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I quit.

They say winners never quit, but I quit all the time. I've kinda mastered the art of quitting.

At the beginning of my career, I worked for Athenahealth. It was a fantastic job for a few years. Then I got put in a difficult position – mildly unethical, and deeply frustrating. I tried all the proper channels, and then any channel I could think of. Everybody said they'd like to help me, but something kept them from doing it.

After I left, I started hearing from former coworkers, my exit had made changes. Three people were assigned to cover the work I'd been doing, and the overly aggresive project timeline got put on hold.

Here in America we have "at-will" employment, where there's no obligation between either party to keep working together. Your employer can cut you loose at any time (provided they have a good reason), but you can bounce too.

You always get one vote at any job. You can vote with your feet.

We're experiencing a social phenomenon now that's been labeled "The Great Resignation". People are quitting their jobs in record numbers.

This means change, and change can be difficult. But growth, and therefore healthy life, depend on it.

When I quit Zipcar in 2011 to move to move to Austin, I horrified lots of people by not having another job lined up. This tide has turned. An understanding is starting to form that if your situation no longer works, it's better to get away from it. Save up some money, cut your expenses, and take a plunge into the unknown.

When I got to Austin, I picked up a short-term contract gig, and then another, and so without really planning it, I became a freelancer. Most clients wanted me to stay on full-time, but I turned them down – quit! – because moving on had so many benefits. I learned so much, and every time I successfully completed a project for a big name, I could charge more next time.

I met a corporate coach named Deb Shannon who blew my mind. She said, "Have you ever started at a job where they talked in any way about how it was going to end? Or was there always an unspoken assumption you were going to work there for the rest of your life?"

How about you, any job ever discussed that? Given there's billions of jobs in the world, I'm sure someone has. But it's rare, isn't it?

Everything is changing, and jobs are no different. Get used to change and you'll get along.

If you don't like what you're doing, do something else.

Three quarters through this 30 day project, let's take a pause to review.

First, thank you for reading. I appreciate your time.

At the beginning of this project, I said it was going to be about practice and uncertainty. And I feel it has been. Some of the uncertainty has been how I adapt to the practice.

Choosing what to write about poses the biggest challenge. I had a lot of topics prepared beforehand, but I didn't write them all out first. I wanted to see where the writing went. As Dave Grohl says about the Foo Fighters' practice attitude: "If it gets any better, it'll get worse." Leave room for it to grow. Practice uncertainty.

But it's not just what I want, it's about you too. It's gotta be useful, and enjoyable.

People ask how I put myself out in public. Not gonna lie, it's not easy. But it's hard to keep it all to yourself too. When an elite practicioner blows you out of the water, it's still hard for them. The difference is "hard for them" produces more results than "hard for you".

If it's gonna be hard anyways, might as well pick the kind of hard that produces results you like. Having to deal with success is still hard, but maybe you might like that kind of hard better.

That's where habits come in. What you practice determines what problems.

I got a little taste of taking my own medicine today.

This morning, before I'd finished my coffee, I got tricked into opening an attachment on an email. Out of an abundance of caution, I restored my phone from a backup and changed my passwords.

It set my schedule back, but I have posts pre-written. I could have fallen back on one of those… but it didn't feel right.

I realized it's time to talk about how I haven't been following my own advice.

Last week I wrote about Agile software development's one simple principle – do the most important thing first – as a form of bucket list. What do you want to get done before you die?

This led me back to Hemingway's advice on writer's block: "Write one true thing. Write the truest thing you know."

Simple, right? 'Course, simple ain't ever easy. I could say the truest thing I know is, 'the sum of the squares of the sides of a right triangle is equal to the square of the hypotenuse." Or love, I know love is true.

Hot dang, those are true things. But not very original. Lots of people have said that already. It's not a good use of your time.

The emphasis is on "you". What's the truest thing you know? That others don't?

I've been thinking for a long time about what ideas I have that are truly original, and it turns out, there aren't very many of them. (Most of my ideas, most of everybody's, are about other ideas.)

But originality and importance aren't the same. Do the most important thing first. If I died tomorrow, what would I want to leave to everyone?

