The Score: How to Stop Playing Somebody Else’s Game by C. Thi Nguyen. C. Thi Nguyen is a philosophy professor who used to write food criticism for the LA Times. He’s also an avid rock climber and tabletop game player. He uses these interests to explore the philosophy of games and how the scoring systems we use in our daily lives can subtly take over our values. For example, law school rankings were designed to help students assess what a law school has to offer, but then law schools started making institutional decisions so they could rank better, even though those changes didn’t actually improve the student experience. Or we buy a sleep tracker to see how we’re sleeping, but then become obsessed with our sleep score, which in turn makes us anxious about sleep, which makes our sleep worse. Nguyen calls it “value capture.” The number that was supposed to represent what you care about ends up replacing it. One insight that he made in the book that has stuck with me is the distinction between an achievement attitude and a striving attitude. Achievement players play to win; striving players play because they love playing. It’s made me think about the metrics I’m tracking and whether they’re actually helping me live a flourishing life.
Flint and Tinder Vintage Sateen Shorts. It hit 95 degrees in Tulsa last week. In March. So I’ve officially declared shorts season open and realized I could use a pair that wasn’t just another chino short. Flint and Tinder based these on 1940s U.S. Army fatigue uniforms. The fabric is matte on the outside, soft against the skin, and comes garment-washed so they don’t have that stiff new-clothes feel out of the box. The vintage military silhouette is exactly what I was after. Not cargo shorts, not golf shorts, just a clean utilitarian look that actually goes with things. Shorts for when you’re tired of reaching for the same khaki pair every time it gets warm.
The Sweet Smell of Success. Lately, I’ve been drawn to watching movies about the world of work and business and what it does to us spiritually and psychologically. My recent viewing in this genre was 1957’s The Sweet Smell of Success. Burt Lancaster plays J.J. Hunsecker, a Walter Winchell-type newspaper columnist who wields his column like a hammer, and Tony Curtis is the sycophantic press agent who does his dirty work. Both are magnificent. But the real star is James Wong Howe’s cinematography of nighttime Manhattan in 1957, all neon and cigarette smoke and wet pavement. You feel like you’re actually out there at 1 a.m. on 52nd Street. The Chico Hamilton Quintet handles most of the soundtrack, and it fits the movie perfectly. The music is another character in the film. The movie’s a useful reminder of where pure ambition, stripped of any other value, eventually lands you.
“America’s Demoralized Men, Part 1” from the Institute for Family Studies. A new report from the Institute for Family Studies, based on a YouGov survey of 2,000 young men ages 18-29, is a nuanced and data-rich look at the state of young men in America today. A few findings stood out: Nearly half of young men ages 18-23 say the statement “I am inclined to think that I am a failure” describes them at least somewhat well. Fifty-nine percent are not in a romantic relationship. And yet most still want to get married (68%) and have kids (62%). If your only idea of the state of young men today is coming from your social media feeds, you’d likely think that young men are alienated nihilists who admire weird social media influencers like Andrew Tate and Clavicular. But this report says otherwise. When asked who they most look up to, young men put their mothers first, their fathers second, and coaches and teachers third. Tate came in dead last. Worth reading the whole thing.
On our Dying Breed newsletter, we published Sunday Firesides: Let Them Overhear You and What’s Your Stance?
Quote of the Week
Save a part of your income and begin now, for the man with a surplus controls circumstances and the man without a surplus is controlled by circumstances.
—Henry H. Buckley
