“I know you don’t approve, Pop, but believe me, until you’ve had a good cigar and a shot of whiskey, you’re missing the second and third best things in life.” – Paint Your Wagon
When I was 10, I answered the front door while smoking a cigar and drinking a beer. It was the mailman, who asked if my parents were home. Me: “Does it look like my parents are home?”
There’s a dirty little secret nobody in 2025 wants to hear while they’re doom-scrolling on their $1,600 iPhone in a $6 latte haze of mild caffeination in a room filled with hipsters:
If everything is awesome all the time, nothing is awesome ever again.
I’ll share an example.
There’s a particular Macanudo Maduro® that I love. But if I smoke it every single day, by week three it’s just a brown mouth-trash I’d light up without thinking, same as a Swisher Sweet™.
That ribeye, mashed potatoes, corn and, oh, yeah, baby, gravy I used to save for my birthday? Eat it nightly and suddenly it’s just Tuesday protein.
That OnlyFans™ subscription I swore was “art”? Congratulations, I’ve turned Scarlett Johansson’s doppelgänger into wallpaper. (I’ve never been on OnlyFans©, but wanted an excuse to show a picture of Scarlett Johansson’s, um, assets.)
When a waiter asks for a tip, is that gratuitous?
If I do this, my brain now reads “epic” as “baseline.” That is how luxury murders my joy. It’s inflation, but inflation of things that should be spiritually uplifting. If I flood the zone with dopamine, suddenly nothing matters anymore. I become that guy who needs a $400 bottle of wine to feel what normal people feel from a $12 Malbec on a Saturday night dinner with someone they love.
I figured this out slowly. I asked myself, “Why don’t you like that Macanudo™ as much anymore?” I mean, I’ve never treated myself like a Roman emperor with a Costco card: steak whenever, cigars whenever, and Johnny Walker Blue© whenever. But the cigar pointed me towards thinking about what sparking joy is really about.
Sunday only: the good cigar.
Monday and Wednesday: a reliable but unremarkable daily drivers. Perfectly fine, but not the king.
What a difference!
That Sunday Maduro® became a religious experience. I’d finish putting Monday’s post (yes, I write Monday’s post on Sunday night because I don’t have time travel), hit the hot tub, light the good cigar, and actually taste every note — cedar, cocoa, black pepper, the tears of my enemies, all of it.
But if women ruled the world, there would be no war – just a bunch of countries not talking to each other.
The other days? I enjoyed the lesser sticks more because I knew something glorious was coming. As the dead Raul Julia said, “There are two things worth living for. One is a good cigar. The other is a better one.”
It’s the same with food, but that’s a future Friday post lurking six months to a year out. I’ll just say, my Friday dinner tastes far better than yours.
This is the stoic hack nobody markets because you can’t sell it in a pump bottle or an app or a subscription: deliberate deprivation creates anticipation, and anticipation is the multiplier of pleasure. I can’t recreate the first time I ever had an experience, but I can create enough anticipation to make that experience feel pretty damn good.
The problem is we are a society that is now based on hedonism. Hedonism is spiritual communism: from each according to his credit limit, to each according to his appetite. And like all communist systems, it ends with everyone equally miserable, standing in bread lines for experiences that used to be thrilling.
Look around. We are the richest society in human history and somehow producing the most miserable humans in human history. Suicide rates, antidepressant prescriptions, anxiety, porn addiction, 340% of Gen Z identifying as LGBTQ because vanilla life is so boring they need a new operating system to feel anything and get attention from people who are stuck with their noses in their phones.
Based on that rap song, I bought classical music for my sons when they were young. After all, baby got Bach.
This is all downstream of one fatal error: We removed the delay between desire and gratification.
- Want food? DoorDash in six minutes.
- Want sex? Swipe.
- Want entertainment? Infinite scroll.
- Feel bad that someone in Guatemala doesn’t have Hulu®? Invite them all the Squatamalans to come to the United States. Hell, the government will even pay.
- Want validation? Post a thirst trap, harvest likes, repeat until dead inside.
Congratulations, you’ve removed the space where soul is honed to a keen edge!
You’ve eliminated the Monday through Saturday of life, the part where you suffer, anticipate, work, wait, and gone straight to an endless Sunday that, paradoxically, feels like nothing at all.
Real joy is not the peak. Real joy is the climb knowing the peak exists.
Paris Hilton signed a contract to do a reality television show of her climbing Mt. Everest. It was the Paris Climb-It Agreement.
