A view of life and commercial real estate from Newark and Licking County, Ohio
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
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
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
................................ 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
................Persistent, gentle pressure almost always outperforms sudden, violent blows.
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
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
Offering advice on the home buying process is even harder than offering investment advice without more context. Investing is personal but your living situation has even more idiosyncratic risks involved.
-Ben Carlson, from this post
For a wealth management kind of guy he has a pretty good feel for real estate. Will admit to some surprise at seeing his chart of the gross profit margins for the largest production builders. If we knew they were making that much money we would have charged them more for the building lots we sold them.
.....................in a much better way if we all took this to heart:
And I can still remember what he said to my graduate school class in summarizing this point: “I have been an economist long enough to recognize that ‘I don’t know’ is an intellectually respectable answer.”
-from this Gary Galles essay
We're often told that if we want to develop our skills, we need to push ourselves through long hours of monotonous practice. But the best way to unlock hidden potential isn't to suffer through the daily grind. It's to transform the daily grind into a source of daily joy. It is not a coincidence that in music, the term for practice is play. . . .
Elite musicians are rarely driven by obsessive compulsion. They're usually fueled by what psychologists call harmonious passion. Harmonious passion is taking joy in a process rather than feeling pressure to achieve an outcome.
-Adam Grant, Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things
Carl Jung had a theory called enantiodromia. It's the idea that an excess of something gives rise to its opposite.
-Morgan Housel, Same as Ever
Relaxing is not a waste of time—it's an investment in well-being. Breaks are not a distraction—they're a chance to reset attention and incubate ideas. Play is not a frivolous activity—it's a source of joy and a path to mastery.
-Adam Grant, Hidden Potential: The Science of Achieving Greater Things
Have said this before but all the attention is currently on college football and their situation but the real changes to college sports will more greatly affect college basketball. Imagine how places with great post grad programs will do when they can award unlimited NIL and unlimited eligibility. How would you like to play a Harvard or Stanford in March Madness when their starting 5's are 24-years old with 5-years of experience each? One and done superior talent will be at a great disadvantage.
-Chris Lynch, from here
Some days I feel like I have a really strong grasp of the situation and somedays everything seems upside-down. And again, I eat, sleep and breathe this stuff. I have global strategists and chief economists from Fidelity, JPMorgan, Vanguard, BlackRock, etc literally on speed dial. It doesn’t matter. If anything, the proximity to all this intel is probably even worse for most people because of how delusional we can become when we think we know something.
-Josh Brown, from here
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