Said with a smile, the above statement was a response from one of my employees after I explained how much Katie and I love our front porch that was recently rebuilt. I explained how we live on an acre of land, across the street from a farm complete with rolling hills, a skyline made entirely of trees, a herd of hereford cattle, and a single white donkey we’ve affectionately named Javier.

The array of trees that line the top of the hill darken every evening as the sun begins her daily descent behind them, leaving in its wake a multitude of colors and patterns that, while always different, present an equal amount of beauty every time.

And we now have front-row seats for the performance.

While I’m sure people all over the country do something similar, it’s easy to see why my employee would say such a thing. She lives in an admittedly compact apartment in Brooklyn, an area beautiful in its own right, just in a very different way.

I also mentioned, however, that with great porch comes great responsibility.

Up until late last year, we had a neighbor about a quarter of a mile north of us who was spending his final years sitting on his porch every day no matter the weather. Another elderly gentleman was by his side, though I do not know their relation. What was certain, is that we felt oddly warmed and welcomed every single time we drove by and saw both men throw their hands up in the air — a subtle southern greeting that doubled as predetermined solidarity.

While we never actually met the two front-porch-sitters, we were heartbroken when the homeowner passed away. The front door is closed now, the porch furniture cleaned out by a succession of pickup trucks in the driveway.

I told my employee that the onus is now on us to be the porch wavers of our street.

It should surprise no one at this point, that this scenario has made me think about Niko.

Living in the South can be frustrating.

In Tennessee, we are:

• 48th in the nation for violent crime.

• 46th in the nation for having multiple chronic conditions.

• 46th in the nation for premature deaths.

• 41st in the nation for child poverty levels.

• 41st in the nation for teen births.

• 38th in the nation for obesity.

• 31st in the nation for education.

• 9th in the nation for excessive drinking.

Our state government enjoys a Republican supermajority that could spend their time finding ways to feed the poverty stricken and house the unhoused. Instead, they spend their time demonizing brown people, fellating the super-rich, peddling conspiracy theories, participating in hate-based rhetoric, and pretending to be Christians.

And even if you’re an elected official, if you speak out against them, you’re silenced or removed from meetings altogether.

Yeah, living in the South can be deeply frustrating.

It would be very easy for the status-quo Tennessean to read the above and comment the ol’, “if you don’t like it, leave” trope that I see so often on message boards and in comment sections across the socials.

And I could leave. Maybe I should, even. But I don’t want to.

Tennessee needs people like us, dear Iconoclast readers.

People who love the South’s hospitality, her Smoky Mountains, her culture of storytelling.

People who enjoy the grit and soul of sludge metal, the blues, and outlaw country music.

People who know how to grow proper tomatoes and how to adequately put smoke on meat.

But we’re the same people who will fight tirelessly for the racial or religious minority; those who will readily amplify the voices of our women.

The South needs those of us who do not believe in oligarchy, and who want a tax-based society that operates for all people, not just the wealthy elite.

I absolutely cannot wait to teach Niko about how beautiful it is to be a born-and-bred Southerner, while simultaneously longing to evolve the aspects of our culture that are so badly outdated, erroneously placed, or just flat-out wrong.

Maybe we’ll even have some of those talks in our rocking chairs on the front porch.

Bonus points if a pitcher of sweet tea is involved.

Thanks for reading, y’all.

-jtf

I’ve already mentioned how the worries of my present-tense became null and void, but it extends far beyond the here and now.

It was time to decide how fatherhood might look on me.

A few weeks later when we learned we were having a boy, I was cracked over the head with yet another amazingly vivid truth – not only was I going to determine which version of me was going to make the impact on our child’s life, but I was going to get to do it for a young man in a very complicated modern America.

And scary though that may be, I can’t begin to describe the excitement I feel in my heart. It’s like I’ve been baptized under the violent crashing waves of golden opportunity.

I think a lot about what example Niko would be receiving from me if he were here right now. I think about how I speak to others, how I speak to myself, how I express my emotions, how I focus on my health, and how I employ values that are important to me – namely empathy, logic, diplomacy, and literacy.

It’s led me to take an ever-evolving goal and push it even further.

For the last couple of years, I’ve made it my mission to say yes to opportunities whenever they present themselves. Concerts, projects, trips, classes, or even silly little chances to step outside of my comfort zone are all fair game. It’s how I worked Knoxville’s CreepyCon as a vendor selling my book, how I ran a third half-marathon, and how I landed a role in a top-notch indie film.

Now, having said yes to arguably the greatest opportunity of my life, I’m deciding to take it up a notch and begin a phase of Level-20 learning and doing.

Learning goes without saying – I want Niko to look to me as a vast well of knowledge about everything from the verifiable to the abstract; I want to make all the best decisions I can regarding his health and happiness, then employ an adequate rationale to course correct as needed.

But learning is pointless if it’s not followed up with action.

You can read every book in the world and pray to every god known to mortal man but it won’t do you a lick of good without some concrete-pounding, jabroni-beating, brain-busting ACTION.

Niko’s dad is a man who uses every tool at his disposal to improve his situation.

Not a man who sits around waiting for someone to feel sorry for him.

Not a man who consistently identifies as the victim.

Not a man whose only contributions are hopes and prayers.

I’ve been making a conscious effort to attain knowledge and put it into practice. I’m applying it to every aspect of life, from philosophy, gardening, and woodworking to cooking, creativity, self-defense and everything in between.

He’ll see me keep up my standards of love, authenticity, and fitness, but he’ll also see a man who faces life’s challenges with a logical mind driven by a wheel of action that never stops turning.

Since I’ve been trying to surround myself with examples of this type of behavior, it’s no surprise that my Instagram algorithm has shifted to show me more fatherhood and dad-to-be content. Something I came across recently that really struck me was a simple reel with the following declaration:

My biggest flex is that one day my son will say “Hold on, let me call my dad. He’ll know what to do.”

You don’t get there with lethargy, idleness, and perpetual hopelessness.

You get there by learning, applying what you’ve learned, and refining your processes.

That’s the dad I want to be.

That’s the dad I’m going to be.

-jtf

Often he speaks who never is still

With words that win no faith;

The babbling tongue, if a bridle it find not,

Oft for itself sings ill.

-jtf

“I don’t know, I didn’t expect this to happen!” I snapped back at my poor mother.

We’d been outside Chattanooga restaurant Scottie’s On the River for about 20 minutes at that point. It was a busy Friday and our name was on the wait list for dinner. We’d walked down to the Riverwalk and gazed across the Tennessee River before returning to the storefront to sit in the shade and wait for our name to be called.

On that night, however, our name would not be called.

We were next on the list when management made the tough decision to close the restaurant for the night. Apparently, the ordering system was completely out of sorts, and the kitchen hadn’t received orders for the last three hours.

I understood the dilemma, but now we were in one of our own: trying to find a new restaurant at nearly 7pm on a Friday night with no reservations.

Mom and I were on a long-weekend vacation together in the River City. Our usual October shopping trip had to be reformatted a bit thanks to this handsome little punk named Niko who will be delivered by an abnormally strong stork around that time this year.

We usually just make it a day trip, getting home in time for dinner, but I thought it would be fun for us to actually get away for a bit.

We stayed in an AirBnB loft just above the Ugly Mug coffee shop on Main – an arrangement I absolutely loved.

On our first night, we ate at my favorite Chattanooga restaurant, Alleia. The restaurant is stylish and there’s no doubt that the owners know what they’re talking about when it comes to a truly authentic Italian dining experience. There’s no place like this where my mom lives, so I knew this would be a real treat for her.

While we were staying in Chattanooga proper, our weekend revolved around a pilgrimage to the outlets south of the border in Dawsonville, GA.

Our shopping trips are not so much about the consumerist endeavor, but more about the rides to and from the destination. In the truck, the filters come off. We trade the “polite company” versions of our lives for the truth.

For this trip, we had those talks on various rides in the truck, at numerous restaurant tables, and from the living room of our loft. It’s necessary, we both need it, and I’m so grateful that we have each other to share these dialogues with.

This trip was also my chance to do something small for my mom after so many years of her doing it for me. On paper it may have just looked like a vacation rental and a couple of nice dinners while I played her chauffeur, but it was much, much more.

It was her first time gazing at the Chattanooga skyline. Her first AirBnB stay. Her first taste of Arancini and Veal.

And her first Uber ride drove us to Scottie’s that fateful night.

After deciding to ride up the road to competing seafood restaurant The Boathouse Rotisserie & Raw Bar, we crawled into the backseat of our next Uber. We explained to the driver what had happened and why we were going from one seafood joint to the next.

With a straight face, he complimented The Boathouse, said it was a very fine seafood restaurant (which it was), then gave a glowing recommendation for …

The chicken fingers.

