I was sat at a bar the other night, using up whatever psychological resources I had left after a marathon lifting session, splitting my attention between my friend's conversation and the people around us.

In theory, it should’ve been a more raucous atmosphere.

On the cusp of summer, NBA+NHL playoffs in full swing, college has let out.

The ingredients were there, the resulting effect was not.

It then dawned on me that this bar was afflicted with an inescapable feeling I’ve noticed at the airport, in coworking spaces, coffee shops, the gym, even standing on line at Whole Foods.

Quiet Anxiety and the Hum of Malaise

If I were to try and quantify this phenomenon into a phrase, I’d say it’s a “general societal feeling of unease”.

We’re here, there, and everywhere….but never truly present.

Yes, the screen time statistics and the notification checking habits have gotten completely out of hand.

That’s not news.

Rather, it’s like we’re all quietly collectively squirming in our seats.

The professional and social world has taken on the low-level anxiety of a doctor’s waiting room.

The conversations around me were the most telling.

Normally the environment lends itself to the usual endearing sports bar BS- living and dying with spread, completely obvious Geek Bar rips said user thought were discreet, the one group that’s way too loud but bringing a vibe so it’s all good.

This wasn’t that.

Sure, there were minor instances of normalcy.

That being said, there was also more than one conversation I overheard about AI, and not in the “look what I’m shipping I’m so excited” type way, and more of a “when are the barbarians going to be at the gate” kind of way.

Conversations lamenting COL, exasperation at housing costs, general weariness with the overall political landscape.

Guys sitting alone looking completely fried, with the vacuous look that betrayed the fact they thought the traditional path would’ve gotten them further by now.

Reading From a Script That Doesn’t Exist

Looking at it from the overhead, this societal arc begins to make more sense.

The vast majority of us were sold a script, and to the credit of many, they followed it to a T.

Try hard, get into the college, get the degree, get the good job.

That gets you the house and the car and the stability.

Everyone has begun to see the cracks in this and started reading the writing on the wall, and the downstream effects are stickier than the floor beneath my feet.

My friend- a quiet, polished, finance guy…is asking me about personal branding.

About Substack, about talking on camera, how I got involved with .

It wasn’t in the “that’s so cool, bro” type of way, but rather it was a super bright guy realizing that sole proprietorship and personal brand creation are looking a hell of a less like a “maybe” and a lot more like a necessity.

People are looking around and hearing about threats of job automation and the potential future institution of UBI, while reading New York Post articles about how TikTok Live girls in cat-ear headbands or people eating food on Twitch are raking in multi-five figure months.

It’s part dystopian, part absurd, and entirely unsettling.

The Escape Hatch is Closed

The sports bar has always been the Great Escape, especially for the American male.

I have lost count how many times as a younger guy I was struggling with whatever it was, only to ease the pain by indulging in the bliss of an intra-division Islanders game with my best friends.

Even that has changed immensely.

I’m looking up at the NBA game on the screen above my head, and it seems like the current meta to win the world’s most prestigious basketball league is to shoot the ball while throwing yourself into the defender in an attempt to draw a foul.

Whether the ball goes in the hoop or not is an afterthought.

There’s a Dodgers game on, but the familiar scene of a pitcher, face buried in his hat glaring in for the catcher’s signs after he checks on the runner at first, is gone.

Now he gets instruction from the “Pitch Com” in his ear, makes sure he throws the ball before the 15 second timer elapses, paints the corner (or so he thought), only for the batter to tap his head and overturn the strike with an ABS review.

It’s a collection of people sitting around, sick of the fact that everything from their job description to their fitness routines are becoming optimized, automated, quantified, and mediated by technology, trying to escape.

The problem?

The familiar safe harbors have been…optimized, automated, quantified, and mediated by technology.

Oh So We’re Doomerpoasting Now?

Hardly.

I also can’t change flight path here into a “It’s all gonna be great, here’s how you leverage the changing world!” etc type thing.

I’m sure you’ve all had your fill (and then some) of “how to use AI so you’re not like the NORMIES” articles.

Rather, I’d just like to sit in the observation for a moment.

Take stock of what a bizarre, unprecedented time we live in.

At a certain point, of course, the levee breaks.

This could be a wholly positive experience.

It could be dimorphic, it could be disastrous.

Only time will tell.

Until then, we sit in our collective waiting rooms, putting one foot in front of the other, doing what we can to prepare ourselves for a world we never thought we’d see.

There’s no instruction manual this time around, no playbook.

If nothing else, we can take solace in the fact that some of the greatest lines and monologues of all time were off-the-cuff or ad-libbed.

History tends to remember the people who improvised, not the ones who waited for instructions..

Which is good, because we sure aren’t getting any.

Enjoy the day 🫶🏻

-John Abbate

5.31.2026

Those were my overly dramatic words to a good friend of mine who was OctoBuddy’d to my bathroom mirror.

As we recounted our daily activities over FaceTime, I was applying a Grade 1 all over my face, removing the beard that would’ve looked totally in style should I have been logging 18 minutes a night in the Western Conference Final and ridiculous everywhere else.

I noticed I respected the guy in the mirror more.

He looked cleaner, more polished, more serious.

Not somebody I’d want to let down.

The bearded version?

Eh, he could get to looking like a bit of a dirtbag.

The beard flows into the longer hair, thus making a hat look better….and now we’re going everywhere looking like Jeff Weaver.

So, I did what any terminally online overthinker would do, and tracked the metrics correlated with beard growth and my personal productivity.

Less beardage literally was directionally proportional to more work output, better workouts, and even improved mental health.

The objectively dumbest metric you could possibly track, and it turned out to be a giant one that had leverage over everything else.

Why I’m Sharing This

I’m not anti-beard.

Maybe you look incredible with one or can’t grow one.

Point is, in a world where Oura Ring metrics or Strava stats are our gods, where our water bottles have markings measuring gallons and liters, and productivity is its own billion dollar industry, sometimes it’s not the tangible X’s and O’s type stuff that moves the needle.

It’s a beautiful irony- while productivity culture adores percentages and decimal points, it could actually be that the real needle-movers lie in the abstract.

There’s probably a myriad of ways you can apply this.

Perhaps (hopefully) yours are not so superficial.

You’re better on days you wear your favorite necklace, or call your mom, or remember to hit your stretching flow before bed, so on and so forth.

Whatever (not so) minor behavior or activity is psychologically unlocking the version of you that’s most in accordance with who you want to be.

Certainly something worth A/B testing in your own life.

I’ll just say this:

Writing more short form essays was something I’ve been meaning to do more of lately.

The scruffy guy might’ve let it fall by the wayside.

The guy with the five o’clock shadow would never.

Enjoy the weekend 🫶🏻

-John Abbate

5/29/2026

You wanna hear about a mental framework used by Steve Jobs and Elon Musk to be a super mega billionaire?!

Make sure you’ve had your 10K steps and 4 gallons of water first.

Hope you had zero alcohol last night (or ever), too.

Got it?

Got it.

Now we’re ready to talk productivity in the year 2026.

Blackout curtains down, resting BPM 50<, earplugs in, let’s go.

This whole essay was inspired by a clip I saw of Kevin O’Leary, Shark Tank’s resident Mr. Wonderful, who spoke about a mental framework called “Signal-to-Noise Ratio”, and how much Steve Jobs loved applying it to his own life.

Essentially, it boils down to this:

Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) is not new.

It’s a term that originally comes from engineering.

Signal: The important information.

Noise: Everything distorting it.

Somewhere along the way, this escaped the world of radios and circuitry and quietly became one of the best frameworks for understanding modern life itself.

Let’s dive into it.

Why am I hearing about this from a disorganized creative who meditates under trees and lifts 5x a week?

Because that’s who this is for, silly.

I know.

You’d rather hear about something so cut-and-dried and scientific from an MIT engineering type who coded his first app in his bedroom at 14 and is a year into his Series B.

I’m probably the polar opposite of that guy.

I’d be laughed outta a16z, and I’m at peace with that (sort of).

The good news is, SNR actually benefits the less prodigious among us.

The answer is in your phone.

It’s Sunday morning on Memorial Day weekend.

I can practically guarantee you’re loaded with notifications from last night.

Snaps ranging from boating, beaches, “baby’s first BBQ!”, Parker House mirror selfies at 1:47AM… it’s all in there…and that’s before you take 27 business minutes swiping through hundreds of IG stories.

Then it’s the group chat civic duty.

“You’ll never believe who I SAW ln..”

20 minute cosplay of your inner-circle’s Page Six ensues.

Whew.

That was a lot.

Back to scrolling…and your ex-whatever posted.

They look good.

Is that a new tattoo? Was that there the last time we…..?

Now we’re doing two-finger zoom forensic analysis.

WE HAVEN’T EVEN GOTTEN OUT OF BED YET!

Now you see why I was drawn to write about this?

I wrote an article months back called Give the People What They Want, but I’ve since switched my ethos to Give the People What They Need.

Practical Applications of SNR (Abbate, 2026.)

Here’s how I’ve employed SNR since I’ve found it (which was very recently).

It’s simple af.

(I’ve gotten so obsessed with this I’ve literally scribbled SNR in Sharpie on my hand until it became habit)

Take the day’s goal.

One or two words.

Creative and Health.

Family and Rest.

Recovery.

From there, simply take any input into your life (look down at the scribble on your left hand if you have to) and ask yourself:

Signal or Noise?

Yeah, curveball, I know.

You thought this was going to be all about business, bowing to the altar of your goals, ignoring your family grind grind grind type stuff.

No.

If you’ve been here for more than a month, you know I value human interaction, and reject the 2020’s-era interpersonal skills degradation.

Does SNR have business/life goal application?

Obviously yes, and use it there too.

But that framework is rather obvious.

Think of today.

Memorial Day Sunday.

Family BBQ.

Well, the group chats/legion of notifications?

Noise.

Maybe you want to bang out a super long workout, get right because you got the time to recover on the extended weekend.

Brunch invite that’ll derail you?

Noise.

Answering the red number bubble-infested Apple machine in your pocket between sets?

Noise.

Watching Sam Sulek Reels of him overhead pressing the 150’s, procrastinating while sipping your preworkout a bit too slowly?

Big Time Noise.

It should be stated that Noise is contextual.

A family BBQ can be Signal and a business opportunity can be Noise, and vice-versa.

A hard workout can be Signal one day and BS Noise the next.

(You don’t need two arm days a week)

The point isn’t becoming some dopamine-starved monk who stares at drywall all day.

The point is alignment with whatever it is you want in that moment.

SNR IRL (Guy who can lose entire days writes an essay)

Creative brain + verbal ability + high EQ + ADHD is my brain’s main OS.

Sure, I wouldn’t trade any of the life experiences that particular cocktail has given me for anything.

That doesn’t mean the drawbacks aren’t really, really ugly.

My major fascination with SNR is that I can sometimes lose entire days if I get scattered.

>Wake up

>Check CoinMarketCap

>Substack responses/article rabbit hole

>Red bubbles on phone with horrendous crooked numbers

>Call from really smart friend with biz idea

>AI biz idea rabbit hole

>Healthy lunch

>Triple check healthy lunch’s macros

etc etc etc.

It feeds a vicious cycle.

Hours go missing, anxiety heightens.

Worst case is you go to bed having accomplished less than half of the previous day’s to-do list, thus triggering a “lying in bed spiraling and self-loathing” episode, which leads to less sleep, which makes you more tired for the next day, which makes you more susceptible to….

Noise.

Yeah, not pretty.

Makes more sense a Silicon Valley mental framework is so endearing to this East Coast creative, now doesn’t it.

Of course I had to share it.

Sometimes You Have to Skip Overtime

I wrote this late Saturday night.

Sometimes Sunday Essays get written on…Sunday.

That’s not the idea.

So, I employed my new best friend and got to work.

Phone on DND.

No late night FT’s, no answering the “Bro guess what!” texts, no acknowledgement of Solana’s 5m price action, no dropping at Latte Landing, missing out on “for your eyes only” type snaps.

Hell I even skipped out on Montreal-Carolina Game 2 OT.

That’s how you know it’s real.

The result?

No rush project.

No proofreading with the painful feeling in my chest of “maaan this could’ve been better, but it’s 4pm on a Sunday and this has to get out…”

The Signal for Saturday night:

Writing.

Everything that wasn’t writing, save for rare exceptions like a fire alarm or Iranian scud missiles?

Noise.

Hope this one helps.

Happy Memorial Day, and enjoy the weekend.

🇺🇸 🫶🏻

-John Abbate

5/24/2026

“Just following up here!”

“Let’s get something on the calendar”

“Happy Friday!”

You’ve experienced it.

You know exactly what I’m talking about.

(Maybe you do it, in which case I’d implore you to read this article three times over.)

You’ve seen it in your own life, you’ve seen the PE Guy meme this on TikTok, masterfully so.

