The upside of light misdemeanors
Formative lessons from breaking the law before age 12
👋Hello, my friend. Today, I’ve got some thoughts to share on the benefits of breaking rules. I’m feeling deeply inspired, having just finished listening to a fantastic and hilarious conversation between Tim Ferriss and Chris Sacca (link & details below). The two dove into personal stories of misdemeanors and petty crimes from their youth and how formative those experiences were to who they are today. I have too many of such stories for one newsletter. But I’ll share a few today and why I think they are meaningful.
Let’s do it!
Arson, larceny & substance abuse
I don’t think you could say we were bad kids, necessarily. I mean, my brother and I would beat the absolute hell out of each other — but that’s pretty typical among male siblings — even these days.
Growing up in Waterbury, Connecticut, we were typical kids of the 1980s. We loved sports — the Red Sox, Celtics & NY Giants, in particular — and we played sports non-stop: baseball, basketball, soccer, whiffle ball, backyard football — you name it, we played it. It wasn’t like today with private coaching and specializing early though — that would have seemed ridiculous. It was more like rec baseball on weed-infested municipal fields, or basketball in the church basement gym. And then it was endless hours with cousins and friends in the driveway or backyard playing just about every sport imaginable. It was a ton of fun.
We went to Catholic school - sporting our GI Joe, Transformers, Knight Rider or A-Team lunch boxes, along with our clip-on ties and docksiders. And we went to church — even did solid time as alter boys! We got good grades, too. Well, I’ll speak for myself on that front, not for my brother. 😜
Yeah, we did all that. But… we also got into some stuff.
Like many children of the 80s, we were free-range kids. We left the house on our Huffy & Mongoose bikes in the morning and weren’t required to be back home til dark. Sure, we’d stop in for lunch or to play some sport in the driveway for a little while but we were pretty much doing our own thing the rest of the time.
And it turns out, that “our own thing” often involved what you might describe as “light misdemeanors.”
There are too many events, stories and happenings to give you a complete picture — and almost 40 years later I think many of those anecdotes have been lost to history — but let me just try to give you a taste.
We hung out with a group of middle class kids from the neighborhood. Some coming from big Irish or Italian families of 8 or more kids. Some coming from broken homes with alcohol and drug abuse. Some coming from pretty healthy family situations like the one I was fortunate to grow up in.
The neighborhood had some real character to it — tree-lined avenues and boulevards populated with closely packed in 1920’s Colonial-style homes. It was obvious that this was where all the rich people in the once-booming manufacturing city “used” to live.
But we were growing up there at a time when things were starting to go downhill. Like many other manufacturing hubs in the U.S., the factories were closing, the jobs were going away, and crime was rising.
It wasn’t that bad yet but you could see where things were heading. Just a short time later, when I was going into sixth grade and my brother into ninth, my parents pulled the ripcord and moved us to the much nicer/safer/more rural next town over — Cheshire, CT — where I spent my teenage years, and the place I still consider my “home town” even if I only get there once every 5 or 7 years.
But I’m talking about a time before that. The late-80’s. When our rag-tag group of friends had about as much freedom as a kid could ask for. And we used it, not always to the great benefit of society.
For instance, at any given time, there was always the threat of war. I’m not talking about geopolitical conflict. I’m talking about impending battle with the kids two streets over. We hated them. And they hated us. It’s just the way it was. Sometimes actual conflict would arise but it was more the threat from both sides that kept the peace. A cold war of sorts.
We felt pretty confident, though. Because we were armed. Don’t ask me how, but we managed to procure weapons. We had knives - Swiss army, maybe even a switchblade. We had Chinese stars (Google it, those things were crazy). I’m pretty sure we even had nun-chucks. Again, it’s lost on me how we actually attained those, but there was a stash in our fort.
Oh yes, we had a fort. Well, to be more precise we had several forts over the years. One stands out in particular though. In my memory, which may or may not be accurate, it was a cube-shaped wooden structure measuring maybe 15’ x 15’ in the woods roughly a 1/2 mile from my house.