It’s clear that our driver doesn’t have a son who thinks it’s important to help him have new life experiences.

Or maybe the joke’s on me and the Boathouse really does have bomb fried chicken.

I wouldn’t know. I ordered the seared tuna and enjoyed every bite while knowing that the woman who sat across from me was proud of me, and was aware that these small gestures came from a place of bottomless love and appreciation for a job extra-well done.

If you’re reading this, take your momma out for dinner. She loves you.

-jtf

We’re three months in now and I’m definitely both scared to death and excited as hell, so I think things are going according to plan.

Things got a little scarier/more exciting recently when Katie said something to me about our baby boy:

“He is going to absolutely worship the ground you walk on.”

The idea of being someone’s father – someone’s primary male role model – is an absolute honor that I never thought would ever be bestowed upon me.

I’ve even started feeling a massive shift in my heart, mind, and even my body when I refer to myself as “Niko’s Dad.” It’s a level-up feeling like I’ve never experienced before.

And as much of an honor as that is, this is also where the scary part begins to creep in.

I used to worship the ground under my own father’s feet at one point. I used to think nobody was as tall or as strong as him. I didn’t quite grasp the difficulty of the construction work he did to earn a living, but I 100% grasped how much I loved his dusty work boots and busted jeans. I loved riding in the bed of his truck as we blasted AC/DC on our way to Dollywood or to the local hardware store.

He was rugged and cool – two things I thought every man should strive to be.

Our relationship unraveled when I was about 11 years old, however, and I learned that much of what I thought about my bulletproof superhero father was a mirage.

On the day I ran away from his house, I remember looking at a photo of the two of us that he had framed in the living room. We were wearing matching acid-wash jeans with white, vertical-striped, short-sleeved button downs. We each had a foot resting on a step in front of us and we were smiling.

I thought to myself, “He’ll come back for me,” before I left his house forever.

He never did.

Morgan Wallen (an artist I enjoy despite my better judgement) has a song called “Superman” about sometimes failing to hit the mark as a man. While his song is largely about his struggles with alcohol, the point still lands really hard for me:

“No, I don’t always save the day
But you know for you I’ll always try.
I do the best I can, but Superman’s still just a man sometimes.”

I think the point to take away here is that yes, Superman is “still just a man sometimes,” but at the end of the day, he never stops being Superman.

The man I once thought was faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound was just another cowardly weakling at the end of the day.

There was never anything superhuman about the man. He was Superman in the same way that a cosplayer is Superman at FanBoy Expo every summer.

With that in mind, I cannot express just how imperative it is for me to be that superhero who sometimes struggles with life’s villains, but always shows up to face them.

An imperfect Superman whose greatest superpower is unconditional love.

Except maybe make it Thor – I always thought Superman was a wimp.

-jtf

I’ve spent almost 20 years working in the television/film industry in one way or another. There’s always a lot of excitement involved when you see your own work show up on TV, and I’ve always loved the novelty of knowing we were making magic that would be enjoyed by millions of people the world over. I’ve gotten to experience a lot of really great things in my career thus far, and much of it has been very exciting.

But things just seemed… different.

One of the clichés in the entertainment business is that the only thing that’s certain is uncertainty. Somehow, it seems the longer I’m in the industry, the more ever-present that uncertainty becomes.

Outside of work, my few hobbies were becoming increasingly unenjoyable, and I was at a point where I only ever left the house to go to the gym. The walls were closing in, and I felt as though I was trapped in a box with my only function in life being work, a reality that I detest.

Katie left for work one day, and I kissed her goodbye like I always do.

I often feel envious of her ability to run around town almost every day as she meets with clients at her office or in their homes, when she browses vendor products in their showrooms, or when she has the occasional long lunch with friends. It can be a hectic day for sure, but what a blessing.

I’ve talked before about how I feel as though I’m no longer providing any value to the world in my post-trainer life. I was deep in that pit of self doubt that particular morning.

Open any social media platform and you’re reminded that money is god, that rules of decency and morality do not apply to the wealthy elite, that our perception of the world is one of utter hopelessness — only money and politicians can save us.

I try to forget this by reading another email.

Checking another Slack notification.

Going to another meeting.

It makes one feel like one of those faceless kids from The Wall, marching single-file straight into the meat grinder.

I’m happy to report, however, that merely moments later, every ounce of hopelessness, sadness, and restlessness disappeared.

Katie came home earlier than I had anticipated, and she brought an update.

She hadn’t landed a new client or received a great commission. She hadn’t hit the lottery, or inherited acreage.

She was five weeks pregnant.

When the information hit, I was overwhelmed with an immediate reminder:

None of these things matter in the way I once thought.

Not my job.

Not my hobbies.

Not the state of the world.

Not the president.

Not money.

Not consumerism or capitalism.

With a single glance at a pair of positive pregnancy tests, every last item fell into their proper – subordinate – places.

I’m entering a season of life that I’ve been excited about for a couple of years now: being the husband of a woman who is making actual, non-silver-screen magic happen.

I get to serve her in new and unexpected ways.

I get to hold her hand at every ultrasound appointment, and get emotional when we see that little punk moving around in there.

I get to play short-order cook every night when she announces she wants chicken nuggets with mac-and-cheese instead of what I had planned for dinner.

I get to build things and move other things, and be supportive every time she changes her mind about all of it.

Through the fatigue, the nausea, the hormonal rollercoaster, and everything in between, I get to be her first line of support.

And in October, I’ll get to be a dad.

Funny how quickly those nihilistic thoughts disappeared.

Only minutes earlier, I was at the end of my rope in countless ways.

Now, I can’t stop thinking about October.

My darling son Niko, I’m positively obsessed with you, and I cannot wait to see how you change the world.

-jtf

Occasionally, they’ll post something that isn’t violent or gory at all, but just unique animal behavior that is “bad ass” in one way or another.

Recently they shared a clip of a cormorant swimming off with a fish it had caught. While most of the bird’s body was underwater, its head stood proudly above the surface, its lunch held firmly in the vice grip of its beak.

Another cool thing about this account is how the captions always explain what is happening and why. If the behavior is inexplicable, there’s always at least one or two science-backed possibilities explained. In this case, it was theorized that the cormorant was waiting for the fish to suffocate since it’s probably much more difficult to suck a flopping fish down one’s gullet.

On the outside, it looked like a victory lap.

But what was really happening was a product of evolution – one of countless ways the avian carnivore had evolved to live its life more efficiently.

I told Katie that sometimes the concept of evolution breaks my brain. Not that it’s real – the result of it is quite literally all around us – but the fact that it’s continuous.

We think of evolution as something that has happened in the past, probably because the only thing we can study is what has already happened, how we got here, etc.

The reality, however, is that it’s an infinite action.

Our planet is evolving under our feet as we speak.

Our consciousness is evolving every time we expose ourselves to information.

We’re not the same people we were even one second ago.

I find that incredibly exciting, but also depressing

Exciting because we can push our own evolution as far as we’d like it to go. I can learn more things, try new things, meet new people, have my mind changed, put myself in better situations and so much more. It’s like harvesting superpowers or acquiring an arsenal of swords that grow ever sharper.

The depression comes in, however, when I encounter people who spend every waking moment reliving the past, longing for who they were, and forever clinging to either past mistakes or victories. Facebook posts starting with “This generation will never understand…” or elders lamenting how things used to be different (implying superiority of a bygone era) are near-daily interactions.

One of the examples that always grinds my gears is when someone states, “they just don’t make music like they used to.” They’re almost always heralding a behemoth band from the past like the Beatles or Led Zeppelin, both of which I love … but what are they really saying?

The Beatles rocked the world in the 1960s because nobody else was creating quite like they were (especially during the non-touring years). However, the Fab Four were merely a piece of evolution, baton-passers if you will, that started with Elvis and Chuck Berry, then continued on to Nirvana and Billie Eilish.

They took an old reality and made it new again, then passed it along for further changes.

So yes, maybe nobody else is making music exactly like the Doors or Fleetwood Mac, but people are still creating meaningful, naturally progressed music in the same way.

My question to the complainant isn’t “what’s wrong with bands today?,” but more like, “are you even listening?”

That’s also my question to you this week, dear reader.

Time evolves and life withers away whether we’re okay with it or not.

Are you listening to the possibilities that we wake up with every day (the new music, if you will), or are you holding on to the metaphorical classic rockers of yore in your life?

You know… The failed relationships.

The missed opportunities.

The unfair family dynamics.

Your golden years as a high school athlete.

The list goes on.

Simply put: are you evolving, or are you in denial?

If it’s the latter, then don’t bitch when your circumstances never change. You’re literally doing nothing to change them.

