Part of this idea of “strong” means to be unafraid—unafraid to stand up for what is right, to defend oneself and others, and so on. But I am afraid of a lot of things. And so are you. Being afraid isn’t weak; at the most basic biological level, it’s being alive and wanting to stay that way. Like pain, fear is information about the world that guides you to pursue some behaviors and avoid others. Working out and anything else that’s challenging involves enduring physical discomfort, but pain is also your body warning you of its physical limits. If I don’t listen to my body, I will hurt myself, and in middle-age I don’t heal as quickly as I used to, meaning I have to gauge the “right amount” of pain during exercise. Too little, and I’m not challenging myself. Too much, and I’m going to risk injury and will not be able to work out at all, perhaps for weeks.
Similarly, the trick with fear is to make sure that fears are proportional to the actual risk posed by some hazard…

A grifter is a person who enriches themselves by tricking other people. I will describe some human activities as grift that maybe we don’t usually think of in these terms, but we should, because the definition fits. In referring to the present as the “age of the grift,” I mean exactly that—we live in an era where cheating, in a wide variety of ways and venues—but ultimately for financial gain, as that is how we generally measure success in this era—is easier to do, harder to catch, and more incentivized than ever before. It comes down to how we believe, learn, think, and structure knowledge.

Anthropologists tell us: people gossip. They spread rumors. It’s really common, in some form or another, across place and time. That isn’t a good thing or bad thing in itself; people are storytelling critters, and social critters, and it’s a way to make sense of the world we live in and find out things about each other…