Here is where I have landed on play after years of getting it wrong. Play is not a reward you earn once the serious work is finished. It is part of the work and part of a good life. For a long time I treated fun as a luxury. Now I think a life with no play in it gets stiff, and I can see that stiffness in my own habits. My view today is simple: fun is valuable, satisfying work is valuable too, and I try to make room for both.
If you are searching this subject, you are probably either too serious to enjoy anything or having fun and wondering whether it is a waste of time. The posts below are my honest record of working through both. I wrote them as diary entries and video logs, not as a program, so there is some mess along with the conclusions.
The first post here is Rediscovering Play, Fun, and Laughter, from March 2024. I was very serious then, and I wanted to know where my creativity had gone. I found my fun in the studio when I just let myself play. I made three music videos full of random sounds and gibberish lyrics, and the people watching on Twitch were laughing along. A Seth book line stayed with me: one of the first signs of losing your vitality is that you stop playing and start analyzing your personal problems.
Two months later, in How Music Increases Creativity, Intelligence, and Happiness, I went much bigger. I argued that music with new sounds and frequencies opens the mind, and that much popular music is so repetitive it keeps people in a trance. The thread through that post is that the things that make me feel most alive are the things I have never heard before.
By August 2025 the lesson had become more grounded. In Fun Is Valuable, but Satisfying Is Too I wrote about a plain chore. My dishwasher's heating element was broken, so I hand-washed dishes every day. When my son said picking up dog poop wasn't fun, I told him fun is valuable, but satisfying is valuable too. That post also looked back at more than $2,000 I had spent on Marvel Snap, and how quitting meant facing my own dissatisfaction.
In I Want More Play, Less Seriousness, from December 2025, I read back through my texts and found them flat and overly logical. The jokes that come to mind are often too intense to send, so I end up sending stiff, careful messages. The answer I wrote down was not to fake a personality. It was to let the playful, confident version of myself show up on the screen.
One week later, Dance Like No One's Watching showed that side in action. I played air hockey on the couch and Harry Potter Monopoly with my daughter, and I wrote that there is still a part of me, this seventeen-year-old, that has not grown up at all, and that is the playful part. The entry is raw and profane in places, so it is not for everyone.
In January 2026, in Get Out of the House and Throw the Football, the lesson was about connection. After a cold message from a woman, my instinct was to sit alone with it. Instead I saw a man throwing a football by himself at an AA event and asked if he wanted a partner. We threw for nearly an hour. I wrote that days like that remind me how good it feels to just show up and connect with someone.
The two newest posts bring the threads together. In Asking for Help, Making Music with Joy, and Expansion I wrote about how hard it is for grownups to ask for help, and how the music I make comes from just playing around in my studio. My path of joy might be learning music, doing my vlog, and continuing to help people in Alcoholics Anonymous, yoga and tennis.
The newest post, Anything Worth Doing Is Worth Doing Poorly, is the one I would send to anyone who thinks they must be good before they can enjoy something. I had played tennis for less than a year when I lost 6-3, 6-4 to a man who could have been my dad's age. I wrote that it is okay if I am only ever a poor tennis player, because playing is worth it.
Start with the 2024 posts for the basics, or the 2025 and 2026 entries for the day-to-day. If you want help making more room for play in your own life, you can get a personal video review from me.
On this page
Every post I have written on this subject is below in full, newest first, each under its own heading.
- Anything Worth Doing Is Worth Doing Poorly (June 17, 2026)
- Asking for Help, Making Music with Joy, and Expansion (June 17, 2026)
- Get Out of the House and Throw the Football (January 10, 2026)
- Dance Like No One's Watching (December 19, 2025)
- I Want More Play, Less Seriousness (December 12, 2025)
- Play, Fun and Music: Why I Make Space to Laugh and Play (August 11, 2025)
- How Music Increases Creativity, Intelligence, and Happiness (May 23, 2024)
- Rediscovering Play, Fun, and Laughter (March 22, 2024)
Anything Worth Doing Is Worth Doing Poorly
From my video published June 17, 2026.
I want to share with you something I've come to believe deeply: anything worth doing is worth doing poorly. So many times in life, especially with all the stuff we watch online, you think you need to do things a certain way, do them really well, or don't even bother. I just finished playing tennis, and I'd say I played poorly, certainly compared to professionals, but even compared to my own performance. I got beat, 6-3, 6-4. But what I'm really proud of today is that I focused on just playing each point, because the idea of good or bad, rich or poor, these are all just stories we tell ourselves.
I've been playing tennis consistently for less than a year. Anything you want to get good at, you should be willing to be poor at it, to be bad at it first. I'm having fun playing tennis, and it's okay if I'm only ever a poor tennis player. If all I am is a poor tennis player my whole life, then that's fine, because it's worth playing tennis. I love getting out here and running around, and I love the people I play with. The guy I played with today, his oldest son was born the same year as me, and he's out here playing singles in the Florida heat. He beat me 6-3, 6-4. I hit lots of poor shots to facilitate that, but he hit lots of great shots too. And it left me thinking about how important this is. If you want to do something, you should be willing to be awful at it first, not expect that you should just be good at it. And don't be delusional either and think you're good at something you just started.
Why Not Just Do What I'm Already Good At?
Some days I wonder, why even bother playing tennis? Why don't I just do YouTube all the time, because that's what I'm good at? Shouldn't I just do YouTube? Why wash the dishes when somebody else could wash the dishes? I should just specialize and only do stuff I'm good at. What I find, though, is that there's a lot of value in humility. I put out six videos a day, and not many channels do that. But then I go out and play tennis, and a lot of the people there are playing better than me. I go to the tennis clinics on Thursdays here with the men at the racquet club, and I'm often one of the worst players there. And that's good, because then I don't feel different. I don't feel special. If I just did YouTube all the time, I might feel special, like there's something special about Jerry Banfield. But no, watch me play tennis and you'll see there's nothing special. Watch me wash the dishes, go for a run, do yoga, and you'll see there's nothing special.
The Show Nobody Came To
I'm actually refilming a video that I filmed about five years ago. I was doing an in-person show in 2020. That's right, an in-person show in the middle of 2020 in Alice, Florida, so we weren't on board with all that BS. I showed up for that show and not one other person did. I ran ads for it. I told people about it. Nobody showed up. And I recorded a video called "anything worth doing is worth doing poorly," and then I deleted it. Then I tried again and again, and eventually I had an in-person show that had like 30 people at it in July 2020. So I got it done. I did it. I had tried a bunch of times to have an in-person event and nobody ever came, and yet I kept trying, and eventually I got it done.
It's the same with tennis. I've thought sometimes that I should quit playing, like why play if I'm not going to work up to being a professional tennis player? But that's a really narrow-minded view of things. There's a lot of value in learning new things that goes way beyond whatever you're going to get out of it in terms of worldly possessions or money or fame or respect. My body loves playing tennis. I love the exercise. I love the people I play with. According to something I heard, that somebody else saw, that somebody else heard, people who play tennis might tend to live nine years longer compared to people who don't.
Positive Role Models on the Court
I'm out here playing with people like the guy I played with today, who could be my dad. My dad passed away, and my dad was only born maybe a handful of years before this guy. And this guy is out here beating me at tennis. My dad passed away because he was not active. He did not play tennis, did not take care of his body, and sat on the couch and watched the news and withered away. So I find positive role models at tennis, because I hear people say things like, oh, you get old and your body falls apart. But a guy who could be my dad just beat me at tennis, singles, in the heat. And I'm in good shape. The girl who signed me up for Crunch the other day said I was athletic. I'm not losing because I can't move. I'm moving. I'm running all over the court. But I run all over the court and he hits back almost all my shots, and then hits shots that I can't even get. And that's inspiring. So when somebody talks about how age somehow equals all this crap, I say no, because I play tennis with someone who defies all of that. I'm sure lots of times today he felt his tennis play was poor compared to what he's capable of, but he beat me.
If It's Worth Doing, It's Worth Doing No Matter How It Comes Out
Lots of things in life that are worth doing are going to come out poorly. Relationships, for one. I have a friend I was talking to, and his relationship is kind of going poorly, but it's worth doing. He's learning. He's growing. He's having fun. He's suffering. A lot of times we beat ourselves up. I didn't like myself with YouTube for years. I've been on YouTube 14 years, and I only have a few hundred videos because I deleted thousands of them. I only have so many views on my videos. But here's what I've come to believe: if it's worth doing, it's worth doing no matter how it comes out. If it's worth doing, it's worth doing no matter what you get out of it. If it was worth filming a video this morning, it's worth filming because it's worth filming, regardless of whether anybody else watches it.
I'm talking to and teaching myself. That's a fact of reality at this moment. It's just me talking to myself at the tennis club right after the game. But you know what? I filmed a video in my car this morning. I filmed another video after tennis. I love filming videos. Even if I'm the only person who ever watches, it's good for me to learn, good for me to teach myself. And then if it teaches you, that's good too.
This is the opposite of what I grew up with. I grew up with "anything worth doing is worth doing well." That's perfectionism. Don't even try doing something unless you can do it well. And I have the opposite message to share today, because the opposite has worked really well for me. I'm so glad I take less time to play video games so that I can play tennis. I essentially started playing tennis out of the hours I used to spend playing video games. And playing tennis one-on-one is so much more satisfying than playing Marvel Snap one-on-one with somebody. Because if I play bad at Marvel Snap, I beat myself up. I suck. Why even play this game if I'm not going to play good at it? But when I get out here and play tennis, even if I play terrible, I get a workout. I get connection. I get FaceTime with another person.
The People You Meet When You Show Up
There are high caliber people at the tennis club. There are people here who have lots of money, because who else is playing tennis at 10:30 in the morning on a Monday? Dudes like me who don't have to be at a 9 to 5 job. Dudes like the guy I play with, who has his own business and who most people would see as quite successful in the world. It's a nice law of attraction. On the court over there, there are women who look like they're in their 50s and 70s, and they're out there playing tennis from 10:30 in the morning to past noon in Florida. It's hot. It's sweaty. It works them out. And they're out there laughing, out there playing tennis, hitting lots of good shots. It doesn't matter if any of us are playing good or playing bad. We're out here. We're showing up. We're living with joy.
I'd rather do something poorly while living with joy than focus all my attention on doing something well and being on top of the world but being stressed and suffering. I really love this YouTuber lifestyle, that I can be out here filming a video and playing tennis on a Monday morning. I did yoga with lots of y'all's wives this morning too. While y'all are at work, I'm doing yoga with your wife, and I really appreciate it. If you want to see more of how I actually live this out day to day, I share a lot of it on my Life playlist. I hope this message lifts you up and is useful for you today.
Asking for Help, Making Music with Joy, and Expansion
From my video published June 17, 2026.
January 18th, 2025, and I am doing a little vlog today. I am closing in on 5,000 days on YouTube. I just went to an AA meeting, and we talked about asking for help, which is a really important thing to do in life. Kids ask for help so naturally, but often as grownups we have the pride and the ego and the self-image, and we don't want to ask for help, be vulnerable, and show people a different side of ourselves. We are also scared of the help we are going to get sometimes. People are going to tell us things we don't want to hear.
When I blew my finances up in 2019 and 2020, I asked for help, and people told me, get a job. I said, no, that's not the help I want. I'm not doing that. And when I was depressed and anxious and crazy, and now five years sober, people said, go to a doctor and get on some medication. I said, no, that's not the help I need. What I'm grateful for is that today I very naturally ask for help. I ask for help in my videos. I ask for help in every aspect of my life. I'm constantly asking for help, for feedback, for guidance, for thoughts, trying to see how what I'm doing is affecting everybody else.
That's one thing that's a little difficult on YouTube. Sometimes you don't really know how what you're doing is affecting someone else unless the comments are there. But once you get to a certain level of popularity, you can't even read the comments anymore. You need to have more of an inner circle that tells you the truth. You get viewership, you get numbers, but how do you know what you're really doing? It's hard to tell what experience you're having on the other end.
The power went out
Last night I was going to record this vlog, but the power went out. It reminded me of a few months ago, and I was having flashbacks of the hurricanes when the power was out for almost a week. Thankfully it came back on in an hour or two. It was nice not having any distractions last night. We had several thousand homes without power. In some countries they don't have power at night all the time. From what I've heard about North Korea, they never have power at night. The power goes off and it's 6 p.m. I haven't lived there personally, but I know there are places on Earth, or I've heard there are, where they don't have running water and they don't have clean drinking water. I sure would love to do whatever I can to help with that. To me, the key thing is to have awareness, and to work together and help each other out on this planet.
Making music with joy
I've been thinking a lot about asking for help and looking for help on things like my music. I listened to my new dance song, the 300th song I made, yesterday in the car with Laura and Jack on the way to soccer. Then I listened to this interview with a couple of guys, and one of them was talking about how he plays music and feels like music is one of the things you can most easily use to enter a higher frequency, so to speak, or oneness, and to change your life by listening to it. Music that is expansive, that is created with joy, and that's created with love.
It was kind of a non-linear process, where I ended up finding this random interview with a musician I'd never listened to before, and he's talking about how he creates his music with joy. He avoided learning and being told how to do his music, and he creates it with joy. And I thought, that's what I'm doing. I'm just in my studio playing around, having fun making my music. A lot of times my mind says that's not worth anything, that I have to make money or get viewership or fame off my music. Other times I think my music is my future.
The crypto videos are very hot right now. I don't know, the bigger ICP gets, I don't know that my voice will be needed as much. My voice in ICP was needed when hardly anybody was talking about it and it's the best technology. But when everybody's talking about ICP and there's all kinds of stuff built on it, I'm feeling like the path of joy for the future is learning music, doing a vlog, and continuing to help people in Alcoholics Anonymous, yoga, and tennis.
Knowing yourself
I played tennis yesterday morning, and I had a great conversation with a guy after the meeting too, about sex and relationships and more open-minded practices. It was great. It left me feeling like my mind often thinks more like a freak, so to speak, and thinks it'd be great to have a bunch of multiple wives and girlfriends. But if I remember back to my childhood, and even being a teenager, 19 or 20 years old, I was a guy who wanted a relationship with one woman. I didn't want to be with a whole bunch of women. Back in first, second, and third grade, I wasn't fantasizing most of the time about being with a bunch of women. I just wanted one woman. I wanted a wife. I wanted a girlfriend. I wanted one woman to love and to be loved by.
Then with all our culture, it encourages a lot of promiscuity, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's just that you need to know thyself. It seems that this body and this mind generally lean toward monogamy, and some of the thoughts I have otherwise are distractions. Sure, some of the stuff I talked about yesterday with the guy who has experienced some of these things that I haven't, it sounded interesting, but more of it sounded gross than something I'd really like to engage in. No judgment against anybody else. You've got to know yourself. I've often had all these thoughts that I'd love to be with a whole bunch of different women, but now I'm really glad I'm settling in. I really enjoy just being with my wife, the two of us with each other. When you start bringing a bunch of other people in, it gets complicated, and life is complicated enough. There's enough complexity.
Genius is simplifying complexity
I talked to the guy about internet computer last night. He has at least 10 times as much internet computer as I do, and he had an entire single-spaced page of questions to ask. That's how complex just internet computer is, and that's only a fraction of the total questions you could ask about it, but those are the ones most relevant for investing. Our world is complexity. To me, genius is being able to take a bunch of complexity and simplify it, because anyone can fragment things and make them complicated. Anyone can create all these terms and try to make things complex. A lot of science is made complicated to prevent you from understanding it. There's a lot of science that could be explained very simply.
Things like gravity could be explained as a law of attraction. We're all here because we choose to be here. You don't have to use all these forces and stuff. We're all attracted to this planet because we want to be here. I had a dream a while back where I was in a levitation class, and we were all practicing levitation. Some people were floating way up, and there was a building, at night, with no roof on it. Some people were floating out of the container of the building, and I could barely get my butt off the ground. But that's the expansive reality I love living in today.
My calling is expansion
What I'm always seeking is to expand my reality, and my intention with my vlogs is to help expand your reality too. I hope to introduce you consistently to new ideas here, new ways of thinking, and to expand it. Like the musician was saying, a lot of times we're obsessed with one direction. I want to ascend, to get into higher and higher frequencies. But expansion means lower frequencies too. It means sideways, the same frequency in a different way. To me, it seems like the number one calling of my soul is expansion and growth.
A lot of us think that we stop growing as kids. What I see is that our physical body's growth is heavily prioritized in the first maybe 20 years of life. But in my experience, after that, there should be constant mental growth and expansion. I believe that is essential for good health as well. I see that people whose minds get stuck and don't grow anymore, who get rigid, also tend to experience poor health. I'm glad I came with a clear intention for my vlog. That's my goal here: to create something every day that records my own expansions and gives that to you. You can follow more of these reflections in my Life playlist. Thanks for experiencing this with me.
Get Out of the House and Throw the Football
Originally published January 10, 2026.
This is my journal entry from January 10, 2026 — my real, unedited day, shared just as it happened.
Wake up first thing this morning to a message from a woman I had been seeing that feels pretty cold. Maybe she didn't mean it as cold as it sounded, but I was so happy to see a message from her. And then her message says, or if you believe I still owe you for the work you've done, at your convenience, please let me know. I hope your holidays went well and you're enjoying a fresh start of 2026. Almost sounds like AI wrote that or something. Maybe it did. So I'm like, Jesus, that feels like a nice cold message. So three minutes later, I sent back, good morning, I'm satisfied with the exchange we did for the work. Like my message topped her message in coldness.
Got up feeling kind of just like, fuck, can't we do better than this as humans? Like, can't we be nicer and warmer and loving to each other? Maybe it's my own filter. Maybe she did mean her message to be warm and I just filtered it as being cold and absolutely like nothing. You know, maybe is that warmth in the message when she says, good morning, I'm sorry, things have been hectic and I haven't had much free time. Her shit's always hectic, though. Like, fucking people, why is your life so hectic? Like, I just got divorced. I quit my career. I moved, and I wouldn't say my life has been hectic. What the fuck are y'all doing? Like, I guess I know some of you have jobs and kids, and she does not have kids. Like, her life shouldn't be so hectic, except that she seems incapable of doing a good job handling the routine shit that she has to deal with like moving and working. But maybe she did, you know, she said, I hope your holidays went well. Maybe, maybe my message was too cold for her, but you know what? Fuck. It's, you know, whatever. I don't know what to do anymore. So then, after messaging her, I woke up with a nasty taste in my mouth, like, ugh. And maybe it was even worse because of the message I sent. Like I interpreted her message cold, so I sent mine back as cold.
Then I took some time to get things organized and ready for the kids this morning. And there's an AA event that started at 11, but I'm not feeling a sound bowl meditation. So I went to my gym to work out and lift some weights a little bit, which was good. Then I ended up getting to the part of the AA event that had food. So I got there at like 12, you know, 20 after 12 or something. I got there and went straight to the food. And there are lots of people I know and I enjoyed talking to them.
And then there's a girl that I'd asked a few weeks before if she wanted to date. And I was feeling awkward. I'm like, oh, you know, I didn't even want to like talk to her, say hi or be friendly or anything. But then she was sitting by herself with her dog for at least five minutes eating. I'm like, fuck, if I'm going to talk to her, I should do it. So I went over to talk to her. And keep in mind, she dated one of the guys there previously that was also at this thing. So I talked to her for a while about dating and stuff. And she's been single most of her life, which is crazy to me. I mean, I remember being single a lot of my 20s. You know, I've actually been in a relationship most of my adult life. And she said she didn't want to have kids either. So that's good to know. No point in trying to date her. But she's pretty. We have a lot in common with AA and yoga. And she has a job. She works. But at the same time, what kind of life is this for her? Where she's just single most of the time and hanging out with her family. I guess that's fine. My aunt lived mostly like that. But my aunt had a bunch of other kids to raise, you know, elder parents and stuff to take care of. Like my aunt had a very busy full life with her family, but I guess it's fair for all of us to live how we want to live, right? But what's best for the collective? What's best for planet Earth? I feel like having more kids and, you know, being joyful and connecting with other people is, you know, that's where life is. This girl spends a lot of time like at home working and then on her devices watching TV and stuff, it seems like. But she also does have lots of stuff to do with her family as well. I talked to her and she doesn't do online dating either, which is nice validation. It's like, you know, the kind of girl I want to meet and I overlap a lot. And if you want to meet her, you can't find her online, which is great. Like, I want to be looking for girls that are not online dating. She said online dating is too much work. And that's interesting to hear that it's too much work for girls, too, because, you know, you got to sort through a lot of guys.
I talked to another girl who is maybe seven or so years older than me. She's also pretty. My sponsor really likes her, but I'm kind of on the fence about her. She said she's been single for three years, and the only thing she misses is the sex. I'm like, yeah, I get that. She's like, well, I just want the perfect man to come along. And which leaves me thinking, am I trying to put too many conditions on the perfect woman? Am I demanding too much? Because it certainly seems like some of these girls are demanding too much or they're demanding arbitrary things that don't matter. Like, you know, you got to agree on politics or something, which, you know, I guess if you want to talk politics all the time and bitch about the same thing, maybe that'll work and you can bond over it. But I guess what matters to each person is different. And it seems like too many people are too picky these days. But then it's like, I can't control them. What can I do with myself? Should I lower my standards? And which area should I lower them in? I don't know. As long as I feel really excited about someone, that is what matters. And that's what I kind of got to talking with these girls is like, I really need to feel really excited about someone. And I'd get excited easily, but I lose interest easily.
Like a woman I'd been talking to. I messaged her yesterday about reading my letters. She said she couldn't make it. So then I messaged her this morning saying that my son had soccer and I'm available this afternoon, tomorrow afternoon. So then she said she won't be back this weekend, blah, blah, blah. So I sent a message that I said I'm happy to do my share of the driving if you'd like me to come up. So then she sends like a three-minute voice memo message explaining why it totally makes sense for her to sit in her fucking house that she can't wait to get out of because it's these other people that she doesn't like living with and she's dog sitting and she doesn't want anybody to come over this house, but at the same time, she doesn't want to get out of it either. She thinks the best thing to do is to sit alone in her house all weekend.
So I sent a voice memo back saying, it seems if I share more from my experience, people can pick up on it if they want to, but at the same time aren't quite as defensive. So I said the most miserable times in my life were sitting at home by myself trying to figure things out. And meanwhile, where I did truly thrive in figuring things out and making changes is by being with other people. Like the day I got divorced, as you can read about in The Kind Divorce, or the day my ex-wife and I decided it. The next day, I spent all day talking to people. I didn't sit in my fucking house trying to figure it all out. I talked to my sponsor. I talked to another guy in AA. And I talked to several other people. The next day, I spent hours on the phone with my sister and with my massage therapist. And the day after my ex-wife and I talked about it, I met up with a woman I know and spent two hours talking to her. Like, I got out of the fucking house and talked to people. I've learned the hard way that I come alive around people instead of alone, and if you feel that too, you can set up a call with me and talk it through together on our call.
I just don't understand how — I do understand. Like people rationalize and think that somehow sitting in your house by yourself, you're going to figure shit out. Do you think an ant sitting off in the corner is going to figure shit out for the ant colony? Like, no, you need to be out there talking to people, interacting with people. Now, yes, I get if you've been out at work all day socializing and, you know, doing that at work, then, yeah, you might need one to three hours at home to have some quiet time or somewhere to like unwind. But it seems to me that the most depressed I've been in my life has been the times when I've spent a bunch of time at home wallowing in self-pity. And to me, it just looks like that's exactly what — maybe that's not what she's doing, but I sent her that and explained it similar to how I did here. And then I also said what I noticed is people often say they want one thing, but if you look at their actions, their actions don't indicate that they actually want that. And with her, her actions do not line up with what she says she wants. She says she wants a nice place to live. She says she wants to do some work she loves, and she says she thinks she has a lover coming along, but look how she acts with me. I show her a place that if she'd have cooperated and been open, she could have moved in here. I'm open and available and showed interest in being her lover, and I have money in the bank. I could pay her to do stuff. I sent her an invitation.
My sister gave me feedback on my letter and I'll talk more about that in a minute. I sent my sister $50 for giving me feedback on my letter. Like here was the easy money for her — saying that she has like, you know, one or $200 in a bank, she's getting stressful, I send an easy opportunity to easily make money in like an hour by reading a fucking letter. And I told her, and I didn't go in on her specifically, but I said, what I see often is people say they want to get sober in Alcoholics Anonymous, but will they go to AA meetings? No. Will they get a sponsor? No. Will they read the book? No. And then they drink. And it's like they didn't actually really want to get sober. If you really want to do something, your actions must match and you must be open to what you want. And she's a perfect example. Like she's not open to what she says she wants.