If it’s the former?

Then enjoy your metaphorical fish, fellow cormorant – you’ve earned it.

-jtf

P.S.

Next week’s post will be on Saturday instead of Friday. That’s because I plan to announce my Next Big Project then. I realize this may pose a major inconvenience for all 25 of you (to whom I am eternally grateful, truly), so let me express my appreciation in advance.

I had a whole thing written out about my zig-zaggy spiritual path, sunrise hikes, and the toxicity of podcast gurus and Instagram influencers. I brought back a topic I’ve discussed before with the existentialist view that trying to find life’s meaning is an exercise in absurdity, since there is no inherent meaning other than that which we give it.

I also mentioned how achieving human evolution requires spiritual, physical, emotional, and mental growth running in tandem.

But, ironically, after pounding out two pages of content, I realized my thoughts were scattered, meandering at best. No two parts were moving in the same direction.

Such is life as a writer sometimes.

So I deleted everything, and will just share this thought-provoking note I got in an email newsletter this week from my man James Clear that inspired the now-deleted tirade, along with a previously unpublished photo from one of the aforementioned sunrise hikes.

“It’s rare to find your purpose for life, so instead look for your purpose for this season.

What lights you up right now? What’s a good thing to dedicate this season of your life to? Perhaps more importantly, what purpose served you well in your previous season, but you have outgrown?

Life is always changing. It’s okay to pick a new North Star.”

I don’t go on those hikes anymore. This doesn’t mean I’ve abandoned spiritual practice, it’s just done a little differently now – mostly in the form of sunrise trips to the hardware store to buy lumber.

There are no rules in this game and anyone who tells you otherwise is misinformed.

Back to normal next week, hopefully. Maybe I’ll be able to better elaborate.

-jtf

We didn’t spend any meaningful time together in those 12 years. No learning moments that I can recall; no sage, country boy advice passed along.

I mostly just remember he was a construction worker, wore dusty boots and busted jeans to work (that I thought were SO cool), and always said “rough,” when asked how his day went.

It’s funny that I remember him as being extremely handy, but I feel like this may just be a forced memory based on the fact that he worked construction. The only thing I ever remember seeing him build was a basketball goal at the end of our driveway.

Still, building, repairing, and constructing were all things I associated with him, and they therefore fell onto the list of things I swore to myself I’d never take an interest in when I became an adult. I wanted to be nothing at all like him if I could help it.

That list also included having a beard, owning a motorcycle, and proudly wearing tank tops in public. We see how well I did with those.

These are all just things that I remember about him. I really have no idea what other interests or characteristics I’ve inherited from him and I don’t care to know.

Another one has begun to rear its ugly head as of late, however: taking an interest in building things. Not only that, but enjoying the process, even if it is sometimes frustrating and makes me use curse words that are new to the English language.

Like I said last week, I’ve been in the process of completely redoing our garage with the hopes of turning it into a woodworking shop. I have bizarre dreams of learning how to make custom frames and cutting boards in addition to a few projects around the house.

I asked for hardware store gift cards for my birthday and Christmas so I could put them all together to go toward some of the more expensive tools I’d need. But before I could buy those things, I had to finish the garage so I’d have a place to store them. That included trips to the dump and KARM, helping Katie move stuff she’s sold on Marketplace, patching holes, painting walls, building shelves, and designing a custom workbench.

Once all that was complete, I could start knocking items off my wish list.

As of my most recent writing, I’d made several trips to the dump and to KARM, patched the holes, and painted.

Construction day finally came over this past weekend. Katie was out of town visiting her mom, so I loaded the truck up with lumber and spent an entire day cutting wood and drilling pocket holes. By the time the sun went down on Saturday, I’d worked all day but hadn’t built a single thing.

I sat in my living room that night, watching some videos on YouTube to see what I was doing wrong with my pocket holes when I asked myself a question. The answer pissed me off:

I wish I was close to someone who could answer these questions for me instead of having to watch YouTube to learn it. You know who would probably know?

I officially began constructing the shelves on Sunday morning. And as I attached boards to studs, measured out support intervals, and repeatedly checked for level and plumb, I couldn’t stop thinking about how even now, 30 years since I last spoke to the man, I was mad as hell at my absent father.

Why wasn’t he here helping me with this?

A man who could be helpful, who I could learn from, is both unable and unwilling to do either.

It’s unfair that a truly great man who helped and taught me so much more in life, who would be here helping me in a heartbeat, is now just waiting on me in the Hall.

My Paps wasn’t a construction worker and while he wasn’t classically trained or educated in any meaningful way, he was a well-qualified handyman. I helped him install ceilings, construct closets, level sidewalks, build walls, install stoves, wire lights, and so much more.

I maybe didn’t retain much of the handyman knowledge he bestowed upon me, but the lesson that did stick is really the only one that mattered:

If you don’t know how to do something, figure it out.

He was on my mind each time I installed a new light fixture in this house. He’s stood behind me every time I’ve fixed a minor plumbing issue. When I clean my grills every spring, when I load the truck down with lumber, when I go to Home Depot for the fourth time in a day, he’s right there the whole time reminding me over and over again to just figure it out.

I thought about all of this as I stood inside my half-finished shelf. Once I stopped focusing on being angry at a masculine failure and began feeling gratitude for one of my life’s true heroes – who would undoubtedly be proud of me – everything changed.

The rest of the day went by like a breeze. No warped boards, no split wood, no broken screws, no lost drill bits.

By dusk, I had finished my shelves, arranged the contents of my garage on them, and built my work bench, complete with peg board, overhead lighting and a stool.

I sat on that stool and watched the sun go down as I noshed on a chimichanga I’d DoorDashed for dinner. It took me back to all the quiet, cool evenings sitting in the driveway with Paps after a long day’s work.

He’d been with me that whole time, but he was especially with me at that moment.

As I finished my last bite of deep-fried tortilla, I spun around to gaze upon my finished product and realized I was missing something very important – the finishing touch, if you will.

There. That’ll do it.

A permanent reminder that no matter if it’s a difficult project or a foul turn in life, we figure it out.

-jtf

It’s freaky.

But it’s more than just vintage rock band tees. Sporting event and concert tickets are astronomical.

I once paid $40 for two slices of Little Caesar’s at a hockey game.

I’ve gladly paid hotels $50 per night for the benefit of leaving my truck in the parking lot.

I once held onto a holographic Michael Jordan card because a price guide told me the thick square of paper was worth $25.

We’ve built a society that allows this to happen.

Of course, I’ve elaborated on this before – one example is from this post I made on Instagram back in March, 2022:

This concept has been on my mind a lot more lately as Katie and I take on a few new projects.

We’ve been making a lot of changes here at the house lately. New furniture and rugs have been added, our spare bedroom has been rearranged, we’ve sold off a chest of drawers and nightstand combo, and sold a desk.

There’s been multiple trips to the dump and to our local consignment shop to drop donations (with more to come of each), a yard sale is in the planning stages, and I’m about to completely flip our garage and include custom shelving and work bench.

In this process, we’re working very hard to downsize as much as possible. I normally find it difficult to part ways with “stuff,” but it’s been rather liberating as of late.

Coincidentally, this is all happening as I am doing the same with my thoughts, habits, and personal philosophies.

The inside stuff, if you will.

In his works written sometime between the year 63 and 65 AD, Roman philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca implores us to question the actual value of items we possess. He postulates, “Some of [these possessions] are superfluous, while others aren’t worth that much. But we don’t discern this and see them as free, when they cost us dearly.”

From a materialistic standpoint, the concept is simple, even if it makes us uncomfortable.

Did it pain me a little to add my Motörhead muscle shirt to the donation pile?

Of course it did. But I needed to accept that while that shirt isn’t costing me money to own, every single day it charges me a few inches of storage space in my chest of drawers – space that is very valuable in my home.

Does it break my heart just a little to know that I’m about to take my FIREFLY sign that I worked so hard on just before Halloween to the dump?

You betcha. It was cheaply made and is not harming anyone at the moment, but it’s also definitely taking up valuable real estate in our garage where I hope to maximize every square inch in the interest of developing a fully functional (beginners) woodworking shop.

The “stuff” is free, but also not really.

And if that doesn’t make one feel uncomfortable enough, consider the deeper philosophical meaning of what Seneca is getting at: What’s going on in your mind, your heart, your soul, that is indeed superfluous and charging you a tax of joy, pleasure, or healing?

Have you ever identified and confronted those things?

I did when I finally decided to dig out the root of my long-standing abandonment issues. I’m doing it right now as I identify all the ways in which I am limiting myself in the name of self-perceived identity.

The limited space in your well-being is of far greater value than the space in our garage that’s too damn small because we were single when we bought the house and thought we’d be okay with only enough room to park a motorcycle that we no longer even own …

What? Does that example only apply to me?

