_{Hello friends! My name is Max Daniels and I’m a life coach and a writer. I wrote a short and salty book about the easy way to quit overeating and binging. I write here about all manner of life improvement. And I have a monthly column about self-care over at Modern Daily Knitting.}

_{Please get in touch if you’re looking for coaching. You can also ask me a question.}

First thing: My newsletter provider—Buttondown by name—once again pulled a switcheroo and hid your responses in a whole new place. So it turns out lots of you did respond to my offer of no-cost coaching, and I didn’t know it.

I’d like to say this problem shouldn’t trouble us again, but the last time I said that it was a lie ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. I’m very sorry for all my delayed replies.

It’s hot, or it will be. Still…

Next thing: I’m headed to Santa Fe tomorrow and I’ll be there for over a month. It’s part working vacation and part vacation-vacation. So you may see me republish a newsletter or two in the coming weeks.

Or not! I’m outside on my sister’s deck in Boulder rn and happy to write and keep writing. It’s so quiet here. And I know we’re expecting the weather to turn but at this moment it’s perfection. Colorado has the best sky, best clouds, best air. Sorry Montana! Sorry Tibet!

For some ppl being outside only and ever means moving their bodies. For them there’s no win if you’re sat on the deck with a laptop. Or a Negroni.

But I haven’t had my own outdoor space since I had to sell my house in 2024, and I can confirm that an outdoor room, even a temporary one, is a giant life upgrade.

A couple years ago, inspired by the poet Chris LaTray, I tried to get a cohort of 1000 Hours Outside folks together. There were only a handful of us and though intentions were good, none of us had an appetite for tracking or checking in or that sort of thing. Actually getting those 1,000 hours was more challenging than any of us expected, too.

At that time I was still in my house, living very close to the beach, and taking advantage of the privilege. I was also following a couple fat activists (respect!) who got pretty worked up about the whole 1000 Hours Outside.

Their take: Merely BEING outside is a privilege, and it’s offensive that those 1000 Hours people don’t recognize it as such. They were beyond salty, they were sour.

And then, as now, I thought: wow is that really true? I recognize that the good shit is not evenly distributed. For example there more people on the planet than there is beach access. That’s a fact.

But are we really at a place where just stepping into the open air can be considered “privilege”? Of the kind we need to “check”? Is that a reasonable take or just a rhetorical obligation in the kind of space that fat activists make their home and their living? Most of humanity is not under house arrest. We are not actually confined. There’s not a tollbooth at your back door.

I have a friend who could bury any of us with the list of her troubles (she would never) but still: she overcomes and gets out there as much as possible. I think because being outside is one of those things that gives more than it takes.

Here’s another fact: unless you’re at the actual beach, being outside in July is nicer in Santa Fe than in Boston. So I plan to do it a lot. Will I keep track? Absolutely not.

You? What are your thoughts? Do you prioritize being outdoors? Have you found, like Chris LaTray, that being outside for hours a day is the single biggest thing you can do to improve your life? Have you done or thought about doing 1000 Hours Outside?

Let me know, and maybe we can encourage each other to get out without getting into the over-administration of it all.

If you have overeating problems, this short little book will make you laugh, open your eyes, and show you a really smart, easy, fast, dignified and hella cheap way to 10x your life.

If you’d like the chance to demolish your eating problems, in approximately the time it takes to read this tiny book, for the low low cost of next to nothing, GET IT HERE.

RECOMMENDING.

learning.

My friend Cameron’s upcoming class Minor Secrets: The Vertical Axis and the Cosmology of the Minor Cards of the Tarot. (Scroll down for class info.) This intentionally small class will bring joy to your late summer.

Cameron writes: We’ll explore the minors together in conjunction with your birth chart, the Kabbalah, and the cosmologies offered by Western magick to strengthen your understanding, love, and wisdom for your Self, the world, and the others you encounter within it. Practically speaking, the course is a way to reclaim your attention from the algorithm, to plant yourself firmly on whatever path it is you’re here to walk, and to join a wonderful community of some of the smartest and kindest people on the internet.

If you scroll down past the essay, you can read more here: https://substack.com/@steelecs/p-201933899. Will I see you there? I hope so.

reading.

I do NOT recommend Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar…, by Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein. I didn’t finish this giant bestseller. Grandpa humor from the 50s, or the kind of shit that Mrs. Maisel would’ve been forced to fake cool-girl her way thru.

I’m sure they got the advice that it would be better to 86 the rape jokes. But I guess they decided to leave them in and it did fine anyway.

If you’ve got books to not recommend haha, hit me.

Otherwise, that’s the week! xoxo and see you soon.