If she was open and, you know — it's probably good for me that she's not because I can find someone that's probably much, you know, that I'm more excited about. I was excited about her, but she totally fucked it up by being closed off to me, by holding back, by keeping her distance, by wallowing in her shit by herself, you know, by not being open. And it's like if you just watch her, it's like, what the fuck is she doing? Like this guy's into her, interested, has all the stuff she says she wants. And what does she do? She doesn't want to make out with him. She leaves, you know, and says she's not going to be available, and then she's talking about how bad her situation is living. But is she doing anything? Is she walking through the open doors to improve it? No.
And while I can't do anything about her, I did send her a six-minute voice memo, sharing this, like, hey, you should think about this. Meanwhile, I notice sometimes that I'll do that as well, that I'll say I want one thing but act another way. With a woman I had been seeing, it's like she matched so many of the things I wanted on paper, but once we were actually together I realized the connection and the attraction just weren't there for me. I'm like, come on, universe. You can do a little bit better than that, right? I know I've got my own work to do on being clearer about what I actually want and not stringing people along.
So after I sent that voice memo and I talked with some of the people at the AA party, then I found a lot of the AA thing was wrapping up around like 1:30. So some of the people were sitting in a circle and just talking. And I see this guy throwing the football to himself, like throwing it and then going to get it, tossing it up in the air. And I watched this guy for like five minutes. And meanwhile, the one girl that talked to me that is pretty and that doesn't want kids that I mentioned earlier, she's sitting next to me, but we're not talking or anything. I'm looking at this guy throwing a football, and I see a couple of objectives at once. Number one, I'd love to throw the football. Number two, this guy looks like he could use somebody to throw the football with. And number three, what a great opportunity for peacocking or for showing off. So I get up and walk over to this guy, probably like 50 yards. And I'm like, hey, do you want somebody to throw the football with? And he's like, sure. So I start throwing the football at him, and I'm so happy with how good my throwing is. Like, holy shit. I'm like, I don't know if I've ever been able to throw a football this accurately. Like my spirals are coming off beautifully. They're going most of the time right where I want them to go. I'm like, damn, this is awesome. I'm reflecting on doing yoga and weightlifting has seemed to, especially yoga has really helped me balance my muscles out. And I still have muscle memory, even though I haven't thrown a football like this in a decade with another grown man, since I threw a football with now my former brother-in-law.
Then I'm like, this is so awesome. So we're throwing a football out in the sun, sweating our asses off. It's thick grass, so I dove for one of them, perfectly like landed on my shoulder and rolled it just right. Guy's like, hey, hey, take it easy. Don't hurt yourself, buddy. And at the same time, like, this is great peacocking. Like, I hope they're watching me run around at the AA circle with this guy. And him and I end up throwing the football for damn near an hour. Like, we take a significant break in the middle of it. But he actually wears down before I do. Like, I've got my heart rate up to the max. And I'm having to mouth breathe occasionally. But he actually wears down before I do. And he's like, damn, you're in good shape, man. And I told him I'm 41. He's like, holy shit. I thought you were like 29. Like you were in great shape. I'm like, thanks. You know, I love that. Days like this remind me how good it feels to just show up and connect with someone.
So I ended up talking to this guy. He lives in his van, which is parked a hundred yards away. He takes me to show me his van. It's a nice ass van, like an $85,000 van that he bought new. This shit is nice — it's got a shower, a kitchen, a bed, it has built-in solar panels, a 600 amp hour battery. Like this is a nice ass van that he lives in. He's been traveling around the country living in it for a couple years. He works online as a software engineer. And we have a great chat. We talk a lot about dating because he's single. And I tell him, go to my yoga studio, man. There's so many hot girls there. Try going to my yoga studio. He's like, oh, I'm short, though. You know, dating apps really suck being a short guy.
So him and I talk a lot about dating and all kinds of other stuff. And then he says he's going to go eat. So I walk back and leave him at his van. I go back and sit in the AA circle, but like five minutes later, he comes back out and says, hey, you know, I was just sitting in there, I thought we'd talk some more. I'm like, oh, that's a brave thing for this guy to do. That's so brave, and I love it. So I then take another hour-long walk with him. We walk all the way to the bridge from the park over by the main parking lot there. We walk all the way up to the bridge and back, which takes about an hour. And we talk a lot more about girls and dating and work. And I tell him about being an influencer. He says he thinks it's really virtuous and that God smiles upon the person who would, you know, delete all their followers online because the environment is corrupt, and to take the path of virtue rather than just profit. And that was a really nice conversation. I walked all the way back and then dropped him off at his van again because I was already full from eating at the AA thing. I didn't need to eat. And it's time for me to get ready for the kids. So I drop him off at his van and I go home to get ready for the kids.
I have a little salad, forgetting that I already had a big ass Caesar salad that was at the AA event. I then get everything ready for the kids and I get some feedback about my letter. So my sister says that my letter should be shorter. It's a 10 page letter. She says, you know, make it like one or two pages. And one of my friends, I'm helping him write his book. He texts me this toxic ass fucking text. It starts off saying you do not have the command of the language you believe you do — even AI does not convey what is being expressed effectively and can be understood as a meager attempt to impress. That's how it started, all right? It didn't get any better than that. Like, who the fuck pissed in your Cheerios today? Like, damn, man. But I do remember this guy — another guy, a neighbor, gave me his book that he was really happy about and proud of like almost a decade ago after an AA meeting one day. And I just ripped him. I said, I don't see why we need books like this and shit like that. So I was pretty toxic about that guy's book. So, you know, I was like, the fuck is with this? I asked for feedback and damn, he ripped it. Another guy had given me feedback saying my letters should be shorter as well.
And then after I got everything cleaned up, I texted a massage therapist asking if she wanted to do a massage, because a friend texted me to say she can do a massage the week that she had scheduled and my massage therapist is out of town. So I texted her to see if she wanted to do a massage. And she said, I'm moving out of that house. I'll no longer have that spot. I'm sorry. Keeping it myself for a bit. I hope you're well. God damn, why do people have to fucking isolate so much? Like, Jesus Christ. Like, what the fuck? Is it just me? Or are people just normally this isolated? It's terrible how isolated people are, just sitting in their goddamn houses wallowing. Like, my mom, after my dad died, just fucking sit in her house and wallow. Like, get out there.
You know, if something happened like that to me, I would be out there, but I got divorced. So that's already one of the top bad things that happens to people. I've been out there and I've been writing about it and being real about it. I'm not sitting here being ashamed. And this writing is fucking awesome. All right. It's awesome. So she sends me a message. I send her, you know, asking if she broke up with her boyfriend, because I thought they were going to have that house for a while. And I thought they had a year lease and she just moved into it. But you know, I told her I moved into a new house, my divorce is final, I thought you're staying there, did she break up? You know, of course, no response. And then I texted a girl that I met at yoga class that I hadn't texted for a few weeks. And then I texted a girl from AA right before the kids came over and I'm like, God damn it. Like, why did I fucking do that? I'm so tired of this. Nobody fucking responding.
God, is this how men are too? I guess it is, because a woman I had been seeing would tell you that I did the same thing — I'd reach out, then decide I wasn't into it and pull back and tell her I didn't want to talk anymore. I'm not proud of it. Man, I'm excited when I finally find a woman that actually mutually engages. Like the woman I'd been talking to mutually engaged for a few days until she fucked it up. Or maybe you could say I fucked it up by expecting too much of her and not being patient. But, you know, she's 57 years old. How much time do you got, all right? Like, how much time do you got? To be patient, get your shit together. If you recognize your own push-and-pull patterns in this and want to untangle them out loud, you can book a one-on-one call with me and I'll be glad to untangle them with you on a live call.
So then the kids come over, which is awesome. My ex-wife loves the setup of the house. Oh, right before they come over, though, the craziest shit happens, all right? So there's this ceramic inside the shower. I take a cold shower because I was out in the sun for a good while, so I want to cool off. So there's these ceramic rack holders, like you'd hold a rack that you'd hang a towel up on. But for some reason, there's two of them jutting out from the wall on the left side of the shower. And one of them I noticed when I showered before, like, juts out only a few inches from my face. Like, who the fuck hung this? Like, this is stupid. So there are these ceramic towel rack holders that jut out from inside the wall. And there's all kinds of other shit you could already hold. So I am taking a cold shower. I bend down, and I turn the water on. Then I turn the faucet so instead of coming out of the faucet, it sprays from the shower head. And then the cold hits me on the back and I jerk my head up in reaction to it. And my fucking skull knocks off, breaks the ceramic towel rack holder in half. It shears it cleanly off. I use my fucking skull to shear a ceramic towel holder in half.
I'm dumbfounded. At first, I'm like, fuck, did I fracture my skull? Like, Jesus Christ. The amount of force I hit that with to shear it, and it falls apart into pieces, into like three pieces in the shower. I pick one up quickly, not thinking that when you shear ceramic, it's sharp. And I cut my fucking left index finger right where it bends, and it starts bleeding. And I'm like, well, at least I didn't pass out or knock out or anything, but fuck. And then I get the ceramics out of the shower and I'm like, you've got to be shitting me. Like what just happened right now? And I start feeling my head. And the crazy thing is, my head doesn't even hurt. I'm like, this is weird. Like, why does my head not hurt? I just broke this. I mean, if you try and touch it or feel it, you would not think anything short of like bashing that shit with a hammer would shear it. I'm like, I can't believe I just broke this with my fucking head.
I'm feeling my head. I'm like, is that a dent right there? Is that a fucking dent in my skull? Is it caved in right there? Did I fucking cave in a part of my skull right here? I'm like, I can't tell, but you know what I'm not doing? I'm not going to a fucking hospital. In my experience, this shit will heal up by itself just fine, no problem. Like when my son banged his head — he banged his head right into a concrete edge and his head swelled up like a golf ball right where he bashed into it, but he was fine. I'm like, you know what? I'm fucking fine. But my brain's like, you fractured your skull, you should go to the hospital. I'm like, fuck that. First off, I have no interest going to the hospital and having them shoot fucking x-rays into my head. And then second, I just got my health insurance canceled. No, thanks. I would not enjoy spending money on that. I'm not in enough fear to go to the hospital and go into that shit show. Like, I'm sure this is fine. I think about the father in the book Educated, where he burns his face off with a gas tank blowing up in it. He didn't go to the hospital. I mean, that shit's about as bad as something could get and did not kill you. Like, I'm not going to the fucking hospital for bumping my head in the shower. And I mean, I bumped it hard, but.
I can't wait to show my ex-wife and the kids what I did, and they're horrified, especially my ex-wife. She's like, you knocked that off with your head? I was thinking it was marble or something. She's like, no, that's ceramic. I'm like, oh, okay. I'm like, I can't believe I just broke this thing off with my head, and it doesn't even hurt either. Not hurting much is a little concerning. I'm like, why the hell doesn't it hurt? That was a hell of an impact. But we press on.
The kids get here, and they're ready to go to Crescent Lake Park, so we grab the drone and the batteries and the car, and we go fly the drone, both batteries out, drive the car all over, and my ex-wife drops the kids off at 5:30. We're at the park until after 7 when it's dark. The kids are having a blast. They're doing everything, driving the car all over, going to the playground, getting on the play set. My son brings a little gun that fires a plane on top of it that flashes, which is great in the dark. The drone has lights in the dark too, so we're all having a great time.
Until — it's like that D12 song — the kids tell me that I'd given one of my books to a friend of a relative of my ex-wife. And they tell me that their mom said that relative told the friend she should just throw my book out. And my mind launches into all the things I want to say back, things to insult her, things the kids could say to hurt her feelings. And then I'm like, remember your thank you practice from yesterday. So I'm like, thank you that I don't have to deal with this anymore. I mean, I love black kids, by the way — that's why I changed my race to black.
So there you go. You want to throw my books in the trash? Good. Don't read this shit where I talk about you. All the nice shit I did over the years, all this time, wanting them to like me so much — and this is the kind of shit I'm getting. Well, good. I'll fire back in this book too. But it's okay if nobody ever reads this shit — it'll be like it didn't happen. If everybody reads it, then I got the last word. So take that. I didn't mention anybody by name. I mean, I guess you could figure it out, but I think you're pretty much protected from libel if you don't go after people by name. But who gives a shit? Fuck it. If you assume nobody's going to read the book, fuck it. If the book gets to be a bestseller and I have to deal with a lawsuit, then take that shit to trial. Like I did so much for this relative of my ex-wife to try to get them to like me and be nice and help them out when they went through their divorce. But look at me now. I don't have a pot to piss in, do I? I'm sitting in this house by myself, because they could say I fucked my life up from a divorce too. Well, at least I own how I'm responsible and how I did that and what I did to make that happen. And I have a great relationship with my ex.
So that fucked me up while I was at the park with my kids. I was all pissy about that. But then I was saying thank you. Thank you that I don't have to deal with this anymore. Thank you that she's not here right now. Thank you that I'm divorced. But at the same time, this is frustrating when you love people and want them to like you and they just treat you like shit. But that's life, isn't it? And you know what? I'm glad that there's less space. Because this person used to take up a good amount of space in my mind and my heart. And clearly it was not mutual. She didn't give a shit about me. And what I think is awful in life is when we let somebody matter to us that we don't matter to them. And I try not to let anybody. That's why I don't want to do all this shit online anymore. Because I feel like when you're an influencer online, you matter to all these people. And yet, y'all don't matter to me. I mean, it's obvious through a book you're not going to get to know me that well. But when you're watching videos and stuff, you get the illusion that you know me. So I tell the kids that hurt my feelings and I'm sad. At the same time, we still overall end up having a great time. If you're wrestling with who deserves space in your life and who doesn't, you can schedule a private call with me and I'd be honored to think it through with you on a live call.
And then the kids get home. They're excited to try the shower, which now has the space cleared out for that. So if they jump around in there, around the shower head at least, maybe I'll knock the other one off too. They take showers and enjoy having their showers in there. And then we play the Harry Potter Monopoly. I get wrecked. Like I get absolutely destroyed. I straight up go bankrupt to my daughter. But nobody gets like a really good three of a kind or anything. It's kind of a standoff. So my daughter ends up winning. Then we go to bed. I get the kids dinner, like strawberries. My son eats almost an entire cantaloupe. My daughter has a few strawberries. She was already pretty full. Then we go to bed. I've got the bedroom set up really nice. They love it. They got their two twin beds and then the nightstands between them, then the king bed right there. And it's really, really cozy. And I have a nice cry with them a couple of times. I'm like, man.
You know, I live here mainly because of them. I'm so grateful out of all these people who can't love me properly. Out of all these women I try and ask out and offer a relationship to, you know, that don't fucking text me back or that send cold ass text messages that are way overly professional. You know, after all, my ex-wife wanting to divorce me, which, you know, I was there too. It's like the kids really love me properly, and I really appreciate that. We have such a nice night together. I have a good cry falling asleep with them and snuggling them. And the sound machine app that's like 11 years old actually manages to work on my iPhone, which is really nice because it wouldn't work before. So I turned the sound machine on for them, and they're ready to go to bed at 9:30, and I just go to bed with them because I'm like, you know what, I'll just take this time to meditate if I'm up. Sleep extra, and it's great.
If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.
Dance Like No One's Watching
Originally published December 19, 2025.
This is my journal entry from December 19, 2025 — my real, unedited day, shared just as it happened.
Oh, this is a good one, y'all. And you know what? I got a new strategy. Nobody's going to fucking read these books. I'm going to record these like nobody's going to fucking read them. How about that? I'm going to just say whatever I want, whenever I want, however I want to, whoever I want. I'm going to just record these books like nobody's going to fucking read them because that's what's actually happening. Nobody's read Sober Through Separation. Like, I literally don't think one fucking page of it's been read by anybody. And the book after that, called Nine Hours Later. Yeah, who's going to read that? Maybe someday somebody will read this shit. But I'm going to just, for the short term, nobody's going to read this shit for the foreseeable future. So I'm going to go at this. I'm going to dance like no one's watching, all right? All right, we're going to dance like no one's watching. How'd you like that, huh?
This was an interesting day. I'm not going to fucking spoil it because I was almost going to spoil it, but I'm not going to spoil it. You're going to work up to this shit, all right? So I dropped the kids off this morning, and my daughter and my son both had awards they got at their school. I met my ex-wife there in the parking lot about 8.45. We went in, had a great time being there as ex-husband and wife. I thought it would be really bad to be going to some school event. I saw some parents that looked like they'd had a rough night and weren't happy to be there with their ex. And that's how I pictured it'd be if you had an ex that you broke up with and then had to get fucking dragged to your kid's school events. But shit, it was great. My ex-wife and I were in there having fun, cutting up with the other parents. Dude, I was laughing and talking shit. I was clapping like a motherfucker for all these kids. The one kid wants to be a hibachi chef when he grows up. I'm like, God damn, this shit got me fucking hungry right now at nine in the morning. I want this kid to cook some shit for me like right now. Cook me some hibachi right now. I really want that. I would love to have that. I had a great time with all of them, my ex-wife and the kids, the kids were in their Christmas jammies. It was super cute.
After that, then I was going to go to the 11 a.m. St. Pete group meeting. Well, fuck, it's supposed to be anonymous. Nobody's reading this shit anyway. Right. So I was going to. But then I ended up. I'm like, fucking let me go this 10 a.m. meeting. That'll work out better. So I get to the 10 a.m. meeting and the woman I asked if she wanted to date on the Saturday meeting fucking rolls in. Like, do what you want to. Just don't blow my buzz. I don't know. She walked in. I just, she saw me first. I got a shitty vibe. I'm like, fuck. So I'm sitting there, I'm doing all this shit where I like compensate, where I feel bad, but then I peacock and try and act super happy and make her feel bad that she's not interested in me right now. So I'm like sitting there fucking smiling and laughing. And then by the end of the meeting, I'm like, it's time to drop the pretense. Just show everybody how fucking sad you really are.
I go to share though, maybe like 20 minutes into the meeting, I go to share and she gets up and walks out. I'm like, what are you doing? Getting up, walking. Right when I start talking about how my divorce is final, she gets up. I'm like, you know why your ass can't handle hearing this. All right, let's be real. Nobody has a better offer than me right now. I mean, that actually knows me and shit. I mean, there's a lot better offers than me, obviously. But this girl doesn't have a better fucking offer than me, and I know it. She gets up while I'm sharing. I want to just fucking stop sharing. I'm like, she got up. I'm done. That's it. But I didn't. I kept sharing long enough that she came back while I was still sharing. I'm like, yeah, you got to listen to some of this. What are you going to do? Walk out because I'm still sharing? Turn around? I've seen it. There's a couple of women over the last few years. They just get up and walk out when I'm sharing. They're scared of what I'm going to say.
So I wrap it up, and then I'm talking to the woman next to me. I'm really happy to see her again. She's the one who told me a year ago that she couldn't watch my YouTube videos because I had such a different personality than the person she knew. I wonder what she'd think of these books. But nobody's going to read these fucking books anyway, so whatever. Dance like no one's watching, baby. So I talk to her, and of course the other woman comes walking by, like waving hi frantically to the woman behind me. Bye, bye. I'm like, I ain't saying shit to you. You want to talk to me? You can come over and talk to me. Whatever. Look how engrossed I am in this conversation. So I have that conversation. I walk out feeling like a fucking petty bitch as usual. Get my car. I'm like, you a petty ass bitch, just like you wrote about in that book you were reading before. How you were a petty ass bitch with a woman in your yoga class. Look at you again. I'm like, fuck. Why can't I? I'm like, why do I even feel like this? Like it's fucking fifth grade. I asked some girl to like hold my hand or some shit. And she said no. Like, why do I feel like this? I don't think that ever happened, by the way. Just making shit up off the top of my head.
So after that, I go back home for a minute and get ready for my tennis match. And I get to the tennis club at noon. This dude beats me, all right? He just beats me. I saw him warming up like, I'm gonna get crushed here, aren't I? Yep. And beating me was his game. He's like a 4-0 player and I'm like 3-5. And yeah, I did win two games the first set. He won 6-2 and then 6-0. I'm like, you know what? I got two games in. That's fine. I talked to them about canceling the ladder. I gave him my book. I Was Famous on the Internet, on Spotify. I sent him a link to it, you know? And I was thinking, and talking to him about it, I'm like, this is why I need to cancel this tennis club membership, because these motherfuckers here are too good. And they always leave me feeling not good enough, like I need to get tennis lessons and spend a bunch more money and go to the clinic and play on the bitch side with all the beginners. And it's like, no, I need to drop this shit and play ultimate.
So after playing him, I'm like, yeah, I'm definitely canceling this tennis club membership. Like these dudes are too good for me. And it's time to move on. Unless somebody else joined that might fit in here better. I've had a nice time with the guys, but I'm starting to feel like I don't fit into the tennis club anymore. And there's not enough men to play singles with. You know, I'd play with the girls too, but I want some more singles. What I care about is playing singles. And I'm going to have a tennis court right next to my fucking house. So obviously I should just use that, right?
After tennis, I come home and take a cold bitch ass of a shower. I mean, fuck, I'm in there. I turned straight cold water on with the like four gallon a minute shower. And I'm just like, oh shit, Jesus, fuck. But it feels so good because I got some sun. And what I love, what works really good on my skin in my experience, is just taking a cold ass shower to cool my skin off after I've got sun. I don't use sunscreen anymore. I just raw dog that bitch outside. Let it fucking shine on me. Just shine that sun on me. Blacken me up. You know what? I fucking identify as Black. So as far as I'm concerned, it's a goddamn book that I'm selling. That's how I think. That's how I identify. So that's how I want to fucking talk too. All right. Any other questions? Any other fucking Karens need to come in here and complain? Like I want to dictate some shit that my teenage kids would be proud of, that my teenage nieces and nephews would be proud of. Like, damn, my uncle's fucking badass. He ain't a politically correct bitch.
All right, now after coming home from tennis, I just felt depressed. Felt like I'd just gotten crushed in tennis by a regular guy. By the way, the way I use it, it's a term of love. It's about being in a common struggle together. We're all in a fucking slavery struggle together right now. What do you think these rents are? It's fucking slavery. I got paid $2,700 a goddamn month for a 2-1 in St. Pete that's 100 and some years old. That's slavery. We're in some slavery shit right now. It's just, you know, new and updated slavery with more screens and less chains. But we're all in the shit together. So we're all in this together. And nobody's going to listen to this anyway. If anybody does listen to it, I am whatever I say I am. If I wasn't, then why would I say I am in my books? Every day I am. Fuck it. If you feel like you're in this struggle too, I'd love for you to book a one-on-one call with me so we can go through it together.
I hope my kids would be proud of me. Be like, damn, my dad was a badass. Because my late father turned into a bitch ass at the end of his life. And he would agree. He would agree with me right now. He's like, I did turn into a bitch ass. My late father used to be a bad motherfucker. Ripping up money. He would take a $100 bill from a motherfucker in a bar and then talk about how the government controlled you with money and rip that shit up. And he'd get punched in the face after that sometimes. My late father was a badass, and he turned into a weak bitch at the end of his life. You know what I never want to become is a weak-ass bitch. A weak-ass bitch is one who just bows down and gets fucked by the system, watches the goddamn news, thinks what you're supposed to think, does what you're supposed to be told, and puts on a goddamn mask in the grocery store and bitches at other people because they're not doing what the fuck they're told. Never going to be that, I'll tell you that.
Go all out. That's how I'm living my life. So where were we? I was feeling like a weak ass bitch just laying around here. Man, this dude beat me at tennis. A woman I went out with, you know, hopefully that'll work out, seeing her Monday. But shit, I got nothing else planned until then. You know what? I don't hardly know her. How's my dating gonna go? Fuck, can I even do a business? How's it gonna go?
This felt kind of down, like, whatever. It's fine. But then I got my proofs in the mail for Nine Hours Later and licked that shit. Like, look at this beautiful face on this cover. Look at this cover I designed myself in Photoshop. This woman that comes up to me at my gym the other day, and she's like, if you need a graphic designer, she looks at my book covers. I'm like, I don't need a graphic designer. What I got is branding, all right? It's branding that my fucking face is on every fucking cover of all my new books. It's called branding. You got it? And yeah, I know it looks like a cheap ass shit I threw together in an hour in Photoshop, and it is. So if you want to judge a book by its cover, go ahead and read something else. Because nobody needs to read this shit. Like, literally nobody needs to read this shit. I need to write this shit, but nobody needs to fucking read it. Do they?
