The Art of Manliness

3 days ago | artofmanliness.com | Kate McKay

In the 13th century, philosopher-theologian Thomas Aquinas wrote about a vice he called “effeminacy.” While the term can sound off-putting or old-fashioned, Aquinas wasn’t talking about mannerisms or gender. Rather, for Aquinas, effeminacy meant moral softness: failing to persevere in something good because you’d rather be comfortable and avoid pain.

6 days ago | artofmanliness.com | Kate McKay

Neil Postman’s Advice on How to Live the Rest of Your Life. Neil Postman is one of my favorite thinkers about media and its effect on individuals and our culture. I recently came across a lecture of his life advice that was posthumously compiled and delivered by one of his colleagues.It consists of a list of his 22 maxims for surviving a culture in decline. Some you may disagree with (Californians may object to #1). But the list is cranky in the best way.

1 week ago | artofmanliness.com | Kate McKay

We all need sleep to maintain our physical and mental health and perform our best. So it’s unsurprising that there’s no shortage of content out there about how to improve your sleep. Unfortunately, so much of it repeats the same things you’ve heard a million times before: keep a consistent sleep/wake schedule, stop drinking caffeine later in the day, keep your room cold and dark, etc. Those fundamentals matter — and if you’re not doing them yet, they’re worth implementing.

1 week ago | artofmanliness.com | Kate McKay

The era of artificially intelligent large language models is upon us and isn’t going away. Rather, AI tools like ChatGPT are only going to get better and better and affect more and more areas of human life. If you haven’t yet felt both amazed and unsettled by these technologies, you probably haven’t explored their true capabilities.

1 week ago | artofmanliness.com | Kate McKay

Shovelglove. Twenty years ago, back in the very early days of the blogosphere, I stumbled upon a fitness protocol that I still think about today: Shovelglove. The concept is brilliantly simple: wrap an old sweater around a sledgehammer and then perform 14 minutes of movements inspired by traditional manual labor — shoveling, butter churning, chopping wood, etc. — every weekday morning.