Investing quotes

Oft quoted, the thoughts of Munger, Graham, and Buffett are worth rereading from time to time. 

Quotewise has proven a quick and useful website for such an exercise, having an archive of several hundred quotations from all three, not to mention an index of many other prominent figures in business and investing. Do give them a look.

What I've been reading...

I found a small library where I was staying overseas, and had some time to explore it. Below are some good titles I found and enjoyed: 

1.) Maarten Prak, The Dutch Republic in the Seventeenth Century (2005), trans. Diane Webb: Highly readable translation of a thorough and well-organized history of the Dutch "Golden Age." Interesting throughout, and worth the read.

2.) Nick Middleton, Rivers: A Very Brief Introduction (2012): Concise overview of the geography of rivers, and the role they've played in human civilization. I liked this book for its wide view and eye for interesting details.

3.) Mike Dash, Tulipmania: The Story of the World's Most Coveted Flower & the Extraordinary Passions It Aroused (2001): An engrossing history of one of the modern world's great speculative bubbles: the great Dutch tulip mania of 1636-1637. Dash's examination is rich with detail, and highly relevant to experience modern asset speculators in stocks, commodities, futures, etc.. Also of interest is the brief history toward the end of the book of the Ottoman Empire's own tulip bubble. Tulipmania  is certainly one of the best books I've read this year.

For more on the boom and bust of tulips in the Netherlands, see here.

What I've been watching...

I watched two really enjoyable Japanese films on the plane-ride home,  and recommend both. They include:

"Midnight Diner," (2014), directed by: Joji Masuoka

"The Furthest End Awaits," (2014), directed by: Chiang Hsiu-chiung

Arrived on my pile:

Fred Kaplan, The Singular Mark Twain, (2003).

John W. Dowen, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II (1999).

Herbert P. Bix, Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan (2001)

We're back...

Had a nice trip, though I'm glad to be back in many ways. Travel can be a very broadening experience, and so it proved this time around. It also provides a nice contrast to the usual routines of home, and perhaps helps us examine old questions in new ways.

Anyway, we're back now. Hope you've all been well :)

Taking a trip

I'm heading overseas for a little trip this week, and hope to have some interesting stories to tell upon my return.

It's a lovely day over here, as I sit near the window, preparing to leave. A cool wind blows through the trees, while birds sing and cicadas rattle away up in the trees. The air is fresh and laden with the scent of flowers and grass freshly-cut.

The summer foliage in these parts is lush and full of life. I find choke-cherries strewn across my route to work, while crab-apples waxing red upon the branch. Our garden is prospering at this juncture, having yielded a great number of strawberries and blueberries, with green peppers, tomatoes, eggplant, and string-beans still to come. The flowerbeds are colorful and bright, and a delight to the eye. Meanwhile, the forest down the hill is lush and green; the stream alive with all manner of insects, fish, turtles, and water-fowl. I feel very fortunate to have watched the season grow into itself, seeing the promise of spring so grandly fulfilled.

Perhaps now we'll get to see what a corner of the wider world looks like.

Take care, and happy Friday, friends :)

*Memories of Silk and Straw: A self-portrait of small-town Japan*

I really liked this book, a sparkling collection of about fifty stories told by residents of rural Japan in the early 20th century. Compiled by Dr. Junichi Saga, they tell of a rich world that has mostly disappeared; of tidal lakes teeming with fish and eel, clean air, and a lazy river lined with sakura trees. There were dark sides as well; extreme poverty, infectious diseases, and mass abortions when times were lean, to name but a few. For all of that, there were plenty of happy times, too.

I came away from this book with many impressions, the idea that "progress" is a complicated term not the least of them.

Do give this excellent collection a read if Japanese history and culture interests you. 

I'm hoping at some point to find Dr. Saga's other collection, "Memories of Wind and Waves".

What I've been reading...

Marius B. Jansen, "The Making of Modern Japan" (2000): I really liked this one, despite it feeling dense at times. Jensen's narrative has a nice flow that shows both continuities and sharp breaks in Japan's government, policy, society, and the climate of opinion from Sekigahara to the turn of the new millennium. It as a good read, albeit increasingly out of date--David Pilling's "Bending Adversity" is perhaps a good supplement to Jensen's work. 

Jenny Uglow, "In These Times: Living in Britain Through the Napoleonic Wars, 1793--1815" (2014): A rich social history, brimming with fascinating insights gleaned from diaries, letters, and print-material of the era. This is a very good book of a transformative period in British history.

Alan Booth, "The Roads to Sata: A 2,000-mile Walk Through Japan" (1985): Great travel-writing, detailing a four-month walking trip along (or near) the western coast of Japan's three largest islands. Booth's anecdotes drift between humor and absurdity, and his journey brings him into contact with all manner of people--rich, poor, kind, rude. Despite the hardships he describes, reading this book has put me in the mood to take a long walking trip.

Daniel Kahneman, "Thinking Fast and Slow" (2011): An astonishing book on the science of human decision-making, and how it can and does lead to poor outcomes. I noted a few quotes while reading: 

"A reliable way to make people believe in falsehoods is frequent repetition, because familiarity is not easily distinguished from truth. Authoritarian institutions and marketers have always known this fact." 

“This is the essence of intuitive heuristics: when faced with a difficult question, we often answer an easier one instead, usually without noticing the substitution.” 

“Because we tend to be nice to other people when they please us and nasty when they do not, we are statistically punished for being nice and rewarded for being nasty."

“The experiencing self does not have a voice. The remembering self is sometimes wrong, but it is the one that keeps score and governs what we learn from living, and it is the one that makes decisions. What we learn from the past is to maximize the qualities of our future memories, not necessarily of our future experience. This is the tyranny of the remembering self.” 

“The world makes much less sense than you think. The coherence comes mostly from the way your mind works.” 

“Confidence is a feeling, which reflects the coherence of the information and the cognitive ease of processing it. It is wise to take admissions of uncertainty seriously, but declarations of high confidence mainly tell you that an individual has constructed a coherent story in his mind, not necessarily that the story is true.” 

“Nothing in life is as important as you think it is, while you are thinking about it.”

Would certainly recommend.

Arrived on my pile: 

Dr. Junichi Saga, "Memories of Silk and Straw: A Self-Portrait of Small-town Japan" (1990).

Jonah Lehrer, "Imagine: How Creativity Works" (2012).

Congratulations USWNT: 2015 World Cup Champions

The FIFA Women's World Cup 2015 is now in the books, with the United States defeating Japan 5-2 in the final. Congratulations to the US for their victory.

To all who took part, thank you for doing your best and for making this tournament a memorable one.

Source

A Memorial to Dallett Hemphill

I am saddened beyond words to hear of the passing of Dr. Dallett Hemphill, professor of American History at Ursinus College. I never knew her age, but whatever it was, it was too young. The world has lost a fine teacher, and a human being finer still. 

She will be missed.

My direct acquaintance with Dr. Hemphill began with two courses she taught--a history of the American Civil War, and a similar course on the American Revolution. Her classes were rigorous but full of interest; her style of teaching a mix of lecture and cultivated discussion. She proved a hearty conversationalist, both within the classroom and without, as well as a proponent of experiencing history beyond books. Though her driving left me car-sick on more than one occasion (accelerating to stop-signs was among her numerous specialties), I nevertheless enjoyed travelling with her and classmates to Valley Forge, Trenton, Princeton, and Old City Philadelphia to hear her digress on topics as wide ranging as battlefield medicine, Federal-style architecture, and the lengths to which many reenactors go to make their costumes authentic. 

She had a passion for history, teaching, and the welfare of her students. Her office and manner were equally welcoming and always open. 