Thankfully, I was working on my books. The kids came over a little after 3. My ex-wife dropped them off after school because she had a work call. And, man, I love having the kids up in my house. I can't wait to have my overnights with the kids consistently during the week. The kids are just so much love. But, I mean, you get too much of the kids, and, yeah, I respect that they get to be too much of a pain in the ass sometimes, but I get just the right amount. They came over and hung out at my house for about an hour and a half today, and they were a little bored, but my son picked up this little kind of cloth baseball, like, you know, one of those squishy kind of baseballs, and he started throwing it with me on the couch. He fucking smacked my daughter in the ear with it, and she cried. And I got hella snuggles from my daughter. Threw the ball with my son. My son has a little air hockey, tiny-ass little plastic air hockey table. Real air. The air fucking blows. He got some AA batteries in it. And him and my daughter played some air hockey. And then my daughter played with it by herself. I played with it on the couch. And then I texted my mom to see if we could come over. And my daughter gets out the Harry Potter Monopoly, and we played that. I was dominating that bitch. I had the blue ones, like the boardwalk and park place, but really it's Dumbledore's office and room requirement. But I call it Dumbledore's orifice, along with Hagrid's ass, and various things like that to mix it up. Because there's still a part of me, this seventeen, that has not grown up at all, and that's the playful fun part. You don't want to be walking around this bitch like an old man all the time.
I thought one of the best ideas I had today, or maybe the worst, I thought about recording some of this shit for myself and playing it back while I sleep, do some affirmations like, I'm 21 years old, full of energy, and I'm super rich, just play this shit at night and program my subconscious with it. I don't know if that worked very well, but I'm not going to fuck with that right now. After that, I took the kids down to the street to hang out with my mom. They watched some more Winnie the Pooh where Piglet was messing with his shadow, and then, what are they doing, they were doing the hiccup episode after that. I had a little bit of popcorn, even though it's got that toxic-ass seed oil in it. I think I'll be all right.
I did weigh myself this morning. It said I was still 19.8% body fat. I was like, bullshit. Bullshit, 19.8% body fat. I'm going to check that tomorrow. I want a second fucking opinion. You got to like the kind of person who looks at an electronic device like, fuck that. I don't agree with it. You know you get me in a doctor's office, and I'm going to be telling them how to fucking do their job. Because, in my experience, those are the kind of patients that actually live longer.
Somebody was telling me, damn, you know the health care costs. This family's paying $30,000 a fucking month. I'm like, that's stupid, all right? Can we all just agree that's stupid? The thing to do, I've come to believe, would be to take care of your goddamn self and don't pay that. Health insurance, I hope all that shit collapses. I don't have health insurance. I fucking hate health insurance. I appreciate the idea. Oh, if we all took care of ourselves, that'd work. But when you got people out here smoking and drinking and not taking care of themselves, we got motherfuckers poisoning themselves to death. You know what? Health insurance doesn't work because I'm not paying shit into it. So all these other people can take piss-poor care of themselves, and my money's fucking paying some doctor to do shit I don't believe in in the first fucking place.
If I said fuck too much lately, fuck, fuckity, fuck, fuck, fuck. My first video on YouTube was how to say fuck different ways. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. I'd like to think I haven't came anywhere at all since then. Nobody's gonna read this, so I'm gonna say whatever I want. And if somebody does read this, look, you're going to get a real experience in here. You're dealing with Jerry Banfield, a real one. Put that at my memorial service. That's what I want at my memorial service. Somebody get up there, you know what? Jerry was real. We love Jerry. Jerry told it like it is without being a fucking weak ass bitch. That's what we love about Jerry.
I was listening to Elizabeth Gilbert's book, All the Way to the River. I like her friend Rhea. Like she told her how it was. She'll walk up and fucking tell you the truth. And I realized that's how I want to fucking be. Not some little bitch just trying to tell everybody what they want to hear all the time. And I think swearing's fun. I know how to talk without swearing. If you look at Author in St. Petersburg, and I Was Famous on the Internet, I didn't swear that much in those books. I know how to talk without swearing. I know how to use other words. But there's a certain energy. When you bring swearing in there's a certain, you know, it feels better when people are comfortable enough to do some swearing. If you're still not upset at anything, I'm proud of you. I'm real proud of you. What a fucking real alive person you are. Not some goddamn bot.
I have to put, like, a 10-paragraph disclaimer at the beginning of this. Like, hey, if you're a Karen or a bot or a regular person or a normal person or a politically correct person, do not read this shit unless you like getting offended. If so, I'm happy to help you with that. My ex-wife had a breaker blow, too, and she didn't know what to do with it, so I'm like, hey, sweetheart, here's a breaker box. And here's how it, you know, when it pops out, you just push it back and then shove it back to the right position.
After hanging out with the kids, I got snuggles with my son. It was perfect. Got hugs and love from my ex-wife, my mom. And then I headed out to a local spiritual community. Now some shit's about to go down. So I pull up to the spiritual community. I'm like, fuck this shit. It's going to be boring. Nothing's going to happen. But then I'm like, you know, remember when you met a woman I'd been interested in, and you were feeling like that too. And you met her, and it was awesome. But hey, you got a different life story. That's cool. It's your story. I'm writing my fucking story right now, literally.
I got my nice little efficient box of books. They sent us a text like, maybe you should cover up. I'm like, fuck that. I'm going to come out here in shorts and a t-shirt, even though it's going down to low 60s and it's humid. That's fine. So I roll up and get my books out and shit. I'm like, fuck it. I'm not trying tonight. I'm not trying at all. A guy there was serving some beans. Now this guy can make some beans. God damn. He made some beans and some rice and avocados. That shit was good. And I had some cacao, which to most people would just be hot fucking chocolate. That shit was good. And that was my dinner. It was delicious. Then I just sat there. I'm like, fuck it. I'm not trying to go talk to motherfuckers tonight. You want to talk to me? I'm holding court over here by the fucking food table.
So one of the women there, the one who'd been proposed to, she says she'd been proposed to nine times. She said the guy she was dating just texted her that he'd marry her, joking or not. I'm like, damn, you got another proposal? What are you doing to these guys? Jesus Christ. And she's basically trying to sell me on herself, and I'm like, I'm not even getting into that. You can count on that. I'm like, that's why I'm careful where I go. Everywhere we go, I see the same people. I'll be careful where I go. I'm not getting into that and getting fucking stuck in it.
Speaking of getting fucking stuck in it, a woman I had been seeing texted me today. She said, hi, Jerry, how's you? You never did say. I'm like, when you're talking like that, you can imagine why I didn't say. But I didn't say because I'm tired of it. Thanks for the book title, Nine Hours Later, which I decided not to bring into the spiritual community. I'm like, you know what? If somebody reads the first three books, then maybe they can get into that. But this one actually talks about this place. And nah, I'm just going to leave that book in the car. You know that? We're going to let these books marinate. These books might be better a decade from now. We're just going to let these books marinate. Like a fine, I was going to say fine wine, but I don't drink. What marinates? Like some fine sauerkraut. How about that?
I was thinking earlier, I'm like, would these books be better if I didn't swear? If I went back to doing straight up normal ass fucking diary entries where I just talked and I was very serious and this is what I did and then that's what I didn't. Fuck that. Fuck that. You got to every moment. Are you on the way to being more yourself and more proud of who you are? Or are you more on the way to being a weak bitch? Because all you do is you just quote the shit that you're told on the news. You're just a goddamn bot. You don't have any life. You know what I loved when I went to visit my sister, my nieces and nephews, especially my nephew. He's 17. I'm like, this boy has life. Just the way he talks. Like, that's how a fucking man should talk. That's how a man should talk. Like he talks like he fucking means it. And he says shit that's offensive. And I like him. I'm like, good. I'm proud of you. I'm like, why am I sitting here talking like some bitch? Why am I talking like that? His 17 year old self, he's taking on the world. His voice is strong. And why am I sitting here like some bitch who just gets pushed around by the system? Like, no. I'm going to get out here and be the man. Bring that teenager back out of me. That guy stomped down. Oh, just be quiet. Don't offend anybody. Fuck that.
I'm not out here trying to get everybody's approval. You know whose approval matters the most to me? It's my own. That's what matters. My own approval. And I feel good letting it all out. Go all out. You know how bad I felt feeling like a weak ass bitch? Like, oh, you can't say that in a book because look at your white ass skin. Fuck that. I identify as Black. That's who I identify as. I've been treated like it by Facebook Gaming, too, just like Charlamagne Tha God said. I wanted to be Black, and they treated me like it, so thank you. You officially made me that, Facebook Gaming, taking away my fat-ass paycheck, and I'm thankful for that today. And this whole system is treating all of us the same today. All of us are getting fucked by this system we're in. And we have the power to be the change we want in the world. If you want to stop shrinking and start being the change too, I'd love for you to schedule a one-on-one call with me and we'll grow through it together.
And the first thing we need to stop doing is stop being weak people that just put up with whatever gets done to us. No. No. Government crosses the line? Fuck that. Your boss crosses the line? Fuck that. Family and friends cross the line? Fuck that. You gotta draw boundaries, and I'm not saying you need to really go nuts, but the response should be proportionate to how much the line is being crossed. Somebody says, Jerry, can I talk to you? No, you cannot talk to me with that attitude. You come back with a different attitude if you want to talk to me. Government comes up with some bullshit mask shit? Fuck that. Make me wear a goddamn mask. Bullshit vaccine shit? Fuck that. Make me get a goddamn shot. Send somebody with guns over here and force me at gunpoint to get a goddamn shot if you want me to fucking have it. You're not going to do it with some words on a screen. No.
So that's what I'm talking about we need in the world. You got to be the kind of person that doesn't put up with that fucking bullshit and lives your truth. And I'm proud to live in my truth. And I don't feel any pressure to sell these books now because maybe it's better for people not to read these books. Isn't it? I got the letter refined today that I'm ready to give out to my neighbors. I printed it out. I showed it to my ex-wife. She said it looks good. Nice. All right, so back at the spiritual community. I was thinking I'd make these shorter, but fuck that too. I'm just going to go on. This is my goddamn soapbox. I'm going to go on as long as I fucking want to. How about that? How about that shit? I'll just rip on as long as I feel like it. Oddly enough, when I say it like that, then I'm like, all right, but we haven't got to the best part of the day yet. I picture somebody listening to this shit in like 10 years. It's going through every fucking day, listening like three hours of Jerry Banfield every day. I'm going to have a call, y'all.
So I get there and I'm like, I'm just going to hold court. I'm going to chill out. I'm not singing any of the songs. I'm good. I'm just going to sit here and receive and be a part of the vibes. You know what I'm saying? And a friend's partner is playing in the band as usual. He plays beautiful on the piano and the drums. And she sits down. I'm like, shit, come sit next to me. And she's like, damn, I'm cold as a bitch out here. And I'm like, here, take my blanket. I brought my blanket off the couch that I'm covered up with now. She's like, you sure? I'm like, yeah, I'm cool. I just went to Michigan. Like, my blood's still thick. Take this blanket.
So I felt so nice, a friend sitting next to me, all the massages that she's given. And I'm so glad we got through, you know, me going to massage school and the times I didn't see her and, you know, me thinking all my crazy shit. And when we first started massaging and she didn't talk much and I felt like there was this connection there with her, but it was frustrating. And then I wasn't seeing her for a massage. And I just felt like her telepathic pull, like I need to come back and see her. And that's cool. That's a beautiful thing. So I sat next to her, just feeling so good to be there with a close friend and to be there watching her partner perform, who I love. And I want to have some more time with both of them together and with him by himself too. And we sat there and we listened to a bunch of songs and my mind was less toxic than usual this time, which was nice. And she and I were talking shit too, here and there, which made it fun.
There were a bunch of people had their babies and their toddlers out there, which was awesome. I was smiling, looking at the kids, laughing with them. And then it came time for Shavasana. I actually brought a yoga mat, was prepared. I didn't sell any fucking books that night either. Not one. And fine. You know what? I got plenty of money. I don't need to sell any books. I am in the middle of abundance. I laid down on the yoga mat. She gave me the blanket back. She insisted I take it. I'm like, you're right, actually. For Shavasana, it'll be nice having that blanket. So I laid down. And I'm like, damn, I feel good. Like, I feel so much better than I did when I got here tonight. Thank you. At the same time, I looked around. I'm like, there is nothing interesting here tonight. But at the same time, I keep thinking, what the fuck do I know? What do I know? I might not know what I really need to know. I might not have any idea about who's here and what's interesting. I might know nothing, like Jon Snow. I might know diddly shit. Turns out.
So I talked to a hypnotist afterwards. I got her card. And now I know I love having a hypnotist in my support people. And I'll do a session with her about something. Next time I get fucked up on something, we'll do a session with her. And then I take my books out to the car, get my blanket wrapped around me. I'm about ready to go. And a friend and her partner are talking, so I go up to them, say hi to him, give him a hug, thank you for his music. Then guess what happens? Any of y'all see this shit coming? Do any of you see what I'm about to say coming right now? Because I didn't see this shit coming, I'll tell you that. A woman I'd been talking to walks up.
She's actually in Nine Hours Later. The first one that I fell in love with at one of these spiritual community events. I think it was the first event I went to on October 25th for Halloween, which is in the Nine Hours Later book. She walks up and interrupts us, just like a guy from the community. But I'm glad she interrupted us. She's like, hey, you remember me? And I'm like, oh, shit. Oh, she's looking fucking fine, too. I talked to her a little bit, give her a hug. My friend and her partner take a quick cue to head out.
And then the guy from the community walks out. I'm like, swear to God, this guy tries to talk to her right now, like he did with a woman I'd been interested in. I'm going to fucking pull his hair and kick him in the ass and fucking punch him in the face, throw him in the water. You know, I'm not going to do that shit for real, but I was just like, I swear to God, this guy tries to talk to her right now, I'm gonna lose it on his ass. But he just smiles and walks by. I'm like, thank you. All right, so maybe it is a little chemistry you and her have. It's not just you need to talk to every girl that I'm trying to talk to. Good. Love you, man. I bet you're honored to be included in my goddamn story. Yeah.
So I talked to her, the woman I'd been talking to. She's laughing her little ass off. She's laughing at all the stupid shit I say. And I'm like, damn, you need some more of this in your life. And then I told her, I'm like, you know, I didn't feel very good about that last voice memo I sent. She's like, you know, I thought it was friendly. It was fine. You just said you'd like to give me a chance to reconsider. And she was all turned on and flirty and touching me and laughing. I'm like, what's she trying to do right now? I told her, I'm like, well, shit, you got any time in January? She's like, no, no. But she said, are you going to the citizen meetup that they're going to have on Monday night? I'm like, I don't know. Because I got a date scheduled with a woman I went out with at 4:44 PM on Monday and the citizen shit's at seven. So I don't know. I mean, if it goes well, I might not, but if it doesn't, I might. She's like, well, you're going to the new year's dance. I'm like, yeah, I should be there. She's like, all right, well, I'll see you around. And I'm like, what is happening right now? She clearly likes me. She said she wasn't dating at all before, she was busy and traveling.
I'm like, is this going to be like with a friend where, you know, I saw her a couple of times, went to see another therapist for a month or two, but I kept feeling her telepathic pull. I'm like, I need to go schedule again with her, even though my mind was like, why? You didn't hardly talk to her. You know, there's nothing special there. Why? I'm like, I don't know. I just need to go see her again. And sure enough, that third time I went to see her, then it's like, oh, there is something here. We got a nice little friendship. We got a, you know, we got a soul connection. And it was, I'm like, what, so, yeah, I'm leaving tonight, I pack up, I'm like, damn, now, seeing the woman I'd been talking to again felt real, real nice, and she was looking fine, she was looking absolutely gorgeous, and, yeah.
All right, so, we need to go back to, on the way out tonight, a woman I had been seeing texted me. The message came while I was driving out there. It's like she can feel exactly where I'm at in my life. Like minutes after I get divorced, she texts me. And then today I'm on the way to go to the spiritual community where it turns out the woman I'd been talking to is there too. And she texts me. So on the way out there tonight in my car out loud, I'm talking to whoever. And I'm like, you can do better than her, and I say her name, which I'm not going to say in here because I've been talking so much shit about her. Much love to her, though. I love her. Much love. Appreciate her in my life. Appreciate her being part of my life a month and a half ago. Appreciate her being friendly. But at the same time, I'm like, you can do better than her. That's what I said on the way to the event about a woman I had been seeing. I'm like, you can do better than her. I said that shit forcefully out loud. And then I laughed. If you're weighing whether to move on from something or someone, I'd be glad to talk it through with you — book a private one-on-one call with me and bring it whenever you're ready.
All right, so after talking to the woman I'd been talking to, I packed the rest of my shit up in my car, and I'm driving home, and I say out loud, that's what the fuck I'm talking about. That's what the fuck I'm talking about. Yes. That's what you can do. From now on, that's what you are going to do. That's the kind of woman I want in my life. A fine, beautiful woman that finds me funny. She must have laughed a hundred times at the silly shit I said. She was smiling and laughing her ass off at me. That's one of the most positive reactions I've had out of a girl since I talked to a woman I'd been interested in. So, that left me feeling really nice tonight. I'm like, thank you. Thank you. That feels really good. That's validation at a bare minimum. That's nice validation.
You know what? Maybe next month things go somewhere with one of these women. Or, you know, one that things were going really well with would be fine also. But I'm glad I went. I'm glad I got through all the thoughts in my mind being whiny and bitchy and being like, eh, eh, eh. And this was a fun day, man. This was a fun day. I am thinking if I end up marrying someone like the woman I'd been talking to and have a kid, I might have some real boring-ass journal entries. Like, yeah, I spent time with my wife, parented my child, helped people write books, and that's it. But not today, baby. Not today. We got some more interesting material. Thank you.
It's checkout time. We gotta go. We gotta go. The woman I'd been talking to made my fucking day today, let me tell you. Seeing her smile at me, seeing her laugh at me. She actually proactively touched me a few times when I was talking. I'm like, I'll be damned. I'll be damned. I'll be damned. Yes, please. Picture me rolling home in the car being like, that's what the fuck I'm talking about. From now on, women like her. All right, fuck.
Resume dictation. There's one thing I forgot to add. After a woman I had been seeing messaged me today, I'm like, I need to shut this down. Like, she got a fire for me. I need to dump some water on that shit and put it out. So here's a message I sent her back. I said, I got a date with a girl I'm really looking forward to on Monday, and I'm moving to a house in January that all my family and friends are really excited about. I made a new business plan for helping people write books, and that should take care of my finances. You see, the idea of that message is to stop her from thinking that we're going to get back together. But at the same time, just being honest and not trying to make it about her. It's like, look, I got better options up here. Especially after seeing the woman I'd been talking to tonight. It's like, I am never going to see you again when there's women like that who actually like me. No way. No way. Sorry. I'm just not feeling that connection anymore. And just being around a woman like the one I'd been talking to is so much fun. Her laughter. She's in her late 20s. It's like, sorry, you're not as fun. And I'm demanding fun. I want fun. And if it's not that, I'd rather be single. Have more time with the kids. More time to talk shit in books like this. More time to help people write books and make money, and get my shit together because you know, if a woman like that wanted to date me, I probably need to have my financial shit together. I'm making like 100 plus grand a year. Shit, you know, that looks attractive to a girl to be a stay-at-home mom. So that's how I was reading back my text messages. I'm like, shit, I need to talk about that today too. So peace out, y'all. Appreciate you.
If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.
I Want More Play, Less Seriousness
Originally published December 12, 2025.
This is my journal entry from December 12, 2025, part of my daily autobiography Divorce Day — my real, unedited days, published in order.
All right, let’s be more playful. I’m tired of going through life feeling like I’ve got a stick up my ass, trying to hold everything so tightly that nothing moves. It feels so fucking good just loosening up for a second.
Earlier today I was reading my diary entries from October 27, and holy shit, that had me a little fucked up. Going back through those entries stirred something in me and left me with a realization. I want to be funnier. I want to be more playful. Lately I’ve been thinking about what I’m going to do with a life coach on Sunday. I’ve got a life coaching session scheduled at her house, and part of me has been wondering whether I might want to date her. I kept asking myself what I’m actually going to work on during that session. Am I really going to show up and dig into some serious, heavy topic?
While I was reading through this book about texting women, an idea popped into my head. I want to work on being playful with the life coach. That’s what I want to focus on. I want more play in my life because lately there’s been way too much seriousness.
So I started practicing a little bit. I texted my sister. She had said she was reaching out to someone to get a guy’s number and told me she’d keep me posted on Wednesday. I replied, “Tonight I’ve been holding my breath here waiting to find out.” Just something a little more playful.
Then I started looking through my texts and thought, holy shit, this thing is like a goddamn graveyard. A friend texted me on Thanksgiving and I didn’t reply, which honestly might have been the best strategy. Then a couple weeks later she texted again and said, “Hey Jerry, how are you?” I replied with something like, “Hey, I’m doing great. Thanks for asking. I’m going to a local spiritual community Shop tonight and I’ll be at the dance party Saturday. What’s new with you?” No response since yesterday.
Looking at it now, my texts are so logical and flat. There’s no playfulness in them at all. The girl from AA used just a few words to introduce herself and reply to my first message. I sent two messages. She replied, “Thanks for letting me know.” Then there’s a massage therapist. She sent a long message, and of course I sent a long message back, and then nothing. With a life coach I probably should have just let her last message stand instead of trying to one up it with another reply.
You could say I’m fault finding, but really I’m trying to learn and grow. I’m telling myself, quit being a goddamn bitch about texting and dating. Remember what worked when I was house hunting. I realized I had what the landlords wanted. I knew what they were looking for. Same thing here. I have what women want. Just like those homeowners who want someone to rent their houses or those apartment complexes that want someone to pay rent. I’ve got what they want.
There are thousands of places I could live in St. Petersburg right now. I could afford most of them too. There are even some that might be a little financially optimistic, like that $7,000 a month house with five bedrooms, four bathrooms, a pool, and a lanai. To get that one I’d probably have to lie pretty far up about my income, but still, the point is there’s abundance.
Earlier today I asked ChatGPT about my pricing and my plans. The short version is that I’m thinking about charging $1,234.56 a month to coach people while they write their books. Then $3,456.78 for a full ghostwriting service like the one I’m doing with an older friend. One person paying that would cover my rent. Add a couple more clients and suddenly that’s $10,000 a month. Let’s blow this bitch up. If you have a book in you and want help turning both the writing and the business side of it into something real, you can set up a call with me and we’ll map out your plan.
While reading this book about texting women, it keeps saying the same thing. Stop getting ghosted, spark attraction, make her chase you, whatever. The core advice is basically just be yourself and be playful. That’s where I run into this mental block. I feel like I can’t fully be myself with women because some of the stuff I think about sending would probably be offensive.
For example, when a woman texts something simple like “How’s your day?” part of me wants to respond with something like, “You haven’t talked to me for two goddamn weeks. How the fuck do you think my day’s been? I’ve been dying over here waiting for you to reply.” In my mind that kind of message would be funny.
Then the book gives these examples that feel kind of lame to me. It says compare responses like this. One version is “How was your weekend?” and the reply is “Good, you?” The supposedly better version is something like, “So did your weekend actually live up to the hype or was it all snacks and regret?” Yeah, that’s nice, isn’t it? Reading some of those example replies in the book makes me laugh because they feel so forced. It almost feels like someone trying too hard to be playful instead of just actually being playful.
I catch myself thinking about the kinds of messages that pop into my head and realizing there’s a huge difference between what I find funny internally and what I could realistically send to someone. A lot of the thoughts that come up are way too intense or sarcastic to actually text. Like when a friend sent, “Hey Jerry, how are you?” part of me wanted to reply with something ridiculous and over the top. Obviously I’m not going to send something like that. Or something over the top like, “I was just thinking I’ll father the five kids you’re looking for. How are you doing today?” The stuff that pops into my mind is funny to me, but it’s not something you can actually send.
It’s the same thing thinking about the massage therapist’s message. She wrote this long thoughtful message asking how things are going with the holidays and the new chapter in my life. My brain jumps to these extreme, over-the-top jokes that obviously aren’t the kind of thing you send in a text. Still, it shows me that the playful energy is in there somewhere. I just need to figure out how to channel it into something that actually works.
When I look through my messages, though, the bigger pattern is that most of them are just flat and overly logical. I was reading back through what I sent the woman from yoga and almost cringing. On November 1 I sent a message that just said my name, Jerry Banfield. She liked it ten hours later. Then a few days ago on Sunday morning I texted, “Good morning. Haven’t seen you in yoga forever. I’m going to 10 a.m. this morning and 9 a.m. tomorrow morning.” That part actually felt like a decent message. Direct and clear.
She replied four hours later saying, “Hey, I’ll see you tomorrow at 9 a.m. Had my little one this weekend.” Then she didn’t show up for the class, and I followed up saying, “We missed you at yoga. I’m guessing you had some mom duties come up.” Twenty-six hours later she replied that she had trouble getting her little one out the door in the morning and asked what class I was going to tomorrow. I told her I probably couldn’t make class the next couple days but would be at the 9 a.m. Friday and probably the 10:30 Saturday.
Then I read the next message I sent and just shook my head. Four minutes later I wrote, “I would love to have some more time to talk to you outside the studio. How would you feel about meeting up at Crescent Lake Park sometime?” Looking back at that, it just feels weak and overly formal. The energy of it feels timid instead of confident.
