November 2025 Recap

Final preparations to live in the questions as my release date nears

Hello All,

I hope that this note finds you well and that you enjoyed some combination of food, family, friends, and fun over the Thanksgiving holiday. I can report that prison turkey never tasted better, eaten with the knowledge that it was my final helping.

It seems that poignancy and synchronicity are increasing as I get closer to the end of my time in Thomson. My nightly sessions of subconscious programming are regularly stirring. For example, the Grateful Dead’s Estimated Prophet randomly came on one evening, with lyrics prophetic indeed:

My time coming, any day
Don’t worry about me, no
Been so long I’ve felt this way
But I’m in no hurry now

Rainbows end down that highway
Where ocean breezes blow
My time coming, voices say
And they tell me where I’ll go

California
Preaching on the burning shore
California
I’ll be knocking on the golden door
Like an angel
Standing in a shaft of light
Rising up to paradise
I know I’m gonna shine

Synchronistically, that same week I received the official news that I now share with you: my release was approved by all the necessary powers that be, and barring unforeseen changes, on January 14th I will be heading to a halfway house in Fresno, CA. My flight is booked and approved, and Lisa will make the trip with me. Once I arrive, I will begin working on transferring to home confinement, which shouldn’t take too long relative to the road already traveled.

Words cannot express how grateful I am for all of the love and support you have given. I will come out of Thomson stronger and better than ever, and I could not have done that without you. I can’t wait to begin paying that goodness forward in earnest.

If you are like the members of my family, you have questions such as: Why Fresno? How long will you be there? What will it be like? Etc., etc. The answer to all questions beginning with why is government efficiency. We are working on gathering additional information, and I will share details when I have them. In the meantime, if you could alert others that Substack is where updates will be posted, that would be fantastic. I don’t want to leave anyone who is interested out of the loop.

In my remaining weeks in Thomson, I am hustling to make final exit preparations. My first priority is employment. Having a job in Fresno will affect my liberty. Getting a job lined up in Chicago will heavily impact the speed at which I return home to Evanston. I’m in full exploration mode in both locations.

Because I intend to continue writing, I have been building out content queues for both Substack and GeekedOnGolf. When I get out and have access to a computer, you will see an uptick in posting frequency here. The first phase will be devoted to processing my incarceration experience with the goal of extracting as much value for us as I possibly can. News of plans for the relaunch of GeekedOnGolf—as well as books and possible magazine collaborations—will follow. You haven’t had visibility to it, but I have been putting pen to paper, and I am excited to expand the conversation with you.

The grand book-reading project is coming to a close. I have now read 683 books since arriving at the camp. Favorites for November were The Object, The Second Life of Tiger Woods, On Muscle, After, and Original Sin. I’ll push to reach 700 before I leave, and then shift gears into a new relationship with books and reading when I’m back in the digital world. Many thanks to all who made contributions to my book stack over the years.

Those who I’ve corresponded with or spoken to since receiving my release date have asked how I’m feeling. My first answer is that I’m feeling all ways at once. My mind and emotions are all over the place. But there is one emergent focus: I am curious. I have questions that can only be addressed through time and experience, and it’s exciting to venture forth in pursuit of answers.

Pondering curiosity at this juncture, I was reminded of a passage from Matt Haig’s novel How to Stop Time. I’m not spoiling the story to share that the main character has a genetic condition that causes him to age at less than a tenth of the normal rate. He wrestles mightily with the different time scale on which he lives, sharing the breakthrough achieved through his inner questions:

...just as it only takes a moment to die, it only takes a moment to live. You just close your eyes and let every futile fear slip away. And then in this new state, free from fear, you ask yourself: who am I? If I could live without doubt, what would I do? If I could be kind without the fear of being fucked over? If I could love without fear of being hurt? If I could taste the sweetness of today without thinking of how I will miss that taste tomorrow? If I could not fear the passing of time and the people it will steal? Yes. What would I do? Who would I care for? What battle would I fight? Which paths would I step down? What joys would I allow myself? What internal mysteries would I solve? How, in short, would I live?

I am aware that the velocity of my life is about to change dramatically, but I feel grounded knowing that in all phases of life, regardless of how I perceive the passage of time, there is only now. In each now I am capable of asking fundamental questions about the nature of a life worth living. This seems to be a solid jumping-off place that I have worked hard to attain.

In Maps of Meaning, Jordan Peterson confirmed my intuition that putting first things first is about the questions when he wrote, “It is one thing to be unconscious of the answers, and quite another to be able to even consider the question.” Peterson shared this insight in the context of a letter to his father in which he was considering the biggest issues of his life and attempting to make sense of and derive meaning from them. He had an inkling that everything he thought he knew might be wrong. It is uncomfortable to the point of distress to live in such a realization, but I would argue that it is of necessary and significant value. What lies on the other side of that discomfort is a powerful capacity that Krista Tippett of On Being used to call “living the questions.”

The questions I’m living as I stand on the threshold of the exit door are:

Who am I?
Who am I to become?
What am I to do?
How best to do it?

During my five years of incarceration, I did deep work that afforded some sense of the answers in the context of the camp. On January 14th, I enter a blessed new context and begin the process of exploration anew. The ever-present reply that accompanies me is, Go forth with faith and courage. More will be revealed. That’s good enough for me.

In Maps of Meaning, Peterson goes on to posit a worthwhile path to walk:

It is said that it is more difficult to rule oneself than a city, and this is no metaphor. This is truth, as literal as can be made. It is precisely for this reason that we keep trying to rule the city...maybe it’s more important to strengthen our character than to repair the world...Who can believe that it is the little choices we make, every day, between good and evil, that turn the world to waste and hope to despair?...What if it was nothing but our self-deceit, our cowardice, hatred and fear, that pollutes our experience and turns the world to hell? This is a hypothesis at least—as good as any other, admirable and capable of generating hope. Why can’t we make the experiment, and find out if it is true?

He is playing around with and teasing out a false dichotomy, but I’ll be more explicit: perhaps no choice needs to be made between building character and repairing the world. Perhaps building character repairs the world. Instead of either/or, it is both/and that has me curious. That is the experiment I intend to run. In The Parable of the Sower, Octavia Butler wrote, “All that you touch you change. All that you change, changes you.” In a world of interconnectedness, this simple description of a cycle that can be either virtuous or vicious rings true.

I will travel to Fresno with the intention of transforming that place in my consciousness from the scene of my life’s greatest defeat into a launch pad for a brilliant new phase. Turning Point Fresno is the name of the halfway house where I will live briefly—an apt name that describes the moment in which I reside.

Bob Weir sang of preachers, prophets, and angels. I am none of the above, but I am going to shine my light. I have urgency, but I don’t need to hurry. My time is quickly coming on its own. In the now, I am prepared and open, without a doubt in my mind that the best is yet to come.

Onward we go...

Much love to you all,
Jason