This openness extended beyond graduation, as on the few occasions I found myself on campus I almost invariably ended up sitting across from her on the third floor of Olin, discussing life and where it had taken us. Our final meeting came as something of a surprise, as I had ended up on campus late one Tuesday evening last fall, and thought to check the third floor's "Free Book" table for any interesting selections. Dr. Hemphill was staying late that night, and was as surprised so see me as I to see her. We spoke for a while, like old times, she remarking on my drawings and latest employer, and I congratulating her on her appearance in a documentary. It was a good chat, and I am glad that our paths managed to cross once more. 

To me at least, Dr. Hemphill--much like Ursinus College--changed lives for the better. She pushed and nurtured; demanded and welcomed. I learned much and more from her teaching and example, and I miss her now more than I ever thought I would. She touched my life, as doubtless she had touched the lives of others across years. 

Many of us have lost a dear friend today. To those who share my grief, I can only offer my condolences and best wishes. To the memory of Dallett Hemphill, I can say only this:

Thank you for making my life richer, and for exemplifying so many admirable qualities in your life and work. Farewell, farewell...farewell, my friend. You are truly missed.

"Keep your face toward the sunshine--and shadows will always fall behind you."
-Walt Whitman 

*Welcome to the N.H.K., N・H・Kにようこそ!*

*Possible spoilers*

I'm referring here to the anime (24-episodes), not the novel or manga, neither of which I've read, and have heard are rather different from one another. That said, I recently watched the full series and came away with a very favorable opinion of it.

The story covers a year in the life of a reclusive 22 year old hikikomori named Tatsuhiro Sato, who through the help of some friends--Nakahara Misaki and Kaoru Yamazaki--goes through some pretty strange adventures, but in many ways begins to overcome some of the features of his past that led to his becoming a recluse.

The artwork is dazzling in its attention to detail but down-to-earth in feel, and mostly confines itself to a few locations that grow familiar to the viewer with time: the local park ("BEWARE OF MOLESTERS, Call 110 if you spot suspicious activities"), the train crossing, and the interior of Sato and Yamazaki's apartments. The scenes where Sato's furniture come to life and whisper about conspiracies are a little strange, but that's to be expected, perhaps, given the character's mental state, and is, to the show's credit, not overdone.

Dialogue is a strength of the show, I think, and rarely if ever goes over the top. In fact, on several occasions the story feels like a series of events with little dramatic connection, comparable, perhaps to "The Catcher in the Rye." Yamazaki brings this point home in episode 21 after Sato compares their lives to a drama. Yamazaki says, "A drama has a logical progression, outbursts of emotion and a resolution. Our everyday lives are just filled with nebulous and vague anxieties forever and ever." It's an interesting statement, suggestive of the notion that life--as we think about it, anyway--imitates art, rather than the other way around.

Another strength of the series involve Sato's encounters with unusual sides of modern Japanese society, in particular the anime-obsessed otaku culture, internet suicide pacts, video-game culture, and the destructive power of pyramid-schemes. Being emotionally vulnerable (some might say "gullible") and obsessive  to a fault, Sato finds himself embroiled in situations that better sense and some self-esteem might have spared him, yet with the help of Misaki and Yamazaki is ultimately able to resolve.

While the ending felt a little flat, "Welcome to the N.H.K." proved very enjoyable, and was unlike anything I'd seen before. Would certainly recommend.

**Perhaps my favorite scene of the series takes place here (watch from 13:45-19:50). It's full of passion and absurdity, juxtaposed in an interesting manner that captures some of the show's humanity.

Excerpt to ponder

"Despite the comparative sobriety of its architecture, Zen often seems to inspire in its adherents a supercilious attitude to the rest of mankind; an attitude that delights in one-upmanship, in riddles, puzzles, and the power of extraordinary experience. But Dogen maintained that in order to grasp the meaning of existence it was not necessary for a person to be unusually clever or to spend his life doing remarkable things. Simply by 'sitting still and doing nothing' a man could discover what there was to be learned about life. Prayer and ritual were important to Dogen, but not much more so than cooking or sweeping the yard. All functions of the body, including the most basic, became, in the temple he founded, limbs of Zen... It was Dogen's intention to make Zen not an abstract philosophy but a practice. The advice he gave his meditating disciples was blunt, straightforward, and mind-wrenchingly practical: 

                                                      Think of not thinking.

                                                      How do you think of not thinking? 

                                                      By not thinking."

From Alan Booth's, "The Roads to Sata" (1985), pp. 161-162

Solstice Day

Happy Summer (or Winter, as it were), friends, and happy Father's Day, too :).

Hope you're all having a lovely day.

Humorous Excerpt

"The badger is a magical animal in Japan, able to take on human form. So is the fox, but the fox is malevolent whereas the badger is simply mischievous. He is known for his phenomenal sake consumption, for the equally phenomenal size of his scrotum, for the nighttime drumming he performs on his belly, and for his skill in tricking innocents out of their cash."

         -Alan Booth, "The Roads to Sata" (1985), p. 33

10 things about the author

I don't enjoy writing about myself, but this post comes requested, so here goes:

1.) I suspect anyone who acts too much their own age or gender is missing something, but that's just my opinion.

2.) In college I majored in history, with a particular interest in ideologies.  The stories people use to explain the world to themselves is an interesting topic for me, approachable from many directions, and touching on a number of disciplines and experiences. Probably everyone has something to contribute to its description. Reading and listening are two ways (of many) of getting in touch with this stream of experience.

3.) I don't run much anymore, but I still enjoy watching it, and coaching those who wish to compete or use it for some other end (health, meditation, recreation, etc.). Walking and riding the bike are my preferred physical activities these days, though on occasion I'll take off for a while down a trail and enjoy the challenge offered by the uneven terrain. At some point, I would also like another crack at the Marine Corps Marathon, where in 2012 I sustained an injury at mile 21 and could not continue. That might be a worthwhile challenge.

4.) I suspect most people are mostly decent.

5.) I'm fairly skeptical of just about everything I think I know, and I'm not even sure about that.

6.) When I was younger, I believe I experienced something akin to "true love." Whatever it was, it was pretty grand.

7.) I've also had some really wonderful friendships, and in tough times I've leaned on them hard. Find a best friend if you don't have one already; they might just save your life one day.

8.) I don't drive much, and find the experience rather stressful whenever going somewhere new. That said, whenever I do drive, I always greet the vehicle by saying "hello car," when I enter, and "well done, car," if and when I've reached my destination. I also do this when boarding and leaving airplanes.

9.) The best coach I ever had was probably my swimming coach in college,  Mark Feinberg. He pushed me in ways other coaches never did, and brought out my best in the moments it mattered most (the consolation final in the 200yd-fly at conferences in 2008 was one of the pinnacles of my athletic life to date). To paraphrase Arthur Lydiard, when you can bring your athlete to the peak of their abilities at the right time, that's when you know something about coaching. I think Mark knew something. He's a good guy as well, and had my shoulders not developed problems, I might have stuck with the sport a while longer under his tutelage.

10.) Sometimes I find it difficult to be patient, but patience can be a very useful skill. As the saying goes, "Don't just do something, stand there!"

Humorous excerpt

"In the 1770s Edo culture developed a select circle of writers who produced a playful and satirical gensaku genre that encoded some of the changing styles and values of their day... The pen names these samurai writers used were often full of self-mockery that revealed their frustrations; "Troubles with curfew," "Drunken indiscretion," and for one daimyo son, "Monkey with rusty bottom."

That is from Marius B. Jansen's, "The Making of Modern Japan" (2000), p. 229. I'm enjoying this book, and will probably have more to say about it later.

