Be careful what you wish for.......

      Those in today's intellectual left are concerned about the planet and about international migrants, but not so much about their compatriots in the working class. . . .

      More broadly, a sense of betrayal among those being left behind by progress is leading to defections from mainstream parties of both right and left.  Among the working classes and the young, there is a steady growth of far-left opposition to the established liberal order, as well as strong support for the far right.  This increasing movement away from the center and toward the fringes is not an ideal formula for a stable democratic society.

      As Tocqueville put it, we may be "sleeping on a volcano."

-Joel Kotkin, The Coming of Neo Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class

Do you not see...................

 I am told that there is no danger because there are no riots; I am told that, because there is no visible disorder on the surface of society, there is no revolution at hand.

Gentlemen, permit me to say that I believe you are mistaken. True, there is no actual disorder; but it has entered deeply into men's minds.  See what is preparing itself amongst the working classes, who, I grant, are at present quiet. No doubt they are not disturbed by political passions, properly so called, to the same extent that they have been; but can you not see that their passions, instead of political, have become social? Do you not see that they are gradually forming opinions and ideas that are destined not only to upset this or that law, ministry, or even form of government, but society itself, until it totters upon the foundations on which it rests today? Do you not listen to what they say to themselves each day? Do you not hear them repeating unceasingly that all that is above them is incapable and unworthy of governing them; that the distribution of goods prevalent until now throughout the world is unjust; that property rests on a foundation that is not an equitable one? And do you not realize that when such opinions take root, when they spread in an almost universal manner, when they sink deeply into the masses, they are bound to bring with them sooner or later, I know not when or how, a most formidable revolution?

This, gentlemen, is my profound conviction: I believe that we are at this moment sleeping on a volcano. I am profoundly convinced of it.

-Alexis de Tocqueville, as he begins this 1848 speech

On re-considering........................

 We all are learning, modifying, or destroying ideas all the time. Rapid destruction of your ideas when the time is right is one of the most valuable qualities you can acquire. You must force yourself to consider arguments on the other side.

-Charlie Munger, as cut-and-pasted from here

Fifty years ago...................

Tom Waits.........The Heart of Saturday Night album

 

On progress.................

      Making progress isn't always about moving forward.  Sometimes it's about bouncing back.  Progress is not only reflected in the peaks you reach—it's also visible in the valleys you cross.  Resilience is a form of growth.

-Adam Grant, Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things

discovery............................

 Every person you meet knows an amazing lot about something you know virtually nothing about.  It won't be obvious, and your job is to discover what it is.

-Kevin Kelly

On the art of living.............

      According to Epictetus, the primary concern of philosophy should be the art of living:  Just as wood is the medium of the carpenter and bronze is the medium of the sculptor, your life is the medium on which you practice the art of living.  Furthermore, much as a master carpenter teaches an apprentice by showing him techniques that can be used to build things out of wood, Epictetus taught his students the art of life by showing them techniques that could be used to make something of their life.  The techniques in question were quite practical and completely applicable to students' everyday lives.  He taught them, among other things, how to respond to insults, how to deal with incompetent servants, how to deal with an angry brother, how to deal with the loss of a loved one, and how to deal with exile.  If they could master these techniques, Epictetus promised, they would experience a life that was filled with purpose and dignity, and more important, they would attain tranquility.  Furthermore, they would retain their dignity and tranquility regardless of the hardships life might subsequently inflict on them.

-William B. Irvine, A Guide to the Good Life (the ancient art of stoic joy)

An idealist..........................

Power worried him: no one ever believed he possessed too much of the stuff.  His sympathies were with the man in the street, to whom he believed government answered.  A friend distilled his politics to two maxims: "Rulers should have little, the people much." And privilege should make way for genius and industry. Railing against "the odious hereditary distinction of families." 

-Stacy Schiff,  The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams

Morgan Housel................................

 ...............................talks money:

Unspent money buys something intangible but valuable: freedom, independence, autonomy, and control over your time. Every dollar of savings buys a claim check on the future.

-more thoughts here

Marco Island.................

.4 mile from the start of the beach to the water.  Lots of sand

We managed some time away from Ohio.  Blue skies abounded.  