Sometimes in life you have to see clearly what you don’t want to do before you stop doing it. Reading that message makes it obvious that I don’t want to keep sending texts like that. It’s too stiff and overly careful.
As I scroll through everything, I can see the patterns. Short responses from some women, long thoughtful ones from others, and a lot of my own messages sitting somewhere in the middle where they’re technically fine but lacking personality. The real takeaway from all of this is that I’m learning what works and what doesn’t. The playful energy is there, the confidence is there, and now it’s just a matter of expressing it better instead of defaulting to flat, overly logical messages. If your own texting reads back flat and you can’t find the playful, confident version of yourself on the screen, you can book a one-on-one call with me and we’ll work on it together.
Today my son had a little bathroom accident, the kind young kids sometimes have. It reminded me of something that happened to me when I was a kid. My kids used to make fun of me because I told them about it. I was sitting in kindergarten one day and went to rip a fart and ended up shitting my pants all over the place. I didn’t know anything about that Hershey Squirt situation back then. I remember being in the bathroom looking down at my underwear thinking, fuck, this is everywhere. I knew I had to tell the teacher so they could call my dad.
I still remember my dad spraying me off in the shower when he picked me up and how good it felt to be clean again. Back then it didn’t feel awkward at all being naked in front of my dad. It felt normal, the same way my son feels now. Kids don’t carry all the weird shame adults sometimes do.
When my ex-wife and I talked about my son today, I quoted a line from a D12 song by Bizarre about an embarrassing bathroom moment. My ex-wife immediately said she knew that was exactly what I was going to say. It struck me that she might be the only person in the world who would instantly know I was going to say that line in that situation. I love that about her.
At the same time, loving something about someone doesn’t mean you have to stay married. When I think about my ex-wife and the life coach, I notice I’m curious about what a new connection could be like, even if part of me knows it might be a little complicated territory.
What I really want is a woman who can handle my sense of humor. I want someone who can laugh at dark, outrageous jokes. Someone who could sit down and watch something like Anthony Jeselnik’s special Fire in the Maternity Ward and actually laugh with me. When I first heard that special I wasn’t in a place where I could laugh at it. There are a lot of dead baby jokes in there, and I love my kids and babies in general. But now I find that kind of shock humor funny. To me it feels like you should be able to laugh about anything.
Getting on with my day, I started off by dropping the kids off at school and then I went and played tennis with my friends. I whooped everybody’s ass out there too. Everybody got fucked up on that court today. There was one guy my age who was having a rough day. He was on my team though, and we still beat the other guys 6–1. Then we rotated and had two older guys playing with us. The funny part was that me and one of the older guys turned around and beat my friend and the other older guy 6–0. My friend was laughing and said, “Just take me out back and shoot me.” I told him I’d really hate to do that to him and he should just get some coaching with my tennis coach again.
After tennis I went to the airbase with my mom. While we were walking around I practiced smiling at every pretty woman I saw. I generally try to be friendly with people. Of course, if one of the pretty women doesn’t even look at me I notice myself getting resentful for a second. My mind jumps to something like, how many boyfriends you got up in that ass right now?
My mom and I had a nice time at the base. She ended up buying me a set of stainless-steel pots and pans because I told her I’m done with that Teflon bullshit that flakes off and ends up in your food. I don’t want that peeling off into my gut.
Afterward I asked Google’s AI about it. I said something like, “All right Google, I want to buy a pan that doesn’t have that crap shit on the outside of it.” Google’s AI comes back acting like a smartass and says something along the lines of, “The cheap black crap you’re referring to is likely a synthetic nonstick coating made from PTFE, polytetrafluoroethylene, commonly known by the brand name Teflon.” Then I scroll down and the AI keeps quoting me, saying things like cookware that won’t have the flaking “black crap” that needs recoating.
I’m thinking, all right, that’s once. But then I ask another question about stainless steel and the thing responds again, saying it doesn’t have a separate “crap coating.” I’m sitting there wondering how many times this thing is going to quote my use of the word crap back to me. Then I ask about carbon steel and it says something like “Key facts about carbon steel: no ‘crap coating’ to peel.” At that point I’m laughing because the AI is basically mocking me.
It actually does feel like it has a little bit of a sense of humor. Like it’s saying, okay Jerry, you and your black crap shit pans. The only time it didn’t quote me was in the third response when I asked about stainless steel.
Earlier in the day I had a salad before going to the airbase with my mom. When I got home I made some bean soup for dinner. I had cooked about half a bag of pinto beans in the Instant Pot. I scooped a few ladles into a bowl and then dumped some dry oats right into the beans and broth. I grabbed three stalks of celery from the fridge, ripped the top and bottom off for no particular reason other than I’m not living in North Korea, then used my teeth to bite the celery into pieces and spit them back into the soup. After that I dumped three tablespoons of coconut oil into the bowl for flavor, added some salt, seasoning, and nutritional yeast, mixed it all up, and ate the whole thing. That was dinner. That’s some healthy eating right there.
After dinner I went to my son’s soccer game. My ex-wife was there and we had a nice conversation on the sidelines. It was actually easy talking with her. Then I went home, washed my new pots and pans, and headed out to an AA meeting.
At the meeting people were talking about how you’re not God and how the whole point is to bow down and serve God. Sitting there listening, part of me had this totally opposite reaction. I’m thinking, I’m God. This is my universe. I came in like, I’m God. This is my universe. I am the creator. I am source. This body and all bodies, all of you and everything here, is my creation. That’s the feeling that came up for me.
At the same time, I can see the whole journey I’ve had with that idea. There were years where I felt like I was fighting God, like I was separate from God. Over time that turned into feeling closer and closer to God, like we were coming together instead of being in opposition. In my head tonight the thought came out in this ridiculous, over the top way where it was like I finally fucked God so hard we became one. That was the kind of wild, irreverent thought running through my mind.
After the meeting I asked ChatGPT what I should do with my life. I was sitting there thinking about the fact that I’ve got two fully finished diary books that I haven’t done anything with. ChatGPT basically told me, Jerry, you should publish those. They’re taking up mental weight just sitting there unfinished.
So I went back and started looking through the October 27 entry. That one alone was about thirty minutes of dictation. Reading it again tonight had me laughing. That entry is funny as hell. I could picture someone reading this twenty or thirty years from now and it being even funnier then, the same way Eddie Murphy’s stand up from the 1980s is still hilarious today when you watch it.
It made me think about the future for a second. Someday it’ll be checkout time for all of us. Everyone’s going to go eventually. Maybe someday somebody will be reading these entries long after all of us are gone. Hopefully not next week or anything like that, but eventually. And if someone is reading this decades from now, there’s a good chance everyone I’m talking about in these stories will be long gone by then. That thought alone made me laugh sitting there tonight.
If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.
Play, Fun and Music: Why I Make Space to Laugh and Play
Originally published August 11, 2025.
Here is where I have landed on play after years of getting it wrong. Play is not a reward you earn once the serious work is finished. It is part of the work and part of a good life. For a long time I treated fun as a luxury. Now I think a life with no play in it gets stiff, and I can see that stiffness in my own habits. My view today is simple: fun is valuable, satisfying work is valuable too, and I try to make room for both.
If you are searching this subject, you are probably either too serious to enjoy anything or having fun and wondering whether it is a waste of time. The posts below are my honest record of working through both. I wrote them as diary entries and video logs, not as a program, so there is some mess along with the conclusions.
The first post here is Rediscovering Play, Fun, and Laughter, from March 2024. I was very serious then, and I wanted to know where my creativity had gone. I found my fun in the studio when I just let myself play. I made three music videos full of random sounds and gibberish lyrics, and the people watching on Twitch were laughing along. A Seth book line stayed with me: one of the first signs of losing your vitality is that you stop playing and start analyzing your personal problems.
Two months later, in How Music Increases Creativity, Intelligence, and Happiness, I went much bigger. I argued that music with new sounds and frequencies opens the mind, and that much popular music is so repetitive it keeps people in a trance. The thread through that post is that the things that make me feel most alive are the things I have never heard before.
By August 2025 the lesson had become more grounded. In Fun Is Valuable, but Satisfying Is Too I wrote about a plain chore. My dishwasher's heating element was broken, so I hand-washed dishes every day. When my son said picking up dog poop wasn't fun, I told him fun is valuable, but satisfying is valuable too. That post also looked back at more than $2,000 I had spent on Marvel Snap, and how quitting meant facing my own dissatisfaction.
In I Want More Play, Less Seriousness, from December 2025, I read back through my texts and found them flat and overly logical. The jokes that come to mind are often too intense to send, so I end up sending stiff, careful messages. The answer I wrote down was not to fake a personality. It was to let the playful, confident version of myself show up on the screen.
One week later, Dance Like No One's Watching showed that side in action. I played air hockey on the couch and Harry Potter Monopoly with my daughter, and I wrote that there is still a part of me, this seventeen-year-old, that has not grown up at all, and that is the playful part. The entry is raw and profane in places, so it is not for everyone.
In January 2026, in Get Out of the House and Throw the Football, the lesson was about connection. After a cold message from a woman, my instinct was to sit alone with it. Instead I saw a man throwing a football by himself at an AA event and asked if he wanted a partner. We threw for nearly an hour. I wrote that days like that remind me how good it feels to just show up and connect with someone.
The two newest posts bring the threads together. In Asking for Help, Making Music with Joy, and Expansion I wrote about how hard it is for grownups to ask for help, and how the music I make comes from just playing around in my studio. My path of joy might be learning music, doing my vlog, and continuing to help people in Alcoholics Anonymous, yoga and tennis.
The newest post, Anything Worth Doing Is Worth Doing Poorly, is the one I would send to anyone who thinks they must be good before they can enjoy something. I had played tennis for less than a year when I lost 6-3, 6-4 to a man who could have been my dad's age. I wrote that it is okay if I am only ever a poor tennis player, because playing is worth it.
Start with the 2024 posts for the basics, or the 2025 and 2026 entries for the day-to-day. If you want help making more room for play in your own life, you can get a personal video review from me.
On this page
Every post I have written on this subject is below in full, newest first, each under its own heading.
- Anything Worth Doing Is Worth Doing Poorly (June 17, 2026)
- Asking for Help, Making Music with Joy, and Expansion (June 17, 2026)
- Get Out of the House and Throw the Football (January 10, 2026)
- Dance Like No One's Watching (December 19, 2025)
- I Want More Play, Less Seriousness (December 12, 2025)
Anything Worth Doing Is Worth Doing Poorly
From my video published June 17, 2026.
I want to share with you something I've come to believe deeply: anything worth doing is worth doing poorly. So many times in life, especially with all the stuff we watch online, you think you need to do things a certain way, do them really well, or don't even bother. I just finished playing tennis, and I'd say I played poorly, certainly compared to professionals, but even compared to my own performance. I got beat, 6-3, 6-4. But what I'm really proud of today is that I focused on just playing each point, because the idea of good or bad, rich or poor, these are all just stories we tell ourselves.
I've been playing tennis consistently for less than a year. Anything you want to get good at, you should be willing to be poor at it, to be bad at it first. I'm having fun playing tennis, and it's okay if I'm only ever a poor tennis player. If all I am is a poor tennis player my whole life, then that's fine, because it's worth playing tennis. I love getting out here and running around, and I love the people I play with. The guy I played with today, his oldest son was born the same year as me, and he's out here playing singles in the Florida heat. He beat me 6-3, 6-4. I hit lots of poor shots to facilitate that, but he hit lots of great shots too. And it left me thinking about how important this is. If you want to do something, you should be willing to be awful at it first, not expect that you should just be good at it. And don't be delusional either and think you're good at something you just started.
Why Not Just Do What I'm Already Good At?
Some days I wonder, why even bother playing tennis? Why don't I just do YouTube all the time, because that's what I'm good at? Shouldn't I just do YouTube? Why wash the dishes when somebody else could wash the dishes? I should just specialize and only do stuff I'm good at. What I find, though, is that there's a lot of value in humility. I put out six videos a day, and not many channels do that. But then I go out and play tennis, and a lot of the people there are playing better than me. I go to the tennis clinics on Thursdays here with the men at the racquet club, and I'm often one of the worst players there. And that's good, because then I don't feel different. I don't feel special. If I just did YouTube all the time, I might feel special, like there's something special about Jerry Banfield. But no, watch me play tennis and you'll see there's nothing special. Watch me wash the dishes, go for a run, do yoga, and you'll see there's nothing special.
The Show Nobody Came To
I'm actually refilming a video that I filmed about five years ago. I was doing an in-person show in 2020. That's right, an in-person show in the middle of 2020 in Alice, Florida, so we weren't on board with all that BS. I showed up for that show and not one other person did. I ran ads for it. I told people about it. Nobody showed up. And I recorded a video called "anything worth doing is worth doing poorly," and then I deleted it. Then I tried again and again, and eventually I had an in-person show that had like 30 people at it in July 2020. So I got it done. I did it. I had tried a bunch of times to have an in-person event and nobody ever came, and yet I kept trying, and eventually I got it done.
It's the same with tennis. I've thought sometimes that I should quit playing, like why play if I'm not going to work up to being a professional tennis player? But that's a really narrow-minded view of things. There's a lot of value in learning new things that goes way beyond whatever you're going to get out of it in terms of worldly possessions or money or fame or respect. My body loves playing tennis. I love the exercise. I love the people I play with. According to something I heard, that somebody else saw, that somebody else heard, people who play tennis might tend to live nine years longer compared to people who don't.
Positive Role Models on the Court
I'm out here playing with people like the guy I played with today, who could be my dad. My dad passed away, and my dad was only born maybe a handful of years before this guy. And this guy is out here beating me at tennis. My dad passed away because he was not active. He did not play tennis, did not take care of his body, and sat on the couch and watched the news and withered away. So I find positive role models at tennis, because I hear people say things like, oh, you get old and your body falls apart. But a guy who could be my dad just beat me at tennis, singles, in the heat. And I'm in good shape. The girl who signed me up for Crunch the other day said I was athletic. I'm not losing because I can't move. I'm moving. I'm running all over the court. But I run all over the court and he hits back almost all my shots, and then hits shots that I can't even get. And that's inspiring. So when somebody talks about how age somehow equals all this crap, I say no, because I play tennis with someone who defies all of that. I'm sure lots of times today he felt his tennis play was poor compared to what he's capable of, but he beat me.
If It's Worth Doing, It's Worth Doing No Matter How It Comes Out
Lots of things in life that are worth doing are going to come out poorly. Relationships, for one. I have a friend I was talking to, and his relationship is kind of going poorly, but it's worth doing. He's learning. He's growing. He's having fun. He's suffering. A lot of times we beat ourselves up. I didn't like myself with YouTube for years. I've been on YouTube 14 years, and I only have a few hundred videos because I deleted thousands of them. I only have so many views on my videos. But here's what I've come to believe: if it's worth doing, it's worth doing no matter how it comes out. If it's worth doing, it's worth doing no matter what you get out of it. If it was worth filming a video this morning, it's worth filming because it's worth filming, regardless of whether anybody else watches it.
I'm talking to and teaching myself. That's a fact of reality at this moment. It's just me talking to myself at the tennis club right after the game. But you know what? I filmed a video in my car this morning. I filmed another video after tennis. I love filming videos. Even if I'm the only person who ever watches, it's good for me to learn, good for me to teach myself. And then if it teaches you, that's good too.
This is the opposite of what I grew up with. I grew up with "anything worth doing is worth doing well." That's perfectionism. Don't even try doing something unless you can do it well. And I have the opposite message to share today, because the opposite has worked really well for me. I'm so glad I take less time to play video games so that I can play tennis. I essentially started playing tennis out of the hours I used to spend playing video games. And playing tennis one-on-one is so much more satisfying than playing Marvel Snap one-on-one with somebody. Because if I play bad at Marvel Snap, I beat myself up. I suck. Why even play this game if I'm not going to play good at it? But when I get out here and play tennis, even if I play terrible, I get a workout. I get connection. I get FaceTime with another person.
The People You Meet When You Show Up
There are high caliber people at the tennis club. There are people here who have lots of money, because who else is playing tennis at 10:30 in the morning on a Monday? Dudes like me who don't have to be at a 9 to 5 job. Dudes like the guy I play with, who has his own business and who most people would see as quite successful in the world. It's a nice law of attraction. On the court over there, there are women who look like they're in their 50s and 70s, and they're out there playing tennis from 10:30 in the morning to past noon in Florida. It's hot. It's sweaty. It works them out. And they're out there laughing, out there playing tennis, hitting lots of good shots. It doesn't matter if any of us are playing good or playing bad. We're out here. We're showing up. We're living with joy.
I'd rather do something poorly while living with joy than focus all my attention on doing something well and being on top of the world but being stressed and suffering. I really love this YouTuber lifestyle, that I can be out here filming a video and playing tennis on a Monday morning. I did yoga with lots of y'all's wives this morning too. While y'all are at work, I'm doing yoga with your wife, and I really appreciate it. If you want to see more of how I actually live this out day to day, I share a lot of it on my Life playlist. I hope this message lifts you up and is useful for you today.
Asking for Help, Making Music with Joy, and Expansion
From my video published June 17, 2026.
January 18th, 2025, and I am doing a little vlog today. I am closing in on 5,000 days on YouTube. I just went to an AA meeting, and we talked about asking for help, which is a really important thing to do in life. Kids ask for help so naturally, but often as grownups we have the pride and the ego and the self-image, and we don't want to ask for help, be vulnerable, and show people a different side of ourselves. We are also scared of the help we are going to get sometimes. People are going to tell us things we don't want to hear.
When I blew my finances up in 2019 and 2020, I asked for help, and people told me, get a job. I said, no, that's not the help I want. I'm not doing that. And when I was depressed and anxious and crazy, and now five years sober, people said, go to a doctor and get on some medication. I said, no, that's not the help I need. What I'm grateful for is that today I very naturally ask for help. I ask for help in my videos. I ask for help in every aspect of my life. I'm constantly asking for help, for feedback, for guidance, for thoughts, trying to see how what I'm doing is affecting everybody else.
That's one thing that's a little difficult on YouTube. Sometimes you don't really know how what you're doing is affecting someone else unless the comments are there. But once you get to a certain level of popularity, you can't even read the comments anymore. You need to have more of an inner circle that tells you the truth. You get viewership, you get numbers, but how do you know what you're really doing? It's hard to tell what experience you're having on the other end.
The power went out
Last night I was going to record this vlog, but the power went out. It reminded me of a few months ago, and I was having flashbacks of the hurricanes when the power was out for almost a week. Thankfully it came back on in an hour or two. It was nice not having any distractions last night. We had several thousand homes without power. In some countries they don't have power at night all the time. From what I've heard about North Korea, they never have power at night. The power goes off and it's 6 p.m. I haven't lived there personally, but I know there are places on Earth, or I've heard there are, where they don't have running water and they don't have clean drinking water. I sure would love to do whatever I can to help with that. To me, the key thing is to have awareness, and to work together and help each other out on this planet.
Making music with joy
I've been thinking a lot about asking for help and looking for help on things like my music. I listened to my new dance song, the 300th song I made, yesterday in the car with Laura and Jack on the way to soccer. Then I listened to this interview with a couple of guys, and one of them was talking about how he plays music and feels like music is one of the things you can most easily use to enter a higher frequency, so to speak, or oneness, and to change your life by listening to it. Music that is expansive, that is created with joy, and that's created with love.
It was kind of a non-linear process, where I ended up finding this random interview with a musician I'd never listened to before, and he's talking about how he creates his music with joy. He avoided learning and being told how to do his music, and he creates it with joy. And I thought, that's what I'm doing. I'm just in my studio playing around, having fun making my music. A lot of times my mind says that's not worth anything, that I have to make money or get viewership or fame off my music. Other times I think my music is my future.
The crypto videos are very hot right now. I don't know, the bigger ICP gets, I don't know that my voice will be needed as much. My voice in ICP was needed when hardly anybody was talking about it and it's the best technology. But when everybody's talking about ICP and there's all kinds of stuff built on it, I'm feeling like the path of joy for the future is learning music, doing a vlog, and continuing to help people in Alcoholics Anonymous, yoga, and tennis.
Knowing yourself
I played tennis yesterday morning, and I had a great conversation with a guy after the meeting too, about sex and relationships and more open-minded practices. It was great. It left me feeling like my mind often thinks more like a freak, so to speak, and thinks it'd be great to have a bunch of multiple wives and girlfriends. But if I remember back to my childhood, and even being a teenager, 19 or 20 years old, I was a guy who wanted a relationship with one woman. I didn't want to be with a whole bunch of women. Back in first, second, and third grade, I wasn't fantasizing most of the time about being with a bunch of women. I just wanted one woman. I wanted a wife. I wanted a girlfriend. I wanted one woman to love and to be loved by.
Then with all our culture, it encourages a lot of promiscuity, and there's nothing wrong with that. It's just that you need to know thyself. It seems that this body and this mind generally lean toward monogamy, and some of the thoughts I have otherwise are distractions. Sure, some of the stuff I talked about yesterday with the guy who has experienced some of these things that I haven't, it sounded interesting, but more of it sounded gross than something I'd really like to engage in. No judgment against anybody else. You've got to know yourself. I've often had all these thoughts that I'd love to be with a whole bunch of different women, but now I'm really glad I'm settling in. I really enjoy just being with my wife, the two of us with each other. When you start bringing a bunch of other people in, it gets complicated, and life is complicated enough. There's enough complexity.
Genius is simplifying complexity
I talked to the guy about internet computer last night. He has at least 10 times as much internet computer as I do, and he had an entire single-spaced page of questions to ask. That's how complex just internet computer is, and that's only a fraction of the total questions you could ask about it, but those are the ones most relevant for investing. Our world is complexity. To me, genius is being able to take a bunch of complexity and simplify it, because anyone can fragment things and make them complicated. Anyone can create all these terms and try to make things complex. A lot of science is made complicated to prevent you from understanding it. There's a lot of science that could be explained very simply.
Things like gravity could be explained as a law of attraction. We're all here because we choose to be here. You don't have to use all these forces and stuff. We're all attracted to this planet because we want to be here. I had a dream a while back where I was in a levitation class, and we were all practicing levitation. Some people were floating way up, and there was a building, at night, with no roof on it. Some people were floating out of the container of the building, and I could barely get my butt off the ground. But that's the expansive reality I love living in today.
My calling is expansion
What I'm always seeking is to expand my reality, and my intention with my vlogs is to help expand your reality too. I hope to introduce you consistently to new ideas here, new ways of thinking, and to expand it. Like the musician was saying, a lot of times we're obsessed with one direction. I want to ascend, to get into higher and higher frequencies. But expansion means lower frequencies too. It means sideways, the same frequency in a different way. To me, it seems like the number one calling of my soul is expansion and growth.
A lot of us think that we stop growing as kids. What I see is that our physical body's growth is heavily prioritized in the first maybe 20 years of life. But in my experience, after that, there should be constant mental growth and expansion. I believe that is essential for good health as well. I see that people whose minds get stuck and don't grow anymore, who get rigid, also tend to experience poor health. I'm glad I came with a clear intention for my vlog. That's my goal here: to create something every day that records my own expansions and gives that to you. You can follow more of these reflections in my Life playlist. Thanks for experiencing this with me.
Get Out of the House and Throw the Football
Originally published January 10, 2026.
This is my journal entry from January 10, 2026 — my real, unedited day, shared just as it happened.
Wake up first thing this morning to a message from a woman I had been seeing that feels pretty cold. Maybe she didn't mean it as cold as it sounded, but I was so happy to see a message from her. And then her message says, or if you believe I still owe you for the work you've done, at your convenience, please let me know. I hope your holidays went well and you're enjoying a fresh start of 2026. Almost sounds like AI wrote that or something. Maybe it did. So I'm like, Jesus, that feels like a nice cold message. So three minutes later, I sent back, good morning, I'm satisfied with the exchange we did for the work. Like my message topped her message in coldness.
Got up feeling kind of just like, fuck, can't we do better than this as humans? Like, can't we be nicer and warmer and loving to each other? Maybe it's my own filter. Maybe she did mean her message to be warm and I just filtered it as being cold and absolutely like nothing. You know, maybe is that warmth in the message when she says, good morning, I'm sorry, things have been hectic and I haven't had much free time. Her shit's always hectic, though. Like, fucking people, why is your life so hectic? Like, I just got divorced. I quit my career. I moved, and I wouldn't say my life has been hectic. What the fuck are y'all doing? Like, I guess I know some of you have jobs and kids, and she does not have kids. Like, her life shouldn't be so hectic, except that she seems incapable of doing a good job handling the routine shit that she has to deal with like moving and working. But maybe she did, you know, she said, I hope your holidays went well. Maybe, maybe my message was too cold for her, but you know what? Fuck. It's, you know, whatever. I don't know what to do anymore. So then, after messaging her, I woke up with a nasty taste in my mouth, like, ugh. And maybe it was even worse because of the message I sent. Like I interpreted her message cold, so I sent mine back as cold.