Happy Saturday :)

A Hair's Breath

*Note: The following story draws heavily from accounts of the famous duel of 13 April, 1612, between Sasaki Kojiro and Miyamoto Musashi. What follows is a work of fiction, and despite similarities in terms and setting, should not be considered historical in any way. You can read about the actual duel between Musashi and Kojiro here.

__________

A stiff wind blew in from the sea, and the setting sun glared painfully in their eyes. Kenta Miyama squinted through the glare, appraising the sandy shore of the island on which he had spent most of the day. The challenger was three hours late, and Kenta’s master was not happy. He will split Kimura in two, Kenta mused of the armored, imposing figure down by the water: Sojiro Aoshi, known widely as, “The demon of the Western Provinces.” Red-faced and wrathful, Sojiro certainly looked the part of a demon.

“There will be blood,” whispered Genji, another of lord Sojiro’s disciples. “Such insolence cannot be tolerated.” The other disciples grunted or nodded in agreement. None spoke too loudly, for fear of bringing their master’s long-sword upon their head. It was called, “the Drying Pole” for the length of its blade—almost three feet—and in the hands of Sojiro Aoshi had once brought down a bird in mid-flight. For this reason, and because the downward strike, followed by a swift, upward pull resembled the flight of a swallow, it became known as the “swallow’s cut.” Between the reach of his sword and precision of technique, there was not a fighter in the realm who could defend against it.

So why Kimura’s challenge? Kenta wondered. He turned to the others and asked, “Who is this Ren Kimura from Rizen?”

“An upstart, nothing more,” spat Toya Hashimi. He was past forty with a squint face, and kept his hair tied back in a queue.

“Why would an upstart challenge lord Sojiro?” whispered a new disciple who Kenta did not know.

“Desperate for fame, of course,” Toya retorted.

Aria Saito chuckled and shook his head. He was the same age as Kenta—twenty-three—and could almost perform the swallow’s cut as well as their master. His face was hard-set for a young man, yet it wore an arrogant look that seemed to find everything about the world amusing. “Ren Kimura does not lack for fame as Toya does for wits. It’s said he defeated the Shinta school of Tenika, a revered style for over a century, and brought down the whole Minotaro Gang in a single day. Gross exaggerations, to be sure, but where are the Shinta brothers today? And Minotaro and his cronies? They did not go quietly into the ground. Someone put them there, and that someone is Ren Kimura of Rizen.”

Toya fumed, as red-faced as Sojiro. Be careful, Toya. “If this Kimura child is mighty in skill,” Toya began, “then why is he not here? The appointed time is long past, and now what appetite for mercy Lord Sojiro might have had is surely exhausted. Not too smart of the little bird from Rizen, neh? Nay, the smart thing now would be to disappear into the mountains, and pray that Sojiro or one of us doesn’t find him.”

Saito merely smiled. “I’m sure Kimura would do much and more to avoid your company,” he said, at which the others nervously laughed. Toya fumed, and had a hand on the hilt of his sword before withdrawing it, slowly. “That is the wisest thing you’ve done all day,” Saito said, gravely and without a smile. He then laughed, as though dispelling any serious feeling he might have had. “Our master has been in armor for hours on a hot day, with a temper as short as his sword is long. By now his legs are surely tight, and his arms as heavy as lead. How quick do you suppose his famous swallow’s cut will be now? If anything, this Kimura fellow has decided that making lord Sojiro wait is more advantageous to his cause than punctuality.”

He’s not wrong, Kenta thought, looking down the beach at his master, pacing furiously in the sand with sword in hand—still sheathed—and perspiration flowing down his face. Even the demon of the Western Provinces gets tired.

“A boat!” cried someone, and Kenta turned toward the sea. There was indeed a boat approaching the island from the north, a small skiff with a single man aboard, rowing with his back turned toward the shore. Soon enough, the small craft ground up softly on the wet sand, and the man in the boat turned and bowed with a smile to Sojiro and his retinue.

Something’s wrong, Kenta realized, seeing the man’s flimsy, grey beard and tanned, wrinkled skin. This man must be sixty or more. There’s no way he’s Ren Kimura of Rizen.

By this point Sojiro was halfway down the beach. He drew his “drying pole” from its sheath and tossed the latter into the surf. “Prepare to die, Kimura!” he bellowed toward the smiling man, his hasty pace causing him to struggle in the sand. “Such affronts deserve nothing less!”

“You’ve already lost, Sojiro,” said a voice, though it did not sound like that of an old man. Suddenly a figure rose from the bottom of the boat, coming gradually to full height. He was slight of build, and lightly dressed in a plain blue kimono with a white obi about the waist and thatched sandals upon his feet. His hair was long and black as jet, which he kept tied back except for a few bangs in the front. He wore no swords, but held an oversized bokken in his right hand. The weapon had a rough look to it, as if it had been carved from an oar not long before. “Only a defeated man tosses his sheath into the sea.”

Kimura stepped into the knee-deep surf, then turned and with great care tied a band about his head. The band was plain and white, and did nothing to keep the bangs from its owner’s eyes. He bowed to the man in the boat, saying something that made the made smile. When he turned, Kenta could find nothing tense about the man from Rizen. He could be preparing ink for a painting, Kenta thought, finding that his own hand had moved to the sword at his side. There was something unnerving afoot, though what it was Kenta could not say.

“Enough of this!” Sojiro cried, ripping the helmet from his head and tossing it to the ground. “We’ve wasted enough time. Now we fight.”

Kimura said nothing, but leered softly in the direction of Sojiro. Veins pulsing, the demon of the Western Provinces raised his mighty sword and charged with a ferocity only he could muster.

“Here it comes!” came the voice of Toya, “The swallow’s cut! The unbeatable attack!”

Yes, Kenta thought, there’s no mistaking the swallow’s cut. He looked sideways at Saito, who had his arms crossed and seemed to be watching Kimura with great interest. Everyone else is watching Sojiro, but not Saito. He knows how our master fights. Now he wants to see how Ren Kimura of Rizen responds.

The motion was quick, but not too quick for Kenta’s trained eyes. As though in slow-motion, he watched Kimura raise the bokken above his head, and with a surging lunge bring it down right upon Sojiro’s skull.

The last few inches of the weapon snapped upon impact, and the sand at the challenger’s feet was now peppered with splinters. These were joined shortly by the headband, now fluttering toward the earth. A thin cut appeared on Kimura’s forehead, just between his eyes. Not deep, it wept a trickle of blood that ran down his nose and cheek.

 Sojiro Aoshi lay motionless in the sand, face-down in a growing pool of blood. Before anyone could react, Kimura bowed to them all, and leaving the shattered bokken in the sand, beat a hasty retreat to the skiff and on the tide made a swift exit before anyone could react.

The silence that followed was stunned and heavy, broken only when Toya finally rushed forward and cradled the head of their master in his lap. “He’s dead!” Toya cried, and wept with grief.

Composed yet unsmiling, Saito ignored their master’s corpse, stepping forward and reaching for the bokken. He held it at arm’s length for a time, and seemed deep in thought. “So that is how you defeat the swallow’s cut,” Saito said, almost at a whisper.

“Saito?” Kenta said.

Ignoring the wailing of Toya and the others, Saito pulled their master’s sword from the sand and held it up to the bokken. They were of nearly the same length. “Except the bokken’s tip is now in pieces upon the sand,” Kenta said.

“Just so,” said Saito, deep in thought. “A longer blade would serve to outreach the Drying Pole, but be too slow to hit the mark before the wielder’s throat was slit. Kimura is fast, that is plain, but no faster than our master, even when fatigued. A few inches difference would be all he could afford, yet still any mistake or hesitation would mean certain death.” Saito paused then, dropping the Drying Pole and gathering up the tattered remains of Kimura’s headband. “Sojiro lost by a margin of inches,” he said, and it seemed to Kenta that Saito’s hands began to shake. “Our master never guessed it, but Kimura knew all along what he had to do: disorient his opponent, then design a proper tool for the job. He made this bokken just long enough to bring him to within a hair’s breadth of death. To strike ahead of the swallow’s cut was his only chance of victory, and he took it.”