Windy, but comfortable compared to Ohio

We hung out on the fourth floor.  Pretty special.

 

Just more proof we were not in Ohio.

choose...................

 Such is the madness of men, he said, that they choose to be miserable when they have it in their power to be content.  The problem is that "bad men obey their lusts as servants obey their masters," and because they cannot control their desires, they can never find contentment.

-William B. Irvine, channeling Diogenes

17 thoughts...........................

 .............................about money:

16. People who act like they have it all figured out are usually full of shit. No one has it all figured out when it comes to money. Most of us are making it up as we go.

Fifty years ago.........................

Doobie Brothers/What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits

On the virtue of being boring................

 We are a nation of rules and the rules are boring. Embrace that. In times of difficulty, go with the boring option. When faced with a frightening crisis, tamp it down with ultra-boring moves. No matter what, stick with the rules.

I can’t avoid talking about Donald Trump but I’m going to make it brief. I know you don’t like him; neither do I. But let’s assume he’s only a politician. He’s not Hitler, Godzilla or the Beast of the Apocalypse—just a guy with a loud mouth and a desperate need for attention. Most Americans think of him that way.

This is not about him. It’s about you.

When you demonize those who disagree with you, you invite treatment in kind. When you refuse to engage in political argument and resort to performative moralizing, you make it clear to any neutral observer that for you there’s only one side, one opinion, one conformist crowd that can ever govern legitimately. The rest are disgusting subhumans who should never be tolerated near the levers of power. When you trample on the rules that say “all are created equal” like that, you are destroying the fabric that holds the country together. And believe me when I say this: You will reap the whirlwind.

-Martin Gurri, from this essay

...........the way.

 You will complete your mission in life when you figure out what your mission in life is.  Your purpose is to discover your purpose.  This in not a paradox.  This is the way.

-Kevin Kelly

On indecisiveness...........................

      What Washington's critics did not see then, and sometimes not even now, was that being indecisive was decidedly preferable to being decisively wrong.

-Thomas E. Ricks, First Principles

Hmmm..................

      Deeply idealistic—a moral people, Adams held, would elect moral leaders—he believed virtue the soul of democracy.  To have a villainous ruler imposed on you was a misfortune.  To elect him yourself was a disgrace.

-Stacy Schiff, The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams

A dream with teeth..................

 Things that are perfect
are dead things.

Empty things.

A silence beyond change or challenge.
An endpoint.
A blank page.

You are a wonderfully messy thing.

An impossible thing made of salt
and rainwater.
Meat and electricity.

A dream with teeth.

You're too good for perfection.

-Jerod K. Anderson, Flawless

a boost........................

 When our circumstances threaten to overpower us, instead of only looking inward, we can turn outward to mentors, teachers, coaches, role models, or peers.  The scaffolding they provide looks and feels different depending on the type of challenge we're facing, but it has the same effect: giving us a foothold or a boost.

-Adam Grant, Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things

agnostic........................

 Our distractibility seems to indicate that we are agnostic on the question of what is worth paying attention to—that is, what to value.

-Matthew B. Crawford

Fifty years ago........................

Minnie Riperton..................Perfect Angel album

 

Fifty years ago.............................

Lynyrd Skynyrd....................Second Helping album 

 

Fifty years ago......................

Eric Clapton.................461 Ocean Boulevard album

 

Fifty years ago..........................

Genesis.....The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway album

Fifty years ago................................

Mott the Hoople..........................The Hoople

decisions, decisions.......................

 The greatest challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality from fantasy, truth from propaganda. Perceiving the truth has always been a challenge to mankind, but in the information age (or as I think of it, the disinformation age) it takes on a special urgency and importance. We must daily decide whether the threats we face are real, whether the solutions we are offered will do any good, whether the problems we're told exist are in fact real problems, or non-problems.

-Michael Crichton, as cut-and-pasted from here

Sowell.............................

Understanding the limitations of human beings is the beginning of wisdom.

The key feature of Communist propaganda has been the depiction of people who are more productive as mere exploiters of others.

When you want to help people, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear.

Envy plus rhetoric equals 'social justice'.

