Old-time sailors would sometimes get the phrase “hold fast” tattooed across their fingers. It was a reminder to stay vigilant in gripping the rigging of the ship. Without grasping the ropes firmly, a sailor could get a ship off course, or be himself swept overboard by wind and wave.

In our own lives, we want to hold fast to our values and vision for who we are and where we’re going, even as the fog of life obscures our bearings.

We often incorrectly (and unconsciously) think that our core principles are so obvious, so deeply held, that keeping our grip on them will happen without effort.

We think we can be spiritual without engaging in any related practices, stay focused on a philosophy without continually studying its insights, maintain good character without regularly revisiting what that means.

We think it’s one and done: “I’ve heard this idea before; it’s obvious; I’ve got it.”

In reality, without constant reminders, the ropes of our values slip out of our hands. Whatever is not intentionally kept at the forefront of our minds retreats to the back of them . . . where it ceases to inform our daily lives.

We need to go to church once a week to hear things we’ve heard a thousand times before, but have already, in the previous six days, started to let slip below our consciousness.

We need to keep reading (and re-reading) personal development books, even though they often say the same things, or their insights invariably get buried in the urgency of everyday busyness.

We need to spend time with friends who bring up the ideas we claim to live by, who ask us questions we’ve answered before, whose presence alone prompts us to live closer to who we’ve said we want to be.

To maintain our grip on the ropes of our values, we need reminders written not on our hands, but in the habits we keep, the things we study, and the hearts of those we love.

Note: This is a previously published Fireside. From time to time, we resurface gems from the SF archives — to introduce them to new readers, and re-introduce them to longtime ones.

We’ll be taking the rest of the month off for summer vacation. See you in September!

We all have numbers we track to see how we’re doing. Maybe you count macros, or wear an Oura ring that grades your sleep and counts your steps. At work, you’ve got metrics to hit: sales made, reports filed, projects shipped. And then there’s social media. When you make a post on Instagram or even leave a comment on Reddit, you look to see how many likes it got.

If you’re like me, you’ve probably noticed that tracking all these numbers can suck the joy right out of whatever you’re tracking. I know I’ve been guilty of neurotically checking my sleep score every morning, which only morphed sleep from restful slumber to something akin to getting a report card in middle school. I admittedly like to check the statistics of how one of my posts did here on Substack, and if it didn’t do so hot, it can bum me out, even though I believe in its inherent worth (actually, because I believe in its inherent worth!).

While scorekeeping in life can suck the fun out of things, what’s strange is that scorekeeping in actual games tends to have the opposite effect. Keeping score in bowling or golf or a board game adds intrinsic interest. Scores and rules are what make games fun. So why do points make games more enjoyable, but make everything else in life feel like a grind?

That’s the question C. Thi Nguyen explores in his book, The Score. Thi is a professor at the University of Utah and one of the world’s leading philosophers of games (yes, that’s a real academic specialty). He’s spent his career thinking about why we voluntarily take on unnecessary obstacles for fun, and what happens when the scoring systems we love in games creep into the rest of life.

In our conversation below, Thi explains what makes a game a game, why a courtroom trial is almost (but not quite) a game, how the trend to gamify everything in life is subverting what you care about, and how he coined the term “value capture” after watching journal rankings hijack his own love of philosophy.

We get into why the metrics of things like social media change our goals, how we’re all kind of pick-up artists now, and what you can do to keep external scoring systems from consuming and flattening the things you love.

Thi also shares the tabletop game he’s currently excited about, and the unusual unprovable metric he tracks on vacation.

The Score has been one of the most enjoyable and thought-provoking books I’ve read this year. So much to chew on. I hope this fascinating interview inspires you to pick it up for yourself.

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It’s been a year since I graduated from college. I’ve just finished up doing twelve months of full-time service with the Americorps program in California. For the next chapter of my life, I am going to be pursuing a master’s degree in political science from the University of Oklahoma.

I’ve taken the GRE, filled out my application, gotten accepted, and moved all my stuff into a studio apartment in Norman, OK.