I get it, it’s safe.

Speaking LinkedInese makes you feel professional and polished.

It’s a social shield, an unimpeachable veil of feigned nobility.

“Everyone’s gonna take me seriously now!”

In reality, all it’s doing is spiritually neutering you.

LinkedIn Lingo Preludes the Crash

Right around the time of our post-grad era, I noticed this BS started to permeate my friend group, as everyone embarked into the professional world.

“All systems go for Sunday”

“I can make time”

“Should be able to attend, will confirm”

23 year old men speaking like aspirational congressmen.

It’s all so incredibly odd when you take a step back and look at it.

Now, was this ubiquitous?

No.

(I sure as hell wasn’t doing it)

However it was prevalent enough that it became alarming.

What accompanied this new trend?

-Less spontaneity

- “Planning”

-Fast-tracked relationships that felt more practical than passionate

-Far less stories

-Higher bodyfat percentages

-A whole lotta “yeah man…another day” energy

Who wants to live that way?

The second order effects in the romantic world are even worse.

“I got the dreaded HR text”

There’s a trend that’s been going on for sometime where women text men they’re no longer interested in with what’s referred to as “HR texts”.

Here’s some gems from X:

(Credit to the unfairly maligned , who does quite well at aggregating this sort of stuff and starting these hard-to-have conversations on Twitter)

That sounded a little too LinkedIn-esque ^

ANYWAY.

I’ve never gotten an HR text.

I’ve gotten my share of the “who the hell do you think you are” text, though.

Conversations for an entirely different day.

The point is that this blah, modern corpospeak is directly proportional to the death of human life force.

It’s used to signify the end of budding romance.

The death of “do it for the story” energy.

It’s completely emblematic of the increasingly grey world we inhabit.

Real Killers Don’t Speak This Way

The irony of HR talk is that a lot of people (especially men) use it in the most aspirational way possible.

As if dialing your personal communication quality control slider up to 99 will turn you into Bill Ackman.

Spoiler alert: it doesn’t.

Back when I was heavy in the NY commercial real estate game, I spent an awful lot of time doing deals with HNWIs, self-made guys, killers of every ilk.

The commonality amongst all of them?

These guys could talk.

They were real.

Irreverent at times?

Absolutely.

Authentic, nonetheless?

Always.

The comedic irony of getting a paragraph full of LinkedIn mumbo jumbo from a junior broker arranging a showing for his customer only to meet the guy in question (with his $50MM portfolio) and be asked off the bat “Hey man, just give me the straight scoop on this property, no bullshit, I’ll figure out the rest” was never lost on me.

I realize this article probably ruffles some feathers.

A knee-jerk reaction to uncomfortable truths is always to extrapolate the counterpoint to the nth degree and attack from there.

Let’s get out ahead of that.

Oh, so you’re saying I should dress casually and curse and be ridiculous bro?

No.

As with anything, there’s nuance, a middle ground.

The real estate killers’ lack of “fake performative modern decorum” and real social skills were always coupled with legit talent and an eye for deals on the backend.

Which is another reason I think LinkedIn dork talk is so common now- it papers over the user’s perceived cracks in their own armor.

Underneath it all, it could largely be a self-esteem play.

Herd Mentality

Look, I get it.

There’s safety in numbers.

It’s why every other dude at my gym is a Cool Mustache and Mullet Tattoo Cowboy now, and why I thought for a second some foreign country had sent an all-female special ops squad to NYC this winter when I was out and saw a legion of women in the same light wash mom jeans + leather jacket combo walking around.

Attaching to a trend destroys individuality but simultaneously protects the individual in question.

I’d argue that’s the worst tradeoff imaginable.

People remember far less of what you say and do, and far more of how you make them feel.

If you’re speaking or texting like the latest iteration of ChatGPT, where exactly is that going to get you?

Sure, you might make less “mistakes”.

More optimized.

More “brand safe”.

Is that worth your human life force?

To be extra dramatic…your soul?

The irony of all this is that in an age increasingly dominated by AI, algorithms, optimization, consultants, HR departments, and curated personal brands…being a real human being is becoming a competitive advantage again.

The people with actual vitality still stand out instantly, if not more so.

So be the guy who laughs too loud, or the girl that sends the unhinged 3:21 AM voice note (we love this btw).

A person that sounds alive and says what they mean.

Sure, you’ll be misunderstood or feel awkward.

That’s gonna happen.

You might even find yourself on the business end of an HR text.

At least you’re being a real, impactful, tried-and-true human.

That’s a beautiful thing, and it can’t be replicated.

I’ll be back on Tuesday after I run internal readership metrics and determine my next actionable steps.

Enjoy your Sunday <3

-John Abbate

5/17/2026

^ I just took that.

I’m sitting under a massive Southern live oak writing this entire Substack from my phone for the first time ever.

Spanish moss hanging off the branches, zero laptop in sight, actual sunlight touching my skin.

Did some breathing exercises, stretches, that sort of thing.

Deep thought and then no thought at all.

What are we getting at here..?

I’ll tell you what:

Four different people told me today, in one way or another, that they’re overwhelmed.

“I’m extremely stressed out”

Some sounded more panicked than others, but the underlying unease was unanimous.

I don’t blame them one bit.

A thought hit me this morning while browsing Twitter/X and having my morning coffee that unknowingly foretold this:

We seriously have reached unnecessary information critical mass.

Drake dropped three albums at midnight. (they were mid 😔)

The government is blowing up cartel courier boats and posting the highlights in thermal vision.

Every third tweet is about recession indicators, AI replacing jobs, blah blah blah.

You’ll never find love if you’ve had too much sex, and you’ll never find love if you don’t know how to have sex.

You’re too skinny, you need to bulk up…but don’t get fat and bloated, remember- lean is law!

“Oh but John, Elon bought X and that’s why it’s a disaster and…”

Okay.

Let’s look at IG:

Reel of a vacation out of your budget.

Buy the product!

Dude with an 8 pack clearly on anabolics.

Otherworldly Pilates girl who might be AI-generated.

Buy the product!

Buy the product!

Actually funny Reel that would get you fired if you liked it.

"“Well just delete social media then”

See….

It’s the second order effects of modern information overload that we’re dealing with.

Be the change you want to see in the world is my favorite quote ever, but unplugging from multi-billion dollar platforms specifically engineered to keep you on a consumption and dopamine loop is just not going to make a single difference in the fact that almost everyone you know and love is on the same psychological treadmill.

(I love ranting on Fridays and I love run on sentences bc you know I’m not using AI)

This is more observational than actionable- if I were to try and cook up some counter movement to social media information overload and brain rot en masse, it would be both:

A. probably 25,000 words

B. sadly, wholly ineffective

Back to the Oak Tree

I’m certainly feeling a lot better since I came out here to sit down.

It’s cool that nature is largely unchanged in a lot of ways.

This tree probably pre-dates me by a hundred years and will outlive me by a hundred too.

Everyone should do this- a tree, a garden, walking path, the beach.

I think it’s almost a necessity at this point.

It takes a little time, sure…but that Sunday screen time report says you got 7 hours and 37 minutes a day you can cut into to make the time.

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction..

Maybe that’s what this is.

It’s scientific.

“Nature chilling” as we’re going to call…it’s rudimentary.

Primitive or maybe even childish.

Doesn’t mean it isn’t necessary.

You’re not supposed to see 10 people die, 5 reasons why your boyfriend secretly doesn’t love you, and be sold 2 MLM scams before you’ve finished your morning coffee.

That’s incredibly unnatural.

So this offers the perfect counterweight.

It’s just fighting the extreme with the extremes at this point.

Tree Time is Over

Probably sounded like I was gonna pitch a tent and live out here at a certain point there 😭

Nah.

I got my own stuff to handle and work on tonight.

(Usage rate limited on Claude for another 2.5 hours tho 🙄)

However, I definitely feel calmer, freer.

I’ll do better work tonight as a result, no doubt.

Hopefully this helped, but there’s probably some of you that will think this was bordering on stupid hippie BS.

In that case, I’d implore you call up the most “hippie-adjacent” person you know.

They’ll probably have a lot to say.

You know what you won’t hear, though?

I’m extremely stressed out….

See you on Sunday.

🫶🏻

-John Abbate

5/15/2026

I promise.

If you spend enough time online right now, you’d think every 23yo startup kid in a weighted vest is building the next trillion dollar company off 94-hour work weeks, OpenClaw agents, and burning $6,000 worth of Claude credits.

It’s become essentially what I’ve dubbed productivity theater.

“OMG I’m shipping all day bro!!1!”

That’s the 2026 “look at me” refrain from guys who experience mild tumescence at phonk edits of matte black Lamborghinis cruising down Ocean Drive at midnight.

The AI conversation online has already become what crypto became around 2021: a strange arms race of jargon, screenshots, and FOMO.

I realize this induces anxiety in the general population.

You feel like you’re missing out.

You feel technologically illiterate.

The future is happening, and it’s happening without you.

Let’s push back on that for a second.

Most people don’t even pronounce ChatGPT correctly.

Close friend of mine the other day told me all his colleagues refer to it as “ChatGBT”.

That’s actually more common than you’d think.

The internet is so good at creating an illusion that everybody else is sprinting while you’re standing still.

In reality, the loudest 0.5% of terminally online optimization addicts are simply posting the most, largely because they’re embroiled in a..uh.. “measuring contest” amongst themselves.

Most normal people are not running autonomous agents from a LED-lit Brickell apartment while Huberman clips play in the background.

Sure, I’m keeping the mood light, but I’m also keeping it real.

You do not need to become an AI warlord overnight to have a good future.

Are there people doing tremendous things with AI?

Yeah, of course there are.

(Shamelessly plugging my boi , who is the AI consultant supreme)

That will always be the case with any realm of human endeavor.

Outliers will always be outliers.

However, for the rest of us?

You probably just need to become slightly more adaptable than you were six months ago.

That’s really the whole game.

Mess around with a few tools, get comfy with your favorite one, don’t panic.

Because despite what the internet would have you believe, we are still incredibly early.

Realize the bulk of your friends and colleagues are hardly using this stuff, and if they are, they’re having it write emails (with—- the —dead giveaway—em dashes) or having it tell them what Harry Potter house they’d be in.

(Us Slytherins would never.)

And truthfully?

The people who are going to thrive long-term probably are not the loudest “optimize everything” maniacs online anyway.

I always hammer on about soft skills ruling the roost, and that’s because it’s arguably my strongest-held core belief.

People who can still communicate clearly, build trust, think creatively, and not fry their nervous system are still going to be the top of the food chain as time progresses.

You don’t have to have an existential crisis every time you read a tweet about a guy bragging that Claude was writing an internal memo for his company while he was out sharing animal style In N’ Out fries with his side piece.

Every technological Gold Rush shows the same signs: initial assessments are overblown, the jargon around the tech normalizes, the hysteria fades.

When the dust settles, being adaptable, calm, likable, and competent will still matter an absurd amount.

If you need further anxiety alleviant?

Far less people even care to read or research this topic at all.

If you’ve made it to the end of this short write-up, congrats.

You’re ahead of almost everybody already.

Chat soon.

🫶🏻

-John Abbate

5/12/2026

Looksmaxxing was the logical crescendo in an orchestra of filters and Facetunes that trace back over a decade.

So I guess it’s really no surprise when you ask a person what they look for in a partner, what they find attractive, the physical reigns supreme.

It’s baked into the culture.

The same refrains are common:

Tall

A jawline!

Biceps

Blonde

Fit body

Ass

“at least a C cup” (okay, guilty)

We’ve become physical purveyors, an army of individual judges from the OG era of America’s Next Top Model.

Look, we’ve all got a type.

You’re guilty of it, your friends are guilty of it, I am too.

(Lily Aldridge didn’t grace the thumbnail image outta nowhere)

So, I took a look around.

What made me attracted recently?

What actually moved the needle internally, to the point where I stopped and took pause?

The Timeline Tells All

It all dawned on me during an all-too-familiar 2AM “I can’t sleep” timeline scrolling sesh.

Sure, there’s the mutuals who look incredible all posed up on…whoever’s boat it is that they’re on.

Sultry post-Pilates selfies that might raise an eyebrow or two over at Elite Model Management.

But that’s all noise at the end of the day.

Scroll nationally trending IG Reels, you’re inundated with top-notch genetic specimens thirst trapping away, some selling “memberships”.

Not that we’ve become desensitized to beauty online (okay, maybe we have) but it’s almost as if we need something else to get that warm fuzzy feeling in the chest.

So, what exactly was it?

The profiles that I kept coming back to, that evoked some sort of feeling?

Well, I’ll tell you what.

It didn’t turn into a body measurements contest, I wasn’t calculating Golden Ratio face equations or such things.

Lots of “dude, she’s bad as hell” types, which is all well and good…

but what was it that was scratching the proverbial itch?

