I’m glad I did. This film is absolutely heartbreaking. Spoilers ahead.

Every Tuesday I share one idea that’s been changing how I think. If you’d like the next one, subscribe below.

Subscribe now

Billy Beane is the GM of the Oakland Athletics. He doesn’t have the budget to outspend his competitors, so he uses metrics other teams largely ignore to identify undervalued players and build a competitive team.

Oakland has incredible success during the regular season but loses in the first round of the playoffs. One of the large-market teams recognizes the value of Billy’s methods. They offer him enormous money to bring his approach to their team. He turns them down. He doesn’t win a World Series, and the team that wanted to hire him does in short order.

The final scene of the film is him listening to a recording of his daughter singing a song. And while it’s not explicitly said that he gave up the job in Boston to stay closer to his daughter, it may have influenced him. If we look purely at his resume from that point forward, life does not reward him for his choice.

He ushers in a revolution to the sport he loves. Yet never gets the payday, and never gets the championship. Damn. This is heartbreaking. And likely why I didn’t enjoy the first watch. I was too young, I didn’t know what I didn’t know.

Before you’ve had the experience to try something you believe in and work through challenges in a way you can be proud of, it’s hard to appreciate that the quality of your effort does not guarantee your desired result.

When I was operating my massage practice during the pandemic, I made sure I never sacrificed the wellbeing of my staff for my own benefit. It’s easy enough to do. Fire some people, cut back on payroll expenses, life goes on. But I always saw the staff as people. People with children to support, mortgages to pay, people who believed in me, trusted me to provide a stable environment for them to earn a living.

Those decisions contributed to my current debt. It cost me most of what I had built up until that point. My marriage failed. The business failed. I had to start over.

So I can’t say that those decisions were wise. Far from it. And in the end everyone ended up being let go anyway, which was what I desperately fought to avoid for so long. The question I so often come back to is: was I wrong to do it?

There is a scene at the end of the movie where we see a player hit a home run and not realize it. He rounds first, stumbles, and scrambles on the ground to get back to the base. He’s panicked, thinking the ball is still in play and terrified of being thrown out.

It turns out, he hit a home run.

I’m at a chapter in my life where I get to rebuild. There are often thoughts where I think that I need to right all the wrongs, redeem myself through impressive achievement and persistence.

Pay off my debt as fast as possible. Make savvy financial choices so I’m on pace with my peers at retirement. Make income from my writing to justify the time that I put into it. Grow my business to the point where I again have multiple staff and employees. Sell the business. Transition into a new career that provides me the same freedom and flexibility that I am currently experiencing. Get married. Raise kids.

How different are those from winning a World Series? Becoming the highest paid GM?

And is there still value in the efforts that define my life if I never get the outcomes that I’m striving for? Or is it all for naught?

I failed five people the day I closed my business. And I tried my hardest to avoid that outcome. I don’t think the decisions were sound. They didn’t support the long-term growth of the business and they didn’t consider my needs or boundaries.

But now I say no in my life. Because I know the cost of saying yes. It’s so much easier to be agreeable in the moment. And so much more heartbreaking to finally accept the consequences of all the moments when I didn’t. That pain is so deep, so terrible, that I feel a lot better about the small discomfort created by setting a boundary.

I would not have that wisdom without the “failures.”

So maybe 10 years from now I’m not married. I don’t have kids. My career has changed and I have less freedom. Discover Wellness closes without selling. I still have less than 50 subscribers and no revenue from writing. I pay off my debt but have no retirement savings despite being in my mid-forties.

Did I fail?

Maybe.

But maybe I was true to myself. Maybe I’m doing meaningful work. Maybe I’m in a committed relationship where I’m honest about my needs and I don’t overcommit myself. Maybe I laughed, watched the sunset, and rested when I was tired.

Maybe I looked up from the base in front of me long enough to see the ball go over the fence.

If this resonated, share it with someone who might need it.

Share

Thanks for being here.

Jack

P.S. I’ve been thinking a lot about pressure and freedom lately.

I recently published a short essay called The Freedom Paradox.

It goes deeper into some of what I’ve been working through.

eBook + audiobook here:

https://jackjohnstonwrites.gumroad.com/l/freedom-paradox

But eventually you live long enough that something happens and you don't believe the other person did their best. Their action was painful, it was intentional, and you know the person is capable of better. They had opportunities to acknowledge it and they never apologized. Worse, maybe they don't believe it was as painful as you felt it to be. So then what?

Every Tuesday I share one idea that’s been changing how I think. If you’d like the next one, subscribe below.

Subscribe now

Forgiveness is always said to be essential for your own healing and growth. Carrying around anger, frustration and resentment does nothing to the one that hurt you but weighs heavily on you. But if forgiveness requires me to make their behaviour understandable, I might never get there.

So I looked into it. Forgiveness can be as simple as voluntarily moving away from resentment. In other words, it can coexist with the judgment that what happened was genuinely unjust.

I was recently in a social situation with my ex-wife. I hadn't made any effort to engage in conversation or socialize. Eventually, we bumped into each other and conversation was unavoidable. She suggested that it would be easier in these situations if we were cordial with each other. I agreed that it would be easier. And I said that I didn't have the capacity at this time. I hadn't forgotten what happened and cordiality didn't feel appropriate given the circumstances of our divorce.

My priority was not taking away from the evening by creating a scene. And yet I also wasn’t prepared to ignore how I felt. I was tired of brushing my emotions under the rug to make things easier for others. And there was a third pull in the moment as well. Does forgiveness require cordiality? I didn’t want to make the situation any bigger or more uncomfortable than it needed to be. But I didn’t have anything to say either. What happens in her life isn’t particularly important to me anymore, and I didn’t want to pretend that it was. So maybe forgiveness isn’t wishing someone well. Maybe forgiveness isn’t restoring the relationship.

I still feel like it was unfair. But the most realistic possibility is that acknowledgment will never come. How long do I want to keep waiting on a debt that will never be paid?

I started in regret and resentment. I wished things had been different and I felt angry that the difference was not addressed. Repair would require that difference to be addressed. That isn’t always possible. Forgiveness may be as simple as accepting that the difference will never be addressed. I need to stop waiting for the other person to make it right. The past held power over my present. I’ve been carrying it with me. I need to let go. It may not seem like much. That’s okay. In fact, it is enough.

Repair takes two people. Forgiveness doesn't.

If this resonated, share it with someone who might need it.

Share

Thanks for being here.

Jack

P.S. I’ve been thinking a lot about pressure and freedom lately.

I recently published a short essay called The Freedom Paradox.

It goes deeper into some of what I’ve been working through.

eBook + audiobook here:

https://jackjohnstonwrites.gumroad.com/l/freedom-paradox

The friends I’m with are just ahead of me and we’re all walking down to the bus to go out for 39-cent wings. Suddenly, I remember that I was supposed to be dropping off a resume for a student volunteer position as a Strength and Conditioning Coach at the gym on our way off campus.

“Shit,” I say, “I forgot my resume.”

Every Tuesday I share one idea that's been changing how I think. If you'd like the next one, subscribe below.

Subscribe now

After a brief pause, I shrug and say, “Ah well, I probably wouldn’t have gotten it anyway. No sense worrying about it.”

Suddenly, one of the guys in the group turns to me.

“You should go back for it.”

“Nah, it would take too much time.”

“Come on Jack, it would only take 5 minutes. Go get it, we’ll wait.”

There were probably 8–12 of us who all lived on the second floor and often spent time together. Steve and I didn’t know each other that well yet, so I was surprised he spoke up.

I look around to the other people, a few nod their heads. Not one to inconvenience others, I hesitate.

“Go on Jack, get your resume,” someone else says in the group.

I go red as I feel I’m inconveniencing everyone, but I go up to grab my resume, and we drop it off on the way to the bar.

That was November 2010. 16 years later I can confidently say most of my professional life can be traced back to those 5 minutes. Sure, I’d put in the hard work to get into the McMaster Kinesiology program. Yes, I’d taken the time to fill out the resume. But without that push, no career as a personal trainer. No chance meeting with the RMT who worked for the Mac swim team.

I recently started reading Stephen King’s novel 11/22/63. It’s about a schoolteacher who travels in time to try and prevent JFK’s death. But what called to me is a line the narrator repeats at the beginning of the novel. Life turns on a dime. The thing is we don’t know when.

The resume wasn't the only time. Once I started looking backward, I saw these dimes everywhere.

The very first day at McMaster, I was keen to get access to the gym. I headed over to sign up for a membership. There was a line. I can’t actually tell you how it came to be. But there was a short blond guy in line drinking a white tea with honey. We started talking. His name was Paul. We discovered that we were both in Mac Kin. Fast forward 16 years again and he is one of my best friends. We’ve travelled to Costa Rica. We’ve taken multiple road trips to Manitoulin Island.

Later, I was living in Toronto. I was dating a girl and we had booked time off to travel to Thailand together… Or so I thought. As it turned out, I was the only one who had the time booked off. This came to light only a few weeks before departure. Plane tickets were crazy expensive at this point, so I needed a pivot for a solo trip. I had three options. San Jose, California; Dublin, Ireland; or St. John’s, Newfoundland. I remember thinking that I didn’t have much money and that the euro or American dollar exchange rates would kill my budget. So Newfoundland it was. That trip led to what has become a lifelong love of camping.

Can I work seriously toward the future without requiring it to look like the future I've imagined?

This past weekend, I drove up to Sault Ste. Marie and back with a friend. Over the 12+ hours in the car, a conversation came up about this exact idea. She has recently gone through a separation, so we both thought our lives were heading one way, and now we are both rebuilding. I shared my anxieties about the uncertainty of what was to come.

I spoke about the need to pivot into another career. I want a family and yet I’m single and childless. My own history is basically screaming at me: Jack, you have no fucking idea what’s going to happen.

I dreamed of being married. Of raising children in a house I owned. I have none of those things.

And her suggestion was to give space. To allow things to work out however they will. That I had time. That I had options.

But it nagged me then. Yes, I can recognize where randomness has shown up in my life. And I’ve worked damn hard. It wasn’t chance that got me into university. I built the skills necessary to be a successful business owner and to thrive as a RMT. And it is fucking terrifying to leave something as profound for me as whether or not I have a family to chance.

I couldn’t have submitted that resume if I hadn’t written it already. I wouldn’t have met Paul if I didn’t decide to explore a gym membership. I wouldn’t have camped in Newfoundland if I had decided to stay home.

Choices matter. The agency I have over my life creates motion. If I stay in my apartment for the next 5 years watching Netflix, I can’t really expect the future mother of my children to knock on my apartment door.

So it’s up to me to open the door. Leave the apartment. Meet people. Build a life worth sharing with someone.

I know that I want a family. That I want work that is meaningful, sustainable, and financially stable. I know that I want a life filled with adventure and community.

I can move toward these things without knowing the route.

All I can do is write the resume. And if I experience another moment when someone tells me to go back and get it, I go back and get it.

If this resonated, share it with someone who might need it.

Share

Thanks for being here.

Jack

P.S. I’ve been thinking a lot about pressure and freedom lately.

I recently published a short essay called The Freedom Paradox.

It goes deeper into some of what I’ve been working through.

eBook + audiobook here:

https://jackjohnstonwrites.gumroad.com/l/freedom-paradox

Once I’m back in the apartment, it’s just big enough to walk around the double bed that takes up most of the footprint. So I sit on my bed and either read or steal the guest Wi-Fi from the outdoor clothing store downstairs to stream movies/shows. I normally get up at 4:30 or 5 am to start my workday. But I recently quit drinking, so I’m no longer going out to bars and clubs with the same urgency that I did. It feels lonely at times. And I dream a lot about the future. A steady and established business. Marriage. Kids. A house. A legacy in an industry that I felt needed to be shaken up. But I was debt free. I didn’t appreciate how freeing that was at the time.

Every Tuesday I share one idea that's been changing how I think. If you'd like the next one, subscribe below.

Subscribe now

Today, the buyout of my house officially went through. I am again living in an apartment, though this time my bathroom and kitchen are my own! A quiet evening still feels like reading or watching TV. It still feels lonely at times. A lot of what I wanted came true. I have a steady and established business. I’ve been married. I’ve owned a house. But I still want to be a father.

I wanted to create stability and consistency in my life. To make those around me proud. To stand on my own two feet.

I heard an idea recently that stuck with me: you were enough the minute you were born and there is always more to do. Just don't confuse being with doing.

I think I’m a lot clearer on what I want. And where that differs from what other people want. And from who I once thought I wanted to be. So much of this time was spent trying to meet other people’s expectations while also living up to an idealized version of myself.

But I’m me. I’m nerdy. I’m athletic. I’m curious. I’m adventurous. I’m cautious. I’m more of a morning person and definitely someone that likes a lot of sleep. People light me up, but they also wear me out. And so the path forward is shaping a life that serves me. I imagine a life where my wants and needs slot in and take up space along with the needs of friends, family and partners. I see a life with a lot more space for living outside of work. And filling that space with more than reading and watching. Regular time spent each week with people who share my own kind of weirdness.

