WUGO | Greg Macek

culture

  • 2025: Almost Too Much at Once

    2025: Almost Too Much at Once

    Featured image: a moment of peace and beauty at a Sleeping at Last concert in November.

    It’s challenging to think about this past year without thinking or writing about politics because it was impossible to avoid. I would be lying if I said consuming political content did not take up far too much time and energy. Truly, it felt as though everything was happening at once, all of the time. It was simultaneously extremely important, exhausting, and often simply taking up oxygen. Discerning when to look away was not a strong suit in 2025. 

    Yet while we watched the persistent attempts to upend the world, life continued, and 2025 still happened despite it all. I was promoted at work in January, which came with more responsibility. Many of us within the organization were working on a significant project that stretched our limits this year, particularly during the first six months. I hadn’t worked those kinds of extra hours in many years. I did not miss that stress of pushing up against timelines and staring at a screen, troubleshooting at 11PM on a Tuesday. 

    In the first few months of this year, I also ran a campaign for local office as a trustee in my town. I built out a website with my bio and lists of issues important to me, had yard signs printed, held meet-and-greets with the public, and more. While the campaign didn’t land me a trustee seat this time, I learned a lot about local politics and how important, messy, and fascinating it is. Perhaps I’ll write about it separately one day. The experience hasn’t scared me off from running for elected office again. I also made connections in my local community that I never had in the 17 years I lived in Villa Park, for which I am grateful. (The real campaign was the friends I made along the way.) 


    In anticipation of a potential election win, I wanted to be prepared with knowledge and skills that would be valuable in a trustee/local government position. In January, I took the plunge and went back to school for the Certificate in Organizational Leadership program at The Chicago School. Classes started in March, and I finished the program at the end of August. I am glad I decided to dive back into school, even if the adjustment to the weekly reading and writing assignment schedule was more challenging than I anticipated.  I applaud every person who has or will choose to go to school while holding down a full-time job, not to mention other life responsibilities like having a family.

    JPG copy of certificate diploma

    And of course, it wouldn’t be a year without me running and training for some races. Compared to 2024, this was a tame calendar with one 8K (March), two 10Ks (June, September), one 15K (November), two half marathons (April, June), and one full marathon (October). While I can’t point to any one thing, I was not mentally in the running game nearly as much as in prior years. Training felt harder. I didn’t feel as strong during races. I attributed it partially to *waves hands at everything* the world and the near-daily deluge of news that did not infuse me with encouragement. Other friends felt similarly unmotivated. Regardless, I mostly showed up week in and week out and made new friends in a supportive run club/group chat.

    Next year, the self-assigned torture fun continues. The same friend and I who convinced ourselves that running two marathons in a week are planning to do it again in 2026. Watch out, Chicago and Scotland, we’re coming for ya! 

    SM Running Club before The Chicago Marathon
    The Standard Meadery running crew/group chat moral support team

    It was nearly too much. Visual representation of the chaos.

    ActivityJanFebMarAprMayJunJulAug
    Work████████████████
    Campaign████████
    School████████████████
    Running████████████████

    2025 ended up being a year where I stretched myself, almost too thin, especially in the first few months. The chart above shows how many substantial targets, beyond work, I set for myself. Two of them, campaigning for a local election and taking classes as a working adult, were new and required a lot from me. I don’t think I was ever close to breaking down, but I was certainly very stressed during certain windows of time (see: a particular few days in mid-March).

    2026 Preview

    I refrained from writing publicly and speaking my mind freely on many topics as the social and political landscape continued to get murkier; the idea of jumping into those waters seemed unnecessary, but I don’t believe that is healthy for me. Constantly avoiding uncomfortable conversations and disagreements with friends or family isn’t a way to have a functioning society. So, if you see this and know we don’t align on an ideological spectrum, be forewarned: I may lovingly push back on what you say or post. My goal isn’t to pick fights, and I don’t want others to do that either, but my goal is to engage in more meaningful and authentic ways to understand each other and challenge my social circles instead of just quietly judging and snickering from behind a screen. I’m exhausted from speaking through memes or vague references to what we think or believe.

    This exercise may prove fruitless and futile, but I feel like I have to try.

    There is a long list of ideas and topics on my mind that I’ve wanted to write about here, but I have put them off for too long. My (evergreen) goal is to carve out time to do deeper thinking, which will mean balancing out my screen time and reducing my TikTok/Instagram/Facebook intake and replacing it with good books and longer-form writing and journalism. I often tell myself I want to be a “words-first” content consumer, but I frequently fail and doom-scroll because it’s easy. If we all believe that too much social media and screen time is bad for the youth and is messing them up, then we should change that behavior in ourselves first.

    I also have to get better at filtering out the distractions so I can focus on what I care about, like reading more books, becoming a better runner, journaling, and endlessly advocating to the world that everyone should love and take transit as much as I do. And sometimes, I’ll be reading books about transit and related issues, probably while riding the train. 

    This post is part year-end recap, part open accountability for myself and to any reader who knows me well enough to keep me honest to my goals and aspirations for 2026. 

  • The Performative Nature of America

    The Performative Nature of America

    Always Camera Ready

    It’s quite incredible how much society has shaped us into thinking we need to be “on” all the time. We have to be ready with the right inspirational quote, or drop a spicy take on some topic, to have a well-told story, to have the perfect Instagram-ready vacation photo no matter how you felt in the moment, or if you’re the more nuanced type, to also be mindful to not “say the wrong thing” to spark outrage online for simply sharing a thought about … anything. 

