Kyle Raymond Fitzpatrick, writing at his Substack newsletter The Trend Report, has put together a horrifying conclusion: We now know what a Millennial president looks like.

My brain has become infected with an upsetting fact that I am going to infect your brain with: the most powerful Millennial in the world — and perhaps ever — is JD Vance.

This is obvious but it has to be said as such. I realized this a few weeks ago, angry about some stupid Trump thing as I picked out clothes for the following day, thinking about how great it would be to have Millennial leaders, to have AOC or Ilhan Omar in the White House. Then, lightning struck: we already have that. Not them, no, but we have a Millennial: JD Vance. We complain and complain and long and long for younger leadership and, yet, somehow the world is living under the rule of a literal forty year old. This means we’ve entered the era of a Millennial presidency, as big theatrical speeches in Greenland suggest who is really in charge. Paired with Zuckerberg, we’re seeing what Millennial power looks like in real time as Trump himself reduces to figurehead, to mascot and plaything, instead of brain. That means Vance and his very public persona (versus the “quiet” and invisible VP of modern times) is perhaps the real president. We may be looking at our situation quite wrong, dogging on other generations for not pulling their weight when Millennials hold a smoking gun.

He went on to unpack this realization.

He’s not a “traditional” Millennial on the surface, no, in that he supports the worst ideologies on the planet. But: he’s in an interracial relationship. He’s a working class success story. He worked in — and is shaped by — tech. He had a blogging era! He had (successful) Hollywood dreams! He literally has a LinkedIn! He eats fish tacos with fried avocado! He has a fucking BEARD!!!!!!!!! He is the ultimate Millennial “Just asking questions!” older brother pig man, the outsider who isn’t actually on the outside, wielding a Libertarian chaos unique to Millennial male malaise.

That’s the Millennial context of this moment, representing an evolution of our story. This is what it looks like when an embittered Millennial runs shit like an embittered Millennial would: organized, quiet, chaotic, yet somehow “effective” in using old and new media as cudgels to dominate all conversation, to be the thing that everyone hates — which is the long running Millennial story. He has channeled that Millennial rage into an outlet he could mold, joining someone like Stephen Miller to revamp an old brand in his image: a lost Republican party. “I wasn’t as critical of my party in 2016,” he told Financial Times in 2018. “But when I look at tax reform, when I look at healthcare reform, I see Trump as the least worrisome part of the Republican party’s problem, which is that we are basically living in the 1980s. We are constantly trying to resurrect domestic policies from the 1980s.” Again: the smoking gun. None of this is “about Trump” but instead about Trojan horsing agendas, which happens to be the radical Project 2025. What’s more Millennial than working around systems to upgrade an old system to a new one? He is private equity’ing in less than a decade, proof that anyone can ascend with the right help, which also means: you, like Kat Abughazaleh, like Gabriel Boric, should do something.

Then: the whole Signalgate situation, a conversation where Vance was focused on larger messaging and communication while using proper sentence casing but not punctuation (or emojis, which Gen X Michael Walz employed). But the fact that this all took place on Signal is another Millennial smoking gun, proof of the “shitpost-based government.” That’s why we have an unusually sharp, disgusting social-media-as-fascism White House: AI Ghibli depictions of immigrant deportations; a Valentine’s meme about deportations; incorporating killer dogs into the agenda. Vance may not run these accounts, no, but it’s clear that things like this “come from him” or his world given his smart entry into the JD Vance meme discourse — which all came from the right to begin with. His pushing for AI, his techifying the White House, his quiet-but-aggressive imperialism: like any good Millennial, he is doing his job with little credit as he awaits the moment to seize the throne.

This, as I’ve said before, is why JD Vance is the real horror show of these times: he’s playing by all the rules so that he can eventually have it both ways, pushing himself as a working class “progressive” Republican in 2028, to easily sweep the seat only to further advance this nightmare. Yeah, yeah, Gen Z are punitive and conservative and, yeah, yeah, old people are too — but the Millennial version has it both ways. That is why Vance is so scary: he can code switch like no one else. As is the story of a generation, we await our power era but, unfortunately, it’s already here — and the title holder, like the other title holders, aren’t someone we’d want to claim.

