Hail, Unconventionals!

There comes a moment in every modern man’s life when he must admit a hard truth: the internet has defeated him. Not politically. Not spiritually. Not even intellectually. I’m talking about passwords. Those cursed little digital gatekeepers standing between you and your bank account, your airline miles, your medical portal, and that one website you joined in 2012 because it promised to tell you which kind of Viking you were.

For years, many of us approached passwords with the proud confidence of a raccoon operating a microwave. We had a system. It was not a good system, but it was ours. Maybe we used the dog’s name, followed by the year we bought the house, followed by an exclamation point because a website once informed us that punctuation equals security.

Maybe we had one sacred password for everything because “who has time for all this nonsense?” Maybe, in a moment of true technological brilliance, we wrote every password in a notebook labeled PASSWORDS and then left that notebook beside the computer, where no criminal would ever think to look because criminals are famously respectful of office supplies.

This, my dearest friend, is how civilization collapses.

Not with war. Not with famine. Not even with artificial intelligence deciding we are mostly decorative. It collapses because a grown adult opens an email attachment titled “Updated Invoice Final FINAL Urgent.pdf.exe” from someone named Brenda Accounting ... and despite never having met Brenda, worked with Brenda, or ordered anything from the Republic of Suspicious Attachments, we clicked.

So yea, somewhere in a windowless room a hacker saw this and whispered, “Bless him,” before buying a jet ski with your identity.

The Beginner’s Guide to Remembering Passwords exists because EMSUM believes in adventure, but not the kind where you spend three hours resetting your cable login while slowly losing your will to live.

There are good risks and dumb risks. Sleeping in the back of a van in a windstorm? Possibly a story. Moving to a strange country after watching three YouTube videos and reading half a blog post? Bold. Using “Password123” for your bank, email, Facebook, and the website that stores your Social Security number? That is not adventure. That is leaving the front door open with a sign that says, “Please be gentle with the credit score. And use lube.”

The first rule is simple: stop trying to remember all of them. This is not a moral failure. You are not less of a man because your brain refuses to store forty-seven separate combinations of capital letters, numbers, symbols, ancient runes, and the name of your first stuffed animal. Your brain was designed to notice weather, avoid wolves, and remember grudges from 1978. It was not designed to generate a unique sixteen-character password for every grocery app that demands an account before allowing you to buy lettuce.

This is why password managers exist. Yes, the phrase sounds suspiciously like something invented by a man named Trevor who owns too many monitors, but the idea is solid.

One strong master password protects a vault of all your other passwords, and the manager generates the ridiculous ones for you. This means your bank can have a password that looks like a robot had a seizure, while you only need to remember one real phrase.

Not “password.” Not your birthday. Not the name of your dog plus “2024!” because the dog has already appeared in seventeen Facebook posts and is, frankly, doing too much of your security work.

The second rule: if you must write something down, do not make it stupid. A notebook can be better than memory if you treat it like a tool instead of a treasure map for criminals. Do not label it PASSWORDS in giant letters. Do not keep it under the keyboard, which is the digital equivalent of hiding the house key under the doormat and then telling everyone at the diner. Use clues only you understand, or better yet, write down the master password hint, not every login to every account you have ever touched since dial-up internet was making whale noises in the spare bedroom.

The third rule: stop opening things like a golden retriever with Wi-Fi. If an email feels urgent, weird, flattering, threatening, misspelled, or weirdly emotional about a package you do not remember ordering, pause. The attachment is not your friend. The link is not a shortcut.

The person claiming to be from your bank is probably not from your bank, especially if their email address looks like it was assembled during a gas leak. Real security begins with one sacred EMSUM principle: curiosity is good, but clicking everything like a caffeinated pigeon is not curiosity. It is cooperation with the enemy.

The fourth rule is that two-factor authentication is annoying and you should use it anyway.