Everything in the universe, all matter, comes from one single electron.

This is speculative, in the sense there's not a lot of evidence for or against it.

But it's not crackpot. The idea came up as a casual aside in a discussion between Feynman and Wheeler, two giants of 20th Century physics (Einstein was on Feynman's PhD thesis committee, Wheeler coined the phrase "black hole").

Neither of them pursued the issue because they had problems to work on which did involve direct experiments. But if neither of them had a problem with the idea, no obvious mathematical or physical objections, that's a pretty good endorsement to me.

The hypothesis goes, while we perceive individual atoms as having separate electrons, that's a trick of perspective. Imagine I showed you a plate of spaghetti cut in half – you'd see what looked like individual strands, but they could all part of one long loop, coiled up.

(The only argument I've heard against this theory is that the electron should be evenly matched with its antimatter counterpart, the positron. So if we see the one electron bouncing around, where is the bouncing positron? This sounds like a good argument, except the Standard Model can't explain the imbalance between matter and anti-matter either. As long as the argument applies equally to both theories, it's invalid to only require it from one).

A couple ideas crystallized out of this that I've never heard anyone discuss before.

All experiments have an electron on each end: an electron in one place emits a photon of light, and that particle is absorbed by an electron in another. If the same electron jumps between both places, the duration we measure in between would not the speed of light, but the speed of the electron. If light travels instantaneously between two electron-places, a ton of singularities (mathematical problem children) would disappear.

The well established phenomenon of "quantum tunneling" could have a physical answer: the electron only looks like it passed through a solid barrier, because it was off being the one electron somewhere else at the moment of collision.

The difficulties of distant correspondences from Bell's Inequalities would have an explanation. The reason 6 billion year old starlight corresponds with spin state in the present is because there is a literal correspondence – the same electron is playing pitcher and catcher on both ends of the photon.

But beyond the science, the idea is simply beautiful. Everything is made out of the same stuff. The energy of the universe vibrates in a cosmic harmony.

You and I are made out of the same stuff.

One love.

Rock 'n roll shows don't go as planned, because life doesn't go as planned. You have to change when your world changes.

Friday night, Kip's tribute show was a family affair. Kurt Baker was playing Kip's guitar, but for one song he switched with Anthony (I think?), the son of the Pontiff's other guitar player.

Almost a Hallmark moment, Dad and son playing on stage together for the first time. Except the switch happened a little too fast – Kurt's a few inches taller than Anthony, and the strap was just too long to stay on his shoulders. After a couple failed attempts, Anthony propped his leg on the monitor and rocked out with the guitar safely resting.

"We're all doing the best we can," said Kurt. He wasn't talking about the equipment mishap, but could have been, because that's just plain true. We are all doing the best we can.

Political polarization causes a great deal of negative feelings today. I think a lesson I learned from sleazy garage rock dive bar bathrooms can help.

Or more specifically, a tale of two bathrooms.

For a couple years I worked as a corporate consultant, teaching software development for big organizations. Usually I'd go to their premises, but once I had to go to a "co-working" space.

There were laminated signs in the bathrooms talking about how they supported trans issues and anybody could use any bathroom they wanted. At the end they said if you didn't like it, "we invite you to challenge your preconceived ideas about gender."

Listen, I support trans folks, and that phrasing still gets on the fighting side of me. Someone formulated that phrasing with great politesse, because while it's technically polite, the subtext is clearly obviously EFF YOU.

Contrast this with the sign at Sun Tiki Studios here in Portland. "If you don't feel safe for any reason, please message us on Facebook or talk to a staff member."

Garage rock as always embraced weirdos of all stripes, from the left wing, right wing, and chicken wing. They know they can't possibly agree with everyone's politics; but they can agree with everyone's right to the pursuit of rock 'n roll happiness.

When people feel their values get threatened, their fear turns into anger, and they want to fight. Fights don't solve problems though, they just end with consequences.

Please talk. Please rock and let others rock alongside you.

I experienced the love of Christ at a rock 'n roll show Friday night.

It was a tribute to Kip Brown, who I wrote about Thursday. Kip wasn't missing though – his presence was present the whole night.