“He was not afraid to die,” Kenta said, more to himself than anyone. “He did not hesitate to die the warrior’s death.”

Saito sneered, but paused, and softened as he spoke. “Death is death, Kenta. A warrior’s purpose is to win, not die. Call it strategy if you wish, or luck, but Kimura lives and Sojiro does not. Such is the delicate line between life and death—a hair’s breadth, in moments such as these.”

Feeling tears in his eyes, Kenta turned from Sojiro and looked out across the water toward the skiff, now a shrinking dot in the distance. A hair’s breadth, he thought as the sun dropped below the horizon, and night fell.

**Image from above retrieved from here.

A life update, and some personal thoughts

The final day of May this year is proving a hot and humid one, which probably describes more days in the last thirty-one than not. A thunderstorm is in the forecast for later, of which we've had a few this month. That said, a lack of rain has left the streams low, and the soil in most places dry and hard-packed. The wave of oak-pollen that annually sends my nose into distress seems to have peaked, so that four days have now gone by without the need of allergy medication, or of a fresh tissue near at hand. The relief is welcome, and makes long walks in the evening more enjoyable.

Some further observations. The foliage in the forest has waxed in all its spring-time glory, shedding most of the flowers that dominate the early part of the season, instead taking up the dense foliage and lush greens of summer.  From dawn to dusk, bird-song fills the air, and while the cherry blossoms have come and gone, now our garden is alive with roses red and pink, and strawberry plants heavy with fruit.

First strawberries of the season.

Landscapers, plumbers, painters, pavers, tree-trimmers, general-contractors, and others fill the neighborhood going about their work, spreading mulch, installing upgraded water-heaters, and laying cement to a new stretch of sidewalk.

Swim-clubs are now open on the weekends, and the Spring season for most high schools sports is at an end. Soon we'll see "congrats grad!" banners in windows and written across the back windshield of cars, and see articles in the paper on the best ways to pay for college. At night, the smell of smoke from fire-pits will likely be on the air, as well as the sound of popular music filtering over from some nearby pool party. On a quieter night, one can listen to the crickets and bull-frogs pandering their songs to the stars.

Venus and the Moon.

From a personal point of view, May has been a strange month in a number of ways. I won't discuss them in a specific way here, but mention them in passing because of the broader ideas they elicit. Foremost, I believe that mental health is a feature of experience that I, at least, too often neglect. The landscape of thoughts and images in the mind seems to be a central feature of how one appraises and experiences the world. To a considerable extent, it seems to dictate what we notice, how we feel, and what weight we give to certain things that happen to us. I've heard it said that thoughts define our reality, and while I'm not certain of that statement's truth, my conscience at least doesn't rebel at its claim.

Of late, I have often thought of that line in Hamlet that reads, "...for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." Of my own situation, I've preferred to take a neutral point of view--that what has happened these last few months is intrinsically neither good nor bad, but will be defined and contextualized with the passage of time. This is what seems to happen with historical events more broadly defined: their significance is determined not by how it felt in the moment, but by how it shaped the years and decades and centuries that followed. Our present selves may deem what happened today as having extreme significance--that after today, "everything is different." On the other hand, our future selves will have lived through the day after, and the-day-after-the-day-after, and day after that.

For better or worse, I think those future selves will be in a better position to determine how good or bad some decision or moment turned out to be than I am today. Significance, perhaps, requires context, and context requires distance to see a thing in a broader sense. To paraphrase Machiavelli, seeing the mountain requires going to the plains, and seeing the plains requires going to the mountain. In that sense, I prefer at present to suspend judgment.

What the future holds I cannot say, but the month of May at least has proven interesting. Pretty soon we'll have blueberries to pick out back, and mosquitoes to dodge on our evening walks. Likely there will be plenty of work to do, friends to visit, and projects to take up. Lately I've taken an interest in computer science, and am curious to see where that takes me. I'm  also looking forward to a little travel later in the summer, and perhaps performing a bit on the bassoon. We'll see how all of that goes.

For now, I think I'll go and make some lunch.

Happy Sunday :)

Huzzah for the National Spelling Bee 2015

Eighth-graders Gokul Venkatachalam of Chesterfield, Missouri, and Vanya Shivashankar of Olathe, Kansas, were co-winners of the Scripps National Spelling Bee on Thursday.

Congratulations to the both of them, and to everyone who participated in or supported this year's National Spelling Bee. I always enjoy watching the final rounds on ESPN, and this year was no different. Thanks to all for your efforts :).

A full press release can be read here.

Arrived on my pile...

I went to the library earlier, and came back with a few interesting titles: 

"The Warrior King and the Invasion of France" (1988), Desmond Seward--This one looked interesting, and should serve as a good preface to Dan Jones' excellent book on the wars of the roses, which I recently finished (see review here).

"The Making of Modern Japan" (2000), Marius B. Jansen--A comprehensive history, to look at it. The writing is a bit dense in the early going, but we'll see how it turns out.

"In These Times: Living in Britain Through the Napoleonic Wars, 1793--1815" (2014), Jenny Uglow-- sounds like a neat book about life in England during the age of Napoleon. I'm looking forward to starting this one.

"A Random Walk Down Wall Street, 10th ed." (2011)*, Burton G. Malkiel--A classic and highly-recommended work in the world of investing, about which I've heard a lot and yet have not read. Feels very readable in the early going, and will probably be the book I read over breakfast each morning.

*Looks like there's an 11th edition now available.

"Very Good Lives" (2008), J.K. Rowling--A published version of the commencement address the author gave at Harvard in 2008. I've actually seen that address (so can you, here), but it might be worth perusing in printed form again. 

An interesting thought

"Love doesn’t drive people mad, it drives them sane. Desire, in its different forms, can drive people to do anything. Love never drives people to kill or steal or cheat or worry.

"Love reveals itself when you release your need to have the object of your affection, and see that there’s no reason to make it yours. That it exists at all is enough. To love something is to disappear in its favor — to die to your own interests so that it can be what it is."

That is by David Cain of Raptitude, from an essay you can read here. Very insightful, and full of ideas worth pondering further.

*THE WARS OF THE ROSES: THE FALL OF THE PLANTAGENETS AND THE RISE OF THE TUDORS* (2014)

That's the title of an excellent book I've just finished reading by Dan Jones. I found it enjoyable, and an interesting narrative of English dynastic struggles during the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, and how image-management, a series of assertive rulers, and the death of basically anyone with a claim to the throne not named "Tudor," served to bring the Wars of the Roses to and end, and secure the Tudor position as kings of England.

At base, the central argument of the book centers on the fragile nature of English kingship in that period, and how the risks associated with this particular institutional arrangement showed up in a major way following the death of the Henry V and during the reign of Henry VI. An excerpt makes this very point:

...the Wars of the Roses and the destruction of the house of Plantagenet did not really come about because two factions divided by blood were destined to atone through war for the sin of deposing Richard II. All the evil of the fifteenth century was not embodied in a villainous Richard III, and more than the marriage of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York provided instant salvation. Rather, this was a vicious and at times barely comprehensible period of deep political instability, which stemmed ultimately from the collapse of royal authority and English rule in France under Henry VI. In a system in which law, order, justice and peace flowed so heavily from the person of the king and the office of the Crown, Henry VI's reign (and his afterlife between deposition in 1461 and his death ten years later) was a disaster. The English system of government was robust in the 1420s and 1430s--robust enough to deal with a minority of nearly two decades. But it was not robust enough to deal with an adult king who simply would not perform his role (p. 339).