The wood was stolen, of course — a small crime, but a crime nonetheless. Condos were being built at the end of our street and we helped ourselves to wood, nails, and any other building materials we could find. We must have had hammers and other tools to put this thing together. Those may have been stolen, too. Not sure.
Anyhow, it was a homebase of sorts, a place to hang out, use bad language, and plot the next move against our enemies. I’m guessing that a modern parent of tweens might pass out from shock if they ever encountered such a structure today.
Upon ducking down to enter (it wasn’t quite tall enough to stand in), you’d basically be transported to the Lord of the Flies. The floor was dirt. And there was a big hole in the middle for spitting tobacco juice. Yes, we had chewing tobacco. (Sorry, mom). The other guys were in 6th, 7th and 8th grade. I was the youngest in 5th — but that didn’t stop me from sticking a big wad of Hawken in my mouth and spitting away. We had weapons, as I mentioned. And we had fire, in the form of lighters that had been unlawfully attained. And the walls may or may not have been adorned with pictures torn out of stolen Playboy magazines. I’m telling you, it was a SCENE!
And you know what? It was awesome. Nobody got hurt. Well, that’s not true. We got hurt all the time. Falling out of trees. Getting in minor fist fights. But nothing fatal.
There was the one time though when we somehow got our hands on gunpowder. I remember we decided to cut open a tennis ball, fill it with gunpowder and light it on fire. Because, obviously that’s what you do if you get gunpowder, right?
Anyhow, Jonathan Scully actually lit the thing. Fortunately, I was about 20 feet away when it exploded in his face. I remember seeing a firey blast. Then, the kid turns around and his face is completely black with soot. We all thought it was hilarious until we realized he had no eyebrows, at which time we all screamed “let’s get out of here!”, hopped on our bikes and took off.
Well, it turns out that Jonathan’s mom wasn’t too impressed that her kid had no eyebrows anymore, and that night, when the doorbell rang at my house, it wasn’t his pissed off mom standing there, it was the cops!
I don’t honestly remember what happened after that but I’m pretty sure we got in some bad trouble. I mean, when the the cops show up to ask what the hell your 5th and 8th grader have been up to today, it’s generally no bueno.
I tell you all of this not to convince you that I’m some sort of criminal with a record going back to the 1980s, but rather to put forth the idea that all of these experiences were actually good! They were formative. They taught me and my brother and our friends so many invaluable lessons.
Of course, you learn some key lessons like: Maybe don’t light gunpowder on fire. Or don’t try to punch a kid who is twice your size. Or maybe don’t swallow a huge wad of chewing tobacco.
But you also learn — and my brother and I learned — how to survive out in the wild. I’m not talking about living on berries in the middle of a forest, I’m talking about how to survive in the real world.
We learned how to stand up for ourselves — whether in a battle against our rival neighborhood kids or even just sitting around the fort with our friends talking shit to each other. There were no parents around to make sure everyone was “nice” to each other. Or “checking in” to make sure no one was getting left out. No, we had to fend for ourselves. Had to figure out where we fit in the group. How interact with different personality types. When to lead and when to follow.
And we learned how to make stuff happen. No one was setting up playdates for us. There were no phones. We went outside, found kids, and made up stuff to do.
We were industrious. Yeah maybe it wasn’t ideal to be stealing building supplies but we were creative. We found ways to do cool stuff without some adults having to plan the whole thing out for us.
And sometimes, Jonathan Scully’s eyebrows being a prime example, things went epically wrong. We got hurt. Or we got caught lying, stealing or cheating. And we got in really, really bad trouble.
Those things happened. And I would argue, they were all good. It taught us about about how our actions result in consequences. And not just consequences of the parental variety, but also consequences of the say-something-stupid-to-the-wrong-kid-and-get-popped-in-the-mouth variety.
Maybe you call it common sense. Maybe you call it street smarts. Maybe you call it self-sufficiency. It doesn’t matter. Whatever it is, there is some value to it.