The Allure of Intentionality

All of the profiles that I kept coming back to had a common thread:

They all had their thing…and it was dialed in.

(No, I won’t disclose who they were)

A passion.

A career they were proud of- not attractive from an $$ standpoint, but for the enthusiasm behind it.

A physical or artistic pursuit.

A specific aesthetic.

There was an energy about how these girls lived their lives, how they protected their time, how they seemed to be on a path in their life you’re more than willing to join but she’s not going to abandon for you.

It was living with intentionality.

I get that intentionality is a spooky word, especially for us guys.

If a girl hits you with “what are your intentions” or some variation of “dating with intentionality!”, you gotta break into a 40 yard dash in the other direction that would make Christian McCaffrey blush.

(That’s an entirely different conversation for another day)

This is about living with energy, overcoming the modern rot.

These girls were living with life force inside them.

Let’s look at it a little deeper:

“Show me a beautiful girl, and I’ll show you a guy that’s tired of…..”

Don’t have to finish that sentence, we all know how it ends.

I been that guy more times than I can count.

Beauty runs up engagement numbers, though.

457 comments.

23.7K likes.

Double the amount of sends (to group chats across the country).

The formula does work, for a time.

The real retention, however- that stayed with the doers.

A nurse summarizing a chaotic 12-hour shift, looking half dead but speaking in that unique fiery way about the care she gave her patients.

(Scrubs don’t hurt, either)

The interior designer who managed to get herself in a room with a massive CEO, not from “omg girlbossing” it, but rather from being that damn good at what she does.

The girls grinding through Masters programs or the like, steadily posted up in a rotation of cute coffee shops, laser-focused on whatever it is that’s in their hearts.

None of them are curating, thirst trapping, shilling.

Just existing with a pure and unwavering focus on what made them them.

In simpler terms?

They had something going on under the pretty exterior.

This Goes for the Guys Too (Pause)

lol, but it does though.

Not like that, obviously.

That being said, think of your own circle.

Whose texts or notifications come through and you’re like oh, hell yeah, let’s see what he’s up to.

The Pareto Principle is far too forgiving when it comes to my social circle, in terms of who is still “getting after it”.

It’s more like a 15 or 20-1.

This is no drawn out knock on commitment.

Biggest killer I know has a wife and four kids.

Rather it’s an observation of the types that inspire that man-to-man respect out here in the wild.

The guys shipping their asses off on Claude after putting the kids to bed.

Guys pushing big weight, posting absurd PRs into the lifting chat.

Probably the most inspirational chat I’ve had in weeks was a friend of mine lamenting that a current training partner of his lost in the UFC co-main event.

This same friend has his ACL blown to bits two years ago.

Most people I know would’ve ridden that into a lifetime subscription to the couch.

Not him.

Interactions like those are what inspired thoughts like these:

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

If you’re that fired up talking sparring or the creator economy with your go-getter friends, what’s the inverse doing to you?

How bad is hearing “Well yeah, we uhh.. we got new Ikea drapes for the living room” nuking your fortitude?

Sure, the circle may shrink as a result of this practice.

The positive residual effects will only multiply.

That’s a solid trade-off.

Exit Through the Coffee Shop

As I sit here finishing this up, I’m tucked into the corner of a trendy new coffee spot up on the North Shore of Long Island.

Save for the Temu version of Call Her Daddy type banter going on at the table next to me, I’m surrounded by the very types I’ve written about in here.

There’s a girl with AirPod Max’s and a giant oncology textbook.

Two older guys assessing a massive land survey spread across the table.

A group of what looks to be college students poring over some group project (which seems to be about physics and thus, way over my head).

All of them are on a mission.

They’ve got their own thing going on.

Sure, some of them do look great.

But almost everyone in here is attractive.

Love always,

John Abbate

4/19/2026

My First Conversation in Florida

Fresh off of my trek down to the gulf coast in the early days of my relocation, I figured the smartest thing to do would be to introduce myself to my next door neighbor.

Here I was, a stranger in a strange land.

Most Long Islanders inhabit the east coast of FL: Boca, Delray, etc.

(Fun fact that I learned far too recently- this is because of the Interstate system before air travel became so prolific. 75 from the Midwest takes you down the west coast, 95 outta the Northeast takes you down the east coast)

Makes sense that my next door neighbor was originally from Michigan.

Does not make sense that I was a native Long Islander.

Anyway, he turned out to be a great guy- he lived there with his wife and newborn son.

As for our chat, the first conversation I had in Florida that wasn’t with a Zyn-dealing gas station attendant or a cute barista during a pit stop?

I remember it vividly.

There were the usuals, the standards.

So man, what do you do for work?

Where you going to work out around here?

How was the drive?

Usual friendly, cordial, “two people who are gonna be living next to each other feeling each other out” type stuff.

Then he hit me with it, right at the end:

“John, let me ask you- how’s your relationship with the Lord?”

Shit, man.

I don’t know.

What was I even supposed to say?

I guess I fudged something, but the truth was I was caught by a straight right I didn’t see coming.

The Classically Trained Catholic

In theory, I should’ve been a world-class believer.

I came up through as classic and traditional a pipeline an American Christian possibly can.

Catholic school from K-8, prestigious all boys Catholic school for Grade 9 (our authority issues-having hero didn’t exactly thrive there), had all my sacraments right on time.

I should’ve been bossing the midfield of adulthood faith like the veritable spiritual La Masia product I was…but at some point, the wheels came off.

Perhaps it was around college, or sometime after.

There were sparks of it in the late 10’s- I always made sure to get my ashes on Ash Wednesday, my Lenten adherence never wavered.

Nonetheless, it never became habit.

Invoking God in Cold Calls

My neighbor conversation was, unbeknownst to me at the time, a canary in the coal mine for what was to come.

I distinctly remember sitting in my Florida real estate office, newly-minted FL license hanging over my desk (first try on the test btw, real ones know), helping an older colleague bang out lead calls on a multifamily listing he had trouble moving.

Most of these calls were to investment groups or family offices in Florida that bought in the area.

I was in utter disbelief at the responses I was getting.

Hey, not for us at this time, God bless you though.

Sure, send over the OM- have a blessed day.

Hey, gotta thank God for another beautiful day, anyway yeah run me through the NOI.

Listen, Long Island isn’t some godless place, but the invocation of faith inside a business environment was downright foreign to me.

Cold calls back home?

If you made your “50 by lunch”, you better have been told to unalive yourself in three different ways or to go insert a random item into your body, or else you weren’t trying.

It was culture shock.

Naturally, this caused me to keep an ear to the ground regarding faith in-house.

It wasn’t unusual for Monday morning water cooler talk to involve Church, in fact it was the norm.

We tried the new sushi place on Siesta Key Saturday night, then we had a luncheon at our Church after Mass on Sunday.

It wasn’t virtue signaling, or “look at how devout I am”.

Zero percent performative.

It just….was.

Super Rainy Ash Wednesday 2025

It was Ash Wednesday in 2025, marked by a typical "outta nowhere” Florida downpour.

I Google’d “Churches near me” and found out I was in luck- there was a Catholic Church walkable from my office.

So, off I went.

Except this time, it was different.

After getting my forehead inscribed, I sought out the first man of the cloth I could find after I said my prayers.

I ended up finding a deacon in his mid-40’s, affable dude, super friendly.

“Tryna talk to God, but I’m afraid because we ain’t spoke in so long..

Basically the white boy version of that ^

Essentially, I asked the deacon how do I get back into this?

I’ll admit I was expecting to be judged.

To have to perform some sort of penance or whatever.

That’s not at all what happened.

“Just show up, man. See how you feel when you do that.”

Those were my instructions.

Delivered with a smile and a story about how he strayed so far from his current standing in the Church that he was an atheist at one point.

Okay, seems easy enough, I thought.

Turns out it wasn’t.

Holden Caulfield Sings the Blues

It seems ridiculous in hindsight, but my tentativeness tracks back to what I was seeing on social media at the time.

Christianity was starting to come roaring back.

It was becoming “cool”.

Like anything else that becomes “cool”, it became influencer-adjacent.

Bodybuilding, cooking, Fortnite, doesn’t matter- if people do it, there’s an influencer market for it.

Whatever spiritual gusto I had received from my mound visit with the deacon was dampened by what I was seeing on the fyp and my timelines.

Dudes filming themselves driving with the Rosary intertwined on the hand that’s on the steering wheel.

Girls filming themselves tearing up during Adoration.

The tsunami of “tradwife” content.

Former roster members proclaiming they’ve now given their lives to Jesus (let’s just say I’m happy I met them before that).

The hilarious yet puzzling juxtaposition of Tampa Hinge girls answering the “what I’m looking for” prompt with “a man with a relationship with Jesus” sandwiched in between two separate bikini-clad photos of their ass on boats.

I don’t say any of this to judge, but if I’m being honest?

The modern incarnation of faith felt…off.

Performative.

It all seemed, in the essence of this passage’s namesake, so phony.

So, what turned the tide?

Let’s Talk About Waco.

I’ve touched on gaining popularity on TikTok Live in 2025.

One of the best aspects of that run was the fact I got to make friends from all across the country.

The closest to me is arguably my friend from Waco, Texas.

We’ll call her “B”, for anonymity.

B is an early/mid 20’s woman who grew up in the heart of the Bible Belt.

Naturally, I considered her to be an asset in the “John reconnects with his faith” mission.

Little did I know the path I was about to go down.

She was always talking about her church, how she went often, how she and her friends studied scripture together.

That’s when I pried for more information:

So like, what’s Mass like for you guys?

She laughed.

Oh, it’s not Mass..it’s service!

So you’re not Christian?

No of course I am, I’m just not Catholic.

Okay cool, so what are you?

I’m non-denom.

Non de- what?

Just like that, class was in session.

I learned about different interpretations of faith, Bible study, leaders within the Church.

KJV, NIV…these weren’t foreign intelligence agencies, these were Bibles.

(Also, the NIV is a lot easier to read and is now my go-to).

Suddenly, I was awakened to a whole new perspective on faith.

B’s wasn’t as structured, or sacramental, or black and white.

It was almost like..based on vibes?

That’s not me denigrating it- that’s me extolling it.

It seemed personal, flexible…more about the people you are on the journey with rather than placing yourself on trial every time you step into prayer.

I had my eyes opened in a big way.

Faith wasn’t “one size fits all”.

It was more abstract, more holistic, with an emphasis on the growth of the individual .

B sent me videos from her services, and I was struck by the raw joy.

Music, singing, embracing, storytelling.

Sure, I wasn’t loving the sweatpants and sweatshirts in the congregation (this is a guy who is pulling for UConn over UM next week if only bc Dan Hurley’s blazers > Dusty May’s zip-ups), but personal proclivities aside, I had been given an entirely new perspective on this journey I was trying to go on.

It’s not so much about rule-following, or perfection, or feeling forsaken- it’s a journey of personal betterment to be shared with those close to you.

That I could get down with.

So, that Sunday, armed with a new mindset…off to Church we went.

“Well, I didn’t spontaneously combust, so that’s a start.”

That was my response to my deacon friend’s “So, how’d it go?!” when we caught up outside after my first Mass back.

We were able to laugh about it, but there was some truth to that.

I mean, looking around, it had been awhile since my last non- Christmas/Easter/funeral/wedding Mass.

And what did I do in that time, especially recent to that specific day in late Spring 2025?

Was Jesus smiling down at how I was moving in 2024 and early 2025?

Was Jesus loving my NYC summer rooftop BS, or ICSC poolside shenanigans, or the 4AM St. Pete nights?

Probably not!

Looking around the congregation, who was I to even be there?!

Clean cut I-75 types.

Dudes with families.

Floral dresses en masse.

I felt like the Prodigal Son.

Repetition Leads to Revelation

For better or for worse, I can be extremely stubborn.

I wasn’t gonna leave Mass that day on that note and not come back and try to turn this whole thing around.

So that’s exactly what I did the next week.

And the week after that, and the week after that.

Slowly, the tide began to turn.

Sure, maybe the family men and clean-shaven Lululemon golf dudes in the pews led a lifestyle that had been a bit more PG.

The floral dress girlies might be a bit more wholesome than my beloved “iced coffee and resting bitch face” contingent.

Didn’t mean I had any less of a right to be there.

After all, what was I chasing?

I wanted to be integrated.

To improve as a man, which in turn makes me a better son/brother/friend/etc.

I mean, look at my colleagues.

They had a lightness about them when they spoke about attending Church.

It was a spiritually cleansing experience, a stepladder to a better you.

I wasn’t doing this for likes, to posture on IG, to use it as a “mouse trap” to get a significant other.

There was a mantra I came up with along this path:

Perfectly imperfect.

Fast Forward to the Present

It turns out heading back to Church was just the entry point.

As I said above- this wasn’t for likes. The phone stayed off in my pocket.