The book is interesting throughout, and I would recommend it.

 

Cheesy quote of the day

"Always be thankful for what you have no matter how much or how little."                                                                                                                                                                    ~EternalOptimist

Linked book

"The Magic of Thinking Big" (1959)
By: Dr. David Schwartz

A bit old, but fun and quirky in its own way. Would recommend.

For the sake of play

That is the subject of Stephen T. Asma's essay today in the NY-Times. Personally, I find my life more enjoyable when I can drop all pretense of productivity and do things for their own sake. Below is an excerpt:

"The stakes for play are higher than we think. Play is a way of beingthat resists the instrumental, expedient mode of existence. In play, we do not measure ourselves in terms of tangible productivity (extrinsic value), but instead, our physical and mental lives have intrinsic value of their own. It provides the source from which other extrinsic goods flow and eventually return. 

When we see an activity like music as merely a “key to success,” we shortchange it and ourselves. Playing a musical instrument is both the pursuit of fulfillment and the very thing itself (the actualizing of potential). Playing, or even listening, in this case, is a kind of unique, embodied contemplation that can feed both the mind and the body."

The full piece can be read here.

a thought

Some days just don't go well.

And sometimes those days go on for a while--for weeks, or months, or more.

It is a natural part of life.

So let's be real, and accept how things are.

Let's be optimistic, and focus on what can be done.

Step by step, we'll make it through.

Some experiences and impressions from Denmark

A week has passed since I arrived in Denmark, where I've spent the interval amongst good friends in what has proven to be a beautiful stretch of Scandanvian weather.  A bit of color has found its way into my cheeks, such that back home one might think I'd ventured to the Carribean rather than the north of Europe. The local fare has proven plentiful and good, and occasions to walk and run have been numerous. We've trekked up hills, along sand-dunes, through knarled forests, and along sandy paths leading to the shore. By degrees, the grass is greening over here, the trees are laden heavily with buds, and flowers of many colors and shapes are now in bloom. 

The last few days have been spent in Aalborg. It's a city of modest size in the north of Jutland, nestled amongst a series of hills at a point where the Limfjord narrows in its course through the country.  We arrived there after several days, having stayed or travelled through Copenhagen, Roskilde, Rørbit, and Arhus. A great deal of land (and sea) was traversed in the process. The fast-ferry to Arhus proved particularly novel, shooting across narrow sea between Sjælland and Jutland at a surprising speed, considering the ship's size and girth. Along the highway from Arhus to Aalborg were many large farms, and tall, white windmills, with large twirling arms in great frequency.

A number of personal "first" have occurred on this adventure; for example, I tried a bit of Danish liquor called snaps, which is traditionally imbibed at the start of certain meals--in this case, Easter. Of this beverage, I can only say that it didn't burn as much as Irish whiskey whilst going down, but it was strong enough for its purposes. It so happens that this particular brand is made in Aalborg, and upon arriving in the city, it was not long before I encountered the distillery in which it was made. 

I also went off into the city on my own for the first time, using my limited Danish to navigate, and even pick up some groceries for the flat where I've been staying. Despite my lack of vocabulary, it has been noteworthy at how much less foreign the place feels once one has a bit of language under one's belt. 

I'm also using a Danish keyboard for the first time to write this, which isn't too different from an American on, but different enough to require some adjustment (image here)

Yesterday, I also ran with a local running club. There were perhaps 15 or 20 people in attendance, ranging from about my age and up. We left from the center of Aalborg, crossing to the north side of the fjord, where there is a muncipality called Nørresundby. There, near the water, is a long, flat stretch of road and paved footpath, where after a warm-up and some sprint-drills we did 4x5min at 5km pace. It's been a while since I've done any sort of running workout, but given the circumstances I think it went well. The man in charge of the club was by far the fastest--he related to me during the warm-up that he hoped to run about 2:55 at the Hamburg marathon later this month. Needless to say, there was no chance I was keeping up with him. Instead, I stuck to within twenty yards of the next two fastest guys, both a deal older than me, and by my reckoning, much more fit. The weather was sunny and warm, and the fjord sparkled in the late-afternoon light. 

Some days ago, I was walking with my host toward a place in Aalborg called Signal Hill, where many years ago a steamship company operated a tower for the purpose of signalling when one of their ships had appeared down the fjord. Now, at an intersection along the way we came upon a mound of cinnamon, with much more of the stuff scattered all about. As it turns out, there is a tradition in Denmark that if one is not married by 25, one's friends are obliged to pour cinnamon over you--for what purpose, I cannot say, and it is apparently more common in some places than others. As it is, I've encountered cinnamon in the streets on two other occasions whilst here, suggesting that up in Aalborg at least, the tradition is common enough, (here is a relevant image).

Speaking of Signal Hill, after seeing the city from its peak in daylight, my host took me back there last night to see the place in the dark. There aren't many city lights as one approaches the hill, and as the moon had not yet risen, I found the going dark and difficult. Yet climbing through the cool, humid night-air of Aalborg, the sight that greeted me from the top was moving in the extreme. In all directions the view is open and clear, and one can see many miles from that vantage. The night was quiet, and the sky full of stars. We remained atop that hill for several minutes before heading home. 

There is much else of interest that has happened to me in Denmark, and I have still a few days more here, but those are some experiences and impressions I've had thus far. We'll see what the coming days bring. 

Happy Thursday :)

A thought

There seem to be certain choices that are difficult to make in the moment, but which once made in consistent fashion, lead to happier results in the future. It is a challenge, but perhaps a worthy one of our energies.

What I've been reading

"The Lone Samurai: The Life of Miyamoto Musashi" (2013), by William Scott Wilson.

I stumbled upon this one recently in my old university library, and found the first few chapters interesting enough to find my own copy and read the entire thing. The work reads quickly, but requires some background knowledge of medieval Japanese history and of the various Buddhist traditions that took root there. Also, there were times when Wilson seemed to pile on so many names in quick succession that it became easy to get lost (this comes from someone who finds Japanese names difficult to pronounce and remember). Still, I felt the book to be well worth reading, and came away with many impressions of Musashi (1584-1645) as a swordsman, idealist, artist, and wanderer.

Here is an excerpt from the book:

Except for short periods when he stayed in Kyoto or various castle towns and the last five years of his life in Kumamoto, Musashi spent his life on the road. Travel broadened his perspective on his environment and on human nature, as it would for the traveler-poet Basho nearly a century later. Although many people traveled the roads of Japan at this time, Musashi was far more observant than the average sojourner. His paintings, The Book of Five Rings, and the story of his life all bespeak of a man who dismissed no experience and who noted everything that crossed his path. When he enjoined his disciples not to turn their backs, 'on the various Ways of the world,' he was speaking of far more than just formal studies. The life of a traveler was Musashi's way of ensuring that he would continue to have broadening experiences. A safe position with a local daimyo could never have provided him the same opportunities. 

"Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage" (1999), by Alfred Lansing.

I'm about two-thirds of the way through this one, and enjoying it. The book is very thoroughly researched, and Lansing does a good job of taking us along on the expedition with Shackleton and his crew. The narrative is very detailed, at times covering events from almost every hour for several days in a row. It's an interesting approach, and gives it a different feel from a typical history.

If the story of Shackleton and the expedition he led interests you, this is an excellent book.

A Gratitude Journal Experiment

Every once in a while, I stumble upon an activity or habit that feels so natural and rewarding to do that I wonder how it took so long to start. Examples from my own life include drawing, daily walks, and keeping a journal. Each of these activities has proven challenging in good ways, and personally very fulfilling.