I played a game of snakes and ladders this weekend while sharing a chocolate bar with a friend. It was silly and fun and exactly the kind of shared play I want more of. I also had an orientation at the local food bank today. I’ve also signed up for a ceramic class in the fall. And I’m making time to be active with other people. And I’m keeping my work in a small mostly Monday-Friday, 9:30-5:30 container so that I have space to do those things. So going forward, joy cannot come exclusively from things I do by myself. Service is important. But I’ve done it so many times in my life at the cost of me.

There will always be a need for sacrifice. Some of the most meaningful moments of my life have come from sacrifice and hardship. But self-abandonment has been a theme in my life. I’ve given more than I have to try and appease others.

I don’t want to stop giving. I want to build a life where I have enough left in me to give sustainably. Where sacrifice is something I choose because it matters, rather than something I endure because I’m afraid to say no.

Maybe that’s enough direction for now.

If this resonated, share it with someone who might need it.

Share

Thanks for being here.

Jack

P.S. I’ve been thinking a lot about pressure and freedom lately.

I recently published a short essay called The Freedom Paradox.

It goes deeper into some of what I’ve been working through.

eBook + audiobook here:

https://jackjohnstonwrites.gumroad.com/l/freedom-paradox

A few weeks ago I wrote about starting over. About holding off on a choice when you weren’t sure what your next step should be in order to create a possibility. That’s all well and good but I couldn’t shake that it was an incomplete idea. What’s to separate this meaningful pause from pure laziness or fear? Objectively, is there something an outside observer could notice that would distinguish the fearful person from the intentional one?

At first I considered acceptance. We are all capable of constructing stories that make continuing our current behaviour feel reasonable. And these stories can protect your ego from the truth: what you expected to happen didn’t. And so maybe the lesson is really just to minimize the space between that realization and acceptance. But it didn’t feel to me that acceptance alone was enough.

Every Tuesday I share one idea that's been changing how I think. If you'd like the next one, subscribe below.

Subscribe now

Let’s peel it back for a second. Let’s say that I made a mistake in a volleyball game. I tried a move to get the ball over the net and it didn’t work. I can beat myself up, I can blame external circumstances, I can try and laugh it off. Regardless of what I chose, the reality is there is a new point coming up. I need to accept where I’m at. And I need to engage with where I’m at right now. I tried something. It didn’t work. There is another point coming up. Am I engaged? Or am I distracted?

I recently listened to an episode of The Tim Ferriss Show with Diana Chapman. She had the courage to share that her marriage of thirty-plus years has had its challenges. She met her husband when they were in their early twenties, and there has been considerable growth and change for both. She tells a story about being willing to give up the marriage. “The relationship as it was is done. Now let’s just check and see, is there a relationship?”

What a brave sentence. What possibility comes with a curiosity that seeks answers where you don’t control the outcome: “This isn’t working for me. I’m willing to let it go to find what’s next.”

I shared that I have a timeline of debt repayment in my future, and likely shortly after that, a career change. So the story I’m tying to those facts is that both of those problems need to be solved before I can move forward, before I can begin living. I want to be someone who is stable and dependable. For so many years now, the debt I’ve been carrying has limited my ability to provide for myself and for any future family I may one day have. Right now, I’m in a holding pattern. I’m waiting for the debts to be paid down to be proof that I am the person that I want to be. The eventual end of my massage career creates the same problem.

Another quote from the Chapman interview, this time a question asked of her by a friend: “Who is the woman you would need to be to call forward that man?”

Maybe there’s a deeper question in there: “Who do I need to be to call forward the future that I want?”

Now there’s a discrepancy between my patience and my courage. I want to be dependable and stable. But is a shiny new job or a debt-free future really the only thing that makes me dependable and stable? Or are there a set of behaviours and lifestyle choices that go with that? Can I practice those now, while working through my current struggles? Is there work that I need to do, that I can do today, that moves me towards that goal?

I think the honest answer is yes. I’ll be the first to tell you that I’ve had some bad luck the past few years. I made some bold bets and they didn’t pan out. Having a new and “non-essential” healthcare business during a global pandemic was a once-in-a-lifetime misfortune. While that is true, I have some growing up to do. I overextended myself, I didn’t admit that I was overwhelmed early enough, and I didn’t explore alternative possibilities enough to be prepared for an undesired outcome. Going forward, there is less wiggle room now. The debt is real. The need for a career change is real. And I get to approach each day with clear limits that I honour and an openness to not have all the answers. I need to give myself permission to sit in the pause before jumping into a big decision. I need to ask for help when needed instead of stubbornly grinding myself down to a pulp.

Objectively, how do you tell if someone is engaged with the next point or reliving the previous one? Behaviour. Pattern repetition or pattern correction. I’ve endured too long and called it courage. I’ve disregarded my limits and called it strength. I’ve stubbornly pressed forward when it’s not working and called it consistency. And the result has been financial distress that has constrained how I’ve been able to show up for those who matter most in my life. So the point’s been lost. It’s time to move on. Not right away, not putting myself out of position. But playing the ball when it comes to me. With patience, with honesty, with curiosity, and with courage.

If this resonated, share it with someone who might need it.

Share

Thanks for being here.

Jack

P.S. I’ve been thinking a lot about pressure and freedom lately.

I recently published a short essay called The Freedom Paradox.

It goes deeper into some of what I’ve been working through.

eBook + audiobook here:

https://jackjohnstonwrites.gumroad.com/l/freedom-paradox

This is my own paraphrase of the key threat of the novel The Three-Body Problem. The first time I encountered it, the timescale immediately sent my brain whirling. Most fictional threats demand immediate action. The question of how one prepares for something 300 years away is much more interesting.

After I thought about it a bit, I realized that there are often distant problems lurking in our everyday life. Our own aging process is the perfect example of something that is not urgent but will certainly require our attention.

So at what point does something that isn’t urgent become important enough to act on?

Subscribe now

I recently finished reading The Uncool by Cameron Crowe. His mother was always adamant that he would become a lawyer. He mostly agreed with her, though he had a few opportunities to write and contribute to various rock magazines as he was finishing high school. Eventually, those small opportunities fueled a career that carried him all the way to the Oscars. He won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for Almost Famous. That night, at the table, with the award displayed proudly between Cameron and his family, his mother reminded him once again that he could still apply to law school and that it’s never too late.

In my own life, I’ve been working as a Registered Massage Therapist for 11 years now. When I got into the profession, I knew that my time was limited. I entered a physically demanding profession knowing I wouldn't still be doing it in my sixties. I was only twenty-three when I graduated from school, so I knew that future Jack would eventually have to deal with a career change; I just never anticipated that the day would actually come that I needed to address that concern.

I’m struggling because I’ve built a life that I love. I work for myself. I set my own hours. I enjoy complete freedom and autonomy over my day. I genuinely enjoy being of service to my patients, and I am completely content with my income and earning potential.

As a twenty-three-year-old massage grad, I originally imagined massage to be a short layover before the big career of my life. And yet somehow, it’s been an incredibly long and rewarding career.

Recently, I went through a breakup. I moved into a small apartment and relocated my business. I have some debts to pay off. I’m now focused on that goal. There is a timeline. By the time I am debt free, I will be much closer to the expiry date of my massage therapy career.

Cameron Crowe transitioned from rock journalism to film directing and screenwriting. I’m sure there was a messy middle as he pivoted from one career to the next, but he didn’t give it a lot of space in his story. I wanted more of the messy middle.

Hell, I’m in it now, and I don’t know where to go next.

When you know that what you’re doing now won’t get you over the finish line, but it’s working more than well enough for today, how do you prepare for that coming change?

I always tell my patients to dip their toe in before they commit. But in my case, that likely means temporarily giving up some income and stability, so how do you decide how to make the transition?

If you’ve gone through a major transition while the old thing was still working, I want to hear about that in-between period.

Did you start building the next thing while the old thing was still working?

What did “dipping your toe in” look like before you were willing to commit?

Leave a comment

I’m entering a chapter of life where I’m starting fresh. Again. And at an age where so many of my friends are hitting their stride. Really making things happen.

When you’re young, fresh is fun. Fresh is exciting. Now, it’s more nuanced.

Grief for what was. Grief for what could have been. Fear. Of falling behind. Of being left behind. Of doors closing that don’t reopen later in life.

A friend recently shared some advice with me.

“Give it a year. Let the dust settle. Don’t rush into anything and see what comes up.”

It was timely. I’ve spent a lot of time in my head wondering what to do next. And yet, doing nothing wasn’t one of the options I’d considered.

Motion always feels productive.

Every Tuesday I share one idea that's been changing how I think. If you'd like the next one, subscribe below.

Subscribe now

The Space Between Urgency and Patience

I just finished building my first piece of custom furniture. It was a bookshelf designed to fit perfectly against the wall of my living room. Woodworking is a new endeavor for me, especially furniture, where precision and craftsmanship matter.

I bought a sheet of maple plywood; it is the most expensive piece of plywood I’ve ever purchased. My heart raced in my chest as I prepared to make the first marks on the boards. The grain of the wood was so beautiful and pristine.

I rushed the initial set of cuts. I was nervous to start and excited to finish.

I spent the rest of the day fighting those poor cuts to try and salvage the build.

The final product is something I’m proud of. But the whole experience got me thinking.

A cut isn't necessarily a mistake. Eventually you have to cut the damn board.

I’ve been worried a lot lately about whether waiting too long closes doors. What if acting also closes doors?

I had a therapy session about a year and a half ago. I was talking about some of the past struggles I’d gone through. How painful they had been. What I knew I didn’t want going forward in my life.

After a brief pause, the therapist said something like, “Oh. That’s so interesting. It seems you’re very clear on what you don’t want. What if we turn that around. What do you want?”

I was floored. What did I want? I was prompted with another question, “What is the opposite of what you don’t want?”

I didn’t have an answer at the time. It’s still not clear for me.

Without a clear destination, it’s difficult to know if your actions are moving you towards your goal or away from it.

There are eight babies being born in my friend group this year. For a lot of couples, it will be their second child. When you’re younger, you imagine raising your kids with your friend’s kids.

This year I learned the difference between a bankruptcy and a consumer proposal. Once you’re on the path out, there’s still a period of time that needs to be lived through.

When more time means more distance between your path and the path that your friends and family are on, that can feel disheartening. It can feel lonely. It can feel sad.

All of that creates space. Space to think. Space to reflect. Unwelcome space at times.

I don’t know what’s next.

I know that waiting has a cost.

And I’m beginning to recognize that rushing has a cost too.

2 Voices I’m Learning From

1.

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves - Rainer Maria Rilke

It seems like the universe is trying to teach me something. This is a much more concise version of what I tried to express this week. That there can be joy in the not knowing.

2.

Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards. - Soren Kierkegaard

The first time I saw this quote was when my aunt shared it with me. Right after I got divorced. After I’d messed up the cuts on my bookshelf, hindsight couldn’t unmake them. I still had to move forward with the material that I had.

1 REFLECTION / ACTION

Am I making this decision because I'm ready… or because uncertainty is uncomfortable?

I remember watching a TED Talk by Nora McInerny. She spoke about losing her husband at a young age. She was distinguishing between moving on and moving forward. She spoke about carrying grief with you as life continues.

Grief is real. It’s worth feeling and experiencing. It’s the cost of experiencing something meaningful. You can carry the meaning of something forward without carrying the expectation that your future still has to look the way you once imagined. Maybe it just means creating space for possibilities we couldn’t see before.

Leave a comment

If this resonated, share it with someone who might need it.

Share

Thanks for being here.

Jack

P.S. I’ve been thinking a lot about pressure and freedom lately.

I recently published a short essay called The Freedom Paradox.

It goes deeper into some of what I’ve been working through.

eBook + audiobook here:

https://jackjohnstonwrites.gumroad.com/l/freedom-paradox

After wrapping up that first movie, I naturally watched the rest of the trilogy over the remainder of the week.

The first time I watched Before Midnight, I hated it.

I had grown to idealize the main characters of the trilogy. They had brought to life the thoughts and emotions of each decade I’d lived so far. For the installment in their 40’s, I was expecting to see how open and honest conversations could fuel a healthy long-term relationship.

Instead, the audience is witness to an argument. One only a couple who truly know each other could have. It’s calculated, intended to press on the points that hurt the most. They are no longer seeking to understand each other. They are out to prove their point. Their shared anger is fueled by years of resentment, disappointment, and years of feeling their efforts go unappreciated.

At first, I felt betrayed. After watching 3+ hours of incredible chemistry between these two people who find each other despite incredible odds, it seems odd that none of that magic shelters them from the weight of day-to-day life. Worn out, lonely, and feeling invisible to their partner.

But after rewatching the film a few times, I realized I had misunderstood what the film was trying to show me.

Maybe finding the right person isn’t the end of the story. Maybe the harder task is continuing to discover the people and places we think we already know.

What if the secret to not taking life for granted is to retain a sense of curiosity?

Every Tuesday I share one idea that's been changing how I think. If you'd like the next one, subscribe below.

Subscribe now

Even extraordinary love eventually becomes ordinary life.

And that’s not the tragedy. The tragedy would be believing ordinary life means the love has disappeared. The tragedy would be believing that ordinary life means the excitement and joy of new has diminished.

The tragedy is taking the things we know most intimately and deciding that we understand them completely. That there is nothing new to learn. Like the water flowing through a river, everything is subtly different each and every day.

