Life after door kicking.

Author: lifeafterdoorkicking

  • Things run so smooth we forget they’re not guaranteed to

    I heard recently that we’ve moved to a post-scarcity society—and that it wasn’t even up for debate.Stopping at the gas station in the morning shatters that illusion.If we were actually post-scarcity, there’d be no shortages. Prices wouldn’t exist. Geography wouldn’t matter. Conflicts on the other side of the world wouldn’t touch anything here because you…

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    lifeafterdoorkicking

  • What We Call Progress—And What It Cost

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    People like to ask what happened to the days when a single job—something like retail—could support a family.The usual answers get thrown around: greed, policy, bad luck.But that misses the bigger picture.Some of the things we call progress came with unintended consequences.And whether we want to admit it or not, we’re living in them now.…

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    lifeafterdoorkicking

  • Joe Blow to Double 00 : the Power of a smile in your toolkit

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    For most of my life, I was a sourpuss. Angry, unapproachable, someone people didn’t dare waste a smile on. I was just Joe Blow—grumpy, defensive, easy to avoid. Somewhere along the way, though, I started adding tools to my kit, and the most surprising one was a smile. Learning to wield it deliberately—strategically—felt almost like…

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    lifeafterdoorkicking

  • “Before Stoicism: Musings Toward a Philosophy”

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    Most people think they’re shepherds.In reality, most of us are sheep—and we spend a surprising amount of time arguing over who the wolves are.That realization was part of one of my earliest attempts at building a philosophy.Long before I ever read Marcus Aurelius or Epictetus, I was trying to make sense of how people behave…

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    lifeafterdoorkicking

  • Why I Chose Stoicism Over Epicureanism

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    Philosophy isn’t some wasted elective from high school, or a lot of debt from a college with no method of recompense — it’s a tool for life. When understood and applied, it can help you lead a good life, but first you have to define what a “good life” actually means. I’ve dabbled in philosophy.…

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    lifeafterdoorkicking

  • Security First, Freedom Later — The Ancient Shell Game

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    Everyone claims to value freedom. Ask a hundred people whether they would rather live free or not, and all hundred will say yes. But history and human behavior tell a more complicated story. When faced with uncertainty, instability, or danger, people consistently choose security over liberty.This choice is not foolish — it is practical. Human…

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    lifeafterdoorkicking

  • What Do You Call Someone Who’s Been a Lot of People?

    When I was a kid, almost nobody called me by my first name.It wasn’t personal—it was practical. Common name. Too many of us in every class. So the name always came with a qualifier. Mike G. Blonde Mike. White Mike. The name alone wasn’t enough to point to a person.As a teenager, the names changed.…

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  • A ledger I Can Never Make Black: Poker Life In Fast Forward

    Some of my earliest memories are playing cards with my great uncle Ernie at my grandparents’ house. The table was my grandma’s old glass-top wicker dining table. No chips. Just hand after hand and a mental ledger that I’ll never make black. We played five-card draw, seven-card stud, and sometimes a strange seven-card variation where…

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    lifeafterdoorkicking

  • Republic to Empire: The Middle-Class Legitimacy Collapse

    We are living through the transition phase from republic to empire — unless we correct course rapidly.Faith in institutions didn’t collapse overnight. It eroded quietly, unevenly, and predictably. Accountability stopped flowing upward. Standards stopped applying evenly. The system learned it could absorb scandal after scandal without consequence — so long as enforcement remained efficient where…

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    lifeafterdoorkicking

  • Rome Grips Tighter than Greece

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    When I was young, Greek mythology always grabbed me. Take Hercules: his story is tragic and complicated—adultery, an angry stepmother, impossible labors, and a family left in ruins. One tale among countless myths, yet every time I encountered one, I found it fascinating. As I grew older and started reading history, I noticed a shift…

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    lifeafterdoorkicking