That’s why lifting weights is the ultimate red-pill metaphor for life. Nobody loves the squat rack at 5:30 a.m. in January. But every man who has ever built a body he’s proud of loves having built it. The soreness, the sacrifice, the mornings you didn’t feel like it. That’s the lead up to the Sunday cigar. The physique is just the flavor that hits when you finally light it.
Same with marriage, family, wealth, mastery of anything worth doing.
There is no substitute for the iron. You do not get strong without moving heavy things repeatedly while in mild to moderate discomfort.
- You do not get wealthy without years of saying no to stupid purchases.
- You do not get a great marriage without years of not banging the secretary.
- You do not raise great kids without years of being the bad guy who enforces bedtimes.
Every single thing worth having in this life is on the far side of self-control.
Which brings us to the trad-right punchline nobody wants to say out loud: our current societal upheaval is not a bug. It is a feature. We spent seventy years removing all friction from life and now we’re reaping the whirlwind of a generation that has never been told no, never waited for anything, never suffered real consequences.
The result is not utopia.
The result is boys who can’t change a tire, girls who think chastity and modesty are personality disorders, and an entire culture addicted to rage and victimhood because pleasure no longer works on them.
The pendulum is swinging back, hard.
It’s swinging back because young men are waking up in droves, hitting the gym, deleting porn, deleting social media, reading the ancients, building families, and discovering something wild: When you voluntarily embrace the Monday through Saturday of life, the discipline, the wait, the work:
Sunday actually shows up. And when Sunday shows up after six days of earning it, my God, it is glorious.
This scares the GloboLeft so much they even call is fascism.
When I proposed to The Mrs., she paused and said, “I guess that has a nice ring to it.”
So, keep your constant luxury. Keep your endless treats, your participation trophies, your “you deserve it” culture. I’ll keep my three cigars a week, my Thursday dinner, my Sunday Macanudo™, and the deep, soul-level satisfaction that comes from knowing I earned every single drag as I stare out into the infinite horizon of the sky.
Because the secret the stoics knew, that our ancestors knew, that every man who ever built something great knew is this:
Heaven is only Heaven if you’ve walked through Hell to get there.
And brother, I plan on enjoying the hell out of that walk.
See you on the other side. I’ll save you a seat.
And a good cigar.
You forgot the post title, I have done that a time or ten.
Arthur, thank you! Fixed.
Since the internet is the ultimate source of our non-stop dopamine infusions, the key need is to somehow make it intermittent and a treasure to be anticipated. Cell free schools are only the first step. The coming rolling power blackouts are when we will really start valuing our time in cyberspace. A solid week in the 19th Century with only an hour in the 21st.
Lenten and Advent fasts help.
Very much so. I am an enthusiastic supporter, and have a story about that to tell, probably in 6 months to a year.
I recall that on a scout trip the 8th grade kids got really sad after about 4 hours without a phone. Withdrawals.
if you want to taste something glorious it’s a venison backstrap that you have harvested…then the Cohiba
Yup, food first.
Over Caesar’s decades-long affair with Servilia, they agreed early on to limit their contact as “it will pall” if done too often.
Nicely done!
Had a much older 1st cousin (29 yrs.) that paid cash for his first house in 1950. Added a 3rd BR/BA when his daughter (3rd child) was born. Cash. Drove dealer demo cars for 2 yrs. , then traded for another. Bought his wife Chevy Biscayne wagons w/ 3 on the tree.
Built the largest wholesale paper company in his state along the way. In 1974 surprised his wife with a 4,500 sq ft house & a Caddy DeVille. Cash again.
Delayed gratification, to say the least.
The man is a legend. Cool.
I’d comment, but I’m practicing delayed gratification.
I’ll approve of that sentiment, when I get around to it.
So much goodness to unpack in this article (you need to throw some bad articles in every once in a while so we will appreciate the good stuff more 🙂 )
Paint Your Wagon—- the only musical that didn’t suck. It’s actually in my top 10 list of musics despite it being a musical.
The Cohiba-tation girl—-are we sure she isn’t a tranny-man?
There used to be a song by Springsteen I think, called “57 Channels and Nothing On”. I couldn’t stand Springsteen as he was a boorish prick, but the song highlighted the same issue you describe. How many of us would flip through all of the cable channels over and over and never actually watch anything? Even when I found something, I would still be constantly flipping for fear that there might be something better on on one of the other channels. TV was more fun with only 3 channels.
Heck, even porn was more exciting when we were kids trying to make out the naked ladies in the scrambled cable channels.
