Luke Ford

You ever feel like your brain’s a 24-hour Waffle House where the night shift’s just flinging hashbrowns at your dreams?

Heidi Priebe says there’s no such thing as self-sabotage. That’s comforting. Apparently, it’s just my shadow self trying to love me. Well then my shadow self is a sadistic ex-girlfriend with boundary issues. She “loves” me by making me late to shul, ghost job interviews, and binge kettle chips during fasts.

My day shift is like, “Let’s build a brand, rise in status, win back those girls who said ‘you’re not emotionally available enough for a second date.’”

But then the night shift rolls in, clocking in with a six-pack of abandonment trauma and says, “Let’s tank this stream, alienate your one viewer, and start a new podcast nobody asked for.”

It’s not sabotage—it’s just a lack of coordination. That’s what Heidi says. I say it’s the psychological equivalent of handing a raccoon a revolver and hoping for synergy.

She talks about the day shift being your conscious goals, and the night shift being your shadowy unconscious fears. In my case, the day shift is running a livestream about Jewish ethics, and the night shift is busy DM’ing girls “Hey, are you Shomer Negiah? Me neither.”

I realized my inner child doesn’t want success. My inner child wants an ice cream, a hug, and to hide under a weighted blanket while someone else files taxes. Meanwhile, my inner parent is like a cross between Jordan Peterson and a disappointed shul president—“Clean your room, fix your neuroses, and stop sexting emotionally unavailable women in different time zones.”

Every time I start rising in status, my shadow pipes up like, “Excuse me, do you have a permit for that healthy relationship?” Next thing you know, I’m dating someone because they remind me of my ex AND my therapist. Two-for-one trauma bonding.

And when I try to change, my system throws a tantrum. Like, “Whoa, you want to be loved AND stable? We weren’t consulted. The night shift needs to fill out a grievance form.”

Apparently, I don’t self-sabotage—I negotiate. I’m negotiating with parts of me that still think 2007 Luke was a role model. He had hair, hope, and three active restraining orders. But he also had… momentum.

So I’m learning to slow down. Integrate the voices. Let the night shift talk. But with limits. I let them decorate the break room. I don’t let them run HR.

Because at the end of the day—or night—I don’t want to fire my shadow. I want to unionize the whole mind. Make it work. Make peace between the livestreamer, the ex-blogger, the Torah student, and the emotionally hungry seven-year-old who just wants to be seen.

Also… I might need a nap.

I want to be the hero Bonnie Tyler sings about. You know, “I need a hero! I’m holding out for a hero till the morning light!” That’s me! Or… that’s who I want to be. What I am is a 59-year-old Jewish convert livestreaming about grooming gangs and Dennis Prager from a garage in a zip code that doesn’t even have an eruv.

I want to stop traffickers, groomers, satanic pedos, and anyone who tells me I’m “not emotionally safe to date.”

But I’m not built like that. I don’t have the jawline for vigilante work. I have the jawline for quoting Ernest Becker and crying to Air Supply. That’s why I loved that Helen Andrews piece. That’s the kind of story I want told about me someday:

“Luke Ford once lived in a car in Beverly Hills. Today, he’s a national hero. He stopped a grooming gang and got three Shabbos invites in one weekend.”

Australia handled business. They saw a wave of gang rapes and said, “We’re not Britain. We’ll actually do something.” The cops formed a strike force. Politicians named names. Judges dropped double-digit sentences.

Meanwhile in America, we’re like, “Let’s have a public listening session with stakeholders from all communities before we address this problematic… series of diverse outcomes.”

Australia stopped the grooming gangs with territory, with prosecutions, and—let’s be honest—with testosterone. At Cronulla, a bunch of drunk bogans waving Aussie flags said, “This beach is ours.” Not ideal, not polite, but you know what? It worked. No more rape wave. You can say that’s racist. I say it’s effective zoning.

I want to be like that. But instead of taking territory, I’m asking women if I can eat their leftovers and livestream from their porch. My idea of dominance is sneaking my Village Voice singles ad past my girlfriend’s therapist.

You know what sucks about being me? I know the truth about power. I’ve read Stephen Turner. I know we live in Democracy 3.0, where elites use “expertise” to shut the rest of us up. And guess what? I’m not an expert. I don’t have a PhD, I’ve got a GED in feeling things deeply.