Mass attendance turned into group texts with my friends (some who have always had strict adherence to their faith, some who are comeback stories like me) chopping it up about whatever the homily was or how we felt afterwards.

FaceTime’s with B where she would read me a verse and actually be able to interpret it and give me the lesson from it.

Faith was becoming a facet of daily life, not just an hour in a jacket and a buttondown on a Sunday morning.

An awareness of something bigger than myself, a North Star for when the path seemed rough or I was losing sight of the light at the end of the tunnel.

Sure, I still have my mental health challenges.

My down days.

The trials and tribulations that come with being a man trying to make his mark on this world.

But now?

I did the hard work, with some nudging from the new environment around me, both physically and digitally.

Did the uncomfortable deep dive and introspection that comes along with it.

As a result?

I’ve got someone to talk to every single day.

Someone who listens.

Someone who gets it.

(He’s been through way worse stuff, especially around this time of year).

Grateful for that.

Grateful for the journey.

Have a Happy Easter, everyone.

-John Abbate

4/5/2026

Screens on screens, artificial light, cortisol-inducing stressors.

A lot of it is simply unavoidable, and I get that.

I’ve dealt with much of the same, which is why I’ve been inspired to write these weekly little health tips.

Just because a lot of the realities of modern lifestyle fly in the face of proper health doesn’t mean you can’t fight back.

That’s kinda the whole wellness game.

So, amidst the potions and stretches and workouts, you want to know what’s arguably helped me the most?

Our big ol’ friend in the sky.

Don’t Be Sunphobic!

Look, I get it.

Skin cancer, melanoma, things of that nature.

All of it is real and a genuine concern.

I’m not saying bake out there until you’re burnt and you start to affect that awful “Facebook uploads of neon resort bracelets paired with tomato faces” aesthetic.

We don’t want that.

Hydrate, use a daily SPF moisturizer (this is my go-to from Kiehl’s), be smart about it.

Now you’re all set to get into the sun.

What to Do

Go outside, preferably in the morning or midday.

(Obviously this is weather dependent, so take advantage when you can!)

Close your eyes, look at the ground, and then slowly raise you head up so that your eyes are facing the sun- but don’t stare into it like a crazy person.

(Look at the cover image. Do exactly that.)

Spend a couple of minutes here, then start to move.

Stretch the neck on both sides, open the chest if you can, find movement.

If you’ve got privacy (or you’re bold), feel free to bang out some light yoga poses, like a forward fold or some hip openers.

But this feels woo-woo and ridiculous, bro.

That’s great.

Did you know ancient warrior cultures started their day with “sun salute” exercises and movement rituals?

I bet they knew a thing or two.

So yeah, you’re getting into your primal warrior state.

Or you’re being a hippy dippy nature lover.

Honestly both mental approaches (or a combo of the two) can work.

Whatever mentality you need.

Now let’s get down to the $$$ portion:

The Benefits of Daily Sun Exposure

Nature’s Coffee.

Waking up and getting some sun (the best time to do it, IMO) helps you get a jumpstart on your day.

Natural light triggers a cortisol awakening response (cortisol isn’t always bad).

There’s also a dopamine release and an overall “feeling of well being” that can wash over you.

Still have your actual coffee, yes.

But give the sun a little time before you go mainlining cold brew in AM traffic.

You might end up not needing something so strong.

Nervous System Regulation

Ah, the elusive Holy Grail of personal well-being.

Nervous systems can be tricky, and proper functioning here is a major health pillar.

Luckily the sun comes in clutch again.

Natural light exposure helps balance your autonomic nervous system.

Sun exposure is linked to slower breathing and an attachment to regulating your circadian rhythm (natural sleep schedule).

In turn, this helps your body achieve more “biological enlightenment”, for lack of a more scientific term.

Simply put:

A return to nature = a return to calm.

Your nervous system will thank you.

Happy Hormones

A lot of people are walking around very hormonally out of sync.

Mood disorders, irritability, brain fog…all are amplified by suboptimal lifestyle choices.

The vitamin D3 production from sunlight helps this tremendously.

Vitamin D is crucial, as it increases the following:

• Immune system function (huge for cold weather populations)

• Mood regulation (and melatonin timing for better sleep)

• Reduced inflammation overall, and increases calcium uptake in the body for bones and joint health

• Testosterone production

Arnold and Franco knew what they were doing.

You Get Aura From the Sky

AKA sharpened mood and presence.

Sunlight is proven to increase serotonin, the brain chemical responsible for mood, calm, and confidence.

Natural light is also 10x-100x brighter than artificial light, which increases brain signaling.

These factors help increase alertness and mental fatigue.

Think less rumination, more “being in the moment”.

Personal power levels + + +

You Want to Get Hot.

Not temperature wise (though that will happen).

We all feel better with a little more color.

Sure, that glowy “olive and optimized” look always has me feeling like I can conquer an entire continent, but even a little increase makes me feel better.

Of course, no two people reading this have the same complexion.

So outside of that, sunlight exposure also increases circulation, and the increase in the aforementioned vitamins and hormones help with body composition and skin/hair health.

They call it sun-kissed for a reason.

Sunlight is also associated with openness and movement, as we spoke about.

Pure vitality coming your way from the big celestial being in the sky.

You’ll look, move, and feel better.

That sort of unspoken signaling of personal wellness is downright attractive.

Get to Glowing

So, wherever you are, give this a shot tomorrow.

If you’re Florida Crew like me, you got no excuse.

(I do get a readership map- most of you are NY/FL based)

Northeast guys n’ girls, it’s gonna be harder, but still.

You can glean these benefits in colder weather as well.

Plus, it’ll be beach season before you know it.

(You can find me there almost all the time)

Be well, catch a glow….feel like yourself again.

Love,

John Abbate

3.31.2026

Those are the three niches that move the needle on the modern internet, and almost every high-performing offer can trace back to at least one of them.

They’re the essential building blocks of life.

They hit right at the raw core of basic human needs.

That’s probably why they’re equal parts profitable and completely divisive when it comes to online discourse.

So, today I’d like to talk about friends…because that’s where I see, for lack of a more professional term, the screwiest things imaginable online.

(First overall would be dating discourse, but we’re not doing that right now)

Small Circles, Standards, and Your Absolute Boys

Scroll ten TikToks or IG Reels and you’ll see ten different opinions on friendships.

It can be your favorite “gooroo”, extolling the virtues of being a DND Warrior and cutting out every single person who isn’t helping you reach your GOALS.

(While practical, this seems like an extremely lonely way to live)

There’s also the most toxic girl you’ve ever met reposting an artsy edit with a cool font that reads “May the Bridges We Burn Light the Way”

(She’s impossible to deal with and has zero accountability for it)

All of this sprinkled into the mix of some of the other usual occurring content:

• The Mamba Mentality guys reposting matte black Lamborghinis ripping through Dubai with captions about small circles, and- of course- the “Lion vs. Sheep” quote.

• EDM edits with just enough plausible deniability from your friend who is a West Village Handicap Stall Hero, who lives for afters with his absolute boys. (These are my favorite lol)

• Tradpoasting from a girl who found religion proclaiming that if you have no relationship with God, you can’t be in her life.

  (Faith is noble and beautiful- but is exclusion really a Christian virtue?)

• Your slightly unhinged gym bro friend posting about how planespotting is his “love language” (well who could this be)

Point being, there are billions of viewpoints and approaches to friendship and human connection.

Each one amplified by the fact we all have a platform to shout from.

Trying to make sense of all of them at once or sift through it all would make you insane.

The noise levels?

Maximal.

So, instead of trying to decode every single opinion on the internet, I tried to think about it differently.

It’s not about ideological alignment, or the amount of friends you’ve got, or the more superficial side of it.

It’s about the roles they play, especially in our world full of opinions, division, and craziness.

Anyway…let’s meet our trio.

Friend #1- The guy/girl way smarter than you.

This friend is literally worth their weight in gold.

Think about where we’re at right now- the Age of AI is upon us, personal branding and digital platforms are more important than ever, we have economic and geopolitical instability.

There’s no way any one human is an expert in all of these realms.

Perhaps there’s some unicorn out there- it sure isn’t me.

Having someone in your life who is an expert in a field or topic that’s becoming more essential or you want to learn more about is priceless.

Women seem to do this almost flawlessly.

They collaborate better, they’re less threatened by competence.

I’ve gotten plenty of messages over the past year to help write grad school essays or look over discussion board posts or lesson plans.

I’m always happy to do it.

The male ego needs to feel useful- but what irony that it also impedes the benefit of having smart friends in many cases as well?

I guess us guys have some sort of genetic impulse to be a “jack of all trades”.

You’ve got to quiet that voice down, that egocentric “Yeah, I know about that, too” voice.

I’ve got a couple friends who have basically automated everything in their life except brushing their teeth, showering, and personal intimacy.

OpenClaw, Claude credits, vibecoding the night away.

Yeah bro, I know about AI, too.

Where the hell would that have gotten me?

Instead, I sit back in awe and watch my super sharp friends cook.

Taking notes along the way, absorbing what I can.

You can take your ego out of its box later on.

I love my friends who are smarter than me ♥️

Friend #2- the “Fringe Friend”

You know this guy.

He’s the one where your girlfriend sees his name in the group chat and goes:

Oh man, so and so is coming? He’s gonna behave, right?

Fringe Friend loves to repost Reels about government weather control and chemtrails.

He might also think that Joe Biden had an army of body doubles during his term, and he’s one or two Surfsides away from telling the rest of the party about it.

Sure, it’s a lot.

But take a step back for a second.

Fringe Friend is not dumb.

Misapplied intelligence, in some cases?

Sure.

These types, for all their craziness, also have two really endearing and increasingly rare qualities about themselves that make them worth keeping around:

1. The balls to be unapologetically different

2. Insanely good crisis management

When “Monitoring the Situation” is a large chunk of your personality, you tend to thrive when the situation itself actually occurs.

Car issue and the AAA wait is obscenely long?

Fringe Friend knows how to tow you out.

God forbid the power grid goes out?

Fringe Friend knows what to do.

MSM fear-mongering about another potential happening?

Fringe Friend is so plugged in and terminally online he knows whether it’s something to actually worry about or not, with frightening accuracy.

In a world where absurdity and the unthinkable has become the norm, it’s a shrewd approach to keep somebody who lives in the absurd and unthinkable in your circle.

They usually don’t mean any harm, either.

They’re just…them.

Keep ‘em away from your girlfriend’s “I really hope AOC gets the Dem Nom in ‘28” friends, and you’ll have no issues.

Now, for my favorite:

Friend #3: The one that quietly roots for you.

This one is probably the most important of the three.

It’s inspired by an actual phone call I had this week while on one of my walks.

A former colleague of mine back on LI had just closed a deal he’d been working on for some time, so I gave him a shout to say congrats.

As we were chatting, I caught a glimpse of my own reflection in some condo windows.

There I was- listening to tales of the old office back home, looking at myself traversing some Gulf Coast walking path, figuring it all out.

The little poking and prodding voice crept up in the back of my head:

“Did we make the right move?”

I quickly snapped out of it when my friend said,

“Y'know..you came up in conversation this week. We talked about you”.

Obviously, this piqued my curiosity.

So I pressed for details.

“Yeah we were like, I can’t believe they (management) just let a guy like John just walk out the door. You were a top guy.”

Did I ever need to hear that.

It touched right on a raw insecurity- how was I, (without sounding like an egomaniac) allowed to slip out the door so unceremoniously after a legit serious run back on LI?

It was always a thorn in my side.

“Yeah but we were like, he’s mad smart. You’re good at the internet and writing and shit you’ll crush it, no doubt”

He had no idea I was at a low point.

That quiet vote of confidence?

That “we’ve been rooting for you all along” energy?

Took me from “castaway, floundering, idiot (??)” in my spiral to “capable, top performer” and… “mad smart 😝”.

It helped me tremendously.

(I should probably call him back and tell him that)

Because it wasn’t about “virtue signaling” of friendship.

(That doesn’t just happen with posterboards at No Kings rallies)

A friend can repost your wins or shout you out online, all the while pocketwatching and conducting the metaphorical male “measuring contest” behind closed doors.

I have friends like that.

My mom once said a friend of mine seemed awfully supportive, and I told her “Yeah, and I appreciate it. But he’s also the type that if I tell him I made $10 million, he’ll call me the next day to tell me he made $10,000,001.”

Our biggest supporters often aren’t the loudest.

Volume ≠ belief.

Ironically enough, these are the hardest ones to find, because they are usually hiding in plain sight.

The only way to truly find out is by reaching out on your own accord, with good intentions.

Genuine happiness for another’s win made me realize I had a whole crew in my court I never even really considered.

It’s oddly beautiful.

It’s certainly invaluable.

Quality > Quantity

It’s my genuine wish that everyone reading this has at least one version of these archetypes in their lives.

Odds are, you probably do.

