Kevin and I were running on the trail, chugging along, talking about why people write. Because if you ask a writer, they’ll tell you it’s often essentially a form of self-torture. Yet, we—writers—are compelled to keep doing it. But why?

We were on the fire road that cuts across the face of Mt. Sentinel about 800 feet above town, a double-track of dirt that goes for almost two miles of wide-open views and is a fantastic place to go if you enjoy talking while you run, because you’re right next to each other the whole time, minus one or two spots where you might have to step aside for another runner/hiker/dog walker.

I had a couple things to say about why it’s hard for people to write, because I am technically a writer, which just means I have figured out ways to publish enough words and make enough money for the IRS to not contest it when I put “writer” in the appropriate box on my tax forms.

On the day that Kevin and I went on this trail run, I was about 60 percent finished building a set of shelves in my garage, mostly out of materials I’d salvaged from the old shelves someone had built in our garage a few decades ago and didn’t work for us anymore.

Kevin had recently finished building something very similar and had sent me a photo of it, so here we were, two runners, who were also amateur carpenters and people who want to write, talking about all that stuff as we jogged along.

I note all this because I said to Kevin something like,

Well, it can be hard to justify spending several hours trying to write something, because at the end of all those hours, you might not think what you wrote is any good. If you spent that same amount of time and a bit of money buying some wood and trying to build a table or a set of shelves, and you didn’t quite get it right and the table or the shelves wasn’t the greatest thing ever, it would probably still be usable in some way.

Maybe you mess it up somehow and have to start over once or twice. And if you cut a piece of wood an inch or two too short, you might have to go buy some more wood so you could try it again. Sure, you fuck up some wood, but you end up making something, in your hours as a novice woodworker.

And that’s considered a normal hobby—compared to writing—because at least you’re making something that has a purpose, if only for the people who live in your house. Very different from, say, writing poetry, or short fiction, which may never get published or even get read by anyone else.

But look: We both know that you can go to a home improvement store and buy a set of those wire rack shelves, or a set of plastic ones, and they’ll work just fine to hold your stuff.

But you didn’t do that. You took three or five or eight hours or whatever and penciled out a sketch and went and bought some wood and some screws or nails, and you measured the wood and cut it and clamped it together and tried to get all the angles right and cut more wood and drove in screws or nails and got some sawdust all over yourself and maybe a couple splinters in one or more fingers, and you made something yourself, and it maybe didn’t turn out exactly like you thought it would, and maybe you didn’t end up saving any money after all, but it works, and it fits in the space better than something from the store, and now you can say, Sure it’s not perfect, and sure, plenty of other people could do better, but I made this one.

I guess I think that’s why we write.

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The early-registration discount for my Running To Stand Still writing + trail running workshop this June in Montana ends January 31. More information and an application link can be found here.

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Here’s a video version of the above essay:

I didn’t know that much about Tara Dower before watching this film, but I particularly like how she would rather introduce herself as “trail folk” instead of “ultrarunner,” and that one of her biggest talents seems to be inspiring an entire squad of friends to help her achieve her insane goals (and they all seem to be having so much fun doing it)(video)

Apparently a huge swath of the northern United States could see the northern lights this past week. I missed them, and maybe you did too, but this commercial airline pilot sure saw them from the cockpit of a Boeing 787 flying from Calgary to London and WOW did he get some wild photos of them.

I got really excited when I saw this video pop up on YouTube, listened to it like ten times, and announced to Hilary, “Hey, new José González album dropping soon,” and then realized that the album is not coming until March 27th. So, “Hey, new José González song available now” if you’re into that sort of thing, and if you’re not, let me just say that I have asked my music industry friend if José González is indeed the very nice guy he seems to be, and have received confirmation. He’s just one of those musicians who could keep writing music that’s 70-90% the same as his old stuff for the next 20 years and I’d keep eating it up.

I have feelings of great validation whenever I hear that someone smarter/more successful/faster than me espouses some sort of trick I’ve been doing for a long time without knowing that it’s actually a thing. Like when I read that author David Epstein sleeps in his workout clothes to eliminate that small bit of friction when he needs to get out and exercise the next morning. Or when sports scientist and CEO of newsletter sponsor Precision Fuel & Hydration Andy Blow says to spend two minutes the night before thinking about what training you’re going to do the next day as one of his tips of How to motivate yourself to train this winter. (<—This link will give you 15% off your first 2026 order on the PFH website, but you might also have to enter the code SEMIRAD26 when you check out)

This is the second time in two weeks that I’ve shared a link from the r/FoundPaper subreddit but I particularly enjoy this definition of art, and the photo of the room in the school basement where it was found.

This poem, “Occasional Poem,” by Jacqueline Woodson, simultaneously feels so effortless and so powerful, which is probably why she’s written more than 30 books and won a whole bunch of awards.

This photo gallery of the “snow monsters” that appear during winter conditions at Japan’s Mount Zao ski resort is so cool. I don’t know what else to say but it’s worth scrolling through on a screen, probably the bigger the better. [GIFT LINK]

I loved this short piece on Geographic Geoff’s substack, which answers a question that, like me, maybe you’ve asked before but maybe just in your own head, and maybe you, like me, were not in a place to google it, and then forgot about it, but now, please enjoy the answer to that question, “Lots of countries end with ’-stan’ but why?”

