Good morning Reader,
"I love you my man."
And with that, the heart graphics fly across the Zoom screen as I awkwardly make a just-good-enough heart with my hands, sending my love across the Atlantic. John and I have just finished one of our weekly calls, taking philosophers' wisdom out of the textbooks and into our lives.
The give and take for 90 minutes is always the best part of my week. One moment we're exploring how we can remain human in a world being consumed by technology; the next we're discussing how John, a 32-year-old Athenian, followed his father's wishes and studied biology on a path toward medicine, only to choose philosophy after earning his final college credit. Can you imagine that father-son conversation!
And while we could both go on for hours, my workday is about to begin and John's dinner hour is upon him. Each night he goes to his parents' home a few doors down, where his mother has dinner ready for him and his father, and the three share a family meal.
When I learned this, I had conflicting feelings. Part of me wanted to be that close to my kids every day, while another part was thinking, "WTF! Your mom cooks dinner for you every night?" And in Athens, well, of course she does!
"Hug your mom and give her a kiss for me," I say. Before we go, I ask, "Did you bring your mother flowers last week?" And John tells me, "No. See, I'm honest."
And with that, I suggest today might be the day for flowers, and we lean toward our screens to give each other a hug goodbye until next Monday, when we do it all over again.
Here's the thing about John and me. When I met him, I swear I didn't need or want another relationship to manage in my life. But I had this beautiful, nagging itch prodding me to find the wonder in life all over again. Life had gotten heavy.
Back in February 2024, I stepped outside my hotel on a quiet Sunday morning, letting Apple Maps guide me through the streets of Athens. I had a 9:00 AM tour to catch, and there were people expecting me who, I hoped, weren't waiting for me.
Outside the Numismatic Museum stood a man and a woman, she holding a Viator sign that told me I'd found the right place. I gave myself a little nod of approval for being on time.
I asked the woman, Bianca, if this was the tour that promised to walk the steps of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. She said it was. I expected her to introduce the man beside her as another tourist. Instead, she introduced John, who would be guiding the tour with her. I had the two of them all to myself.
Now that was pretty cool. A personalized tour of where and how humans learned to think! But I had a little trepidation, too, at the thought of being alone with two strangers for four hours. Could I hold up my end of the bargain?
We began with the sculptures lining the roof of the museum.
Bianca and John worked off each other, explaining the history, which I'll admit I've mostly forgotten. Something about the people and events that shaped Athens and Greece, with no Socrates, Plato, or Aristotle in sight.
As we moved on, Bianca talked about the history of the city—those damn Ottoman Turks!—while John seemed drawn to what the city and its people, ancient and modern, represented.
I was trying to connect the dots, but at first it felt like a rapid-fire professor's lecture about a time long gone. After a quick stop at a sidewalk vendor for a Red Bull, John and Bianca led me into the National Garden.
I remember thinking, I don't want to see a garden or a park. I want to be in the middle of the action—whatever the hell that meant! But I followed them down the paved path and onto the crushed-stone walkways. When they reached a bench and suggested I sit, I told them I didn't want to. I'm laughing as I write this, because even in waiting rooms I stand and pace. Anything but sit.
But John was pretty insistent, so I sat.
John told me about Epicurus, an ancient Greek philosopher who, in a garden of his own, welcomed people often excluded from philosophical communities. It was a garden similar to the one we were sitting in.
And damn if that didn't light a fire in me. I thought about the people I'd met in warehouses and offices on my We Supply America tour. People too often overlooked, underserved, and underinvested in at work. Here was John talking about who had access to philosophical inquiry centuries ago, and I was thinking about who gets access to self-development opportunity today.
I couldn't sit any longer. I was up, pacing the crushed stone in front of the bench, thinking out loud, connecting what John was telling me about Epicurus with the yearnings of the people I'd met back home. What had started as a lesson became a three-way conversation.
John and I bounced ideas off each other, trying to understand the two stories colliding in that moment. We kept coming back to what mattered to us: people having the opportunity, when they're ready, to join others who are turned on by going deep within to better themselves and their lives.
John sparked something in me that afternoon in the garden, something I didn't know quite what to do with. His story had connected an ancient philosopher to people I'd spent years listening to, and even if I couldn't yet explain why, I wanted to keep exploring it.