Then I took some time to get things organized and ready for the kids this morning. And there's an AA event that started at 11, but I'm not feeling a sound bowl meditation. So I went to my gym to work out and lift some weights a little bit, which was good. Then I ended up getting to the part of the AA event that had food. So I got there at like 12, you know, 20 after 12 or something. I got there and went straight to the food. And there are lots of people I know and I enjoyed talking to them.
And then there's a girl that I'd asked a few weeks before if she wanted to date. And I was feeling awkward. I'm like, oh, you know, I didn't even want to like talk to her, say hi or be friendly or anything. But then she was sitting by herself with her dog for at least five minutes eating. I'm like, fuck, if I'm going to talk to her, I should do it. So I went over to talk to her. And keep in mind, she dated one of the guys there previously that was also at this thing. So I talked to her for a while about dating and stuff. And she's been single most of her life, which is crazy to me. I mean, I remember being single a lot of my 20s. You know, I've actually been in a relationship most of my adult life. And she said she didn't want to have kids either. So that's good to know. No point in trying to date her. But she's pretty. We have a lot in common with AA and yoga. And she has a job. She works. But at the same time, what kind of life is this for her? Where she's just single most of the time and hanging out with her family. I guess that's fine. My aunt lived mostly like that. But my aunt had a bunch of other kids to raise, you know, elder parents and stuff to take care of. Like my aunt had a very busy full life with her family, but I guess it's fair for all of us to live how we want to live, right? But what's best for the collective? What's best for planet Earth? I feel like having more kids and, you know, being joyful and connecting with other people is, you know, that's where life is. This girl spends a lot of time like at home working and then on her devices watching TV and stuff, it seems like. But she also does have lots of stuff to do with her family as well. I talked to her and she doesn't do online dating either, which is nice validation. It's like, you know, the kind of girl I want to meet and I overlap a lot. And if you want to meet her, you can't find her online, which is great. Like, I want to be looking for girls that are not online dating. She said online dating is too much work. And that's interesting to hear that it's too much work for girls, too, because, you know, you got to sort through a lot of guys.
I talked to another girl who is maybe seven or so years older than me. She's also pretty. My sponsor really likes her, but I'm kind of on the fence about her. She said she's been single for three years, and the only thing she misses is the sex. I'm like, yeah, I get that. She's like, well, I just want the perfect man to come along. And which leaves me thinking, am I trying to put too many conditions on the perfect woman? Am I demanding too much? Because it certainly seems like some of these girls are demanding too much or they're demanding arbitrary things that don't matter. Like, you know, you got to agree on politics or something, which, you know, I guess if you want to talk politics all the time and bitch about the same thing, maybe that'll work and you can bond over it. But I guess what matters to each person is different. And it seems like too many people are too picky these days. But then it's like, I can't control them. What can I do with myself? Should I lower my standards? And which area should I lower them in? I don't know. As long as I feel really excited about someone, that is what matters. And that's what I kind of got to talking with these girls is like, I really need to feel really excited about someone. And I'd get excited easily, but I lose interest easily.
Like a woman I'd been talking to. I messaged her yesterday about reading my letters. She said she couldn't make it. So then I messaged her this morning saying that my son had soccer and I'm available this afternoon, tomorrow afternoon. So then she said she won't be back this weekend, blah, blah, blah. So I sent a message that I said I'm happy to do my share of the driving if you'd like me to come up. So then she sends like a three-minute voice memo message explaining why it totally makes sense for her to sit in her fucking house that she can't wait to get out of because it's these other people that she doesn't like living with and she's dog sitting and she doesn't want anybody to come over this house, but at the same time, she doesn't want to get out of it either. She thinks the best thing to do is to sit alone in her house all weekend.
So I sent a voice memo back saying, it seems if I share more from my experience, people can pick up on it if they want to, but at the same time aren't quite as defensive. So I said the most miserable times in my life were sitting at home by myself trying to figure things out. And meanwhile, where I did truly thrive in figuring things out and making changes is by being with other people. Like the day I got divorced, as you can read about in The Kind Divorce, or the day my ex-wife and I decided it. The next day, I spent all day talking to people. I didn't sit in my fucking house trying to figure it all out. I talked to my sponsor. I talked to another guy in AA. And I talked to several other people. The next day, I spent hours on the phone with my sister and with my massage therapist. And the day after my ex-wife and I talked about it, I met up with a woman I know and spent two hours talking to her. Like, I got out of the fucking house and talked to people. I've learned the hard way that I come alive around people instead of alone, and if you feel that too, you can set up a call with me and talk it through together on our call.
I just don't understand how — I do understand. Like people rationalize and think that somehow sitting in your house by yourself, you're going to figure shit out. Do you think an ant sitting off in the corner is going to figure shit out for the ant colony? Like, no, you need to be out there talking to people, interacting with people. Now, yes, I get if you've been out at work all day socializing and, you know, doing that at work, then, yeah, you might need one to three hours at home to have some quiet time or somewhere to like unwind. But it seems to me that the most depressed I've been in my life has been the times when I've spent a bunch of time at home wallowing in self-pity. And to me, it just looks like that's exactly what — maybe that's not what she's doing, but I sent her that and explained it similar to how I did here. And then I also said what I noticed is people often say they want one thing, but if you look at their actions, their actions don't indicate that they actually want that. And with her, her actions do not line up with what she says she wants. She says she wants a nice place to live. She says she wants to do some work she loves, and she says she thinks she has a lover coming along, but look how she acts with me. I show her a place that if she'd have cooperated and been open, she could have moved in here. I'm open and available and showed interest in being her lover, and I have money in the bank. I could pay her to do stuff. I sent her an invitation.
My sister gave me feedback on my letter and I'll talk more about that in a minute. I sent my sister $50 for giving me feedback on my letter. Like here was the easy money for her — saying that she has like, you know, one or $200 in a bank, she's getting stressful, I send an easy opportunity to easily make money in like an hour by reading a fucking letter. And I told her, and I didn't go in on her specifically, but I said, what I see often is people say they want to get sober in Alcoholics Anonymous, but will they go to AA meetings? No. Will they get a sponsor? No. Will they read the book? No. And then they drink. And it's like they didn't actually really want to get sober. If you really want to do something, your actions must match and you must be open to what you want. And she's a perfect example. Like she's not open to what she says she wants.
If she was open and, you know — it's probably good for me that she's not because I can find someone that's probably much, you know, that I'm more excited about. I was excited about her, but she totally fucked it up by being closed off to me, by holding back, by keeping her distance, by wallowing in her shit by herself, you know, by not being open. And it's like if you just watch her, it's like, what the fuck is she doing? Like this guy's into her, interested, has all the stuff she says she wants. And what does she do? She doesn't want to make out with him. She leaves, you know, and says she's not going to be available, and then she's talking about how bad her situation is living. But is she doing anything? Is she walking through the open doors to improve it? No.
And while I can't do anything about her, I did send her a six-minute voice memo, sharing this, like, hey, you should think about this. Meanwhile, I notice sometimes that I'll do that as well, that I'll say I want one thing but act another way. With a woman I had been seeing, it's like she matched so many of the things I wanted on paper, but once we were actually together I realized the connection and the attraction just weren't there for me. I'm like, come on, universe. You can do a little bit better than that, right? I know I've got my own work to do on being clearer about what I actually want and not stringing people along.
So after I sent that voice memo and I talked with some of the people at the AA party, then I found a lot of the AA thing was wrapping up around like 1:30. So some of the people were sitting in a circle and just talking. And I see this guy throwing the football to himself, like throwing it and then going to get it, tossing it up in the air. And I watched this guy for like five minutes. And meanwhile, the one girl that talked to me that is pretty and that doesn't want kids that I mentioned earlier, she's sitting next to me, but we're not talking or anything. I'm looking at this guy throwing a football, and I see a couple of objectives at once. Number one, I'd love to throw the football. Number two, this guy looks like he could use somebody to throw the football with. And number three, what a great opportunity for peacocking or for showing off. So I get up and walk over to this guy, probably like 50 yards. And I'm like, hey, do you want somebody to throw the football with? And he's like, sure. So I start throwing the football at him, and I'm so happy with how good my throwing is. Like, holy shit. I'm like, I don't know if I've ever been able to throw a football this accurately. Like my spirals are coming off beautifully. They're going most of the time right where I want them to go. I'm like, damn, this is awesome. I'm reflecting on doing yoga and weightlifting has seemed to, especially yoga has really helped me balance my muscles out. And I still have muscle memory, even though I haven't thrown a football like this in a decade with another grown man, since I threw a football with now my former brother-in-law.
Then I'm like, this is so awesome. So we're throwing a football out in the sun, sweating our asses off. It's thick grass, so I dove for one of them, perfectly like landed on my shoulder and rolled it just right. Guy's like, hey, hey, take it easy. Don't hurt yourself, buddy. And at the same time, like, this is great peacocking. Like, I hope they're watching me run around at the AA circle with this guy. And him and I end up throwing the football for damn near an hour. Like, we take a significant break in the middle of it. But he actually wears down before I do. Like, I've got my heart rate up to the max. And I'm having to mouth breathe occasionally. But he actually wears down before I do. And he's like, damn, you're in good shape, man. And I told him I'm 41. He's like, holy shit. I thought you were like 29. Like you were in great shape. I'm like, thanks. You know, I love that. Days like this remind me how good it feels to just show up and connect with someone.
So I ended up talking to this guy. He lives in his van, which is parked a hundred yards away. He takes me to show me his van. It's a nice ass van, like an $85,000 van that he bought new. This shit is nice — it's got a shower, a kitchen, a bed, it has built-in solar panels, a 600 amp hour battery. Like this is a nice ass van that he lives in. He's been traveling around the country living in it for a couple years. He works online as a software engineer. And we have a great chat. We talk a lot about dating because he's single. And I tell him, go to my yoga studio, man. There's so many hot girls there. Try going to my yoga studio. He's like, oh, I'm short, though. You know, dating apps really suck being a short guy.
So him and I talk a lot about dating and all kinds of other stuff. And then he says he's going to go eat. So I walk back and leave him at his van. I go back and sit in the AA circle, but like five minutes later, he comes back out and says, hey, you know, I was just sitting in there, I thought we'd talk some more. I'm like, oh, that's a brave thing for this guy to do. That's so brave, and I love it. So I then take another hour-long walk with him. We walk all the way to the bridge from the park over by the main parking lot there. We walk all the way up to the bridge and back, which takes about an hour. And we talk a lot more about girls and dating and work. And I tell him about being an influencer. He says he thinks it's really virtuous and that God smiles upon the person who would, you know, delete all their followers online because the environment is corrupt, and to take the path of virtue rather than just profit. And that was a really nice conversation. I walked all the way back and then dropped him off at his van again because I was already full from eating at the AA thing. I didn't need to eat. And it's time for me to get ready for the kids. So I drop him off at his van and I go home to get ready for the kids.
I have a little salad, forgetting that I already had a big ass Caesar salad that was at the AA event. I then get everything ready for the kids and I get some feedback about my letter. So my sister says that my letter should be shorter. It's a 10 page letter. She says, you know, make it like one or two pages. And one of my friends, I'm helping him write his book. He texts me this toxic ass fucking text. It starts off saying you do not have the command of the language you believe you do — even AI does not convey what is being expressed effectively and can be understood as a meager attempt to impress. That's how it started, all right? It didn't get any better than that. Like, who the fuck pissed in your Cheerios today? Like, damn, man. But I do remember this guy — another guy, a neighbor, gave me his book that he was really happy about and proud of like almost a decade ago after an AA meeting one day. And I just ripped him. I said, I don't see why we need books like this and shit like that. So I was pretty toxic about that guy's book. So, you know, I was like, the fuck is with this? I asked for feedback and damn, he ripped it. Another guy had given me feedback saying my letters should be shorter as well.
And then after I got everything cleaned up, I texted a massage therapist asking if she wanted to do a massage, because a friend texted me to say she can do a massage the week that she had scheduled and my massage therapist is out of town. So I texted her to see if she wanted to do a massage. And she said, I'm moving out of that house. I'll no longer have that spot. I'm sorry. Keeping it myself for a bit. I hope you're well. God damn, why do people have to fucking isolate so much? Like, Jesus Christ. Like, what the fuck? Is it just me? Or are people just normally this isolated? It's terrible how isolated people are, just sitting in their goddamn houses wallowing. Like, my mom, after my dad died, just fucking sit in her house and wallow. Like, get out there.
You know, if something happened like that to me, I would be out there, but I got divorced. So that's already one of the top bad things that happens to people. I've been out there and I've been writing about it and being real about it. I'm not sitting here being ashamed. And this writing is fucking awesome. All right. It's awesome. So she sends me a message. I send her, you know, asking if she broke up with her boyfriend, because I thought they were going to have that house for a while. And I thought they had a year lease and she just moved into it. But you know, I told her I moved into a new house, my divorce is final, I thought you're staying there, did she break up? You know, of course, no response. And then I texted a girl that I met at yoga class that I hadn't texted for a few weeks. And then I texted a girl from AA right before the kids came over and I'm like, God damn it. Like, why did I fucking do that? I'm so tired of this. Nobody fucking responding.
God, is this how men are too? I guess it is, because a woman I had been seeing would tell you that I did the same thing — I'd reach out, then decide I wasn't into it and pull back and tell her I didn't want to talk anymore. I'm not proud of it. Man, I'm excited when I finally find a woman that actually mutually engages. Like the woman I'd been talking to mutually engaged for a few days until she fucked it up. Or maybe you could say I fucked it up by expecting too much of her and not being patient. But, you know, she's 57 years old. How much time do you got, all right? Like, how much time do you got? To be patient, get your shit together. If you recognize your own push-and-pull patterns in this and want to untangle them out loud, you can book a one-on-one call with me and I'll be glad to untangle them with you on a live call.
So then the kids come over, which is awesome. My ex-wife loves the setup of the house. Oh, right before they come over, though, the craziest shit happens, all right? So there's this ceramic inside the shower. I take a cold shower because I was out in the sun for a good while, so I want to cool off. So there's these ceramic rack holders, like you'd hold a rack that you'd hang a towel up on. But for some reason, there's two of them jutting out from the wall on the left side of the shower. And one of them I noticed when I showered before, like, juts out only a few inches from my face. Like, who the fuck hung this? Like, this is stupid. So there are these ceramic towel rack holders that jut out from inside the wall. And there's all kinds of other shit you could already hold. So I am taking a cold shower. I bend down, and I turn the water on. Then I turn the faucet so instead of coming out of the faucet, it sprays from the shower head. And then the cold hits me on the back and I jerk my head up in reaction to it. And my fucking skull knocks off, breaks the ceramic towel rack holder in half. It shears it cleanly off. I use my fucking skull to shear a ceramic towel holder in half.
I'm dumbfounded. At first, I'm like, fuck, did I fracture my skull? Like, Jesus Christ. The amount of force I hit that with to shear it, and it falls apart into pieces, into like three pieces in the shower. I pick one up quickly, not thinking that when you shear ceramic, it's sharp. And I cut my fucking left index finger right where it bends, and it starts bleeding. And I'm like, well, at least I didn't pass out or knock out or anything, but fuck. And then I get the ceramics out of the shower and I'm like, you've got to be shitting me. Like what just happened right now? And I start feeling my head. And the crazy thing is, my head doesn't even hurt. I'm like, this is weird. Like, why does my head not hurt? I just broke this. I mean, if you try and touch it or feel it, you would not think anything short of like bashing that shit with a hammer would shear it. I'm like, I can't believe I just broke this with my fucking head.
I'm feeling my head. I'm like, is that a dent right there? Is that a fucking dent in my skull? Is it caved in right there? Did I fucking cave in a part of my skull right here? I'm like, I can't tell, but you know what I'm not doing? I'm not going to a fucking hospital. In my experience, this shit will heal up by itself just fine, no problem. Like when my son banged his head — he banged his head right into a concrete edge and his head swelled up like a golf ball right where he bashed into it, but he was fine. I'm like, you know what? I'm fucking fine. But my brain's like, you fractured your skull, you should go to the hospital. I'm like, fuck that. First off, I have no interest going to the hospital and having them shoot fucking x-rays into my head. And then second, I just got my health insurance canceled. No, thanks. I would not enjoy spending money on that. I'm not in enough fear to go to the hospital and go into that shit show. Like, I'm sure this is fine. I think about the father in the book Educated, where he burns his face off with a gas tank blowing up in it. He didn't go to the hospital. I mean, that shit's about as bad as something could get and did not kill you. Like, I'm not going to the fucking hospital for bumping my head in the shower. And I mean, I bumped it hard, but.
I can't wait to show my ex-wife and the kids what I did, and they're horrified, especially my ex-wife. She's like, you knocked that off with your head? I was thinking it was marble or something. She's like, no, that's ceramic. I'm like, oh, okay. I'm like, I can't believe I just broke this thing off with my head, and it doesn't even hurt either. Not hurting much is a little concerning. I'm like, why the hell doesn't it hurt? That was a hell of an impact. But we press on.
The kids get here, and they're ready to go to Crescent Lake Park, so we grab the drone and the batteries and the car, and we go fly the drone, both batteries out, drive the car all over, and my ex-wife drops the kids off at 5:30. We're at the park until after 7 when it's dark. The kids are having a blast. They're doing everything, driving the car all over, going to the playground, getting on the play set. My son brings a little gun that fires a plane on top of it that flashes, which is great in the dark. The drone has lights in the dark too, so we're all having a great time.
Until — it's like that D12 song — the kids tell me that I'd given one of my books to a friend of a relative of my ex-wife. And they tell me that their mom said that relative told the friend she should just throw my book out. And my mind launches into all the things I want to say back, things to insult her, things the kids could say to hurt her feelings. And then I'm like, remember your thank you practice from yesterday. So I'm like, thank you that I don't have to deal with this anymore. I mean, I love black kids, by the way — that's why I changed my race to black.
So there you go. You want to throw my books in the trash? Good. Don't read this shit where I talk about you. All the nice shit I did over the years, all this time, wanting them to like me so much — and this is the kind of shit I'm getting. Well, good. I'll fire back in this book too. But it's okay if nobody ever reads this shit — it'll be like it didn't happen. If everybody reads it, then I got the last word. So take that. I didn't mention anybody by name. I mean, I guess you could figure it out, but I think you're pretty much protected from libel if you don't go after people by name. But who gives a shit? Fuck it. If you assume nobody's going to read the book, fuck it. If the book gets to be a bestseller and I have to deal with a lawsuit, then take that shit to trial. Like I did so much for this relative of my ex-wife to try to get them to like me and be nice and help them out when they went through their divorce. But look at me now. I don't have a pot to piss in, do I? I'm sitting in this house by myself, because they could say I fucked my life up from a divorce too. Well, at least I own how I'm responsible and how I did that and what I did to make that happen. And I have a great relationship with my ex.
So that fucked me up while I was at the park with my kids. I was all pissy about that. But then I was saying thank you. Thank you that I don't have to deal with this anymore. Thank you that she's not here right now. Thank you that I'm divorced. But at the same time, this is frustrating when you love people and want them to like you and they just treat you like shit. But that's life, isn't it? And you know what? I'm glad that there's less space. Because this person used to take up a good amount of space in my mind and my heart. And clearly it was not mutual. She didn't give a shit about me. And what I think is awful in life is when we let somebody matter to us that we don't matter to them. And I try not to let anybody. That's why I don't want to do all this shit online anymore. Because I feel like when you're an influencer online, you matter to all these people. And yet, y'all don't matter to me. I mean, it's obvious through a book you're not going to get to know me that well. But when you're watching videos and stuff, you get the illusion that you know me. So I tell the kids that hurt my feelings and I'm sad. At the same time, we still overall end up having a great time. If you're wrestling with who deserves space in your life and who doesn't, you can schedule a private call with me and I'd be honored to think it through with you on a live call.
And then the kids get home. They're excited to try the shower, which now has the space cleared out for that. So if they jump around in there, around the shower head at least, maybe I'll knock the other one off too. They take showers and enjoy having their showers in there. And then we play the Harry Potter Monopoly. I get wrecked. Like I get absolutely destroyed. I straight up go bankrupt to my daughter. But nobody gets like a really good three of a kind or anything. It's kind of a standoff. So my daughter ends up winning. Then we go to bed. I get the kids dinner, like strawberries. My son eats almost an entire cantaloupe. My daughter has a few strawberries. She was already pretty full. Then we go to bed. I've got the bedroom set up really nice. They love it. They got their two twin beds and then the nightstands between them, then the king bed right there. And it's really, really cozy. And I have a nice cry with them a couple of times. I'm like, man.
You know, I live here mainly because of them. I'm so grateful out of all these people who can't love me properly. Out of all these women I try and ask out and offer a relationship to, you know, that don't fucking text me back or that send cold ass text messages that are way overly professional. You know, after all, my ex-wife wanting to divorce me, which, you know, I was there too. It's like the kids really love me properly, and I really appreciate that. We have such a nice night together. I have a good cry falling asleep with them and snuggling them. And the sound machine app that's like 11 years old actually manages to work on my iPhone, which is really nice because it wouldn't work before. So I turned the sound machine on for them, and they're ready to go to bed at 9:30, and I just go to bed with them because I'm like, you know what, I'll just take this time to meditate if I'm up. Sleep extra, and it's great.
If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.
Dance Like No One's Watching
Originally published December 19, 2025.
This is my journal entry from December 19, 2025 — my real, unedited day, shared just as it happened.
Oh, this is a good one, y'all. And you know what? I got a new strategy. Nobody's going to fucking read these books. I'm going to record these like nobody's going to fucking read them. How about that? I'm going to just say whatever I want, whenever I want, however I want to, whoever I want. I'm going to just record these books like nobody's going to fucking read them because that's what's actually happening. Nobody's read Sober Through Separation. Like, I literally don't think one fucking page of it's been read by anybody. And the book after that, called Nine Hours Later. Yeah, who's going to read that? Maybe someday somebody will read this shit. But I'm going to just, for the short term, nobody's going to read this shit for the foreseeable future. So I'm going to go at this. I'm going to dance like no one's watching, all right? All right, we're going to dance like no one's watching. How'd you like that, huh?
This was an interesting day. I'm not going to fucking spoil it because I was almost going to spoil it, but I'm not going to spoil it. You're going to work up to this shit, all right? So I dropped the kids off this morning, and my daughter and my son both had awards they got at their school. I met my ex-wife there in the parking lot about 8.45. We went in, had a great time being there as ex-husband and wife. I thought it would be really bad to be going to some school event. I saw some parents that looked like they'd had a rough night and weren't happy to be there with their ex. And that's how I pictured it'd be if you had an ex that you broke up with and then had to get fucking dragged to your kid's school events. But shit, it was great. My ex-wife and I were in there having fun, cutting up with the other parents. Dude, I was laughing and talking shit. I was clapping like a motherfucker for all these kids. The one kid wants to be a hibachi chef when he grows up. I'm like, God damn, this shit got me fucking hungry right now at nine in the morning. I want this kid to cook some shit for me like right now. Cook me some hibachi right now. I really want that. I would love to have that. I had a great time with all of them, my ex-wife and the kids, the kids were in their Christmas jammies. It was super cute.
After that, then I was going to go to the 11 a.m. St. Pete group meeting. Well, fuck, it's supposed to be anonymous. Nobody's reading this shit anyway. Right. So I was going to. But then I ended up. I'm like, fucking let me go this 10 a.m. meeting. That'll work out better. So I get to the 10 a.m. meeting and the woman I asked if she wanted to date on the Saturday meeting fucking rolls in. Like, do what you want to. Just don't blow my buzz. I don't know. She walked in. I just, she saw me first. I got a shitty vibe. I'm like, fuck. So I'm sitting there, I'm doing all this shit where I like compensate, where I feel bad, but then I peacock and try and act super happy and make her feel bad that she's not interested in me right now. So I'm like sitting there fucking smiling and laughing. And then by the end of the meeting, I'm like, it's time to drop the pretense. Just show everybody how fucking sad you really are.
I go to share though, maybe like 20 minutes into the meeting, I go to share and she gets up and walks out. I'm like, what are you doing? Getting up, walking. Right when I start talking about how my divorce is final, she gets up. I'm like, you know why your ass can't handle hearing this. All right, let's be real. Nobody has a better offer than me right now. I mean, that actually knows me and shit. I mean, there's a lot better offers than me, obviously. But this girl doesn't have a better fucking offer than me, and I know it. She gets up while I'm sharing. I want to just fucking stop sharing. I'm like, she got up. I'm done. That's it. But I didn't. I kept sharing long enough that she came back while I was still sharing. I'm like, yeah, you got to listen to some of this. What are you going to do? Walk out because I'm still sharing? Turn around? I've seen it. There's a couple of women over the last few years. They just get up and walk out when I'm sharing. They're scared of what I'm going to say.