The articles you should read with your morning coffee: From back in July 2024, Scott Young’s Twelve Foundations for a Good Life. A couple of articles from The New York Times: The ‘Manosphere’? It’s Planet Earth. talking about this masculinity thing that is everywhere right now and Hilary Clinton asking the question, How Much Dumber Will This Get? One more political piece, an interview with Tim Walz outlining why the Democrats lost. A couple of baseball stories to round out the week: Will Leitch writes about Baseball’s Invisible Superstar and a question I had not thought of yet… Is This the Last Season Baseball Umpires Really Matter? (Man, I hope so…)

Seth Godin –

Busy people in important organizations waste a lot of time naming things.

It could be that once a name is good enough, you’re done. That’s certainly true for the logo.

Nike is hard to pronounce. Starbucks is named after an obscure character in a mostly unreadable book. Apple is named after a fruit, Google is spelled wrong.

These are good names, not perfect ones.

It’s worth noting that when asked to name a great logo or a great brand name, almost everyone picks a brand they like and trust. The name is simply a symptom of that, not a cause.

I know why you’re so focused on the name. It’s your brand’s personality. It’s under your control. It is something everyone on the committee is an expert on, because no one is.

Once it does the job, you’re done.

Pick a good one and get back to work.

[My take is that ChatGPT is a terrible name. It has too many syllables, it has needless requirements for capitalization, and most of all, it’s not an empty vessel ready to contain our story about the brand. Claude is better. Not perfect, but good.]

I love how Seth glosses over the whole “Pick a good one and get back to work…” thing. I’ve named so many “things” in my career, and rarely is picking a good one easy. However, he’s not wrong about “Once it does the job, you’re done.”

Paul Robert Lloyd —

I’m bored of it.

The pervasive, all encompassing nature of it.

The inevitable, dehumanising consequence of it.

That there’s a ‘there’ there to it.

Rubbish in and rubbish out of it.

Nobody asked for it, and nobody wants it.

The best minds of my generation thinking about how to make people use it.

That you should just accept it.

A thousand no’s, but ‘yes’ when shareholders start clamouring for it.

Policy-makers pandering to it.

A decommissioned nuclear power station required to power it.

Not to mention millions of gallons of water required to cool it.

Every article glorifying it.

Every article vilifying it.

Every pub conversation winding up talking about it.

People incessantly telling you how they use it.

I feel dirty using it.

You know what I’m talking about, even though I’ve not mentioned it.

And that’s why I’m bored of it.

YouTuber Matt D’Avella has an interesting video outlining why he and his wife left the United States for Australia. I love that it’s about the community he created rather than simply trying to escape the general craziness of the current United States. It certainly helps that his wife is an Australian citizen, and they have a built-in community, but it was also about him learning how to drive, understand, and come to grips with the things he’s going to miss and how others viewed the decision.

The part where he praises universal healthcare is spot on, and his lack of worry in crowds is refreshing. Life is about making the choices that align with what matters to you, and D’Avella explains exactly why they made this permanent move. He also says, “Life is more like a road trip than a train track,” and that’s some good insight.

I want more videos like this from Matt. Vulnerable. Personal. Professional. Great stuff.

Oliver Burkeman has some cool ideas in his latest newsletter The Imperfectionist. However, the one about a digital detox caught my eye.

A digital detox will probably make you feel sad or anxious (but do it anyway): If you’re anything like me, you may have felt the urge in recent months to get more serious about relegating digital technology back to its proper role as a tool – something you pick up and use when it serves your purposes, then put back on the shelf, instead of marinating all day in the disordered world of the terminally online. Yet it’s striking how often this topic gets written about as if the moment you take social media off your phone, or begin a ritual of leaving your phone in the hallway at home, or switch to a dumbphone, you can expect to feel immediate peace and happiness. This is unlikely! As with other compulsive behaviours, we use aimless scrolling to distract from, or to paper over, emotions we don’t enjoy experiencing, especially sadness or anxiety. So it’s a good bet that when you step away from your devices, you’ll be spending more time, at least in the near term, with the emotions they were helping you avoid. Fortunately, in most cases, just knowing to expect this will enable you to resist the temptation to scurry back to the screens. (And incidentally, if you doubt that you use technology in this emotionally avoidant way, simply take some context where you’d usually always listen to a podcast or music – such as driving, or commuting by subway, or going for a run – and try how it feels not to do that. Weirdly harder than you expected, right?)

It is tough for me to do what Oliver is expressing. One thing I started doing is curtailing my constant listening to podcasts and moving to audiobooks. I thought I might feel like I was missing out on things, and that simply has not been my experience.

So far, so good.

