Things I've Learned From My Father, So Far, on Dispatch from the Razor's Edge

Work hard.
Appreciate what you've got.
Especially if it's a great family.
Most especially if it's a great woman.
Never give up.
No, seriously – work hard.
Do as well as you can (even if it's not as well as you once imagined it might be).
You have to love your kids; but you're truly lucky if you also really like your kids.
The steering wheel is not a place to rest your hands.
Folding fitted sheets is really a spiritual exercise: if you can fold fitted sheets, you can do anything.
There's never any point in doing a poor job of something, no matter what the job.
Always meet your responsibilities.
Be generous.
Always, always support your family.
Even if they make choices that are slightly baffling to you.
Offer well-intentioned advice – but don't worry too much if it's not taken.
Accept well-intentioned advice you don't intend to take by saying, "Thanks very much for the advice."
Enjoy life.
Wear nice clothes.
Buy a couch.
Keep playing basketball.
Basketball provides several important life lessons: you don't have to be the fastest, strongest, or most talented – if you just run around a lot and keep hustling, good things will happen.
Keep lifting weights.
Call your father once a week.
It's very cool to be a Jew.
I can't eat the soup.
New York is a special place.
Take great joy and pride in the accomplishments of your family.
You're probably going to end up repeating your stories as much as your father; then, later, as much as your grandfather.
Always be doing something.
Yard work is a good choice.
So's reading political biography.
Also playing tea party with your daughter.
Cleaning the house can be like a meditation.
Pretty much every company (probably every organization) is at least somewhat screwed up and dysfunctional.
Don't let that get you down, or keep you from doing your best.
You can always start again.
Life's hardly worth living without chocolate chip cookies.
Matzoh Brei is very good for breakfast.
Carvel flying saucers can just disappear in the night.
There's always hope for your Scrabble career (even if your kids are know-it-alls who know all the two-letter and q-without-u words).
Use proper grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure in written English – even if it happens to be e-mail.
Everything in moderation.
Smile for pictures.
Relax.

family photography pops self-knowledge

Dispatch from the Razor's Edge is owned and operated by novelist, technologist, vegan, exercise junkie, classical liberal, rambler, and Londoner Michael Stephen Fuchs.

Fuchs is the author of the novels The Manuscript and Pandora's Sisters, both published worldwide by Macmillan in hardback, paperback and all e-book formats (and in translation); the D-Boys series of high-tech, high-concept, spec-ops military adventure novels – D-Boys, Counter-Assault, and Close Quarters Battle (coming in 2016); and is co-author, with Glynn James, of the bestselling Arisen series of special-operations military ZA novels. The second nicest thing anyone has ever said about his work was: "Fuchs seems to operate on the narrative principle of 'when in doubt put in a firefight'." (Kirkus Reviews, more here.)

Fuchs was born in New York; schooled in Virginia (UVa); and later emigrated to the San Francisco Bay Area, where he lived through the dot-com boom. Subsequently he decamped for an extended period of tramping before finally rocking up in London, where he now makes his home. He does a lot of travel blogging, most recently of some very long walks around the British Isles. He's been writing and developing for the web since 1994 and shows no particularly hopeful signs of stopping.

You can reach him on .

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Dispatch from the Razor's Edge is owned and operated by novelist, technologist, vegan, exercise junkie, classical liberal, rambler, and Londoner Michael Stephen Fuchs.


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