His daughter Gina sang for the band, to a packed house. Between songs, she said, "Kip loved every one of you."

Is that not Christ-like?

Playing gnarly rock 'n roll at dive bars doesn't seem like an upstanding lifestyle. But Kip didn't get impaired on any substances, he was a family man. Jesus hung out with some sketchy characters too…

And he loved everyone. Which means he forgave us.

The first time I talked to Kip, I was hella lame. 21, I'd just seen the Pontiffs for the first time, at the Free Street Taverna. He'd held his guitar in my face while soloing and my mind was absolutely blown.

I went up to him after the show and just kinda blabbered for a few minutes. I don't remember what I said, but I bet it was like the skit where Chris Farley interviews famous people. "Do you remember that time you held your guitar in my face? That was cool!"

He gave me no attitude. I had a lot of energy, but he just smiled graciously and let me go on. Finally I kinda ran out of steam, and he just said, "Thanks, see you next time!"

I've learned since then, to be a performer and also keep your human decency requires you to forgive your audience. Some of them come to meet you messed up, projecting their desires and expectations about what meeting is going to mean.

And that's okay. Kris Eckhart of King Memphis (who also blew my mind, that night years ago) sometimes says on stage, "We are your humble servants."

Humility and service? Gettin' pretty Jesus-ey over here.

But there are limits. Performing is a service. Each person has to decide in what ways they will serve. It's so fun (or it's supposed to be) that we are willing to put up with some not-fun parts. There's no requirement we put up with all of them.

Love and limits are not opposites. The opposites of love are comparison and judgement. And at garage rock shows, I've felt the least judgment, the most love, as I've ever felt in any other form of church.

Rock me, Jesus. Rock me in the bosom of Abraham until my soul is satisfied.

If you've ever had the fortune
To contemplate a real peach
It felt like two weeks in July
When still the days lie
As the sweetness of death
Steeps in the flesh and it waits
Until the bough breaks
And with sinful heft falls
Near where with half-lidded eyes
Lip half bit
Hair spread like a fan
All God's creatures born to die
Get on with it!

See the way I twist, you, baby
Twist you like you wanna be
See the way I twist, you, honey

Still the days lie about
How each bite dissolves
Even the memory of the last
The old piece consumed by the new flame
Until you're not sure
There's anything
You've ever really grasped

Still the days lie, as
All we play out
They encode
In a night's muggy buzz
Like the solstice is summer’s last long day lying
Like a smile holds a secret
Show me yours!

See the way I twist, you, baby
Twist you like you wanna be
See the way I twist, you, honey

See the way I twist, you, baby
Twist you like you wanna be
See the way I twist, you, honey

You're my sweet Persephone!

Persephone!
You're my sweet Persephone!
Persephone!
Persephone!
Persephone!
My love for you is anarchy…
Persephone!

A few years ago, everybody was urged to learn how to code. Well, that's wrong, some people shouldn't.

Mark Mothersbaugh from Devo tells a story about playing Max's Kansas City, a legendary late 70s punk club in NYC. Devo was getting big, and there was a rumor John Lennon was coming that night.

After the show, Mark's sitting in the van with the window open, when a face pops up in his grill: it's Lennon, screaming the "yeah yeah yeah yeah" intro from their song 'Uncontrollable Urge'. He says, "I could have died and gone to heaven."

Lennon was always a fan. He was never shy about expressing his love for other music, from Chuck Berry to T. Rex. Paul, George and Ringo were fans too.

You've got to love coding. Don't get into it if you don't. The money just isn't worth it.

Here's a dirty secret in the industry: a subset of the population doesn't have the conceptual ability needed to program. There are lots of working programmers who don't know what they're doing. They copy and paste code randomly until it works, maybe hitting up their friend for help.

You might not like Devo's style, but believe it or not, their music is fairly technically challenging. There are some folks who have no musical ability, but they're usually limited in their reach.

Once in a while, you have to watch someone who is not a proper musician struggle to complete a song. It can be tremendously painful to witness. Maybe these folks love their music and their coding, but it's got to be so hard.

