Spontaneous Mental Combustion and the Emotional Flood
February 28, 2026
Yellowstone, Middle-earth, and the Unlived Life
September 24, 2026
What a week, eh? I don't know about you guys, but it was a rough one. Hopefully you survived it, had some good food and a chance to get stronger and spend time with the kids.
And as always, if you need someone to talk to, reach out to me, I'm sometimes slow but will respond, cross my heart.
Or jump into our discord and chat with us there, all dads welcome.
Film of the week
Dead Poets Society (1989)
Dir. Peter Weir · 2h 8m
Fall term at a stuffy boarding school — sweaters, stone buildings, leaves everywhere. It's basically September in movie form. Everybody remembers Keating standing on the desk and the whole carpe diem thing. But watch it again as a dad (I did recently, and hoo boy) and you'll find yourself watching Neil's father instead. The man provides, plans, sacrifices — and somehow never once actually listens to his kid.
The lesson: Mr. Perry was clearly a bad-guy type when I was a kid, but as a Dad I can empathize with him — giving your child a good future is by far the highest reward a father can seek out. Sometimes we just don't understand what a "good future" means, I think. Seizing the day is important, but balancing that with helping them avoid pitfalls and being ready for when reality is going to slap them across the face is a really fine line to walk. So…good luck guys, ha. Take some time to actually listen to your kiddos so you can help build a future for them they'll actually want to live in.
Sage wisdom
Solvitur ambulando.
"It is solved by walking."
— Latin maxim, attr. Diogenes
Worth your time
Philosophy Now
Boredom
Cheryl Fok argues boredom isn't proof your life lacks meaning — it's the strain of living under "shoulds," which is why we escape into doomscrolling instead of the meaningful thing. Her reframe: being able to be bored is evidence that things still matter to you. A useful lens for the seventeenth round of the same bedtime story.
Of Boys and Men · Substack
Modern Fatherhood, My New Obsession
Richard Reeves spent years studying what's going wrong for men. His conclusion on what goes right: fatherhood itself. Not as duty or a favor to mom — as one of the strongest sources of purpose, structure, and even measurable brain change available to a man. Dads today are more hands-on than any generation before, and it's making them better.
Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on their environment, and especially on their children, than the unlived life of the parent.
— Carl Jung
This was the Dads Need Friends weekly letter for September 7, 2026. Want the next one in your inbox? Subscribe on the homepage.