On our most recent Trailhead podcast episode, Zoë and I interviewed our mutual friend Doug Mayer, who started the tour company Run The Alps, and who has also run the 330-kilometer Tor des Geants not once, but three times, and wrote a graphic novel about the race. I probably say this a lot because I try to have fun in most things I do, but this episode was really fun to record, and I hope if you listen to it, you laugh as much as we did.
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube

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For My Favorite Things, I’m interviewing people about the books, movies, music, art, and other creative works that have helped shape their lives. My guest for Episode 8 is Chandra Brown, writer, educator, raft guide, and founder of the Freeflow Institute (where she has graciously allowed me to teach an annual writing workshop since 2019). Chandra’s favorite things are:

1. Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell

Publisher’s Page | Bookshop | Amazon

2. My Morning Jacket, At Dawn (album)

Apple Music | Spotify | YouTube

3. America Windows by Marc Chagall, Art Institute of Chicago

4. Sturgill Simpson concert at the Wilma in Missoula, November 8, 2016

5. Her dad’s Micromet weather data collection units, early 1990s to present

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If you get partway through watching this 9-minute video about “The Owl Man of Logan Airport” and you think, “OK, I get it,” please let me advise you to stick around to hear Norman Smith tell the Starling vs. Peregrine Falcon vs. Snowy Owl story (video)

This post has a handful of the captivating photos that Martin Roemers took of people around the world posing with (or in) their vehicles, and if you want to see a few dozen more, click through the links to his website (I wondered why the background was white in all the photos but one of the first photos on his website is a behind-the-scenes shot where you can see a vehicle parked on a huge white fabric backdrop). The book, Homo Mobilis, looks pretty great.

If you click on one thing in this week’s newsletter, let it be this wonderful story Anne Kadet wrote about The Trumpet Player in a Tux at Grand Central Station—and do yourself another favor and press play on the video so you can listen to the music while you read about this guy’s amazing life story and perspective.

Sometimes I think really good satire is just basically holding up a mirror to the things we do, without much exaggeration, and forcing the audience to admit that yeah, humans are pretty ridiculous. Like this McSweeney’s piece, Let Us Walk You Through Our Very Reasonable Baby Registry.

“The algorithm” gets a lot of well-deserved flak nowadays, and I think rightly so, but every once in a while it delivers me something like this 30-minute live set from this super-chill Ethiopian jazz duo Zena, from this Addis Ababa-based YouTube channel that has barely 1,000 followers, and it redeems itself a little bit. (I am aware that it’s not just one algorithm, of course).

Who among us has not at least once in their life been left hanging when trying to high-five/fist bump someone? This video of “left hanging moments” from NBA games was heartening for me, as I got to watch Very Cool NBA Legends like LeBron James, Steph Curry, and Kevin Durant get left hanging many, many times, and do the same thing we all do: self-clap. Like don’t feel bad, it happens to everyone, including the greatest shooter of all time.

I was going to try to write something original about this 17-second video of this guy getting served food, and by the fourth time I watched it, cackling every time at the end, I can do no better than the most upvoted comment, “Oh the look of betrayal on that man’s face”

AND: a quick favor to ask: I’m coming up on one year as co-host of UltraSignup’s The Trailhead podcast. If you’ve been listening, and could take 60 seconds and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, I’d be grateful. And if you write a review, send your mailing address to me at brendan@semi-rad.com, and I’ll drop one of my “Put in the miles so you can put in the miles” stickers in the mail to you. Thanks!

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If you enjoyed this piece, please consider supporting my work. 

For a good chunk of this video, I thought, “maybe this is a little too heavy to put in my newsletter,” and then I remembered the director is Irish, and it couldn’t stay heavy the entire time, which is probably why it got nominated for an Oscar (video)

I started following Dedra Smith/Pikitsuaki Designs on Instagram a few weeks ago because one of her wonderfully clever western designs made into my feed and I thought “well, this looks interesting” (I think it was this one or maybe this one? ) and they’re too good to not share here too. (here’s her website if you’re not on Instagram)

I don’t know how many people who read this newsletter will perk up at the mention of “a collection of 40-plus essays, short stories, comics, poems, illustrations and other works by trans creators, exploring the deeper meanings of the Fast & Furious franchise,” but I’m just going to say that I finished reading 2 Trans 2 Furious: An Extremely Serious Journal of Transgender Street Racing Studies this past week and it was one of my favorite books I’ve read in the past few months. Probably one of those books/fanzines that will sell 1,000 copies but I’m really glad to say that a bunch of people made it. (It does say it features “erotica” but I think there were only one or two stories in the whole thing that were, ahem, racy.)

This is a story about my friend Syd’s friend Brian, written by their friend John, who happens to work for the New York Times. It’s about Brian’s nearly three-year battle with prostate cancer (after his oncologist told him he had three to five years to live in March 2023). It’s called “A Role Model for How to Die,” and is of course about a tough subject, but in the limited time I’ve spent with Brian, his spirit and personality definitely shine through the story. [GIFT LINK]

We interviewed author Brad Stulberg this past week for The Trailhead about his new book The Way of Excellence and it was a great time. I found myself highlighting lots of passages in the book, and my first question for him during the interview was basically “So your new book is about excellence. What’s something you’re you terrible at?” And he was a good sport about answering that (as well as our other questions).

I saw this Ringer headline, “How will we remember the Luka trade 100 years later?” And thought, “This HAS to be a joke, because, you know, American professional basketball leagues aren’t even 100 years old (“Go Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons!”), and a hundred years is a long, long time to remember anything, let alone a trade between two (OK, three) basketball teams. I am please to report that it is, indeed, a joke, and honestly a good bit, since I am barely aware of what’s going on in the NBA and I couldn’t escape coverage of the one-year anniversary of the Luka trade this past week.

Here’s a fun project coming up from some friends of friends: the World Climate Relay, a challenge week (June 5-12, 2026) involving (hopefully) 10,000-plus people from more than 50 countries, to raise more that $100,000 for high-impact climate charities via the Giving Green Fund. (It’s the same dates of my Freeflow Institute writing + trail running workshop so I wasn’t going to participate—but maybe we’ll do it as part of the workshop?). More information here if you’re interested/need something to get you motivated to get out there in June.

