Smock Blogs

I went to bed early last night, hopeful. As a A Man Of A Certain Age, that’s not terribly unusual, and with the time change, I’m following the majority of voters in this country into the 19th century, except I’m just ready to go to sleep when the sun goes down, and they’re ready it to be 1859, or whenever they think this country was last great.

My own Wayback Machine is taking me to 2016 and another November in a country where the isolationist policies of the last Trump administration led directly to its precipitous downfall, albeit with extensive help from every other American president that fomented the multi-decade debacle that was Afghanistan.

Stepping out of the machine, it’s the last time the United States elected a fraudulent xenophobic racist misogynistic caricature of character to the highest office in the land, and it’s Wednesday morning in Kabul.

The results of the 2016 national election are coming in, and while Trump’s racist rhetoric is still in its early dog whistle iteration, there are clear signs that the man has plans for anyone not as white as himself, which given his penchant for color matching his tanner with safety vests, is a level of irony previously unmatched by American political candidates.

I’m stopped by one of the staff, a young man who’d been accepted into a visa-based education program in the United States, who asks me what Trump’s election will mean for him, as an Afghan trying to provide a better life for himself and his family by taking advantage of what he believes America can offer him.

I tell him then what I’d tell him now: I don’t know what that would mean for him. There’s things I could speculate about, conjecture I could offer, prognostication that would only serve to further my own worries and fears, because like him, I woke up this morning to a world I knew was there, but was still playing the odds that I was wrong, and that’s my privilege.

“Not the odds, but the stakes,” is how Jay Rosen, a journalism professor at New York University, hoped the media would cover the 2024 campaign, making it not about the horse race (another phrase we can thank Rosen for), but what’s at stake for American democracy as a result of this election.

Which looks to be a landslide for a party led by a sundowner devoid of plans for the future, who only ran this time out of spite, leading a cadre of evangelical nationalists who think a woman’s right to choose is the greatest evil, followed closely by transgender persons wanting to exist at all.

This is the first election where I voted the stakes, not the odds. Not that my vote changed, just the reason for ticking the boxes that I did. There’s little at stake for me personally, because as a cisgender heterosexual college educated middle aged man so white it’s like they animated a stack of paper plates, I’m probably going to be fine, which statement that I’m making through the typing equivalent of gritted teeth, because for people I know and care about deeply, they don’t know that they’re going to be fine.

For them, they can only hope that Trump does what he did the last time around: fail to keep his campaign promises, running on the mantra “Promises made, promises kept,” except that this time he’s made it clear that he’s going to use his office for retribution, something made easier if the GOP controls both the House and the Senate, a likely outcome as I’m writing this.

Trump 2024 isn’t about making American great again, it’s about going after all those that slighted him in any way, which should be easy, because most of those people work for him now, from his Vice President to wherever Megyn Kelly ends up in this administration.

Rightly, there will be cries to get rid of the electoral college, and if that’s all this was, I’d feel better about my fellow Americans, but the 47th president of the United States won the popular vote. That’s going to take a while to sink in for those of us for whom privilege is something they can take away, because we were born to it.

For those who will be most affected by what Trump has planned in Project 2025, they knew that already. They knew that while yes, there are allies, those that want genuine diversity, equity, and inclusion, they knew that this country was founded by those for whom power was the point. It wasn’t just about throwing off an empire’s tyranny, but about making the space to build tyranny of their own.

Don’t ask me what this means, ask them. Ask your migrant neighbors. Find your LGBTQIA+ friends, they’ll tell you. And if finding any of those people is tough, since none of them are comfortable answering questions right now, I’ll make it easy: your wife, your mom, your girlfriend, your daughter can tell you.

The pundits are going to explain this to me, to us, tell us that this result was about American wallets, that Harris failed by not charting a course different enough from the Biden administration, and this election was about economics, not about bigotry or misogyny. Except those things are Trump’s brand, and have been for decades, long before he took the escalator to the food court to inform the world of his newfound political aspirations.