Last night, there was nothing on television, so I switched to YouTube. For some reason only the algorithmic gods understand, I clicked on Jacob Collier Improvises the National Symphony Orchestra (Live from The Kennedy Center) and was transfixed for 18 minutes. I’ve never heard of Jacob Collier. I still don’t know much about this man. All I do know is that he’s a musical genius who made me forget the horribleness of this world for a few minutes. That’s an invaluable gift.

Today, I’m going down the rabbit hole of Jacob Collier. I found some live performances on YouTube and his output on Spotify. I haven’t listened to everything yet, but his style basically blends jazz, pop, and R&B with experimental music and synth-wave. His improvisational live performances of familiar songs are uncanny. He’s a concert-quality pianist, tenor voice, and conductor. He’s simply the most unbelievable talent I’ve ever watched. I think he might be made of music.

I don’t know why I haven’t heard of him before, but he’s simply stunning. If you’ve never heard of him, may I recommend starting with his version of How Deep Is Your Love Live from Fort Lauderdale? His arrangement is creative in a way I’ve never heard before, and his interaction with the audience is both manic and amazing.

Yesterday, I discovered Jacob Collier exists. I can see hours of joy are in my future.

Want to experience it with me?

Just like last time…

McSweeney’s is documenting the “cruelties, collusions, corruptions, and crimes” of the second Trump administration.

This is a great resource that many people should reference in the coming days, weeks, months, and years ahead.

I’ve stopped posting on all social media. If anything, I’m now a lurker. I peruse Twitter/X because I’ve curated my feed to the essentials, and far too many people I follow have not moved to a different platform like Bluesky yet. I continue to skim Bluesky because I’m trying to see if enough of the people I follow on other platforms have finally migrated to Bluesky. Threads and Mastodon are essentially dead to me.

Matt Birchler agrees with me.

I believe Meta that there are hundreds of millions of people signing on every month, but they seem to be doing absolutely nothing there. More interesting stuff is on Bluesky and Mastodon, and better conversation happens on those platforms as well.

For most people, the solution for a Twitter-like social media microblog is Bluesky. The more tech-savvy can have Mastodon. Threads was surpassed by the look and feel of Bluesky. People wanted Twitter. Threads sort of scratched that itch, but ultimately, it did not quite meet the demand. Bluesky did.

John Gruber explains it this way.

In the old world, there was one Twitter-like network that mattered: Twitter itself. In the new world, there exists a diaspora of Twitter-like platforms which have each carved out their own vibes. There are pros and cons to the old world and new. I found it much easier, mentally, to have just one place to check, and that place was available through truly excellent native apps for both Mac and iOS. Now that my attention is spread across multiple such networks — (in order of attention) Mastodon, Bluesky, Threads, and, last and definitely least, but still there, X — I feel more scattered mentally, but I’m also pretty sure I spend less time overall using all of them combined today than I did for Twitter’s peak decade-or-so, and that I’m better off for that.

But so while Threads bursting onto the scene in summer 2023 maybe delayed Bluesky’s blossoming, I suspect Threads might have ultimately helped Bluesky by opening the minds of many Twitter refugees into just trying some new alternatives. One size doesn’t fit all. Nor one social network.

Yup.

Tom May, writing at Creative Boom, has an interesting story about a new report from the artist-owned cooperative Stocksy.

The report opens with a stark observation: we’re living in the “Age of Big Content”—a time of infinite scrolls, algorithmic recommendations, and what Stocksy calls “vibe-less mood boards”. The result is a creative landscape experiencing both “Peak Complexity” and the “Meh-ocene,” where global aesthetics are collapsing into sameness.

As the report notes, “Cafes look the same in Tokyo and Mexico City,” while creative industries struggle with originality—evidenced by the fact that not a single original film (as opposed to a sequel, reboot or remake) cracked 2024’s top 15 highest-grossing movies.

I don’t really know what “Meh-ocene” means, but it can’t be good.

The report offers a roadmap to authentic curation and meaningful differentiation for artists and designers. “Surprise sells. Sameness doesn’t.”

The level of incompetence in our federal government right now is astounding.

Astounding.

There is no waving it away. There is no ignoring it. Senior officials in this administration are reckless idiots. To half quote the character Logan Roy from Succession, “You are not serious people.”

I’m actively trying not to go down rabbit holes of news and commentary and commentary on the news and commentary on the commentary of the news, which is what the news generally is nowadays. However, this story from The Atlantic is simply astounding. It is one of the largest security breaches ever. Every one of the senior officials on the group chat has to be fired or impeached. The security of the United States is at risk with these people still holding positions of power.

Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, was added by Michael Waltz, Trump’s National Security Advisor, to a group chat on the commercially available encrypted messaging app Signal. The group chat included Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. The messages, shared in the group chat, were sent to Goldberg in the days leading up to the United States launching air and naval strikes against the Houthis in Yemen. What began as policy discussions devolved into sharing explicit details about attack locations, military units involved, and sensitive intelligence about foreign entities. This behavior showed a complete disregard for secure communications protocols.

The idea of a journalist unintentionally being part of a war-planning group with national security leaders and the fact that these leaders would use Signal on their personal phones was so outrageous that Goldberg initially thought the group was a prank aimed at humiliating him. However, it turned out to be completely genuine.

I had very strong doubts that this text group was real, because I could not believe that the national-security leadership of the United States would communicate on Signal about imminent war plans. I also could not believe that the national security adviser to the president would be so reckless as to include the editor in chief of The Atlantic in such discussions with senior U.S. officials, up to and including the vice president.

When Hegseth sent out a full breakdown of the attack and hours later, everything outlined in the Signal group chat was confirmed, he knew it was real. Goldberg then removed himself from the group chat and sent some messages with some obvious questions.

Earlier today, I emailed Waltz and sent him a message on his Signal account. I also wrote to Pete Hegseth, John Ratcliffe, Tulsi Gabbard, and other officials. In an email, I outlined some of my questions: Is the “Houthi PC small group” a genuine Signal thread? Did they know that I was included in this group? Was I (on the off chance) included on purpose? If not, who did they think I was? Did anyone realize who I was when I was added, or when I removed myself from the group? Do senior Trump-administration officials use Signal regularly for sensitive discussions? Do the officials believe that the use of such a channel could endanger American personnel?

This is all too real. The White House confirmed all of this happened, with a spokesperson saying the message thread appears to be “an authentic message chain, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain.”

HINT: Because they are grossly incompetent.

Why were they even using Signal? Heather Cox Richardson has the right idea.

The decision to steer around government systems was possibly an attempt to hide conversations, since the app was set to erase some messages after a week and others after four weeks. By law, government communications must be archived.

…

…the use of Signal may also have violated the Espionage Act, which establishes how officials must handle information about the national defense. The app is not approved for national security use, and officials are supposed either to discuss military activity in a sensitive compartmented information facility, or SCIF, or to use approved government equipment.

All the government officials in the group chat have broken the law. It absolutely is a breach of the Espionage Act. They were not only discussing timing, weapons packages, and intelligence assessments, but they did so on an unsecured app using personal devices, oblivious that a prominent journalist was included in the conversation in real time. Nothing happened when Goldberg removed himself from the group. They didn’t know he was there, had no idea they were breaking the law, and were too incompetent to understand any ramifications.

These officials, entrusted with the nation’s most sensitive secrets and serving in crucial government positions with significant authority and discretion, were behaving like teenagers—sending emojis and chest-thumping messages.

These are unserious people.

All of their personal phones have to be confiscated, searched, and checked for classified communications, classified documents, and, you know, spyware. It isn’t going to happen because we don’t have serious people in charge.

This is the movie Idiocracy come to life. It’s amateur hour. It’s a clown show.

More and more, I’m leaning into the idea that Trump himself is a mouthpiece or maybe a figurehead. He sits there saying the stupidest things imaginable to the press, to show off his signature on mostly meaningless executive orders, and then to go play golf. He has no insight into what is happening in this government. He’s worried about a painting of him in Colorado and pressing the Diet Coke button on the Resolute Desk. This imbecile has a facsimile of the Constitution in the Oval Office, and he thinks it’s the real deal.

Republicans claimed Biden wasn’t really in charge during his Presidency and had little evidence to support the accusation. This story begs the question of who is in charge now, plus there are receipts.

At the end of the day, the bare minimum should be Waltz fired, and the rest resign. I’ll be shocked if anything like that happens.

One additional note, I hope Jeffrey Goldberg has good security.

You may have heard about this evil empire and the rebellion against it? You might even have watched the first season of Andor and thought, “How can this project be so smart, heartfelt, gut-wrenching, and good and still be a part of Star Wars?”

Here we go again.

One of the greatest Star Wars “things” out there, Andor Season Two, is hitting Disney+ on April 22, and we’ve got an official trailer. It’s the most cinematic and realistic piece of art detailing the grunt and secret work of a true rebellion against a fascist dictatorship. Everything about this is top-notch, from the camerawork, choreography, costumes and styling, music, and theatrics. It all comes together.