Perhaps a relationship is like that. Perhaps the town you’ve lived in more than ten years is like that. Perhaps the parts of your life that are so routine that are on autopilot are like that. Constantly changing even though they seem identical to how they were previously.

If that’s true, then the fault doesn’t lie in the outside world. The fault lies within us. With our perception. With our understanding of the world and people around us.

Over time we lose our sense of curiosity. Our sense of awe. The world becomes less magical and more mundane. Let me give you an example.

I’ve lived in Orillia full time for almost 6 years now. In that time I’ve become familiar with the streets, with the buildings, and I’ve got routines and habits. There’s so much that I expect to always be there and that I take for granted.

Recently, I’ve started going for an evening walk. And it has been incredible. No headphones. No distractions. Just me and the world. Birds flittering through the trees. Houses with beautiful and well-tended gardens. Side streets that connect neighborhoods in ways that I didn’t anticipate. Raccoon cubs climbing out of sewer drains. What is their life like underneath the roadway?

Same city. Different perspective.

I recently came across a quote in a book that spoke about how we spent so much time in early life being warned and cautioned against an abundance of negative personality traits. But we rarely talk about the problems that come from an abundance of good traits as well.

Safety is good. Certainty is good. Familiarity, and intimacy, are good. But too much of any of these? I’m not convinced that more is always better.

I’m guilty of this in my own life. I like consistency. I like routine. I like to understand how the world works and what’s what. But the older I get, the more I’m convinced that the true joy of life is wonder. Curiosity. Awe.

Especially for the things and people we think that we know best.

2 Voices I’m Learning From

1.

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes. — Marcel Proust

I remember reading when I was younger how valuable travel is. It opens your eyes to a wider world than your hometown. Different ways of doing and being. The first time I read this quote I didn’t quite get it. Isn’t the point of travel for your same eyes to see something different and grow through that discovery?

After working through this week’s insight, I see the value of both. Travel expands our world, and curiosity transforms the one that we already inhabit. Maybe the greatest discoveries aren’t found elsewhere. Maybe they’re already waiting in the places, people, and routines of our everyday lives.

2.

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves. — Rainer Maria Rilke

Ouch.

I love to find the answers to things. Creating systems. Learning. Understanding. More and more, I’m realizing those aren’t always the right tool for the job.

Curiosity requires resisting the urge to reach a conclusion too early. It asks us to sit with uncertainty just a little bit longer. One more question. One more moment to truly observe.

Patience toward all that is unresolved may be the first step toward rediscovering wonder.

1 REFLECTION / ACTION

What in your life has become so familiar that you’ve stopped being curious about it?

I don’t know if there’s something magical about movement. But walking seems to help my headspace. Without it, I find I’m ruminating. I’m stuck in thought loops in my head and not appreciating the world. Now, I know that an evening walk every night especially through the winter may not be realistic, but I’m hopeful that I will continue to find other ways to slow down and make space for curiosity throughout my week.

I’d love to hear from you. What helps you rediscover curiosity in the ordinary parts of your life?

Leave a comment

If this resonated, share it with someone who might need it.

Share

Thanks for being here.

Jack

P.S. I’ve been thinking a lot about pressure and freedom lately.

I recently published a short essay called The Freedom Paradox.

It goes deeper into some of what I’ve been working through.

eBook + audiobook here:

https://jackjohnstonwrites.gumroad.com/l/freedom-paradox

For the next two weeks, I am stepping back to rest, and to spend time with friends and family.

I will return on August 4, 2026.

Growth continues, even when it looks still.

If this resonated, share it with someone who might need it.

Share

Thanks for being here.

Jack

P.S. I’ve been thinking a lot about pressure and freedom lately.

I recently published a short essay called The Freedom Paradox.

It goes deeper into some of what I’ve been working through.

eBook + audiobook here:

https://jackjohnstonwrites.gumroad.com/l/freedom-paradox

Wes looked over at the clock. The electric face rolled from 5:13 to 5:14.

He hadn’t slept a wink. Not because his mind wouldn’t stop, but because it wouldn’t start.

He had spent the entire night combing through his memories. Nora’s first steps. Theresa laughing so hard she snorted milk through her nose. The courthouse. The handcuffs. He returned to each one carefully, searching for anything that might stir him.

There was nothing. No ache in his chest. No shame. No longing.

The memories were still there, preserved in perfect detail, but they no longer seemed to belong to him. They were photographs in someone else’s album. He could study the faces and understand their significance without feeling connected to the lives inside them.

He picked up the phone and dialed the number he knew by heart.

It rang twice.

Follow Wes's journey. A new chapter arrives every Saturday.

Subscribe now

“Hello?”

Her voice sounded tired. Older somehow.

Suddenly awkward, Wes didn’t know how to begin.

“Uh... hi.”

Silence.

“Wes?”

“Yeah.”

“What time is it?”

He glanced back at the clock.

“Five fourteen.”

“I told you not to call.”

“I know.”

“So why are you calling?”

He searched for an answer.

“I couldn’t sleep.”

A quiet laugh escaped her.

“Must be nice.”

He frowned.

“What?”

“To have insomnia be your biggest problem.”

He waited for the guilt to rise. Nothing came.

“Wes?”

“I’m here.”

“You would've had something to say.”

“I guess I’m trying not to.”

“No.” Her voice softened. “That’s not it.”

She was quiet for a moment.

“What did they give you?”

“What?”

“At that place.”

“They didn’t give me anything.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not.”

“You sound...” She searched for the word. “Flat.”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“No.”

Theresa exhaled into the receiver.

“Nora lost another tooth.”

Wes smiled.

“Really?”

“Tuesday.”

“Was she excited?”

“I kept waiting for you to ask which tooth.”

His smile faded.

“It was the one beside the front,” Theresa said. “She made me put it under her pillow even though she knows the tooth fairy isn’t real.”

“She knows?”

“She found the envelope in my nightstand last year.”

“I told you that was a bad hiding place.”

A small laugh escaped her. “I ignored you. You were unbearably smug about it.”

“I bet she looked pretty cute.”

“She did.”

Another silence settled between them.

“She still sets your place at dinner sometimes.”

Wes closed his eyes.

“I wish I could be there.”

“I didn’t say she asks when you’re coming home.”

He opened his eyes.

“I said she asks if.”

He waited for something to happen inside him. A tightening in his chest. A rush of grief. Even the familiar instinct to defend himself would have been welcome.

Nothing came.

“Wes.”

“I’m here.”

“I know you’re on the phone.” She paused. “Where are you?”

“I’m at the treatment center.”

“I don’t mean physically.”

He didn’t answer.

“You sound like somebody who remembers being my husband, but not like somebody who still is.”

Wes searched for words. None came.

“How’s your hair?”

Theresa let out a small snort.

“Seriously?”

“You always hated the humidity.”

“It’s terrible.”

“I figured.”

“I look like I’ve been electrocuted.”

“You always say that.”

“Because it’s always true.”

For a moment, they almost sounded like themselves. Wes could picture her lying in bed with the phone pressed between her cheek and shoulder. She would be wearing the blue robe with the torn belt loop. Her hair would be wild, strands already escaping around her face.

He could see it all. He simply couldn’t feel it.

“I have to wake Nora soon,” Theresa said.

“Okay.”

“I’ll tell her you called.”

“Thanks.”

“But I’m not going to tell her you sounded like this.”

His pulse stayed steady.

“Why?”

“Because she’ll think she already lost you.”

The silence stretched between them.

“Wes.”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t know what they’re doing to you.”

Her voice cracked. Wes heard her draw a careful breath, trying to regain control.

“Theresa?”

“Whatever this is, don’t mistake it for being better.”

“I don’t know what it is.”

Another breath.

“That’s what scares me.”

The line went dead.

Wes held the receiver against his ear, listening to the empty connection. He searched himself one more time for grief, relief, love, or even anger at the way she had ended the call.

He remembered every word she had said. He just couldn’t find the man she had said them to.

As Wes walked down the hallway, pieces of the conversation replayed in his mind.

What did they give you?

Don’t mistake it for being better.

He had felt off since the simulation, but off was too small a word for it. The evening, the phone call, and the restless night had done nothing to ease the growing sense that something inside him had been severed.

He had been consumed by guilt and shame for so long that he had stopped imagining himself without them. He had believed that if the pain disappeared, whatever remained would be his true self.

Now he wasn’t so sure anything remained.

The hallway was silent.

Wes slowed as he passed the common room. The lights were off. A deck of cards sat unopened on one of the tables. Two armchairs faced a television that had never been turned on.

He continued toward the Simulation Room.

A breakfast cart stood outside an empty room. The tray was covered, but no steam rose from beneath the lid. Wes couldn’t remember seeing anyone deliver it.

He stopped.

Since entering the facility, he had spoken to Voss. He had occasionally heard footsteps beyond his door and the distant mechanical hum of equipment. Meals arrived. Towels disappeared and returned clean.

But he had not seen a nurse. He had not seen an orderly. He had not seen another patient.

He stood in the middle of the hallway and tried to remember whether that had ever seemed strange.

It hadn’t.

The realization should have frightened him. Instead, he registered it as another fact.

That frightened him more.

Voss was seated behind his computer when Wes entered. He looked up immediately and smiled.

“Mr. Weaver. Good morning. How are you feeling today?”

Wes remained by the door.

Voss’s voice was warm, but there was something deliberate in it. The careful brightness of a doctor entering a room before he knew whether the operation had succeeded.

“What did you do to me?”

Voss’s smile faded.

“I was expecting we might have some disorientation this morning.”

“Tell me what you did.”

“We completed the protocol we discussed.”

“No.” Wes stepped farther into the room. “You described reducing the intensity of specific memories. This isn’t specific.”

Voss leaned back in his chair.

“What are you experiencing?”

“I called my wife.”

A slight movement passed across Voss’s face.

“You were advised not to contact your family during the initial observation period.”

“That’s what you’re worried about?”

“I’m not worried. I’m trying to understand what happened.”

“She cried.”

Voss waited.

“I knew she was crying,” Wes said. “I understood why. I remembered every reason I should care.”

“And what did you feel?”

“Nothing.”

Voss folded his hands on the desk.

“Nothing at all?”

“Is there a better version of nothing?”

“I’m asking because precision matters.”

“My wife thought I had been drugged.”

“Were you confused? Drowsy? Did you have difficulty following the conversation?”

“No.”

“Then sedated would not be an accurate description.”

Wes stared at him.

“That’s your answer?”

“It’s an important distinction.”

“She said I didn’t sound like myself.”

“Do you agree with her?”

“I don’t know who myself is supposed to be anymore.”

Voss nodded once, almost imperceptibly.

“What?”

“This may be a period of disequilibrium.”

“Speak English.”

“You have spent years organizing your identity around several dominant emotional states. Shame. Guilt. Grief. Fear. Those feelings influenced how you interpreted your memories, your relationships and yourself.”

“I know what emotions are.”

“You know what they were. You may not yet know who you are without them.”

Wes approached the desk.

“You said you were taking the weight out of the memories.”

“That remains the intent.”

“You took everything.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“You don’t believe it?”

“The fact that you are here suggests otherwise.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“You recognized that something was wrong. You called your wife because you wanted to test your emotional response. When that response didn’t satisfy you, you came here demanding answers.”

Voss leaned forward.

“That is not indifference, Mr. Weaver.”

“It isn’t love either.”

“No. Perhaps not as you recognize it.”

Wes shook his head.

“You don’t get to redefine love because your machine can’t find it.”

“And you don’t get to define love solely by how much it hurts.”

The words stopped him.

Voss stood and walked around the desk.

“You expected relief to feel familiar. Why would it? Familiar is the very thing you came here to escape.”

“I came here because I wanted to stop drowning. I didn’t ask you to drain the whole fucking ocean.”

For the first time, Voss looked unsettled.

He turned toward the window and clasped his hands behind his back.

“The nervous system does not divide itself according to the language we use to describe it. Guilt does not exist in one sealed compartment and love in another. They are associated. Reinforced. Entangled.”

“You knew this could happen.”

“I knew emotional flattening was possible.”

Wes waited.

Voss continued looking out the window.

“How possible?”

“We believed the protocol’s constraints would prevent a generalized response.”

“We?”

“My team.”

“Where are they?”

Voss turned.

“What?”

“Your team. The nurses. The other doctors. The other patients.”

“There are no other patients in this wing.”

“I haven’t seen anyone since I arrived.”

“This phase of the trial requires controlled exposure.”

“Controlled exposure to what?”

“To everything.”

Wes looked past him at the office door.

“Can I leave?”

Voss studied him.

“You’ve never asked that before.”

“I’m asking now.”

“You asked whether you deserved another life. You asked whether your family would be better without you. You asked whether a person could be separated from the worst thing he had done.”

Voss took a slow step toward him.

“But you never asked whether you could leave.”

“Can I?”

“The exterior doors are secured.”

Wes felt no surge of panic. No heat in his face. His body remained infuriatingly calm.

“Unlock them.”

“I don’t think that would be wise.”

“I’m not asking whether it’s wise.”

“No. You’re asking me to abandon the protocol during an unstable stage because your first experience of emotional quiet has frightened you.”

“My wife cried, and I didn’t care.”

“You came here because you cared that you didn’t care.”

“That isn’t the same thing.”

“No,” Voss said. “It isn’t. But it is not nothing.”

Wes looked toward the hallway.

“What happens if I refuse another session?”

“We observe you.”

“And then?”

“We determine whether the response resolves naturally.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

Voss hesitated.

The pause was brief, but Wes saw it.

“You don’t know.”

“We are beyond the point supported by the earlier trials.”

Wes stared at him.

“You said this had worked before.”

“It did.”

“On who?”

Voss’s expression changed.

Not fear. Not guilt. Something closer to calculation.

Wes stepped toward him. “Who did it work on?”

“The earlier models were not human trials.”

The office seemed to narrow around them.

“What were they?”

“The foundation of the protocol was constructed through neural modelling. Synthetic memory architecture, predictive emotional mapping and controlled simulations.”

“You tested this on a computer.”

“That is an intentionally reductive description.”

“You never did this to a person.”

“The individual components have established clinical precedent.”

“But not this.”

“No,” Voss said. “Not this.”

Wes looked down at his hands. They were steady.

“You had no idea what this was going to do.”

“We had a strong theoretical basis.”

“You guessed.”

“We proceeded from evidence.”

“You guessed with better vocabulary.”

Voss’s jaw tightened. Wes turned toward the door.

“I’m done.”

“I cannot recommend discontinuing treatment.”

“I don’t care what you recommend.”

“You should.”

Wes stopped.

When Voss spoke again, the warmth was gone from his voice. He did not sound threatening. He sounded certain.

“You came here because every instinct you possessed had turned against you. Your memories punished you. Your emotions distorted your judgment. You believed suffering was proof that you understood what you had done.”

Voss moved back toward the desk.

“Now the suffering is gone, and you are rushing to restore it because pain is the only evidence of goodness you trust.”

“You don’t know anything about my goodness.”

“I know you confuse it with punishment.”

Wes looked at him.

“And what do you confuse with goodness, Doc?”

Voss’s expression hardened. Voss looks at him. Doesn’t answer.

Wes looked around the office. At the screens filled with maps of his mind. At the files stacked beside Voss’s keyboard. At the black window reflecting the two of them back into the room.

One man desperate to feel something. Another desperate to prove something.

“Open the doors,” Wes said.

“No.”

The answer came without hesitation.

Wes moved closer.

“Am I a patient or a prisoner?”

Voss met his eyes.

“At this moment, I’m not sure you are capable of understanding the difference.”

Wes waited for rage. For fear. For the instinct to grab Voss by the collar and force him against the wall.

Nothing came. He hated Voss. Or he believed he did. He could no longer tell the difference.

Wes stepped back into the hallway. Voss did not try to stop him.

His pace quickened as he reached the end of the corridor. The exit stood exactly where he remembered. He shoved the push bar.

Nothing. He shoved harder. Still nothing.

Behind him, Voss’s footsteps echoed calmly down the hall.

“You’ve tried that three times.”

“It won’t open.”

“No.”

Voss stopped several feet away.

“It won’t.”

Wes turned.

“So you lied.”

“I said the door was open.”

“It isn’t.”

Voss pointed toward the handle mounted beneath the push bar.

“You’ve walked past that every day.”

Wes looked down. A stainless steel lever sat directly below his hand. He had never noticed it. Slowly, he wrapped his fingers around it.

The latch clicked. Wes frowned. He pulled gently. The door drifted inward. Cool morning air slipped into the hallway.

Outside, a dog barked. A lawnmower hummed somewhere in the distance. Leaves shimmered in the breeze.

Wes stood in the doorway.

Behind him, Voss spoke quietly.

“I never locked the door.”

Wes didn’t turn around.

“I thought you did.”

“I know.”

For a long moment neither man spoke. Finally Wes broke the silence.

“If I walk out that door...” He swallowed. “...will I ever feel my daughter again?”

The question hung in the air. Wes closed his eyes. He wanted Voss to tell him yes. He wanted him to tell him no. Anything.

When Voss finally answered, his voice was smaller than Wes had ever heard it.

“I don’t know.”

Wes looked out at the parking lot. At the road beyond it. At a world that suddenly felt farther away than it ever had behind locked doors.

He tightened his grip on the handle.

Continue Reading

Beginning | ← The Calibration |

How much of who we are is found in our joy, and how much is forged by our suffering?

Leave a comment

I think a lot of us experience moments that seem small from the outside but quietly change the way we move through the world.

Where the Light Is is a story about memory, guilt, identity, and what happens when we confuse self-erasure for love.

If this scene resonated with you, share it with someone who might connect with it too. And if you’d like to follow the story as it unfolds, you can subscribe below.

Share

Subscribe now

I recently revisited the first film. After the story ends, the camera quietly returns to the streets where it all happened. The cafés are empty. The characters are gone. Morning has arrived, and life simply carries on.

That brief sequence stayed with me far longer than I expected. It made me think about memory, time, and a lesson I’ve spent the past few years learning the hard way:

The main thing is not to hurry.

Every Tuesday I share one idea that's been changing how I think. If you'd like the next one, subscribe below.

Subscribe now

Nothing Good Gets Away

I’d always assumed the final sequence in Before Sunrise existed because of the film’s modest budget. A quiet way to end the story without filming anything elaborate. This time, though, it landed differently. Instead of seeing empty streets, I saw a reminder that places remain long after we leave them.

When we’re young, we often imagine life unfolding according to a plan. A certain career. A certain home. A certain relationship. A certain timeline. Looking back from my mid-thirties, it’s easier to see the naivety in that. Life rarely unfolds the way we imagined it would.

Who you’re with often matters far more than what you’re doing.

You’re always there as well.

Those two ideas completely reframed the film for me.

The story takes place in Vienna, one of the most romantic cities in the world. At the beginning of the movie, Jesse is simply trying to pass the time before catching his flight. By chance, he meets Céline, and together they share what they both later describe as one of the most meaningful nights of their lives.

Was it really Vienna that made the night unforgettable? The streets, cafés, and musicians certainly played a role. But what made the evening extraordinary was the connection they built together. The place mattered. The relationship mattered more.

That’s incredibly special, and I don’t think everyone gets to experience something like that.

Time moves forward. If we’re fortunate, maybe we build a life with someone we love. Maybe we achieve some of the goals we dreamed about when we were younger.

This is where my mind really started to wander.

Because even in that ideal future, we still bring ourselves with us.

For the past week, I’ve been settling into my new one-bedroom apartment. After years of constant movement, difficult decisions, and more than a little chaos, life has suddenly become very quiet. It’s just me and my cat.

By all accounts, this should feel peaceful.

Clearly you’ve never spent a day in my head.

That’s where everything starts to unravel. My mind fills with regrets, worries, guilt, grief, doubts, and endless questions about the future.

That realization changed something for me.

It’s easy to believe that a better city, a better relationship, a better career, or a better experience will finally quiet the mind. I’ve had remarkable experiences. I’ve loved deeply. I’ve built businesses. I’ve failed spectacularly. And yet my own mind can still become an uncomfortable place to live.

The quality of my life isn’t determined only by what’s happening around me. It’s also shaped by what’s happening within me.

Over the past year, I’ve come to accept something I probably wouldn’t have admitted before.

Anxiety seems to be part of how I'm wired. That's okay.

I’m also curious, thoughtful, kind, hardworking, and optimistic. I’m not where I imagined I would be at this stage of life. That’s difficult to accept some days. At the same time, I’ve learned lessons I don’t think I could have learned any other way.

The most important one, at least in this season of my life, is not to hurry.

When I was younger, life always felt like sand slipping through my fingers. Every opportunity felt like it needed to be acted on immediately before it disappeared forever.

Now I see that not all time is equal.

Years can disappear in fear, stress, and worry. A single conversation, decision, or ordinary evening can stay with us for the rest of our lives.

I've learned that I'm at my best when I slow down enough to hear what's actually true for me.

That usually means stepping away, letting the anxiety settle, and returning with greater clarity. It’s an ongoing practice, and failing to respect that process has cost me dearly. I’ve rushed my way into financial debt, out of meaningful relationships, and through experiences that I wish I had lingered in a little longer.

A few years ago, I had my first therapy session. I spent the entire hour talking about everything that was wrong in my life. At the end, the therapist observed that I was very clear on what I didn’t want.

Then she asked me what I did want. I could only cry. “I don’t know.”

I had spent so long trying to escape the life I didn’t want that I’d stopped asking what kind of life I was actually trying to build. She suggested I think about the opposite of my problems.

The words that came to me were calm, ease, and delight.

Today, I think the opposite of hurry is calm. And if I’m honest, calm is exactly where I need to be right now.

2 Voices I’m Learning From

1.

The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away. - John Steinbeck

This is the line that inspired today’s newsletter. Steinbeck wrote it in a letter to his son about love, but I think it reaches much further than that.

Of course there are moments in life that call for urgency. This isn’t an excuse to procrastinate or avoid difficult decisions. For me, though, this quote has become an anchor.

When I feel myself rushing toward a decision, I try to ask a simple question.

Is this moment actually calling for urgency, or am I manufacturing it?

More often than I’d like to admit, it’s the second one. My anxiety wants certainty. It wants closure. It wants relief. That doesn’t necessarily mean it wants what’s best for me.

2.

Many people report getting distracted and coming back… All of a sudden, something changes. And they find themselves in this beautiful state of peace and clarity… They feel relieved of all the things they normally need to do. - Henry Shukman

I heard this during one meditation in The Way app, and it stayed with me all week.

As someone who has always loved sports, I’m familiar with the idea of flow. I’d never really considered that the same quality of attention might also shape everyday life. Conversations. Relationships. Decisions.

I don’t think peace is a destination that you eventually arrive at. I think it’s a practice. A willingness to notice when you’ve drifted into hurry, and gently return to the present. Again and again.

1 REFLECTION / ACTION

Where in your life are you hurrying when making space for a pause would be most helpful?

As I sit alone in my apartment tonight, I know my anxious mind isn’t going anywhere. It will still whisper that I’m behind, that I should decide faster, that I should already have everything figured out.

I’m hoping I’ll remember to pause instead. To breathe. To listen to those worries without handing them the steering wheel. To notice that calm has always been available to me, even if I don’t always recognize it. Maybe that’s what I’m really learning.

The main thing is not to hurry.

If this resonated, share it with someone who might need it.

Share

Thanks for being here.

Jack

P.S. I’ve been thinking a lot about pressure and freedom lately.

I recently published a short essay called The Freedom Paradox.

It goes deeper into some of what I’ve been working through.

eBook + audiobook here:

https://jackjohnstonwrites.gumroad.com/l/freedom-paradox

Subscribe now

“I’m adapting the protocol.”

The words refused to leave him alone. What exactly was there to adapt?

The simulations weren’t Voss’s memories to change. Every session had operated within the same boundaries from the beginning. Existing memories only. No rewriting history. No impossible alternatives. The point had never been to escape reality. It had been to confront it.

A knock interrupted his thoughts. Something slid beneath the door. Wes crossed the room and bent to pick it up.

Answers. Tonight. 10:00 PM. Simulation Room.

Follow Wes's journey. A new chapter arrives every Saturday.

Subscribe now

He read the note twice before setting it on the desk. Evenings were meant for reflection. Every patient was encouraged to spend the hours after a session allowing the experience to settle before returning the following day. Voss had insisted on that routine from the beginning. Whatever this was, it wasn’t routine.

For several minutes Wes stood staring at the note. If Voss had changed the rules once, what guarantee was there that he wouldn’t change them again? Yet walking away meant returning to prison and abandoning the only path that had given him any hope of rebuilding his life.

At two minutes before ten, he slipped the note into his pocket and left his room.

The simulation room felt untouched by the passing hours. Without windows there was no sense of evening, only the familiar hum of machinery and the sterile brightness of fluorescent lights reflecting from polished concrete floors.

Voss stood behind his workstation, looking remarkably different from the anxious man Wes had glimpsed after the glitch had occurred earlier that afternoon. His lab coat was freshly pressed, his tie straight, his hair neatly combed. Only the tiredness around his eyes hinted that anything had happened at all.

“Mr. Weaver,” he said, gesturing toward the chair opposite his desk. “Please.”

Wes remained standing.

“I overheard your conversation.”

“I assumed you might.”

“You said you were changing the protocol.”

Voss glanced toward the monitor before answering.

“The previous session revealed behaviour we hadn’t anticipated. We spent the afternoon reviewing the data.”

“And?”

“And we concluded the protocol needed to evolve.”

Wes folded his arms.

“You told me these simulations couldn’t change my memories.”

“They can’t.”

“Then what are you changing?”

Voss leaned back in his chair.

“When you remember the morning you were arrested, what do you remember?”

“The kitchen.”

“What else?”

“Marty. Theresa. Nora.”

“And what happens while you’re remembering them?”

Wes frowned.

“My chest tightens.”

“What else?”

“My breathing changes. My stomach lurches. My hands shake.”

Voss nodded.

“The memory isn’t only a collection of facts. Before you’ve consciously thought about any of it, your body has already concluded you’re in danger.”

“So you’re trying to stop that?”

“I’m trying to determine whether it can be reduced.”

“You mean erased.”

“No.”

The answer came immediately.