And his supporters got what they wanted, the return of the Orange Messiah, rising from the depths of 2020, ready to assume his role as their dear leader. I could see that as a remarkable political comeback, or as a validation of what I’ve known about this country but was too privileged to understand and too afraid to acknowledge: that we have chosen hate over joy. Looking into the deeps for a savior, democracy just raised its kraken, and what comes next is on us, America.

This is Atlas autonomously moving engine covers.

They’re not coming for our jobs, they’re here for them.

Because rather than adapting work areas that are compatible for humans into ones that are better suited to existing robots, they’re taking humans out of the loop entirely.

Everything about this video is making the union haters at Boeing, Amazon, and Target giddier than the invention of water bottles with big enough openings people could pee in them instead of taking breaks on the factory floor.

Industry bemoans the lack of qualified people to do the jobs they’re offering, and the people that would apply for those jobs have had the audacity to ask to be paid wages that would make living in 2024 possible. Instead, companies continue to pay a living wage that was last valid in 1994.

Robots like this, while expensive at the outset, are the answer to two problems, both how to get the work done within existing structures, and how to staff that work with people desperate enough to work for what they’re willing to pay.

The conventional wisdom on robotics is that they’re taking jobs no one wants, that they’re doing menial tasks and making it possible for human workers to be more skilled in the roles they play in the workplace.

But robots like this are designed to take automation to the next level, because a robot that can articulate and adjust its movements at this level are more than capable of doing jobs of increasing complexity, taking the most complicated part out of the process: humanity.

Trump and Harris are wrapping up their campaigns this week. A lot of people will vote on a single issue. I can’t think of a more pertinent single issue than this.

Trump and Harris are wrapping up their campaigns this week. A lot of people will vote on a single issue. I can’t think of a more pertinent single issue than this.

I once had seven interview rounds over four months for an integrator job. For those of you not familiar with startup speak, an integrator is an admin on HGH, someone who in theory has some authority, but in reality is just there to make sure the Visionary (I swear to God that’s what they call themselves) doesn’t fuck it all up.

Not quite a Chief of Staff, not quite a secretary, and not on steroids because again, not much by way of authority.

Hard to swing your weight around when they haven’t given you much weight in the first place.

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So, no, not the kind of role that one would associate with multiple rounds of interviews, and ultimately I didn’t get the job because I was told that the length of my answers meant that some of the interviewers didn’t get to all of their questions.

Which I knew was bullshit, because if there’s one thing I’m good at masking, it’s the impression that I can be concise.

Even when it comes to my special interests, because after decades of seeing people’s eyes glaze over, I know how to stay on point.

Because they couldn’t tell me what most neurotypicals really mean when they come up with non-actionable feedback: something about us neurodivergents just doesn’t add up, and because legally they can’t say that, well, then, let’s go with answer length.

Here’s the thing, NTs: some of us on the spectrum know when we went off the rails.

We can tell you the precise moment you decided on us, and still kept putting us through the rest of the hiring charade, because that’s the only way you know how to operate.

You have a script, and you stick to it, which is one of the things that drives those of us on the spectrum so nuts, that you continue with the silliness well past the point at which it made any sense to do so.

They didn’t hire me because my answers were too long, they didn’t hire me because somewhere in interview three or four I was asked about areas I could improve, and I mentioned emails.

Because I’d once gotten the feedback that my emails were too abrupt.

Which I heard as, “You strip out all the unnecessary greetings and other nonsense and get right to the point.”

In other words, I didn’t hear it as criticism, but my Real Boy module kicked in and realized that’s how I should take it, so thinking I could continue to operate somewhere with the rest of the NTs, I took that to heart and modified my email communication accordingly.

I told my interviewer this, that I now made it a point to ask how their day was going, to mention something we’d talked about, because I realized that was critical to maintaining good relations with my peers, somehow.

The interviewer then asked, “But you don’t really care about how their weekend went, right?”

I laughed, thinking we were on the same page, went, “No, I really don’t, but somehow other people need to hear that, so I’ve made that adjustment.”

Yeah, heard it as soon as I said it, and in his rapid writing in response to that question on the Zoom call.

Here’s what makes that so infuriating: even the normies know that email communications are bullshit.