And finally: This mug was the best-selling item in my DFTBA shop last month (and so far this month):

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For My Favorite Things, I’m interviewing people about the books, movies, music, art, and other creative works that have helped shape their lives. My guest for Episode 9 is Mike Sowden, creator of the immensely popular Substack, Everything Is Amazing (I’m a paid subscriber). Mike’s favorite things are:

1. Halloumi
2. The soundtrack to Raise the Titanic, by John Williams

• Main theme
• Re-recordings of the soundtrack by the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra:
  • Apple Music | Spotify | YouTube

3. Microadventures by Alastair Humphreys

Publisher’s page | Bookshop | Amazon

4. Electric blankets
5. Distant lights seen at night

NEXT WEEK: On Thursday, February 19, at 6:00 p.m. MST, I will be doing a YouTube livestream + Q&A session about this year’s Freeflow Institute Running to Stand Still trail running and writing workshop in June. Sign up here via this link and I’ll send you an email the morning of the webinar containing the link to the livestream and a discount code good for $250 off your course registration. Hope to see you there!

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I love that Flea (yes, Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers) is still making music, is playing both the bass and the trumpet (his original childhood instrument) on said music, is putting out these funky videos on YouTube, and seems to be doing it in a very DIY style (he has less than 50,000 subscribers right now?), and that he just put out a song like this. (video)

It’s probably partly because I haven’t read that much of Charles Darwin’s actual writing, but also partly that he is such a revered titan of science, that I found these snippets from his letters so funny, including the one quoted in the title of this post, “Oh my God how I do hate species & varieties.”

Yesterday an algorithm served me a video titled something like “how to train like [Denver Nuggets star] Aaron Gordon, and I thought, “How dare you think I, a middle-aged dad, would compare myself to a 30-year-old full-time athlete who is paid millions of dollars each year to be good at basketball.” I did not click on the video, but I did click on this link in an email from newsletter sponsor Precision Fuel & Hydration because it was titled “How to balance your training with work, family and life,” and I was not disappointed to see coach Dougal Allan pretty much say, “be reasonable,” and also to think of time commitments to work/family/fitness as investments, instead of the other way around, in which you would think of the “sacrifices” you make when choosing how to spend your time. [clicking on the link to the article will apply a 15% discount to any purchase you make from the PFH website]

I was a little uncomfortable in the first few seconds of this video of this guy who starts out very aggressively wanting justice for the theft of his bike (because that’s usually how videos on social media go), but was quite relieved to see how the situation resolved. (thanks, Joe)

Hilary wrote a Substack essay about riding the bus with our little guy, Jay, and everything she says in the piece is true. She and Jay have also converted me into a fan who is now incorporating it into many bus-there-run-home or run-there-bus-home preschool dropoff/pickup plans. But the essay is of course about bigger things.

This is a 15-second video but a very powerful take on the saying (which is also the title of the video), “Everyone’s living a life you know nothing about. Be kind” (via Kottke)

This feels like a long time ago (even though it was just last summer) but Mountain Outlaw magazine published a profile of me with photos by my friend Bobby Jahrig, and words by journalist Maggie Doherty, who was great to chat with.

My first thoughts when reading this story were 1) “I would never do that to my mom and dad” and 2) “I hope my kid never does that to me,” but thought #3 was “WOW, that’s what I call commitment. Or insanity? Or both.” (thanks, Justin)

And finally, here are some new t-shirts I designed from an idea by Patreon supporter, ultrarunner, and all-around swell guy Ned Abbott (we’re donating 50% of the profits to a nonprofit recommended by Ned):

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Listen on Apple Podcasts | Listen on Spotify | Listen/Watch on YouTube

For My Favorite Things, I’m interviewing people about the books, movies, music, art, and other creative works that have helped shape their lives. My guest for Episode 9 is Kurt Wikel, geophysicist, dad, and brewery co-owner.

Kurt’s favorite things are:

1. The Simpsons

2. Daft Punk — Homework

Apple Music | Spotify | YouTube

3. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert W. Pirsig

Publisher’s Page | Bookshop | Amazon

4. A Coconut Named Bob by Austin Weaver

Publisher’s Page | Amazon

5. Dune by Frank Herbert

Publisher’s Page | Bookshop | Amazon

Movie trailer

This film is about the Manhattan loft artist Jay Ells has lived in since 1967 (starting rent was $110 a month!), and he says some interesting stuff at the beginning (no hot water in the apartment for the first 35 years), but it gets even more fascinating later on. Also: That view. (video)

At first I wasn’t going to include this, because I don’t know if it will resonate with anyone who doesn’t have nostalgia for the computers of the 1980s and early 1990s, but then I clicked on the post and read in the description that its made out of “LEGO-compatible bricks,” which is pretty mind-blowing and I think maybe more universally relevant.

We interviewed journalist and athlete Christie Aschwanden on The Trailhead podcast last week, and asked her a bunch of questions about recovery. She had some interesting takes on cold plunges, sleep trackers, HRV, and the beer mile, but the thing I really wanted to ask her about was a very simple quote of hers, “stress is stress,” which gets into why sitting at a desk all day answering emails and doing work isn’t “rest,” even though it’s definitely easier than, say, working as a carpenter.

I learned some very interesting (and heartening) facts from this story from newsletter sponsor Precision Fuel & Hydration: Detraining: Will I lose fitness by not training for a few weeks? Including how much fitness you lose by taking time off, but more importantly, how much you retain even if you have a week in which you don’t get to do very much of what feels like “training” (like when you catch a gastrointestinal bug or respiratory virus from a three-year-old). [Reminder that clicking on the link to the story will give you 15% off your first 2026 order from PFH, if you choose to buy anything]

I read this piece twice, about this guy spending 4.5 months in federal prison and how it expanded his social circle, and I am still thinking about many things in it, including but not limited to how most of us would do anything to not go to prison because it’s awful but how, paradoxically, this guy seems to be surprised at the quality of the friendships he made in his time there, so what does that say about us in the 21st century? [GIFT LINK] (via Kottke)

I’ve been listening to Japanese chillhop musician Brockbeats since 2017 or 2018, and I have never been able to find out anything about them—no real bio, no photos, nothing besides some videos of human hands tapping buttons on music equipment to make beats. But, they have a new album out this week, and it is just as pleasant as always.

