David Senra

We push until we can go no further, stand strong until our bones give way, reach and hold until our muscles fatigue, twist, shout, and laugh,

until we can no more, until the very end.

Now, what is masterful about the storytelling in this book is he's describing his family.

I didn't understand this till I reread everything.

And a huge part of the book is just this disastrous relationship that he has with his father.

And so the beginning is describing his life, describing his work.

The second half of the book is the toll that all of this took on him because he tried to bury it and never dealt with it.

I'm 25 pages into this book.

And he starts describing something that I didn't know affected him too.

So he says, I don't know where this started, but a serious strain of mental illness drifts through those of us who are here.

Seemingly randomly pick off a cousin, an aunt, a son, a grandma, and unfortunately, my dad.

I was not my father's favorite citizen.

When my dad looked at me, he didn't see what he needed to see.

I don't remember if it was in this book or if it was in this interview that I saw Bruce give, but he said that during his entire childhood, his dad said less than a thousand words to him.

And when he did speak to him, it was like this.

Unfortunately, my dad's desire to engage with me almost always came after the nightly religious ritual of the sacred six pack.

So his dad had a job he hated, had a life that he hated, would come home, sit at the kitchen table, smoke cigarette after cigarette, and drink beer after beer.

He had hostility and raw anger towards his son.

He couldn't stand me.

He also saw too much of his real self in me.