The first season was a more emotional and personal story than Star Wars ever tackled. With the Skywalker family story, we only get hints of it. It mostly has shades of complex emotion and a personal ‘Hero’s Journey’ writing style. Andor is gritty and nuanced. It’s tense. Fueled by complicated characters. We know that most of the “Star Wars” is glossy and Flash Gordon-y. These are real people fighting a galactic civil war against a tyrannical empire. As much as I love the Jedi and lightsaber fights, I love the desperation of real people we get here. These heroes don’t get to use The Force. They only have their wits and probably a blaster.

We will know soon enough if Tony Gilroy stuck the landing. I have high hopes.

I’ve always struggled with what my digital output should be and look like. How personal should a personal homepage be? I have two sites currently and I keep experimenting with newsletter ideas, but am I spreading myself too thin? Am I being too personal?

Most of the content I have at both seanmcdevitt.com and seanmcdevitt.net is normal. I write and share about the things I find interesting. I talk about stuff that I’ve been thinking about and react to what others have written. Sometimes I add a video or a photo. Pretty normal.

These sites are personal. It’s my writing and my commentary. Obviously, I like to link share quotes from articles, but aside from that everything else is my words. I had a vision for the look of both sites, created it (with help from an outside designer), and it’s a representation of me.

It is also the representation I choose to share. I have carefully set up what the outside world gets to see. This site is a curated slice of me, myself, and I, but it isn’t the whole picture. And that’s okay. I’m not really on any social media platforms anymore, but everyone shows their best side and never the struggles. Who cares?

My feeling in this day and age, my hyper-curation is important to keep a healthy distance from being too personal. However, I know when sharing something personal it resonates more.

Where is the balance?

George Foreman, the Olympic gold medalist and two-time heavyweight champion who also became known for his namesake grill, has passed away.

Our hearts are broken. With profound sorrow, we announce the passing of our beloved George Edward Foreman Sr. who peacefully departed on March 21, 2025 surrounded by loved ones. A devout preacher, a devoted husband, a loving father, and a proud grand and great grandfather, he lived a life marked by unwavering faith, humility, and purpose.

A humanitarian, an Olympian, and two time heavyweight champion of the world, He was deeply respected — a force for good, a man of discipline, conviction, and a protector of his legacy, fighting tirelessly to preserve his good name— for his family.

We are grateful for the outpouring of love and prayers, and kindly ask for privacy as we honor the extraordinary life of a man we were blessed to call our own.

Mark Manson with some good advice:

Stop letting others' opinions weigh you down.

When you stop taking things personally, you free yourself to live a life that’s true to you.

Remember, most people are too caught up in their own heads to be focused on yours.

Embrace your flaws; they make you relatable and real.

And hey, becoming hard to offend? That’s how you build resilience and strength.

If you found this helpful, save it for when you need a reminder.

According to an e-mail sent to followers of the official KISS website, KISSOnline, and picked up by various media outlets, including Mitch Lafon, the group will perform an unmasked live show as part of the three-day KISS Army Storms Vegas event, which will take place Nov. 14-16 at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas.

While I won’t be attending, the band playing unmasked is exactly what should happen for one-off events like this. It could also mean something for the future, like a residency. However, I can’t see the band setting up a Vegas residency without makeup.

The articles you should read with your morning coffee: Teen Vogue’s cover story is a profile of Vivian Jenna Wilson, who happens to be the estranged daughter of Elon Musk, and who has some interesting things to say about her father and on the fight for basic rights for trans people. Speaking of trans women, the Bulwark’s Jonathan Last rants about how it was never about trans women in sports, and how we should just leave trans people alone. By the way, three prominent conservatives were arrested just this past week for child sex crimes. Changing the subject… Michael Wade on twenty-one things he wished he knew in his 20s. Bilge Ebiri, writing for Vulture, on How to Live Inside a Mall for 4 Years. Lastly, Katie Woo for the Athletic reveals some insightful spring training wrap-up notes for the St. Louis Cardinals.

W. A. Finnegan, who used to help write Federal policies, wrote in his newsletter, The Long Memo, that because of Trump’s incompetence, every student loan is now “forgiven.”

Trump announced that the Small Business Association will take on student loans immediately as he attempts to dismantle the Department of Education. Of course, that really can’t happen, and if it does…

You agree to repay the loan under specific conditions. In exchange, the Department of Education agrees to disburse the funds, maintain servicing standards, and follow the law under the Higher Education Act of 1965.