If I could offer one piece of advice to young people thinking about their future, it would be this: Don't preconceive. Find out what the opportunities are.

Before the Iraq war I was quite disturbed by some of the neoconservatives, who were saying things like, "What is the point of being a superpower if you can't do such-and-such, take on these responsibilities?" The point of being a superpower is that people will leave you alone.

What socialism, fascism and other ideologies of the left have in common is an assumption that some very wise people—like themselves—need to take decisions out of the hands of lesser people, like the rest of us, and impose those decisions by government fiat.

Racism has never done this country any good, and it needs to be fought against, not put under new management for different groups.

The fact that so many successful politicians are such shameless liars is not only a reflection on them, it is also a reflection on us. When the people want the impossible, only liars can satisfy.

-a few quotes from Thomas Sowell

more fun pix here

Lifelong learning....................

 Human improvement has come from learning. We learned how to achieve better health and greater longevity. We learned how to grow enough food so that people do not have to go hungry. We learned how to cooperate in large societies.

But we do not know everything that we need to know in order to live better. Both individually and collectively, we have more to learn. We have more to learn today, and we will have more to learn tomorrow.

To learn requires an open mind. My father, Merle Kling, used to say that the First Iron Law of Social Science is “Sometimes it’s this way, and sometimes it’s that way.” My undergraduate economics professor, Bernie Saffran, would say “I’m willing to be wrong,” meaning that his ideas were open to challenge. My graduate adviser, Robert Solow, said in his address to the American Economic Association that government intervention in markets is neither always right nor always wrong.

-Arnold Kling, from here

Opening paragraphs................

      Nine-year-old Henry Knox entered the Boston bookstore, leaving his childhood behind.  The boy, blond and tall for his age, could see shelves of books and boxes of fine stationery adorned with floral designs imported from London, along with writing materials, inkwells, quills, pamphlets, and writing paper neatly laid out for customers.  His days of playing with friends or attending school would be replaced with the bookshop's chores and adult concerns over money and the support of his family.

     HIs life had been turned upside down that year, 1759.  His father, William Knox, a once-prosperous shipbuilder, left the family after his business collapsed in the midst of economic hard times sweeping the American colonies.  Plagued by debts, the disillusioned Knox boarded a ship bound for St. Eustatius in the West Indies, leaving his family with no means of financial support.  Henry was left to care for his mother and his three-year-old brother.  His older siblings, John and Benjamin, had left home years earlier to earn a living as merchant seamen, never to return to Boston.

Mark Puls, Henry Knox: Visionary General of the American Revolution

refueling......................

 Of all the factors that have been studied, the strongest known force in daily motivation is a sense of progress.  You can't always find motivation by staring harder at the thing that isn't working.  Sometimes you can build momentum by taking a detour to a new destination.  A detour is a route off your main road that you take to refuel.

-Adam Grant, Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things

A few snippets.............................

...........from the ever-readable Morgan Housel:

 There’s obviously a hierarchy of information. It ranges from life-changing good to life-changing disastrous.

That got me thinking: What would be the most interesting and useful information anyone could get their hands on?

---------------------------------------------------

We have so much information, and we know so much about the world. But no matter how much we ever know it will always be dwarfed by what we’re blind to.

-----------------------------------------------

I met someone a few years ago. When we parted ways he said, “Life is long. I hope we stay in touch.”

Life is long. No one says that. They always say, “life is short.” But obviously it could be either. We have no idea.

Fifty years ago.................

Bad Company................................Bad Company

I'm okay with this.....................

 

via

A few thoughts..........................

.....................from Kevin Kelly:

It's thrilling to be extremely polite to rude strangers.

Your time and space are limited.  Remove, give away, throw out anything that no longer gives you joy in order to make room for those that do.

Actual great opportunities will not have "Great Opportunities" in the subject line.

Do more of what looks like work to others but is play to you.

If you repeated what you did today 365 more times, will you be where you want to be next year?

In this house....................

 

Games..............................

 I have a three-layer model of human behavior, in which we play games at the level of the individual, the tribe, and society. The games that we play at each level can undermine the other levels.

-Arnold Kling

Highly recommended........................