I feel like Megan Amram probably started writing this piece while having a conversation with a friend about how “protein is in EVERYTHING nowadays!” And one of them said, “Wait, it’s not in everything, right?” And then she just took that idea and ran with it as far as she could.

Alex Hutton’s paintings of roller coasters are wonderful to look at, and the type of thing I’d hang on a wall if I had more walls and way more money, but maybe the most interesting thing about them is that he does not actually ride roller coasters.

I follow the r/oddlysatisfying subreddit because, true to its name, it provides images of oddly satisfying things, as well as just plain satisfying, not oddly at all, things. Such as the way snow fell and settled on this person’s pergola, which they then photographed and shared with the rest of us.

I mentioned this new shirt design a few weeks ago, and the [bestselling] coffee mug design below it as well, and I was thinking they’re both quite simply worded, but kind of have a similar ethos: We’re doing OK.

You’re Doing Great shirt

This F—ing Sucks mug

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From my aisle seat on our two-hour flight, I glanced over occasionally at the passenger across the aisle as she went from texting on her phone, to flipping down the tray table and watching a news commentary show on her ipad, to switching to playing a game on her ipad, then finally folding up the tray table and texting on her phone for the final descent, landing, and taxiing to the gate, never spending more than a few seconds without interacting with a screen. 

“Wow,” I thought, “That’s probably what I look like too.” 

When we got home from the airport that evening, I checked the Screen Time app on my phone and realized I had, apparently, spent 2 hours and 27 minutes with my phone screen on that day. I had picked up my phone 70-plus times. 

Is that a lot? Not that much? Below or above average? I googled it, and then realized I actually don’t care how it compares to anyone else’s phone usage. When I think of the holiday cards we send each other at the end of the year and summarize what we’ve been up to, i.e. “Parent 1 started a new job and ran a marathon, Kid 2 is taking tae kwon do lessons and making friends at kindergarten, et cetera,” I don’t want mine to read, “Brendan continues to pursue his passion, which is apparently looking at his phone for a huge chunk of his waking hours and not knowing why he’s doing it.” 

Because yes, I use my phone for certain essential tasks, like maintaining a shared grocery list with Hilary, texting friends and family, taking photos, checking the weather forecast before I get dressed for my run, a few work things. But I am also aware—and have been aware for years now—that a lot of that screen time is spent on total bullshit: I pick up my phone to check the weather, and then I only half-consciously decide to watch three to 17 minutes of standup comedy video reels on Instagram, or get sucked into reading a news story and then another one and then another one. 

Sure, I could download an app to help me spend less time on my phone. I could buy a product that promises to help me limit my distraction. I could get rid of my phone and get a “dumb phone.” Or, hear me out: I could just recognize that every time I pull my phone out of my pocket, it’s a conscious choice, and a choice that often results in me being a) not fully present or b) wasting several minutes of my life or c) both. 

I have been through this before, as a person with a tendency toward addiction. I used to smoke, which, as you might know, has been proven to be dumb as shit, but also very addictive. And as a person who smoked 20 cigarettes every day for years, I’ll tell you: One of the worst things about it (besides all the obvious health stuff) was how often I thought about the next cigarette. Sure, smoking one of them took five minutes, but I probably started thinking about the next one 10 or 15 minutes after I finished the last one. Even if you don’t do the math, that’s a lot of thinking about something. 

When I was in treatment for addiction 150 years ago, there was a saying that went something like, “First it’s just fun, then you have fun with problems, and then you just have problems.” A line graph of that might look like this: 

I’m not going to compare smartphones to cigarettes or other addictive substances/habits (although I wouldn’t be the first person to do so). And I’m not saying my phone has caused the same problems I’d have with, say, heroin or alcohol. But maybe it’s worth asking: How much fun am I having? 

Or: How much fun am I missing out on when I’m on my phone? Maybe you can multitask (even though the data says you probably can’t), but I know this about myself: Every minute I’m looking at my phone is one minute I’m not fully present doing something else: having a conversation, playing with my kid, listening to a song, watching a movie, enjoying a cup of coffee. 

I have drunk thousands of cups of coffee in my life and hopefully will be able to drink thousands more, so I’m not that bothered by being a little distracted when I do that, but my kid is only going to be three years old once, and even the most boring thing he does is worth being there for. 

So the day after that flight, I decided to try to keep my screen time under one hour per day—an arbitrary number, but one that seemed prudent enough. Could I fit in all the weather forecasts, texting, photos, grocery listing, social media, banking, and other essential phone tasks I needed in 59 minutes a day? 

Well, I did. Every day for two months, I kept my phone screen time under an hour (except for two days when I went over by four minutes). I did not feel a significant transformation, write a novel, get shredded, learn a new language, or start playing the piano. I don’t even know what I spent that extra time doing. I just felt a little bit … more sane? Better? 

When I sat in the waiting room at the doctor’s office, I just stared at the clock for seven minutes. I went out to dinner with a friend, and when he went to the restroom, I just sat there with my phone in my pocket. I have tried to embrace what it feels like to just sit there, instead of checking the little slot machine in my pocket whenever I’m the least bit bored. 

