"Now, What?"

Last Thursday morning I received a text message from a good friend with those two words, and only those two words. The text resonated with me, as I’d been pondering this exact question for much of the previous 24 hours.

I’m interpreting this question on a very personal level, as anything more than that would seem to violate the path I think my life is about to take, perhaps not immediately, but surely in the near future.

The bottom line is that I think it is time for me to change the way I live in this world, and the shame of coming to this conclusion now is that the signs pointing in this direction have been screaming at me for many years. I have at times, ignored them, and at other times, not recognized them. Ego, a sense of where I fit, and enough arrogance to believe that I was making a difference also came into play. The bottom line though, is that the main focus of my life needs to shift—dramatically—from its current global and national orientation to one centered on my family, my house, and my town. I’m not sure how to do it. I’m not sure if I’m wired to do it.

I’ve always been outward looking. I can remember in high school, purposely avoiding the local news (sorry Jim Gardner and Action News) because all it seemed to be was coverage of fires in Philly. I wanted the network news. I was a John Chancellor and David Brinkley man, then a Tom Brokaw man. In college, this emphasis deepened as I learned more about the world around me. Twenty-one years in the Navy, the last ten of which I spent at various times thinking about grand strategy and naval strategy, baked all of it in.

I married young (23) and divorced young and childless at 28, so there was really little in my life to draw my gaze from the far horizon. For thirteen years after, I earned more degrees, I traveled the world, and “home” was nothing more than a concept, that place where I stored my things. The Navy even made that easier for me, because moving every two or three years offered the wonderful opportunity to simplify, and so my household goods moves were always pretty small and straightforward.

And then I retired from the Navy and cast my lot with a lovely widow and her two little girls who lived on the water surrounded by books. That was seventeen and a half years ago, and while I have out of both love and necessity managed to roll my scan in somewhat, there has always been a tension between an emphasis on my home and family, and my imagined connection (and importance) to that broader world. Honest reflection would point in the direction of heightened selfishness on my part, but this kind of reflection has been late in coming to me. Catherine’s sublime patience and subtle training has helped, but then again, so has the evolution in American politics. And what I mean by that, is that the time has come for me to realize that whatever importance and vitality I assumed I exercised in the fora in which I participated—is gone. The world has moved past me, my ideas and insights are not valued, and there is no natural “home” for my approach.

I am left with two choices, or maybe better, at LEAST two choices. On the one hand, I can spend the rest of my life howling at the moon and shaking my fist in frustration. “If they’d only listened to me!” I could cry. I could monitor national and world events with the same frequency and interest that I do now, and with the added time of eventual retirement from paid work, write more and talk more and continue to promote my ideas, and steadily grow more angry and frustrated at the obvious fact that few are listening.

Don’t get me wrong. This path is not without its attraction. I mean, let’s be serious. Someday, long after I’m dead, there very well may occur some kind of great re-discovery of the wit and wisdom of The Conservative Wahoo, a kind of modern Great Awakening that will put this country on the straight and narrow for a further two and a half centuries. Generations of Americans might look back and say “why wasn’t this man listened to?” when they evaluate the unsettled twenty-first century.

Hey. Stop laughing. It COULD happen.

But it is not likely. Nor is it probable. It is possible, only by the widest of imaginations.

No, I’m going to pick the “other hand”. And that is to think about the life I’ve led and be proud of the things I’ve done, most of them at least. I’m going to change the road I’m on and happily walk it with no longing for the road on which I was. I’m going to find a way to roll my scan in, to engage less and less with the world outside my family and Talbot County, MD, and concentrate on the areas of my life with the highest probability of success in influencing positive outcomes in those places.

Because I’m a planner, I see this taking time. I reckon that around January 1, 2026, I’ll probably be mostly out of the caring so much about the state of the country business. To the extent that I care about global issues, they will mostly be focused on what airlines fly to which countries and how can I get the maximum comfort for the lowest cost. I’d like to figure out how to be more involved in what goes on in my town and in my church, and there are three women in my life that deserve more of me, whether they wish it or not. I’ve got a great core group of friends, and I want to see more of them. The nuclear family that launched me is precious to me, and being with them more in the years to come means a lot.

The one thing I’m not sure about—is this Substack. So much of what I write is about the bigger world, mostly because I’ve had skin in that game. But if I not only don’t have skin in that game, but don’t WANT skin in that game, is there enough in the mutterings of a man in his sixties running out the clock to be of interest for anyone else? I guess we’ll see on this.

For the next year, I suppose things will look externally somewhat like they look now. I’ll bitch about politics and the Navy and economics and policy. But I want to bitch less. I want to care less. One path to less bitching and less caring will be to start to push away from this infernal machine and its ensorcelling social media applications, while reaching for my Kindle and the comfort of hardcopy books. I attended a lecture in our public library the other day, the third time I’d darkened its doors in 17 years. I imagine there are some things there that I need to discover.

No precipitous moves though. Just don’t be shocked if you don’t hear much from me in 2026…

Positive Steps

As I’ve pondered the release of this essay over the weekend prior to its appearance, I’ve spent time thinking about the difficulty inherent in a change as large as the one I will be attempting to pull off. I realize that the use of the word “addiction” to describe my relationship with the global and national is promiscuous and cheapens the important challenges of people facing real addiction…but that’s kinda where I am with this. It’s caused me to think a bit about how best to go about this year of change.

• First, I REALLY need to alter the way I spend my free time, specifically, I need to cut out or at least dramatically reduce the time I spend listening to political podcasts. Like many Americans, I listen mostly to people whose views broadly coincide with my own. I listen to the Commentary Podcast, National Review “Editors”, and pretty much anything that Jonah Goldberg is a part of. The bottom line though, is that if I am going to spend less time thinking about the global and the national, I need to spend less time listening to people talk about the global and national, EVEN IF I AGREE WITH THEM. Maybe especially if I agree with them.

• I need to break myself of the practice of rising and diving directly into the news of the day. I still wish to be informed, I just don’t need to marinate in it.

• With more time driving available without the hum of conservative podcasts, room will open for more history podcasts, and for the pure enjoyment of 80’s New Wave (the best music created in the 20th Century) and classical music (the best music ever created). I will also spend more time driving in silence, something I really enjoy.

• COVID did a number on my personal appearance. Specifically, since I worked from home so much, I rarely shaved, and because I generally exercised every day, it was easier just to dress in sweats/t-shirts etc. Post COVID, I’ve continued with this somewhat more slovenly practice. No more. If I’m going to make big changes, I need to pile up victories with little changes. One of those little changes is going to be to shave every day and dress presentably. The repetition of positive changes on a small scale will act as reinforcement for the changes I hope to make on the larger scale.

• I need to get back in the habit of attending church every Sunday. Again, I am a man of habits and rituals, and when I deviate from them, minor chaos has the ability to creep in.

We’ll see how all this goes, and maybe you’ll be able to sense it from the way I relate to the world as expressed here.

Happy Veterans Day

I’ll be flying out to California on Veterans Day, an error in scheduling for which I am solely responsible. I’d like to wish everyone reading this who served the best of the day, and my hopes for a loving and peaceful world for us all to live in.