That the accessorizing of the message is more often than not just some passive aggressive way to make it look like you give a fuck about how Connor’s tee-ball game went, or whether Kari was any good at her ballet recital, and then we’ll layer something on top of that to make us seem more polite and engaged, and hit send.

Being neurodivergent means a lot of things are harder to do, but this is one of the toughest: because I know that the NTs know in their lizard brain that email greetings and their ilk are a waste of time, and they’re like headrests in a car: you don’t notice that they’re not in the movie until someone points it out.

But there’s something tickling your skull that tells you this isn’t “right” somehow, that this email that just gets to the damn point isn’t how this is supposed to work, that’s not how the song goes, and so when you come across an email like that, you know its author isn’t playing from the same set of rules, and we can’t have that, can we?

So you come up with something more quantifiable, something more tangible, hopefully, that you can put down on the form as a reason why you’re not picking me this time around.

And in the end, it’s like all the other times, from kickball through that work promotion to now, another in a growing pile of non-actionable feedback.

If I’m learning anything on this journey of self-discovery that comes with a midlife autism diagnosis it is this: despite my inherent privilege, there will always be something that holds me back, and that’s this big dumb brain.

And maybe it’s time to stop trying to make that brain work in a way that’s going to be acceptable in a neurotypical world.

I already know that I’m not for everyone.

Still trying to figure out if I’m for anyone.

Stay tuned for my upcoming course: How To Email Like A Normie.

It was Wrestlemania XL (40 to you non-Roman fanboy types) this year, and as a latecomer to most things, including the appeal of what is clearly scripted but is nonetheless real for participants and spectators alike, I’d be embarrassed to admit that as A Man Of A Certain Age I’ve only paid attention to the WWE for the last 10 years or so.

That’s mainly because I grew up in a church that wasn’t quite a cult, but was certainly cult-adjacent.

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Which means we didn’t wear robes, but we also didn’t have a TV in the house. And when I could get around a TV, at the grandparents or a friend’s, wrestling wasn’t usually on the schedule.

I was aware enough of the then-WWF to hold a conversation about it (hello, masking!), but was more into airplanes as a kid(hello, special interest!) than what was happening in the ring.

Until an episode of ID10T with Chris Hardwick (RIP the podcast, not Hardwick) and John Cena, and they were talking about the story element of what was happening in the ring.

That was the first time I’d heard a non-kayfabe interview with anyone in wrestling, and like the first time I read On Writing (quiet, fanboys) and Save The Cat! (quiet, haters), it was a lightbulb moment, and here are things they taught me about writing.

Sidebar: note that I didn’t say they made my writing any better, because “better” is such an arbitrary term based on a combination of sleep, nutrition, and whatever Mercury’s doing that day.

What’s the problem?

No one cares about my characters.

Unless.

They have a problem they need to solve.

In the ring, it’s fairly straightforward: who’s going to win? Or how are they going to escape a hold? Or come back from what looks like a devastating finishing move?

And when I’m writing anything, whether it’s a blog post or a short story, or part of a novel (yes, I have one of those, and it’s been 85% done for nearly 3 years now), the fact is, if there isn’t a problem there, no one’s going to pay attention.

Giving my characters a problem I care about, at least, because if I don’t care about whatever The Muse is trying to ship through my fingers, my readers won’t, either.

So I ask questions like:

• What’s the problem?
• Can they solve it?
• Would not solving it make a better story?

Why should I care?

Even if I’m vested in whatever’s happening in the ring, whether it’s Rhea Ripley vs. Becky Lynch in a generational batter, or Sami Zayne taking on Gunther to end the latter’s title reign, no matter how amazing their moves are, if I’m not vested in those characters before they step foot on the apron, doesn’t matter who wins or loses.

As a writer, that means crafting enough backstory that readers are interested in what’s happening. Tricky bit?

Show, don’t tell.

Avoid the exposition dump at all costs.

But give my readers a reason to care, or whether they hope the character finds a way to be in the backseat of the car in Thelma and Louise.

Save The Cat! (again, shush, haters) recommends having your main character do something we can get behind, like…saving a cat stuck in a tree.

I could dazzle you with turns of phrases all I want, but if I haven’t figured out why this character should matter, it’s going nowhere.

