The wait is over! I’m back with another installment of Why Fiction Teaches More About Life Than Self-Help, inspired by a quote from Lee Child:

“You can learn much more from fiction than non-fiction.”

One of the things I've always appreciated about Jack Reacher is that he never seems busy.

That's a strange thing to notice about a character who spends his life solving murders, uncovering conspiracies, and getting into more fights than Conor McGregor.

But think about it.

When Reacher is eating breakfast at a diner, he's eating breakfast.

When he's walking through a town, he's walking through a town.

When he's questioning a witness, that's all he's doing.

And when he's thinking, he's just...thinking.

He's not scrolling his phone while half-listening to a podcast. He's not replying to texts while mentally rehearsing tomorrow's meeting. He's not squeezing in a few pages of a self-help book because he can't bear the thought of ten uninterrupted minutes with his own thoughts.

He's simply present.

Somewhere along the way, I think we changed what the word busy means.

Being busy used to mean you were fully occupied by the task in front of you.

Now it means you're trying to occupy yourself with as many things as possible at the same time.

We wear multitasking almost like a badge of busy. We answer emails during meetings, listen to audiobooks while folding laundry, check social media during commercials, and keep our phones within arm's reach on date night.

We've become so uncomfortable with empty space that we've started filling every moment with something.

The irony is that all this activity often leaves us feeling like we never actually experienced any of it.

Maybe that's why Reacher seems so calm.

Whatever he's doing has his full attention.

The next time you sit down with your wife, just have the conversation.

When your son wants to show you something, watch.

When you're mowing the yard, mow the yard.

When you're thinking about a problem, give yourself permission to simply think.

Sometimes the most productive thing we can do is give our full attention to the one thing we're already doing.

Echo Burning is one of my favorite Jack Reacher novels, partly because it takes place in Texas, but mostly because it keeps you guessing until the very end. I genuinely wasn't sure whether the central character—other than Reacher himself—was a victim, a villain, or something in between. If you enjoy suspense that keeps you second-guessing, this one's well worth the read.

Until next time—
🔥Keep the fires burning,
— Clay

P.S. I’d rather grow Campfire Gentleman through real connections than algorithms.
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