I have quit many addictive things over the years, and in every case, I have found it much easier to completely eliminate whatever it is from my life instead of trying to moderate my usage of it. I am aware that people can drink just one beer or one glass of wine, or smoke a cigarette now and then, but I am not one of those people. The hard thing with a phone is that you can’t just get rid of it—or at least I can’t, at this point in my life. So I have to figure out a way to moderate it. Which I honestly kind of hate. But maybe this is a little bit of progress. 

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If you enjoyed this piece, please consider supporting my work. 

My friend Ed, whose excellent Mountain & Prairie podcast you’re probably aware of if you’ve been following this newsletter for more than a few weeks, and who is also tapped into some Red Hot Chili Peppers content pipeline probably because of our shared love of Flea’s memoir, Acid for the Children, sent me this video this week, and it was a breath of fresh air. (video)

If you missed yesterday’s email, I wrote a piece about getting some time back from my phone, using a very simple idea/metric, and how it’s been going.

This is super-interesting but also extremely technical: A story about calculating the longest line of sight possible on Earth. As the author states at the end of the piece, visiting the actual spot to confirm the calculation would involve some significant mountaineering—but also at the end, in the footnotes, he says that the inspiration for the idea came from a 2012 forum thread on SummitPost, which warmed my crusty old mountaineering heart. (via Kottke)

I love the Poem of the Day emails, but I love them even more when they give me a poem I can read in less than 60 seconds and then think about for days afterward, like this one, which stuck the line “when you’re broke, everything you touch is artificial” in my head, where it will live for a long time.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance has come up a bunch of times in conversations I’ve had in the past few weeks (including podcast interviews with Brad Stulberg on The Trailhead and the episode with my friend Kurt Wikel on My Favorite Things), so when I saw this piece by Ted Gioia, “The Real Story Behind ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’” I of course read the whole thing and learned a lot of the backstory of a book I read/loved when I was 21.

Michelle J’s newsletter isn’t huge, but I read it every time I see a new post pop up. I have technically made a living as an adventure writer, and when I teach writing, that’s kind of where I come from, but I really want to teach people how to do what she does, which is make funny, thoughtful stories out of normal things like, well, this one, The Hidden Power Dynamics of the Office Potluck.

I saw some photos of Kyoto University’s graduation ceremony on a Reddit post saying it was “an art school graduation” in which the school lets students wear whatever they want, but as far as my research has found (someone please correct me if I’m wrong), it’s just the university’s graduation ceremony. Anyway, this article is the most detailed piece I found on it, the costumes are fantastic and I think more higher learning institutions should adopt this idea.

I linked to this article on the Precision Fuel & Hydration website a few months ago, “How to start strength training for endurance,” and I am not trying to be an evangelist, but would like to say that I have been doing the exact two workouts mentioned in that article during my two gym sessions per week since Thanksgiving, and I can’t believe I didn’t start doing it sooner. (Also, if you click that link to read the article, you’ll get 15% off your first purchase of PFH stuff from the website, including this package of my favorite PFH fuel)

I have probably spent 1000 times as many minutes reading about AI than I have using actual AI tools, but it’s always refreshing to read something calm and thoughtful about this whole *gestures at everything* era we seem to be in now. There were a bunch of bangers in this essay by Charles Yu (which was apparently adapted from a lecture he gave at Davidson College), including this paragraph: “But the achievement of a degree does not cover, does not even purport to touch, emotional intelligence. What is a Ph.D. in reading the room? In teaching your kid to ride a bike? In crying because you were moved by a piece of music? We consider elephants intelligent because they mourn their dead. What is a Ph.D. in grief, awe, wonder, curiosity?” [GIFT LINK]

We announced this on social media last week: An alumnus of my Running to Stand Still writing + trail running workshop has offered to provide a full-ride scholarship to this year’s workshop (June 7-12, Homestake Pass, Montana). The deadline is March 28, 2026, and the details and application are here.

And if you’re wondering what it’s like to attend the workshop, this video I made with my friend and Freeflow Institute founder Chandra Brown should give you an idea of our general vibe:

Listen on Apple Podcasts | Listen on Spotify | Listen/Watch on YouTube

For My Favorite Things, I’m interviewing people about the books, movies, music, art, and other creative works that have helped shape their lives. My guest for Episode 11 is Zoë Rom, journalist, podcaster (Your Diet Sucks, The Trailhead), running coach, elite ultrarunner, and stand-up comedian.

Zoë’s favorite things are:

1. Blalock’s Indie Rock Playlist
2. About a Mountain by John D’Agata

Publisher’s Page | Bookshop | Amazon

3. Ways of Hearing
4. Nathaniel Russell’s Art
5. Lady Bird

Other things we mentioned:

“Temptation” by Jukebox the Ghost

“Welcome Home” by Radical Face

The Lifespan of a Fact by John D’Agata and Jim Fingal

The Things We Carried by Tim O’Brien

The Perfect Storm by Sebastian Junger

Into the Raging Sea by Rachel Slade

I did not expect to get choked up watching this video about basketball player Audi Crooks and her family, but I am also not surprised. (video)

I was not the biggest Star Trek fan but damn do I love a good set of “fictional spaceship cut in half” images, in this case the USS Enterprise D.

I am once again doing what some people call “training” (for a big goal this fall) and really enjoying my time on the trails here in Missoula, which are ranging these past few weeks anywhere from dry to muddy to covered in snow and/or ice. To keep my toes from getting jacked up no matter how badly I treat them, I have been wearing and loving the Ultra Run Crew from Injinji, who is not only sponsoring this month’s newsletter, but also giving you all 20 percent off toesocks with the code SEMIRADMAR26 for one week only—here’s a link for newsletter subscribers.

You’re probably familiar with the term enshittification  (if not, it’s in the dictionary now), which is kind of not in the purview of this newsletter, which is called “Friday Inspiration,” which is almost entirely made up of positive and inspiring content, because enshittification is kind of depressing. BUT, this video by the Norwegian Consumer Council is inspiring for its originality and tone, as is their quest to fight enshittification.