Those terms are not flexible. They’re not vague. They’re not “up for reassignment” to whichever federal agency a rogue president feels like tossing them to this week.

The MPN allows your loan to be transferred between servicers—companies like MOHELA, Nelnet, Aidvantage—but those are just contracted agents of the Department of Education, not owners. You can’t be assigned to a totally different federal agency that has no statutory authority under the Higher Education Act. That would be like your mortgage getting transferred to the Parks Department.

If you suddenly find your loan managed by an agency not named in your contract, not authorized by Congress, and not subject to the same legal compliance regime, guess what?

That’s a breach. A big one.

And in contract law, a breach that goes to the heart of the agreement—like changing the party responsible for enforcement or management—is what courts call a material breach. That means the contract is no longer valid. And if it’s not valid, they can’t enforce it.

So yes, if Trump goes through with this, we’re talking about millions of legally unenforceable loans. Essentially, “loan forgiveness” for every student who ever signed the MPN, now, today, yesterday, and in the future. The government would lose its legal standing to collect. Servicers would be stuck in limbo. Every borrower would have a legitimate argument that the contract they signed is no longer binding—because the government breached first. And abrogation of responsibilities of a loan originator typically gives rise to making the entire debt unenforceable.

This isn’t just bad policy. It’s contractual suicide.

And that’s the funny part. Trump may have just accidentally forgiven the entire student loan system. Not through legislation. Not through executive mercy. But through everything, the Orangutan does, pure incompetence.

I’m sure this will get fixed, but maybe not.

Mark Mullenberg of Automattic wrote a blog post about company culture and he came around to this bit about the Automattic Creed.

There’s the story about how, if you have an ethics statement above where you sign the test or something, people cheat less. So I thought, well, what’s our equivalent of that? We have the Automattic Creed. It’s an important part of our culture. So we put the creed in, it says:

I will never stop learning. I won’t just work on things that are assigned to me. I know there’s no such thing as a status quo. I will build our business sustainably through passionate and loyal customers. I will never pass up an opportunity to help out a colleague, and I’ll remember the days before I knew everything. I am more motivated by impact than money, and I know that Open Source is one of the most powerful ideas of our generation. I will communicate as much as possible, because it’s the oxygen of a distributed company. I am in a marathon, not a sprint, and no matter how far away the goal is, the only way to get there is by putting one foot in front of another every day. Given time, there is no problem that’s insurmountable.

It’s not legally binding, but it’s written in the first person, you read it and you kind of identify with it and then you sign below that. We want people who work at the company who identify with our core values and our core values really are in the creed.

This is amazing. I’d love to replicate that somehow.

Matthew McConaughey has a newsletter called Lyrics for Livin’. He waxes philosophically about a variety of topics. I liked his latest article about happiness versus joy.

Happiness: an emotional response to an outcome. That’s what happiness is, and we all want more of it. It is a noble pursuit. Hey, if I win, I’m going to be happy. If I get that promotion, I’m going to be happy. If she says yes, I’m going to be happy. If I finally fit into that dress, I’m going to be happy. If my kid gets into that Ivy League school, I’m going to be happy. Yeah, it’s an if, then cause and effect, quid pro quo. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I think it’s the wrong pursuit, because it’s an unsustainable standard that we immediately raise the bar for every time we attain it. See, it is result reliant. Happiness is a short-term dopamine hit that is set up to fail. Joy. Joy is a different thing.

Why? Because joy is not a result. It’s a constant. It’s the feeling we have from doing what we are fashioned to do, no matter the outcome. You see, joy is the process, the behavior that we are enjoying while on our way to our destination. Joy is contentment, satisfaction in the doing. Now, personally, as an actor, I started enjoying my work and literally having more joy in my life when I stopped trying to make my work a means to a certain end, when I stopped seeking happiness as a result, approval as the outcome, accolades as proof. For example, oh, I need this film to be a box office success to be happy, or I need the respect of my peers and my performance to be acknowledged to be happy. Those are reasonable aspirations. But the truth is, as soon as the process of the work, the daily making of the movie, the doing of the deed, as soon as that became the reward in itself for me…

Well, guess what?

I got more box office. I got more approval, I got more accolades, more results than I ever had before. You see, Joy is always under construction. It is a constant approach, alive and well in the doing of what we are fashioned to do and enjoying it. When we choose experiences over outcomes, we get more results and enjoy it.