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  • In Your Own Words

    In Your Own Words

    In the last few years, I’ve watched people I know take on new personas online and spout off with positions on topics on social media and speak in tones and absolutes that would trouble me if I heard them talk that same way in person. I’ve seen how calloused and stubborn we have become in positions on everything from politics to medicine to foreign policy to religion and everything else in between. And in most of these areas, the people I’m referring to are not professionals in those spaces but speak with the authority and audacity (pride?) of someone who is. It is baffling. Why do we feel so compelled to sound right all of the time (and everyone else wrong)? 

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  • You Are Who You Are When Everyone’s Watching

    You Are Who You Are When Everyone’s Watching

    “You are who you are when nobody’s watching.”

    ― Stephen Fry

    Be on your best behavior! Whether you are a leader in an organization or a parent with kids or someone else altogether, who we are is on display for the world to see and take in, In the minds of others, internal notes and understandings about your character and demeanor are constantly being logged, revised, erased, rewritten, tweaked. In case any of you are wondering, yes I am doing this with some or many of you on a semi-regular basis and reflect on who you are and how you became the person you are today and who you may become in the future. Call me curious about the human condition.

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  • Sometimes You Wanna Go…

    Sometimes You Wanna Go…

    … where you can be with friends. At bars. With free waffles.

    I’m a creature of habit and comfort. I go back to the things I know and am familiar with more often than exploring what’s new. I will rewatch shows such as 30 Rock or Parks and Recreation (or most recently, How I Met Your Mother) over a new show. The familiar backdrop of offices, apartments, coffee shops, or bars combined with characters I’ve come to know far too well allow me to focus on the deeper themes and tiny nuances of the stories upon subsequent repeat viewings. I start to look beyond the face value jokes and conversation to the deeper meanings and messages of what’s being said.

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  • Words Matter

    Words Matter

    (Image: Keflavik Airport, Iceland. Its contrast to my post struck me.)

    A few years ago, I wrote a couple of blog posts about the lack of interactive and thoughtful discourse (part one & part two). I’ve been thinking about this topic again recently as I’ve watched the ability to have rational conversation deteriorate in America with little visible hope that our behavior will change in the near future. We recoil any time we hear or read something that conflicts with our worldviews. Instead of pausing to absorb the message we took in and understand where that person or group is coming from, the new “proper” response is to lash out and tell them why they are wrong. How dare someone disagree with me!

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  • Being a Good Single Friend

    Being a Good Single Friend

    Post header image added mostly because 30 Rock.

    I’ve been spending a fair amount of time recently thinking about the dynamics of relationships, specifically between those who are single and those who are married (or dating for a long time) and the stuff that arises in that space. The obviousness of give and take and compromising is a given, but to stop the conversation there is too simplistic. Perhaps I first need to take a closer look at myself and ask, “How am I or how can I be a good single friend? How can I best be there from where I am?”

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  • Single Connectivity

    Single Connectivity

    Featured photo: Single malt Scotch for a post from a single guy’s perspective.

    The older you get, the more complicated and nuanced life becomes. Now that I’m in my prime, there are types of relationships with one another that I find become more difficult to start, build, maintain, or even understand. Many of us know or learn through experience that friendships are easier to make (and walk away from) in our younger years. Often little thought or premeditated plans are put into them. It can start with the most basic of event based coincidences like being at the same playground or being put on the same dodgeball team during gym class. From there, the smallest of sparks ignites a new friendship just like that! And for the most part, these sorts of situational-based sparked friendships are still made throughout college. As an adult, you wonder why we make it harder on ourselves. We know friendships will change. But oh how we nostalgically look back at the simpler days!

    Many of our friendships are forged in the midst of being in the same place at the same time, frequently revolving around our age or place in life especially during the high school through our mid-20s. We do life together as we figure it all out in a collective confusion. These shared times and spaces create experiences that come to shape and define who we are and memories we hold onto and remember quite vividly.

    Major life events are called that for a reason.  They ripple through and touch every element of yourself,  your family, and social circles. They look safe enough on the surface. Right after graduation, Will gets a job offer on the other side of the country which means you only see him during holidays. Jimmy got into that masters program which means evening classes and less time to hangout. Bobby joins a sports league which infuses your core social group with new and fun faces. Jenny starts dating Brad and as they get more serious you start calling them “Benny” or “Jed”. These choices and life moments change you, even when you’re not the one going through them. It’s always interesting to think about the impact the decisions others make affect us.

    Of those events, one of the biggest is when you or your friends find significant others. Hanging out starts to feel… different. What you talk about when you’re all together starts to change. You hear the occasional “we” instead of the “I” when one of them speaks. Depending on the couple, the conversations turn to “let me see if he/she is free too” even though you were only inviting one of them. Oops.

    Then dating turns to marriage. The wedding and reception day come and it’s a wonderful celebration for all. A new union is very much worth having a big party for! No matter what anyone may try to do to avoid the inevitable, those relationships take a drastic shift and will look and feel very different. There is no avoiding the winds of change.

    So what do you do when life trajectories aren’t on the same path anymore and you stop sharing some common goals, interests, and perhaps most importantly, free time?

    There’s a number of challenges along the way for which I have found no straightforward answer yet. How do you deal with not being as close to your best friend as you once may have been? What’s an appropriate friendship level with your friend’s spouse who you didn’t know as well before they were married? How do you handle the logistics and nuances of married friends with kids?

    More questions and thoughts coming soon! Feedback and response again is welcome, whether in the comments section or privately.