When should this end?

In the wrestling world, match length is dictated by the booking schedule, TV limitations, and, well, the script.

It’s easy for me as a numbers-centric writer to think that everything needs to fit a formula.

• 25% is Act I
• 50% is Act II
• 25% is Act III

These numbers exist because they work, and because readers are used to seeing things packaged that way.

But sometimes?

A match/scene is going so well and is going to pull everyone in as it unfolds, that the rules bend a little. Sometimes a lot.

I’d submit that this is a call someone other than me as the writer should make.

Because, well, all the darlings.

This isn’t permission for me to write 180,000 words and then complain when no one wants to read my book.

But it is permission for me to know that sometimes I need to write more.

Usually less, because no one wants to see a match/scene go on longer than it should.

Get in the ring

I’ve spent…decades…in the cheap seats.

As a fan, sure, but mostly as a critic, of other people’s art.

Because that’s easy.

It’s safe.

It’s my ego’s way of protecting me from the pain that comes with my own work being evaluated.

Not that I’ve stayed completely out of the arena, but most times, it’s been on the fringes.

Dabbling in safe things, behind pseudonyms (like now), writing what I know.

Right now? Here? On this page?

I’m in the arena.

Fighting the fight against The Resistance, as Pressfield puts it.

There might not be a belt in my future, but it’s not about that.

It’s about climbing through the ropes.

Taking the bumps.

Telling stories, both true and otherwise.

I’ve started walking after dinner, for a couple of reasons, mainly because walking after a day of sitting helps me move on from what I’m doing for a primary income stream these days. Also there’s some health benefits from doing so, rather than just eating and moving directly to the couch to consume whatever the streamers have decided I should watch this week.

It’s the time of year here when it’s just about perfect weather at dawn or dusk. Something about watching the lights come up or go down on the day does good things for whatever I have left of a soul.

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That means I’m wearing a vest bright enough to be seen from space, because the neighborhood doesn’t have street lights (something I like) and too many of the neighbors think the speed limit is a suggestion and move down the main drag like they’re trying to clear the gates before the drawbridge closes against a zombie apocalypse.

I’m kidding about the drawbridge. But there is a gate. Can’t have just anyone wandering in to use the pickleball courts.

There aren’t many sidewalks here, either. Parts of the development have them, but where I normally walk is sidewalk-free, and so my options are either walking the side of the road, or a ditch, or someone’s front yard. I stick to the side of the road, because the ditch is too ditchy and walking in someone’s yard is grounds for at best a starring role in a series of Nextdoor posts or at worst a headline about how great “stand your ground” laws are.

My first choice clearly upset whoever was driving the large truck that let me know how they felt about it by honking their horn and flashing their high beams at me, opting to deafen and blind me in an effort to help me correct the clear error of my walking ways.

Or they were concerned I might not see them and wanted to be sure that I safely navigated the often treacherous roadways, lest I come to needless harm. I’m all for the benefit of the doubt.

High beam flashing is the thoughts and prayers of confrontation: it gets a reaction out of whoever it’s been directed to, makes the flasher/pray-er feel better, and accomplishes nothing.

Not that I wanted them to get out of the truck and discourse with me about the value of walking and whether my walking was interfering with their forward progress, but it would have been a nice change. Something different.

I miss knowing everything. Having all the answers. Being smarter than everyone else. Because I, like my fellow Christians knew that The Secret wasn’t some hippy dippy Oprah-endorsed life hack.

No, the real secret was that because I’d opted to empty myself of self and allow Jesus to possess me in spirit form that I was going to go to Heaven someday and everyone else would burn in Hell.

Makes it easy to feel superior when you know that ahead of you is eternal reward and the rest of the world is headed for eternal damnation.

I miss that, because the alternative is to grapple with the idea that we’re all the same, all working for the same goals, all part of community in some way and instead of sitting on my high horse looking down I would better serve my fellow man by reaching a hand out instead of down.

Scrolling through images of the devastation left behind by Hurricane Helene, I nearly did what I had done for years when faced with immeasurable catastrophe, but the half formed prayer never happened.

