Like most men in their late twenties, I’m a pretty big fan of craft beer. I also brew my own beer, which only exacerbates my subtle beer snobbery. Sam Calagione founded Dogfish Head brewery in 1995, making it one of the oldest craft breweries in operation, which is quite the feather to have in your cap in such a saturated market. I’m a pretty avid fan of Sam’s stuff, and the marketing for their 90 Minute IPA lives up to the hype – it really is one of the best IPA’s in America.
But we aren’t here just to talk about the beer.
The reason I want to talk about Calagione and Dogfish Head has very little to do with the tasty ales they produce, and everything to do with the kind of self-esteem Sam possesses that has aided him in the founding and continued operation of his brewery. If I were Albert Ellis, I would say that Sam is free of the burden of self-esteem, and instead is operating from a place of authentic self-acceptance. If I happened to be Nathaniel Branden, I would suggest that he has genuine self-esteem instead of the pseudo self-esteem that has become the norm in our society. Even though these men would have probably argued about the particulars, they would be saying essentially the same thing – Sam Calagione was not looking for external measures of his self-worth. His feelings of self-esteem were stable because he was able to internally validate himself.
Flakes of Cynicism 