 

     A carpenter faces the accusation of his level, and electrician must answer the question of whether the lights are in fact on, a speed shop engine builder sees his results in a quarter-mile time slip.  Such standards have a universal validity that is apparent to all, yet in the discriminations made by practitioners of an art respond also to aesthetic subtleties that may not be visible to the bystander.  Only a fellow journeyman is entitled to say 'nicely done.' . . . It is in doing the job nicely that the tradesman puts his own stamp on it.  His individuality is not only compatible with, it is realized through his efforts to reach a goal that is common.

     His individuality is thus expressed as an activity that, in answering to a shared world, connects him to others: the customers he serves and other practitioners of his art, who are competent to recognize the peculiar excellence of his work.   Such a sociable individuality contrasts with the self-enclosure that tis implicit in the idea of "autonomy," which means giving a law to oneself.  The idea of autonomy denies that we are born into a world that existed prior to us.  It posits an essential aloneness; an autonomous being is free in the sense that a being severed from all others is free.  To regard oneself in this way is to betray the natural debts we owe to the world, and commit the moral error of ingratitude.  For in fact we are basically dependent beings: one upon another, and each on a world that is not of our making.

Oh no, anything but that.....................

 via

Recommended.......................

 

     The question "Why don't you agree with me?" can have infinite answers. . . .

     But usually a better question is, "What have you experienced that I haven't that makes you believe what you do?  And wwould I think about the world like you do if experienced what you have?"

     It's the question that contains the most answers about why people don't agree with one another.

     But it's such a hard question to ask.

Styling..............................

 

more fun here

I haven't made New Year's Resolutions............

 ............for years.  But, if I did:

via

Lessons learned.................................

 ................................................the hard way:

2. Don't give unsolicited advice. Advice-giving inherently implies unequal status. Unless people explicitly relinquish claims to equal status by asking for advice, offering it will cultivate resentment.

 

19. Be strict with yourself and forgiving of others. 

25. Your choices shape your identity, not the other way around. 

28. Be kind, but always have a “fuck off” chambered and ready to go just in case. 

32. Everyone says they want change, few people are willing to change themselves, and just about everyone is eager to tell others how they should change. 

Checking in ...................................

 ............................with Morgan Housel:

Evolution is ruthless and unforgiving—it doesn't just teach by showing you what works but by destroying what doesn't.

Success has its own gravity. . . .being right instills confidence that you can't be wrong, which is a devastating characteristic in a world where outlier success has a target on its back.

Every industry and career is different, but there's universal value in accepting hassle when reality demands it.

the truth is, everything comes with overhead.  That's reality. Everything comes with pieces you don't like.

The most efficient calendar in the world—one where every minute is packed with productivity—comes at the expense of curious wandering and uninterrupted thinking, which eventually become the greatest contributors to success.

Not maximizing your potential is actually the sweet spot in the world where perfecting one skill compromises another.

The best financial plan is to save like a pessimist and invest like an optimist.

The trick in any field—from finance to careers to relationships—is to be able to survive the short-run problems so you can stick around long enough to enjoy the long term growth.

A pretty good lesson from history is that the long run is usually pretty good and the short run is usually pretty bad.  It takes effort to reconcile those two and learn how to manage them with what seem like conflicting skills.  Those who can't usually end up either bitter pessimists or bankrupt optimists.

-all are excerpts taken from Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes

the artist's.............................

 ...........................................artist.

A reader's...................................

 .........................................reader.

Life its ownself...........................

   In the bivouac of Life,

Be not like dumb, driven cattle!

   Be a hero in the strife!

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, as lifted from the wondrous Hammock Papers

A reminder..................

 There is a lot written about happiness and its elusive nature. However, what we can do is create conditions within and outside of us where happiness is more likely to happen. Happiness is not a thing that happens to us but rather a thing that we create for ourselves through our mindset, how we relate with our problems and how we generally see the world.

-from the archives of Tanmay Vora

thanks for the reminder

Asking all the important.....................

 .....................................questions for 2024.

Mighty fine advice....................

 Let's lower our voices, listen carefully, and have a great year.

-Michael Wade

Wishing you a fabulous 2024............

