About

Who I Am

I go by Middle Man. I work in tech, raise a family, and build this site on the hours between bedtime and exhaustion.

There are two forces grinding this generation down. One says work harder, optimize more, earn your rest. The other says if you succeed, you did it at someone else's expense. I feel crushed in the middle. Guilty for working too much. Guilty for wanting more. Guilty for resting.

So I started writing about it. From the middle.

Grinding in an office job can be difficult, and balancing with a family is even harder. When my kids started their expensive daycare, I realized this reality: the fruit of my labor is that I don't see my kids, and for that backwards privilege, I pay hand over foot in daycare costs.

Meditations on that reality are why I started Crushed Between. Is it even possible to be self-made, spend time with your kids, without selling your soul to the grind? I am seeking that truth and bringing others along for the ride.

Why This Exists

I grew up in the 90s. I saw the old structures while they were still standing. Church on Sundays. Career ladders that went somewhere. Communities that knew each other by name. Then I watched them get torn down and replaced with algorithms, identity politics, and hustle culture. The new structures look like the old ones from a distance, but they are hollow.

That hollowness is the problem. A whole generation got dropped into it with no guide and no map.

Nobody is doing this work honestly. The self-help industry sells optimization. The cultural commentary sells outrage. Neither side cares about the person stuck in the middle who just wants to build a good life without being punished for it from every direction.

I built Crushed Between in that gap. Tools, honest observation, and stories so you can figure out where you actually stand.