Whatever. You get the point.

This all came about because I was thinking too hard about a valuable article of clothing full of holes. It’s interesting to consider that the things that make humanity so truly valuable – love, integrity, passion, the ability to feel – are also things that are full of imperfections.

I think the true question now is are we willing to apply the same value to those things as we would a Harley Davidson riding jacket?

I’m writing this before I go for my evening run and I plan to meditate even further on it while I’m out there pounding the pavement, doing everything I can to forget that I’m running.

I’d encourage you to do the same.

The meditation work, not the running.

But also the running, too. It’s good for you.

-jtf

My company has been going through an identity crisis, lots of things are changing at my house, East Tennessee’s weather can’t seem to figure out what sport it wants to play, blah blah blah.

I’ve been busy, tired, and truthfully, rather uninspired.

The chaos and confusion is apropos, really.

Both my favorite and least favorite aspect of running is its spiritual, meditative aspect. I do not run with music of any kind and prefer to spend my time with the Allfather and my ancestors. I ponder and dig and investigate everything from existentialist philosophy to how I wish I could grow my hair long.

I’ve been doing some pretty serious introspection on my runs lately. It’s led me down a path I’ve sort of known about but have consciously avoided, primarily because it’s hard and passes by all sorts of metaphorically abandoned, haunted abodes.

Items along this path include:

The steps I take to subvert corporate culture are unintentionally making life more complicated.

I never want to sell myself as something I’m not, but my fear of being perceived as a corporate-speak-penguin is causing me to miss out on more important things.

I saw a quote recently that stated, “profession is not identity, systems are not ideology,” and it hit me like a ton of bricks. I don’t want my profession to be who I am; I also do not want my working alongside questionable systems to be misconstrued as my support for them.

I often want to completely ax scenarios where I feel my credibility or authenticity are called into question, but my focus should be more on using that credibility to foster change within a systems I despise.

Could it be that my rejection of entities that are otherwise neutral is preventing me from reaping their intended benefits, or better yet, changing them for the better?

I fear my staunchness in opposing systems, processes, and even people I disagree with tips into the realm of performative reaction rather than strategic precision.

Believe me, I do try to keep the balance.

I have strong beliefs and stand by them wholeheartedly, while simultaneously staying open to having them changed if I encounter better information.

But I fear I inject my own logical fallacies into situations where I fear pursuit of the new idea will lead me to an end I already know is factually erroneous.

I know in my heart that there will likely be golden nuggets of information along the path that I can use on my own journey, and nothing is forcing me to see it to its end. Still, I assemble and adhere to my own roadblocks out of an abundance of caution.

I’m too old to be wasting my time, after all.

However, have I really wasted my time if I gain new knowledge that allows me to move forward four steps, even though I had to backtrack three to get it?

Odin says no.

I tangle with these items and feel like I don’t get very far, but after saying them out loud just last night, I think I’m in the early stages of figuring out what to do with them. They’re now tangible and are therefore manageable.

A friend once told me that the only true weakness we have is one we know about but refuse to treat.

I now have more reason than ever to begin that treatment, and I can’t wait to share that with you once I cross a few more t’s and dot a few more i’s.

And of course, it will be mostly public, because I’m a writer and that’s just what we do.

-jtf

”Dude, sucking at something is the first step towards being sorta good at something!”

- Jake the Dog, Adventure Time

I decided my extra day off this week was as good a time as any to build myself a custom shoe rack. This would not only help me straighten up my closet, but would also double as a fun learning project in my woodworking hobby that is still in its infancy.

To sweeten the pot, I was confident I had everything I needed to do the job simply by sourcing materials from my scrap wood pile. Not just a custom shoe rack, but a free one at that? Let’s go!

I sketched out my design and determined how I’d need to cut my leftover 2x2s. These pieces would come together with a handful of pocket-hole screws to form the legs and shelf supports. The 1x6s that would be the actual shelves were already at the length I needed, so half of the work was basically already done.

This project was going to be easy.

I made my cuts, drilled my pocket holes, attached my pieces, and painted each leg with black spray paint. Once dry, however, I held up my leg and quickly found out that I’d mismeasured and couldn’t fit my shelf into the designated slot. Thinking I could just squeeze it in with the help of a rubber mallet, I gave a few taps and was disheartened to see my leg come apart.

Buy Me a Coffee

The force of my mallet (and the poor measurement) caused the pocket hole screw to rip straight through its hole, stripping the wood, and ruining the leg in the process.

To make it worse, I’d used the last of my scrap 2x2s. In order for me to pull this off, I had to do it perfectly, and I failed.

And yes, I maybe did toss my broken leg to the ground, thereby stripping three other pocket-hole screws from their homes. It was in that moment, though, that I remembered something that changed my life just a few years ago.

Breathe, Breathe, Breathe

Back in 2018/2019, I was a humble white belt at Gracie Barra Jiu Jitsu in Knoxville. I was a n00b, so obviously I didn’t know how to do reversals, didn’t know what to attempt from various positions, and frequently found myself “stuck.” In those moments of desperation, I would resort to what I knew best: brute strength.

Anyone who’s ever taken Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, however, can attest that strength doesn’t get you very far on the mats unless you also know the techniques. I would put my full force into trying to get out of these holds that much smaller men had me in to no avail. Frustrated, I’d begin breathing through my mouth, and eventually exhaust myself.

After experiencing this more times than I can count, I remember my coach reminding me that I was a white belt and had no business winning. In fact, my job as a BJJ white belt wasn’t to learn how to win, but to learn how to lose a little bit less each time.

To do this, every time I found myself stuck, I was told to zen out and focus on my breathing. I had to learn to keep my body under control in the stressful situation – remaining comfortable with the discomfort. The roll would end eventually, but if I stayed cool, my stamina would remain, and the onus would then be on my opponent to outlast me despite already having the upper hand.

They always did, of course, but over time, I could hang a little bit longer with each session.

My favorite part about this lesson is how easily it carried over into other parts of my life.

Focusing on my breath in stressful situations made me a better athlete in that my boxing and running stamina multiplied exponentially once I employed the practice.

It’s also helped me keep my cool outside of the gym as well – something I do not always manage well. It especially came into play that day as I looked down at my broken leg pieces.

I am a complete beginner at woodworking. A white belt, if you will.

And, much like my experience with BJJ, it would be irrational for me to think I could walk over into my shop and expect a custom farmhouse dining room table to pop out.

Fortunately, my job at this time isn’t making custom farmhouse dining room tables – it’s learning the basics of building.

And not only does this mean I’m probably going to make a lot of mistakes, but I’m expected to.

I have to remain comfortable in those uncomfortable situations when I can’t quite figure out what I’ve done wrong, otherwise I’m going to just end up defeated and needlessly exhausted.

And much like my opponents on the mat, if a project is going to defeat me, it had better be ready to outlast me despite already having the upper hand.

At that moment when I wanted to unleash a volley of expletives and set my lumber on fire (something I think about frequently when I get frustrated), I decided to control my breath, accept the loss, and roll again. It was, indeed, a loss, but I decided to try losing a little less next time instead of giving up.

By Presidents Day evening, I had a custom shoe rack built with much higher-quality 2x2s than I had to begin with (because every construction-grade 2x2 at Home Depot was warped to bejeezus and back). It’s pretty and it’s functional, but it’s far from perfect. I told my mom it’s somewhere between “good” and “janky.”

But I’ll take mildly janky over a total loss.

If that’s not losing a little less, I don’t know what is.

Life is hard, y’all.

We’re not always going to get it right.

But no matter if it’s a busted roll on the mats, a busted DIY project, or even a busted season of life, we almost always have the option to focus on our breath, roll again, and lose just a little bit less next time.

-jtf

We aired a single episode before the mayor had us canceled. It’s a long story, so I wrote a book about it.

Despite its premature cancellation, I’m very proud of what we pulled off and how we did it. The host of my show, Shannon “The Cinema Warrior” Wallen, has never been the type of guy to color inside the lines. If there’s a boundary, he’s going to cross it in the most offensive way he knows how.

He’s always had this reputation, but he ESPECIALLY had it back when our show was on the air.

Herein lies my favorite part of our story: Yes, maybe the mayor did have our show canceled for frivolous (though valid) reasons, but the fact remains that for a brief time, not only were we able to get Shannon – host of the now-banned YouTube channel “Toilet of Terror” – on the airwaves and broadcast to the greater Tri-Cities region, but we got the city of Kingsport to pay us to do it.

Getting the government to spend money on putting the beautiful bastion of anti-establishment that was my host on the air was a sweet, sweet victory for those of us on the right side of history.