 

 

apparatniks.......................

     Our apparatniks will continue making

    the usual squalid mess called History:
        all we can pray for is that artists,
        chefs and saints may still appear to blithe it.

-W. H. Auden, as he concludes Moon Landing

via

About explaining.............

 The more time it takes to explain a course of action, the less likely it is to be a good one.

-from our friends at Farnum Street

Posting reading lists....................

 ..............seems to be something poplar in the blogosphere.  Here are most of mine from 2023.  

1.  Books actually read in the past year:

2. Books purchased in 2023 that have been opened, dipped into, and occasionally cherry-picked for the blog, with the intention of actually finishing them sometime in the not-to-distant future:

3.  Books purchased in 2023 that may, or may not, get read:

One of the greatest......................

 ...........days of the year:  National Bacon Day

Back...........................................

 ...................................to the basics.

Likely true...............................

 

Thanks to birds..........................

 

Birds are dinosaurs who shrugged off a couple apocalypses.
Some eat bone marrow.
Some drink nectar.
They outswim fish in the sea.
They smile politely at gravity's demands.
I am grateful when I see them.  I am grateful to feed them.
I am grateful to know them.

-Jarod K. Anderson, from Field Guide to the Haunted Forest

Opening paragraphs...........................

 The town on Gros Ventre was so far from anywhere that you had to take a bus to catch the bus.  At that time, remote locales like ours were served by a homegrown enterprise with more name than vehicles, the Rocky Mountain Stage Line and Postal Courier, in the form of a lengthened Chevrolet sedan that held ten passengers besides the driver and the mailbag, and when I nervously went to climb in for the first time ever, the Chevy bus was already loaded with a ladies' club heading home from an outing to Glacier National Park.  The only seat left was in the back next to the mailbag, sandwiched between it and a hefty gray-haired woman clutching her purse to herself as though stage robbers were still on the loose in the middle of the twentieth century.

-Ivan Doig, Last Bus to Wisdom

Gone but not forgotten..........................

...............................Tommy Smothers

 

loopy..............................

 A rut is not a sign that you've tanked.  A plateau is not a cue that you've peaked.  They're signals that it may be time to turn around and find a new route.  When you're stuck, it's usually because you're heading in the wrong direction, you're taking the wrong path, or you're running out of fuel.  Gaining momentum often involves backing up and navigating your way down a different road—even if it's not the one you initially intended to travel.  It might be unfamiliar, winding, and bumpy.  Progress rarely happens in a straight line; it typically unfolds in loops.

-Adam Grant, Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things

WTF...............................

 The truth does not reveal itself to idle spectators.

Stepping outside the intellectually serious circle of my teachers at Chicago into broader academic world, it struck me as an industry hostile to thinking.

Process becomes more important than product.

What the hell is going on?  Is this our society as a whole, buying more education only to scale new heights of stupidity?

Tocqueville foresaw a "soft despotism" in which Americans would increasingly seek their security in, and become dependent upon, the state.  His analysis must be extended to our time: the softly despotic tendencies of a nanny state are found in the large commercial enterprise as well, and indeed a case could be made that it is now outsized corporations, more than government, that exercise this particularly enervating form of authority in our lives, through work.

-some thoughts culled from Matthew Crawford's Shop Class as Soulcraft

One things us Ohioans do.............

 ..........pretty well is build, build, build.

In fact, blue states’ failure to allow development is a pervasive feature of their political cultures. Housing scarcity doesn’t just cause population loss — it’s also the primary cause of the wave of homelessness that has swamped California and New York. Progressives’ professed concern for the unhoused is entirely undone by their refusal to allow the creation of new homes near where they live. Nor is housing the only thing that blue states fail to build — anti-development politics is preventing blue states from adopting solar and wind, while red states power ahead. And red states’ willingness to build new factories means that progressive industrial policy is actually benefitting them more.

If blue states are going to thrive in the 21st century, they need to relearn how to build, build, build.

-Noah Smith, as excerpted from here

On having skin in the game................

 Back in the 1950s, when the focal practice of baking was displaced by the advent of cake mixes, Betty Crocker learned quickly that it was good business to make the mix not quite complete.  The baker felt better about her cake if she was required to add an egg to the mix.

