Enterprise of a Great Moment (Note 1)

Enterprise of a Great Moment

It’s 2002. I’m on a Carnival cruise ship with my mom and two sisters. I’m 16 years old.

The rocking of the ship makes me nauseous, so I’m resting alone in a cramped economy cabin.

The small TV in our room has a handful of channels, mostly advertising daily activities and amenities, but one channel just plays Jurassic Park 3 on repeat. So, I watch.

I break from JP3 to listen to music and read. I packed a silver Sony Discman and a handful of CDs – Incubus’ Morning View, 311’s From Chaos, Deftones’ White Pony. But the one album that refuses to leave the tray is an EP titled Fortunately, Unfortunately from a local alt/emo band called Parkview. Two of the members are seniors at my high school.

One standout track is titled Enterprise of a Great Moment. It opens up with clean, jangly guitars, indicative of that early Get Up Kids sound, but contrasted with heavy syncopated drum and bass hits. There’s a raw and heavy crescendo that closes it out. Elements of the song’s structure would sneak into my own guitar playing over the years to follow.

My batteries die. Fortunately, or unfortunately, I return to Jurassic Park 3.

It’s 2026. I turned 40 in April.

I’m grateful for this milestone. Not all of us get here.

But it’s hard to feel anything else but fine at 40. Especially now.

We’re at a critical point in history — more so than any other period in my life.

Much of this is being fueled by converging macro-economic events, global conflict, the rise of AI.

(Note: I think many of us have already rewritten how we experienced the COVID-19 pandemic, but I don’t want to forget how life-changing those first 18 months were.)

A few months ago, I had the urge to listen to that old Parkview album and googled “Enterprise of a Great Moment.” Because the internet doesn’t really know who Parkview is (though their full-length, Breatherapy, is on YouTube if you want to seek it out), Google’s AI Mode returned a deep dive into Shakespeare, of all things.

I wasn’t expecting this. After almost 25 years of enjoying this song, it never occurred to me that the title was inspired by Shakespeare. It shouldn’t surprise me — the lead singer and songwriter likely had the same high school Literature teachers I did.

At the end of Hamlet’s famous “to be, or not to be” soliloquy, he referenced “enterprises of great pith and moment.” Pith meaning strength or vigor, and moment meaning weight or importance.

I’m so tuned to thinking of moments as small, finite points in time. Rarely do I consider moment as a marker of significance. Rarely do I tie moment to momentum – a mass in motion.

But here I am, in 2026, writing words for a personal project that has no map, no compass. Just a new enterprise to try to make sense of this life and the significance of the times – navigating the same “sea of troubles” that Hamlet did.

Meeting the moment.

On Data

You are the sum total of your data…

In April in the year of our Lord 2026, it’s all about the data.

I recently drove solo from Pennsylvania to Florida. Over the course of two days, I listened to two audiobooks that had no business being mentioned in the same sentence: White Noise by Don DeLillo and The Ultimate Jim Rohn Library.

Sixteen hours alone on I-95 is apparently the right situation for disparate ideas to percolate.

White Noise, a 1985 novel centered around an “airborne toxic event,” turned 40 last year. Yet here it stands, as relevant as ever, capturing the everyday anxiety of living in uncertain times and dealing with new technologies. Sounds like 2026, tbh.

Jim Rohn was a renowned author, business coach, and “philosopher.” The audiobook I listened to was a series of themed lectures, mostly derived from his book, 7 Strategies for Wealth & Happiness, which (coincidentally) was first published in 1986 — 40 years ago.

There’s a line in White Noise, and I’ll share it completely out of context: “It just means you are the sum total of your data. No man escapes that.” And it’s repeated later in the novel: “We are the sum total of our data, I told her, just as we are the sum total of our chemical impulses.”

Amongst the many topics Jim Rohn covered, he shared “Keep a journal. Don’t trust your memory. When you listen to something valuable, write it down. When you come across something important, write it down.”

In other words: capture the data. That’s all we are.

Don’t let it slip. Don’t let it hide in some crevice of your brain. Keep it somewhere close by.

Why, though?

For me, it’s three reasons:

One, if you want to measure change, you need to track. Not to trivialize this beautiful life we’ve all been granted, but so much of it is just a series of inputs and outputs – many of which get processed without our awareness.

Two, you don’t know, and you can’t know, if something will reveal itself to be important later. This is the digital breadcrumb. It’s like dog-earing a page. A lot of notes I take aren’t meant to be processed now, just captured.

When I sit down to consider what does it all mean or what’s next and why, the notes are my guide.

Three, I want to leave something behind. There’s a popular quote that gets thrown around, something to the effect of planting trees in whose shade you’ll never sit. I’m not calling my notes trees, but maybe there’s a seed in there somewhere.

When I was 10 or so, I found my dad’s record collection in the attic. We had a turntable in the living room for years, but no records in sight. I spent the next few years enamored by Zeppelin, The Who, The Beatles, Yes, and Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young.

I picture my kids or grandkids stumbling upon my old iPods – lifeless, with failed batteries, no compatible cables and no way to dig into the various albums that made me me.

Tangible notes have value beyond my own archival intentions.

What does this look like in practice?

For about 5 years now, I’ve been tracking everything.

