Good day, readers! I took yesterday off to catch up on sleep and recharge my batteries. As I near 40, I have to admit to myself that I can’t handle staying up until ungodly hours like I did way too often in my younger years. I’m starting to really treasure the value of quality sleep and getting enough of it. That can influence the outcome of your whole next day.

As I write this my daughter, Sunny Day, is slowly cruising around the edge of her playpen with a small blanket dangling from her mouth like a puppy. Kohen is off at school doing third-grade things. He has recently made friends with a classmate named Muhammad. They’ve started talking to each other on the phone in the evening and it’s the cutest thing to witness. Muhammad told Kohen the last time they talked that he was his best friend at least four or five times. He seems like a great kid and—as a nice bonus—his parents seem pretty nice, too. The parents, in our experience, can be a mixed bag and usually end up being arms-length relationships. But grown-ups like making friends, too! It’s always nice to encounter another adult who you at least don’t mind talking to (or vice versa).

I struggle with the modern concept of work. Not because I’m lazy; I’m actually a very hard worker who is willing to innovate and improve processes and share that knowledge with everyone. What I have a problem with is the way the whole system is set up to increasingly enrich a micro segment of the ultra-rich population who see the middle class—people like you and me, most likely—as an annoyance at best and a threat at worst. This country needs a massive increase in our collective class consciousness, and FAST—or we will be forever doomed to keep going in circles fighting over scraps while we continue to gild the pockets of people who could really stand to part with 95%+ of their riches and still never need to break a sweat to survive.

Our whole economic system today is set up to entice us to consume and spend as early and as often as possible, while thinking as little about it as you can in the process. I suppose I had better be careful with this line of thinking, though. According to Dear Leader Trump’s NSPM-7 (which is actively covering on his Substack—send me a DM if you’d like a month gift subscription), this anti-capitalist rhetoric might get me labeled a domestic terrorist. Pardon me while I roll my eyes fully around in their sockets… On a totally unrelated note (😉) you should find a copy of the documentary 13th and watch it. Quite an eye-opening look at how prison labor has been quietly used in place of slave labor since the end of our Civil War. Just something to mill about in the old noggin. It’s probably fine, though, as long as we all keep our heads down and don’t ask too many questions… Ha! Peace and love to you, workers!

—Jared Caraway

My wife proposed the idea of getting me a typewriter for my birthday this year since I’ve redeveloped my spark for writing and have been doing it pretty steadily.

After some discussion and landing on a super expensive one that’s being restored by a local guy, I did a search on Etsy on a whim and landed almost immediately on just the machine for me.

Green is my favorite color (followed closely by blue), so this one jumped out at me. I think it’s a nice bonus that it has the ñ key and a few other diacritical marks.

I’m dead serious about taking my life offline. It’s a process in motion. This surveillance state they’re trying to build can take a hike. I know I certainly will be. 🥾