Hey hey 👋
If I weren’t married, I’d now have the quintessential Hinge profile pic.
I made my fly fishing debut this past weekend. What this picture doesn’t tell you is that I caught more trees than trout.
One. I caught one trout.
But I also reeled in some helpful observations about how life works.
“Scholars have long known that fishing eventually turns men into philosophers. Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to buy decent tackle on a philosopher's salary.” — Patrick McManus
Here are two insights I took away from fly fishing.
Optimism takes practice
Jesus did a lot of miracles around fish. So I kept praying for him to do another one.
“Please let this cast be the one I catch a fish,” I’d pray.
But 99% of the time, it wasn’t the one. It was just twigs, rocks, or nothing.
Yet, I casted with hope.
With traditional fishing, you cast and wait as long as you want. To twist the words of Eugene Peterson, fishing can feel like a long optimism in the same direction.
With fly fishing, you cast every ~15 seconds. For every cast, you get an opportunity to, well, cast a vote for optimism or pessimism. Hope or despair.
My hopeful persistence felt like a healthy form of gambling — where every cast was another pull of the lever that could reel in the big win. I was getting addicted to optimism.
I like to believe those micro-moments of choosing hope in a stream shape me to do the same when I’m on dry land not wearing oversized waders.
Because in a world profiting from manufacturing pessimism and despair, I want to put myself in more positions — like beautiful streams with my father and brothers around me — that nurture hope. I want to join and co-create environments where optimism is the water we wade in.
“The charm of fishing is that it is the pursuit of what is elusive but attainable, a perpetual series of occasions for hope.” — John Buchan
Q for you: How can you put yourself in a position that encourages healthy optimism?
Some ideas:
Stop reading the news.
Ask your friends what’s making them hopeful these days.
Watch sports. Really. You can read a recent Twosday post by Will Severns to see how baseball helps us hope.
Form is greater than force
For 30 minutes, I saw four trout sitting on the other side of the stream, taunting me as my bait repeatedly fell three feet short of them.
I thought I just needed to add more oomph to my cast. Or eat more Wheaties. Or just yeet my rod across the water.
But my guide never told me to cast harder. Instead, he kept telling me when to stop the motion of my arm. To watch my slack. And to stop casting in the motion of a rainbow.
When things don’t go my way, I want to respond with force. Find grit. Try harder. Power through. And there’s a time for force. But only when it follows form. You have to learn how to swing a bat before you swing for the fences. In that way, fly fishing is like the anti-Jedi movement: “Luke, reject the force.”
Many people, from Karens to politicians, use the force to get what they want. The loudest bulldozer gets their way.
While these people may get the external outcome they want — from a Trader Joe’s parking spot to electoral votes — their force can crush the most meaningful qualities of life like relationships and character.
“Be patient and calm — for no one can catch fish in anger.” — Herbert Hoover
If I had to use one word to describe the form of fly fishing, it would be gentle.
Quite a few times, I thought a trout took my bait, so I snatched the rod trying to hook the slimy beast. The line would whip back past me with nothing on the hook and snag on the tree behind me. The guide told me the bait had simply bumped against a rock.
Other times, I would feel the slightest bump, do nothing, and have the guide tell me it was a trout.
“I can’t feel the difference between a rock and a trout,” I would tell him. And he’d just quote Tom Cruise from Top Gun: “Don’t think. Just do.” Yeah, that’s cool in a movie about fighter pilots but confusing when standing in a stream with a fake fly on a pole. But I don’t blame him. After four hours, he ran out of advice. I just needed more reps to find a gentle touch.
Like optimism, gentleness is scarce in a world that celebrates moving fast and breaking things. Where “disruptive” is the prized startup descriptor and we call results “impact.”
Gentleness is a countercultural move that can lead to healthy results and healthy people. Because it’s a posture of moving slowly forward with tender care that creates an environment of safety and trust.
“There is certainly something in angling that tends to produce a gentleness of spirit and a pure sincerity of mind.” — Washington Irving
When I caught my one trout, I couldn’t get my hands on it. Literally. I reeled it into my guide’s net and it just kept squirming as I tried to hold it for my Hinge picture. Then the guide told me to be gentle. To move slowly toward it and touch it softly. When I did, the fish stopped flopping and settled into the net like it was now floating in a pool of peace. Gentleness let me get my hands on the one thing I spent the morning praying for. Force just put me in the trees.
✌️
— Luke
P.S. Here’s my favorite content from the past week.
My favorite movie of the Oscar Best Pic nominees
A classic book that lives up to its hype
The story of Liquid Death
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