Which Brings Me to the Super Bowl

Like many of you, I attended the recent ultra-mega-famous sporting event from the comfort of my living room last Sunday. While we care very little for professional football, we do love watching creative commercials, digging into the halftime entertainment, and eating “game day” food.

I was hyped to see what Bad Bunny had to offer, enjoyed a laugh as Gordon Ramsay bragged about being “meh,” and was all about chowing down on my anabolic chili dogs (of course I had to make our game-day food “healthy”). My main motivation to tune in, however, was seeing Green Day perform at the opening ceremony.

Being Bay Area natives, choosing Green Day to kick things off was an appropriate, though surprising choice. Punkers, even those in the more pop-adjacent sphere, are often looked down on as low-brow creatives.

Let’s face it – many of them are.

Still, it thrilled my 41-year-old, spiked-and-studded, safety-pinned heart to see my favorite band hit the obscenely small stage that evening.

Many kids my age were introduced to the concept of punk rock thanks to Green Day’s 1994 effort, “Dookie.” I not only fell in love with the band, but the entire genre that had just opened up to me.

And though die-hard my fandom may have been for several years, I must admit that once MTV and local rock radio got their hands on 2004’s “American Idiot,” and proceeded to play its many hits ad nauseam, I checked out.

I was starting my second year in college when I noticed something: the more I heard my favorite band on the radio, the more I saw shallow, flavor-of-the-week types blasting the album’s titular track, or suddenly copying Billie Joe Armstrong’s signature black-shirt-red-tie look from that era.

The music was great, but it existed within a scene with which I wanted no part.

I’d spend the next decade or so distancing myself from modern Green Day, thinking they’d gone all the way off the spectrum and were now servicing Carson Daly and his ilk.

Sellouts, in other words.

This is because I was still a stupid kid.

After I grew up a bit, had a mortgage, debt, and a family, it dawned on me that being able to pay your bills and provide for your loved ones isn’t selling out – it’s actually kind of awesome. It’s even better if you’ve stuck to your punk rock roots the way Green Day has.

Once I came back into the fold, I had an even greater appreciation for my good friends Billie Joe, Tré, and Mike. In fact, it was pretty ironic that those same guys I used to make fun of for blasting “American Idiot” in college were the same people the song made light of. It’s a protest song, just like the followup single “Holiday.” And the guys got both of them played on the radio all over the world!

When Katie and I saw them headline at Great American Ball Park two years ago (with support from the Smashing Pumpkins, Rancid, and the Linda Lindas), I had a moment of strange pride. As we approached the venue, I looked around at the posters and signs that had been plastered everywhere. The guys were celebrating the 30-year anniversary of “Dookie,” and that was very much promoted.

This is to say that the famous MLB ball park and much of that area of Cincinnati, had DOOKIE written everywhere, sometimes in 10-foot-tall letters.

If making major cities all over the planet spell out DOOKIE prominently for the whole world to see isn’t punk rock, I don’t know what is. It took me back to seeing The Cinema Warrior pop up on a television screen in Kingsport’s City Hall building. Subtle rebellion at its finest.

Anybody Can Be Angry and Shout About It

Punk is filled with bands who will say what needs to be said with no filter or metaphor, and I think that’s awesome. It’s one of the things that draws me to the genre, the lifestyle, and the mindset.

But anybody can use their platform to make a scene.

To me, though, it takes a certain confident, intelligent coolness to be able to make a major statement that has an impact while simultaneously playing by the rules.

Bad Bunny did that on Sunday by using his platform to combat culture-war-fueled racism by doing nothing more than exuding joy and celebrating culture.

Happiness and heart in the face of ignorance and hatred.

That, my friends, is punk rock.

The actual punk band on the bill, however, made a statement that was much more subtle.

In the weeks leading up to the event, media outlets tried very hard to stir conservative outrage with the NFL’s choice to feature Green Day as the opening act. Video footage of Billie Joe ranting onstage about ICE and/or the Tr*mp administration made the rounds. It led many progressive-leaning sites to openly wish for Green Day to use their platform to make an anti-ICE statement or rail against the weird man currently occupying the People’s House.

And I have to admit, initially, I wanted that, too.

The day before the event, however, I had a change of heart.

I began to think that yes, it would be very punk rock for them to take the stage and improvise a rallying cry against the current administration and its gestapo goons.

By this point, however, it had become an unfair expectation.

And as much as I love Green Day, they’re simply not that band.

(The Dead Kennedys were, though!)

It was a situation where partaking in certain types of “good trouble” would have ultimately resulted in nothing more than conformity to popular demand.

Instead, they played it straight, played it well, and had one censored moment that was entirely expected.

They maybe didn’t make a blatant political statement with their air time, but they still performed their thinly veiled protest songs in front of millions, right under the noses of billionaires who bought ad space against the biggest sporting event of the year.

They didn’t need to make a scene, they just needed to show up.

It was resistance by existence.

And I believe that is one of the strongest, most reliable forms of rebellion.

No matter if it’s on TV, at a sporting event, or even on a humble Substack.

-jtf

Buy Me a Coffee

Katie expressed her offense after I read aloud the February 3rd entry in Ryan Holiday’s book, The Daily Stoic. The commentary was about anxiety, using the words of Epictetus to encourage the reader to explore the purpose of their anxiety (spoiler: there isn’t a valid one from the stoic’s perspective).

After her response, I told her that that’s what I think is both the best and worst part about reading philosophy. While it forces you to understand the deeper meaning of our rationale, it comes at the cost of understanding the deeper meaning of our rationale.

I could say this with certainty, because it had happened to me merely four days prior.

Introducing: Weirdly Toxic Male Air Duct Guy

Katie hired a company to come clean our air ducts. This is an aspect of housekeeping that I admittedly think of infrequently. Still, I’m usually not one to argue if / when my wife wants to do something to the house (please note that I still reserve the right to bitch and complain about having to do them – I do this often). She handled the scheduling of the procedure and I decided I would just go on about my life, knowing that my very capable wife had it all under control.

Unfortunately for everyone involved in this story, I was at home alone the day our tech showed up.

While Katie was at the gym, an extremely meek and impossibly frail gentleman showed up at my front porch. I didn’t know what services Katie had signed up for, what kind of equipment was involved, etc., so I happily answered the door under the impression that my only assignment would be to let the man do his job.

Imagine how frustrating it was then, when the little guy began peppering me with questions.

I was having a hard enough time keeping up, as the gentleman spoke with a pretty thick accent that was difficult to understand. To make it worse, he continuously asked me questions about our HVAC system, our ductwork, our ventilation orientation, and a number of other things that I not only couldn’t answer with any certainty, but also topics I felt were asinine to expect any lay homeowner to understand.

I absolutely hate it when you hire someone to perform a professional service for which you are either incapable of doing yourself or are otherwise not qualified to perform, and they start speaking to you as though you are one of their professional peers.

This behavior is especially prominent when the service provider and customer are both male. There’s an unspoken expectation in our patriarchal society that all men should be well-versed in stereotypically male pastimes such as home improvement, automobile maintenance, and sports. This is certifiably untrue, yet a terribly unfortunate reality.

Once I figured out where he needed to be (our intake vent), he proceeded to ask where the other vents were in the house. I pointed one out, and he immediately removed the register and shoved his arm in elbow-deep. He removed a handful of debris and asked in astonishment how long it had been since we last had our ducts cleaned.

I couldn’t say.

I told him we’d bought the house five-and-a-half years ago, hadn’t done it since we moved in, and had no idea what happened before us.

He proceeded to dog me for my negligence, guilting me for “making [my] family breathe the debris all day”, then tried to hard-sell me on the individual vent cleanings at $79 per vent.

I told him I didn’t know what Katie had signed up for, but she would be home soon and I would ask her what she wanted to do. He seemed a bit incredulous by my response, but began working in our intake vent nonetheless.

I went back to work in the office. About 10 minutes later, ol’ boy came stomping down my steps and asked if I’d made a decision yet. I reminded him that I needed to ask my wife and she’d be home soon, to which he sternly responded, “Or maybe you could just make a decision on your own.”

The insinuation that I was somehow less of a man for waiting on my wife to make a decision made me see red.

I barked at him that while, yes, I could make a decision on my own, I would still be waiting for my wife, all the while struggling to not forcibly remove him from our home. The guy couldn’t even open our front door under his own strength (he would go on to accuse us both of locking it on him), so I’m pretty sure I could throw him off my porch with one hand.

Katie saved his life by pulling in just in time.

I informed her that I would not be speaking to him anymore and told her everything that went down. I thought maybe she’d have better luck since she deals with people like this on a daily basis and is more familiar with the terminology.

I was wrong.