When the We Supply America tour came to its conclusion, I had a little more than 2,000 miles of interstate highway ahead of me before I'd be home and park the RV for good. That's a lot of miles and quiet time alone with yourself. And the question that kept rising was: What's next? Yes, for my career, my business. But at the heart of it, what was next for me?
The shift in my inner dialog was not lost on me. For four years I was consumed with listening to, understanding and caring about other people's stories. But now, I was beginning to focus on my own story.
It's hard to explain, but I could feel it in my gut: there was something next, something more ahead of me, while my mind was doing its good-cop, bad-cop thing. One moment it told me to ignore the feeling; the next it was screaming in a hushed tone to figure out what the hell this itch was.
All the while, I kept returning to that February afternoon with John and Bianca. They'd left me on top of Areopagus Hill, looking toward the Acropolis and the Parthenon. Standing there, and again during those last miles home, I found myself wondering: What was I to become?
Nine months later, almost to the day, I was crossing the Atlantic again. I was headed back to the city where a young man had told me a story in a garden I hadn't wanted to enter—and now wanted to revisit.
I'd registered for a program about bringing the philosophy of ancient Greece into life today. As I had in February, I arrived early enough to take the exact same four-hour tour.
Walking toward the museum, I opened the Viator app to read the review I'd left in February. Not to remind myself what the tour involved, but to remind myself of Bianca and John's names, in case one of them was leading it again. I'm not sure what it says about my age or my hope, but I checked their names three or four times before I saw John standing alone in front of the museum, Viator sign in hand.
We greeted each other with broad smiles and a warm handshake. Already deep in conversation, we walked straight past the museum and toward the National Garden.
Our four-hour tour became a six-hour conversation about life, and by the time it was over we'd covered only a third of the planned walk. I didn't want the conversation to end, so I asked John if he'd like to share a meal.
We sat at one of John's favorite restaurants, on the ancient stone steps of the Plaka neighborhood. I asked what he'd recommend. He asked if I'd like him to order for both of us. I handed him the menu without hesitation.
The waiter soon brought us a Greek salad and moussaka. John declared it the best moussaka in all of Athens—except, of course, for his mother's.
When we finished, I picked up the bill. We exchanged emails and phone numbers and agreed to stay in touch. And then John was gone.
About three weeks later, I sent John an email asking if he'd be willing to meet over Zoom and talk about mentoring me in philosophy. I had an intellectual challenge I couldn't shake: the meaning of work.
John proposed an agenda for our first four meetings, starting with some of the foundations of philosophy before getting to my question about work. Here I was, someone who prides himself on rugged individualism, who's expected to have the answers and who, honestly, has a hard time asking for help, agreeing to a plan that wasn't mine. Not quite sure what I was saying yes to, I told him it sounded perfect.
At first, the calls felt like sitting on that bench in the garden, with John teaching me about Epicurus—only now through a screen. But meeting by meeting, I began contributing more, as if I'd stood up and started pacing that crushed stone again. The meetings became conversations, and the teaching became two-way.
John would dive into the philosophy, and I'd pull us into life today—my struggles, my thinking, even my hopes and dreams. Rather than sidestepping the personal side of it, John jumped in with both feet, sharing his own stories. We connected ideas from centuries ago to what it means to live in today's chaotic and confused world. Our connection grew, too, not all at once but over time, as we found a rhythm, built trust, and began to genuinely care for each other.
I don't know how many times during our calls I've said, "Let me just riff for a few minutes." If I don't go off the rails, John will take my riff, bring it back to a philosopher, and help me understand my own life a little better.
One of my favorite moments comes near the end of our Monday calls, when I thank John for his time, his preparation, and the conversation, and then ask whether it was good for him, too.
I hope he's leaving with something as rich as what I'm taking away. When he tells me he appreciates having someone to discuss these things with, I have to tell you, that's pretty cool.
A little more than two years ago I met a stranger outside a museum. Today we both schedule our weeks around getting together.
At the end of our calls, I make that awkward heart with my hands because I really have come to love this man. And at the same time, I've grown as a person in ways I can't begin to measure.
And yet none of this would have been possible if something in me hadn't sensed a possibility. When I decided to reach out to John, there was that moment of indecision. Should I or should I not? Both were valid answers. And yet that voice, that feeling, that yearning, that call—call it what you will—that divine inner voice within me wouldn't quiet itself.
I'm so damn thankful I listened to that inner voice and, in what seemed like an unimportant moment, chose the uncertain path of reaching out to John.
Because with uncertainty comes possibility.