More recently, I came across this wikipedia entry on "gratitude journals," and decided to try keeping one for a few weeks and see what happened. I was very surprised by the result, though given the research done on this particular exercise, perhaps I shouldn't have been. There's a surprising amount of research of the subject of these journals, and the evidence seems fairly robust regarding its utility:

Empirical research suggests that keeping a gratitude journal has a positive effect on one's psychological, physical, and emotional well being. Regularly recording 3-10 things that one is grateful for can improve and strengthen one's physical and psychological health. 

Gratitude journals can also be beneficial as an addition to psychotherapy or clinical treatment to decrease symptoms of depression, increase happiness, and increase overall well being.

So for my experiment, once a week (usually Friday), I would take a moment to brainstorm at least three things for which I had lately been grateful. Typically I'd list around five or six, but my goal each time was at least three.  "Family," "friends," and "health," often came to mind, but so too did less common ones like "free-time," and "the ozone-layer." It's funny what you think about, large and small, when the subject of gratitude is considered. And it's interesting how an exercise that takes less than two minutes a week to do seemed to improve my mood so markedly, even long after it was performed.

The experiment has gone on for two months now, and throughout I have felt mildly more relaxed than usual, and seemed to experience both an immediate and lasting reduction in stress after performing the gratitude exercise. My experiment can't prove causality in these regards, but I think it does point to the positive effect that expressing gratitude, even just to oneself, can have in one's life. As importantly, perhaps, I like the kind of person I am when gratitude is near to the fore of my thoughts; both in how I feel, and how I interact with others. In this respect, I think the experiment proved worthwhile, and I think I will continue keeping a gratitude journal for the foreseeable future.

*Hiding from scary ideas*

This was an interesting op-ed in today's NY-Times, by Judith Shulevitz:

The confusion is telling, though. It shows that while keeping college-level discussions “safe” may feel good to the hypersensitive, it’s bad for them and for everyone else. People ought to go to college to sharpen their wits and broaden their field of vision. Shield them from unfamiliar ideas, and they’ll never learn the discipline of seeing the world as other people see it. They’ll be unprepared for the social and intellectual headwinds that will hit them as soon as they step off the campuses whose climates they have so carefully controlled. What will they do when they hear opinions they’ve learned to shrink from? If they want to change the world, how will they learn to persuade people to join them?

The full piece can be read here.

Medical care and subjective health

This was interesting:

"Access to more medicine and medical care doesn't really improve our subjective health. For example, in the United States, the percentage of Americans reporting very good health decreased from 39 percent to 28 percent from 1982 to 2006," Zheng said.

...It seems counterintuitive, but that's what the evidence shows. More medicine doesn't lead to citizens feeling better about their health -- it actually hurts."

The article relating this study can be read here.

*If I knew then what I know now*

This was a bogleheads post worth sharing. It comes from this thread.

IF I KNEW THEN WHAT I KNOW NOW
By Michael LeBoeuf

Some years ago, I saw a cartoon of two young guys looking at a very tall ladder with a sign on it that read, “The Ladder of Success.” One guy said to the other, “I was hoping for an escalator.”

1. Over 50 years ago I was sitting in a basic management class just like you. My goal this morning is to share with you some of the things I’ve learned in life that can help you make the climb far less difficult than it has to be.

There is an old but true saying: Rich people plan for 3 generations.
Poor people plan for Saturday night. Your odds of being successful increase exponentially when you begin with a good plan.


2. Let’s begin by take an imaginary trip into the distant future. Imagine you are 50 years of age. I picked 50 because if you have reached your 20th birthday, odds are the majority of your remaining life will be spent after 50. Imagine being 50, being healthy and having the freedom to do whatever you want. You can work if you want to but you don’t have to because you’re financially independent. You can sleep-in, stay up late, watch sports on TV, play golf, take a trip, you name it, because every day is Saturday in your life. Would you like that?
Well, I have good news for you. Every one of you is capable creating a life like that for yourself. It all comes down to making good choices as you manage your life. We are all the sum of the many choices we make every day and those choices; more than anything else determine our fate. The bad news is that historically only about 5 percent of Americans at age 65 are financially independent. Today I’m going to teach you how to be a member of the fortunate 5 percent. Whether your not you do it is up to you.

3. Here are 4 things we know about having a successful life:

A. Success is the product of making good choices.
B. Good choices come from good judgment.
C. Good judgment comes from experience.
D. Experience comes from bad judgment.
The point is to learn from the experiences of others whenever you can. Talk to successful people, find out what they did, learn from them and do something similar. That’s what education is all about – learning from others who came before us. Experience is a very tough, expensive teacher because you get the test first and then you get the lesson. It’s always cheaper and easier to learn from the experiences of others.

I WANT TO SPEND THE REST OF OUR TIME TALKING ABOUT SOME KEY CHOICES THAT WILL BE CRITICAL IN DECIDING HOW WEALTHY YOU BECOME. I’M GOING TO COVER FOUR TYPES OF CHOICES:
1. SAVING AND INVESTMENT CHOICES
2. EDUCATIONAL CHOICES
3. CAREER CHOICES
4. PERSONAL CHOICES THAT IMPACT WEALTH CREATION
I – THE FOUNDATION OF ALL WEALTH CREATION IS ROOTED IN CHOOSING TO SAVE AND INVEST A PORTION OF EVERY DOLLAR YOU EARN
A. Know the difference between income and wealth. Making a high income is nice but that’s not where action is. From this day forward make it your goal to become a wealth builder. For most of us this requires changing the way we think about money. Think of money as stored energy. Money you put away for tomorrow will someday free you from the need to work.

B. Graduate from the paycheck mentality to the net worth mentality. Making a big salary does nothing to build wealth if you spend it all or carry an enormous amount of debt. Instead, focus on building your net worth. Net worth is simply the dollar value of what you own minus the debts you owe. While you are in school it’s perfectly OK to have a zero or negative net worth. But it’s not OK to be broke at 70. Your earning years are behind you and it’s frightening. Right now your greatest asset is your potential earning power because you have years to work, save and invest. Make the most of them.

C. You have heard this before and you’ll hear this again. PAY YOURSELF FIRST. Resolve to save at least 15 percent of every paycheck you earn after taxes. The only caveat to this is to pay off any credit card debts you may have accumulated before saving. The more you can save, the faster you will reach financial independence. Save half of your salary and you’ll likely be able to retire in just 20 years.

D. Put six months worth of living expenses in a bank checking or savings account for emergencies. After that, I suggest you invest your money using a strategy known as passive investing or index investing. Put the rest of your savings into low-cost, no-load, index mutual funds and keep them there. If you do this, over the long-term you will outperform 80 percent of all investors who try to pick stocks or time the market. Four excellent companies are: Vanguard, T. Rowe Price, TIAA-CREF and USAA.

E. Be wary of people calling themselves financial planners who want to sell you investments. The only thing required to be a financial planner is a suit and a sales pitch. The finance/investing business is filled with charlatans who want to sell you products that make high commissions for them. Never invest in anything you don’t understand or can’t explain to a 12 year-old.

F. Don't put any money in stock mutual funds that you will need in the next 5 and preferably 10 years. Put any money you’ll need in the next decade in a bank savings account, short-term bond mutual fund or money market fund. Stocks are volatile, but the only long-term trend is up.

G. When the stock market takes a dive, ignore it. People will tell you to sell before you lose everything. Ignore the noise. The market drops 40 or 50 percent from time to time. Those who panic and sell only lock in their losses. Those who buy and hold will eventually be rewarded when the market rebounds to an all-time high. It has been doing this for over 200 years and will likely continue to do so for the rest of your life. Only two things matter when it comes to the price of an investment: How much you pay for it, and how much you get when you sell it. The rest is just noise.

