puritans sought royal protection for their practices, if not favors for their…

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May 2, 2020

My wife is marvelous in many ways. 

She is beautiful, intelligent, benevolent…and diplomatic. She can lift her husband’s ego, while keeping his feet on the ground.

Earlier this week, she did both at the same time.

“You should start a blog,” she told him, as his chest expanded and his pride swelled…

…“instead of sending all these email…

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August 10, 2019

I cannot live without books.

– Thomas Jefferson

School is back. Last week David started his first year of high school, Alexander his last. The air, if not the calendar, carries a slight semblance of the season associated with a return to campus. 

Among the more amazing events in a fairly eventful year is that I am able to write th…

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