Yes, it adds an extra step. Yes, it sometimes makes you want to throw your phone into a body of water. But that extra code is often the difference between a criminal being stopped at the door and a criminal ordering twelve iPads using your name while you are still trying to remember whether you capitalized the “B” in “BusLifeForever.” If a site offers two-factor authentication for email, banking, health records, cloud storage, or anything involving money, identity, or family photos from 2009, turn it on.

None of this means you need to become a cybersecurity expert. You do not need a tactical bunker, three encrypted laptops, and a bumper sticker that says “I back up my backups.” The goal is not paranoia. The goal is fewer stupid emergencies. The goal is to spend less time clicking “Forgot Password?” like it is your personal mantra and more time doing things worthy of forgetting a password over.

Life is short. Too short to be locked out of your own airline account in a motel lobby while a website asks you to identify every crosswalk in a picture apparently taken by a nervous satellite.

So let this guide be your official EMSUM permission slip to stop pretending your current system is working. Make one strong password. Use a password manager. Turn on two-factor authentication. Stop clicking attachments sent by imaginary accountants.

And for the love of all things mildly rebellious, retire “Password123” with dignity. It served badly. It failed often. And it will not be missed.

1 day ago | [YT] | 0

Hail, Unconventionals!

Well, I did a thing. I created some merch. LOL!

In this, the Official EMSUM Collection, you gotcha hat, mug, and shirt ... all for your bragging pleasure. Tell the world you support nonconformity and unconventional living! (You'll have to explain the acronym, so be prepared).

rick-higgins-nomadic-livi-shop.fourthwall.com/prod…

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2 days ago | [YT] | 1

Hail, Unconventionals!

I spent most of my adult life trying very hard to make good decisions. Not just ordinary good decisions, either. I mean the kind of decisions that make financial advisors nod approvingly and insurance salesmen send you Christmas calendars.

I worked a respectable career. I paid my bills on time. I contributed to retirement accounts. I maintained proper insurance coverage. I renewed registrations before they expired. I even kept important paperwork in a filing cabinet.

Looking back, I was practically a superhero. Captain Responsibility. Defender of the Spreadsheets. Guardian of Extended Warranties. The strange thing is that despite all those excellent decisions, almost none of them became stories worth telling later.

Did I tell you about the time I perfected my Excel formula and saved a buck-fourteen?

Think about the best stories from your own life. I doubt many of them begin with, "Well, there I was, carefully reviewing my homeowner's insurance policy..." Nobody gathers around a campfire to hear about the time you successfully balanced a household budget. No grandchildren sit wide-eyed at your feet asking you to tell them once again about that thrilling afternoon when you updated your beneficiaries.

The stories people remember are almost always born from decisions that looked questionable at the time. The trip you weren't supposed to take. The job you weren't supposed to quit. The city you weren't supposed to move to. The person you weren't supposed to fall in love with. The adventure you weren't supposed to attempt because it seemed impractical, expensive, irresponsible, or mildly insane.

Somewhere along the way, our culture developed a strange obsession with safety. We are constantly encouraged to minimize risk, eliminate uncertainty, and avoid mistakes. Entire industries exist for no other purpose than helping us smooth out every bump in the road. We buy insurance against disasters, warranties against breakdowns, supplements against aging, and subscriptions against inconvenience.

If someone invented insurance against awkward conversations, it would probably become a billion-dollar company by next Tuesday. Yet for all our efforts to remove uncertainty from life, uncertainty remains stubbornly committed to its job.

The truly dangerous decisions are rarely the dramatic ones. The dangerous decisions are the ones that seem perfectly reasonable. Staying in a job you hate because it pays well. Remaining in a town you've outgrown because moving sounds difficult. Delaying your dreams until some magical future moment when conditions are perfect.

Those decisions never appear reckless. Nobody warns you about them. Nobody stages an intervention. In fact, people often congratulate you for making them. They call you responsible. Mature. Practical.

Meanwhile, a little piece of your curiosity quietly packs its bags and moves out.