H. When people tell you they can time the market, tell you when to get in and get out, or they can pick stocks that will outperform the market, they are either lying or delusional. The fact is they don’t know any more about the future than you or I do. Timing the market is for losers. Time in the market is what makes you rich.


G. If you stay the course and follow this plan, your savings will be multiplied by the power of compound interest and you’ll get rich slowly over time. Ignore people who pitch get rich quick schemes.

“The problem with getting rich quick is that you have to do it so often.” - Jason Zweig
In 2005, Vanguard Founder, John Bogle received a letter from a shareholder. The person writing said he had been investing with Vanguard since the mid-seventies and the value of his portfolio had grown to $1,250,000. But here is the interesting part: The man never earned more than $25,000 per year! How he did it is no mystery. It turns out that if an investor invests $601 each month in an index fund and gets an average return of 10 percent, in 30 years, their portfolio will grow to $1, 249,655.
One of the best savings vehicles is to invest $5500 each year in a Roth IRA. If you keep the money there until age 60, any withdrawals you make are tax-free. For example, let’s assume a 25 year-old couple each invest $5500 in a Roth IRA every year until age 60. If their investments earn an average annual return of 8 percent, at age 60 the combined money in their Roth IRA accounts will be worth over $2 million. If they get an average return of 10 percent, it would be worth over $3 million at age 60.

H. A two-career married couple can build a nest egg relatively easy. Live on one salary and invest the other.

G. How much is enough before you can consider yourself financially independent? Twenty times annual spending is a good rule of thumb. If you do that and withdraw no more than 5 percent per year from your investments, odds are good you’ll never run out of money.

H. An e-book worth reading: IF YOU CAN by William Bernstein. Available at amazon.com for 99 cents or free from his website,(http://www.efficientfrontier.com).A website where you can learn online the basics of investing: Bogleheads.org. Click-on: Start here link in the upper left-hand corner.


II – EDUCATIONAL CHOICES
One of the best investments you’ll ever make is the one you are making now by studying at ASU. Education is a great investment if you keep the following points in mind:
A. – Don’t overspend. At ASU you are getting a quality education
thanks to the taxpayers of AZ. Graduate with as little debt as possible.
B. – Major in a field that will increase your value in the job market.
C. - What you major in is far more important than where you go to school.
D. – Be sure and graduate. Close only counts in horseshoes and dancing.
E. Consider the increased earning potential of getting an advanced degree. Ben Franklin was correct: “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.”
F. Remember that lifelong learning is everybody’s job. We live in a rapidly changing world and in times of change, the learners inherit the earth. Another great saying: if you think education is expensive, try ignorance.

III – CAREER CHOICES
A. How many of you would like to be in business for yourself someday? How many of you would like to work in sales? For those of you who chose neither of the above, I have some surprising news for you: Regardless of what you do for a living, you will be in business for yourself and you will sell something - either to your employer or to customers. In short, understand from Day One that your career and your future are up to you. From this day forward, think of yourself as You, Inc. You are in charge of your own personal finance, production and marketing operation. You and everyone else are in business for yourself.

B. When it comes to choosing a career, here is the best advice I ever heard: Work very hard at something that comes very easily to you. Happiness comes from doing what you are good at and it gives you a competitive edge. Everybody can be a star at something. Look for an occupation where you can shine.

C. Choose a career that doesn’t have a ceiling on how much money you can earn. The more money you make, the easier it to save and invest. The more you save and invest, the sooner you reach financial independence. My former students, Richard and Wayne made millions in insurance. Don made his fortune as a hotel management executive. I chose to become a business school professor because it offered a nice wage and I had the option of supplementing my income through writing, speaking and consulting.

D. How much money you earn will depend on 3 things:
1. What you do.
2. How well you do it.
3. How difficult it is to replace you.

E. It’s important to enjoy your work most of the time, but don’t expect any work to always be unlimited bliss.
Wealth = Passion + Profitability
I enjoyed, teaching, writing and speaking but I never loved any of them so much that I was willing to do it for free. There’s a reason why it’s called WORK.

F. If you hate the very nature of doing the work you do, get another career. Life is too short to be miserable. Years ago I met an air conditioning repairman who had a degree in Accounting and was a CPA. He hated being an accountant, changed careers, started his own heating and AC business and was much happier for it.

G. Finally, never get married to a company because no company is married to you. Work and save with the goal of becoming financially independent because someday you will almost surely need it.



IV – PERSONAL CHOICES THAT WILL IMPACT YOUR ABILITY
TO SAVE
A. WHOM YOU MARRY - Marry one frugal spouse who shares your dream of becoming financially independent. Weddings are all about love and divorces are all about money. Make sure that you and your beloved or on the same page financially before signing up for life. Between 40 and 50 percent of all marriages end in divorce and the leading cause is disagreement over money.

B. HOW MANY CHILDREN YOU HAVE - Have a moderate number of children. The average cost of raising a child born in 2013 up until age 18 for a middle-income family in the U.S. is approximately $245,340 (or $304,480, adjusted for projected inflation), according to the latest annual "Cost of Raising A Child" report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

C. THE COST OF LIVING WHERE YOU CHOOSE TO LIVE - Choose to live where the cost of living is moderate. Arizona is moderate. Florida and Texas have no state income taxes and moderate real estate prices. NY, LA, SFO, Boston, etc. are super-expensive and that makes it more difficult to save.
D. THE CHOICE TO BE A HOMEOWNER OR RENTER - Buy a moderately priced home if you are going to be in one place for at least 5 years. The net worth of most retirees is concentrated in their homes. Most renters reach retirement with little or no net worth.


CONCLUSION

When I was a freshman in college, I wanted to succeed, make good grades and graduate. I bought a book on how to study and take exams. I don’t remember what the details were but the author had one line in the book that served me well: Maturity is the ability to relate today’s actions to tomorrow’s results. People who can think 10, 20 or 30 years ahead and make good choices are the one’s most likely to succeed. Make it your mission to enjoy every day, but do something that will make for a better tomorrow. Don’t expect to be perfect and don’t expect everything to go as planned because you can be sure it won’t. However, if you have solid financial and personal goals, make smart choices and stay the course, you will meet with an uncommon success that escapes most people. Good luck happens when opportunity meets preparation.

And someday when you become financially independent, make it your business to stay financially independent. You only have to get rich once, and you may not get a second chance. Good luck to all of you.

Hedonic Treadmill

This was a neat post: 

There are three strong lines of evidence which support the hedonic treadmill theory: 

1.) A growing list of traditional life pursuits are being found to have zero to only small correlations with happiness, well-being, and life satisfaction. These include: beauty, money, sunshine, education,children, and choice. 

2.) A growing number of longitudinal studies which have tracked people over the decades of their life have found that as their life circumstances have changed, their happiness has remained mostly unchanged (presumably because they spent their time focused on misleading goals, like money and status).3.) A growing number studies conducted on twins has shown that genetic factors may account for as much as half of one’s subjective well-being. That is, despite some twins being much richer than their counterparts, their average level of happiness was similar. 

These three lines of evidence taken together indicate that the successful pursuit of happiness requires a departure from the business as usual approach to life. That getting married, buying a house, and having kids isn’t enough. That seeking wealth and fame is a dead-end. That the successful pursuit of happiness requires intentionally pursuing counter-intuitive life strategies.

The remainder can be read here.

Many thanks to "Toons" on the bogleheads forum for posting this.