-Matthew B. Crawford, Shop Class as Soul Craft

A good practice..................

 I confess that, in 1901, I said to my brother Orville that men would not fly for 50 years. Two years later, we were making flights. This demonstration of my inability as a prophet gave me such a shock that I have ever since refrained from all prediction.

-Wilber Wright, as quoted here

absurdity...............................

 Absurdity is good for comedy, but bad as a way of life.  It usually indicates that somewhere beneath the threshold of official notice fester contradictions that, if commonly admitted, would bring some kind of crisis.

-Matthew B. Crawford, Shop Class as Soulcraft

Lifespan........................

 A firefly lives two months.
There are bristlecone pines standing today that have lived 5,000 years.

The vital dignity of each of these species is not measured in time.
Both are perfection.

Treat your time likewise.
Your moments deserve the same careful attention as your years.

-Jarod K. Anderson

Opening paragraphs.............

 It is sometimes said, either irritably or with a certain satisfaction, that philosophy makes no progress.  It is certainly true, and I think this is an abiding and not a regrettable characteristic of the discipline, that philosophy has in a sense to keep trying to return to the beginning: a thing which it is not at all easy to do.  There is a two-way movement in philosophy, a movement towards the building of elaborate theories, and a move back again towards the consideration of simple and obvious facts.

-Iris Murdoch, The Sovereignty of Good

A wild Christianity.....................

My Christian journey so far has taught me two cataphatic lessons: that God is an artist; and that he has a sense of humor. . . .

 Anthony Bloom once wrote that the Desert Fathers and their kind retreated in order to seek an “ardent and active solitude”: “These men leave everything because they have understood that in torment, disorder and purely earthly seeking they will not find the answer to the problems of their contemporaries . . . They have to find their souls again, and with their soul, the nation, the soul of their people, the soul of their contemporaries.” When the nation, the people, the culture needs to find its soul again—this is when we turn to the saints of the caves. This is when we call for their help, and their prayers. Assuming we can find them. . . .

The global Machine is teetering, even as it clamps down on its citizenry in an attempt to tamp down unrest and rein in its own wanton destruction of creation and culture. A way of seeing that sets itself against what C. S. Lewis happily characterized as the Tao—the way of great nature, willed by its creator—cannot last, however much it desperately tightens its grip. We are not gods, however much we have always wanted to be. . . .

In a time when the temptation is always toward culture war rather than inner war, I think we could learn something from our spiritual ancestors. What we might learn is not that the external battle is never necessary; sometimes it very much is. But a battle that is uninformed by inner transformation will soon eat itself, and those around it.

-Paul Kingsnorth, from here

An interesting way to look at books...........

................................ A wonderful book (even though you can probably skip the first 25% and the last 25%).

-Ben Carlson, as excerpted from a book report on his 2023 reading list

Easier too...................

 ................Persistent, gentle pressure almost always outperforms sudden, violent blows.

-Seth Godin

Hate it.............................

 ..................................when that happens.

A story of rebellion.................

 Here is how Paul describes himself: “I am an animist in an age of machines; a poet-of-sorts in a dictatorship of merchants; a believer in a culture of cynics. Either I’m mad, or the world is.” He continues: “My most strongly-held belief is this: that our modern crisis is not economic, political, scientific or technological, and that no ‘answers’ to it will be found in those spheres. I believe that we are living through a deep spiritual crisis; perhaps even a spiritual war. My interest these days is what this means.”

-Bari Weiss, from her intro to this Paul Kingsnorth essay

Patience Grasshopper...................

 The point is: It always takes longer than you want. So, one of the most important habits is the habit that makes all other habits possible: patience. It doesn’t matter if it’s writing a book, opening a small business, getting in shape, establishing a reading or meditation practice—it always takes longer than you expect. It takes longer than you’re willing to wait. In any case, it takes however long it takes. We want our progress now. We want our success now. We want our rewards now. But if you can practice delayed gratification, if you can understand that all good things take time, that it’s a process, you’re almost always going to be more successful.

-Ryan Holiday, from this blog post