He ended up doing the same thing to her, belittling her for never having done this and trying to embarrass her for “letting [her] family breathe the debris all day.”

Apparently the individual vent cleanings were not a part of the package she ordered, so she caved and added them on.

Having never done this before, myself (the horror!), I have no idea if the guy did a good job in the vents, but I do know he did a shit job of being mindful inside our home.

He moved our plants around in the living room, didn’t put anything back where he found it, marked up our dog toy basket and toilet seat with his dirty hands, and somehow got dirt all over our shelves near the back door.

Before he left, he came down the stairs to my office to speak to me one last time – suicidal, I’m guessing. He informed me that he was done, that Katie had already paid him, and we were good to go. Before I could do the right thing and simply thank the guy, he had to add just one more jab:

“Maybe next time don’t wait another six years to do this again.”

I was briefly speechless. I shook my head and just mumbled, “Whatever, man,” as he turned on his heels and walked back out my front door that I’m surprised he could open.

How This Relates:

Getting so worked up over this guy got me thinking very hard about my aforementioned deeper meaning behind the rationale.

We live in a society that erroneously assumes the men make the decisions and pay the bills in heteronormative marriages. The Firefly household – and much of proper society – does not live this way, however. Katie and I are a team, and it does not bother me when she pays for things or makes decisions about our home. She works very hard for her money and she’s an incredibly intelligent person – I’d be stupid to feel otherwise.

Our relationship dynamic states that I am the “man of the house,” solely as a shallow statement of fact without having any extra insinuations of relational hierarchy or any other deeper meaning. It infuriates me when someone – usually other men – say and do things that come across as demeaning to me when this reality is presented.

Katie and I are a unit.

This unit is the head of our household.

This unit may have two halves, but they are of equal weight.

And even though I push for this dynamic and fiercely believe in it… Part of me wonders if there’s still an insecure part of me that somehow cares about what these misogynistic males say about it.

Shouldn’t be hard to believe, I don’t guess. At the end of the day, I’m still a heterosexual male living in a heterosexual-male-dominated society. Maybe it’s a lingering primal instinct to be accepted by my socially dominate peers in the name of survival that still tugs at me, despite my better judgement.

And that really, really irritates me.

The day after this all went down, I read the following quote from Marcus Aurelius:

Keep this thought handy when you feel a fit of rage coming on – it isn’t manly to be enraged. Rather, gentleness and civility are more human, and therefore manlier. A real man doesn’t give way to anger and discontent, and such a person has strength, courage, and endurance – unlike the angry and complaining. The nearer a man comes to a calm mind, the closer he is to strength.

I do believe that gentleness and civility trumps aggression when it comes to being masculine.

I also believe in feminist ideals when it comes to social norms in our modern world.

Not only that – I feel exceedingly confident in these things.

Men who aren’t as sure of themselves will go out of their way to make others feel pressured to feel the same. They will proceed in their lives with extremely toxic philosophies with regard to masculinity and relationship dynamics between men and women.

As someone who believes as we do (and I’m speaking of myself and anyone else who reads Iconoclast), it’s imperative that we do not let them get under our skin.

We mustn’t let their insecurities awaken our own and turn them into something they’re not.

We can’t expect misogynistic twerps to be anything other than misogynistic twerps.

But we can expect a higher awareness within ourselves.

Even if it does require the philosophers of yore calling us out before it happens.

-jtf

While it’s not intended to be public-facing, I figured I’d share the excitement of being back into daily journaling with a slightly edited entry.

Readers: do either of you journal? Tell me about it if you do!

January 29, 2026

Oh my god, I am even more sore today. I know what DOMS is, but it always sneaks up on me. And despite knowing what it is, I’m still allowed to bitch about it, so this is me bitching.

I got to sleep in today and that was nice. It was followed by some L-Carnitine (I’m back on), a hot cup of coffee and some very nice cuddles with my boy Brüe. Not a bad start to the morning, but I must admit I’m struggling to get the motivation to get going with work. Fortunately, I only have one call and it’s a 1:1, so it will be painless and likely run short.

A bit from the book I’m currently reading: An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding by David Hume:

“Everyone will readily allow that there is a considerable difference between the perceptions of the mind when a man feels the pain of excessive heat or the pleasure of moderate warmth, and when he afterwards recalls his memory of the sensation or anticipates it by his imagination. These faculties may mimic or copy the perceptions of the senses, but they never can entirely reach the force and vicacity of the original sentiment. The utmost we say of them, even when they operate with greatest vigor, is that they represent their object in so lively a manner, that we could almost say we feel or see it: But, except the mind be disordered by disease or madness, they never can arrive at such a pitch of the vivacity as to render these perceptions altogether undistinguishable.”

And then …

“All colors of poetry, however splendid, can never paint natural objects in such a manner as to make the description be taken for a real landskip. The most lively thought is still inferior to the dullest sensation.”

Gods bless America, I love reading philosophy! It’s interesting that I love it so much because I had the opportunity to learn about it in college but chose to drop the class because I thought it was going to be way too over my head. I dropped it and said that I wasn’t comfortable participating in the class because of my religion.

The dumb thing is my religious convictions were merely me parroting the excuse of a fiercely Christian friend who dropped the class way more authentically the day before me.

Little did I know that just a few years later, I would audit a collegiate philosophy course and fall in love. Even more out-of-nowhere is the fact that despite my poser-evangelical protests of yore, I would spend a short time living as a practicing atheist, an identifying phrase that I realize is conceptually confused.

Unrelated to the above, but not entirely:

I also read an interesting thing recently from Adam Born from Arnold’s Pump Club. He discusses the flaws of anyone who speaks in absolutes – always, never, worst, best, etc. In almost every instance, absolutes are an indication of uncertain conclusions masked by felonious conviction.

As Born puts it: “People who speak in absolutes tend to be more concerned about proving a point than offering tools and advice that makes you better.”

He also points out how rampant this runs in domains “where confidence gets rewarded far more than accuracy.”

That means fitness.

That means nutrition.

That means politics.

And yes, that means spirituality.

Your best bet is to make decisions based on the most reliable information you have, and be open to having your opinion changed at all times.

Ask me how I know.

//

Again, I do not plan to share my journal entries with any regularity, but I’m hoping they help jar loose some intriguing content ideas for the next 52 weeks of Iconoclast.

Thanks for hanging out with me for the last year.

-jtf

I write because I love doing it, and it’s one of my few hobbies I’m actually good at.

Lately, though, I’ve been struggling to keep the motivation to produce. My Substack audience is very small and I’m probably going to retire my OG blog (Beard Hair in My Coffee) later this year. I’m not crying about low viewership, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t being reasonably critical of my ROI.

But then, a glimmer of hope:

7:36 PM Wed, Jan 7, 2026. A flattering email lands in my inbox. In it, someone claiming to be the leader of a Wilmington-based reader group expresses interest in featuring my book for an upcoming event.

…What stood out to me is how the idea of a cult classic is treated honestly. It is not framed as success in the mainstream sense, but as something messier and more personal, a strange kind of victory that belongs mostly to the people who were there. The tension between avoiding mainstream triviality while still wanting to be seen feels central to the story, especially as the project begins to attract attention it was never designed to handle.

It couldn’t have happened at a better time. This wasn’t something that was going to make me a world-renowned writer, but to have a complete stranger give me such a thoughtful review of my book made me feel like I was on top of the world.

My book is very special to me – short, niche, at times polarizing, and never meant to be a bestseller. It’s a statement of authenticity, born of a lifelong punk rock ethos: creating for the sake of creation.

And so, having that sincerity recognized, I was ecstatic that a book club would want to dig into my work. They informed me that their readers would happily leave reviews of the work and, if I was interested, would host me for an author Q&A session after the reading.

All they needed from me was a financial commitment to help cover the cost of the final event, event space, logistics, etc. I could have interpreted this as a red flag, but it seemed reasonable, and the request was very friendly. My options were either PayPal or bank transfer.

I opted for PayPal.

As requested, I also emailed a confirmation that the money was sent.

Shortly after, I received an email saying they never received the payment. They then asked me to consider doing the bank transfer.

Something wasn’t right.

Much too late, I did some research and learned that “send us money and our book club will leave you reviews,” is a pretty classic scam that targets self-published authors.

I replied to them once more, congratulating them on their successful scam.

You used the one thing that I’m proud of to fuck me.

They emailed again, insisting they weren’t a scam, and asking me to agree to pay them yet again.

PayPal can’t/won’t do anything because the payment was sent as “friends and family.” Emails, IMs, and phone calls to PayPal are all answered by generative AI. It’s a dead end.

I could set cash on fire and it wouldn’t bother me. But while it was frustrating, it wasn’t the financial loss that hurt.

When I told Katie what had happened, it was impossible not to be emotional about it.