Multi-tasking neurons

This was an interesting study:

The nervous system evolved to coordinate flexible goal-directed behaviors by integrating interoceptive and sensory information. Hypothalamic Agrp neurons are known to be crucial for feeding behavior. Here, however, we show that these neurons also orchestrate other complex behaviors in adult mice. Activation of Agrp neurons in the absence of food triggers foraging and repetitive behaviors, which are reverted by food consumption. These stereotypic behaviors that are triggered by Agrp neurons are coupled with decreased anxiety. NPY5 receptor signaling is necessary to mediate the repetitive behaviors after Agrp neuron activation while having minor effects on feeding. Thus, we have unmasked a functional role for Agrp neurons in controlling repetitive behaviors mediated, at least in part, by neuropeptidergic signaling. The findings reveal a new set of behaviors coupled to the energy homeostasis circuit and suggest potential therapeutic avenues for diseases with stereotypic behaviors.

That is the abstract, found here (the full text is gated).

A useful summary of the the study can be read here. An excerpt:

These observations unmask the relevance of primitive brain regions previously linked to eating to other complex behaviors," said lead author Marcelo Dietrich, M.D., assistant professor of comparative medicine and neurobiology and a member of the Yale Program in Integrative Cell Signaling and Neurobiology of Metabolism at Yale School of Medicine. "These findings are relevant to understanding diseases with both homeostatic and compulsive components and highlight the multitasking nature of neurons in the brain."

How are living standards changing?

According to Megan McArdle, "It's complicated, but hopeful."

But I think this list illustrates the poverty of trying to measure living standards by staring at median wages. Many of the changes of the last century show up in that statistic, but others, like the time no longer spent plucking chickens, or the joys of banishing lye from the pantry, appear nowhere. Nor do the changes in job and family structure that have made the lives of people who are indisputably vastly materially richer than my young grandparents were, nonetheless feel much more precarious. We look into the numbers and think we’re seeing hard facts. But in fact, like someone reading tea leaves, we are projecting our intangible impressions onto an ambiguous picture.

I don't agree with everything Ms. McArdle writes here, but I find her perspective an interesting one.

The full essay can be read here.

College hopping

This was an interesting story:

Between 2008 and 2012, Guillaume Dumas took courses at some of the best colleges in North America—Stanford, Yale, Brown,University of California Berkeley, McGill, andUniversity of British Columbia, among others—without being enrolled as a student...

...In the end, Dumas has been no poorer for his lack of a degree. In fact, given that he has not taken on any debt, he is far better off than many recent college graduates. He’s now an entrepreneur. "Starting a business is all about your intelligence and your network," he says. "None of your customers care where you went to college. All they care about is whether you can offer them a good product."

The full article can be read here.

Vox interviews Mr. Money Mustache

Some highlights include:

"The first trick is to remind yourself that buying something — pretty much anything — is very unlikely to improve your long-term happiness. Science figured this out for us long ago, but not many people got the memo. Go to your junk electronics drawer and look at your old flip phones or your dusty iPad 1. Look at the clothes you've recently pruned from your closet that are now headed to the Goodwill. You traded a lot of good dollars for those, not very long ago at all. Are they still making you happy today?"

and...

"Investing is scary until you understand how simple it is. The key for me was to recognize that stocks are not gambling instruments - they are slices of ownership in real, productive companies that will work with you for life. You eliminate all the risk by holding thousands of stocks simultaneously through a low-cost index fund."

and...

"For me, early retirement has never been about ceasing work or productive activity. Just breaking free of working to somebody else's agenda and schedule, or having the threat of running out of money influencing my decisions of what to work on. The good life is all about plenty of hard work doing stuff you love to do."

The interview is interesting throughout, and can be read here.

Material lifestyle not improving well-being

Apparently material prosperity doesn't necessarily lead to human thriving.

 "In affluent countries such as the UK, well-being is not on average increasing even though GDP has grown substantially. Part of the problem is that any positive increase in well-being due to economic prosperity is being quickly eroded by the substantial knock-on costs of mental ill-health, dementias, obesity, physical inactivity, diabetes, loneliness and cardiovascular disease (including strokes) which affect many people."

and this...

The research team has undertaken an analysis of the negative side-effects of our existing consumer patterns on six critical factors which can help improve our health and well-being.
         These factors are:

• Eating healthy food;
• Being physically active;
• Having a healthy mind;
• Linking in with community and family;
• Contact with nature and green/blue space;
• Attachment to meaningful possessions.

The full article can be read here.

I think the conclusion of this study forms the basis of the Early-Retirement/Financial-Independence (FIRE) movement, as articulated today by bloggers like Jacob and MMM. As I understand it, the approach they both describe doesn't involve the mindless accumulation of wealth for wealth's sake--or early "retirement" for retirement's sake--but rather serves as the foundation upon which a thriving life is built. It invites the reader to consider more carefully what actually contributes to their well-being, and encourages them to focus on these factors when making decisions about their life.

It seems to me that, while material prosperity provides the necessary resources for allowing humans to thrive, it does not guarantee it.

Much like the study cited above, the emphasis is on developing a healthy mind and body that is in touch with its family, community, nature, and possessions. Elevating these factors above one's career, convenience, and desire to own expensive things, is what--in my humble opinion--makes the FIRE movement about more than money and frugality and retiring early from mandatory work.

It is at the root, I think, about making space so that we  might attend mindfully to the health of ourselves and others, our relationships, our homes, and the environment in which we all live, and upon which we all depend.

Something to consider, maybe.

Interesting post

It's by Jacob of Early Retirement Extreme, and discusses his own "4-hour work-week." 

My suggested strategy is to kill your stupid TV and instead spend your time learning a handful of skills that are worth $35/hour on the open-market as well as being personally useful to you(*) and (actively) wait for one of them to be requested. I think such a diversified strategy beats concentrating on one and then trying frantically to find it. All it requires—but maybe that IS asking for a lot —is the drive to learn new stuff and a proactive response whenever an opportunity presents itself.

It can be read in full here.

Life rhythms and wandering minds

Life's rhythms and mental illness: 

Our daily sleep-wake cycle is governed by an internal 24-hour timer, the circadian clock. However, there is evidence that daily activity is also influenced by rhythms much shorter than 24 hours, which are known as ultradian rhythms and follow a four-hour cycle. Most prominently observed in infants before they are able to sleep through the night, ultradian rhythms may explain why, on average, we eat three meals a day that are relatively evenly spaced across our daily wake period.

The article can be read here.

Also of interest:

In an unanticipated finding, the present study demonstrated how the increased mind wandering behavior produced by external stimulation not only does not harm subjects' ability to succeed at an appointed task, it actually helps. Bar believes that this surprising result might stem from the convergence, within a single brain region, of both the "thought controlling" mechanisms of executive function and the "thought freeing" activity of spontaneous, self-directed daydreams.

The article discussing this study can be read here.

Mo Farah breaks world-indoor 2-mile record

His time was 8:03.40, closing the final 400m in 57.6s. The previous indoor record was held by Kenenisa Bekele, 8:04.35.

Many congratulations to Mr. Farah and his coach.  

A nice write-up can be read here, and the race can be watched here.

Young Adults: 1980 and Today

The new Census data provide a striking look at how today’s young adults are different on many important demographic characteristics compared to their counterparts in 1980. We can also see from the Census study how the geographic center of gravity in the US for the highest-paying jobs for young Americans has dramatically shifted over the last several generations, from cities in the Midwest and Rust Belt states to the West Coast (Silicon Valley and Seattle) and East Coast (Boston, Washington, New York, Baltimore). That shift reflects the never-ending gales of Schumpeterian creative destruction that characterize a market economy and result in some industries and geographical regions emerging as economic centers of entrepreneurship, innovation, growth, investment, employment opportunities for young people, and rising income levels, only to eventually have those forces of economic change shift and move away to other industries and other geographical regions, leaving reduced opportunities and lower levels of incomes in the once-prosperous cities.

That comes from a post by Mark J. Perry, and is interesting throughout.

It can be read here.