True Self, Choice Paralysis, Sexual Problems
Links and recommendations
You can now catch my latest conversation with journalist Meghan Daum and clinical psychologist Andrew Hartz, Ph.D. on the Open Therapy podcast.
Links for Spotify and Apple Podcast.
From the archives:
The True Self is the Person You Want Others to Believe You Are
The Only Reading App I Use:
I’ve been using Readwise since April of 2021.
If you follow me on Instagram or Twitter/X, you’ll know I regularly share screenshots like this from books or articles I’ve read:
These screenshots come from my Readwise app.
Readwise aggregates your reading highlights from various sources like Kindle, Apple Books, Substack, Twitter, and so on. It stores your highlights in one place, making it easier to stay on top of your reading.
Each morning, it emails me 8 random excerpts from different books I’ve read. Since 2021, that daily message has been a quiet ritual for me: fragments from books I half‑forgot are resurfaced, like my own past self giving me a tap on the shoulder.
Moreover, when I’m thinking about a particular topic, a quick search pulls up not just my notes but every highlighted Kindle passage I’ve ever saved on the topic.
Exclusive Offer for My Readers
Use this link → https://readwise.io/robkhenderson/ to try Readwise free for 60 days (double the length of the standard free trial).
I suspect, like me, you’ll wonder how you ever read without it.
Links and recommendations:
Two Cents on Buridan’s Ass by Roy Baumeister
I shared some thoughts on Buridan’s Ass a while back here
Reflections on evolutionary ideas in sociology by Rosemary Hopcroft
Why It’s Normal for Children to Be Demanding by Tomo Kumaki
My thoughts on a related idea here
Why Socialists Want to Shut Down Prisons by Barry Latzer
Follow me on Instagram here. The platform is less volatile and more chill than Twitter/X, so I post some spicier excerpts from my readings on my IG stories
You can follow me on TikTok here
Three interesting findings:
1. Female sexual problems in adulthood were correlated with mental health problems, whereas male sexual problems in adulthood were correlated with physical health problems. Female sexuality is more mental, which links it to culture and meaning and ideas; male sexuality is more physical. (source).
2. No matter how well you’re doing in life, there’s almost always someone, somewhere, on some dimension who’s doing better. Unhappy people tend to compare themselves with other people; happy people tend to compare themselves with their past. (source: A Little More Social by Nicholas Epley).
3. Fascinating: Young adults are more likely than older adults to say drinking alcohol is “morally wrong.” (source).
The paperback version of Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class is now available.
If you have gained any value from this newsletter and want to support my work, please buy a copy today. For yourself. For a friend or a loved one. If you can’t afford it, please support your local library.
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Audible (I narrated the audiobook myself)
Young men that see drinking alcohol as morally wrong is a fine bit of evidence supporting Helen Andrew's thesis The Great Feminization. The moral judgement of young men has been influenced by the same feminist Karen impulses that see humanity as children they must control, and through their dominance of the education system and their power on social media, they have passed this cult like moral judgement onto millions of young men that have lost their actual understanding of what is required to be real men. These are what I call MBM (Man Bun Males)... they are a really under-developed adult-age male children.
Have you read Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization by Edward Slingerland?
It's less about the problems dirinking causes than about the problems drinking solves.