“If you leave this program remembering different events than the ones you lived, then I’ve failed completely. I’m not interested in rewriting your past.”

“Then what?”

Voss was quiet for a moment.

“Some memories become so heavy they begin pulling everything else into their orbit. Sleep. Relationships. Decisions. Years pass, but your nervous system never receives permission to stand down. The event ends. The emergency doesn’t.”

Silence settled between them.

“And you think you can change that?”

“I think we can test it.”

Wes studied him.

“If you change how I feel about the worst day of my life... how do I know I’ll still be me?”

For the first time since he’d entered the room, Voss looked genuinely uncertain.

“I don’t know,” he admitted quietly. “I only know the version of you sitting here doesn’t want to carry this guilt and shame for the rest of his life.”

Neither of them spoke. Finally Voss rose from his chair.

“You don’t have to continue. If you’d rather complete your sentence conventionally, I’ll notify the board in the morning.”

He stepped toward the harness and rested a hand against one of the support arms.

“The choice is yours.”

Wes looked at the suspended frame. He thought about Theresa. He thought about Nora.

He thought about waking from the dream only hours earlier believing, for the first time in years, that becoming whole again might actually be possible.

Whatever Voss was asking frightened him. So did the alternative.

“I’ll do it.”

The kitchen materialized around him with unsettling precision.

Morning light spilled across the countertops. His coffee mug sat beside the sink exactly where he’d left it. Upstairs, a floorboard creaked. Pipes groaned softly inside the walls. The refrigerator hummed quietly in the corner. Everything occupied its proper place.

Only something felt... different.

The colours seemed muted somehow. The sunlight lacked warmth. Even the smell of coffee felt strangely distant, as though the memory had been drained of something he couldn’t quite identify.

Then came the knock. It echoed through the house. His body prepared itself.\ Or rather... it tried to.

He waited for the familiar tightening in his chest. Nothing. He flexed his fingers. Dry. No trembling. He drew another slow breath, expecting the panic to catch up with him. It never did.

“I’ll get it,” he called.

He opened the door. Marty stood on the porch exactly as he remembered.

“Wes,” he said softly. “You should’ve asked me.”

For just a moment Marty reached toward him, then let his hand fall back to his side. Wes remembered how those words had crushed him the first time. He searched for the shame. Nothing. Not relief. Relief would still have been a feeling. There was simply... space.

Footsteps sounded on the stairs. Theresa appeared with Nora balanced against her hip. For a moment Wes forgot Marty entirely.

She looked exactly as she always had. The oversized blue sweater she’d stolen from his side of the closet. The loose strand of hair forever slipping across her face. A faint dusting of flour clung to one sleeve. She must have been making Nora breakfast before getting her up. He’d never noticed it before.

She looked at him with quiet concern. He recognized every detail of her face. Every tiny expression. Every movement. He knew those details had once been enough to undo him. Now they simply existed.

A second figure stepped onto the porch.

“Mr. Weaver,” the officer said calmly. “We have a warrant for your arrest.”

The edges of the room shimmered. The colours faded. The walls dissolved into static. The kitchen collapsed around him.

Wes opened his eyes inside the harness. He looked immediately toward Voss.

“We didn’t finish.”

“No.”

“What happened?”

Voss disconnected the neural leads one at a time.

“That’s enough for tonight.”

“You barely let it play.”

“I know.”

“Was it supposed to happen like that?”

Voss paused before answering.

“I’d like you to sleep before we continue.”

“And tomorrow?”

“We’ll continue tomorrow.”

Nothing more.

Back in his room, Wes sat quietly on the edge of the bed. He closed his eyes and pictured Theresa. Her smile came instantly. Her laugh.

The first time she’d told him she loved him. Their wedding. Sunday mornings drinking coffee together. Nora asleep on his chest after another nightmare. The morning of the arrest.

Every memory arrived exactly as it always had. He waited for the grief. For the guilt. For the ache that had lived beneath his ribs for years.

Nothing came.

Continue Reading

Beginning | ← The Threshold |

If you could keep every memory but lose the emotional weight attached to it, would you?

Leave a comment

I think a lot of us experience moments that seem small from the outside but quietly change the way we move through the world.

Where the Light Is is a story about memory, guilt, identity, and what happens when we confuse self-erasure for love.

If this scene resonated with you, share it with someone who might connect with it too. And if you’d like to follow the story as it unfolds, you can subscribe below.

Share

Subscribe now

The strange thing about rebuilding a life is that the practical work is often easier than the emotional work.

Installing shelves is straightforward. Measure twice. Drill once. If you make a mistake, patch the hole and try again.

Leaving someone you loved deeply isn’t like that.

It’s Ok Not to Be Ok

“It’s okay to not be okay” is something I say often to the people in my life. Like most good advice, it’s easier to give than it is to accept. Grief is a funny emotion that way.

We all know it. Nobody goes through life without experiencing it, and yet rarely do we talk about it. As a result, I think grief can be a sneaky emotion. It swirls around in the background, quietly influencing our thoughts and decisions more than we realize.

I think it’s because grief is bittersweet. In order to grieve, you had to love first. It had to matter. That means there’s so much good to look back on. But it’s ended, and that’s hard.

Some endings are final, and that kind of grief may be the hardest because there’s no path but forward. But many of life’s decisions aren’t as permanent as we imagine. Repair is sometimes possible. I wonder if that’s an equally difficult place to be for different reasons.

It leaves room for doubt, hesitation, and second-guessing.

I’m generally an anxious person and, as I’ve shared before, a people pleaser to boot. So uncertainty is familiar territory. If I tell a joke and someone doesn’t laugh, I wonder why. What could I have done differently? If I try to anticipate what someone needs and miss the mark, my mind follows the same path.

I’m finding it very difficult to stay true to a decision I believe is right when my mind is full of uncertainty and doubt.

I think grief is especially difficult when you can see your own fingerprints on how you got here. There was a time when I believed life was simply happening to me. That I was doing the best I could with what I had. But eventually you have to ask a harder question. How am I contributing to these outcomes?

Every day we see examples of people overcoming extraordinary odds. So why can’t I do something as ordinary as saving for retirement, paying down debt, or preparing for the future?

Is life really so difficult for me? Or have I been avoiding decisions that create conflict because saying no is uncomfortable?

People pleasing rarely likes tension. But avoiding tension often creates a much bigger problem later.

That can become the beginning of a dark spiral, and I don’t have all the answers for how to get through it.

The more time goes on, the less convinced I am that we ever truly arrive on the other side. Life doesn’t stop asking difficult questions. There is always another challenge. Another moment that asks you to question yourself.

So maybe the goal isn’t to wait for the calm to come. Maybe it’s to recognize that hope can exist while the darkness is still here.

I’m not a victim. I contributed to my mess. I’m disappointed in myself and in how it worked out. I would have preferred a different road.

And yet, reality gets a vote.

Here I am, and this is the path forward.

2 Voices I’m Learning From

1.

The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way. - Marcus Aurelius

I’ve been thinking about this quote a lot lately. I don’t know that grief arrives to teach us anything, but it certainly reveals what matters. We grieve because we loved. We grieve because something meaningful has changed.

At its best, grief can also remind us that forever doesn’t exist. Everything we love is temporary. As painful as that truth is, it can also become an invitation to slow down, appreciate what’s in front of us, and choose how we move forward.

What stands in the way becomes the way. Maybe grief doesn’t just point toward what’s been lost. Maybe it also points toward gratitude.

2.

What we once enjoyed and deeply loved we can never lose, for all that we love deeply becomes part of us. - Helen Keller

I’d never come across this quote before, and its simplicity is what makes it so powerful.

If something mattered to you, if you loved deeply, then some part of it remains with you. The relationship may end. The season of life may pass. But the person you became because of those experiences doesn’t disappear.

I find that deeply comforting. Moving forward doesn’t mean leaving behind everything that was good. It means carrying those moments with you as you continue becoming the person you’re meant to be.

1 REFLECTION / ACTION

Can you be grateful for what was while still trusting yourself to build what’s next?

I don’t know who I’ll meet down the road.

I don’t know what this apartment will look like.

I don’t know if this life I’m building will become the one I imagine.

What I do know is this: every shelf I hang, every meal I cook, and every chapter I write is another vote for the life I say I want.

Maybe certainty isn’t what I’m looking for. Maybe what I need is enough evidence to keep taking the next step.

Today, that’s enough.

Share

If this resonated, share it with someone who might need it.

Thanks for being here.

Jack

P.S. I’ve been thinking a lot about pressure and freedom lately.

I recently published a short essay called The Freedom Paradox.

It goes deeper into some of what I’ve been working through.

eBook + audiobook here:

https://jackjohnstonwrites.gumroad.com/l/freedom-paradox

Subscribe now

Voss didn’t answer.

He sat motionless in front of the terminal, his eyes fixed on the replay. The memory played through once, then again. His jaw tightened ever so slightly as he scrubbed backward and replayed the final moments a third time.

“Doc, what the hell just happened?” Wes swallowed hard. “You told me these were simulations of memories.” His voice caught in his throat. “What I just experienced... that didn’t happen.”

Voss leaned back in his chair and rubbed both hands over his face. He looked older somehow. Exhausted. For a long moment he said nothing at all before finally lifting his eyes to meet Wes’s.

“We’re done for today. Please return to your room. We’ll continue tomorrow.”

Wes stared at him in disbelief.

“Fuck that.”

He was on his feet before he realized he’d stood.

“Tell me what the fuck just happened!”

“I don’t know.”

The words hung in the room. For the first time since they’d met, Voss sounded uncertain.

“I need to review the session. I need to review your physiological data.” He took a slow breath, collecting himself. “I don’t have an explanation that I can defend with any certainty.”

“You don’t have an explanation?” Wes took a step toward him. “Then what the hell was all of that?”

“I don’t know.”

The answer landed harder the second time.

Voss stood, straightening his jacket almost absently.

“We’ll speak tomorrow.”

He turned toward the door.

“Voss.”

The doctor stopped but didn’t look back.

“Please return to your room.”

The door slid shut behind him. Silence settled over the simulation room. Wes remained standing, his pulse hammering in his ears.

The baby monitor. The doorway. The sounds Theresa never heard. And then... The look on her face. She hadn’t been looking at him. She’d been looking past him.

Slowly, he turned. The empty harness hung from the ceiling exactly where it always had, swaying almost imperceptibly in the stale air. Nothing else. Still... He couldn’t shake the feeling that, for one impossible moment, something had been standing there.

By the time Wes reached his room, the adrenaline had begun to fade, leaving behind an uneasy exhaustion. He sat on the edge of the bed and buried his face in his hands. He had just relived the worst day of his life. Theresa still wouldn’t look at him. She still didn’t trust him.

And somehow...

He missed her even more than he had before entering the simulation. That surprised him. He had expected confronting the memory to lessen the ache. Instead, it deepened it. He leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes.

Warm water ran over Wes’s hands as he rinsed the last dinner plate. Two familiar arms wrapped around his waist.

“This isn’t as easy as it used to be.”

He smiled before he even turned around. Theresa rested her chin against his shoulder, one hand supporting the weight of her pregnant belly.

“You’re getting in the way.”

“I know.”

“And you’re doing it on purpose.”

“Obviously.”

He pulled off the yellow rubber kitchen gloves he was wearing and turned to kiss her. She laughed.

“You are the only man I know who wears those things.”

“These hands are the money makers.” He held them up with mock seriousness. “I can’t have them soaking in soapy water, getting all soft and mushy.”

“Mmhmm...” She smiled. “Those hands are good for a lot of things.”

She held his gaze for another moment before her smile widened.

“I have an idea.”

He groaned dramatically.

“That sentence has never once ended with me relaxing.”

She rolled her eyes.

“Would you stop pretending you’re disappointed?”

“I’ve known you long enough to be appropriately concerned.”

She slipped her hand into his.

“Come with me.”

She led him through the hallway toward the garage.

“Open the trunk.”

Wes lifted the hatch.

Inside sat a wicker basket tied neatly with a burgundy ribbon. Nestled inside were half a dozen beautifully wrapped dark chocolate bars, each from a different artisan chocolatier.

He looked back at her.

“You drove all the way to Mariposa Chocolate Co.?”

“I might have.”

“For chocolate?”

“For the good chocolate.”

He laughed.

“You’re unbelievable.”

“I know.”

She stepped closer, wrapped her arms around his neck, and kissed him.

“You’ve spent months getting this house ready. You’ve been building shelves, painting walls, putting together a nursery... You forgot that we’re allowed to enjoy it.”

He rested his forehead against hers.

“So what’s the occasion?”

She smiled.

“No occasion.”

“Then why?”

“Because someday this little one is going to make evenings like this a lot harder to come by.”

She reached around him, lifted the basket from the trunk, then nodded toward the house.

“I rented a fondue set.”

“You rented... a fondue set?”

“For the chocolate.”

He laughed.

She smiled and disappeared back into the house. Then she stopped. She looked back over her shoulder.

“I’ll meet you upstairs.” She nodded toward the basket. “Bring the chocolate.”

Wes awoke to pale morning light spilling through the narrow window of his room at the treatment center. He stretched slowly, surprised by how rested he felt. For a moment he simply lay there, trying to hold onto the dream before it faded.