I’m not going to get on a soapbox here and tell you how “kids these days” are overparented, or overscheduled, or overstructured. We all realize that already. And it is what it is. Things are just different.
I’m also not saying we should go back to the 1980s and encourage kids to play with fire. That probably wouldn’t go well.
I think what I’m saying is that I like the idea of giving kids room to make mistakes. Giving them a little more freedom than is necessary even if you think they might get into some trouble as a result.
I want my kids to make mistakes. I want them to get in trouble. I want them to learn to talk their way out of dumb situations they should have never got themselves into. Because those are the skills that will actually help them in life, not the 700th private baseball lesson.
Finally, I would like to put forth the idea that I am who I am today in part because of all the dumb stuff I’ve done in the past. I think screwing up so many times has made me smarter, more adaptable and probably just more interesting.
And I think there’s a risk that too many of us white-wash ourselves — are too afraid to admit who we really are and all that we’ve done — because we’re afraid that other people will judge us.
Well, guess what? Everyone has done really dumb, probably illegal things in their lives whether or not they care to tell you about it. And if they haven’t? Well, in that case, I just shake my head and say: I’m sorry, but you have not really lived. And that’s kind of sad.
I’m going to leave it there and spare my middle-school and high-school friends the public disclosure of any stories from those eras, because those are much, much worse. Maybe those come out in some format at some point but we’ll just need to double-check on a few statute of limitations laws before that happens.
Thanks for reading and check out the Tim Ferriss/Chris Sacca conversation below. I think you might enjoy that.
Have a great week.
Greg
Content Diet
🎙️Podcast: Tim Ferriss & Chris Sacca: How to Succeed Living on Your Own Terms and Getting Into Good Trouble
This is the podcast that inspired today’s newsletter. I’m not sure how to really describe this one other than it’s a super honest, authentic conversation on everything from AI & technology, to parenting to climate change. It’s a conversation that has me asking myself lots of questions including: What happens when AI eats all the white collar jobs? Am I giving my kids enough freedom to make mistakes? And am I living every day being my real, actual, authentic self, and not just trying to appease other people? Anyhow, as you can tell, I enjoyed this one. If you have tender ears, just be forewarned, the F-bomb per minute ratio in this one is off the charts.
🎙️Podcast: Dr. Mark Hyman & Dr. Aseem Malhotra — Ditch the Statins: How to Naturally Lower Cholesterol With Lifestyle Changes
As a man of a certain age, who is prone to having high LDL cholesterol and who is actively pursuing ways to keep it in an ideal range, I’m pretty interested these days in all things cholesterol — especially ways to lower it without using drugs. I’ve been experimenting this year with red yeast rice and berberine, even though my doctor calls them unregulated statins. Anyhow, I’m not one for conspiracy theories so I try to take all of the medical advice I hear on podcasts with a grain of salt — including this one in which Dr.’s Hyman & Malhotra strongly advocate for diet and lifestyle change as a means of avoiding heart disease and call into question the data supporting the efficacy of statins. I am no doctor but I try to gather as much info as I can and to-date I’ve heard enough downsides associated with statins that I’ve decided to avoid them (for now). I reserve the right to change my opinion or actions but this conversation was another step in the journey of educating myself on this topic.
📕Book: Echoes of Genius: Enduring Wisdom from Great Minds by David Wells
Recently, I was contacted by Intentional Wisdom reader, David Wells, about a book he had just published. Mr. Wells, of Melbourne, Australia, was kind enough to offer to send me a copy of his book, Echoes of Genius. The book is a collection of quotes from great thinkers throughout history — basically a one-stop shop for the wisdom of everyone from Seneca to James Clear. It’s organized by days of the year so that you can read 1 or 2 pages per day throughout the whole year and be inspired with a few great quotes. I love the idea and was delighted/honored to see that a number of my own quotes from this newsletter were included in the book as well. How cool! Thanks David, you have helped me finally prove to my kids that their dad really is a genius after all.
Have a great week.
Greg