It’s a few weeks before the semester starts, and I’m attending an orientation for new poli sci graduate students that goes over what to expect from the program — what kinds of courses are offered, what the classes will be like, what kind of research we’ll be doing, and so on.

As I sit there in a circle of chairs with a bunch of eager-looking students, I start to get a pit in my stomach that only grows as the minutes tick by.

A sinking realization hits me: I have no idea what I’m doing there.

Well, this is not exactly true.

A lot of the reason for what I’m doing there has to do with Brett.

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Last Week’s Discussion

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Over the years, I’ve taken a bunch of personality tests. There are the fun ones you find in magazines or on websites. But I’ve also taken the more extensive assessments like the Myers-Briggs.

Myers-Briggs was interesting. But I ran into a few issues with it that didn’t make it particularly helpful. First, my results would often change depending on when I took the test. One year I’d get one personality type, and then I’d take it again a few years later and be something else. Did my personality change, or is the test just wonky? Also, I always found Myers-Briggs kind of complicated with its four-letter acronyms for its sixteen different personality types. It was hard enough to remember my letter combination, much less remember anything about what someone else’s meant. Finally, Myers-Briggs tests are pretty long. At almost 100 questions, it’s kind of a slog to get through.

I’ve also taken personality tests based on the Big Five theory of personality. These, too, can suffer from some of the same problems as Myers-Briggs. The tests are often long and the results would sometimes change between the times I took them.

I eventually wrote off personality tests as not being very useful.

Then one came along that completely changed my mind about them and became one of the most helpful mental models in my life.

Eight or so years ago, Kate’s and my good friend Carlie Thompson introduced us to a personality test called The Color Code.

(Carlie, I’d like to highlight, was also the very first subscriber to Dying Breed. That’s how good of a friend she is. Thank you, Carlie!)

The Color Code, which was originally published back in 1987 (and is now published as The People Code), was developed by a psychologist named Taylor Hartman. You answer 45 questions and the test sorts you into one of four colors: Red, Blue, White, or Yellow.

Kate and I both took it, and we were impressed with how accurately it pegged us and how insightful its descriptions of the personality types were. I’ve also been impressed with how consistent the results have held after taking the test multiple times over the years.

Since initially taking it, The Color Code has become a fixture of conversation in the McKay household and beyond. We’ve had friends take it. We’ve had our kids take it.

It’s not only given Kate and me an insightful tool for better understanding ourselves, but it’s really revolutionized the way we understand our relationships with others. I can describe someone to Kate as being “Such a White,” and she knows exactly what I mean. It’s been especially useful for figuring out the friction in certain relationships and why I may not click with someone else.

It’s not just that The Color Code framework has altered the way I view interpersonal dynamics by laying its specific rubric over it; even more helpfully, it’s just pointed to how I can better relate to people in general.

Because it’s been such a game-changer in my life, today I want to talk about my favorite personality test: I’ll walk you through how it works, what color I am, what color you might be, and the important insights I’ve gotten from The Color Code.

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We’ve reached the end of the drive with Hat Creek Cattle Company. What a ride! Can’t wait to dig in with you guys. But before we do, some business.

Submit Your Questions for Larry McMurtry Expert Steven Frye by Thursday July 30, 2026

Want to ask a question about Lonesome Dove to a Larry McMurtry expert? Well, pardner, now’s your chance.

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It’s been a while since my last Dying Breed Field Trip. Figured it was time for another one.

Today we’re leaving T-Town and heading north on State Highway 11, up into the Osage Hills of northeastern Oklahoma, to visit one of my favorite places in the whole state: the Woolaroc Museum and Wildlife Preserve.

Got your permission slip signed? Then hop on the bus and let’s go.

If you asked me to pick the most quintessentially Oklahoma place in Oklahoma, I’d pick Woolaroc. It’s an amalgamation of oil money and Old West culture sitting on 3,700 acres of beautiful, rolling hills in the Osage Nation.