They make it easier to manage the challenges of life.

Shouting heads on the TV, protests, political or social extremism.

There’s a whole lot of noise every time we unlock the phone or turn on the TV.

People exist on a spectrum, and they always will.

Just make sure that whether you need to conceptually understand something, or you need to be reminded who tf you are, or your girlfriend saw a TikTok about UFOs at 2AM and you need somebody to call to calm her down, that you have the requisite people in your corner.

It’s what makes life beautiful.

Rooting for you guys, always- I’m in camp #3.

(Alright, and a little bit of #2, as well…who are we kidding)

Enjoy your Sunday.

🫶🏻

-John Abbate

3.29.2026

Bro I’m having a panic attack, wtf do I do?!

Anxiety is rampant.

The girls, to their credit, seem to be far more open about it.

They speak freely about it over texts, in their group chats, they aren’t afraid to have their floating head circling an IG reel about having a panic attack in the elevator at work.

Men, however…we have a tendency to try and “eat it”.

Look, I get it.

I’m not saying guys should be reposting anxiety TikToks or injecting therapyspeak into their everyday conversations.

But there’s a grey area between “advertising your anxiety” and bottling it until it explodes.

Something’s Gotta Give

Any mental health professional worth their salt will tell you repressing emotions simply does not work.

Whatever you’re trying to bury in the alliterative backyard of your brain is going to expose itself sooner than later.

It probably already is in the form of physical maladies- I’d say The Body Keeps the Score is worth an annual re-read for most.

Drinking, drug use, short-fuse tempers, chronic pain, digestion issues..a lot of these ugly facets of human life are downstream effects of psychological repression, and anxiety is high on that list.

Facing emotions like this head on sucks, point blank and no sugarcoating it.

How would I know?

I’ve tried the “bottle it up, wear the mask, deny it” method.

How did that turn out?

I ended up having to pull myself out of polite society for like a week straight.

Sparing you the rest of the details, I write posts like these so you the reader can hopefully avoid such a fate.

While my battle with anxiety has gotten exponentially better, it still rears its ugly head.

It forces you to deal with it in the moment.

That’s why I was oddly grateful last week when some brutal tropical weather forced my hand.

Man vs. Thunderstorm

I haaate thunderstorms when I’m by myself.

That’s right.

Big guy with a mild case of cauliflower ear and a lifetime winning percentage of ~94% in the “you look away first bro” ridiculous male territorial posturing game, gets his cage rattled by some thunder and lightning.

When I’m with family, friends, or a romantic interest or whatever?

Different ballgame.

That’s an interesting psychological aspect in and of itself.

Perhaps it scratches the “protector” instinct itch, maybe it’s a tribal thing, “me and mine vs. this threatening environmental stimulus”.

Who knows.

Point is, it all goes out the window solo.

The dark sky, the extra decibels of the Gulf Coast variant of thunder blasts, the teeming heavy rain.

It’s historically been a one way trip to rumination, feeling unsettled, a general sense of irritability.

I can guess all day long the root cause, that’s a variable.

All I know is my reaction is a constant.

So that’s what I focused on when the MyRadar app told me I had an inbound fight on my hands.

We’re Not Doing This Today

Disgust can actually be a healthy emotion in the right context.

This was an example of that.

As the shiny blues and greens of the golf course out my window gave way hastily (in true Florida fashion) to ominous grey and black, a familiar feeling came over me.

The body tension.

The quiet.

The narrowing vision.

That’s when I said to myself: enough.

We’re not doing this shit today.

Part of my current programming is a bodyweight day.

Pushups, planche progressions, core work, all that fun stuff.

What was supposed to happen at the end of my work day was going to happen right here and now.

So, as the rain got heavier, the branches of the tree outside the window did that circular “horror movie sway” in every direction, I got down on the floor.

Diamond pushups synced with those insane flashes of lightning that are the same color as stadium lights.

Planks held as the telltale time between flash>boom shortened and shortened.

All the way telling myself the raised heart rate and sweat was due solely to the exertion.

Just like that, the fight was on.

Flawless….Draw?

The bodyweight medley matched the length of the storm almost exactly.

I’m sure it’s no coincidence they both hit their crescendo at the same time.

This is probably where you’re expecting something “rah rah” about defeating anxiety, conquering your fears, etc.

Let’s look at the facts, though:

I ended this session on the floor, drenched in sweat, a bit of an adrenaline dump, catching my breath.

All the same symptoms of a man who just got his ass kicked.

However, the usual aftershocks of anxiety?

The lingering headache of overthinking or feeling “trapped inside your mind”?

Nowhere to be found.

So perhaps it’s fair to say it was honors even.

A draw.

Not bad for a scenario that would usually be, what we refer to in hockey terms, a scheduled loss.

I hope this helps even one or two people reading this, and if you want more of these type articles, let me know.

Writing sounds like a great activity for the next time the storms roll in.

Lotta love!

-John Abbate

3.26.2026

I’m not so sure it would even exist.

I’ve seen a lot about raw honey on social media over the last 6 months- it’s considered a staple in the more hardcore wellness spaces, and thus it’s now seeping out into the mainstream.

There were bold claims on the more esoteric or “alpha” side of Twitter that raw honey would “testmaxx” you, that you’d be your own version of Genghis Khan merely from a few days of intake.

There was also anecdotal evidence of gut healing and blemish repair on the skin.

(I didn’t do that part, but I’ll add it when I do a skincare writeup)

Reading all of these testimonials- some hyperbolic, some genuine, there was really only one way to find out the truth.

Raw honey wasn’t a part of my arsenal, so I figured I’d deploy my love of self-experimentation and report back with my findings.

Like most things in modern wellness, the findings fell inbetween the extremes.

Let’s break it down:

The Loadout

I’ve been using Whole Foods’ 365 brand raw honey

Usage

I’ve been taking it 1 serving at night, melted into oatmeal.

On lifting days, a second serving goes into a pre-workout drink alongside Citrulline Malate and pink sea salt.

Originally, I added it to my coffee in the morning, but I found that it tasted vile.

The (no pun) Raw Facts

Anon accounts with Greek statue pfp’s chest-thumping poasting aside, here’s the actual listed benefits of raw honey:

• Natural sugars (glucose, fructose) which are easily absorbed and provide stable energy

• Rich in antioxidants (good for your heart!)

• antimicrobial/antibacterial properties, so good for the immune system (more on this later)

• Skin health (again I didn’t try this, but YMMV if you do)

• potential Testosterone support for men

• Women report reduction in menstrual fatigue

Obviously, lots of potential benefits here that someone of either gender and any age can benefit from.

(Well, it does say on the back not to feed to an infant under a year, had to be safe and throw that in)

Speaking of safety- This is a personal health article written on the internet by a guy in (very, tbh) good shape, take it for what you will and consult a doctor if you want to start a new supplement.

The Results

Ah, the good part.

The Pros

• More physique “fullness” the next day. I’m on a cutting cycle and this helped eliminate the A.M. flatness that can come with that.

• Pumps in the gym were noticeably better, and didn’t fade midway through the way they would with an over-the-counter pump supplement.

• Stomach/Gut health was the BIGGEST improvement by far. Helped mitigate stupid things I do like coffee+Zyn on an empty stomach, or eat too quickly. Noticeable improvements here.

• Stabilized energy when taken before long cardio sessions (i.e. a bike ride in the hot Florida sun)

Here’s the biggest benefit I found, though it is the most anecdotal as well:

It’s peak allergy season here in Florida.

All my life, when I’ve had allergies, all the mucus and grossness in my head and nose would inevitably stagnate in there and cause at least one round of a sinus infection.

This has not happened!

Additionally, my Oura Ring symptom tracker hasn’t even detected minor signs of anything over the past month.

Notable considering I’m in a personal “danger zone” of the calendar year.

Also, for the guys here- Citrulline Malate+ raw honey combo…doesn’t just have to be before the gym. I’ll leave it at that.

The Cons

Honestly? Not many, and they’re minor:

• The taste (at least to me) is awful. This is not the honey you had as a kid that comes in that teddy bear bottle.

• Consistency/texture can be chunky.

• I noticed it added a bit to dehydration if I wasn’t on top of my water/electrolyte intake.

• Delusions of grandeur/ fantasies of conquering entire continents on my own did not occur any more frequently than they normally do.

“John, do I take it or not?”

Resounding yes.

Like anything else that’s consumable, raw honey isn’t a cure-all or a bandaid for a lack of training or a garbage diet.

You can’t “major in the minor” when it comes to your health.

That being said, it’s a potent, whole, and naturally occurring supplement with a solid upside and minimal downside.

Not bad for $8.

Also…you’re still having your health-conscious lean before bed, right?

Hope you guys enjoyed this one.

I’ll be back later in the week with a story about how I got into a fight with a thunderstorm.

🫶🏻💪🏻

-John Abbate

3.24.26

How many times have we seen that?

There are the usual culprits on IG or TikTok that induce entire libraries of comments, such as a thirst trap from someone who just…isn’t in thirst trapping shape, or a couple that is navigating a looksmatch delta +/- ~5 points.

These are spectacles.

Most are bait- they know what they’re doing.

Comments = engagement, and if you’ve got engagement in the modern social media landscape, you’re winning.

(It even gets you paid on X)

But what if you don’t want the commentary?

Well, I’m afraid you don’t have much of a choice.

Luckily, we can navigate this.

The Perfect Storm

I’ve written quite a bit about how terminally online we all are these days (I’m no exception).

The digital continues to replace the IRL, and it grows stronger by the day.

Thus, everyone who wants to be a critic, can be.

Everybody with thumbs and a keyboard (or just speech-to-text) can toss in their unwarranted $0.02.

Couple that with the rise of personal branding and the importance of having a digital footprint in Current Year, and you’ve got a veritable perfect storm: the performer, and their legion of critics.

We’re Not Gonna Moral Grandstand Today

Turning this into a Man in the Arena style hype up, “us vs. them” type deal isn’t the goal today.

Would that stance be absolutely, irrefutably correct?

Of course it would.

That being said, nobody wants to tap into 1,200 words of a guy belaboring an obvious point, and I think we touched on it with enough grace last time out in last week's Sunday Essay

Firsthand Experience

What I will say is this- I’ve felt the absurdity of the comment section and DM’s firsthand on this personal brand journey.

Substack, for starters, is public.

Anybody can read it, and my name and face is attached to it.

As a writer, that’s exciting.

It’s part of the gamble of exposing your raw digital underbelly.

That being said, you do get the odd email or strange comment.

I just got one yesterday in a subscriber chat because a fellow Substacker was irate I enjoyed the writing of (I should make more of an effort to shoutout those that inspire me on this platform…he does, and also is fantastic and due to really blow up, IMO).

Observational energy beats confrontational energy, always.

However, Substack in this lens is small potatoes.

It’s when your name and face are out there on camera that the fun really starts.

TikTok Live

You want to really place your finger on the pulse of “commentary culture”?

Go Live on TikTok.

I was heavy into that game last year- met some great people, fellow writers, grew my audience.

Genuinely one of the most rewarding experiences and experiments of this creator journey.

That being said, TikTok Live is the belly of the beast.

You’re on screen yapping, and anybody and everybody who wants to tap in and comment, can.

Moderation?

lol.

You can appoint your own if you like, but even then they have to wade through the BS and inconsistent cadence to try and scrape out the nonsense.

For every intelligent question, though-provoking topic, and kind word or two, there was also some absurdity from the other end of the spectrum:

-Insults on your personal appearance

-Mocking on anything and everything

-Overtly sexual commentary for no reason

-Unflattering celebrity lookalike comparisons

(J.D. Vance??? really??? I don’t see it)

It was an immediate crash course in learning the modern digital landscape, but it pales in comparison to getting a taste of virality.

The Direct Correlation of Views and Unhinged Remarks

You want to have real fun with the crazies and nutty commenters?

Go viral.

That’s the megadose.

Back in 2024, and I did hundreds of thousands of views on an episode where he and I discussed mental health and the current state of how we treat it in our world.

Here it is ( the influx of views was on the X post of the episode, not YouTube):

The TL;DR of the points I made were basically that we should avoid over-labeling ourselves, seeking out good therapy and trying to solve your issues is admirable, agency will be your best friend when trying to dig out of these holes, and that elective suicide being legalized is a slippery slope.

Pretty cogent and frankly…middle ground!

And all this coming from a mental health advocate with his own admitted struggles.

Still, that wasn’t enough.

While there were plenty of positive reviews and words of encouragement (it did do over a million ultimately, if I’m not mistaken), there were also some crazy things said to the contrary:

-“Look at these two idiots”

-“Podcast equipment should be cheaper”

-Every four letter word you can imagine, etc.

-Death threats in my own inbox!!

It was honestly amusing, but also a little sad.

Taking a step back from it all (and a deep breath or two), I was able to sort out this phenomenon.