Theresa. Not the anger. Not the betrayal. Just Theresa. Laughing. Smiling. Looking at him the way she used to. He didn’t know if she would be waiting when this was over. She didn’t owe him that. But she deserved the best version of him. For the first time since arriving at the treatment center, he wanted to see it through.

Not because a judge had ordered him to. Because she was still worth fighting for. Whatever had happened inside that simulation... Whatever Theresa had seen... He wasn’t running from it.

Wes didn’t know where Voss’s office was. The simulation room was the only place he could think to start. As he rounded the corner, he noticed light spilling through the partially open door. He reached for the handle but stopped.

“…Yes, I understand what the protocol says.”

Voss. He was on the phone.

“No. I’m not abandoning it.”

A pause.

“I’m adapting it.”

Wes frowned. Adapting it? He thought this treatment had already been through years of testing.

“If I’m wrong, I’ll accept responsibility.”

Another silence.

“Because doing nothing is no longer an option.”

Continue Reading

Beginning | ← The Echo | → The Calibration

If you were Wes, would you continue the treatment after what just happened?

Leave a comment

I think a lot of us experience moments that seem small from the outside but quietly change the way we move through the world.

Where the Light Is is a story about memory, guilt, identity, and what happens when we confuse self-erasure for love.

If this scene resonated with you, share it with someone who might connect with it too. And if you’d like to follow the story as it unfolds, you can subscribe below.

Share

Subscribe now

But there is another side to the story.

What about staying?

Have you ever had a disagreement with someone that felt impossible in the moment, only for the relationship to become stronger because both people stuck around long enough to work through it? If either person had walked away at the first sign of conflict, they never would have discovered what was on the other side.

The same thing happens in careers, businesses, hobbies, and relationships. Sometimes the breakthrough comes just after the point where most people would quit. Sometimes the lesson is to stop overthinking, put your head down, and keep going.

And yet we’ve also talked about complacency. About staying too long. About refusing to acknowledge when something isn’t working. About continuing down a path simply because we’ve already invested so much in it.

I guess what I’m circling around is this:

At some point, after all the wrong turns, failures, experiments, and false starts, you have to find something worth committing to.

But how do you know when you’re building something meaningful and when you’re simply refusing to let go?

When does persistence become wisdom?

And when does it become fear?

Commitment and Adaptation

At this point in my life, I am the master of persistence.

I’m extremely capable of continuing something long after it has stopped working. I’m not saying that to brag. At times, it’s been one of my biggest weaknesses.

Case in point: I was diagnosed with celiac disease last year.

Do you know how many beers, pizzas, sandwiches, muffins, grilled cheeses, and bowls of pasta I ate before seriously considering that maybe food was the problem?

My final year of university was defined by throwing up most afternoons in a bush beside the entrance to the recreation centre. Looking back, it seems ridiculous. At the time, it felt normal. I just assumed this was something I needed to endure.

The same thing happened more recently when I moved my clinic downtown. For three months I ran to and from work every day. At first the weather was bad and I couldn’t bike. Then my shins started hurting.

Naturally, I kept running.

I kept going until I was genuinely concerned I had a stress fracture. I was limping around the treatment table trying to work on patients because my leg hurt so much.

In both cases, I wasn’t lacking commitment. If anything, I had too much of it. The problem was that reality was giving me information and I wasn’t allowing that information to change my behaviour.

One of my favourite examples came while digging out the front yard for a gravel parking spot. It was slow, miserable work. I spent hours making almost no progress. Eventually, an older woman walked over and asked what I was doing. A few minutes later she returned with a garden fork.

That one tool changed everything.

Same project. Same goal. Same pile of dirt.

Different approach.

I’ve thought about that moment a lot over the past year.

I didn’t quit digging. I didn’t abandon the project. I didn’t suddenly become less committed to the outcome. What changed was my willingness to accept that the tool I was was using wasn't working.

The more I think about it, the more I wonder if that’s where so many of us get stuck.

We talk a lot about commitment, perseverance, and grit. We celebrate the people who keep showing up. And rightly so. Relationships become stronger because people stay in the conversation. Businesses survive because someone keeps showing up after a difficult month. Skills improve because we continue practicing long after the excitement wears off.

But commitment and adaptation need each other.

Without commitment, we abandon things before they’ve had a chance to grow.

Without adaptation, we continue doing the same thing while expecting different results.

If I had continued eating gluten for another ten years, that wouldn’t have been commitment. It would have been an unwillingness to learn from what my body was trying to tell me.

If I had kept running on an injured leg, that wouldn’t have been discipline. It would have been an attachment to a plan that was no longer serving me.

In both cases, the issue wasn’t effort.

The issue was that I had become attached to the tool.

I think that’s the lesson I’m still learning.

Reality gets a vote.

The world is constantly giving us feedback. Sometimes through success. Sometimes through frustration. Sometimes through pain. Sometimes through conversations we’d rather not have.

The challenge is remaining committed enough to keep going while staying humble enough to change.

Because wisdom isn’t found in never quitting.

And it isn’t found in changing direction every time things get difficult.

Maybe wisdom is the ability to stay committed to what matters while allowing reality to reshape how we pursue it.

Maybe that’s what growth really looks like.

Not abandoning the goal.

Just having the humility to pick up a different tool.

2 Voices I’m Learning From

1.

“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

I’ve always associated this quote with design and craftsmanship, but lately I’ve started wondering if it applies just as much to the stories we tell ourselves.

Over the years we accumulate beliefs, habits, identities, and assumptions. Some help us navigate the world. Others quietly keep us stuck long after they’ve outlived their usefulness.

Growth isn’t always about adding more. Sometimes it’s about having the humility to let go of what reality has already shown us we no longer need.

2.

“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.” — Confucius

This one is mostly for me, but maybe you need to hear it today too.

It’s easy to feel behind. To believe you’re stuck because your progress doesn’t look the way you hoped it would.

But progress isn’t always dramatic. Sometimes it looks like showing up one more day. Having one more difficult conversation. Trying one more approach.

You don’t have to have everything figured out tomorrow.

You just have to keep moving.

1 REFLECTION / ACTION

Where in your life are you clinging to a tool that's no longer serving you? And what would it look like to stay committed to the goal while letting go of the method?

One of the things I’ve come to appreciate is that life rarely asks us to choose between persistence and change. More often, it asks us to practice both at the same time.

Keep showing up.

Keep paying attention.

And when reality offers you a better tool, have the courage to pick it up.

Share

If this resonated, share it with someone who might need it.

Thanks for being here.

Jack

P.S. I’ve been thinking a lot about pressure and freedom lately.

I recently published a short essay called The Freedom Paradox.

It goes deeper into some of what I’ve been working through.

eBook + audiobook here:
https://jackjohnstonwrites.gumroad.com/l/freedom-paradox

Theresa’s face had consumed everything else. The grief. The anger. The betrayal. For a few terrible moments he’d forgotten this wasn’t happening now. Forgotten the harness holding him upright. Forgotten Voss. Forgotten the simulation.

He wasn’t here to relive the worst day of his life. He was here to repair it.

The officer opened the rear door of the cruiser while the second rested a firm hand between Wes’s shoulder blades.

“Head down.”

The push was gentle, but confident enough that resisting never crossed his mind.

Wes stepped forward.

Rain hammered against the kitchen window.

He stood motionless, letting the sound settle over him. The house was dim except for the light above the stove, which cast a warm amber glow across the countertops. Everything else faded into soft shadow.

He looked at the clock. 10:22 PM.

The calendar on the wall. June 16.

The day Marty had handed him the envelope. Wes slowly turned in a circle, taking it all in.

“I’m home...”

His first instinct was to run. The garage. The truck. The envelope.

Drive back to the office. Put the money where it belonged. None of this ever had to happen.

His body had already started toward the garage before he stopped himself. Of course. Coherence. The money had already been stolen. Whatever happened here still had to lead to the arrest. He couldn’t rewrite history. But maybe...

Maybe he could stop Theresa from finding out the way she had. He closed his eyes. He could still see her standing in the driveway. Police lights flashing across her face. Confused. Terrified. Looking to him for an explanation he never gave. He thought about the kitchen simulation from only a few sessions ago. About telling her the truth. About how pain shared had somehow felt lighter than pain hidden.

The theft wasn’t the moment that broke them. The silence was.

Wes took a slow breath and started toward the hallway. Halfway there, he stopped.

There was another doorway.

White trim. Beige paint. Matching baseboards. Perfectly ordinary. It looked exactly like every other doorway in the house.

Except the hallway ended in a wall.

He stared at it. A strange coldness crept into his chest. He blinked and rubbed his eyes with his hands.

The doorway was gone. Just drywall.

“...Jesus.” He rubbed at his eyes again. “Focus.”

He kept walking. As he reached the stairs, a single creak echoed from upstairs. Not the settling of old wood. A footstep. Just one. He waited. Nothing.

The house fell silent again. His pulse quickened.

By the time he reached the bedroom door, his shirt clung damply to his back. His hands trembled. His chest felt impossibly tight, as though something inside him was pushing outward against his ribs.

Steady. Just tell her. He opened the door. Theresa was sitting up in bed beneath the soft glow of the nightstand lamp, reading. He smiled despite himself. The Nicomachean Ethics. What a nerd, he thought to himself.

She hadn’t noticed him yet. For a brief second, everything felt ordinary again. Safe.

“Hey... Reese.”

She finished the sentence she was reading before slipping a bookmark between the pages. Closing the book, she smiled.

“Hey. You’re home.”

Before Wes could answer, the baby monitor crackled. Not static. Something softer. Almost... A child’s laugh. Or maybe a cry. The sound stopped. Wes waited. Silence. He still couldn't decide whether he'd heard laughter or crying. He frowned and picked up the monitor. Nothing. Nora slept peacefully.

“Hear that?” he asked.

Theresa looked puzzled.

“Hear what?”

He stared at the screen another second before setting it back down.

“Never mind.”

He sat on the edge of the bed.

“There... there’s something I need to tell you.”

Theresa glanced at the clock before looking back. She must have seen something in his face. Her smile disappeared.

“Okay.” A long silence settled between them. “What is it?”

Wes looked down at his hands. He’d rehearsed this conversation a hundred times in his head. Now that it was here... Nothing sounded right.

“Reese...” He swallowed. “I haven’t been completely honest with you.”

Her brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

“It’s about money.” He paused. “No...” He shook his head. “It’s about me.” The words caught in his throat. “I’m in trouble.” He looked up. “We’re in trouble.”

The color drained from Theresa’s face.

“Oh my God...”

He leaned toward her, reaching for her arm.

“Reese... hey... just let me explain—”

He stopped. She wasn’t looking at him anymore. Her eyes had drifted over his shoulder. Toward the darkest corner of the room.

She wasn’t frightened. She looked... Confused. Then... Recognition. Like someone had quietly stepped into the room. Her lips parted. Barely above a whisper. “...No.”

Ice flooded through Wes’s veins. Every muscle locked. Theresa never blinked. Slowly... Very slowly... He began turning toward whatever she was seeing.

Before he could finish, the room fractured.

The bedroom pixelated in violent bursts. Walls snapped in and out of focus. Colors smeared into blocks of light. A low electrical buzz filled the air like an untuned radio station, growing louder until it swallowed everything.

The floor vanished.

Darkness.

Wes jerked against the harness, gasping for breath. Sweat streamed down his face. Warning lights flashed across the chamber. Alarms screamed. He blinked until the room came into focus.

Voss wasn’t looking at him. His fingers flew across the controls. His tie hung loose around his neck. Hair disheveled. Eyes fixed on the monitors with an intensity Wes had never seen before.

The alarms stopped. The lights continued flashing.

“Doc...” No response. “What the hell just happened?”

His eyes never left the screen. Finally, he spoke.

“So that’s why...”

“What?”

Voss looked up.

For the first time since they’d met, there wasn’t confidence in his expression. Only uncertainty.

“...Impossible.”

Continue Reading

Beginning | ← The Weight | → The Threshold

What stood out to you most in this scene?

Leave a comment

I think a lot of us experience moments that seem small from the outside but quietly change the way we move through the world.

Where the Light Is is a story about memory, guilt, identity, and what happens when we confuse self-erasure for love.

If this scene resonated with you, share it with someone who might connect with it too. And if you’d like to follow the story as it unfolds, you can subscribe below.

Share

Subscribe now

So I finally did it. Ten years later, I watched La La Land.

I’d somehow managed to avoid spoilers all this time. All I knew was that people loved it. The music, the cinematography, the performances. I’m glad I went in blind.

Because what struck me wasn’t the music or the visuals. It was the ending. Not because it was sad. Because it was honest.

As I sat there watching the final scenes unfold, I found myself waiting for the twist. The moment where everything comes together. The moment where the dream and the relationship somehow coexist. The moment where nobody has to sacrifice anything.

It never came.

And maybe that’s why it stayed with me.

A few years ago, I also discovered Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy. Three films shot over twenty years that follow the same couple through different stages of life.

What I love about both stories is that neither tries to cheat.

They don’t offer a happily-ever-after where every choice works out perfectly. They don’t pretend life can be optimized into a state where all the doors remain open.

Instead, they show something much closer to reality.

Every meaningful choice costs something.

