Welcome to Issue #030 of Zen in the Art of Fighting

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Five Things Worth Sharing

1. A few things I'm writing:

For Substack: I had been hoping to write up a nice piece that merged thinking about Passover, the three-year anniversary of my father’s passing and funeral (April 1-3, 2020), the two-year anniversary of starting the road trip (April 3, 2021), and the concept of journeys toward freedom. The closest I got to this was writing a condolence card for a friend that referred to bits and pieces of these ideas as they floated around in my brain. In the ethos of “done is better than perfect”, I am hoping to post this piece before Passover ends. Stay tuned.

For FloGrappling: I’ve started work on a feature of a competitor who has had his black belt for almost a decade but just won his first Pan American title a few weeks ago. He upset a heavy favorite in the finals and also managed to win his division after a full week of coaching three of his younger athletes to their own podium-topping performances.

It’s been a few months since I last did an interview with anyone for an article, so I’m excited to shake off the rust and have a conversation with someone whose attitude and recent performance I find very inspiring.

For the book: I finally got to a place where I am somewhat happy with the marketing and positioning section of the book proposal. Revising this section was brutal.

I’ve written about this before in the newsletter, but thinking of yourself as a business and your book as a product to be sold generally sucks. The skills required to write a book differ from the skills required to sell a book, and the traditional publishing process requires you to prove you have both skills in some measure. It is the total flipside of the coin of indulging the delightful artistic amorphousness and experimentation required to bring a creative work into the world.

I’ve spent the last few weeks wondering, “Who is going to read this book?” while scrutinizing feedback on the version of the proposal I’d written about a year ago. Back then, a great friend of mine said–with blunt and loving honesty–something like, “Why should someone who doesn’t know you care about your story and about what you have to say?” This week, when I asked a selection of friends and colleagues for their perspectives on the book concept, I got more pleasantly-uncomfortable questions like “What kind of story is this, really?” and “What is the goal of the book?”

While I now have a decent, speculative answer to the question of who might read this book, I still don’t have great answers to the other questions. All I can say for myself is that writing a book is an act of conviction and leap of faith. It demands some degree of self-delusion to believe that I have something important enough to say that it deserves to be written down. It requires faith that someone reading a blurb about it on Amazon or seeing it on a shelf will feel inspired, motivated, curious, or otherwise compelled by the summary of the book enough to buy the thing and read the whole story.

As for what that whole story is for me? Mostly a personal growth story, explored through a drive across the country and a dive into the world of competitive martial arts. It's a story of ambition, reinvention, but most of all, sacrifice.

If I had to pick one thing that I learned from putting myself in unfamiliar places and surrounding myself around aspiring and professional athletes for a year, it was the sacrifice you need to make to live a life that uniquely fulfills you. The extent of that sacrifice is great, and it's the kind of sacrifice that only you can make.

2. Something I'm Reading: Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer.

In a sentence: a journalist researching the USA Memory Championship embarks on a journey into the art and science of memory and enters the competition himself. Part memoir, part research, and with a touch of self-help/self-improvement, it's a great story about the meaning and making of memory.

Two things I like about the book: how Foer describes the cast of “mental athletes” who participate in memory competitions (a pretty peculiar and particular set of individuals), and how Foer turns the lessons learned by practicing a very niche “sport” into something with broader insight on life that holds appeal for any reader.

3. Something I'm Watching: Yellowjackets Season Two

Without divulging spoilers, the show finally delivers on its promise from Season One to show a long-looming, unthinkable moment. The show isn’t perfect, but it sure is gripping. The closing scene of Season Two, Episode Two, set to Radiohead’s “Climbing Up The Walls,” and cutting between a Roman Bacchanal and a frozen barbecue hellscape: A++.

​If you’ve watched episode two already, I highly recommend this article, which delves into what it took to make that aforementioned scene. ​

4. Something I'm Listening To: The audiobook of Brianna Madia’s Nowhere for Very Long: the Unexpected Road to the Unconventional Life.​

I listened to Madia’s book mostly from a positioning research perspective, trying to see what made her nomadic van life in Utah into a New York Times Bestseller. It quickly became obvious.

While Madia's story is interesting and her writing is decent, what probably sold her book the most was the fact that she was a social media influencer. She built a following in the early days of Instagram by taking lots of scenic pictures of the Moab desert, of her orange van, and of her dogs. Her book deal was probably turnkey between her brand partnerships, endorsements, and audience. Her platform practically sold her memoir for her. Go figure.

Separating the art from the artist for a moment: Nowhere for Very Long makes for a fine armchair adventure. I liked how Madia approaches her explanation of full-time #vanlife and how she ended up living in that way. It provided an analogue for me (one that was successful in market) of how I might write better about the #bjjlifestyle, and the need to speak to that experience as it is, both the alluring and the unglamorous bits.

I think the #bjjlifestyle has a few key things in common with #vanlife, where the Instagram romance of it gets overwhelmed by the reality of it. When it comes to van life, social media indexes high on the gorgeous sunsets and the great outdoors, not on the van breaking down in the middle of nowhere or needing to find a public toilet. Similarly, BJJ Instagram largely consists of highlight reels, novelty techniques, and podium pictures, often at the expense of the less-sexy truth: guaranteed joint pain, tireless drilling, more losses than wins, and "being the nail" more often than "being the hammer."

To Madia's credit in Nowhere for Very Long, she shares her van life experience warts and all, and doesn't shy away from describing the challenges. Knowing a few people who are full-time jiu-jitsu people and full-time van lifers, I would say that both lifestyles take a very specific kind of commitment and desire. It's not for everyone.

5. One Good Picture: Seen on a Former Colleague's Instagram Story

I am not having a particularly ceremonial Passover but may have fractionally fulfilled part of a Passover tradition and promise. As part of the Seder every year, you’re supposed to say "Next year in Jerusalem,” and this year, I sort of went to Jerusalem in the form of a Passover dinner at a place called Jerusalem Bakery with six friends. A shawarma plate isn't exactly a Seder plate, but it's the best I can do this year.

Happy Easter, Happy Passover, and if you celebrate neither of those things, Happy April.

Until next time,

EZ

PS: Just as van life isn't for everyone, this PS won't be for everyone, but hey, that's why this is the PS section!

For those who enjoy author x internet culture-ish dish, Brianna Madia is now in the thick of some Redditor-related scandals, which are well-reported and humorously rendered on this episode of Blocked and Reported. The whole story is a very 21st-century digital story, filled with grey areas, manipulation, and skewing of truth.

If you decide to dig deeper into into the Brianna Madia mini-zeitgeist, let me know–I’d love to talk to someone about it. I think there’s a lot to be said on the culture of doxxing, how you do (or don’t) fight back against haters on the Internet, and the sense of righteousness that seems to exist no matter whose side you take in this puzzling battle of "Influencer vs Influenced." Reading Madia's book and reading up on her life was a especially timely as I watched Ingrid Goes West, which I am likely to write about in the next newsletter.

Personally, the only thing I would willingly get into a fight with Madia about on the Internet would be about our dogs. I think my two dogs are cuter than her four dogs. But you can decide.