I miss praying, the warmth that comes from the knowledge that I’ve offered up what I can to some loving deity who would hear my entreaties and if enough of us prayed the right prayer, God would do something about it.

That if I was righteous enough, and sincere enough, and “fervent” in my cries to God, then He would bestir Himself on my behalf, and hear my prayer, and answer it the way I had asked it.

This is isn’t about God, not really, but about the version of God that won’t do anything unless His people pray. Because that God? Isn’t a loving God, because if you love someone, you act on their behalf when they’re in pain. You don’t wait for them to ask you, and you sure as hell don’t make sure they ask you the right way.

If there is a God, a deity, a force in the universe, and some part of me believes in those things, I’d like to think that being, that entity, isn’t sipping a latte somewhere scrolling through the prayers getting sent their way. Picking who to help, or to let down.

One of the perks of living near a nuclear power plant is that the first Monday of the month at noon they test the area’s warning sirens. They’re not just for an incident at the power plant, but are meant to alert us in the event that something has gone poorly.

Except that there’s no accompanying “big voice” to fill in the blanks, whether we should expect a horde of locusts, a wall of water, or if we’re all about to be able to read in the dark thanks to our Dayglo skin.

Anxiety’s like that: letting us know that something isn’t quite right, without connecting the dots. And so we do what we’d do if the siren went off, and that’s either freeze up or just start packing the car because that at least gives us something to do.

Those mechanisms in our brain are meant to protect us, but not always let us know what they’re wanting us to avoid. Eventually they’ll wind down, like the sirens, and we get to get back to whatever counts as our daily baseline.

They’re a voice we should acknowledge, but not always listen to, because sometimes? They’re just testing.

Kabul, 2021, the Crossfit gym another expat had set up in the secure hotel we lived/worked/drank in at the time. I was attempting to end another period of non-fitness, and the coach there was more than happy to help me.

I forgot what the workout of the day was, but like most WODs, it was just all kinds of suck. I think there were pull ups (assisted), box jumps, and then a run.

Repeat until dead.

Another guy working out with me, about my same age, similar level of fitness, was a few yards ahead of me on the runs.

Coach Satan’s Stepson muttered at me in passing to “catch that guy”.

Mainly because “that guy” was very much “that guy” with a “punch me” face and everything.

“Working on it,” I told him.

His lead was all the more galling because he was half assing the other parts of the workout. Which meant he was fresher on the runs, and getting them done faster than I was.

Still, I caught up to him. Made up the difference. Crossed the finish line before he did. And promptly collapsed, just spent.

That’s kind of the point of Crossfit, and my workouts since then have gotten less intense, mainly because of my age and a desire to be fit as possible as along as possible, and blowing gaskets every time out isn’t a way to do that.

Catching up was a good goal that day, but mostly “catching up” is just an exercise in self-flagellation. Instead of knowing where we are and being OK with that moment, we tell ourselves we should be further ahead. And should/could/would put in more effort.

Except we’re already caught up. In the moment we have now. Whatever it may be. Make the most of that one. The next one’s down the road, and there’s no need to get there faster.

You could live a life where you never learned that Red Bull is energy drink. But you’d still know the name. Because they’ve positioned themselves as the ones that do the cool stuff, from Formula 1 car burnouts on top of helipads in Dubai, to water skiing from helicopters.

They still have the “gives you wings” commercials, but what they’re selling is the idea that if you get a can of chemicalized caffeine, you too could be as cool as a guy who skydives onto a beach from a skyscraper.

And while some of us might take a hard pass on that level of adrenaline, there are plenty of other people who want to feel that kind of rush, and if that starts with a purchase at a convenience store, well then, why not?

Because we make those choices based less on what the product does for us, and more on how that product makes us feel like we’re part of something bigger than ourselves.

Most mornings I’m walking before dawn. In the dark, headlamp on, worried more about a deer colliding with me out of panic than anything. When it’s daylight, I’m looking ahead, down the road.

When it’s dark, the headlamp doesn’t go that far. Just a few feet in front of me. So I’m looking down, making sure the way just ahead is clear.

We learn best when times are hard. In those moments when we can’t see the tunnel’s end. When we start to wonder if it ends at all.