JB
Yup, I like Paint Your Wagon, too. Eastwood singing . . . ha!
Dunno, I’m going to pretend she’s all girl.
Yup, and that proves the point. Thank you so much for the kind words! I like the way this one came out.
And this is why I go backpacking – to better appreciate a roof over my head, indoor climate control, a soft bed, hot and cold running water, flush toilets, … this list goes on and on.
Yes, very much! I did a lot of camping a decade or so ago, and by the time I stopped I had it down to a pretty minimal kit. Good times.
My wife and I were just discussing Gen Z’s obsession with not being able to afford a house.
A big part of the problem is that they were spoiled by posh living quarters for the six years they spent getting their four-year degree. Now they want 2400 square-feet in a tony suburb that is guaranteed to appreciate at twice the rate of inflation.
The first house I bought cost $20k and I sold it seven years later for $20k. It was on a 5000 square-foot lot and the neighborhood was transitioning from little-old-widows to rentals and crack-dealers. My payment was $240 a month (taxes and insurance included) and I saved like a crazy-man.
The kids graduating today would NEVER consider buying a house like that.
Depends on the kids?
belayed gratification is buying silver while it is still at 17 to 1
DING DING DING. I’ve got my eye on some. I think it’s lagging.
A friend of mine trained his dog to bite him whenever he spends too much time fiddling with his phone. He calls it his dopamine pinscher.
ZL-
“DP”, Pun Of The Week. Anywhere. Starting now, a tirade against Yankee Transplants.
Let’s talk about Yanked a**holes. Uncontrollable.
#1: I’m a 1 person LLC., 36 yrs. experience. At a bank meeting for my client’s need for an unnecessary Phase II ESA for the seller (told him it’d be a loser); the bank agreed he was unrealistic. Screwed up the whole deal. A Jerk. Just trying to knock (“**w”) down the price. Seller walked. Buyer begged back. Blamed me. Seeler leased the site for $40K/mo., triple net.
Next? Another seller backed down when a Phase II might it’d be perhaps $200K out of then owner’s pocket. I represented the buyer; another New England Transplant with attitude. Agreed with the seller, who has a national biz based in the Badger State. My client was unreasonable, having just moved to CLT with his Masshole attitude. Buyer paid me for the Phase I; the lender agreed with me.
Lost a $30K Phase II job that would net me $10K last week. This 3rd New England guy has already PO’ed several people that matter in Charlotte. Running away from him. Seller backed out. A second buyer wanted to screw the seller.
The New England invasion of The South has been a disaster. Their morals suck.
The seller of #2 is buying warehouses across the Southeast. He’s my new friend.
Yes the southerners reserve the right to screw over their own people. Ive lived all over. It’s the most jewy shady and money grubbing place I’ve ever lived. Nonstop talk of money. Your case in point.
But yeah it’s the “Yankees” fault. So much materialism so little time.
Family member moved to CLT a year ago. She said she hadn’t met a North Carolinian yet. Carpetbaggers need to go home, all of them
Hahahaha! Excellent work, my friend.
John, sort of like the message of the Incredibles: If everyone is super, then no-one is.
One of the best lessons from the book How To Become CEO by Jeffrey Fox is the item “Do something isolated and alone”. Whether it be running, lifting weights, learning interior design – whatever – it is the act of doing it alone and making progress that in the end makes the journey all the sweeter.
If it costs us nothing, we value it not at all.
T.B. I agree 100% with the necessary of “alone”. It is a super power that many have forgotten, and many younger folks never learn…
“You cannot control someone who knows how to be alone. They do not need you; they select you. That is power”.
…and, this was a very good one, John.
Thank you!
Exactly. I hadn’t heard that – but writing is definitely that for me.
Great post.
To everything there is a season.
Yes. And thank you. I like the way this one turned out.
I’m a relatively new reader of this blog. This piece is somewhat reminiscent of Van der Leun’s work
Welcome! I’m unfamiliar with (I assume) him?
Wonderful post . and great commentary!
All I’ve got is I’m sooo thankful for that comma after “baby.”
https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/chicoer/name/gerard-vanderleun-obituary?id=47567240
His blog, American Digest, was allowed to give itself up to the ether after his passing per his wishes.
https://www.jbrokaw.com/2023/01/looking-back-on-life-well-lived.html
The links in the above are no longer functional.
WiscoDave
Thank you!!! It sounds like Gerald was quite a guy. Myself, I expect anyone showing up at my funeral is just to make sure I’m gone, and my obituary will be, “Trust us, he’s really dead.”
Thanks again.