I sometimes imagine two different versions of retirement. In the first version, a man spends thirty years preparing for it. He keeps his lawn immaculate. Pays every HOA fee exactly on schedule. Attends all required meetings. Owns matching patio furniture. He carefully protects himself from surprises and eventually reaches retirement with an impressive collection of receipts and absolutely no idea what to do next.

In the second version, a man finds himself wandering through Patagonia because a series of questionable decisions somehow led him there. One of these individuals has made objectively better choices according to society. The other has accidentally become interesting.

Now before somebody accuses EMSUM of encouraging recklessness, let's establish a distinction. There is a difference between a bad decision and a catastrophically stupid decision.

Backpacking across South America because you've always wanted to see it? That's a bad decision in the best possible way. Selling your life savings to invest in alpaca-themed cryptocurrency promoted by a man named Dave? That's a different category entirely.

EMSUM does not officially endorse Dave, his alpacas, or whatever financial crimes he may currently be committing.

What EMSUM does endorse is the idea that a meaningful life usually exists just outside the boundaries of common sense. Not completely outside. You don't want to end up living in a drainage ditch while explaining to your family that you're "embracing uncertainty." But somewhere between reckless chaos and soul-crushing responsibility lies a sweet spot where life becomes interesting. That's where the detours live. That's where the stories come from. That's where the moments happen that you'll still be laughing about twenty years later.

The funny thing about getting older is that you eventually realize most of the things you worried about never mattered nearly as much as you thought they would. The embarrassing moments faded. The failures became funny. The mistakes turned into lessons.

Even the disasters often transformed into stories. What remains are the experiences. The people you met. The places you saw. The ridiculous situations you somehow survived. Nobody reaches the end of their life wishing they had spent more time color-coding spreadsheets. They wish they had taken more chances while they still could.

That's probably why EMSUM exists in the first place. Beneath all the jokes, fake handbooks, questionable advice, and mildly concerning life choices is a simple observation: the safest path is not always the best one. Sometimes the dangerous choice is staying exactly where you are. Sometimes the reckless choice is doing what everyone expects.

Sometimes the wild act of rebellion is finally admitting that the life you've been carefully maintaining isn't the life you actually want.

And if that realization leads you to quit your job, buy a backpack, move to Spain, sleep in a school bus, learn a new language, start a business, take a train somewhere unfamiliar, or generally confuse your neighbors, then congratulations. You may have just made a terrible decision.

The kind that turns into a great story.

3 days ago | [YT] | 2

Hail, Unconventionals!

A little behind the scenes for ya: The sun broke the bus, we're stuck in Oklahoma, and apparently I look like ... Jason Momoa?

4 days ago | [YT] | 0

Hail, Unconventionals!

Falling Asleep During Movies: A Practical Handbook

I used to think falling asleep during a movie was something that happened to old people. You know the type: Grandpa sitting in a recliner with a blanket over his legs, insisting he was "just resting his eyes" ... despite snoring loudly enough to frighten wildlife.

As a younger man, I assumed that someday far off in the distant future, I too would acquire this mysterious ability. Then one evening, somewhere around my mid-fifties, I sat down to watch a movie I was genuinely excited about. Twenty minutes later I woke up to the closing credits and had no idea who won.

At first, I blamed Hollywood. That seemed reasonable. Perhaps modern movies had become boring. Maybe every plot was the same. (Marvel? Bleech!) Maybe I'd simply become too sophisticated for the average action film. This theory lasted right up until I fell asleep during a documentary about a topic I absolutely love {I'll spare you the details}. That's when I realized the problem wasn't the movie. The problem was that my body had quietly reclassified sitting in a comfortable chair as an approved sleeping activity.