Not only is it home to one of the best collections of Western art and American Indian artifacts in the world, but it’s also a wildlife preserve and a shrine to one of the great oil tycoons of the early 20th century: Frank Phillips of Phillips 66 fame.

I’m a big fan of staying in touch with the past, and have always enjoyed visiting historical museums to facilitate that kind of contact. For some reason, Woolaroc helps you viscerally feel the presence of the ghosts of the past more than any other museum I’ve been to. Maybe it’s because the place wasn’t only a museum but was visited by real-life historical figures (and is also an actual graveyard; Frank Phillips is entombed in a mausoleum on the property). Maybe it’s because it’s so eclectic and non-stuffy; it doesn’t have the more formal, antiseptic, super scholarly feel of some museums; rather than trying to lay out strict history, Woolaroc preserves the narrative of the Old West. There’s plenty of factual stuff, but it also captures the myth of the period. The feel is refreshing, imagination-spurring. And there are lots of photographs that you find yourself staring at, as you think about how all the people in them are dead and have a Dead Poets Society, carpe diem moment.

Whatever it is, Woolaroc does what contact with the past does best: it reminds you of your own mortality and the fact that the present moment, while it feels like the apotheosis of history and culture, will, just like every era, one day pass away.

The McKays recently made the trip up to Woolaroc, which is about an hour’s drive from Tulsa. I took some pictures so I could try to capture some of its coolness and share it here with the folks on Dying Breed. Those who have been reading Lonesome Dove with me this summer will likely find this field trip relevant. Maybe it will inspire you to make the trip to visit. Or to seek out some weird historic spot in your neck of the woods.

Note: This article is very image heavy, so it’s going to get truncated in the email. To read the whole thing, be sure to click on the title above to visit the site for the full experience.

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Back when I was a student at Edmond North High School in the late ‘90s, weeks before every school dance, I’d shut my bedroom door and practice dance moves in front of the mirror hanging on my closet door. I’d put on a CD burned with music that would likely be played in the cafeteria annex at school (Beastie Boys, Sir Mix-a-Lot, Will Smith, along with a smattering of Eurodance) and rehearse the same move over and over until it looked smooth as heck.

Then, at the dance, the moment would arrive. A circle would form on the dance floor, and guys would take turns jumping in the middle to strut their stuff and experience a moment of teenage suburban glory. When my turn came, I’d bust out the move I’d been drilling in my bedroom all week.

As far as anyone at that dance knew, I had come up with it on the spot. Pure improvisation. It looked effortless.

It was not effortless. I had practiced it dozens of times in front of a mirror like a doofus.

I’m a little embarrassed to admit all this. But I bring it up because it reminds me of a profound idea that I’ve thought about a lot: the ancient Chinese principle of wu-wei.

Effortless Action

Wu-wei (pronounced “ooo-way”) literally translates as “no doing” or “non-action,” but I don’t think that fully captures what ancient Chinese philosophers meant by the concept. Scholar Edward Slingerland, who wrote a whole book on the subject called Trying Not to Try, translates wu-wei as “effortless action”: the state of being active, while feeling and evincing no strain.

When you’re in wu-wei, you know what to do before your conscious mind has a chance to weigh in. The right action just flows right out of you. To people watching you do the thing, it looks completely effortless.

If wu-wei were only about personal performance, it would have a lot in common with what we now call “flow,” the state psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi made famous. You’ve probably experienced flow before. It’s that feeling when you’re in the groove while you’re doing some repetitive manual task; you know exactly what tool to grab and exactly what the next step is without thinking about it. Or maybe you’ve experienced flow while playing a sport or a video game. Everything just feels intuitive.

Wu-Wei Gives You Aura

But Chinese thinkers were after something bigger with wu-wei than flow — it’s about more than peak performance. Wu-wei can also be displayed in virtuous, moral living. When a person does the right thing at the right time without having to think about it, that’s wu-wei.

Chinese philosophers believed that a person acting with wu-wei radiates a quality called de (pronounced “duh”), which gets translated as “virtue” or “charismatic power.”

