For 25 years, I’ve watched you grow, and to me, you’ve always been perfect. You’ve taught me more than I could ever teach you, a role reversal I never expected, but always craved Homer and Lisa, playing out in real life. I see in you everything I wish the world could be. If even a small part of your kindness, strength, and honesty existed in everyone, things would be better. Soon, I’ll be twice your age, a moment that won’t come again. But if the years ahead are anything like these, I’ll always be in awe of you. #Poetry #Parenthood #Family #Fatherhood #Time #GrowingUp

A poem about repetition, risk, and what gets lost when creativity is filtered through what feels safest to sell. Capitalism drains creativity, squeezing what was once fresh, milking the familiar for another sequel, another remake, another safe return. New ideas struggle to break through, buried beneath the weight of past success, dismissed before they can take root, too risky to invest in, too different to try. The genres that dominate now were once untested, uncertain, given space to grow before they were packaged, commodified, and repeated. Art is more than a product. It needs risk, not just return. Support creation, don’t stifle it. #Poetry #Creativity #Art #Capitalism #Risk #Culture #Originality

One of the hardest, most important jobs you’ll ever do doesn’t come with a manual, a salary, or much sleep. Parenting is brutal, beautiful, boring, and relentless. It’s also one of the clearest mirrors you’ll ever hold up to your own life. When you struggle with depression, parenting can become one of the biggest triggers. I once heard a line I’ve never forgotten, though I can’t remember who said it: “If you screw up bringing up your children, you can forget being good at anything else.” It felt true to me. But it can also hang over your head like a sword of Damocles. Self-loathing gets louder when you start thinking of yourself as a bad parent. There’s no such thing as a perfect parent, but there is such a thing as a consistent one. Turn up. That’s most of it. Not every moment. Just enough of them. Studies suggest that children with at least one consistently supportive adult in their life are significantly more resilient in the face of stress, trauma, and mental health struggles. You don’t have to be brilliant. Just be there. When you feel low, try to explain to your children that you are not just sad, you are ill. If they are too young to understand, explain it simply. Say your brain has a cold. Don’t hide it. Explain that it is an illness and that treatment helps. Get to them before the prejudice does. Prejudice is mostly learned. It does not start fully formed. And never hit. No matter how angry, how overwhelmed, or how out of your depth you feel. Violence creates fear, not respect. Fear shuts down trust. You cannot build anything solid from that. They Are Not You It’s tempting to project your own path onto your children. To steer them away from the mistakes you made, to relive the moments you missed. But they are not you. They will not want what you wanted. They will fall in love with things you don’t understand, and struggle in ways you never did. The best you can do is recognise the patterns, the pitfalls you know all too well, and offer them the tools to climb out when they fall in.

In The 33 Strategies of War, Robert Greene tells the story of an ancient warrior who trained his soldiers by taking them out to sea and forcing them to fight in deep water. The lesson was simple. Learn to be comfortable with drowning. Brazilian Jiu Jitsu (BJJ) is a lot like that. It constantly puts you in situations where you feel like you are drowning. Pinned under someone heavier. Caught in a choke. Exhausted but still expected to move.At first you panic. Every instinct tells you to thrash and fight your way out. But the more you struggle, the worse it gets. Then something shifts. You stop panicking. You slow your breathing. You think. And suddenly you realise that if you relax, you can survive. You can find an escape. Eventually you can even learn to enjoy the chaos. That is why BJJ is more than just a sport. It is a system for dealing with pressure, both on the mats and in life. It teaches you to stay calm when things feel overwhelming. A Community of Weirdos BJJ attracts a particular kind of person. It is not a mainstream sport, and that is part of its charm. You will meet computer programmers. Bartenders. Ex military. Artists. People who would never cross paths anywhere else. There are no flashy uniforms. No big money prizes. Just a bunch of people trying to strangle each other and laughing about it afterwards. To outsiders it probably looks ridiculous. Try explaining to someone that you spend your evenings letting people sit on your chest and twist your joints the wrong way. You will get some strange looks. But inside the gym it feels different. For many people it becomes a sanctuary. One of the few places where ego disappears quickly. Getting Your Ego Smashed If you think you are strong, BJJ will humble you. If you think you are fast, it will slow you down. It does not matter how big, fit, or young you are. On the mats, technique beats everything. In your first year you will lose. A lot. You will be dominated by people half your size. You will tap constantly. Sometimes to the same move again and again.