My Freeflow Institute Grand Canyon 2025 co-instructor Dr. Len Necefer wrote this great piece, A Letter to Those Younger Than Me, and instead of trying to sum it up in a couple sentences here, I’ll just quote my favorite part and recommend you read it:  “There is a difference between earned grief and cheap cynicism. Earned grief comes from engagement. It comes from having tried, from having been in the room or on the ground or in the water, from having put something on the line and watched it not be enough. That grief is honest and I respect it and I carry a lot of it. Cheap cynicism comes from never having tried. It comes from the sideline, from the comment section, from the safe distance of someone who decided early that nothing would work and then arranged their life to prove themselves right. One is a wound. The other is a wall. Learn to tell the difference. Build your life on the wound side.”

The title of this poem, Now You Are Like a God, is perfect, and the poem itself should be required reading, as a sort of palate cleanser, for anyone who has watched TV news coverage that makes them feel that every block of every single city is a crime-ridden hellscape.

John Craigie’s new album I Swam Here popped up on my radar a month ago, and something about it just feels like an antidote to Everything Going On right now—calm, chill, a bit of reverb in the vocals. I’ve been listening to it a lot lately, as well as some of his older albums (enough to where I think Hilary is getting a little tired of it). But if that sounds good to you, here’s the new album (recommendation: start it on the second track, Fire Season).

I forget where I saw a mention of this podcast episode on The Atlantic, How To Age Up On A Warming Planet, but as someone more than a little prone to climate anxiety, last week was perfect timing (even though the episode originally published in May 2025) to hear what Sarah Ray, professor and chair of environmental studies at Cal Poly Humboldt, had to say about staying sane in an uncertain world. To paraphrase (but you should really listen to her say it in more detail): make sure you’re getting together with your community/neighbors, and redirect your attention to the things (and people) you love. [GIFT LINK]

Also: I got to interview my Trailhead co-host, journalist (and standup comedian) Zoë Rom on My Favorite Things this week, and we talked about Nathaniel Russel’s art and flyers, as well as Blalock’s Indie Rock Playlist, John D’Agata’s book About a Mountain, the Ways of Hearing podcast, and Lady Bird:

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I had decided to film all my runs for a week, and exactly one mile into my first run, Jay wanted to get out of the jogging stroller and play in the snow. So we did.

I didn’t really have a strong overall vision for the video, but 10 minutes into it, it seemed like an appropriate vibe: not so much “Run Your Fastest Race Ever With This Workout Plan”—more “OK But We Don’t Take Ourselves THAT Seriously Around Here.” I ran the final four blocks to Jay’s preschool, dropped him off, and continued my run, clocking a 22:18 second mile. Which felt authentic.

I am aware that being a 1) middle-aged guy 2) raising a preschooler while 3) trying to make a livable income off of writing and art is not probably an ideal path to being a “successful” ultramarathon runner. But I love to run on trails and am grateful that I get to do it most weeks, and I thought I’d attempt to share what that feels like. So there’s no music in this short video, just the sounds of my footsteps on varying surfaces, and they’re all real running routes I do on a regular basis, squeezed in around my family and work life. It’s not flashy, just a kind of tour of the places I run.

The week I filmed was February 23 through March 1, which was more wintry than most of our winter here in Missoula. I’m thinking I might to make one of these videos every season this year—I hope you enjoy this one: A Week of Training: Winter. It ended up being way more fun to make than I anticipated.

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A big thanks to Hilary for sending me this 9-minute skateboard video that’s more of a visual love letter to Paris with some skating by Andy Anderson, the most joyful part of which I believe might be the credits, among many joyful parts (video)

Mike Sowden, whose Everything Is Amazing  newsletter I have mentioned here many times, sent me a link to this website with the simple message “Top 100,000 Wikipedia articles of the year….as if they’re skyscrapers in a city.” I see no need to further elaborate on his words, and if that kind of data visualization sounds fun to you, here’s the link to check out WikiCity. (OK, sorry, I would in fact like to further elaborate, or just ask: Why is the Wikipedia page for the number 4 the 1,100th most popular Wikipedia page?!?!?)

Anne Kadet walked around New York for three days in order to ask 200 New Yorkers to name their worst enemy and collect their responses, which are relatable, touching, funny, quite diverse, and worth reading.

Thanks to Hannah sending me this link, I now know what a nudibranch is, and I am also very happy that artist Arina Borevich seems to have created her own lane in the art world by making felt interpretations of the colorful marine sea slugs, which seem to sell out very quickly on her website.

Reuters spent a ton of time and resources figuring out the identity of Banksy, and if you want to read a super-long piece about how they did it (and who Banksy is), it was published online this week and has MULTIPLE CHAPTERS. I was a bit conflicted about whether or not I wanted to find out, and if you don’t want to know, don’t click the link (although you might have already seen it somewhere else).

This is good advice for (as stated) “if you’re feeling overwhelmed,” and also if you would like a little chuckle.

What happens in this story titled “Sucker: My year as a degenerate gambler” is probably not inspirational in a positive sense, but I thought the writing and research were honestly quite bold: McKay Coppins, staff writer at The Atlantic, practicing Mormon, and married father, takes $10,000 of The Atlantic’s money to gamble with for the 2025-26 NFL season (he OKed it with his bishop since it was a journalistic exercise). I got hooked and read this entire piece in chunks over the past week (if you listen to it, it’s almost 74 minutes), and wow. What happens is maybe not surprising, but illuminating nonetheless. [GIFT LINK]

One more thing: Thanks to a very generous alumnus of my Running to Stand Still running + writing workshop, we are able to offer one full scholarship for this year’s workshop in Montana. So if you’ve thought about joining us but need some help, check out the application here. The deadline to apply is March 28.

