The view from 5.0

I saw a piebald deer this morning.

What’s a piebald deer, you ask? Good question.

Our family is currently in the little North Carolina town of Montreat (just outside of Asheville). It’s one of my favorite places on earth.

The rental property we are staying in has this deck,

and it’s on a flowing (one might be so bold as to say ‘gurgling’) stream. If you were wondering, that is my heaven. Give me natural, running water, and I’m in.

This morning, I was up way before everyone (nothing new there), writing with pen and paper (that is new, but I’ll get to it shortly), when I heard crunching leaves somewhere below me.

I quietly got up, peered over the railing, and saw the most beautiful white deer I have ever seen. I didn’t have my phone with me, so you’ll have to trust me—it was stunning.

A bit later, my wife poked her head out of the sliding glass door from the kitchen. We exchanged good mornings and how-did-you-sleeps, and then I said, “Hey, I saw the most beautiful white deer this morning!”

“Oh, I wish I had seen that!” She said. And, because she’s smart like that, she added, “That’s called a piebald.”

I love that about her, and I love that I now know what a piebald is. She teaches me all sorts of things like that. Because of her, I know what a towhee bird is and what song it sings (Spoiler: it yells ‘towhee’ over and over. And over.)

Which, in a roundabout way, leads me to why I’m writing this. I’m now 5.0—that’s my favorite way to say that I’m now a 50-year-old¹—and I care about things like piebalds and towhees.

I interrupt this programming to ask you to consider supporting my son’s Kickstarter. He has a team of incredible young filmmakers, and they’re producing a feature film this summer called Semi-Charmed. This is your chance to be a part of making a young person’s dream come true ❤️

Ramblings on being 5.0

Everything doesn’t have to be moving toward a measurable, self-improving goal. I can write a post like this mostly just for me. If I were worried about clicks and views (the way a 4.0 person might be), I’d pump out another AI post². Those suckers kill.

Maybe I’ll be the only person who reads this. That’s ok with me. Because…

I’m also writing more for me these days. I’m happier when writing. Writing for me, without an expressed goal, is ok. It really is. (Do you hear me convincing myself a little there? I’m still working on this one.)

For the first time since school, I’m writing with a pen³ and graph paper. I was inspired to try this after reading John Steinbeck’s book, Journal of a Novel, in which he talks about his writing process while simultaneously writing East of Eden, one of my favorite all-time books.

There’s just something about writing the old-fashioned way. Also, hand stamina is a real thing (and I don’t have it).

A bonus to writing by hand is that I then have to type what I wrote into the computer (which I’m doing right now!), and this gives me a chance to edit my first draft. Plus, it’s hella⁴ less distracting to write on paper. Oh, it looks like this:

Also, when my hand hurts too much, I have to take a break. And often when I do this, it’s just me and my paper and my pen, so I just…think. About stuff. It’s nuts.

At 5.0, picking my spots is important. When I was younger, my modus operandi was grind, grind, and then grind some more. It’s how I became better-than-average (but not great, to be sure) at tennis, entrepreneuring, and writing.

I can work hard with the best of 'em.

But grinding at 5.0 is different. I can’t do it for as long, and I’m realizing there’s something to the old adage: work smarter, not harder.

So, I’m picking my spots⁵. I’ll go deep when I need to, and I’ll pull back when depth and grind aren’t required.

The books I write, while not autobiographical per se—my inner therapist says that I hide behind writing fictional narratives so I can tell my truths without the bravery normally required—often so totally are about my life. I’m knee-deep into my next book, The Nonprofit Turnaround, and Will, one of the leads in the book, is literally, at 50 years old, trying to learn when to pick his spots. I’m just now realizing he’s doing that because I’m doing that. (How Tyler Durden of me to say.)

I pull back so quickly now that I’m 5.0. If I’m doing something physical and I feel the tiniest pain start to bubble up, I stop. At 5.0—this actually started back at 4.0, if I’m being honest—an injury can linger like a mofo. If I hurt my calf by over-working it today, I might still be feeling it three months from now.

This is also why, for now, I’ve traded running for swimming. I’ve learned the hard way that the impact of running can wreak havoc on the body. I’ve done my fair share of swimming for fun, but never for exercise before.

Picture Phoebe Buffay running.

The Point

Does this post have a point? Maybe not. Or maybe that is the point. Not everything has to be…pointed.

For someone like me, that’s been a hard thing to accept. Go! Go! Go! Charge the hill! Grab the bull by the horns! Again, there’s a time and a place for that; it’s just not all the time and every place.

I hope to have a lot more operating system upgrades ahead of me, so I’m leaning into the smarter, more thoughtful, more purposeful approach to life. Maybe I’ll feel differently when I upgrade to 5.1, but I doubt it.

I hope you’re happy,

1. If you think about your age in terms of upgrades, it’s much more fulfilling. Like, next year, I’ll get an upgrade to 5.1. There will be software improvements and UI tweaks, and, predictably, new bugs that need to be fixed with the next upgrade patch. It makes me excited to turn 6.0, imagining all the new and improved features I’ll be getting :)

2. To be clear, I absolutely will be writing more posts on AI. Not only do they kill, but I am slightly totally obsessed.

3. Yes, I have a specific pen I use, because I write like a goof with my hand contorted and twisted to the left—yes, Mom, I blame you for not teaching me how to write properly—and most pens smear across the page when I write. The Papermate Profile Ball 1.4 is a perfect blend of ink thickness, smooth writing, and never smearing. They should sponsor this Substack.

4. We’re still saying this, right? Actually, I’ve never said ‘hella’. I don’t know why I even wrote it, but damn if it’s not the perfect word sometimes. (And now that I think about it, I’m not even sure I spelled it correctly, but I dislike the word too much to look it up.)

5. I’ve been reflecting on this more recently, as a friend has been dealing with tremendous pain (physical and emotional) and has been telling me how he’s picking his spots as he works on getting himself healthy again. It’s a smart strategy. I remember, mostly because my wife loves to remind me, that I snuck off a time or two to check email during our honeymoon. Talk about not picking your spots…