So I wrap it up, and then I'm talking to the woman next to me. I'm really happy to see her again. She's the one who told me a year ago that she couldn't watch my YouTube videos because I had such a different personality than the person she knew. I wonder what she'd think of these books. But nobody's going to read these fucking books anyway, so whatever. Dance like no one's watching, baby. So I talk to her, and of course the other woman comes walking by, like waving hi frantically to the woman behind me. Bye, bye. I'm like, I ain't saying shit to you. You want to talk to me? You can come over and talk to me. Whatever. Look how engrossed I am in this conversation. So I have that conversation. I walk out feeling like a fucking petty bitch as usual. Get my car. I'm like, you a petty ass bitch, just like you wrote about in that book you were reading before. How you were a petty ass bitch with a woman in your yoga class. Look at you again. I'm like, fuck. Why can't I? I'm like, why do I even feel like this? Like it's fucking fifth grade. I asked some girl to like hold my hand or some shit. And she said no. Like, why do I feel like this? I don't think that ever happened, by the way. Just making shit up off the top of my head.
So after that, I go back home for a minute and get ready for my tennis match. And I get to the tennis club at noon. This dude beats me, all right? He just beats me. I saw him warming up like, I'm gonna get crushed here, aren't I? Yep. And beating me was his game. He's like a 4-0 player and I'm like 3-5. And yeah, I did win two games the first set. He won 6-2 and then 6-0. I'm like, you know what? I got two games in. That's fine. I talked to them about canceling the ladder. I gave him my book. I Was Famous on the Internet, on Spotify. I sent him a link to it, you know? And I was thinking, and talking to him about it, I'm like, this is why I need to cancel this tennis club membership, because these motherfuckers here are too good. And they always leave me feeling not good enough, like I need to get tennis lessons and spend a bunch more money and go to the clinic and play on the bitch side with all the beginners. And it's like, no, I need to drop this shit and play ultimate.
So after playing him, I'm like, yeah, I'm definitely canceling this tennis club membership. Like these dudes are too good for me. And it's time to move on. Unless somebody else joined that might fit in here better. I've had a nice time with the guys, but I'm starting to feel like I don't fit into the tennis club anymore. And there's not enough men to play singles with. You know, I'd play with the girls too, but I want some more singles. What I care about is playing singles. And I'm going to have a tennis court right next to my fucking house. So obviously I should just use that, right?
After tennis, I come home and take a cold bitch ass of a shower. I mean, fuck, I'm in there. I turned straight cold water on with the like four gallon a minute shower. And I'm just like, oh shit, Jesus, fuck. But it feels so good because I got some sun. And what I love, what works really good on my skin in my experience, is just taking a cold ass shower to cool my skin off after I've got sun. I don't use sunscreen anymore. I just raw dog that bitch outside. Let it fucking shine on me. Just shine that sun on me. Blacken me up. You know what? I fucking identify as Black. So as far as I'm concerned, it's a goddamn book that I'm selling. That's how I think. That's how I identify. So that's how I want to fucking talk too. All right. Any other questions? Any other fucking Karens need to come in here and complain? Like I want to dictate some shit that my teenage kids would be proud of, that my teenage nieces and nephews would be proud of. Like, damn, my uncle's fucking badass. He ain't a politically correct bitch.
All right, now after coming home from tennis, I just felt depressed. Felt like I'd just gotten crushed in tennis by a regular guy. By the way, the way I use it, it's a term of love. It's about being in a common struggle together. We're all in a fucking slavery struggle together right now. What do you think these rents are? It's fucking slavery. I got paid $2,700 a goddamn month for a 2-1 in St. Pete that's 100 and some years old. That's slavery. We're in some slavery shit right now. It's just, you know, new and updated slavery with more screens and less chains. But we're all in the shit together. So we're all in this together. And nobody's going to listen to this anyway. If anybody does listen to it, I am whatever I say I am. If I wasn't, then why would I say I am in my books? Every day I am. Fuck it. If you feel like you're in this struggle too, I'd love for you to book a one-on-one call with me so we can go through it together.
I hope my kids would be proud of me. Be like, damn, my dad was a badass. Because my late father turned into a bitch ass at the end of his life. And he would agree. He would agree with me right now. He's like, I did turn into a bitch ass. My late father used to be a bad motherfucker. Ripping up money. He would take a $100 bill from a motherfucker in a bar and then talk about how the government controlled you with money and rip that shit up. And he'd get punched in the face after that sometimes. My late father was a badass, and he turned into a weak bitch at the end of his life. You know what I never want to become is a weak-ass bitch. A weak-ass bitch is one who just bows down and gets fucked by the system, watches the goddamn news, thinks what you're supposed to think, does what you're supposed to be told, and puts on a goddamn mask in the grocery store and bitches at other people because they're not doing what the fuck they're told. Never going to be that, I'll tell you that.
Go all out. That's how I'm living my life. So where were we? I was feeling like a weak ass bitch just laying around here. Man, this dude beat me at tennis. A woman I went out with, you know, hopefully that'll work out, seeing her Monday. But shit, I got nothing else planned until then. You know what? I don't hardly know her. How's my dating gonna go? Fuck, can I even do a business? How's it gonna go?
This felt kind of down, like, whatever. It's fine. But then I got my proofs in the mail for Nine Hours Later and licked that shit. Like, look at this beautiful face on this cover. Look at this cover I designed myself in Photoshop. This woman that comes up to me at my gym the other day, and she's like, if you need a graphic designer, she looks at my book covers. I'm like, I don't need a graphic designer. What I got is branding, all right? It's branding that my fucking face is on every fucking cover of all my new books. It's called branding. You got it? And yeah, I know it looks like a cheap ass shit I threw together in an hour in Photoshop, and it is. So if you want to judge a book by its cover, go ahead and read something else. Because nobody needs to read this shit. Like, literally nobody needs to read this shit. I need to write this shit, but nobody needs to fucking read it. Do they?
Thankfully, I was working on my books. The kids came over a little after 3. My ex-wife dropped them off after school because she had a work call. And, man, I love having the kids up in my house. I can't wait to have my overnights with the kids consistently during the week. The kids are just so much love. But, I mean, you get too much of the kids, and, yeah, I respect that they get to be too much of a pain in the ass sometimes, but I get just the right amount. They came over and hung out at my house for about an hour and a half today, and they were a little bored, but my son picked up this little kind of cloth baseball, like, you know, one of those squishy kind of baseballs, and he started throwing it with me on the couch. He fucking smacked my daughter in the ear with it, and she cried. And I got hella snuggles from my daughter. Threw the ball with my son. My son has a little air hockey, tiny-ass little plastic air hockey table. Real air. The air fucking blows. He got some AA batteries in it. And him and my daughter played some air hockey. And then my daughter played with it by herself. I played with it on the couch. And then I texted my mom to see if we could come over. And my daughter gets out the Harry Potter Monopoly, and we played that. I was dominating that bitch. I had the blue ones, like the boardwalk and park place, but really it's Dumbledore's office and room requirement. But I call it Dumbledore's orifice, along with Hagrid's ass, and various things like that to mix it up. Because there's still a part of me, this seventeen, that has not grown up at all, and that's the playful fun part. You don't want to be walking around this bitch like an old man all the time.
I thought one of the best ideas I had today, or maybe the worst, I thought about recording some of this shit for myself and playing it back while I sleep, do some affirmations like, I'm 21 years old, full of energy, and I'm super rich, just play this shit at night and program my subconscious with it. I don't know if that worked very well, but I'm not going to fuck with that right now. After that, I took the kids down to the street to hang out with my mom. They watched some more Winnie the Pooh where Piglet was messing with his shadow, and then, what are they doing, they were doing the hiccup episode after that. I had a little bit of popcorn, even though it's got that toxic-ass seed oil in it. I think I'll be all right.
I did weigh myself this morning. It said I was still 19.8% body fat. I was like, bullshit. Bullshit, 19.8% body fat. I'm going to check that tomorrow. I want a second fucking opinion. You got to like the kind of person who looks at an electronic device like, fuck that. I don't agree with it. You know you get me in a doctor's office, and I'm going to be telling them how to fucking do their job. Because, in my experience, those are the kind of patients that actually live longer.
Somebody was telling me, damn, you know the health care costs. This family's paying $30,000 a fucking month. I'm like, that's stupid, all right? Can we all just agree that's stupid? The thing to do, I've come to believe, would be to take care of your goddamn self and don't pay that. Health insurance, I hope all that shit collapses. I don't have health insurance. I fucking hate health insurance. I appreciate the idea. Oh, if we all took care of ourselves, that'd work. But when you got people out here smoking and drinking and not taking care of themselves, we got motherfuckers poisoning themselves to death. You know what? Health insurance doesn't work because I'm not paying shit into it. So all these other people can take piss-poor care of themselves, and my money's fucking paying some doctor to do shit I don't believe in in the first fucking place.
If I said fuck too much lately, fuck, fuckity, fuck, fuck, fuck. My first video on YouTube was how to say fuck different ways. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. I'd like to think I haven't came anywhere at all since then. Nobody's gonna read this, so I'm gonna say whatever I want. And if somebody does read this, look, you're going to get a real experience in here. You're dealing with Jerry Banfield, a real one. Put that at my memorial service. That's what I want at my memorial service. Somebody get up there, you know what? Jerry was real. We love Jerry. Jerry told it like it is without being a fucking weak ass bitch. That's what we love about Jerry.
I was listening to Elizabeth Gilbert's book, All the Way to the River. I like her friend Rhea. Like she told her how it was. She'll walk up and fucking tell you the truth. And I realized that's how I want to fucking be. Not some little bitch just trying to tell everybody what they want to hear all the time. And I think swearing's fun. I know how to talk without swearing. If you look at Author in St. Petersburg, and I Was Famous on the Internet, I didn't swear that much in those books. I know how to talk without swearing. I know how to use other words. But there's a certain energy. When you bring swearing in there's a certain, you know, it feels better when people are comfortable enough to do some swearing. If you're still not upset at anything, I'm proud of you. I'm real proud of you. What a fucking real alive person you are. Not some goddamn bot.
I have to put, like, a 10-paragraph disclaimer at the beginning of this. Like, hey, if you're a Karen or a bot or a regular person or a normal person or a politically correct person, do not read this shit unless you like getting offended. If so, I'm happy to help you with that. My ex-wife had a breaker blow, too, and she didn't know what to do with it, so I'm like, hey, sweetheart, here's a breaker box. And here's how it, you know, when it pops out, you just push it back and then shove it back to the right position.
After hanging out with the kids, I got snuggles with my son. It was perfect. Got hugs and love from my ex-wife, my mom. And then I headed out to a local spiritual community. Now some shit's about to go down. So I pull up to the spiritual community. I'm like, fuck this shit. It's going to be boring. Nothing's going to happen. But then I'm like, you know, remember when you met a woman I'd been interested in, and you were feeling like that too. And you met her, and it was awesome. But hey, you got a different life story. That's cool. It's your story. I'm writing my fucking story right now, literally.
I got my nice little efficient box of books. They sent us a text like, maybe you should cover up. I'm like, fuck that. I'm going to come out here in shorts and a t-shirt, even though it's going down to low 60s and it's humid. That's fine. So I roll up and get my books out and shit. I'm like, fuck it. I'm not trying tonight. I'm not trying at all. A guy there was serving some beans. Now this guy can make some beans. God damn. He made some beans and some rice and avocados. That shit was good. And I had some cacao, which to most people would just be hot fucking chocolate. That shit was good. And that was my dinner. It was delicious. Then I just sat there. I'm like, fuck it. I'm not trying to go talk to motherfuckers tonight. You want to talk to me? I'm holding court over here by the fucking food table.
So one of the women there, the one who'd been proposed to, she says she'd been proposed to nine times. She said the guy she was dating just texted her that he'd marry her, joking or not. I'm like, damn, you got another proposal? What are you doing to these guys? Jesus Christ. And she's basically trying to sell me on herself, and I'm like, I'm not even getting into that. You can count on that. I'm like, that's why I'm careful where I go. Everywhere we go, I see the same people. I'll be careful where I go. I'm not getting into that and getting fucking stuck in it.
Speaking of getting fucking stuck in it, a woman I had been seeing texted me today. She said, hi, Jerry, how's you? You never did say. I'm like, when you're talking like that, you can imagine why I didn't say. But I didn't say because I'm tired of it. Thanks for the book title, Nine Hours Later, which I decided not to bring into the spiritual community. I'm like, you know what? If somebody reads the first three books, then maybe they can get into that. But this one actually talks about this place. And nah, I'm just going to leave that book in the car. You know that? We're going to let these books marinate. These books might be better a decade from now. We're just going to let these books marinate. Like a fine, I was going to say fine wine, but I don't drink. What marinates? Like some fine sauerkraut. How about that?
I was thinking earlier, I'm like, would these books be better if I didn't swear? If I went back to doing straight up normal ass fucking diary entries where I just talked and I was very serious and this is what I did and then that's what I didn't. Fuck that. Fuck that. You got to every moment. Are you on the way to being more yourself and more proud of who you are? Or are you more on the way to being a weak bitch? Because all you do is you just quote the shit that you're told on the news. You're just a goddamn bot. You don't have any life. You know what I loved when I went to visit my sister, my nieces and nephews, especially my nephew. He's 17. I'm like, this boy has life. Just the way he talks. Like, that's how a fucking man should talk. That's how a man should talk. Like he talks like he fucking means it. And he says shit that's offensive. And I like him. I'm like, good. I'm proud of you. I'm like, why am I sitting here talking like some bitch? Why am I talking like that? His 17 year old self, he's taking on the world. His voice is strong. And why am I sitting here like some bitch who just gets pushed around by the system? Like, no. I'm going to get out here and be the man. Bring that teenager back out of me. That guy stomped down. Oh, just be quiet. Don't offend anybody. Fuck that.
I'm not out here trying to get everybody's approval. You know whose approval matters the most to me? It's my own. That's what matters. My own approval. And I feel good letting it all out. Go all out. You know how bad I felt feeling like a weak ass bitch? Like, oh, you can't say that in a book because look at your white ass skin. Fuck that. I identify as Black. That's who I identify as. I've been treated like it by Facebook Gaming, too, just like Charlamagne Tha God said. I wanted to be Black, and they treated me like it, so thank you. You officially made me that, Facebook Gaming, taking away my fat-ass paycheck, and I'm thankful for that today. And this whole system is treating all of us the same today. All of us are getting fucked by this system we're in. And we have the power to be the change we want in the world. If you want to stop shrinking and start being the change too, I'd love for you to schedule a one-on-one call with me and we'll grow through it together.
And the first thing we need to stop doing is stop being weak people that just put up with whatever gets done to us. No. No. Government crosses the line? Fuck that. Your boss crosses the line? Fuck that. Family and friends cross the line? Fuck that. You gotta draw boundaries, and I'm not saying you need to really go nuts, but the response should be proportionate to how much the line is being crossed. Somebody says, Jerry, can I talk to you? No, you cannot talk to me with that attitude. You come back with a different attitude if you want to talk to me. Government comes up with some bullshit mask shit? Fuck that. Make me wear a goddamn mask. Bullshit vaccine shit? Fuck that. Make me get a goddamn shot. Send somebody with guns over here and force me at gunpoint to get a goddamn shot if you want me to fucking have it. You're not going to do it with some words on a screen. No.
So that's what I'm talking about we need in the world. You got to be the kind of person that doesn't put up with that fucking bullshit and lives your truth. And I'm proud to live in my truth. And I don't feel any pressure to sell these books now because maybe it's better for people not to read these books. Isn't it? I got the letter refined today that I'm ready to give out to my neighbors. I printed it out. I showed it to my ex-wife. She said it looks good. Nice. All right, so back at the spiritual community. I was thinking I'd make these shorter, but fuck that too. I'm just going to go on. This is my goddamn soapbox. I'm going to go on as long as I fucking want to. How about that? How about that shit? I'll just rip on as long as I feel like it. Oddly enough, when I say it like that, then I'm like, all right, but we haven't got to the best part of the day yet. I picture somebody listening to this shit in like 10 years. It's going through every fucking day, listening like three hours of Jerry Banfield every day. I'm going to have a call, y'all.
So I get there and I'm like, I'm just going to hold court. I'm going to chill out. I'm not singing any of the songs. I'm good. I'm just going to sit here and receive and be a part of the vibes. You know what I'm saying? And a friend's partner is playing in the band as usual. He plays beautiful on the piano and the drums. And she sits down. I'm like, shit, come sit next to me. And she's like, damn, I'm cold as a bitch out here. And I'm like, here, take my blanket. I brought my blanket off the couch that I'm covered up with now. She's like, you sure? I'm like, yeah, I'm cool. I just went to Michigan. Like, my blood's still thick. Take this blanket.
So I felt so nice, a friend sitting next to me, all the massages that she's given. And I'm so glad we got through, you know, me going to massage school and the times I didn't see her and, you know, me thinking all my crazy shit. And when we first started massaging and she didn't talk much and I felt like there was this connection there with her, but it was frustrating. And then I wasn't seeing her for a massage. And I just felt like her telepathic pull, like I need to come back and see her. And that's cool. That's a beautiful thing. So I sat next to her, just feeling so good to be there with a close friend and to be there watching her partner perform, who I love. And I want to have some more time with both of them together and with him by himself too. And we sat there and we listened to a bunch of songs and my mind was less toxic than usual this time, which was nice. And she and I were talking shit too, here and there, which made it fun.
There were a bunch of people had their babies and their toddlers out there, which was awesome. I was smiling, looking at the kids, laughing with them. And then it came time for Shavasana. I actually brought a yoga mat, was prepared. I didn't sell any fucking books that night either. Not one. And fine. You know what? I got plenty of money. I don't need to sell any books. I am in the middle of abundance. I laid down on the yoga mat. She gave me the blanket back. She insisted I take it. I'm like, you're right, actually. For Shavasana, it'll be nice having that blanket. So I laid down. And I'm like, damn, I feel good. Like, I feel so much better than I did when I got here tonight. Thank you. At the same time, I looked around. I'm like, there is nothing interesting here tonight. But at the same time, I keep thinking, what the fuck do I know? What do I know? I might not know what I really need to know. I might not have any idea about who's here and what's interesting. I might know nothing, like Jon Snow. I might know diddly shit. Turns out.
So I talked to a hypnotist afterwards. I got her card. And now I know I love having a hypnotist in my support people. And I'll do a session with her about something. Next time I get fucked up on something, we'll do a session with her. And then I take my books out to the car, get my blanket wrapped around me. I'm about ready to go. And a friend and her partner are talking, so I go up to them, say hi to him, give him a hug, thank you for his music. Then guess what happens? Any of y'all see this shit coming? Do any of you see what I'm about to say coming right now? Because I didn't see this shit coming, I'll tell you that. A woman I'd been talking to walks up.
She's actually in Nine Hours Later. The first one that I fell in love with at one of these spiritual community events. I think it was the first event I went to on October 25th for Halloween, which is in the Nine Hours Later book. She walks up and interrupts us, just like a guy from the community. But I'm glad she interrupted us. She's like, hey, you remember me? And I'm like, oh, shit. Oh, she's looking fucking fine, too. I talked to her a little bit, give her a hug. My friend and her partner take a quick cue to head out.
And then the guy from the community walks out. I'm like, swear to God, this guy tries to talk to her right now, like he did with a woman I'd been interested in. I'm going to fucking pull his hair and kick him in the ass and fucking punch him in the face, throw him in the water. You know, I'm not going to do that shit for real, but I was just like, I swear to God, this guy tries to talk to her right now, I'm gonna lose it on his ass. But he just smiles and walks by. I'm like, thank you. All right, so maybe it is a little chemistry you and her have. It's not just you need to talk to every girl that I'm trying to talk to. Good. Love you, man. I bet you're honored to be included in my goddamn story. Yeah.
So I talked to her, the woman I'd been talking to. She's laughing her little ass off. She's laughing at all the stupid shit I say. And I'm like, damn, you need some more of this in your life. And then I told her, I'm like, you know, I didn't feel very good about that last voice memo I sent. She's like, you know, I thought it was friendly. It was fine. You just said you'd like to give me a chance to reconsider. And she was all turned on and flirty and touching me and laughing. I'm like, what's she trying to do right now? I told her, I'm like, well, shit, you got any time in January? She's like, no, no. But she said, are you going to the citizen meetup that they're going to have on Monday night? I'm like, I don't know. Because I got a date scheduled with a woman I went out with at 4:44 PM on Monday and the citizen shit's at seven. So I don't know. I mean, if it goes well, I might not, but if it doesn't, I might. She's like, well, you're going to the new year's dance. I'm like, yeah, I should be there. She's like, all right, well, I'll see you around. And I'm like, what is happening right now? She clearly likes me. She said she wasn't dating at all before, she was busy and traveling.
I'm like, is this going to be like with a friend where, you know, I saw her a couple of times, went to see another therapist for a month or two, but I kept feeling her telepathic pull. I'm like, I need to go schedule again with her, even though my mind was like, why? You didn't hardly talk to her. You know, there's nothing special there. Why? I'm like, I don't know. I just need to go see her again. And sure enough, that third time I went to see her, then it's like, oh, there is something here. We got a nice little friendship. We got a, you know, we got a soul connection. And it was, I'm like, what, so, yeah, I'm leaving tonight, I pack up, I'm like, damn, now, seeing the woman I'd been talking to again felt real, real nice, and she was looking fine, she was looking absolutely gorgeous, and, yeah.
All right, so, we need to go back to, on the way out tonight, a woman I had been seeing texted me. The message came while I was driving out there. It's like she can feel exactly where I'm at in my life. Like minutes after I get divorced, she texts me. And then today I'm on the way to go to the spiritual community where it turns out the woman I'd been talking to is there too. And she texts me. So on the way out there tonight in my car out loud, I'm talking to whoever. And I'm like, you can do better than her, and I say her name, which I'm not going to say in here because I've been talking so much shit about her. Much love to her, though. I love her. Much love. Appreciate her in my life. Appreciate her being part of my life a month and a half ago. Appreciate her being friendly. But at the same time, I'm like, you can do better than her. That's what I said on the way to the event about a woman I had been seeing. I'm like, you can do better than her. I said that shit forcefully out loud. And then I laughed. If you're weighing whether to move on from something or someone, I'd be glad to talk it through with you — book a private one-on-one call with me and bring it whenever you're ready.
All right, so after talking to the woman I'd been talking to, I packed the rest of my shit up in my car, and I'm driving home, and I say out loud, that's what the fuck I'm talking about. That's what the fuck I'm talking about. Yes. That's what you can do. From now on, that's what you are going to do. That's the kind of woman I want in my life. A fine, beautiful woman that finds me funny. She must have laughed a hundred times at the silly shit I said. She was smiling and laughing her ass off at me. That's one of the most positive reactions I've had out of a girl since I talked to a woman I'd been interested in. So, that left me feeling really nice tonight. I'm like, thank you. Thank you. That feels really good. That's validation at a bare minimum. That's nice validation.
You know what? Maybe next month things go somewhere with one of these women. Or, you know, one that things were going really well with would be fine also. But I'm glad I went. I'm glad I got through all the thoughts in my mind being whiny and bitchy and being like, eh, eh, eh. And this was a fun day, man. This was a fun day. I am thinking if I end up marrying someone like the woman I'd been talking to and have a kid, I might have some real boring-ass journal entries. Like, yeah, I spent time with my wife, parented my child, helped people write books, and that's it. But not today, baby. Not today. We got some more interesting material. Thank you.
It's checkout time. We gotta go. We gotta go. The woman I'd been talking to made my fucking day today, let me tell you. Seeing her smile at me, seeing her laugh at me. She actually proactively touched me a few times when I was talking. I'm like, I'll be damned. I'll be damned. I'll be damned. Yes, please. Picture me rolling home in the car being like, that's what the fuck I'm talking about. From now on, women like her. All right, fuck.
Resume dictation. There's one thing I forgot to add. After a woman I had been seeing messaged me today, I'm like, I need to shut this down. Like, she got a fire for me. I need to dump some water on that shit and put it out. So here's a message I sent her back. I said, I got a date with a girl I'm really looking forward to on Monday, and I'm moving to a house in January that all my family and friends are really excited about. I made a new business plan for helping people write books, and that should take care of my finances. You see, the idea of that message is to stop her from thinking that we're going to get back together. But at the same time, just being honest and not trying to make it about her. It's like, look, I got better options up here. Especially after seeing the woman I'd been talking to tonight. It's like, I am never going to see you again when there's women like that who actually like me. No way. No way. Sorry. I'm just not feeling that connection anymore. And just being around a woman like the one I'd been talking to is so much fun. Her laughter. She's in her late 20s. It's like, sorry, you're not as fun. And I'm demanding fun. I want fun. And if it's not that, I'd rather be single. Have more time with the kids. More time to talk shit in books like this. More time to help people write books and make money, and get my shit together because you know, if a woman like that wanted to date me, I probably need to have my financial shit together. I'm making like 100 plus grand a year. Shit, you know, that looks attractive to a girl to be a stay-at-home mom. So that's how I was reading back my text messages. I'm like, shit, I need to talk about that today too. So peace out, y'all. Appreciate you.