Related to that: I took a series of screenshots from Ethan Hawke’s interview on Subway Takes to try to explain why I teach writing workshops (including, of course, this year’s workshop, which has a few spots left):

Listen on Apple Podcasts | Listen on Spotify | Listen/Watch on YouTube

The concept for the My Favorite Things podcast is simple: Each guest compiles a list of five books, movies, music, art, and other creative works that have helped shape their lives. My guest for Episode 12 is Jonathan Ellsworth, writer, podcaster, founder of Blister Review, and former philosophy professor. Jonathan’s favorite things are:

1. Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
2. Philosophy as a Way of Life by Pierre Hadot
3. Pulp Fiction (trailer)
4. Don Quixote by Pablo Picasso
5. “Mississippi” by Bob Dylan

Other stuff we talked about:

• “Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie” by Bob Dylan

If you watch this video, be warned that a) there are a couple verbal mentions of male anatomy and also an animation of male anatomy, b) that it won Best Nonfiction Short Film at Sundance in 2024, and c) you might cry a little bit. (video)

If you had “Read a brief but wonderful poem about holding an iguana like a baby and feel a tiny bit better about everything” on your to-do list for today, go ahead and cross that off after you click here.

Since I 1) am running a lot right now and 2) have a preschooler who has had a runny nose and a bit of a cough earlier this week, I was interested to read this article on newsletter sponsor Precision Fuel & Hydration’s website: Does exercise weaken your immune system? The answer is: It can, but. [Reminder that clicking the above link will give you 15% off your first 2026 purchase of Precision stuff)

I appreciated this lovely exploration of Robert Redford’s identity through the lens of the movie Jeremiah Johnson, and also appreciated the deftness with which writer David Gessner addresses the fact that yeah, the movie/screenplay/history of the American West is a bit problematic, as is the origin of the character of Jeremiah Johnson. (PS: I only know about this article because of my friend Ed’s Good News from the American West newsletter, which you would probably enjoy too)

I don’t know how much I need to set this up, but this guy got his photo on the front page of the local Lewiston, Idaho, newspaper twice on the same day! But in one of the photos he was committing a crime, so … (via Kottke)

So I co-host a podcast for UltraSignup, which is a trail and ultrarunning company, so you might think our podcast would focus on people who run ultramarathons. But you’d be mistaken! We focus on interesting people who we believe will say things that are relevant to ultrarunning, or at least endurance. And we got a lot of that out of our interview with University of Utah philosophy professor C. Thi Nguyen, who sort of backed his way into studying games (which include, for him, rock climbing and fly fishing). Zoë and I had a blast picking his brain, and at one point in the interview I did compare fantasy football to Dungeons & Dragons, which seemed to go over OK.

Niko Stratis, in this essay, masterfully uses The New Radicals’ 1998 hit “You Get What You Give” to contemplate shitty jobs: “I don’t believe it’s important for your first job to be good, as if there might be some perfect kind of charming labor that teaches valuable life lessons while building sturdy character. I would argue it’s more significant that whatever your first job is, it should be some Pantone code of total shit. It should wear you down a smidge, weigh heavy on the spirit in benign and harmless ways to inspire rebellion against the monotony of life’s tedious little battles. As an introductory course to the lessons of the world, a good and terrible first job is an ideal opportunity to see just how much weight the branches of your sturdy frame can hold before they break.”

Apparently Mexico City’s Biblioteca Vasconsuelos is super-famous, and heavily photographed, and super-famous for being heavily photographed, but I had not heard of it until someone posted photos of it on the r/cassettefuturism subreddit last week. I found a website with way more photos here just in case you, like me, get a special warm human feeling from an absolutely beautiful library.

Finally: March 31 is the final day to sign up for my Running to Stand Still running + writing workshop in June (and tomorrow, March 28, is the final day to apply for scholarships). I have been trying lots of different ways to get the word out, and someone’s Instagram comment inspired this short video I titled “What’s a ‘Real Writer’?”

The first time I remember ever hearing the phrase “trust the process,” I was interviewing my friend Mick about the house he’d built. It had taken him eight years of evenings and weekends, and started, kind of ironically, with him spending an entire weekend peeling three 20-foot logs before he realized he’d had the draw knife backward the whole time.

He stuck with it, of course, and built a house so beautiful you’d never guess he had no idea what he was doing when he started. The house was wonderful to spend time in, but I really loved the story of him creating it with his own hands, without ever taking out a loan or putting anything on a credit card. 

People still use the phrase “trust the process” nowadays, and it always makes me think of Mick, who died in 2012. If he were still around, I might press him to elaborate about his relationship with the process, since he was also a passionate photographer, business owner, writer, and runner. I wish I could ask him, “Mick, is ‘trust’ really the right word for what we do?” 

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There’s a clip of a 2016 postgame interview that bubbles up during college basketball season every year, after senior Dennis Clifford’s last game with Boston College, a program that had had losing seasons every year of Clifford’s career. They had just lost in the ACC Tournament to Florida State, to go 0-18 in conference play. In the clip a reporter asks Clifford, “Cliff, what are you going to take away as your best memory from playing basketball at Boston College?” 

Dennis Clifford: “Probably just … 

[pauses for 19 seconds to try to compose himself] 

… going out to eat.” 

There are a number of ways people interpret this clip—including that when you’re playing on a losing team, the basketball isn’t the best part and you have to find something else to focus on. But a lot of other people have commented about the profundity of Clifford’s words and sentiment, saying that it’s not about winning, it’s about all the time you spent with your friends doing something together, and I think they get it. 

