Hot showers and black coffee

There for a while back a couple of years ago, the big Alpha-male influencer guru bit was ice plunges. Getting in a horse tank in the snow that was full of ice and hopping in while keeping a very stoic face. A few of these some folks who shall remain nameless advocated for quitting coffee.

Now, I don’t know about you but this sounds like a cry for help. In the grand scheme of things, a hot shower and coffee and two of the most basic age-old comfort items and I don’t think getting back to your roots needs to involve getting rid of them. I mean, to each their own. But this isn’t really about denying yourself to grow discipline. This is about performative art. This is an act of manliness. Act being the operative verb.

If you do any reading at all about explorers, expeditions, and even cowboys on the trail, you will find quickly that coffee was an important part of their lives. They left their life behind to do work that was very dangerous and usually uncomfortable. One of the few creature comforts was hot coffee. It did more than warm them up; it gave them a little piece of the comfort of home.

Ice baths? I have less to say about this except that I will bet very few of these pink-fingered gurus have worked a long 12-hour shift in terrible weather getting covered in filth, hydraulic fluid, and jet fuel, stinking of cigarettes and grime. If they had, they wouldn’t sit there bashing the “comforts” of a hot shower.

We live in a time of unprecedented luxury even for the lowest classes, where they genuinely that the only way out of this softness is through weird rituals of depriving themselves of basic comforts. Maybe they should just go get a crappy job where they get hot, sweaty, and dirty on a daily basis?

I don’t know. I don’t really have anything to push today product-wise. I am not giving up coffee of hot showers. Ever.

If you have worked hard jobs that suck like anything in maintenance, or warehouses, or on a farm or ranch, then go grab another mug of Joe and take that hot shower. And start writing about your experiences.