If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.
I Want More Play, Less Seriousness
Originally published December 12, 2025.
This is my journal entry from December 12, 2025, part of my daily autobiography Divorce Day — my real, unedited days, published in order.
All right, let’s be more playful. I’m tired of going through life feeling like I’ve got a stick up my ass, trying to hold everything so tightly that nothing moves. It feels so fucking good just loosening up for a second.
Earlier today I was reading my diary entries from October 27, and holy shit, that had me a little fucked up. Going back through those entries stirred something in me and left me with a realization. I want to be funnier. I want to be more playful. Lately I’ve been thinking about what I’m going to do with a life coach on Sunday. I’ve got a life coaching session scheduled at her house, and part of me has been wondering whether I might want to date her. I kept asking myself what I’m actually going to work on during that session. Am I really going to show up and dig into some serious, heavy topic?
While I was reading through this book about texting women, an idea popped into my head. I want to work on being playful with the life coach. That’s what I want to focus on. I want more play in my life because lately there’s been way too much seriousness.
So I started practicing a little bit. I texted my sister. She had said she was reaching out to someone to get a guy’s number and told me she’d keep me posted on Wednesday. I replied, “Tonight I’ve been holding my breath here waiting to find out.” Just something a little more playful.
Then I started looking through my texts and thought, holy shit, this thing is like a goddamn graveyard. A friend texted me on Thanksgiving and I didn’t reply, which honestly might have been the best strategy. Then a couple weeks later she texted again and said, “Hey Jerry, how are you?” I replied with something like, “Hey, I’m doing great. Thanks for asking. I’m going to a local spiritual community Shop tonight and I’ll be at the dance party Saturday. What’s new with you?” No response since yesterday.
Looking at it now, my texts are so logical and flat. There’s no playfulness in them at all. The girl from AA used just a few words to introduce herself and reply to my first message. I sent two messages. She replied, “Thanks for letting me know.” Then there’s a massage therapist. She sent a long message, and of course I sent a long message back, and then nothing. With a life coach I probably should have just let her last message stand instead of trying to one up it with another reply.
You could say I’m fault finding, but really I’m trying to learn and grow. I’m telling myself, quit being a goddamn bitch about texting and dating. Remember what worked when I was house hunting. I realized I had what the landlords wanted. I knew what they were looking for. Same thing here. I have what women want. Just like those homeowners who want someone to rent their houses or those apartment complexes that want someone to pay rent. I’ve got what they want.
There are thousands of places I could live in St. Petersburg right now. I could afford most of them too. There are even some that might be a little financially optimistic, like that $7,000 a month house with five bedrooms, four bathrooms, a pool, and a lanai. To get that one I’d probably have to lie pretty far up about my income, but still, the point is there’s abundance.
Earlier today I asked ChatGPT about my pricing and my plans. The short version is that I’m thinking about charging $1,234.56 a month to coach people while they write their books. Then $3,456.78 for a full ghostwriting service like the one I’m doing with an older friend. One person paying that would cover my rent. Add a couple more clients and suddenly that’s $10,000 a month. Let’s blow this bitch up. If you have a book in you and want help turning both the writing and the business side of it into something real, you can set up a call with me and we’ll map out your plan.
While reading this book about texting women, it keeps saying the same thing. Stop getting ghosted, spark attraction, make her chase you, whatever. The core advice is basically just be yourself and be playful. That’s where I run into this mental block. I feel like I can’t fully be myself with women because some of the stuff I think about sending would probably be offensive.
For example, when a woman texts something simple like “How’s your day?” part of me wants to respond with something like, “You haven’t talked to me for two goddamn weeks. How the fuck do you think my day’s been? I’ve been dying over here waiting for you to reply.” In my mind that kind of message would be funny.
Then the book gives these examples that feel kind of lame to me. It says compare responses like this. One version is “How was your weekend?” and the reply is “Good, you?” The supposedly better version is something like, “So did your weekend actually live up to the hype or was it all snacks and regret?” Yeah, that’s nice, isn’t it? Reading some of those example replies in the book makes me laugh because they feel so forced. It almost feels like someone trying too hard to be playful instead of just actually being playful.
I catch myself thinking about the kinds of messages that pop into my head and realizing there’s a huge difference between what I find funny internally and what I could realistically send to someone. A lot of the thoughts that come up are way too intense or sarcastic to actually text. Like when a friend sent, “Hey Jerry, how are you?” part of me wanted to reply with something ridiculous and over the top. Obviously I’m not going to send something like that. Or something over the top like, “I was just thinking I’ll father the five kids you’re looking for. How are you doing today?” The stuff that pops into my mind is funny to me, but it’s not something you can actually send.
It’s the same thing thinking about the massage therapist’s message. She wrote this long thoughtful message asking how things are going with the holidays and the new chapter in my life. My brain jumps to these extreme, over-the-top jokes that obviously aren’t the kind of thing you send in a text. Still, it shows me that the playful energy is in there somewhere. I just need to figure out how to channel it into something that actually works.
When I look through my messages, though, the bigger pattern is that most of them are just flat and overly logical. I was reading back through what I sent the woman from yoga and almost cringing. On November 1 I sent a message that just said my name, Jerry Banfield. She liked it ten hours later. Then a few days ago on Sunday morning I texted, “Good morning. Haven’t seen you in yoga forever. I’m going to 10 a.m. this morning and 9 a.m. tomorrow morning.” That part actually felt like a decent message. Direct and clear.
She replied four hours later saying, “Hey, I’ll see you tomorrow at 9 a.m. Had my little one this weekend.” Then she didn’t show up for the class, and I followed up saying, “We missed you at yoga. I’m guessing you had some mom duties come up.” Twenty-six hours later she replied that she had trouble getting her little one out the door in the morning and asked what class I was going to tomorrow. I told her I probably couldn’t make class the next couple days but would be at the 9 a.m. Friday and probably the 10:30 Saturday.
Then I read the next message I sent and just shook my head. Four minutes later I wrote, “I would love to have some more time to talk to you outside the studio. How would you feel about meeting up at Crescent Lake Park sometime?” Looking back at that, it just feels weak and overly formal. The energy of it feels timid instead of confident.
Sometimes in life you have to see clearly what you don’t want to do before you stop doing it. Reading that message makes it obvious that I don’t want to keep sending texts like that. It’s too stiff and overly careful.
As I scroll through everything, I can see the patterns. Short responses from some women, long thoughtful ones from others, and a lot of my own messages sitting somewhere in the middle where they’re technically fine but lacking personality. The real takeaway from all of this is that I’m learning what works and what doesn’t. The playful energy is there, the confidence is there, and now it’s just a matter of expressing it better instead of defaulting to flat, overly logical messages. If your own texting reads back flat and you can’t find the playful, confident version of yourself on the screen, you can book a one-on-one call with me and we’ll work on it together.
Today my son had a little bathroom accident, the kind young kids sometimes have. It reminded me of something that happened to me when I was a kid. My kids used to make fun of me because I told them about it. I was sitting in kindergarten one day and went to rip a fart and ended up shitting my pants all over the place. I didn’t know anything about that Hershey Squirt situation back then. I remember being in the bathroom looking down at my underwear thinking, fuck, this is everywhere. I knew I had to tell the teacher so they could call my dad.
I still remember my dad spraying me off in the shower when he picked me up and how good it felt to be clean again. Back then it didn’t feel awkward at all being naked in front of my dad. It felt normal, the same way my son feels now. Kids don’t carry all the weird shame adults sometimes do.
When my ex-wife and I talked about my son today, I quoted a line from a D12 song by Bizarre about an embarrassing bathroom moment. My ex-wife immediately said she knew that was exactly what I was going to say. It struck me that she might be the only person in the world who would instantly know I was going to say that line in that situation. I love that about her.
At the same time, loving something about someone doesn’t mean you have to stay married. When I think about my ex-wife and the life coach, I notice I’m curious about what a new connection could be like, even if part of me knows it might be a little complicated territory.
What I really want is a woman who can handle my sense of humor. I want someone who can laugh at dark, outrageous jokes. Someone who could sit down and watch something like Anthony Jeselnik’s special Fire in the Maternity Ward and actually laugh with me. When I first heard that special I wasn’t in a place where I could laugh at it. There are a lot of dead baby jokes in there, and I love my kids and babies in general. But now I find that kind of shock humor funny. To me it feels like you should be able to laugh about anything.
Getting on with my day, I started off by dropping the kids off at school and then I went and played tennis with my friends. I whooped everybody’s ass out there too. Everybody got fucked up on that court today. There was one guy my age who was having a rough day. He was on my team though, and we still beat the other guys 6–1. Then we rotated and had two older guys playing with us. The funny part was that me and one of the older guys turned around and beat my friend and the other older guy 6–0. My friend was laughing and said, “Just take me out back and shoot me.” I told him I’d really hate to do that to him and he should just get some coaching with my tennis coach again.
After tennis I went to the airbase with my mom. While we were walking around I practiced smiling at every pretty woman I saw. I generally try to be friendly with people. Of course, if one of the pretty women doesn’t even look at me I notice myself getting resentful for a second. My mind jumps to something like, how many boyfriends you got up in that ass right now?
My mom and I had a nice time at the base. She ended up buying me a set of stainless-steel pots and pans because I told her I’m done with that Teflon bullshit that flakes off and ends up in your food. I don’t want that peeling off into my gut.
Afterward I asked Google’s AI about it. I said something like, “All right Google, I want to buy a pan that doesn’t have that crap shit on the outside of it.” Google’s AI comes back acting like a smartass and says something along the lines of, “The cheap black crap you’re referring to is likely a synthetic nonstick coating made from PTFE, polytetrafluoroethylene, commonly known by the brand name Teflon.” Then I scroll down and the AI keeps quoting me, saying things like cookware that won’t have the flaking “black crap” that needs recoating.
I’m thinking, all right, that’s once. But then I ask another question about stainless steel and the thing responds again, saying it doesn’t have a separate “crap coating.” I’m sitting there wondering how many times this thing is going to quote my use of the word crap back to me. Then I ask about carbon steel and it says something like “Key facts about carbon steel: no ‘crap coating’ to peel.” At that point I’m laughing because the AI is basically mocking me.
It actually does feel like it has a little bit of a sense of humor. Like it’s saying, okay Jerry, you and your black crap shit pans. The only time it didn’t quote me was in the third response when I asked about stainless steel.
Earlier in the day I had a salad before going to the airbase with my mom. When I got home I made some bean soup for dinner. I had cooked about half a bag of pinto beans in the Instant Pot. I scooped a few ladles into a bowl and then dumped some dry oats right into the beans and broth. I grabbed three stalks of celery from the fridge, ripped the top and bottom off for no particular reason other than I’m not living in North Korea, then used my teeth to bite the celery into pieces and spit them back into the soup. After that I dumped three tablespoons of coconut oil into the bowl for flavor, added some salt, seasoning, and nutritional yeast, mixed it all up, and ate the whole thing. That was dinner. That’s some healthy eating right there.
After dinner I went to my son’s soccer game. My ex-wife was there and we had a nice conversation on the sidelines. It was actually easy talking with her. Then I went home, washed my new pots and pans, and headed out to an AA meeting.
At the meeting people were talking about how you’re not God and how the whole point is to bow down and serve God. Sitting there listening, part of me had this totally opposite reaction. I’m thinking, I’m God. This is my universe. I came in like, I’m God. This is my universe. I am the creator. I am source. This body and all bodies, all of you and everything here, is my creation. That’s the feeling that came up for me.
At the same time, I can see the whole journey I’ve had with that idea. There were years where I felt like I was fighting God, like I was separate from God. Over time that turned into feeling closer and closer to God, like we were coming together instead of being in opposition. In my head tonight the thought came out in this ridiculous, over the top way where it was like I finally fucked God so hard we became one. That was the kind of wild, irreverent thought running through my mind.
After the meeting I asked ChatGPT what I should do with my life. I was sitting there thinking about the fact that I’ve got two fully finished diary books that I haven’t done anything with. ChatGPT basically told me, Jerry, you should publish those. They’re taking up mental weight just sitting there unfinished.
So I went back and started looking through the October 27 entry. That one alone was about thirty minutes of dictation. Reading it again tonight had me laughing. That entry is funny as hell. I could picture someone reading this twenty or thirty years from now and it being even funnier then, the same way Eddie Murphy’s stand up from the 1980s is still hilarious today when you watch it.
It made me think about the future for a second. Someday it’ll be checkout time for all of us. Everyone’s going to go eventually. Maybe someday somebody will be reading these entries long after all of us are gone. Hopefully not next week or anything like that, but eventually. And if someone is reading this decades from now, there’s a good chance everyone I’m talking about in these stories will be long gone by then. That thought alone made me laugh sitting there tonight.
If you connect with how I live and think, you can follow the rest of my days on YouTube in my Life playlist.
How Music Increases Creativity, Intelligence, and Happiness
From my video published May 23, 2024.
Music can increase your creativity and your intelligence. If you're feeling stuck in your life, annoyed and down and depressed, I believe the solution is to grow, to learn, to expand. I see my life as either growing or dying, and the easiest way to grow out of everything I've seen in life is to listen to music. But you have to listen to music that has new sounds, new frequencies, newness to it. Most of our existing music is very rhythmic, very repetitive, and it kind of keeps you in a stupor, in a trance, hypnotized, sicker than your average. What I'm discovering today, and what I'm really excited about, is exactly how I can create music that supports my own creativity and my expansion in intelligence. The way to do that is to make music that is not very repetitive and that includes a lot of different sounds and frequencies.
New frequencies are new experiences for your ears
If you're feeling stuck, one of the easiest things to do is to have a new experience in your life. Our ears are one of our main senses. Most of us think about having new experiences by watching something, but you can have a new experience by listening to something. If you take in all these different frequencies that are in music, this can help your brain grow and expand in magical ways, because all of life is frequency. Thoughts are just frequencies and vibrations going through your mind, and your brain is translating these into words and into pictures.
Where I see a lot of people suffering, and I've suffered a lot in my life, is you keep yourself in a box, and the music you listen to is often a key part of keeping yourself in that box. When I was most insane and alone and struggling, I was also listening to music that supported that. I was listening to a lot of rap music with repetitive sounds and repetitive themes. A lot of the frequencies in that music were low: separation, hating on other people, drinking, drug use, crime. That music left this fearful feeling, and it left my brain essentially in a cage. Then there was this unhappiness, this feeling that I was a prisoner in my own life, stuck in my own habits, unable to see any way out.
The beautiful part about music is that while your eyes have a lot to do during the day, your ears are often free. If you're working, your eyes are stuck on a computer. If you're a truck driver, you're stuck in a truck and you need to look at the road to drive. But music is an easy thing you can just add into your life. I wash the dishes and listen to new music. I'm out watering the garden, or I'm driving. There are all these activities you probably do throughout the day where you can passively be expanding your creativity, your intelligence, lifting your mood, and getting new ideas. But you have to do it, from what I see, by taking in new frequencies, new sounds you've never heard, music that is ideally like nothing you've ever heard before.
Almost every day I'm pouring in music I've never heard before with frequencies I've never heard before. There's a guy on Bandcamp named ETC Kid who made thousands of songs that he improvised on his Twitch live streams. He's chosen not to do his show anymore, but I listen to his songs, and then I'm on Spotify listening to songs I've never heard before. The problem is that with almost all music out there, it's very rhythmic.
Why rhythmic music can stifle you
While rhythmic music can be soothing, it can also be stifling. Think about all the things you do in your life. Your life already has all these rhythms, all these patterns, all these habits. If you want creativity, if you want intelligence, this generally means you need to break out of the existing rhythms. You need to get into new areas of possibility, and these will often not be rhythmic at first. They'll be new. They'll be fresh. They won't have a set rhythmic pattern.
Rhythms also help you get into a trance, which certainly can be pleasurable. I've listened to a lot of electronic dance music. But I've started to notice that this music, while it can produce a feeling of euphoria while you're listening to it, can also have a negative effect where it's stuck in your head. What you don't want is repetitive sounds and rhythms stuck in your head, because that blocks you from having new creative, intelligent thoughts. Many people are so stuck with all these music lyrics and these repetitive thoughts. Many of the creators out there are just putting out somebody else's thoughts.
The biggest difference, if you want creativity and intelligence, if you want to break out of a lot of these negative places, is that you need zero-to-one moments. A zero is where you've never experienced something before. A one is like, oh, that's a new thought. This thought about music increasing creativity and intelligence, and exactly how I can do that today, is really exciting because I've never had this exact thought before.
WTF Next: my 2017 idea about non-repetitive music
Back in 2017, when I first started making music, I had no background in music at all. I had this idea for non-repetitive music, which I called WTF Next, because you wouldn't know what was coming next. I can listen to songs on Spotify and I swear I know what they're going to do next in the song. A lot of the time, even if they do something I didn't expect, it's not surprising, because almost everybody making music is just trying to make music like what they've already heard before. As creators, we're often creating while trying to get money, trying to get views. Joel Zimmerman, aka Deadmau5, said that if he wants to get paid, he has to put an effing kick drum in his songs. The album he was most proud of is called Where's the Drop?, with no kick drums in it. But if he wants to get paid, he has to put those rhythmic drum beats in.
Most popular music gets you into this repetitive, hypnotic state, which stifles creativity, stifles intelligence, and blocks you from being able to receive all these other frequencies. So the solution is to get out there and hear all kinds of new frequencies. To be fair, frequencies aren't necessarily new or old, but you can hear things put together in a way you've never heard them put together before, things that aren't linear or logical, but more curved and free-flowing. If you wanted to read a novel, many of the books people read follow the same formulaic hero's journey, which I can't even stand to watch in a movie anymore. I already know what's going to happen. I'm craving newness and growth, and newness and growth happen when you expand into areas you haven't been in before.
Music can do that by giving you frequencies and combinations of frequencies that you've never heard before. The most powerful way to do that, from what I'm seeing, is to put a bunch of those all in one single listening experience. So what I'm planning to do is to start making songs and albums that have thousands of different sounds in them. If you listen to popular music, you're hearing a very limited number of sounds. You might get a synth or two that's a sound not exactly like what you've heard before, but the drums are almost all the same. The percussion sounds are generally the same. The singing is done in almost the same tone. Because of that, most music also sounds really boring. Then you get these boring, repetitive things stuck in your head and it stifles your brain.
So many studies have asked why people only use such a small percentage of their brain. If you want to be more creative and intelligent, you need to use more of your brain. From what I've seen, if you want to be happier and more joyous and inspired, you need to expand the amount of your brain you use. To be fair, we've been conditioned in schools, by our music, by our jobs, by almost everybody, to think in a very certain box and to stay in it. Anything outside that box is weird, is wrong, don't go out there. Music is one of the easiest ways you can go out of that box, and nobody even has to know it. And yet almost nobody creates music like this. If you have music that's meeting exactly what I'm describing, I'd love to hear it — you can join Jerry Banfield Family and share it with me there.
The more I've been taking in all this new music lately, playing all these new sounds in my studio on my Ableton Push 3, using all these different synthesizer sounds, the more I've found that I'm breaking out of the matrix doing this. As a creator, I recently put up a video where I talked about how one view is enough views for a video on YouTube. That is an idea I'd never seen before, a title I'd never seen before. Even me, as a creator who's been on YouTube for 13 years, what have I been doing with most of my videos? I've literally just been copying other people's video ideas, video titles, and video thumbnails. In fact, that's the advice some of the best creators in the game will give you, whether they're YouTubers or musicians. I remember Deadmau5's masterclass, where he literally said that great creativity is just stealing: you take somebody else's idea and put your own spin on it. Mr. Beast takes somebody else's video idea and does his own version of it. But for me, that's just more of the same. What I want is zero to one. I want stuff where, when you watch one of my videos, it's like, holy cow, I've never seen this or heard this idea before. That's where my whole mind and body get excited. That's growth.
Growth can feel scary, and that's the point
Sometimes growth is painful. Sometimes growth is scary. When I was in my first few months sober, I realized that if I stayed sober and really worked the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, my life was going to plunge into the unknown. It often feels very safe to just stay with the rhythms you've heard before, the patterns, the people, the jobs, the thoughts, and the music you've had before. It feels safe and known. Especially if you've been conditioned your whole life to stay within the box and to think a certain way, it can feel scary even to listen to some music.
Sometimes I've found that my mind will violently resist something that's actually zero to one, something new I've never heard before in music. But because I've really started to latch onto this newness in my music and my creativity, I now demand that my videos come from a place of, I just need to say this, because it's a zero-to-one moment for me. It's a big realization. It doesn't matter if anyone else even watches the video. From there, I know that's where I can really create that which is exceptional. If I can make a video I've never heard before, I can be absolutely certain that one of those videos will absolutely rip. I can grind out a thousand videos saying what other people have said before, and very easily none of those will land. I've ground out 5,000 videos, and the very best videos I've ever put out, in terms of views, are the ones with original things, where nobody had done a video like that before. Nobody had put a complete brand-new 12-hour hacking course on YouTube before that video ripped. Nobody had hired a professional League of Legends coach to help them get out of Bronze. These zero-to-one ideas are what you need if you're a creator. You need ideas that nobody's ever done before, out there in an original way.
I want to serve the collective and I want to see what my full potential is. You just can't see what your full potential is if all you do, in terms of frequency, is stay in the same frequencies. You can't see what your potential is musically if you stick to the same notes, the same scales, the same instruments. It all just sounds the same. Sure, you can make something that will please people. You might even be able to make yourself rich and make a lot of money off of it. But to me, what good is that? Riches and fame are useless. What's worth living for is creativity, growth, intelligence, expansion. That's the joy of living to me. That's what kids are often so full of: a desire for growth, for expansion, for newness, for putting things together in new ways. This is where adults often start to seem to die. You stop taking in new ideas. You listen to the same news broadcast every day, which puts the same frequencies at you every day with slight modifications. There'll be different pictures and different words, but it's the same basic frequencies. That's where you get sick and diseased and die, because there's no passion for life, nothing new coming in.
In this way, even death is a creative expression: I'm going to let go of this body so I can get into another one, because that new body will be filled with the desire for creativity and intelligence and a whole new collection of frequency. I really like this body, so I want to stay in it. And yet I also want to completely shatter the bounds of my mind, and I want to do that completely sober, because drugs can do that, but it's dangerous. It can be destructive, and it's not something you can often successfully integrate. As a person who's sober, I'm asking: how can I have these transcendent experiences? I've already had them by listening to music I'd never heard before.
Transcendent experiences unlocked by new music
While I was walking my dog one night, I had a memory or a vision, whatever you want to call it. I was still seeing everything clearly, but another part of me was aware of remembering building a star, of putting together the energy of an entire star, and the moment when it ignites, and the excitement of all of that. That was a transcendent experience. Another night, I remembered being a bird and flying to Earth, picking my parents out and diving down into my body. These are experiences that are possible, and they were unlocked by listening to music with new sounds and new frequencies.
Some of the music I was listening to was Deadmau5 songs. Unfortunately, that also has a lot of rhythmic drum beats that keep you in a trance state and can be a bit addictive. I've even gotten to where I feel stifled. I'm like, oh, this is a Deadmau5 song, I kind of know how it's going to go already. That music helped break me out, but I want to go further. I want way more frequencies. I want to expand away faster. I want to unlock these experiences in my brain, and because music is frequencies, I'm going to be cranking out videos on my Jerry Banfield channel and my Jerry Banfield music channels that have so many different sounds in them, because that's going to unlock all these frequencies in my mind. Then I can accept information related to that, and I can have experiences related to that.
If this isn't making sense musically, it will make sense in other ways. If you feel stuck in your life and you take a trip somewhere else, you're getting out into a new visual experience, and also audio. If you eat, smell, and feel new things, you're getting your senses out into a new frequency environment. You're stimulated by traveling somewhere because you're taking in all these different frequencies. But traveling can be expensive and inconvenient, and many people don't have much chance to travel. What I love about music is that I can share it out there for free, where anyone in the whole world can consume it for free by listening, and it will provide a similar effect to traveling, where these different frequencies are unlocked in your mind.