When you take emotions out of the equation, it makes sense.

I Know Why the Caged Hater Comments

Think of the world we live in post-2020, or even post-2016.

Otherwise lovely people who have let extreme ideology or political identity eat them alive, and run (or should I add a vowel and say ruin) their personal affairs.

Black and white thinking, media bias, taking sides on everything from experimental medical injections to Super Bowl Halftime Shows and nuking their private lives in the process.

Tribal thinking, identity politics, radical viewpoints… I don’t want to re-use the “Perfect Storm” analogy twice in one piece, but hell, it’s applicable here too.

Couple these societal realities with the fact that a larger percentage of our population than we care to admit has aged out of but not grown out of mean girl/schoolyard bully energy, and boom.

You get unhinged commentary on the internet, that grows in accordance with the expansion of the digital realms and the growth of social media platforms.

Plainly put?

It isn’t going anywhere.

Managing the Static

There’s really nothing to do, per se.

You just have to accept this as a modern reality.

Bemusement and using feedback as information will keep you on track, emotionality and stooping down levels will keep you stuck.

If I ever find myself a little jammed up, I like to refer to this priceless Twitter interaction from former UFC fighter Paul Felder:

In its essence, commenting culture basically forces the creator to run a cost-benefit analysis of sorts:

Is what I dream of and stand to gain from publishing and posting on the internet greater than the effects of dealing with the crazy BS that comes with it?

Most will say yes.

(For those that don’t, there’s no shame in knowing your limitations.)

As for those staying on the path, just remember that the noise is just, well, noise.

Not worth getting riled up over, rather just an (annoying) mainstay in a world that becomes more digital and changes at warp speed daily.

So, yes.

The Keyboard Warriors are at the gate.

They’re ready to nitpick, insult, denigrate, ragequit, spiral, whatever.

But they’re stuck there.

Sky’s the limit for the creator class.

I’ll take that trade any day of the week.

(Left my comments on this post wide open, as usual 💀)

Love!

-John Abbate

3.22.2026

This guy is, by all accounts, an extremely talented creator.

We were discussing writing and podcasting and posting, stuff like that.

I mentioned how whenever I publish, he’s one of the first I send the link to.

Friends supporting friends, creators supporting creators.

That sort of thing.

Then he hit me with the overhand right I didn’t see coming:

“I used to post my clips to my other chat, but they’d just get annoyed and make fun of it and tell me it’s stupid.”

The Ugly Fixed Variable

Much like watching back fight tape, I should’ve seen it coming.

Creators’ social circles not supporting their work is unfortunately an epidemic.

The 2.5M following creator you watch posts about it, the niche mommy bloggers post about it, your weird online cultural writer bro friend writes about it.

It’s an unchanging fact of posting online.

But Why…?

Cultural psychoanalysis en masse would turn this into a 4,500 word digital feast, but I can drop a quick three reasons I believe is behind this phenomenon:

1. “Crabs in a Bucket” Theory/Flying too close to the sun

Social groups, especially ones that came up during formative years like high school or college, are often very tight-knit.

However, these are also the groups that are least likely to accept “outlier behavior”

(I’ll write another day about finding your tribe, I’m blessed my college crew is super supportive but I’m also aware that’s unusual)

Crabs in a Bucket Theory can essentially be boiled down to “everybody roots for you until you start doing better than them.”

Think about it- take a crew of average guys or girls, everybody has similar normie jobs, standard relationships with partners in the same SMV ballpark.

All of a sudden, one of ‘em starts posting workouts or GRWM’s and instead of “you got this!!” it’s “woah…who do you think you are?!”

Many such cases!

2. The Mirror Turns Inward

Lots of business guys I read on Twitter and Substack echo a similar sentiment once they became financially successful to the point where they couldn’t hide it anymore:

Shit got weird with a lot of their friends.

Disheartening to read?

Sure.

Again- a constant fixed variable?

Seems that way.

Posting is really no different.

The confidence (or at least the guts) to post or write, especially when it gains traction, makes those around you take a hard look at themselves even if they don’t want to.

While “hey, good for him/her, I couldn’t do that” is the way we wished it would go, we know the realities of the world.

Mocking and disqualifying (really just a lengthy exercise in ego self-preservation) is the far easier way.

3. They Never Actually Liked You.

Yeahhh..the toughest pill to swallow.

“But..but they came to my birthday party in the city!”

Lots of people like fun social events with an open bar.

Doesn’t necessarily reflect on you.

And be honest with yourself- gun to your head, you know who these people are before they even truly reveal themselves.

That’s why…

The Onus is on the Creator

“How is that fair?!”

Who said life was fair!!

I get it though.

I’m guilty of this, too.

“Therapyspeak” memes be damned, I remember sitting in a session when my therapist poured the metaphorical bucket of freezing cold water over my head:

“John, a fair amount of your problems stem from the fact you place your standards on other people. You can’t do that.”

Look, I’m usually a cool customer, but I didn’t take to this one very well, and I got enough Mediterranean blood in me to run hot when I need to.

“So what do you want me to do?! Be a f——g doormat? That’s the answer?”

I got all emotional and irrational, I was hurt.

The bruised ego subsided into the correct internal monologue:

“You mean some people close to me, some friends, some colleagues..they haven’t been riding with me this whole time?”

Yup.

It sucks.

Doesn’t make it any less true.

It’s a gigantic social litmus test, and you have to have the guts to take and stare the results in the face afterwards.

Otherwise, you’ll make yourself crazy.

You’ll quit.

Group chat snark will have won, spoiling what could’ve been beautiful.

Pivoting from Doomerpoasting into a Whitepill

Once you get through the sludge of Creator Ambitions v. IRL Acquaintances, you’ll find there’s quite a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow:

Your online friends- people you’ve never linked with IRL- become some of your biggest supporters.

I could write an entire essay on people I’ve met via TikTok, podcast guest spots, and Substack.

Business connections, known writers, creators on their way up, actors…hell I even took a TikTok girl out over the summer.

(You wanna talk snark? Tell your crew you’re pulling women off of being charismatic on the internet- see how that one goes over.)

Whenever I get down about this (and even if you’ve dealt with it, it still has moments it irks you) I go rewatch one of the best TikToks I’ve ever seen:

@mworthofgameStrangers make you rich!

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Inner Circle That Passes the Litmus Test+ Online Crew= Profit

That’s a very Alex Hormozi way of looking at, now that I reread that line.

Creative brains do well with breaking down the abstract into tangible formulas, it helps close the legion of open loops.

So here’s another one to think about- how big is your inner circle?

If you’re super blessed, it’s like 10-15 people, max?

Compared to the global population with internet access?

Looking at it that way…I’d say the gigantic potential upside of creating outweighs awkward moments at the 26% bodyfat FanDuel and Coors Light Convention, or the “Let’s crush mimosas at 10:00AM and mock other girls wedding photos” standing brunch date.

You make the choice though, I’m just throwing the facts and figures out there.

Right There With Ya

It’s preachy to write about things you don’t go through.

As I’ve alluded to, I’m no stranger to the weird secondary and tertiary effects of building an online platform.

Subscribers or followers come and go.

To think that this Substack hasn’t been “hate read” would be an enormous act of naivete.

(Hell hath no fury like…)

Still, when I get asked how the writing is going?

I always say it’s going really well.

Not because of metrics.

Not because of positive feedback (though that’s always nice), or likes, or shares, or whatever.

The real reason I say it’s going well?

I’ve got the balls to write it.

Proud of that.

Have a great week 🫶🏻

-John Abbate

3.8.2026

I came across this when I shouldn’t have been scrolling- I was outside under the moonlit Florida sky enjoying a cigar a friend had gotten me.

There was plenty to look at and admire- the stars, the way light of the moon reflected off of the fronds of the palm trees, that quiet, sort of eerie Florida hum.

But I guess we’re all dopamine addicts of varying degrees, huh?

The serenity of my surroundings lost the attention war to the almighty timeline.

That’s probably why that Naval tweet hit so hard.

He’s right.

The phones are invasive enough.

That’s not to dispel their luxury- it’s amazing the interconnectivity we enjoy.

The world has gotten incredibly small as a result.

However, it doesn’t change the fact we’re simply just not built for this.

It’s enough stimulation and overload just handling the micro, our own lives.

Grab any given person’s phone for a day and you’ll see the following:

-Endless IG Reels and TikToks sent from friends

But bro it’s so funny you gotta watch it!

(How many AI reels of Trump and Epstein drinking lean together do I need?!)

-Work calls, emails, perhaps Slack or Discord

-At least one constant group chat

-The best friend chat

-The family chat

-GF/BF/SO whoever or “Roster Management”

That list itself is thousands of notifications a day, thousands of little pings of dopamine.

This is before we get to the macro stuff!

At any given point, we can get the Apple News notification.

-Trump did XYZ

-One of your favorite celebrities died

- Awful weather is about to hit some part of the country you’ve never been to

-Disease, war, famine, death

Well, what if I just turn off the News push notifications?

Go ahead.

One of the aforementioned constant streams of texts will let you know what happened anyway.

It’s really no wonder we’ve started to see more and more outlandish civilian behavior.

We (and I) have pointed the finger at short form content and scrolling culture, but perhaps digital culture overall lends itself to this.

We’re all running browsers with 30 tabs open.

Modern life forces you to run 47 different programs at once:

GlobalWar.exe

Peercomparison.exe

CulturalOutrage.exe

Where do you find time to run focus or self care?

Some of us try.

“This application has stopped responding. Force Quit?”

In the IRL version of this analogy, this is the point when your laptop or PC’s cooling fans start roaring so loudly you can’t even hear yourself think.

Oh how life imitates art.

Hyper-connectivity is great.

It literally allows me to what I’m doing right now by writing.

But what do we do when our human RAM runs out of space?

It seems, much like actual PC memory, that the human brain isn’t malleable past a certain level of storage.

There’s no cloud data for the mind.

Managing your girlfriend’s breakdowns, watching a clip of an overtime GWG, emoji reacting to the latest Christopher Moltisanti meme in the bros chat, and being alerted of missile strikes in Tehran shouldn’t all be things that happen within fifteen seconds of one another.

I’m not so sure where it goes from here.

This could be the point of this little write up to throw in a cutesy “disconnect, unplug, touch grass” CTA, but how realistic is that?

The pragmatism of the online world is too alluring, and we’re all addicted.

Perhaps a real biohacking wizard will come up with a solution, perhaps there’s a team out there at Harvard or MIT or some other thinktank with ungodly powerful minds that are assembling something to help us deal with this.

Until then?

We keep running hot.

This was initially supposed to be an article with sub headers in bold and line breaks and maybe a photo or two.

I turned it into a stream of consciousness.

Will I hide behind saying it’s for the artistry of it?

Yeah, honestly I will.

The real truth?

I’m feeling a bit throttled.

My fans have been pumping for awhile, and yours probably have, too.

Hey, at least this was a quick read.

Enjoy the weekend 🫶🏻

-John Abbate

3.6.2026

One thing we haven’t touched yet is some practical (yet unusual) health tips.

Today’s article is an example of the type of things I advise friends/family/colleagues to do when they come to me for advice, and usually they get great results.

(I wouldn’t write about it if it didn’t work 😊)

There’s a whole lot more where this came from, but let’s get started with the first one.

Promethazine for the Modern Professional

Ok, let’s face it- all of us grew up listening to a ton of rap music.

Most of you (I presume), have grown out of that.

That’s great.

I haven’t.

Rap music comparisons also sell.

We’ve all seen Future, Kodak, Wayne, et al. toting around their respective double cups while they make the bangers we’ve all come to love.

Now you can feel like you’re pacing in the studio with $100,000 of jewelry on while you’re actually sipping tea getting ready to sleep well so you can be extra quirky on Slack tomorrow.

It’s ok- no shame in little mental frameworks to soften the blow.

Anyway, the tea!

John’s Super Simple Nighttime Tea Recipe for Maximal Mental Acuity and Healthy Glow

Y’know..this is my first time writing about health as it relates to consuming things, so I guess I need a disclaimer:

This isn’t medical advice, consult a doctor before you try new supplements, and the Promethazine thing was clickbait to get you reading this article in the first place (I’ve honestly never even tried it).

Ok, cool.

That’s sorted.

Now, you need water, a pot/kettle, a mug, and three key ingredients:

Glycine

Collagen Powder

I’m using half an individual stick of Bulletproof Grass-Fed collagen peptides.

Caffeine-Free Tea

Personally I rock with Well-Rested Herbal Tea from Trader Joe’s

(None of these are affiliate links, we aren’t there yet).

I’m not making this until you tell me why.

That is fair.

Here’s why each of these ingredients are in this concoction.

GLYCINE: One of the simplest amino acids, it punches way above its weight when it comes to sleep and nervous system regulation.

It’s an inhibitory neurotransmitter, which in English means it helps streamline cognitive processes and slow the brain down.