But I still want status. I want women chasing me like I’m the last piece of gluten-free kugel at an LA Shabbos dinner. I want to walk into a Chabad and have someone beg me to bench Gomel because I just returned from war.

Instead I get ghosted by baalot teshuva with good boundaries and podcasts.

I’m tired of being God’s suffering servant from Isaiah. I want to be David with a webcam. A man after God’s own algorithm. I want to walk through Crown Heights and have a lady whisper, “He’s emotionally regulated… and he’s read Becker.”

I’m not holding out for a hero. I’m auditioning to be one. And I’ll prove it—just as soon as I figure out how to fix the mic delay on my livestream.

1. Ernest Becker says we build “hero systems” to deny our death. I became an Orthodox Jew, streamed on YouTube 5x a week, and joined 12-step groups—I’m covered. If that doesn’t beat death, it at least keeps me too busy to notice I’m dying.

2. Most people deny death by having kids. I deny death by debating Grok about immigration policy at 11:45pm on a Saturday night.

3. My hero system used to be “if I say something profound enough, a busty shiksa will love me.” That failed. Now my hero system is “if I livestream enough, Dennis Prager will text me back.”

4. You know you’ve got a fragile hero system when a bad comment from “@TruthSeeker1488” can collapse your whole sense of immortality.

5. Becker says we’re all terrified of being worm food. I say—speak for yourself. I’m terrified of being ignored while becoming worm food.

6. The ancient hero system: slay the dragon, save the village. My hero system: quote Rony Guldmann, alienate my audience, and cry to The Cars.

7. Becker says culture is a collective denial of death. That explains Instagram. We’re all dying, but we’ve got filters. Look at me, I’m glowing and decaying at the same time!

8. Sometimes I envy people with simple hero systems—like CrossFit guys or people who sell essential oils. I have to wrestle with death and Maimonides.

9. My hero system is so conflicted I once tried to impress a girl by quoting Becker while describing the plot of Legends of the Fall. She ghosted me. Honestly, it was an act of mercy.

10. Denying death is what keeps us sane. But if you’re too good at it, you become unbearable. That’s how you get TED Talk atheists who start cults around hydration and sleep hygiene.

August, 1993. I’m 27, horny, and full of unprocessed spiritual ambition. Like Paul on the road to Damascus, but instead of Jesus, I met T.—a woman who flew out to see me at my parents’ house in Sacramento. Very romantic… until my Seventh-Day Adventist parents caught us mid-fornication, which, apparently, is not covered by the honor thy father commandment.

Next morning, I’m not just out of their will—I’m heading out of the state. I flee with T. to Florida, hoping we can start fresh. But within a week, she’s back with her ex-boyfriend, whose main qualification appears to be… more girth.

So I turn to where all lost Jews go for redemption: the Jewish singles ads.

Boom. I meet an heiress. Upper West Side, Manhattan. She flies me out. And not just to sleep on the couch—she puts me in her apartment, gives me more than $10 a day to wander the city. This is what Moses promised: the land flowing with vegie burgers and MetroCards.

She’s very bossy. She has opinions—on everything. Sex, Torah, and what I should do with my l ife. But I figure, hey, I can take it. This is New York City! I’m a struggling writer with a foreign accent and unresolved daddy issues. I can clean up here.

So while she’s at therapy working out her childhood, I’m placing another singles ad in the Village Voice. Like an idiot. Because God sees everything—and apparently, so do girlfriends in Manhattan.

She finds the ad. Confronts me. Her therapist says I’m “using her.”

Using her? Lady, I’m giving you my body, my charisma, my spiritual neurosis… for free!

It gets worse. I crawl back to LA. Back to Beverly Hills, living out of my car—which now won’t start. And I’m courting a nurse who hates me because I left her for the heiress for a three-week romp. A beautiful, nurturing woman who gives insulin shots and tough love in equal measure.

But guess what? Her friends and family all say I’m using her. Why? Because I borrowed $500 to fix the car I was living in so I could continue dating her.

Using her? No, no, no. I was investing in our future.

But I get it. It’s hard being the suffering servant of Isaiah 43 while trying to date middle-class women with boundaries. Every time I try to find a life partner, I get accused of being a con man with a library card.

In the end, all I wanted was a place to sleep, a woman to love, and maybe a little walking-around money for vegie burgers and bagels. Is that so wrong?

Is that using people?

Or is that… the American dream?