I've found that when I've been creatively stuck in the past, if I took a trip, my mind would expand and I could see things I couldn't see before. If you're feeling stuck and down and depressed, the cause is often that you're stuck and enmeshed in the same old frequencies, while your soul and your spirit want to expand. This is why doing things like taking a trip, having new experiences, and getting out of your house can help so much. You'll notice that people who feel bad often stay in their house, stay in their beds, and stay in the exact same set of circumstances, which leaves the soul stifled and hungry. Often the body will manifest things like illness just to get out of the house, even if it's to the hospital, just to get into a new environment. This is why traveling can be so satisfying. But even traveling, if you do it a bunch, can get to a point where this place is so similar to that place, and you can end up wanting more and more extravagant adventures. If you start traveling enough, the frequencies become so similar. If I go to some town in the USA, they're all relatively similar. There are differences, and some places and some people are pretty drastically different from one another, but then you go over to Europe or Asia and it feels like all new frequencies in some ways.
Frequencies, attraction, and the partner you want
What's so exciting to me about music is that it's one of the easiest ways you can passively expand your mind. By expanding your mind, you have access to ideas that were essentially forbidden or inaccessible to you before. Because everything is law of attraction and frequency, and things that are similar attract each other, once you've heard these new frequencies, you can now attract ideas that are on those frequencies. You can attract the people on those frequencies too. A lot of the time, why we struggle is that we're stuck on certain frequencies and we won't get out there and get new ones.
If you're used to dating someone toxic, and that's not good for you and you're not good for them, you just need to change the frequencies at your point of attraction and you'll find someone that suits you. But if you don't change your frequencies in other areas, it can be hard to change them in the person you're attracted to. If you're listening to all this toxic, popular music promoting division and a victim mindset, and then you want a partner who's really supportive, the music you're listening to is on a frequency that's not compatible, that clashes with the kind of partner you want. That's how powerful music is. You can change these frequencies and open up new possibilities, and then bring these things into your life.
I'm looking for ideas that just blow me away, like this idea today, because I feel this rush of excitement. Wow, this is a powerful idea. Often the more you get into this, life just feels magical, and you have a spiritual awakening: I am the creator, I'm making this whole reality, because I'm choosing the frequencies I'm interacting with. Because I'm choosing the frequencies, I'm choosing what is attracted to me. I'm literally choosing the exact potential from the quantum field that's coming into me, however you want to put it. The frequencies are your boundaries, and the more you expand them, the more you can get into these areas you've been craving, the ones that will eliminate all those bad feelings.
How I got here: the UFO contact protocol
I got to this idea today because a few weeks ago I watched a video talking about forbidden technology, and my mind started thinking, I'd really like to have access to this, and I know it's possible. I've personally seen something you would call a UFO while I was walking my dog one night. I saw something hover and say hi to me in the sky, and then it ripped off across the entire sky. I thought at first it was a helicopter, because it was a bright light, but it wasn't making any sound, and as soon as I looked at it, I saw it for a moment and thought, I don't think that's a helicopter. Then it blasted off across the whole skyline instantaneously without making a sound. That happened because I reached out and my frequencies were open. I reached out after years and years of watching this UFO material and listening to these books.
After listening to all kinds of different music and watching all these different videos and podcasts, taking in all these different ideas, I finally found one that gave me an exact contact protocol. I think it was called Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind, or something like that, by Dr. Steven Greer. It gave a specific protocol where you use your consciousness to request that these beings, extraterrestrials, higher dimensions, whatever they are, contact you. You show them in your mind exactly where you are on Earth, starting from the solar system and then zooming in to exactly where you are, and you request contact. So I did this for months. I said, hey, I've watched so many of these UFO documentaries and videos, and I want to know firsthand if this stuff is real or not, because when I talk about it, I have people listening to me who watch my videos. If it's real, it'd be easy to just show me. I don't want to go on any crazy adventures, just pop by and say hi, I'll see it, and then I'll know it's real.
It took months, and I even got to a point where I forgot about it. I had put it out there and moved on. I was on the phone with my mom, walking my dog one night, and it was right after I'd put out a very powerful idea into the collective that was actually pretty destructive at the time. It was an original idea. It turns out other people had had the same idea before, but I put this really powerful idea into the collective that went viral and ended up being very destructive in terms of my finances and my reputation, at least in the short term. Right after that, just a few days later, I saw what initially looked like a helicopter, because it was a bright ball of light in the sky. I thought the helicopter was shining a spotlight in my direction. Then, as soon as it recognized that I'd seen it, it tore off across the sky. It was just what I asked for. I was like, oh my God, that is exactly what I put the request out for months ago, and it happened. I literally just got proof firsthand, with my own two eyes, that at least some of what these people are saying about extraterrestrials and interdimensional beings is real. I know there's deception and there are people making things up and lying, but there's also a lot of truth out there, and I've seen it with my own two eyes.
But I was only open to that experience because I'd done a whole bunch of work opening my own frequencies to it. If you're closed to an experience like that, you literally might not look up and see it, or it wouldn't even appear to you in the first place. You've got people now who are seeing all these videos of craft and they're literally closing their eyes to it, because their frequencies aren't open. If your frequencies are open, then these possibilities can come to you. The partner you want can come to you, and you can even receive extremely powerful ideas.
Telepathy, leaders, and direct energy exchange
If we want to really live at our highest potential on this planet, I believe we need no more leaders and no more power structures. We need to operate telepathically. We already are all connected telepathically, but many of us have been conditioned to block that connection, to ignore it, and instead to pay attention to what we can see in these mind structures. That's how you get these rhythmic things conditioning you to put your head down, be in a hypnotic trance, and just do what you're told. By taking all these other frequencies in, and music is the easiest way to do that, you can break out of it. There are other ways too: eating different foods, traveling, watching different videos, listening to different podcasts can all have a similar effect. But I'm seeing that music is the easiest way to produce this frequency-opening effect.
I'm getting ideas that are just amazing. So many people are pessimistic and down about the future, and that's because they're in this hypnotic trance, this box of very limited frequencies, and they can't see anything outside of it. The future just looks like Armageddon to them, and it's not exciting. But to me it's extremely exciting, because there are so many frequencies I'm just starting to interact with. I'm getting ideas like: we need to eliminate leaders and power structures and mental power structures, operate telepathically, work together, share ideas, and directly exchange energy with the collective, so we don't use money anymore.
Money is an energy exchange, but it's an indirect, uneven energy exchange. Lots of times money is exchanged where one person gave and gave and gave, and got a relatively small amount of money for it. In other instances, a person got a whole bunch of value and the money was relatively small. What we need is a direct energy exchange. If you can focus on giving and serving your energy to the collective, the 8 billion people on this planet, or the planet as a whole, or you can even go bigger than that, and then receive the energy back, it can be an even energy exchange. You never have to worry about financial insecurity or money again, because literally every single other thing will take care of itself. You give to the collective, you serve the collective, you make the music you need to make, or whatever you can do that's best for the collective to support and love and take joy in and be a part of. The collective has all the resources. It has all the romantic partners, all the friends, all the family members, all the places to live, the whole planet. The collective has everything. But you can't serve the collective by doing what you're told by power structures, because those are often not in harmony. They're in disharmony, clashing with the collective. So you open your frequencies to absorb information like this, and from there comes joy, clarity, and opportunities that previously were inaccessible to you.
The first step in accessing this is to be honest about where you are. Some of you are stuck in a job and you can't see a way out, can't see a way that you'll be supported and okay unless you work this job. The first step, just like in Alcoholics Anonymous, is realizing your own powerlessness and unmanageability. If you want a way out, you need to surrender yourself to something higher, a bigger idea, a higher power. That's what AA is. The second step is opening up to these new frequencies, these new ideas. In step three, you decide you're going to turn your whole life over and have these new experiences on these new frequencies. You're going to let go of what you were doing before, and you're going to open and expand.
Why making music is my way to serve
This is what I'm so excited about today, because music is this gateway. This has been so counterintuitive to me in lots of ways. It hasn't always made sense, and I've been frustrated often along the way. I've asked myself, why do I want to make music? I don't see how making music is going to support me financially. I don't see why my making music is even needed in the world. Then I go to make music, and often, if you compare it to a lot of the other music you've heard, it doesn't sound the same. It sounds rough, raw, amateur. I'm like, why this activity? Shouldn't I be engineering anti-gravity craft? Shouldn't I be doing something really amazing? But because I'm opening all these other frequencies, I know that once you expand what's possible and open your frequencies, you can directly download stuff into your mind, or the things you're looking for will be magically given to you.
Go back to when I was thinking about all this advanced technology, and how almost every problem we have on this planet, from poverty to wars to food shortages, people starving, people being overweight, could be easily fixed with technology that is currently kept secret from the masses, although it's starting to get out. I thought, I want to contribute to this technology getting out there. I wondered, should I drop everything I'm doing and start engineering one of these devices myself? I studied engineering before, but I didn't like the physics and the calculus. I guess on some level, from what I'm seeing now, I could realize it was all crap, that it wouldn't work at the highest level, so I got disinterested in it completely.
I also realized that generally the collective has already put you in the right position to serve naturally. Sometimes you do need to make adjustments. You might need to move, or leave your job, or leave a partner. But in many cases, you're already in the right position. With YouTube and creating content and the music stuff I have in my studio, I've learned that I'm already in the right position here. The ideal way to serve is probably not to scrap everything, but to bring a new way of thinking, hence opening up the frequencies and the possibilities.
Joe Rogan, Terrence Howard, and a synchronicity
Guess what happened last night. I was at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and someone shared this podcast that Joe Rogan just did with Terrence Howard that they were all fired up about, because of all these new ideas that just blew their minds. I listened to it, and Terrence Howard is sharing all these ideas and all this technology that just a few weeks ago I was thinking we really need to get out there. He's actually doing it. Not only is he doing it, but he's an Oscar-nominated actor, so he's already popular, he's already got a platform, and he's been working on this stuff for decades and already has patents. I was thinking about what should be done, and through somebody at a meeting listening to Joe Rogan's podcast, I got enough information to see that what I'm desiring is not only already being done, but has been in progress for decades. That's when you start to see how magical life is and how frequencies operate.
Part of the reason I'm fired up is that taking that information in gave me new frequencies and new ideas, things I'd never heard. He was talking about how planets are birthed from stars. The stars birth the planets. The Sun just crapped out Mercury most recently, and before that it spewed out Venus and Earth and the older planets, because the planets drift away from their star at a certain very small rate. This takes a really long time, but the planets actually drift away from their star. They're not stuck in orbit in a fixed position. Planets are being cranked out of stars, just like women give birth to babies and reptiles lay eggs. Planets are a product of stars. I love that idea. I'd never heard it before, and it feels great to hear a new idea.
He shared things like gravity just being an effect of electricity, and that a lot of the physics we've been told is blatantly wrong. That's why they have to keep adding more and more insane things into it to try to make it make sense at all, when there's a simpler way to look at things. There aren't straight lines; things are based on curves. You put all that together and it eliminates all this other confusing stuff. When you start learning physics, it doesn't make sense, things like black holes and straight lines, objects in motion staying in motion while everything is in motion, when there is nothing that's at rest. That's probably why I started to get really annoyed with physics and calculus, when the math got to a point where I felt, this just feels wrong, and I don't want to take in that which feels wrong.
Downloading a thousand sounds while vacuuming
So I got all fired up on that last night, and then I'm thinking, okay, how do I accept these new ideas into my music? How does this relate to my music? I've been having the desire to put out all these different sounds, and this morning I'm vacuuming and intentionally opening my mind to download these ideas, and I just start downloading them. Picture what he said about frequencies, and think about music and sound, and how everything in life is frequencies. One of the best ways you can help people, Jerry, is to put out all these different frequencies that people aren't usually exposed to, that they've never heard before. If you hear a thousand sounds you've never heard before, that just unlocked a thousand different little frequency areas in your brain that you can now receive on. When you've had that experience, you're open to having another similar experience. When you've had one thought, it's much easier to have another thought just like it. This is why so many of our minds think so many repetitive thoughts all the time: we're not getting that much new in.
I want to stop thinking all these repetitive thoughts. So I need to stop listening to the same repetitive crap all the time. A lot of stuff on YouTube, a lot of the music, is all the same kinds of frequencies, the same kinds of ideas. I get so much energy, my entire body and spirit light up, when I get a new frequency, and I want to help light up as many people as possible. I had this idea in 2017 when I was listening to Deadmau5's music. I loved the way it made me feel, and now I finally understood why it made me feel that way: because I heard something new. I heard new frequencies put together in a way I'd never heard. I'd never heard electronic dance music even close to Deadmau5's until around 2017. I loved how it made me feel, the possibilities I could see, how I'd expanded, and I wanted to do that for other people. At the time, I couldn't really imagine how I could do that for other people. But now I've got clear instructions: you go play a thousand different sounds for someone in one single video, and that person is going to really feel good. They're going to expand and feel the way you feel when you make it. From there, they're going to be able to share that with others. Maybe an engineer hears it and is now receptive to getting all these advanced technologies directly into their brain, or from another source on the same frequency. Or a mom hears these frequencies and is open to new parenting ideas, able to be more loving and expansive with her children. This is just magic.
Zero to one, and word of mouth does the rest
I'm so grateful for these ideas today, and grateful that I have the chance to share them with you. I had another idea today: this podcast with Joe Rogan, it's word of mouth. All you need to do is put out zero-to-one ideas, because I've obsessed over the years about how to create YouTube videos that work. It's literally all you need to do: put out zero-to-one ideas, and word of mouth will do everything else for you. Even if only one person listens to it, word of mouth means that one person tells several other people, and you go viral from there. I've heard so many YouTube videos saying you need to put out original ideas and original thoughts, and then many others will just copy other people's. I've got the exact truth, the recipe here. You need to put out stuff nobody's ever heard before, and then literally don't worry about anything else.
My job is to expand creativity and intelligence on this planet. That's why I'm here, and music is the fastest way to do that. These videos where I'm talking can also be helpful, and they can help combine those ideas, because just hearing a bunch of sounds and music, you may not have words to describe it right away, but you know this combined with that. These are the most powerful thoughts I have today, and I appreciate you sharing them with me. If you'd like to come along as I create, you're always welcome to join Jerry Banfield Family, where I keep these conversations going, and you can find more of where my head is at in posts like asking for help making music with joy, the yoga crush that reignited my music, and winning the war of art and breaking through. Today I'm going to start creating these. I'll put them out as videos and as sounds on places like SoundCloud first, and then they'll be everywhere else later. This is where I see what I'm doing for the foreseeable future going, putting out all these different sounds.
I don't know anyone else who does this. If you know anyone who does, please tell me so I can listen to their music, because that will speed up my own creativity and intelligence advancement. If you enjoyed this and want to follow along with where I'm headed, you can watch my newest videos in my Life playlist. I think that once you get to a certain level of creativity and intelligence, you transcend everything, even death. You literally just disappear from one body and move into another one. You can really go far, far out there with this stuff. So I want to see how far we can go.
Rediscovering Play, Fun, and Laughter
From my video published March 22, 2024.
Play is so magical, and yet, are you living a life today where you feel you have play? This has been one of my challenges: to just have fun, to let go, and to play. We are so conditioned into being serious, trying to accomplish goals, and living our life by the objectives of the mind. But in my experience, play and laughter are essential parts of a healthy life. I've read about people experiencing massive health benefits from it. I read about a man who, by his own account, recovered from a fatal disease by laughing and watching an hour of stand-up comedy every day.
In this serious world, some of us are so deep into being serious, focusing on accomplishing things and even on helping others, that we can forget: where is the fun? And I'm glad that today I found my fun.
The three music videos that came out of nowhere
I made three music videos on my original Jerry Banfield channel today. If you go down to my music channel, you'll find these three videos, and they were just rolling. The people watching live on Twitch were rolling with laughter. I even added a laugh track to these videos because they were so funny.
But how did I get to doing this? Just yesterday, I was recording a video, feeling bored and wanting to know where my creativity was. These songs are really original. I've never heard anything like them before. They're fun. There's a bunch of gibberish, crazy lyrics. And it happened because I showed up to my studio today and I was able to just play, to just have fun, to just screw around, and thankfully to be in a setup where I could record that and share it.
One of the things that's so often in scarcity in our lives is play. We look around and the world is so serious. I'm grateful that my children remind me of the essential nature of play.
The line from the Seth books that changed how I see it
I read this book from the Seth series. Seth is a channeled non-physical entity that was channeled through Jane Roberts, who wrote a bunch of these Seth books, and this one was about health. One of the best lines I took from that whole book is this: Seth says that the first sign that you are losing your life force, your health, your vitality, is that you stop playing and you analyze your personal problems. A focus on personal problems and a lack of play.
Since I read that, as a person who has been very serious and not very playful for a lot of the last few years, I've been asking myself: how can I play? How can I play and just have fun? What is play? And how do I let go of analyzing personal problems?
Now, yes, there is a certain amount of introspection that is helpful, where you look in the mirror and analyze what's going on and see if you can make any changes. But what I often see is that a lot of us go to one extreme or the other. Either we do none of that, never looking at ourselves, where it's always everybody else's fault. Or those of us who do look at ourselves get kind of narcissistic about it, in constant self-analysis, constantly finding problems. Like in Alcoholics Anonymous, the constant identifying of character defects. And what is the opposite of that? The opposite of that is just playing and having fun. I shared more about coming through that kind of serious self-focus in my reflection on 10 years sober, going from hopeless to happy, joyous, and free.
What play actually means
I'm grateful that with creating videos I have an outlet for this. I've made a lot of my videos very seriously. Even making this one, I'm communicating a very serious topic, but I'm hoping to help you find your inner play. What does it mean to play? It means to have fun, to do something that's worth doing, something where it just seems like there's nothing better to do in the world.
I'm grateful that today, after making 170 songs, I had this idea in my head that it would be really funny to make a song that's all random sounds. Normally you hear songs where people have tried to move every little thing into place and auto-tune it so it sounds like what somebody thinks of as perfect. But in the process, the fun of the music usually gets killed. What I loved most about music, especially rap music, was music that was funny. I've been wanting to make some comedy.
And what I'm getting at is that sometimes it's a magical path, one you are not able to map out in advance. You're not going to figure out exactly how to get there logically. It's almost completely magic how you get from one place to another in life. The intention I set was that I wanted to do something to help people laugh, I wanted to laugh more in my own life, and I wanted to help other people laugh. I was thinking about doing comedy, writing jokes, listening to comedy, but I've tried doing stand-up-style comedy before and I know that doesn't work very well for me.
Then I was just thinking, well, what's funny? What's humor? And I got the idea a couple of days ago: wouldn't it be funny if I just got on the mic in my studio and made some really random noises, made baby sounds, threw on a little beat, and just made something unusual? I had so much fun making that song, and I laughed, and I played it for my kids, and they thought it was funny and laughed a bunch listening to it. But at the time, I didn't think anything further of it.
God Mode, and the songs that surprised even me
Then I came on my live stream on Twitch today. I did a couple of crypto videos, I told some stories, and then I said, all right, let's make some music. Instead of trying to make a song that would get views, I started to think: what if I freestyled and just had fun? Instead of doing it the way I've seen it done a thousand times, where people try to put these polished lyrics together, what if I just freestyled and let it rip? What if I spoke a bunch of gibberish words? That would be so funny. And that's how I made this song called God Mode. It was so much fun, and it kind of took me and the audience by surprise. It was like, what is this? I've never seen anything like this, I've never heard anything like it, it was just hilarious. I thought, well, can I do that again? So I made two more songs, and I haven't laughed this hard in a long time.
I didn't set out to do this today specifically. I didn't plan on it. I'm so glad it happened. It felt like it just came out of me, and I didn't even know what was in there. What I find is helpful for playing is to set up space, to set up space where you can play, because playing is often a very vulnerable thing. You're being silly. This is why most people don't put out music like this, that's just very playful and crazy: people might laugh at it and make fun of it. The funny thing is that I didn't even really know what to play. I had to let myself feel out the feedback I was getting, and I found out that I actually didn't know what to do at first. So this is going to be a really fun thread in my life. I'm going to stick with this for years, and I'm really excited for what it will become, because I'll be sharing all of this with my friends in the community.
The one thing AI can't do
Part of what I keep asking is: what can I make that AI can't make? And I've found that currently one of the biggest weaknesses I see in AI is that AI is not funny. AI just is not funny. It cannot come up with its own jokes. Now, maybe more advanced AI will be able to make jokes, but jokes really require a deep understanding of the human experience. No matter how much text the AI crawls, if you ask it to make a joke, all it will do is crank out jokes it's already heard before. If you Google the joke it gives you, you can see it just took it from somewhere else. Where AI struggles is to be funny.
So I'm thinking about the future. What do we need in the future? We need play. We need funny. Because our kids so often get conditioned to stop playing, to sit still, to do what they're told, to be serious. And I've found that conditioning is some of the hardest to break. It's so normal for me to be serious that I don't even comprehend how I could play.
Making space, and why I'm here as a creator
I'm so excited because today I set aside space. I made space where I could play. And I've made a safe community on Twitch of people like Lisa and Kelly and SPBC who love all kinds of the crazy stuff that I do. If that sounds like your kind of fun, you can join Jerry Banfield Family and we'll find where more of it belongs in your life.
I watched a video yesterday that was really inspiring, by the creator of Patreon, talking about the death of the follow. While he doesn't think followers are necessarily going to die in terms of the follow button and how the web is set up, it is really important to think about, as a creator: why are you here? I've been really frustrated on YouTube, because YouTube, Facebook, all these platforms are set up to make their business successful, often at the expense of mine. I've been subconsciously just cranking out content designed to give YouTube what they want. But what about me?
So I'm glad that today I said, I'm going to come in here and make something that's fun. I'm going to make space to do something that is memorable, that is good for me, and that is good for my audience. And if it doesn't go viral or get as many views, then it doesn't matter. I'm making something for the people who follow me, the people who love me, and even just for me. I did a laugh track on those second two songs, laughing at my own song. I get into this same idea in having fun first as a creator and accepting the views you get. If you want to follow more of this side of my life, it all lives in my Life playlist.
So if there's anything you can get out of this, it's to lean into how magical life is. If you honestly realize that you're a serious person, that you're always taking life so seriously, then one of the biggest things you can do to change everything, from your attitude to your health to your relationships, is to make space for play. As I've focused on this, I've wanted to explore and be sensitive to the amount of play that's available in my life. I've also noticed how other people are more playful, and I've noticed opportunities to play more and have fun with the kids.
You'll know you're a serious person if it's hard to play
You'll know you're a really serious person if it's hard for you to even relax enough to play. Just a few months ago, I was noticing that I couldn't even play with my kids, because I was so serious. Then I heard a lady in an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting share that spending five minutes trying to play with her kids was just like torture for her. And I'm like, wow, I actually relate to that way too much. I really want it to be super fun to play with my kids. I don't want it to be a chore. I want to be more playful myself.
So I'm super grateful, and I've noticed that music has been unlocking greater levels of play than I've known before. These videos are some of the videos I'm most proud of that I've made in a long time. Random, funny music videos. I'm really excited to share them. And it doesn't matter how many views I get on them. It matters that I had fun making them. Lisa had some great laughs, and SPBC and Kelly, while we were live on Twitch, and probably other people will have similar experiences. Making music like this came out of the same place I describe in asking for help and making music with joy.
Putting yourself in positions to laugh
SPBC says lots of laughing gives a reset, and me too. Intentionally putting ourselves in positions to laugh and play seems like one of the best things a lot of us can do to change our lives. I know this can feel very vulnerable and scary, when you realize, I have no idea what's fun anymore, I don't even remember how to play. But for me, just setting the intention has been the start: I want to have fun, I want to play, and I want to do it in a way that's considerate. I don't want to drive my car a hundred miles an hour down the road, because that might be fun for me but it's not considerate or safe for other people. So I want to play in a way that's fun, that's safe, that's enjoyable, and that adds value to others.
What I'm hoping is that in sharing this with you, you'll dig into where you can play more in your life, where you can have fun in your life. You might have to cut some busyness. You might have to cut some things you think you should do. It might be better to drop some time working to make space for this, because having a bunch of money while being sick and serious and not enjoying life is not the trade most of us want. I think most of us would rather be broke and be having fun and playing and enjoying our lives. But we don't have to make that choice today. We can have plenty of money and play and have fun and be healthy and have great lives.
I'll be releasing these songs, and I imagine we're going to crank out a bunch more like this going forward. I think we've found a formula, and now I want to hear a bunch more weird sounds and make even crazier songs than this. Lisa says, dance like nobody's watching. Exactly.
So I'm so grateful. I've laughed more today than I've laughed in a long time, and I encourage you to do the same. Find what's funny, find a way you can play. If you don't know where to start, start with what you know. Listen to some stand-up comedy, or set an intention, like, hey, universe, guide me to something that would be playful and fun for me. That's what I've done, and I hope it's good for you too. If you want more of this, come play with us.