They tell us to hold our head up. Not bad advice. But doesn’t work when it’s dark out. Just because I can’t see the end doesn’t mean it’s not there. So I switch the light on. Get my head down. And get moving.

That’s never true. We know we have something to say. What we don’t know is whether anyone’s listening. If there’s someone to hear it. Acknowledge us. Witness our passing by.

Our atoms have it easy. They just connect. Interact. Cooperate. It’s only when the humans get involved that they get destructive.

Communication takes a sender, and a receiver. Both in tune with the other. Until then, it’s just syllables into the void. Wrangling sounds into words that make sense of feeling.

Hoping that those feelings reach across the void to a response. Sending an answer back across the eons that we are heard. Letting us know that we are not, for now, alone.

More isn’t better.

It’s just more.

And it makes it less fun.

Whatever it is.

A slice of pizza.

A favorite song.

A hug.

But none is worse.

No pizzas, no songs, no hugs.

It’s not about indulgence, but balance.

Moderation in everything.

Even moderation.

Because sometimes I just want a lot of pizza.

It’s a word used in weight training.

Refers to a time of active recovery.

Where you dial back the intensity, the volume, or both.

It’s a step back so that when you resume your usual intensity, you’re refreshed, and able to continue either at the same intensity or even greater.

It’s a way to break through plateaus, and it’s always going to be counterintuitive to me, because so often we’re told to push through whatever we’re doing.

That slowing down means giving up.

When what it really means is that we’re catching our breath.

Gathering ourselves for what’s next.

“It’s the little victories.” Little to who? Some days laundry is my moon landing. Getting out of bed? Everest.

We’ve been taught to rate ourselves by our wins. Stack each other up based on what we bring to the table. And the first loser?

It’s us. It’s always us. If we’re not first, we’re last, and we’re so quick to believe that’s not okay. Forgetting that being in the race at all, that’s one for the win column.

Watching Jon Bernthal interview his brother. Bernthal’s always been an interesting guy to me. Beyond the roles he’s played in TV, movies, he’s just one of these interesting people that seems connected to who he is.

His brother’s even more accomplished, but this isn’t about fanboying the Bernthals. It’s something Dr. Nick said, because yes, Jon Bernthal’s brother is a doctor. An elite one. And he had this to say about temperature.

Be a thermostat, not a thermometer.

Don’t read the room, set the atmosphere in the room. Define your day, don’t let it define you. Choose, don’t guess.

Sometimes we drift, because paddling anymore just isn’t cutting it. But while life’s currents will lead as they will, we can choose where they send us.

Those days when I tell myself that today is an amazing day because I’ve said so, it’s true that I end up repeating that. A lot. Minute by minute some days.

But if I just react to the day, let it dictate my meaning, well, then I’m guessing.

I’m a thermometer.

And I need to be a thermostat.

We can look at conditions one of two ways:

1. They weren’t ideal for what we had in mind
2. They were ideal for what resulted

It’s not about controlling parameters, it’s about accepting outcomes.

It’s been said that you either win or you learn.

The ideal is winning.

Why?

We like winning.

Other people like winners.

If I want to be liked, and I do, then winning gets me there.

Or.

I can surround myself with people who want to hear about what I learned.

And in turn, I want to hear what they learned.

I like listening to winners, but the good ones, the honest ones, will tell you what they learned from loss.

The conditions are never going to be ideal.

The world is imperfect, after all.

But just because it didn’t turn out as planned, doesn’t mean it turned out any less.

Maybe Jesus would bomb the Syrians
Cause they're not Jews like him
Maybe Jesus would bomb the Afghans
On some kind of vengeful whim
Maybe Jesus would drive an M1 tank
And he would shoot Saddam
Tell me, who would Jesus bomb?

I’m not sure when I first heard this song from David Rovics, but it’s stuck with me ever since.

I know I was in Afghanistan at the time, working on post-conflict reconstruction, an idealist with a mortgage, still believing (most days) that we were doing some good.

I suppose we did.

We weren’t bombing anyone, although people that looked more like me than my Afghan colleagues were doing so in the name of freedom.

You can’t put a price on freedom, but you sure as hell can invoice a funeral.