I care about authenticity and reaching into a deeply vulnerable place to create meaningful work. I had done that with my book, and someone used that vulnerability to take advantage of me.

No matter what field you’re in, there’s a specific scam out there tailor-made to prey on you. I got them frequently when I billed myself as a photographer, and even more when I was a certified personal trainer.

But this was different.

This scam doesn’t target someone’s desire for financial gain – it preys on an artist’s longing to feel seen.

Our desire to be appreciated, venerated even, is weaponized against us.

It worked on me, and that’s pretty humiliating to admit. I pride myself on how difficult it is to scam me, yet someone found the most hurtful way to get in.

More humiliating still is how I briefly considered shutting it all down afterward – my book listing, my blog, this Substack.

But then I remembered:

I’d love for my writing to be a financially lucrative endeavor and I’d love for more people to read my work.

But wealth and acclaim have never been the point. And for me to shutter my outlets would indicate otherwise.

Creativity for the sake of creation, though?

Taking up space as a progressive male in a media industry dominated by performance and insecurity?

Continuing to use my brain to write words in a world that is increasingly using AI to conjugate for them?

That’s always been my place. And I won’t accept anything less.

You won this one, Wilmington scammer, but I’ll continue to pound away on this stupid little keyboard in my cold home office.

This is the only way.

-jtf

Mergers and acquisitions aside, it’s the single biggest threat to my career.

For every efficiency it affords people, there’s twice as much slop created.

Not to mention its negative impact on the environment and on our brain development.

I think it bastardizes art, glorifies plagiarism, and has caused a dramatic rise in poor information being shared under the assumption that AI’s responses are fact-based.

I had a brief conversation about AI with my step-dad over the Christmas holiday. He doesn’t share my vitriolic hatred of this infant technology, but he does harbor a healthy amount of skepticism.

He’s fully aware that much of what he sees on his Facebook feed is likely AI-generated and unreliable.

He’s also aware of the dangers caused by lazy humans taking AI-generated content as verifiable fact, be it a video as innocent as a dancing raccoon or as life-threatening as quack medical information.

We briefly discussed the many nefarious and criminal ways AI is currently being used.

But then I postulated a philosophical question on the matter that I toil on frequently:

Wherein lies the actual problem?

Is it with the vile creators of AI slop? Or is it the lazy, uneducated public who have been so willing to consume its output?

Variations of this question haunt me as I ponder the realities of our present condition. One of those hauntings came during my shower on Thursday morning. My thought process (as best I can remember it, and obviously with some added clarity) is as follows:

We both know someone who is positively obsessed with watching Fox News.

We both know someone who is tirelessly scrolling their Facebook feed.

We both know someone who is constantly buying garbage from TikTok Shop.

Cable television news doesn’t exist to report the news. It exists to sell ads. It promotes fear to keep the viewer engaged, thereby maintaining their attention long enough to put on a commercial.

They’ve been paid millions of dollars to do this to us. But it’s not really evil – that’s just how the broadcast industry works in a capitalist society.

It would stop working if we stopped believing that being afraid and angry in our homes is somehow keeping us safe and informed.

Similarly, social media does not exist to keep us connected with our friends and families. It, too, exists to sell ads. It utilizes various algorithms to put content in front of our faces that it thinks we’ll engage with, thereby keeping our eyes on the app long enough to receive another ad or two.

They’ve been paid millions of dollars to do this to us. But it’s not really evil – that’s just how the social media industry works in a capitalist society.

It would stop working if we stopped believing that we’ll somehow benefit from publishing curated realities for ourselves with hopes of impressing other people. It would stop working if we stopped being obsessed with keeping up with what everyone else is doing.

Websites that promote ultra-cheap miracle products from TikTok Shop to Tumu do not exist to provide us with quality items that enrich our lives. They exist to make as much money for as little overhead as possible through a pricing model built on extreme volume and minimal attachment. They’ll sell thousands, if not millions, of low-quality units by putting a price on them that’s so low the consumer has little attachment to the financial obligation.

They’re being paid millions of dollars to do this to you. But it’s not really evil – it’s just how the marketplace works in a capitalist society.

It would stop working if we would make ourselves more aware of how influencers and throwaway culture affect our mentality.

Key takeaway here: Just like my question about where the evil lies in AI use, today’s greatest evils exist due to our own lethargy. Evil persists because we tolerate it; sometimes grow indifferent to it; sometimes promote it.

In a moment of serendipity, after getting out of the shower, I picked up the Daily Stoic and read the day’s devotional about Seneca’s concept of euthymia:

At our core, humans have one prominent desire: survival.

Unlike our ancestors who had to worry about being eaten by saber-toothed felines or being crushed by hirsute, tusked elephants, we strive for a survival in a different form.

Acceptance. The perception of strength. Online engagement.

This means knowing what to be mad about, what to be afraid of, what type of impression to put forward, what product to purchase and promote.

But Seneca probably would have considered cable news and social media the very “myriad footpaths of those wandering in every direction” of which he warns.

I can’t help but agree.

Anyway, this is my very long, drawn-out way of telling you, my dear readers, that I’m currently on an Instagram hiatus. It’s been difficult, but it’s bringing me peace.

Not only am I no longer being bombarded by a 24-hour news cycle and personal development gurus who always point out what I’m doing wrong, but I’m establishing control over what evil I’m contributing to with my tolerance.

Unlike when I got off Facebook (14 months and counting!), this one is a challenge for me.

No, I’m not going to say you should do it, too.

Unless you just want to.

You might be surprised to learn just how well you’re doing when you stop surrounding yourself with influences that exist to convince you otherwise.

Ever onward!

-jtf

Recently he wrote a very entertaining piece about his particularly bothersome neighbor and it inspired me to tell a neighbor story of my own.

Would it be apropos to say, thanks for the inspo, Spo? I hope so. Either way, here we go.

Yes, my face is firmly nestled inside my palm after that.

Let me tell you my neighbor story.

Naked and Covered in Bees, I Was

I used to live in a 1970s split foyer in a quaint subdivision in West Knoxville. It was primarily red brick, had a matching brick front porch and an awning supported by four white, 30-foot columns. About 50 yards separated my porch and the road, and much of my yard was under sky-scraping trees on inclines that varied in grade depending on where one stood.

I push-mowed my lawn back then and had a decent self-propelled mower that got the job done every week. Various natural debris littered the area — it wasn’t uncommon for me to run over something that would hit the blade and shoot out the side discharge or out from under the bottom of the mower, sometimes hitting me across the shins.

And so, on one fateful and oppressively hot summer day while I was out mowing, undoubtedly dreaming about that ice cold beer I would crack open when I finished, it didn’t frighten me when I ran over what I thought was debris and felt the sting against my shins. As I pushed further, however, I realized it wasn’t twigs or gravel.

It was yellow jackets.

Tens of them, but it felt like hundreds, maybe thousands.

I’d run over their nest and they were not pleased with me in the slightest.

I used my mower’s self-propulsion to pull me through the yard and into the top of my driveway where I slung the mower and ran inside through the garage. I’d already begun stripping off my sweaty clothes and before I entered the den, I was completely naked. I sprinted up the stairs, down the hall and immediately into the shower.

As the water soaked my hair, I watched as about 10 yellow jackets fell down toward the drain. A few other clingers were then brushed from my arms and legs. I remember crushing them all with a shampoo bottle as they fell to the puddle near the drain. They just kept falling off my body – it was a scene straight out of an apiphobia-based horror film.

The nightmare only intensified when I heard the doorbell ring.

An image no doubt inspired by the cartoons of my youth popped into my mind: a swarm of angry yellow jackets coming together, their mass congealing into the form of a human body. One of them, the angriest of them all, would act as the fingertip with which the irritable mob would reach out and ring the doorbell. They had a taste for blood and they wanted more.

I stepped out of the shower, still gasping for air in my terrified excitement. The shadows of legitimate human figures were cast through the frosted glass of my front door, calming my nerves only slightly. Wearing only a towel, I answered.

It was my new neighbors who had just moved in the week prior. They’d seen me out mowing and wanted to come introduce themselves.

The timing worked so that it was likely they saw me, started walking over and witnessed me run away. While I do often feel this way on the inside when meeting people for the first time, I’d never actually done such a thing. Still, I’ve spent my days since this incident convinced they had to think I was simply mortified of social interaction rather than running for my life.

We shared a brief conversation that was all too long considering I was wearing a towel, and ended with them saying they would invite me over for a video game night.

Maybe it was due to the weird interaction or maybe they caught the wrong vibe since I answered the door wearing very little; either way, that day never came.

Years Later, A Tree Fell

I didn’t interact with those neighbors a single time for the next four years. We were brought back together after a bad storm when an extremely large – I’m guessing 50, maybe 60-foot tall – tree fell in their backyard.