Glycine also lowers body temperature, which helps you fall sleep faster.

Lastly, glycine supports collagen production in the body, essential for skin and connective tissue.

TL;DR: Sleep Quality / Neuroprotection / Cognitive Function Enhancement

COLLAGEN PEPTIDES: They provide amino acids that your body uses to support skin elasticity and skin hydration.

This same process aids in joint and tendon support.

I have noticed (as have friends of mine deep into wellness+fitness) that consistent collagen supplementation also correlates with thicker hair and stronger nails. Both grow quicker too!

TL;DR: Functional Boost meets Natural Cosmetic Improvements

HERBAL TEA: Again, you can use any non-caffeinated tea you please, but if you can get your hands on the Well-Rested Tea, I strongly suggest it.

The chamomile and passionflower are both traditionally used to promote relaxation and lessen anxiety, thus making it the perfect base for a nighttime wind-down ritual.

Does it taste good?

Yes, very much so- and here’s why:

The herbal tea is a spearmint/peppermint blend.

Unflavored Collagen Peptides give it texture, without any noticeable “chalking”.

Lastly, (and this is my favorite) Glycine literally tastes like sugar.

So basically think thicker minty tea with a sugary kick.

The Macros

Basically negligible.

Half a serving of collagen+ Glycine is roughly 70 calories and 10 grams of protein.

It’ll taste like way more than that.

(This is a good thing)

How I Make It

Yes, there’s a little art to it.

Greentext style, here it is.

>Kettle with water on high

>Mug empty with tea bag in it

>Water is ready (doesn’t have to be boiling, tbh)

>Pour halfway into the mug

>Add Collagen

>Stir with spoon

>Fill 25% more

> One serving of Glycine (or more, if you’re in that mood)

>Fill the rest

>Let it steep 4 or 5 mins

>Profit

What to Expect

At Night: If you’ve never taken Glycine before and you’re not a regular tea drinker, this is going to be fun.

For lack of a more professional term, you’ll feel a certain “fuzziness” in your body, but mentally you’ll feel pretty composed.

Honestly you will feel sort of high, especially if you’re a more sensitive type.

Don’t freak out- it just means that it’s working!

I suggest winding down with a book as the perfect activity once you’ve had your tea- you’ll feel very cozy lying down and that ADHD-esque “I gotta move around” itch a lot of us suffer from tends to subside.

The Next Day: The goal of this drink isn’t actually to sedate you, though that happens.

The is really about recovery.

The first time you try this, you’ll likely feel a lot less foggy headed the next morning, your early hours will be clearer.

That’s the first thing people notice.

Consistent intake of collagen supplements for a few steady weeks (best paired with proper skincare- dw that’s coming) will have you noticing you look pretty damn good for somebody looking into the mirror at 6:15AM on a Tuesday.

Practicing What I Preach

Honestly I fell off a bit on this recipe, it used to be a habit.

Lately, I’ve gotten more dilligent with it, and I’ve noticed the difference.

I wrote this article “under the influence” of it:

Pretty sure the Pikachu mug was a birthday present.

(Yes, the ears do fill up with liquid, they’re not just for show)

Sleepy Send Off

We’re all guilty of falling into the trap of stimming ourselves to the gills at the start of our respective days.

Some of us are Trenta Warriors (with espresso shots), some of us down Red Bulls like water bottles, and then there’s my comrades who have the C4 and the pouch nestled in the upper deck barely half an hour into the day.

We’ve spoken about struggling with the RPM's before, so it made sense to provide a tried and true holisitc alternative to take some of the edge off.

Nobody had to rob a pharmacy in the process.

That’s nice.

Try this and let me know how it worked, I’m curious to know.

If its a few weeks from now and your colleagues are wondering how on Earth you’re showing up to Zoom glowing like one of those girls that wakes up at 12:15 in the afternoon and reviews Erewhon smoothies on TikTok for a living while you’re delivering monologues like you’ve got a cable news spot…

Just be sure to tell them where you learned all this.

The Subscribe button is in the top right hand corner.

Get a good sleep tonight 💪🏻

-John Abbate

3/4/2026

“It just didn’t feel like the Super Bowl this year.”

That’s a startling statement at first glance, but when you break it down, it begins to make a lot of sense.

The Super Bowl used to be a primary source of entertainment in America.

A shared living room that spanned the entire country.

Even if your team wasn’t involved, it was a pure, unmissable spectacle.

Since then, so much has changed- and we know what a lot of that is.

You’ve got platforms on platforms- your dopamine plate overflowing with all of the short form content your heart could desire.

Couple that with an attention span so fried that you stop two or three times to peruse the FYP in the middle of signing up for your umpteenth streaming service, and the bigger problem becomes pretty clear.

The Modern “Big Game”

Massive sporting events used to be about camaraderie and shared experience.

In 2026, that’s really not the case.

Modern sporting events have now basically become investment vehicles.

The plethora of prop bets and parlays overshadow rooting interest.

As with anything else, they’re also injected with cultural division and controversy, as seen by this year's halftime show.

We’ve touched on that- and people find this constant loop of division exhausting.

There’s also the war we must go to with our subconscious, which knows all too well about the elephant in the room:

Watching sports in the present day is inefficient.

A close friend of mine is crazy about the NBA.

He tells me that the average NBA Twitter loudmouth doesn’t even watch the games.

I was pretty puzzled by this and naturally pushed back, so he explained it:

“They don’t watch the games. They watch the highlights on Twitter and TikTok and talk shit based off of that.”

I trust my boys implicitly, but if you don’t, that’s cool- here’s the exact same sentiment being expressed by famed Barcelona defender Gerard Pique when questioned on the same topic, in application to football:

“Watching Football for 90 minutes isn’t exciting anymore. Football competes with Netflix, Amazon, YouTube, TikTok. Everyone has limited time.”

“Do I watch matches for 90 minutes? Not really. I watch Barça play, but not 90 minutes. Maybe 30 or 40 minutes.”

Our big moments have become commoditized, clipped, condensed, and culturally impactful for the wrong reasons.

The biggest casualty of all of this?

They lose meaning.

This was looking pretty bleak from the outside looking in, as if one of our biggest cultural mainstays- the passion and togetherness primetime sports provide- was an endangered species.

All it took was two weeks in Milan to change all that.

The U.S. Men’s Hockey Team Did More Than Win Gold

The entire country was enraptured by Team USA’s quest for their first Olympic gold medal since the 1980 Miracle on Ice year.

Also, before we go any further with them, let’s get some disclaimers outta the way:

• The U.S. Women’s team beat Canada and won gold and they’re total badasses in my eyes (and pretty much everyone else’s), too.

• People who are sad and miserable will always latch onto whatever big moment they can as a vehicle for being…sad and miserable.

• Outrage culture’s gross, slimy tentacles are seriously starting to lose their grip on American culture (this is a beautiful thing).

Okay, anyway.

Leading up to the gold medal game, I couldn’t help but notice that the overall feeling- in group texts, in conversations, in the media, IRL- felt like old times.

Nobody was talking about “Quinn Hughes Over 2.5 points” or pucklines or player props.

(Though I do have to brag that our hero won the Bucci Overtime Challenge)

There was excitement, pride in the air.

There was the juxtaposition of the very familiar “we are the USA and we’re here to dominate” bravado, alongside the rather alien feeling of being underdogs on an international stage.

Group chats were alight with anticipation.

Social media was chock full of both the wholesome (players’ family and friends having watch parties, rocking their USA gear to work) and the less wholesome (absolutely hilarious memes that often crossed the line).

There was belief.

There was meaning.

So when Jack Hughes, all 165 pounds of him, broken smile and all, tucked a shot under Jordan Binnington early into OT to win it all?

Euphoria ensued.

There was no talking heads yapping about “player legacies”, no arguments about whether certain players were only successful in certain systems, or how they compare to others, etc.

It was just pure, elated pandemonium.

People danced, celebrated, poured beer on each other’s heads.

Bars that had been granted exemptions to host the game at the time of the unholy early Sunday morning puck drop exploded into jubilation.

I remember watching a documentary about the 2004 Boston Red Sox, another legendary (albeit stomach-turning for LI-bred Yankees fan) team.

Once they finally crossed the Rubicon, the reaction of the fans interviewed wasn’t to gloat or be toxic.

They called family members, sometimes for the first time in a long time.

They shared the moment with friends, or reflected on what it meant to the people in their lives who didn’t make it to see this moment.

It was nice to see this phenomenon return en masse.

Take the Momentum and Run With It

2004 might as well be 50 years ago the way we’ve changed culturally since then.

For a fleeting Sunday morning in February, the old world was back.

Amidst all the noise and distractions and craziness, Team USA’s run allowed us to just be….there.

There was no multitasking, no wagers, no clipping, no BS.

We were all sat on the same emotional rollercoaster, a collective ball of nervousness, excitement, and investment wrapped into one.

We were pulled out of our algorithms, our feeds, our preconceived notions and whatever else- and reached the conclusion that we had been starving for a moment like this as a collective for a really long time.

Sure, on the surface it was a really big hockey game.

On a deeper layer, a moment like this unearthed something greater:

The game meant something.

The feeling of belief was rewarded by unbridled joy, and Americans got a taste of this and decided that they loved it.

I’d like to think it’s a sign of things to come.

That’s something to believe in.

-John Abbate

3.1.2026

It’s declared as a personality trait, an often used self-describing noun heard in many a TikTok street interview or Hinge prompt.

Does it conjure up the best imagery?

Probably not.

Like everything else on earth, “being a yapper” gets pigeonholed or stereotyped.

Look, I get it- a lot of us hear the word and envision Sarah who works in HR loudly oversharing and trauma dumping after one too many espresso martinis at whatever hotspot the algorithm decided was cool that week.

It isn’t the prettiest sight (I’m also admittedly guilty of doing everything I can to get out of the “blast radius” of such types when I’m out), and you’d be justified to recoil.

But yappers come in all shapes, sizes, and backgrounds… and their Golden Age just may be upon us.

Broadcasting vs. Conversing

Technological advancement has given everyone a camera and a microphone, for better or for worse.

We broadcast at one another incessantly…but do we really listen anymore?

Perhaps it’s the downstream effects of mainstream media “shouting heads” culture that’s to blame, perhaps it’s the constant state of heightened cortisol we’ve collectively lived in since ~2016.

We can spend all day trying to point the finger (and make ourselves insane in the process).

The fact of the matter is, somewhere along the way, conversation got demoted.

I’ve always said my greatest pet peeve used to be pretty niche.

No, it isn’t a standard issue one like bad drivers or waiting in line.

Nothing gets under my skin more than when I’m speaking with someone and get the vibe they just cannot wait for the sound of my voice to stop so that they can get their .02 in.

It’s something I thought would dissipate with age, or at least its rate of occurrence would be inversely proportional to the development of my shoulder-to-waist ratio (ok that part does kinda track tbh).

Still, it’s mildly infuriating when it does occur…and now it happens on a grand scale.

Vomiting Making Cold Calls

I come from a commercial real estate background, and a large part of that job consists of spending time on the phone.

There’s been firms I’ve worked at that weren’t too far from The Wolf of Wall Street, without the cool stuff like the Friday afternoon debauchery or women who looked like Margot Robbie.

I’ve trained my fair share of new brokers.

There was literally a time when I was tasked with showing a new guy the ropes and let’s just say it didn’t go so great.

Staring at the list of prospective buyers for a listing I had, this particular young man ran off to the bathroom and literally lost his lunch at the idea of having to perform cold outreach over the phone for the better part of a morning.

At first this was baffling, until I realized that a large majority of the population would find such a task intimidating (but hopefully not to that physical extreme).

Communication at a high level (or even proficient level) isn’t exactly inherent for most people.

That’s totally ok.

We’re not downing anybody here, but it would also be naive to say that the state of the “average communicator” coupled with our digital advancement is setting the stage for the chatters and charismatic among us.

“Claude, call my mother”

We spoke last time out about AI, and how it’s changing basically everything.

That’s true.

The realm of communication has not been an exemption.

Cold emails, marketing funnels, SMS campaigns…the list of AI automated communication tasks can circle the globe.

The one thing you still can’t outsource?

Conversation.

Sure, we might have voice-mimicking software, the type of stuff people use on IG to make Trump rap Crazy Story Pt. 3 or scammers use to call your grandmother and tell her you’re trapped in a Central African hostage bunker and need $5,000 immediately to get home.

The fact remains: real conversation resists automation.

Have We Forgotten About Emotion?

I’d argue with confidence that conversational ability not only can’t be automated, it’s multiplying rapidly in value.

The reasoning?

The big why?

It’s in the abstract.

It’s in the emotion.

Energy, Momentum, and Resonance

Ah, you knew we’d end up here, admit it.