Subscribe now

The Option with no Downside

For most of my life, I believed there was a right answer waiting to be discovered. The right career. The right city. The right relationship. The right investment. The right decision would reveal itself because it would have all the upside and none of the downside.

The older I get, the more suspicious I become of the phrase “No Regrets.”

When did regret become a dirty word? Really? We either get life exactly right or we’ve somehow failed? I don’t buy it.

The poet David Whyte describes regret as “an elegy to lost possibilities.” I love that description because every meaningful choice creates a loss. You choose one partner and countless others disappear. You move to one city and leave another behind. You commit to one career and close the door on others.

Life narrows. Not because we’ve failed. Because we’ve chosen.

And if those possibilities mattered, shouldn’t there be some sadness in letting them go? Shouldn’t there be some grief?

What about when we tried something and it ultimately wasn’t the right path for us? Or when we learned something through an experience that led us to change direction? We put our blood, sweat, and tears into a dream. We build something. We become attached to a vision of the future. Then we move on.

Are we really expected to feel nothing?

In 2019, I purchased a massage therapy clinic. For a host of reasons, some of them to appease others and some of them to help me feel like I was making an adult decision. But I was also genuinely excited about it. It was fucking cool. I was a business owner. I had a commercial space. I had a business card with my name on it followed by the word “Owner.” It felt like my chance to build the kind of workplace I wished I’d had.

In 2024, I downsized that business. Today, it’s just me. No reception. No additional staff. I’m no longer a business owner. I’m self-employed.

And you know what?

That is working for me. It really is.

And it still hurts to think about how hard I fought for something that ultimately wasn’t meant to last.

I mourn the possibilities that could have come from that business. I do. That’s regret. But I don’t wish I still had it. I’m thriving in my current role. I found my place.

If I had gone directly from working for someone else to being self-employed, I think I would have spent years wondering what if.

Instead, I know.

I have a scar from that experience. It cost me something. But scars are not always signs of failure. Sometimes they’re evidence that something mattered. Evidence that we committed. Evidence that we cared enough to risk being disappointed.

Life will hurt.

It should.

That means you cared. That means you committed. That means you tried.

The goal isn’t to avoid regret. By our working definition of regret as lost possibilities, that would mean never committing to anything at all. Never choosing. Never closing a door.

That’s obviously not the answer.

We have to choose. We have to let go of possibilities. We have to accept that every path comes with tradeoffs.

And so regret is not the opposite of a life well lived. In many ways, it may be evidence of one.

There is courage in choosing a direction when you can’t know how the story ends. There is courage in committing to a person, a city, a career, or a dream knowing that other possibilities will be left behind.

Hopefully, at the end of a long and winding path, we can look back with compassion on all our pain and all our disappointments because they helped shape who we became.

I think the thing we would never wish upon anyone is not regret.

It’s reaching the end of life and looking out over the horizon thinking:

“I wish I’d gone over there.”

Neither path avoids pain. And to make it even more interesting, life often throws pain our way that we never chose. A layoff. A health crisis. An injury. The loss of someone we love.

Life narrows. Sometimes because we choose. Sometimes because circumstances choose for us

We choose people. We choose places. We choose careers. We choose dreams. And every choice leaves behind possibilities that might have been beautiful too.

That’s not a flaw in the system. That’s the system.

The goal isn’t to reach the end of life with no regrets. The goal is to look back with compassion on the roads you travelled, gratitude for the ones that shaped you, and the humility to accept that no life can contain everything.

Life narrows. Not because we’ve failed. Because we’ve chosen.

2 Voices I’m Learning From

1.

For a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone. The shell cracks, its insides come out and everything changes. To someone who doesn’t understand growth, it would look like complete destruction. — Cynthia Occelli

I’m sure there are times in all of our lives when we can relate to the sentiment of “complete destruction”. I think that being honest about those feelings is powerful. It wasn’t necessarily a mistake. It can be a moment of forging. Metal is melted and completely surrenders its shape before being forged anew. The middle part is surely terrifying, but the transformation cannot occur without it.

2.

Maturity is not a static arrived platform… but the dissolution of living elemental frontiers between what has happened, what is happening now, and the consequences of our past… Maturity is the time when these tidal forces meet and break apart our life, making one life out of our regrets, our self-compassion, and our forgiveness forged into a future made real by a radical change in our behaviour - David Whyte

Maturity is an ongoing process. That's what I love about this passage. Taking everything that has happened to us and allowing it to shape and inform our future. That's beautiful. It's elegant, and it's honest.

1 REFLECTION / ACTION

Think about a regret you carry.

Now ask yourself:

Do I regret the choice?

Or do I regret the possibilities that disappeared when I made it?

There is a difference.

Spend ten minutes writing about what that decision gave you, not just what it cost you.

Perhaps maturity isn’t reaching a place where regret disappears.

Perhaps it’s learning to hold regret, gratitude, self-compassion, and forgiveness in the same hand.

To honour the roads we travelled.

To mourn the ones we didn’t.

And still be willing to begin again.

Share

If this resonated, share it with someone who might need it.

Thanks for being here.

Jack

P.S. I’ve been thinking a lot about pressure and freedom lately.

I recently published a short essay called The Freedom Paradox.

It goes deeper into some of what I’ve been working through.

eBook + audiobook here:
https://jackjohnstonwrites.gumroad.com/l/freedom-paradox

His fingers rubbed the gritty grain of the envelope. Hands that measured lumber to fractions of an inch drifted across the stack of bills inside.

It wasn’t stealing. It was a loan. At least that’s what he kept telling himself.

Ten thousand dollars. The number sounded huge until he started doing the math. The mortgage was what now? Three grand? Property taxes. Hydro. Insurance. Groceries. Gas. Nora needed new shoes. Theresa still had those specialist appointments. Ten thousand dollars disappeared fast.

Hell, he’d probably paid more than that in interest over the last few years alone. His thumb slid along the edge of the envelope. Ten thousand dollars. One stupid renovation mistake had cost them almost half that.

One leak. One mold problem. One surprise behind a wall. One thing after another. The world never seemed to run out of hands looking for money. The bank wanted money. The government wanted money. The contractors wanted money. The utility company wanted money. Everyone had their hand out. And every month he somehow found a way to give it to them. Nobody ever seemed to ask whether he had enough left for himself.

Until now.

Wes closed his eyes. What happened if he put the envelope back? The question sat in the cab of the truck. What happened then? Another overdue notice? Another conversation with Theresa where he pretended things weren’t as bad as they really were? Another month juggling payments and hoping nothing unexpected happened?

What if Nora got sick? What if the truck broke down? What if the furnace died?

What if...

The what-ifs never ended. His jaw tightened. Marty wouldn’t even miss it. Not right away. The company spent more than that on materials all the time. Ten thousand dollars wasn’t life-changing money to Marty. It was life-changing money to Wes. That thought made him sit up straighter.

Life-changing.

Maybe that was the problem. Maybe people only called it stealing when poor people did it. Banks did it. Insurance companies did it. Politicians did it. Corporations did it.

Everyone took care of themselves. Maybe this was the first time Wes was doing the same. The thought sounded ugly. Even in his own head. He hated it immediately. Which probably meant there was some truth in it.

He stared out through the windshield.

Rain tapped against the glass. Ten thousand dollars. Enough to breathe. Enough to stop panicking for a while. Enough to buy a little time. And wasn’t that all he was really trying to buy? Time.

His mind drifted to the manila folder from that morning.

OVERDUE.

IN ARREARS.

URGENT.

Always capital letters. Always red ink. He looked up into the rearview mirror and found his own haunted reflection staring back at him.

For a moment, his focus softened. The face looking back at him changed. The eyes became Theresa’s.

Deep green. Warm. Steady. I see you.

His mind drifted back years earlier, to a different version of the same house.

They had just closed on it. One of those places real estate agents called a contractor’s dream. And dream they did. Walls removed. An island added. New floors. New windows.

Then COVID happened. Material costs exploded. They had already started demolition, so there was nowhere to retreat to. The only option was forward.

That particular night, they sat on the floor leaning against bare studs, covered in sawdust and sweat. Wes had just experienced his first panic attack. His heart raced uncontrollably. His hands shook. He felt overwhelmed and paralyzed all at once.

They had torn down another wall only to discover mold. Again. It was after midnight on a weeknight. Both of them had work the next morning.

Wes felt hopeless. Certain they would run out of money before the house was livable. Theresa cradled his head against her chest and rocked him gently, almost like a child.

It was the least manly he had ever felt. It was also exactly what he needed. She kept repeating the same words.

“I’ve got you.”

Over and over.

Eventually his breathing slowed. The shaking stopped. When he finally pulled away, he looked up at her.

“I wish we never had to leave,” he said quietly. “Right here, with you, I feel completely safe. It’s everything out there I can’t handle. The stress. The bills. The uncertainty. It’s fucking constant.”

Wes looked down toward the floor, toward the black mold spreading across the subfloor from an old leak.

“Hey.”

Theresa gently lifted his chin.

“Look at me.”

He did.

“I see you.”

The words hit him harder than any reassurance ever could.

“You see me?”

She smiled.

“Yeah, baby. All of you.”

Her eyes never left his.

“And I’m not going anywhere.”

She waved dismissively toward the mold.

“Fuck all that noise out there. I believe in us. And I believe in you. If we have to spray every square inch of this place before we’re done, then so be it.”

She poked him in the chest.

“This is our home, baby. I’m not letting a bunch of microscopic organisms take that away from us.”

Wes laughed despite himself.

Back in the truck, he stared into the mirror.

I see you.

For a moment, it wasn’t his reflection staring back. It was Theresa. The words landed like a punch to the chest. He wanted to drive home. He wanted to walk through the front door, hand Theresa the envelope, and tell her everything.

Instead, he reached up and adjusted the mirror until his reflection disappeared. He couldn’t bear to watch himself do it. He dropped the truck into gear and pulled out of the parking lot.

The knock rattled the front door.

Wes was making breakfast in the kitchen while Theresa got Nora ready for school upstairs.

“I’ll get it!” he shouted.

He unlocked the deadbolt and pulled the door open.

Marty stood on the porch.

Wes froze.

“Marty? What the hell, man? It’s Wednesday morning. Aren’t you supposed to—”

The look on Marty’s face stopped him cold. Anguish. Sadness. Disappointment. The kind that only came from someone who cared.

“Wes,” Marty said softly. “You should’ve asked me. If you needed help... you should’ve asked.”

Footsteps sounded on the stairs. Theresa appeared carrying Nora.

“Is that Marty’s voice? What’s he doing here so—”

A second man stepped forward.

“Mr. Weaver, my name is Constable Muller. We have a warrant for your arrest. Would you please step onto the porch?”

Theresa descended the remaining steps in seconds.

“There has to be some mistake.”

She looked at Wes. Searching. Pleading.

“Babe, tell them. Tell them there’s a mistake.”

Wes opened his mouth. Nothing came out. She turned toward the officer.

“What is he being arrested for?”

“Mr. Weaver has been accused of stealing ten thousand dollars from Mr. Erikson. We’d like to bring him to the station for questioning.”

“Daddy?”

Nora’s frightened voice hit harder than the officer’s words. Beside her, Theresa’s expression tightened. Wes stepped onto the porch.

“Mr. Weaver, you have the right to remain silent...” The officer continued speaking. Wes barely heard him. His eyes never left Theresa.

“Reese...”

She stared somewhere above his shoulder. Anywhere but at him.

“Look at me, Reese.”

Nothing.

“Theresa...”

The handcuffs clicked shut around his wrists. The metallic sound echoed in the morning air. The officer turned him around and guided him toward the cruiser. Wes looked back one final time.

“Theresa...”

Theresa stared past him. Not at him. Past him. For years, whenever life became too much, she had looked directly into him and said, I see you. Now she couldn’t.

Wes felt the weight of the handcuffs around his wrists. He had lost his reputation. He had lost his pride.

But standing on that porch, watching Theresa refuse to meet his eyes, he understood something worse. He had lost the one person who had always seen the best in him.

Continue Reading

Beginning | ← The Theft | → The Echo

What stood out to you most in this scene?

Leave a comment

I think a lot of us experience moments that seem small from the outside but quietly change the way we move through the world.

Where the Light Is is a story about memory, guilt, identity, and what happens when we confuse self-erasure for love.

If this scene resonated with you, share it with someone who might connect with it too. And if you’d like to follow the story as it unfolds, you can subscribe below.

Share

Pressure to choose the right courses. To get into the right program. To find the right job. To save for retirement. To buy a house. To prepare for a family. And whether it was true or not, it always seemed easy to find someone further ahead. Not only did life need to be figured out. It needed to be figured out yesterday.

That pressure weighed on me when I was younger. I remember the tension leading up to every big decision. The anxiety. The stress. I remember feeling incredibly lucky that things seemed to be working out.

Because underneath all of it was a quiet fear:

What would happen if I got it wrong?

Still Willing to Begin Again

There’s a popular saying:

You either get what you want, or you learn something.

I mostly agree with it.

But nothing about that statement prepares you for the grief of getting something wrong that you cannot fix. Not every mistake becomes a lesson wrapped neatly in gratitude. Sometimes a relationship ends. Sometimes a career path collapses. Sometimes the dream you built your identity around doesn’t survive contact with reality. Sometimes you hurt people you never intended to hurt. And sometimes there is no version of events where everything gets put back exactly as it was.