Things could have been way worse, as the tree fell almost perfectly between our two houses. I say almost because it did crush the only remaining side of my fence that I hadn’t repaired over the years. At this point, I was a chain-link fence repairing machine, so that didn’t worry me, but I still stood idly by, waiting for the neighbor to come and offer to remove the tree.

A week later, nothing.

Legally, it was my problem since it had both fallen onto and damaged my property. Still, as many times as I’d dropped off erroneously delivered mail or scooped my dog’s shit out of a neighbor’s yard – neither by law but because it was the right thing to do – I expected the same from my neighbor.

Again, that day never came.

After nearly two weeks of staring at the enormous tree sitting on my fence, I decided to ask when he was going to address it. I have to admit right off that I was frustrated and was therefore probably a little more aggressive than I should have been.

My attitude didn’t change, however, when video game boy acted like he didn’t know I was his neighbor and wasn’t aware that a tree had even fallen (to be fair, he maybe would have recognized me if I’d come over wearing only a towel).

When I showed him both the tree and the damage, I got the sense that he was about to let me know – correctly, no less – that technically it wasn’t his problem. I was ready to rumble should those words escape his mouth.

His actual reply wasn’t much more satisfying:

“Okay, I guess. I’ve done a thing or two with a chainsaw.”

Not only was it a strange way of agreeing to help your neighbor, but it was said with an air of poorly executed intimidation, like the subtext he was trying to convey was that the tree’s weren’t the only limbs that would be sawed off soon.

Introducing The Scorpions King

Another week went by and still nothing happened. At this point, we were in the dead of winter and, in addition to the freezing temperatures, we’d received a fair amount of snowfall. Once it cleared, I heard a rustling beside my house.

Was that a chainsaw I heard? Had the day of my reckoning finally arrived?

As I peeped through my blinds, I saw a man I didn’t know trying in vain to saw the large tree into pieces. My hopeless neighbor stood by about 10 feet away wearing flip-flops, clearly not intending to help. I was later told that nothing could be done that day, as the core of the tree had frozen, rendering it impenetrable by the teeth of the chainsaw blade.

Or so they said.

I believe this was the assessment of a novice with a worn blade and not the opinion of an educated botanist.

The “frozen” tree lay dormant until spring when it was finally removed by one of the most memorable people I’ve ever encountered.

I was on my way out to run an errand and chose to go out the front door, which was rare since I usually left through the garage. This allowed me to witness the spectacle taking place in my front lawn.

There, a mere 15 feet from my front porch step, was a small, red pickup truck that had been backed into my yard, tearing grass and slinging mud the whole way. The driver-side door was hanging open and “Rock You Like a Hurricane” by the Scorpions was blaring from inside the cab at top volume.

As I continued to assess my situation, a skinny, shirtless man wielding a hand saw — yet another person who was not my neighbor trying to take care of this tree — came lumbering over the nearly six-month-old deadfall. Seeing me, he took large strides in my direction and called out before tossing his saw into his truck bed, clanging it against a few empty Natural Light cans.

“Hey buddy!” he shouted.

Here I am!

“Hey.”

“Hey!”

Rock you like a hurricane! Are you ready, baby!?

“Hey.”

(Motioning overhead) “Yon’t me to tek care of these trees in yer yard?”

“What’s wrong with them?”

Come on, come on, come on, come on!

“You gotta lotta limbs way up thar and see, these’uns is called ‘widow makers,’ ‘cause if they fawl down, an’ they will, they’ll kill yer ass!”

“I think they’re fine. Thank you.”

“Well you just let me know!”

Here I am!

“I will.”

That day also never came.

In the years that have passed since that encounter, I’ve never wanted someone to get off my lawn so badly.

The shirtless Scorpions King hauled off the last of the fallen tree and I fixed my own damn fence. I never saw or spoke to that neighbor again. I’ve also been quick to use extremely toxic ways to murder yellow jackets anytime they take up residence in my yard and I will continue to feel no remorse.

Don’t @ me. I know a guy who’s done a thing or two with a chainsaw.

-jtf

Scratch that – it’s a story about how fitness influencers will not have your back in 2026 and beyond.

A few years ago, I had a fairly decent fitness brand presence on Instagram. It was never meant to be my training business, but it definitely let me talk about fitness with my friends and it landed me many new in-person clients. I wasn’t breaking records, but I had what I thought was a sizable following made up almost entirely of locals.

Totally bragging here, but my group classes were peak and I don’t care to say I think I was the best trainer TITLE Boing Club Knoxville ever had. My classes were always packed no matter what time of day I did them, and my personal training schedule was almost always completely full.

One thing I hadn’t tried, though, was off-hours boot-camp-style classes. My best friend Aaron had started a Saturday morning “Winter Weightlifting” series in the cold months and a similar-in-concept “Summer Bootcamp” series later in the year, and both were well attended.

Important note: He also made a handsome chunk of change from these non-TITLE fitness experiences. I wanted in on that action, but I needed it to be something completely different.

I decided to start a running club that specialized in taking people from couch to 5K. I built a weekly running schedule for people to do on their own and would plan weekly weekend runs as a check-in.

I then designed a really cool booklet complete with strength-training workouts that would complement the running, and even threw in a few free recipes and basic information on nutrition.

It was a strong program, backed by science, and based on experience. It had the potential to really change people’s lives.

I put out a few feelers to see if there was interest and there was. Next, I put out some teasers and dropped a start date for when the program would begin. I talked about it in every class I taught, announced it to all of my clients, and even hosted a pre-sale event.

And from the second I put the program on sale until the day it was supposed to start, I didn’t sell a single spot.

Not one.

I was embarrassed and kind of depressed. When I told my boss about it, I said I was considering just deleting everything on my page and pretending it never happened, hoping to the gods nobody would ask about it.

But he told me no – that I needed to still do it, even if nobody showed up. He suggested I use video trickery to play on people’s FOMO and make them think they really missed out. This way maybe the next time the program rolled around, more people would take it seriously.

He didn’t want me to sell my program, but rather an image – a lie.

Every January, I’m reminded of this story when I see fitness influencers filling up my social feeds talking about how they have the answer, the secret to instant fitness.

They’re in the business of selling dreams with images of artificially manufactured bodies, while simultaneously selling practices that are either not backed by science or not sustainable for the public.

The sad thing is that loads of them will likely receive a giant payday in doing so. And I guess that’s fine for them – it’s none of my business really.

When my boss was encouraging me to lie to my base as a means of selling more spots next time, I don’t think he was necessarily encouraging dishonesty – it’s really just marketing, I guess. Selling an image has never been my style, though.

I was in the business of selling truth, and the truth was my idea wasn’t as cool as I thought it was. Instead of deleting my content, I left it, and was honest if anyone asked.

It was way more important to me to be honest and authentic than to sell tickets to my freak show.

In writing this today, I hope it doesn’t come across as me puffing my chest and banging my own drum because I took the route of authenticity over profit-by-misdirection. What I’m trying to get across is that this is a very vulnerable time of year for many of us, and there are sharks out in those waters who smell your blood.

Listen to the more credible voices in your life that are telling you to stay in the boat, regardless of how many followers the guy asking you to jump in the ocean has.

I guess this post is antithetical to my goal of distancing myself from being a trainer, but I don’t care. I still love fitness and I still love helping people with it.

And very much like those days of the Viking Army running program, I’m just a lonely voice saying things that are true in a world full of noise makers with something to sell you.

Happy 2026, y’all!

-jtf

It’s a time where we reflect on what the cold season represents: the passing of the old, the nature of life, the necessity of renewal. It’s also a time that’s largely driven by joy in the form of knowing the warm season is on its way. It’s a time to not only mourn the death of who we used to be, but also look forward to who we are to become.

This year, we’re celebrating the Christmas holiday in Charleston, South Carolina. I must admit that celebrating Yule in a beach town makes it especially easy to anticipate the warm season ahead.

Despite a few complications…

• Earlier this week, I found out an old friend had passed.

• The same day, my job stressed me on a completely new level.

• The same day, my debit card was compromised and some funny guy tried to buy American Airlines tickets.

I’m heartbroken, stressed out, and angry.

But I’m also grateful.

Grateful for my bank’s fraud protection.

Grateful for my family.

Grateful for my wife.

Grateful for friends who step up to take care of our pups while we’re out of town.

Grateful for the impending warm season, and the wisdom of the Allfather.

And of course, grateful for you – my small-yet-dedicated group of readers.

When we Christmas in Charleston, we hit up the Christmas Eve services at a local House of God. This means that we must also get a photo together in the cemetery. The macabre never rests.

Selah,

-jtf