Dan J’s Website

I was thinking about the Peloton guy who drinks water out of his hand: Daring Fireball: Somebody Tell This Guy He Can Just Buy a Cup to Keep Upstairs

And how I’d read about it through the lens of people mocking him, and someone said somewhere that he doesnt like being made fun of, and isn’t this rich tech CEO an unself-aware nutcase like all of them are?

And maybe so, but today I thought about the article and it inclined me to drink a bunch of water first thing in the morning (from a cup). But more than that, it reminded me of a podcast episode I did¹ called “Give Yourself Permission to Be Weird”, and how people who do crazy things like start companies are weird. And I want to be weird. It’s good to be weird.

Not to impugn the journalistic capabilities of Dan McQuade, but articles like this write themselves, don’t they? Is Drinking 40 Sips Of Water With Your Hand, Like A Cat, Every Morning “More Efficient” Than Using A Glass? An Investigation - Defector

“Look at this crazy person”

Only… while the rest of the world is spending their time making fun of this weird habit, and maybe dude is really upset by that, fact is he’s living a life a lot of readers of both Defector and Daring Fireball wish they were living (or think they do)—otherwise no one would bother writing articles about him.

Wanting something but not being willing, or being afraid, to do the things that would get you that thing is a lot of what stands in our way. It’s not that we don’t have time or don’t have ideas: our brains are afraid of something and that something is being found out, being found weird, not fitting in.

Don’t misunderstand me: the point isn’t you should drink water out of your hand, and if you think that’s my point your brain is lying to protect you from the truth. The truth is this:

If you do what everyone else does, you get what everyone else gets. Maybe that’s fine (probably, in fact). But maybe not.