This is the definition of talent: put your efforts where they're best served. It doesn't help the world to have kickass programmers working as mediocre musicians or vice versa. It's good to pursue your dreams, don't give it up, but you should do the thing you're really good at.

Be a fan first. Support people you like. Do it for yourself second, do what you love. Then do what you're the best at for everyone.

When I heard Kip Brown passed away, I felt like I ought to be sad, but I'm not.

Kip was the lead singer and guitarist for a rock 'n roll band called The Pontiffs. The Pontiffs played raw, pure, simple rock 'n' roll, but they were so much more than the sum of their parts. I don't want to use the word "transcendant", because it sounds pretentious, but on the other hand it's totally accurate.

The best way I can explain a Pontiffs show is those old black and white cartoons, the kind where dogs and cats, flowers and mountains all bounce along with the music. Everybody moved with the beat at a Pontiffs show. The bartenders slung drinks in time, the bouncers swung while they checked IDs.

Plenty of sullen, too-cool-for-school punk rockers in black leather. But also ordinary folks in regular clothes, and hella weird maybe not-in-a-cool-way freaks. Everybody – everybody – shakin' what the good lord gave them. Zero judgement. No rules.

Time didn't exist at a Pontiffs show. The band, the audience, the staff, the room itself, stopped feeling like separate things. I'm not sure if their typical set was a half an hour or an hour and a half. While they were playing, everything else went away. And when it was done, that was okay too, because it had to end. The sun can't stay up all the time, you need night and silence in order to appreciate light and sound.

Last time I saw Kip, I told him how much their music meant to me. He smiled graciously and said thanks, but that was it. He wasn't there to get his ego stroked, or to sell merch or pick up chicks. The only reason he was there was to play that music.

I'm not sad about Kip, just grateful. Under his spell, everyone was so alive, so free, in those moments he is still alive, he will live forever. So grateful I got to experience it. My heart goes out to his family, but I'm grateful to them too, for sharing him with us, for being willing to risk loving.

I'll tell you who I'm sad for, the people who never go to the little rooms because they think only "big time" musicians can be good. Those who think rock 'n roll is boring because it's not complicated or "original".

Except for when they covered "Loose" by The Stooges, I didn't know the names of any songs the Pontiffs played. But there was one line that's always stuck with me. "If it's cool, it's cool forever."

Hell yeah it is. Long live Kip Brown and the Pontiffs. Cool forever.

Physical health is mental health, and vice versa.

I spend a lot of time going down rabbit holes on Wikipedia, and I'll end this by telling you one of the funniest things I've read on there. I found this bit of humor while reading about the history of antidepressants.

The first antidepressants were discovered as side effects from anti-histamines. Runaway histamines are what cause allergic reactions, through inflammation. Today, we have lots of evidence that reducing inflammation reduces depression. Our bodies use endocannabinoids to communicate between our emotional and immune systems.

Is this the line between mind and matter? An anatomist will tell you, if you look at the body under a microscope, there's no line where one tissue stops and another starts. Skin gradually turns into muscle, which turns into tendon, which turns into bone. It's convenient to talk at a higher level about types of tissue, but the body doesn't have hard distinctions between its components.

We treat the mind as if it's made out of special stuff. But at some level, the mind has to be just the output of the brain. We know this because when the brain changes, due to injury or chemistry, the mind changes too.

Your mind is very much at the mercy of your body. Anyone who has experienced low blood sugar knows how much a "crash" can affect your mood. Lately I've been amazed at how much of a difference drinking water makes. Sometimes in the afternoon I feel bleary and thick, but coffee just makes me wired and tired. Then I drink a glass of water and it's like a squeegee wiping clean my minds' eye.

Your body is shaped by your mind as well. Athletes know mental discipline determines what bodies are capable of.

No one needs to be ashamed of getting their blood pressure checked. We need to start treating mental health just like heart health or digestive health.

So, the Wikipedia joke: the first brand name antidepressant, with typical 1950s lack of awareness, was named "Ambivalon". The ad campaigns practically write themselves! "For when the only thing you care about is not caring… there's Ambivalon." "Nothing really matters. Ambivalon!"

We could use more of this attitude today though. Let's end the stigma around mental health.