When I experienced my first real failure, the first thing I couldn’t fix, repair, or mend, I didn’t interpret it as, I failed. I interpreted it as, I am a failure.

From the outside, it’s often easy to see that someone else’s life isn’t over. You know they’ll laugh again. Love again. Build again. You can see possibilities they can’t. But from the inside, all you can see is the scar. And maybe that’s what nobody prepared me for.

Not success.

Not failure.

But irreversibility.

The realization that being conscientious, hardworking, kind, and well intentioned doesn’t exempt you from making decisions that carry consequences. You can do your best and still discover, years later, that there was a cost you didn’t understand when you agreed to pay it.

You can leave parts of yourself behind because you lacked the confidence to pursue them. You can choose wisely with the information you had and still grieve what might have been.

The older I get, the more I think that’s just life.

The version of you without the scar exists only in the past.

Going forward, you carry it with you.

2 Voices I’m Learning From

1.

"There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in."
— Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen is interesting to me.

He’s a very melancholic artist. There isn’t much in his catalogue that feels upbeat or carefree. When I was younger, he never really resonated with me. I was looking for certainty, optimism, and the reassurance that everything would work out if I just tried hard enough.

But now, having carried some of the scars we’ve been talking about into my mid thirties, there’s an undeniable recognition that he understood something I didn’t.

He knew what it meant to live alongside grief without letting it harden into bitterness.

He knew that being wounded and being beautiful were not opposites.

The crack isn’t something to hide or repair before life can continue. It’s evidence that you’ve lived long enough to love, to lose, to make mistakes, and to be changed by them.

And somehow, despite all of that, to still let the light in.

2.

"The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change."
— Carl Rogers

This quote resonates differently with me.

I don’t think Carl Rogers is talking about resignation. I don’t think he’s saying, “This is who I am, so why bother trying?”

I think he’s pointing to something much harder.

There are countless decisions we can make that reinforce the life we’ve already built. We can keep playing the role we’ve become known for. We can keep meeting expectations. We can keep moving in the same direction simply because we’ve already invested so much into getting here.

But sometimes there’s a quiet knowing that something no longer fits.

The career.
The relationship.
The identity.
The version of success we’ve been chasing.

Changing direction in those moments can feel impossible.

You would think that grit would be the answer. Or discipline. Or perseverance.

But Rogers suggests something different.

Acceptance.

Acceptance of where you are.
Acceptance of who you’ve been.
Acceptance of the fact that what once fit may no longer fit now.

Not resistance.

Not shame.

Not doubling down simply because turning around feels too costly.

Maybe real change begins when we stop arguing with reality long enough to acknowledge the truth.

Only then can we decide what comes next.

1 REFLECTION / ACTION

Ask yourself:

• What scar am I still treating as evidence that I’m broken?

• What responsibility is mine to own?

• What grief still needs to be acknowledged?

• What would it look like to honour this part of my story instead of hiding it?

Then take one small step toward repair. Have the conversation. Write the apology. Tell the truth. Or simply stop arguing with reality long enough to grieve what was lost.

Our culture celebrates wins.

Promotions.
Engagements.
Milestones.
Success stories.

But what do we do with the parts of ourselves that didn’t make it?

The relationships that changed us.
The dreams that ended.
The decisions we would never make again.

Maybe repair isn’t always about restoring what was lost.

Maybe sometimes repair means telling the truth about what happened. Taking accountability where it’s ours to take. Offering the apology that’s needed. Grieving what cannot be recovered.

And eventually, slowly, extending forgiveness to ourselves. Not because the scar isn’t real. But because refusing to forgive ourselves doesn’t undo the injury.

It only prevents healing.

There is a price to living wholeheartedly. The alternative is never risking enough to be wounded. And I don’t think that’s living either.

There is fear in not trying. But there is a different kind of fear that comes from failing.

What if it happens again?

I don’t know.

Maybe the truest form of repair is deciding that even with the scar, even knowing there are no guarantees, this version of you is still worthy of participating fully in life.

To love.
To create.
To trust.
To try again.

Not unchanged.

But unhidden.

Scarred, perhaps.

And still willing to begin again.

This is end of the Responsibility Arc.

Beginning | ← Boundaries are Relational |

Share

If this resonated, share it with someone who might need it.

Thanks for being here.

Jack

P.S. I’ve been thinking a lot about pressure and freedom lately.

I recently published a short essay called The Freedom Paradox.

It goes deeper into some of what I’ve been working through.

eBook + audiobook here:
https://jackjohnstonwrites.gumroad.com/l/freedom-paradox

“Ready?” Voss said.

“I still hate that question.”

“You used to ask how this worked.”

“And now?”

“You ask if it will.”

Voss studied him for a moment before looking down at the tablet in his lap.

“You’ve done well.”

Wes laughed softly.

“You keep saying that.”

“Because it’s true.”

Wes hesitated.

“Then why don’t I feel any different?”

Voss looked up from the tablet.

“Different how?”

“I don’t know. I sleep. I don’t lie as much. I don’t bolt every time something hurts. He rubbed his palms against his jeans. “I just thought...”

“Thought what?”

“I thought it’d fix me.”

Silence.

Voss studied him.

“When I was in medical school,” he said quietly, “I watched a woman beg us to sedate her.”

Wes looked over.

“She’d lost her son.”

Voss’s voice remained even.

“There was nothing medically wrong with her.”

He looked back down at the tablet.

“She just didn’t want to feel it anymore.”

“What happened?”

“We told her grief was natural.”

Silence.

“It was the correct answer.”

Wes frowned.

“You don’t sound convinced.”

Voss met his eyes.

“It wasn’t useful.”

“You think grief should be treated?”

“I think unnecessary suffering should be.”

“What’s unnecessary?”

Voss leaned back.

“That’s the question, isn’t it?”

He set the tablet down.

“I think it’s time we stopped practicing.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means we’re done working with memories that inconvenience you.”

Wes’s stomach tightened.

“And?”

Voss held his gaze.

“Now we work with the one that changed your life.”

Wes sat at the kitchen table. It was still dark outside. Rain fell steadily against the window. Only the light above the stove was on.

Bills.

Bank statements.

Overdue notices.

He blew out a frustrated breath and ran his fingers through his hair.

He was supposed to be at the gym.

Instead, he’d gotten sidetracked by the debt.

Again.

No matter how many times he went over the numbers, they refused to add up.

He heard a creak from upstairs.

He quickly gathered the pages. The stairs creaked one by one. He had nearly finished when a small voice drifted from the doorway.

“Morning, Daddy. What are you doing?”

Wes stuffed the last of the papers into a folder and slid it carelessly into his work bag.

“Hey, sweetie. Daddy was just doing some paperwork.”

“Paperwork?”

“Yeah. Making sure the bills are paid. Important adult things. Managing the money.”

Nora climbed into his lap and snuggled against his shoulder.

“Sounds boring. Will there be enough for the zoo?”

Wes felt his breath catch.

“Yeah, baby. There’ll be enough for the zoo.”

He brushed her hair out of her face.

“What animal do you want to see?”

“A sloth.”

Wes laughed.

“A sloth? Why?”

“They are really good at relaxing. I think that’s important.”

“Oh yeah? Why do you say that?”

“You and Mommy are so busy. Maybe we just need to be more like sloths sometimes.”

“What would you do if we slowed down?”

Nora looked up at him with mischievous eyes.

“Eat ice cream and sing Taylor Swift songs.”

“That sounds pretty great, sweetie. Is Mommy up?”

“Yeah. She’s doing her makeup in the bathroom.”

“Sweetie, you know you can talk to Mommy while she’s doing her makeup, right?”

“Yeah. But she’s doing the makeup with the door closed.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. She does that when she’s sad.”

Wes looked toward the stairs.

“What’s she sad about, honey?”

Nora shrugged.

“I don’t know. I’m just a kid.”

“You want it done right or you want it done today?”

“Both, you smart ass.”

“You’re asking a lot, old man.”

“I’m paying you a lot. Figure it out.”

Wes looked down at the corner in front of him.

“This is a real dumpster fire, Marty. Where do you find your framers these days? I swear to God they get worse every year.”

He held up his speed square.

“You’re telling me this is square?”

Marty glared at him.

“Fuck no. It’s been amateur hour here all winter. I’m telling you it’s going to look square by the end of the day.”

He jabbed a finger toward the wall.

“And you’re going to fix it.”

Wes sighed.

“I’m going to need a holiday after this. Take my kid to the zoo.”

“Zoo’ll still be there Monday. Get this shit done.”

“Just caulk it.”

Wes looked up from his tape measure.

“What?”

The apprentice held up the two pieces of trim.

“The corner’s out. We’ll never get it perfect. We’ll just caulk the gap.”

Wes walked over.

The two forty-five degree cuts met at the inside corner with a V-shaped opening wide enough to slide a pencil into.

He held his speed square against the wall and frowned. Most houses weren’t square. You learned that pretty quickly. Ninety degrees existed mostly in blueprints and textbooks. Real houses settled. Floors sagged. Walls bowed. Corners wandered. The trick wasn’t forcing the trim to fit the drawing. The trick was teaching it to fit the house that was actually standing in front of you.

“How far out is it?” Wes asked.

The apprentice shrugged.

“It doesn’t matter. Caulk, paint. Nobody’ll notice.”

Wes took the pieces from him.

“It matters.”

He put two pieces of uncut trim in the corner, one stack over the other, both tight to the wall. He marked the spot where they overlapped. He took his speed square and drew the angle.

“The house isn’t forty-five degrees,” he said. “Why would the cuts be?”

The apprentice frowned.

“So what do we do?”

Wes adjusted the saw.

“You cheat.”

The kid blinked.

“You just said it matters.”

“It does.”

The saw kicked to life.

“You can cheat the method,” Wes said over the scream of the blade. “You can’t cheat reality.”

Back to the corner. Marked the angle he cut against the other board. Back to the saw. Another cut. The joint closed. Tight. Clean. Like it had always belonged there. The apprentice stared at it.

“How’d you know that would work?”

Wes smiled.

“I didn’t. I measured the angle instead of arguing with it.”

A few feet away, the apprentice slid a toe kick against the base of a cabinet and frowned.

“The floor’s out too.”

He reached for the caulking gun.

Wes laughed. He dug through his pouch and pulled out a pencil and a steel washer.

The apprentice frowned.

“What’s that for?”

Wes pressed the washer against the floor and threaded the pencil through its centre.

“Store-bought version costs twenty bucks.”

He rolled the washer along the hardwood. It rolled over every dip and rise in the floor, carrying the pencil with it. A wavering line appeared across the board.

“The floor tells you exactly what it needs,” Wes said. “You just have to stop pretending it’s straight.”

He followed the line with the jigsaw. A minute later, the toe kick slipped into place. The gap disappeared. The apprentice crouched down and ran his hand along the bottom edge.

“That’s ridiculous.”

Wes shrugged.

“Not really.”

“What do you call that?”

“Scribing.”

The apprentice shook his head.

“I would’ve just caulked it.”

Wes looked at the cabinet for a moment.

“Yeah,” he said. “Most people do.”

For a few minutes at a time, work still made sense.

Measure. Adjust. Cut. Problems that stayed solved.

Marty walked past and grunted. “Show off.”

Wes brushed the sawdust from his jeans and stood.

“Don’t tell anyone,” he said. “I’ve got a reputation to maintain.”

“Knew ya had it in you, kid. Good work today.”

Wes looked over.

“Hang on. Was that a compliment?”

“I can’t criticize every damn thing you do, can I? It loses its meaning. You get used to it.”

A few of the crew walked past.

“Night, guys!”

“See ya.”

Marty handed Wes a thick envelope.

“Hey, I gotta run tonight. Can you drop this in the safe on your way home?”

Wes looked down at it.

“What is it?”

“Tickets to the fucking opera. What do ya think?” Marty snorted. “There was a bonus if we got the main level done on time.”

“You never told me that.”

“None of your business.”

He nudged Wes with his elbow.

“Lucky for me I’ve got the best finish carpenter in the city on my crew.”

Wes rolled his eyes.

“You’re getting soft.”

“Don’t get used to it.”

Marty stood and stretched.

“Keep working like you did today and there’ll be a cut for you if we get this filthy fucking shithole done on time.”

Wes sat in his truck outside the office.

The envelope rested on the passenger seat beside him.

Still sealed.

Marty was notoriously trusting with money. Never counted it in front of clients. Half the people they worked for had tried to stiff him at one point or another.

Wes stared at the envelope.

Then looked away.

He pulled up his banking app.

Chequing: $37.22.

He looked at the gas gauge.

Empty.

The orange fuel light shone beside it.

He stared at it for a long moment.

Then back at the envelope.

Continue Reading

Beginning | ← The Path | → The Weight

What stood out to you most in this scene?

Leave a comment

I think a lot of us experience moments that seem small from the outside but quietly change the way we move through the world.

Where the Light Is is a story about memory, guilt, identity, and what happens when we confuse self-erasure for love.

If this scene resonated with you, share it with someone who might connect with it too. And if you’d like to follow the story as it unfolds, you can subscribe below.

Share