How to Die (the book)

"Get the fuck to work."

Ordered, received, and read a new book this week.

But first, a dream I had:

Someone I'd severely wronged a long time ago reappeared and shot me. As I bled out, my last words were "that's fair...."

No idea what it means (although I have my suspicions), but I have therapy next Thursday so maybe I'll find out.

Anyway, about that book.

For starters, I was going to write a how-to book series where the mundane, atomic tasks of everyday life are dissected, massaged, and extrapolated into object lessons based around a very simple "How to Do a Very Simple Thing" proposition.

But Mike Monteiro got to it first, and he did it way better. (Damn you, Mike.)

Mike's version is not so much a book as it is a beating heart in a case binding. It now has a home in my pantheon of will-revisit-again books, along with Bill Drummond's 45 and Jeff Tweedy's How to Write One Song.

It's the book for creatives that Rick Rubin wanted to write, and answers the important questions like how to apologize, how to have integrity in an increasingly soulless world, how to make a damn good grilled chee, and why I feel personally slighted* when an AI offers to help me write something (like this blog).

*It's like someone asking me if I’d like a breath mint. What are you trying to say, exactly?

So, if you have to choose between one bearded guru, opt for the one from Philadelphia.

How to Die is an easy read. It's a human read. Nothing like that rapid-fire sentence-fragment shit people post in longform on LinkedIn explaining how their toddler taught them an important lesson in go-to-market strategy. The chapters are short and you can knock one out during your five-minute pomodoro break.

I'd seen Monteiro speak at a design conference years back, on a trip I made on the dime of corporate America. His talk was called Let Us Now Praise Ordinary People, and in a sea of industry speak and cliche, his talk just hit different. I picked up what he was putting down.

A man of the people, he.

A man doing The Work.

And it just so happens I'd also thought about writing another book about lessons learned after nearly 20 years of corporate slog, squeezing my (real) creative life into the margins of nights and weekends in service of The Work.

(Tentative title: "Hanging On," although "Get the Fuck to Work" is also a good option.)

And then, I see this note in the front matter:

Damn you, Mike. That got a good cry out of me.

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What I’m reading: How to Die (Mike Monteiro)

What I'm listening to: Anima (Vladislav Delay)

Read the Brazil tour blog at the Substack: