Losers - 045 — Jake Kahana

In case this is your first introduction to me and The Email Refrigerator, welcome. I'm Jake. I'm a dad to Golda (3) and Abraham (1), husband to Lauren. I write these emails every month to explore the themes in my life and in the world, and to try and make sense of it all. I'm trying to enjoy the process of making art without monetizing it. I'm glad you're here.

I'm A Loser

I'm not sure how to convince you I can run faster than a 3 year-old girl.

But trust me, I can.

I just always let Golda win.

She's always first to the car, first down the stairs, first to the breakfast table...

Lately, she's been competitive about everything.

Or, maybe a better way to put it is that she loves winning.

ONE time I was the first to the garage.

She immediately melted down, threw herself on the driveway, and scream-cried until I agreed to redo the race.

No surprise, she beat me.

Winners and losers both have the same goal.

And I understand that losing is much less fun (after all, I am the loser in all but one of our races).

But we're all going to lose more times in our life than we're going to win.

So it's worthwhile to consider and learn how to deal with losing. And how we teach it to our kids.

We need to lose in order to keep us humble. It motivates us to work and learn.

We need loss in our lives to make us stronger and more resilient.

Without experiencing losing–or any adversity– we're not just more sensitive, but we're actually more fragile.

This month I'm thinking a lot about losing.

Being a loser– or feeling like one– is a lot more than just not winning.

Get in, loser.
We're going shopping.

*4 Wedding Planners photo* by *Dina Litovsky*

Losing Friends

If going in public and seeing people during a pandemic is a risk, I'm not sure it's always worth it.

The last two years has meant so much less casual run-ins, meeting for happy hours, and catch-up coffees. I've cut people out and they've cut me. I have less options for weekend plans and an emptier schedule.

I just have less friends these days.

And with less friends, I'm feeling a little like a loser.

(You too?)

A quick digression:

A few years ago, I really wanted a pair of Nike snow boots. But they were crazy expensive.

So I did what any good citizen of the internet would do: I bought a cheap knock-off on eBay. But I quickly learned they weren't waterproof.

Then I bought a similar style in a different brand that just fit... weird.

So I bought a third pair. Nike. But a different style... I think I wore them twice. Not what I wanted.

The next season I splurged and bought the pair I wanted. I still wear them.

Sometimes, being cheap can be expensive.

Or: quality is worth investing in.

Ok let's come back.

When it feels uncomfortable to have less friends, I think about my boots.

3 pairs of mediocre boots don't add up to one great one.

Or, spoken in terms of relationships: I don't need 50 friends to have options for plans every weekend. That doesn't add up to 5 best friends. Or even one that I can trust with a secret.

It's nice comfort but the time spend on those relationships is not always worth it.

All relationships require time.

The closer I get to someone or want to get, the more time is required.

And time is finite. So I'm being more considerate where to invest.

Call me a loser, but 5 or 6 close friends might be all I need.

Quantity is for show but doesn't last.

Quality is worth investing in.

Aaaaaall Byyyy Myyyyyyself

Last month, Lauren went on a three day work trip.

On the first afternoon she was gone, I took Golda to a playdate where the mom told me that she would be alone with the kids the next night, too.

Then I did something so completely awkward...

I asked to hang out with them two nights in a row. [GASP!]

Parenting is hard enough as it is. We're isolated as a family unit. My neighbors are not helping to raise my kids. My friends are not raising my kids. My kids' friends and their parents and nannies are not raising my kids. My in-laws and parents, while extremely helpful as babysitters, are not raising my kids.

Just us.

We have no village.

And that makes parenting incredibly difficult.

Ironically, we're not alone. So many of us parents are experiencing the same thing.

If I want a sense of community– a feeling that my kids are being raised alongside other kids and that parenting is a collective effort – I need to create that myself. WE need to.

Because it's not just an expected part of our society.

Our norms say we can't hang out with people two days in a row. Or two weekends in a row.

So asking a family over for pizza two nights in a row might seem socially risky.

But those are the kinds of friends I want.

Those are the kinds of traditions I want to build.

These are the kinds of communities where I want my kids to grow up.

I want to build relationship structures that can actually support us.

What will actually save us– from burnout, from loneliness, even shorter lives and climate disaster– is neighborhood interdependence.

Feeling interconnected with people around us.

It doesn't mean I have to be best friends or want to see everyone all the time.

Just that I have earned their trust and they have earned mine.

Parenting alone, living alone, and being alone make life so much harder.

It starts with seeing people more often and rejecting these arbitrary social rules.

You free tonight?

Photo from Why We Look, a "photographic shiva" series by Marvin Heiferman

The Myth and Lure of Effortless Perfection

A few weeks ago, my brother made a TikTok video that went viral.

At the time of this writing, it has 5.8 Million views and the followup has over 2.2 million.

Maybe it even showed up when you were scrolling this week.

The video shows pictures from his high school yearbook intercut with shots of those friends today. The concept is not just simple, it seems effortless.

I mean, you could have done that, right?

We love the idea of effortless perfection.

We try to chase it in our lives– trying to showcase our accomplishments on college applications, resumes and dating profiles.

We try to hide all the stress and work that went into it.

Then we try to capture that on social media.

But it doesn't exist.

We just ignore the work that success requires.

Jordan spends literally every day thinking about new ideas. He works 50 or 60 hours a week on his photography and filmmaking. For the last 5 years or more.

Every supermodel works tirelessly at maintaining their looks and figure.

Every game-winning shot comes from decades of intense practice.

It's rooted in American beliefs tied to Calvinism– a sect of Christianity that believes in predestination, which boils down to one idea– success is only bestowed to good people. And those not successful or wealthy are predetermined losers.

We use this to perpetuate a story that some people are better than others because they do more, achieve more, and it all comes naturally to them. So we are each driven to work harder in order to reach success... and then hide the effort in order to be considered pre-destined winners.

Hear that language? Effortless perfection is about victory.

Hiding my work means that I'm naturally successful...

In other words, I'm not a loser.

If we're all trying to prove that we're not losers by hiding the effort we're all actually facing, then the truth is that we are all losers.

Or none of us are.

At the very least, we can recognize the perfection we see in others is just from not seeing the whole picture.

Vogue Korea Cover and behind the scenes with Lee Jong-Hyun

Worthiness

Being a loser isn't about losing. Or friendships.

It's about respect, love, and the worthiness of those things.

This month's theme came from an idea I had written down that didn't even end up making it into the essays. The insight is that "cool" and "weird" start off as opposites (think high school) and then as we age they merge into the same thing.

I think your weirdness is cool.

I think your uniqueness is worthy of love and respect.

If a loser is someone who doesn't fit in, we are all losers.

If a loser is someone with fewer friends, we are all losers.

If losers stay at home and don't make a million dollars a week... we are all losers.

I'm happy we're both losers in this world.

Losers are more relatable, anyway.

-Jake