I capture most day-to-day events in a Hobonichi notebook, along with the books, movies, albums, and video games I consumed. I track my workouts, my steps, my sleep, my diet. Hear a good quote? I write it down. Listen to a good podcast episode? Noted. Sick with the flu? It’s in there.

I keep a digital record, too. For books, I’ve used Goodreads for 20 years. Letterboxd since 2020 for movies. Cronometer for diet and macros. Grouvee for games. Steps and sleep get tracked with a Fitbit.

Every month, I reflect on what I’ve captured. I prune my notes app. Kind of like moving things from the fridge to cold storage. Every month, I map out what’s next for me, and given this system I’ve built, it’s data-driven.

It’s all a massive mess, though. But that’s a project for another day.

Stuff I Consumed (Jan - Mar 2026)

Here’s a quick snapshot of stuff that I consumed during the quarter:

Books

Pynchon, Thomas. Vineland. 1990.
Watts, Alan. The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are. 1989.
Doucleff, Michaeleen. Hunt, Gather, Parent: What Ancient Cultures Can Teach Us About the Lost Art of Raising Happy, Helpful Little Humans. 2021.
Rowling, J. K. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. 1998.
Guare, Richard, et al. Smart but Scattered Teens: The “Executive Skills” Program for Helping Teens Reach Their Potential. 2012.
Kurzweil, Ray. The Singularity Is Nearer: When We Merge with AI. 2024.
Faber, Adele, and Elaine Mazlish. Siblings Without Rivalry: How to Help Your Children Live Together So You Can Live Too. 1987.
Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. 1999.
Fadell, Tony. Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making. 2022.
Mandel, Emily St. John. The Glass Hotel. 2020.
Pynchon, Thomas. The Crying of Lot 49 1966.

Continuing to work through Pynchon’s bibliography. Lot 49 was a re-read, but this was my first time experiencing Vineland. As a parent, I’m skeptical of most parenting books (though I keep consuming them for some reason.)

Hunt, Gather, Parent had a interesting thesis, but felt a little too NPR-ish. Smart but Scattered Teens was a game-changer — introduced a focus on executive skills, or lack of, as the main driver for a kid’s behaviors and attitudes.

Build had a Steve Jobs quote that stuck with me: “The best marketing is telling the truth.”

Emily St. John Mandel continues to earn a top spot in my “Favorite Authors” list.

Movies

Saint Jack. Directed by Peter Bogdanovich, 1979
Hudsucker Proxy. Directed by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, 1994.
Frankenstein. Directed by Guillermo del Toro, 2025
True Grit. Directed by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, 2010.
Burn After Reading. Directed by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, 2008.
Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Directed by Francis Ford Coppola, 1992.
Maximum Overdrive. Directed by Stephen King, 1986.
Hoppers. Directed by Daniel Chong, 2026.
Mistress America. Directed by Noah Baumbach, 2015.
Big Trouble in Little China. Directed by John Carpenter, 1986.
Inside Llewyn Davis. Directed by Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, 2013.
All the President’s Men. Directed by Alan J. Pakula, 1976.
They Came Together. Directed by David Wain, 2014.

I’m leaving off a few family movies I watched with the kids. (Lilo and Stitch, Encanto, etc.,) and some mediocre stinkers (The Phoenician Scheme, Bad News Bears, etc.)

The pairing of Ben Gazzara and Peter Bogdanovich is always something to see. Hoppers was incredibly refreshing and offerred a great afternoon at the Boyertown State Theater. Burn After Reading was a pure Coen Bros. Big Trouble in Little China held up well. They Came Together made me yearn for a Stella reunion.

TV Shows

Stranger Things. Season 5, Netflix, 2025.
The Studio. Season 1, Apple TV+, 2025.
Fallout. Season 2, Amazon Prime, 2026.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. Season 1, HBO Max, 2026.

Nice to get closure on Stranger Things after years of investment.

Lauren and I were all in on The Studio. Definitely our kind of humor — especially with a few masterfully orchestrated cameos.

Video Games

Xenogears. Square, 1998. PlayStation.
Super Mario Bros. Deluxe. Nintendo, 1999. Game Boy Color.
Darkwing Duck. Capcom, 1992. Nintendo Entertainment System.
Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade. Square Enix, 2021. Nintendo Switch 2.
The Legend of the Mystical Ninja. Konami, 1992. Super Nintendo Entertainment System.
Bucky O’Hare. Konami, 1992. Nintendo Entertainment System.

I did it. Xenogears. Took months, but so glad I finally experienced this classic (if not polarizing) JRPG. Another FFVII R playthrough was worthwhile, too. Playing on Switch 2 gave me the benefit of swapping on some cheat codes and blazing through the story. Also, played through the OG FFVII at the same time with some Steamdeck mods and a new translation.

Music

Enjoyed listening to the latest Antibalas and Joyce Manor albums. Probably a lot of Blood Vulture. Wasn’t sold on the latest Iron and Wine record.

Stuff I Did (Jan - Mar 2026)

Here are whatever highlights I can remember:

Grieved a loss
Still podcasting; didn’t miss a Tuesday or Friday.
Continued a steady cadence of exercise and going to the gym in the early AM.
Got really into 3D printing. (More on that in the next note.)
Valentine’s / Bday brunch at Talula’s Garden
Baroness, Blood Vulture, and Commitment at Underground Arts