I’m Mike Vardy, and I help people build a better relationship with time — not by controlling it, but by working with it. Through my writing, courses, and community, I explore how intention and attention shape a more meaningful life — one rooted in the original idea of productiveness over productivity.
Eight years ago today
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Hello Reader, Eight years ago today, we lost Anthony Bourdain. I've been thinking about him a lot lately. Not just because of the anniversary, but because of a piece I came across that's stayed with me. It was written just two days after his death by J.D. Roth, someone who, like me, admired Bourdain deeply and found himself unsettled in ways he couldn't quite shake. In it, Roth shares something Bourdain said in a Wall Street Journal interview not long before he died. When asked whether he ever thought about stepping back from a pace that kept him on the road 250 days a year, Bourdain replied: "Too late for that. I think about it. I aspired to it. I feel guilty about it. I yearn for it. Balance? I fucking wish." That quote breaks my heart a little every time I read it. Here was a man who was, by every conventional measure, wildly productive. Dozens of countries. Multiple television series. Books. Restaurants. Interviews. Essays. And he knew — he knew — that something was wrong with the pace. He could name it. He could feel its absence. He just couldn't find the exit. That's the productivity trap in its purest form. Not laziness. Not lack of ambition. The opposite: so much momentum, so much identity wrapped up in the output, that slowing down feels impossible even when you're desperate for it. And here's what haunts me about it: Bourdain was also one of the most present people I've ever watched work. Every meal, every conversation with a stranger in a market in Hanoi or a fishing village in Newfoundland — when he was there, he was completely there. That capacity for presence was real. It just got swallowed by the machine of productivity that surrounded it. That's the difference I keep coming back to.
Bourdain had the gift of productiveness. What he couldn't escape was the demand for productivity. And I think that tension — between inhabiting your life and optimizing it — is one worth sitting with today. See you later, P.S. If that tension resonates with you — if you're tired of optimizing and ready to start inhabiting — TimeCrafting Trust is where that work happens in community. This month, your first month is just $1. Join us here → |
The Practice of Productiveness
I’m Mike Vardy, and I help people build a better relationship with time — not by controlling it, but by working with it. Through my writing, courses, and community, I explore how intention and attention shape a more meaningful life — one rooted in the original idea of productiveness over productivity.
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