De is the glow that emanates from someone who is completely at ease and completely themselves. They instinctively know what the right thing to do is in any moment they find themselves in, and they do it and make it look easy while they’re doing it. My teenage kids would say de is “aura.”

And according to the early Chinese philosophers, de affects those around you. Folks trust the man with de. They relax around him. They want to follow him without being threatened or bribed into it. The ancient texts claim that a ruler with enough de could order an empire without issuing a single command.

I think these guys captured something about human nature: we’re attracted to people who make the difficult look easy. Think of the jazz musician who tosses off an improvised solo on the spot. Or the speaker who gets asked a question he didn’t prepare for and delivers an answer so smooth it sounds like he rehearsed it the night before. Or the athlete who casually makes a play that looks like it should be physically impossible. Or the guy at a party who’s charming and funny without visibly straining to be charming or funny. Or the kind old lady at church who makes you feel in your bones that God loves you because she naturally radiates Christ-like love.

Warring States Chinese philosophers would argue that we’re drawn to these people because they’re expressing effortless action, or wu-wei, and thus have de.

But why do we find people who make right action look easy so dang compelling?

Why We Trust the Guy Who Makes Things Look Easy

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When Ulysses S. Grant successfully took Vicksburg during the Civil War, no one could have been more surprised than the Union army’s commander-in-chief. Lincoln had wanted Grant to play it safe and considered the general’s audacious campaign — cutting loose from his supply lines, running his gunboats past the fortress’s batteries in the dark, and marching his army into enemy country — to be foolhardy.

Once the victory was won, the president could have simply sent his congratulations. Instead, Lincoln wrote Grant a letter that confessed the doubts he had held, detailed each turn where the general’s judgment had bested his own, and closed with: “I now wish to make the personal acknowledgment that you were right, and I was wrong.”

Such a frank admission still hits us like a clean gust of air. It’s rare these days (and perhaps always has been) for a leader (or anyone, in fact) to admit they messed up. What we get instead — whether in politics, business, or our personal lives — is silent avoidance, stubborn denial, or vague hand-waving: “Mistakes were made.”

Why is admitting mistakes so uncommon?

Beyond issues of liability in the corporate context or concerns about reelection in the political one, much of people’s reluctance to own their errors comes down to shame and embarrassment. They fear that in confessing a mistake, they will seem less-than in other people’s eyes.

This is one of the stranger impulses of human nature, because typically admitting mistakes actually engenders respect; it strengthens relationships. How refreshing it is to hear someone say: “I regret that choice.” “I was wrong.” “I’m sorry.” It shows that the person possesses humility, and, perhaps even more importantly, self-awareness. What a relief it is for someone to say: “Yes, I can see the same thing that you can see: I goofed.”

Hard as it is to admit a mistake to someone else, people often don’t even reach the point where they wrestle with that disclosure, as they can’t admit their mistakes to an even more fundamental party: themselves.

Today I’ll unpack the deep and fascinating reasons why we have a tendency to shirk responsibility, an understanding of which unlocks the capacity to get better at owning, and learning from, our missteps and blunders.

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Happy Independence Day to our American book club members! Hope you have a good one.

Get On Your Horse and Kick Tees Are a Go

We were able to move forward with the Get on Your Horse and Kick Tees. T-shirts are being printed right now. As soon as they arrive at my place, my kids will be packing and sending them out. I’m hoping we can have them shipped out here in two weeks. If there are any big delays, I’ll keep you posted.

I did order a few extras in each size, so if you’d still like to order one, you can.

Buy Get on Your Horse and Kick Tee

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Welcome back to my series on our history of making a living online. My aim with this series is to offer a behind-the-scenes tour of how the online economy has and does work, which also provides a fascinating window into how and why the internet has changed and looks the way it does today.

So far I’ve covered the rise and fall of banner ads and affiliate links. Today I’ll be getting into the wax and wane of another revenue model: sponsored content. Admittedly, this one hasn’t had as broad an impact on the overall landscape of the internet as the previous two, but I wanted to cover it because, of all the revenue models we’ve used, I actually think it was one of the best and is worthy of a revival.

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