Movie theaters don't help. Whoever designs those seats deserves either an engineering award or a criminal indictment. They're large, padded, reclined just enough to be dangerous, and placed in a room where the lights are intentionally turned off. Then they lower the temperature a few degrees and ask us to sit still for two and a half hours. That's not entertainment. That's an ambush. If a sleep scientist were trying to design the perfect napping environment, they'd eventually arrive at the exact same blueprint as a modern multiplex.

The streaming services are even worse. At least when you go to a theater, you've made an effort. You drove somewhere. You bought a ticket. You spent nine dollars on a bucket of popcorn the size of a washing machine.

At home, however, the barriers are gone. You're already wearing comfortable clothes. Your favorite chair is five feet away. There's a blanket nearby. You can pause whenever you want. Somewhere along the line, watching television stopped being a form of entertainment and became an advanced relaxation technique.

The funny thing is that falling asleep during a movie is one of those experiences that older adults treat like a failure while younger adults view it as a luxury. When you're twenty-five, you're exhausted because life is moving too fast. You'd love to sit quietly and drift off in the middle of the afternoon, but your job, your responsibilities, and your metabolism/pride won't allow it.

By the time you're sixty-five, you've earned the right to accidentally nap during yet another reboot of a reboot, yet somehow we've decided that's a sign of decline. Personally, I think it should be viewed as an achievement. There are people paying hundreds of dollars for wellness retreats that promise the same level of relaxation I can achieve fifteen minutes into a historical drama.

Of course, there are practical consequences. The biggest is that I've developed a unique relationship with plotlines. I often know how a movie begins and how it ends, but the middle section remains a complete mystery. This has resulted in some truly fascinating interpretations. More than once I've emerged from a film convinced it was about one thing, only to discover later it was about something entirely different.

In my defense, the version I imagined during my nap was usually better.

Scientists, naturally, have explanations for all of this. They talk about sleep cycles, circadian rhythms, mental fatigue, and cognitive load. Those are important concepts, and I'm sure they're all correct. However, I suspect they're overlooking a simpler explanation. By the time you've reached your sixties, you've spent decades working, paying bills, raising families, fixing broken appliances, and attending meetings that should have been emails. Your body isn't malfunctioning. It's simply taking advantage of every opportunity to get a little rest.

That's why I no longer fight it. If I fall asleep during a movie, I consider it market feedback. Either the film wasn't compelling enough to overcome gravity and comfort, or my body needed a nap more than I needed to know what happened in Act Three. In either case, one of those needs got met. That's a victory in my book.

So if you find yourself waking up in a theater wondering why everyone is suddenly cheering, don't panic. If you open your eyes halfway through a Netflix series and discover you've missed three episodes, don't be embarrassed. You're participating in a long and honorable tradition shared by fathers, grandfathers, uncles, retirees ... and apparently me. The movie will still be there tomorrow. The opportunity for a perfectly timed nap, however, may not.

And if anyone questions your commitment to cinema, simply tell them you weren't asleep. You were conducting a highly advanced relaxation exercise while evaluating the movie's ability to maintain consciousness.

Unfortunately for the filmmakers, they failed the test.

5 days ago | [YT] | 3

Hail, Unconventionals!

So I'm working on the next video, which is loosely titled "I Joined AARP (so you don't have to)". It's going to be a fun romp about everyone's favorite old-person's crutch of an organization.

While doing research (meaning while half-skimming the website) I discovered that they have their own versions of "Idiot's Guide To Growing Old".

So I decided that the upcoming video needed a booklet of my own in rebuttal. LOL! There are five of these in total, all of which I'm going to stuff in your inbox over the next week. :-)

Starting with ...
www.patreon.com/rickhiggins/posts/remembering-why-…

6 days ago | [YT] | 3

Hail, Unconventionals!

I know ... Ew!

4 weeks ago | [YT] | 0

Hail, Unconventionals!

Hey you. YEA YOU! I'M TALKING TO YA!

^^ Would you consider that rude? Yea, me too. So let's discuss "rudeness" through the eyes of a Spaniard. LOL!

1 month ago | [YT] | 0