While we get lost in streamlining workflows and automating tasks, while our timelines and fyp’s are awash with optimize this, data feedback on that.. the core drivers of human emotion and interaction seem to have become an afterthought.

This is a tremendous oversight.

Conversing isn’t just about how the words said read back to you on speech-to-text.

The magic and impact lies in the delivery, in the establishment of trust, in the unspoken but wholly felt human element.

Ask any salesperson worth their salt, and they’ll tell you sales is more a transfer of feeling than it is numbers and X’s and O’s.

We’ve seen these examples with big brands a thousand times over, often from cookie cutter Threads accounts or (funnily enough) AI-narrated Reels:

Rolex doesn’t sell timekeeping, it sells luxury.

Ferrari doesn’t just sell you cars, it sells you an exclusive experience.

John’s Substack doesn’t give you cultural updates, it champions your autonomy amongst the madness (😉).

Conversation is much of the same.

It’s how fruitful business relationships start, how historically great teammates “click”, the literal first step in the reproductive process that put all of us on this planet in the first place.

People who can yap can inject energy,

If I asked you to scroll your contacts and pick out the people you feel “drain the room” and then do the very same thing with those that uplift it, I already know the former list would dwarf the latter.

The scarcity of communication skills that land, that energize- this is what gives it the value.

Objects in motion tend to stay in motion, or something like that.

I do know that any movement, collective, political party etc. that has changed the course of history had a person at the forefront that not only could provide energy, but sustain that into momentum so powerful that entire communities and followers rose up around them.

The talkers, the communicators, the gifted conversationalists- they don’t resonate as much for what they say so much as how you feel understood by their words themselves.

The finest, most thought out 200 IQ brainchild AI prompt can spit out the best written speech or presentation you’ve ever read…but it can’t deliver it.

It can’t change tonality, play with timing and dead air, slip in an impromptu one-liner.

That’s where the magic lies.

Hanging Up the Phone

People like to tease poke and prod the talkers among us.

Perhaps that’s just human nature- a person is changing your immediate environment, introducing emotionality, taking the reigns.

That causes a reaction.

This is simply one of many reactions to feeling something.

Isn’t it nice to feel something?

In an age where we are siloed like never before?

Where we see our favorite characters on whatever it is we’re streaming more than our own families, when the “leave at door” instructions make it feel like our dinners get delivered by literal ghosts?

We automate workflows and content schedules and everything else.

IRL communication remains stubbornly human.

Those that can master it?

That’s leverage no LLM tool can cook up for you.

So be kind to the yapper in your life, they’re gonna become far more essential than you ever realized.

Their ship is certainly coming into port.

I just hope they let the writers on, too.

Love you guys 🫶🏻

-John Abbate

2.22.2026

I can almost hear the collective “Oh no, here we go…”

Let’s take a deep breath- it’s not going to be like that tonight.

Fear Not

Most of the discourse and content surrounding AI is operating on a spectrum from “look how cool and smart I am and you should tell me that” to “if AI isn’t brushing your teeth and calling your mother for you by now, you’re DONE FOR!”

This isn’t that.

Tipping My Hat to the Outliers

Sure, I’m not going to gaslight people (never did have ex accuse me of that either, that’s a flex).

There certainly are outliers in the AI age.

People running Polymarket bots, bros with Mac mini’s ripping OpenClaw to outsource every task imaginable, vibe coders shipping apps overnight.

Frankly, it’s awesome.

But if you have just as much a chance at decoding ancient hieroglyphics as you do understanding that last blurb, it’s not a sign to panic.

The Only AI Skill You Really Need

I’ll spare you the cute run-up this time out.

The bedrock, foundational skill for the AI age? Simple.

It’s agency.

Agency, in its literal definition, is defined as the capacity to act intentionally and influence outcomes rather than passively reacting to circumstances.

Kinda beautiful tbh.

What’s even better?

Everybody has it in them.

Becoming an International Secret Agent

No, I’m not talking about the male urge to actually do it, though we love our 007 cosplay when we’re dressed well and committing minor traffic violations on a sunny Friday afternoon.

Plus, as any veteran Bond fan knows- an agent can be female (and it’s no exaggeration a lot of them tend to be more ruthless and more effective)

This article is for everybody.

So, how does this actually get accomplished?

Let’s get some qualifiers out of the way before we delve deeper.

First off, you don’t have to be the smartest or most technically adept to win in the AI age (this is terrific news for yours truly).

The winners are the ones who, no matter what hand they’ve been dealt in the world of natural skills and abilities, adopt the tools and put them to use.

The Mission

Notice I didn’t say attach emotionality to these tools- they’re neither deities or Skynet-esque enemies.

Rather, the ones who win are the ones who see this new age for what it is, in a matter-of-fact manner.

AI is cutting the velvet ropes in our world and lighting permission structures on fire.

There are fewer and fewer gatekeepers by the day.

I mean, somebody could run an AI scraper to dig up every article about AI, decide they love this one, and it does 100K views.

Completely organic growth, independent of the bouncer at the door.

Sure, the other side of this can be terrifying in a way.

When we eliminate the “boogeyman” of the permission structure, we also abdicate that very structure of blame and misplaced responsibility.

After the initial shudders of anxiety at this realization subside, the calming breeze of self-sufficiency usually follows right after.

Trust me on that one.

The mission is to use these tools to your advantage to reach whatever it is you’re reaching for quicker.

It’s as simple as that.

“Okay, but what do I actually do”

Got you.

Think of the AI age and becoming proficient in it as simply answering this question:

What can this help me do faster, better, or more freely?

This would be the part where I plug in like, 20 examples of things AI can do for you.

That’s A. boring content and B. obnoxiously trying to hold the reader’s hand.

Don’t care for either of those things over here.

Moving along, let’s still use this Substack as an example.

The last thing I’d do is copy and paste an article I had AI write for me.

Not only would it be complete slop, but it would also be instantly detectable to anyone with a modicum of taste (destroying my credibility in the process).

This is a perfect example of why agency in the AI age is actually awesome.

The very things you can’t automate- taste, proclivities, an eye for trends or topics, viewpoints- increase in value exponentially.

Do I have Claude or ChatGPT write my articles?

Hell no.

Do I ask them “hey, what are the ten things I gush about the most and the ten things I bitch about the most and what are 20 or 30 different article topics that can spawn from this?”

Absolutely.

Did I use it to code my new home page layout?

(Please tell me you noticed…)

Yes.

Did I create a “Substack system” based on my burst-executor work style, conjoined with my “nighttime creative” archetype, as determined by cross-referencing my Oura Ring sleep stats?

Yeah, I did that too.

Do I copy and paste drafts for feedback, so I can find typos or if I’m being hypocritical, like as if I said “I’m not gonna hold the reader’s hand because that’s obnoxious” and then realize I gave like 5 AI frameworks to use anyway?

Yes.

While I’m completely violating my own protocols, I’ll throw in this unrelated tidbit- you can also use AI to assess a photo of your limb lengths and muscle insertions to find the best exercises for you to do in the gym.

Effective like clockwork.

Wrapping Up at the M16 Building

AI isn’t some modern age monster here to tear down the walls of life as you know it.

It’s an aid that can amplify the gifts you have, the human ingenuity that will only become more invaluable as we go on.

That’s a massive whitepill.

Think about it- you get acquainted with AI, and you’ve got machines at the ready, streamlining your workflows, amplifying your voice and your skills, all the while expediting the BS you don’t want to deal with so you don’t waste more time on it.

That’s a pretty powerful feeling.

You might start convincing yourself you’re some sort of futuristic international super spy or something.

Love always,

John Abbate

2.20.2026

PS: for those of you old enough to remember- doesn’t this make you just want to run around Silo with dual Moonraker lasers? What a shame this game was pre-online FPS era.

Could be family, roommates, whatever.

You re-arrange the living room furniture while everyone else is out.

Some people in the home will like it, some will dislike it, maybe even one or two hate it.

Either way, you’re guaranteed to have five varying opinions.

Opinions are like….

I never really cared for that phrase, it’s pretty crude.

Doesn’t change the fact it’s true as can be!

We need opinions in this world.

They lead to discourse, debate, discussion…which inevitably gives way to collaboration and innovation and so on and so forth.

So how ironic is it, in a time when we have the ability to spout off any viewpoint we please into the ether at any given moment, our opinions have all but become commodified?

The Beygency

Saturday Night Live had a skit about ten years ago called The Beygency, the premise of which was essentially anyone that didn’t immediately gush over the latest Beyonce performance was captured by a government agency and taken away.

(Which is probably a lot less funny and a whole lot more plausible given recent events, but we don’t have to go there today)

It was a comical but honest critique of how, even back then, not prostrating yourself before a cultural figure that had been deemed by the Big Machine to be unassailable was social suicide.

Little did we know how much that phenomenon was going to continue to grow.

The Benito Bowl

Super Bowl LX’s actual football portion was almost overshadowed by (yet another) culture war, with Bad Bunny being assigned the halftime show.

We all saw it- and there’s an awful lot of thinkpieces on this very site about it.

We’re not gonna go down that path, but rather look at how this was an exposé on the pre-packaged opinion.

Look, before I go further- I got a lot of Spotify saves of Bad Bunny songs.

It’s fun stuff, it’s sexy.

Women like it.

It’s good rhythmic background music for when you and your hitting partner have the tennis courts to yourselves and can break out the speaker.

That ticks more than enough boxes over here.

Hate It or Love It, Vol. 1,000,000

The script seemed to be the same after the halftime show- there were really only two opinions to be had, two camps to be in.

It was sort of like picking a Pokémon gym leader when the game starts.

You could pick Emily (she/her), who instantaneously thought it was the greatest thing she’s seen in the music world since Taylor Swift dropped an Easter Egg (aka a carefully crafted marketing ploy concocted by a Manhattan agency on an 8-figure retainer) about her latest album.

Anyone who disagrees is equivalent to a domestic terrorist in her eyes.

Her opposite number would be Bill, whose Twitter profile picture is him in sunglasses in his car, who preferred Turning Point USA’s YouTube halftime show with Kid Rock instead.

Bill channels his anger from not getting enough matches on apps with his fishing photos out on the fact the halftime show was in a language he can’t speak.

You almost can’t fault these characters or their adherents- it’s a downstream effect from the mainstream media.

Bad Bunny hadn’t even peeled off his (honestly super cool) performing outfit before Rolling Stone was quick to anoint the performance online:

Had this come out a week later, you’d understand it.

But art takes time to assess and digest.

Our favorite albums don’t become our favorite albums right away, unless we fall in love with the optics of it being one of our favorite albums, which of course makes the whole thing ring hollow.

You need to listen to it a few times, in different realms- with the rain pelting the car windows on a night drive, or alone in bed, and then out with other people.

Prematurely giving someone their flowers on a grand scale feels less like an honest review and more like eerie social instruction.

It’s Beygency-coded.

Art in all its forms has texture, layers.

It simply isn’t digestible in a single serving.

This has existed for centuries- literature and a subgenre of literary critique right behind it.

We’re not exactly reinventing the wheel here.

The Quiet Social Experiment

Writers like to observe things, it’s literally somehow baked into our DNA.

Family, friends, social media acquaintances- I kept stock in my head of who said what after the show was done.

You just knew who couldn’t wait to come out and gush on their IG story that it was the greatest thing ever, and vice versa.

A digital footrace to virtual signal, no different than making a big deal about cleaning up the coloring supplies in the kindergarten classroom so you get another gold star next to your name on the whiteboard.

The deflating fact of the matter is that I had, like, a 98% hit rate.

Luckily, we’re not all wired this way.

I hold out hope the minority can flip and become the majority.

Homeless Opinion Crew Reporting In

So, what to make of it if you’re in this minority?

What if neither encampment of opinion is enticing to you?

If the ever-present modern need for an extreme viewpoint has become, like it has for so many of us, like swallowing the bitterest pill?

Well then I’d say, my dear reader, the onus is on you to lead the change.

Sure, you risk the mini-ostracization at the brunch/dinner/coffee clutch/group chat/office water cooler.

The alignment of authenticity should sooth the discomfort.

It’s in this honesty of viewpoint that you serve the greater good.

Wrapping It Up

Anything you and I enjoy was borne out of discourse and debate.

Inherent tribalism and lines in the sand make projects and innovations a non-starter.

The very iPhone you read this on went through a thousand different iterations and tweaks, and the iOS software even more so.

Aren’t we happy that it exists?

As with almost anything in this world, the sweet spot lies somewhere in the middle.

The more frank and honest we are, the more we listen (!!) and have discussions that lead us forward.

Looking both ways for safety is for crossing streets, not expressing yourself.

Obviously, I’d prefer you go out there and show love to someone or something that people around you are trashing, but if it’s to the contrary, hey- at least you’re staying true.

You can tell me you absolutely hated this essay.

I’d find that oddly refreshing.

Talk soon 🫶🏻

John Abbate

2/16/2026