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This past week, I chatted with my friend Mario Fraioli, who is a running coach, writer, and podcaster. As always, our conversation bounced back and forth between running and creativity, and big goals like “running X race” and “writing a book.” I was running my mouth about how long it takes to write a book, and how the writing is really the best part, and how much time runners spend training for races (versus actually racing), and I said something along the lines of “like 99 percent of my running is ‘training,’ so I better enjoy at least some of it, right?” 

And then after we hung up, since I am a nerd, I went ahead and looked it up, a process that I must sheepishly admit involved downloading a spreadsheet, sorting that spreadsheet, and doing a not-small amount of mathematics. I looked at a year where I entered two races (pretty typical for me) and did a lot of running, and calculated that I spend 95.4 percent of my running time that year “training,” and 4.6 percent of my running time racing. This is pretty much in line with a lot of online marathon training programs: 16 weeks of training, a few hours of racing, 95ish percent of that time spent on “the process,” which you are trusting to deliver “the result.” 

But the process also—hopefully—delivers some nice views, a few really red-letter-day runs, some human moments you witness while you’re out there getting your heart rate up, a boost in your overall well-being several days per week, some good conversations with a friend who runs with you, and maybe a few moments of blissful gratitude that you can run at all. 

Writing a book—as much as writers complain about the actual act of writing—is, to me, the best part. Better than holding the first copy in my hands, better or the day it goes on sale, or seeing a copy on a shelf in a bookstore somewhere. When you’re doing the actual writing part, you’re still dreaming, experimenting, working things out, discovering the path it’s going to take, imagining it one day being an actual concrete thing that someone might hold in their hands, read, and maybe even dogear a page or two because you wrote something that feels true to them too. 

And maybe it’s the same with making your own pesto, or growing a decent tomato, or building a bicycle, or raising a child, or hiking uphill for hours just to stand on top of something for a handful of minutes: You give a chunk of the precious few hours of your life to something, imagining a great moment someday when it will all come together, and then when it does, you turn around and realize how many other great moments made up what you thought was “the process.”

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I think I know probably a dozen people who will be VERY excited reading the words “Hey, there’s a documentary about Mary Oliver coming out soon,” and I hope I am the one to deliver this news to them (video)

As I understand it, this guy was replacing the stairs in his multi-floor townhouse, took out the spiral staircase, and then realized that his passport was on the top floor, which was bad because he was leaving the next weekend for a cruise. So he put an ad on Craigslist in search of a couple rock climbers to retrieve it for him (with a very detailed ad that makes me think he’s done some climbing himself). Which seems like one of those “only in New York” things, but also enjoyable for everyone. (Thanks, Beth!)

I share a lot of links to the r/cassettefuturism subreddit in this newsletter because it’s a thing I like—which I have always assumed is because of a sort of nostalgia for the time when computers seemed to hold a lot of promise and potential, but before I hated the fact that “checking my phone” was near the top of my list of “Things I Do Right Away After I Wake Up.” So when someone writes a piece titled “A love letter to cassette futurism,” I of course click on it hoping to understand why, and this one delivered for me. Basically, if you’ve noticed the aesthetic in movies like Blade Runner, Alien, the original Star Wars, or Andor, you might enjoy reading more about it. (Also if you think a 6-minute YouTube video titled “Alien but just the tech” sounds fun, that’s in the article too)

Blake Boles has one of the most unique lives of anyone I know, bouncing around the globe doing cool stuff while pursuing his passion for educating kids in non-classroom environments. Also, I have to admit that the title of his new book, “Dirtbag Rich,” is one of those “I wish I’d thought of that” titles. Anyway, it came out last week, and it’s a really thoughtful read on different ways of looking at the idea of being “rich.” I know this because I read the whole thing a few months ago when Blake asked me to create a handful of illustrations for it. Here’s a link to check it out on Bookshop, or if you prefer audiobooks, on Audible.

I know nothing about this website, but it makes me happy that someone compiled a list titled “A list of chain restaurants whose names contain unusual structures, presented in decreasing order of how appealing it would be to eat in such a structure” (via Kottke)

Last week, if I can believe the statistics, the My Favorite Things podcast passed 10,000 downloads. I have no idea if that’s impressive or not but I am psyched that some people are listening to it. For the most recent episode, I chatted with my friend Jonathan Ellsworth, who you might recognize as the founder of Blister Review, which, among other things, puts together insanely detailed reviews of skis and other gear. Jonathan also has a Ph.D in philosophy, and is always an interesting conversation, so I was excited to see what he had on his list of favorite creative works (which included Pulp Fiction, Old Man and the Sea, Picasso’s Don Quixote, a later-era Bob Dylan song, and a philosophy book that retails at $58).

I resisted buying a Defector subscription until I found out I could use gift links to send people to Defector articles, and I’m so happy I did, not necessarily because I read a lot of stories about sports, but because of stories like this one, titled “We Asked The Mayor Of Ottawa Why He Keeps Posting Such Grim Photos,” which you can enjoy without any prior knowledge of Ottawa, Ottawa’s mayor, or the grim photos referenced in the headline. [GIFT LINK]

If you want to geek out about music production for a few minutes, specifically how small but noticeable recording mistakes made it into final versions of songs (such as the phone ringing during the Beatles “A Day in the Life,” or Bill Withers repeating “I know” 26 times during “Ain’t No Sunshine,” or the fake crowd noise in Elton John’s “Bennie and the Jets,” etc.), this video is a fun watch/listen.

Finally: Last weekend I wrote + illustrated a piece breaking down where my “creative income” comes from with a detailed pie chart, because a) I thought it might be interesting for folks to see the mix of stuff I juggle to make it work each year and b) it’s tax season in the U.S., so I had the spreadsheets handy anyway. If you’re a Patreon supporter you can see it here, and if you’re a paid Substack subscriber you can see it here. (and if you’re not a paid supporter and would like to change that, you can do so via either of those links)

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