The New Phonebook's Here: On Writing the Foreword to Jared Dillian's "Rule 62"

As a kid in the ‘80s, we’d occasionally open the front door or come home from school to find a surprise, weatherproof-wrapped tome, resting on our porch, not really all unlike the Amazon packages of today, and we would get so excited.

Dad taught us what to do. We’d pick it up and shout, “The new phonebook’s here! The new phonebook’s here!”

I miss that ritual. Not the least of which because as we got older, we’d add, “Millions of people look at this everyday! This is the kind of spontaneous publicity - your name in print - that MAKES people!”

And of course, the real killer line we grew into, that we’d trot out any time we our names written anywhere, including church bulletins, camp rosters, and year books, with additional bonus points up for grabs if you said it to anybody else finding their name in print (you know, to make sure you captured the true weight of the moment, in our family’s love language, aka said as sarcastically as possible), “I’m in print!” Then you pause, because you have to say this part maddeningly seriously, “Things are going to start happening to me now.”

We learned the moves, we learned the tones, we learned to study Steve Martin in “The Jerk” first from censored TV editions, then from VHS copies of censored TV editions, and later from Blockbuster-rented-and-dubbed uncensored VHS copies like it was a prayer at church we were expected to know or a social studies test we actually wanted to pass.

All that preamble is for me to admit I had an actual “The new phonebook’s here” moment last week, when Jared Dillian’s new book showed up in a non-descript package on my front porch, and I opened it like a little kid to see this:

I’ve always admired Jared’s writing. When I started to do the podcast/YouTube stuff, he was one of the people I lasered in on collaborating with because I knew he was a writing and fiction nerd too, and that meant he was on a very short list of openly creative people in finance who put out genuinely creative works.

Jared’s not afraid to fail. He’s not afraid to look weird or cop to stuff most wouldn’t cop to. That’s normal in art, but it’s socially illegal in most of finance.

Maybe our collaborations sort of made us friends (and to be fair, I do jump immediately to making fun of people I know I like, so in hindsight, recognizing that he didn’t flee the scene when I poked fun at his cat psychic, I rest comfortably knowing we at least crossed that level together early on).

Maybe our collaborations are rooted in our deep appreciation for just how much depth there is in all of this mess called life (I mean, as fellow documenters of the human experience, the guy has no shortage of ideas or opinions which, since you’re reading this email or reading this as a post on my site, you know that’s a common enough theme).

All I know, for sure, is that we got to collaborate on a small piece of this book together, in that he sent me an advance copy, asked me what I thought, and if I’d write a foreword, and I jumped at the chance because it felt so right.

A foreword? I never did that before. I’ve thought a lot about forewords. Even mused about them out loud a handful of times (here’s a 2024 post about one of my favorite forewords of all time which, yes, I embraced to write this one). But, I never wrote or was asked to write anything that would be in book-print before this.

Jared would make some awful cherry popping book daddy joke or something right now. Let the record show, I am above that. Let the record show, he is not, and I’m writing this thinking about the band but he’s thinking about the meaning of the awful band name and… OK so this happened, alright?!

I wrote the foreword to Rule 62: Meditations on Success and Spirituality, by Jared Dillian.

Jared Dillian wrote all the other words in Rule 62: Meditations on Success and Spirituality, by Jared Dillian.

It’s a wonderful, lovely, and jarringly stoic series of essays on life, which he regularly shares on his site, We’re Gonna Get Those Bastards, and more times than not, he’s writing about the kind of stuff I am thinking/worrying/obsessing over here at Cultish Creative too.

I have to spoil one part of the foreword, but I’m only doing it because maybe it’ll get you to pick up the book and read of the other words.

My goal, with what I wrote, was to get you to ask “Who does this schmuck think he is” of Jared, and then, like me, understand the word “sonder.”

While I was working on the foreword, in that awful adult period where you’ve agreed to do something but haven’t all figured out what you’re doing yet, I was talking to my business partner, Ben Tuscai, about actual work. We were in the middle of some financial planning type client stuff and he asked me if I ever think of the word “sonder” and how it applies to everything we do professionally.

That’s all it took for Ben to pierce some metaphorical veil in my brain. What I wrote in the foreword just sort of fell out after. Funny how life drops stuff like that on your doorstep, right?

Full disclosure: I have an English teacher complex thanks (actual thanks, not sarcastic thanks) to my mom and grandma on my dad’s side who both were English teachers.

I think, “I know this ‘sonder’ word,” but as Ben and I talked more about it, I looked it up and realized this was exactly the feeling Jared’s word were giving me, over and over, and so I wrote the following sentence down in the notes app on my phone, right after my first idea, which was kind of thin, If I’m being honest, about how people think he’s a schmuck,

“Sonder is the feeling you get when you realize everybody else’s life is as complicated, as rich in detail, and as emotionally all over the place as yours.”

Rule 62 is a book about what it means to sonder. It’s a book about successes, failures, and redemptions. It’s a book about being human without forgetting the humanity. You should read it with this in mind. You should feel it not to feel anything specific, but to have art make you aware of your capacity for feeling.

Rule 62 won’t fix you in any self-helpy way. Those feelings are coming with each page, both fastly and furiously. I can promise it will beg you to reflect. It won’t force you, but if you’re not open to it, you are likely going to stop and be the 647th message I’ve received asking why I collaborate with Jared because you think he might be a schmuck.

Rule 62 is just another book and not at all just another book. I’m biased. Not just for my name - but because I’m in the camp that reading is important, thinking deeply is paramount to being a better human, and if more people read, the world might be an incrementally better place.

But I’m also biased because my name is in there. And maybe it’s like The Jerk. Maybe it’s just me co-opting into society and seeing what happens, but I believe it, now more than ever, that “Things are going to start happening to me now.”

Jared, you’re not a schmuck, you’re a jerk, and I’ll never forget you asking me to do this.