Stoic – Page 10 – Wilder, Wealthy, and Wise

The Funniest and Most Meaningful Black Friday Post . . . Ever. Now 50% off, Today Only.

“It’s Black Friday, the day when ordinary house moms turn into vicious bargain hunting animals, blinded by low prices, and eager to get the Christmas shopping done early. If this was a zoo I’d say run for you lives, but this is Buy More!” – Chuck

Mabel’s family was upset with her on the drive home. They used Apple® products and didn’t have Windows™. (I’m sorry for that joke, but by way of explanation I’m a father.)

Like many people, I try to avoid the stores on Black Friday. If I were a mullet wearing geezer with my toga full of elf chum (please don’t ask me to draw a picture of that, I’m not even sure what elf chum is, and now that I’ve written it I feel vaguely dirty), I’d say Black Friday is maybe the one real American holiday that most people agree on. Christmas is great, but when was the last time a group of people attempted to choke each other to death to get a gift-wrapped package of underwear on Christmas? Never. But put a 50%-off tag on socks with a pattern of Iron Man® smoking a bong with Donald Duck™ on them? Heck, I’d drop kick a calico kitten through a box fan for a bargain like that! Sure, we have great holidays like Fourth of July, but nobody ever died in a riot for 2 for 1 fireworks.

Bargains! Free stuff! Perhaps that’s the new slogan of the United States – Free Stuff! And don’t forget that buying stuff is easier than actual salvation or real effort to be a better person. And even if you don’t like toast – that toaster is only $5. You can learn to love toast.

Perhaps Black Friday not only our true holiday, it is perhaps our true religious holiday.

You can tell that these zombies aren’t leftists – they don’t appear to be lecturing anyone.

I’m not going to make fun of people who are short of cash and frugal and truly need the items that they buy, but that only accounts for a small percentage of purchasers on Black Friday. As Americans, we have been conditioned to shop. Until we drop. And don’t let Debt stand in your way. And I use the word “we” for a reason – I’ve done it, too. No, I would sooner investigate my hotel room with a black light and then still stay there than go in a store the day after Thanksgiving. But I do have the Internet. And I’ve bought stupid stuff:

Dog Waxer – rechargeable! Never let your unwaxed dog embarrass you again.
Solar Powered Night Light – Works best on a sunny day.
Internet-Connected Underwear – With your app, you can check the temperature and humidity.
Night Vision Scope for Caulk Gun – Now you can apply your caulk, even in the dark.
Crossword Puzzle Book for Dogs – Just as it says.

So, yes, I’ve bought my share of stupid crap, which made me ask the question: why do we buy useless crap at all?

Impulse: I see shiny things. I must have them. The depths of the brain, that part that grunts instead of talking and that never uses underarm deodorant that drives this fascination. Just give it meat, scotch, and women and the impulses will go away.
Herd Mentality: I will fight you to the death for the toaster that puts the fuzzy face of Bob Ross on toast! They actually make a toaster that does this and I am hoping that the Discovery Channel® has a series coming where people fight to the death for consumer items. Makes me feel so, well, Roman. Humans want to have the things that other humans have, which is why so many ex-wives exist. I’ll just stop right there.

What a happy little toaster!

Makes You Feel Better: Shopping really works to make you feel better – it gives you a sense of accomplishment. No matter how hard your day was, and what tasks you face, there is a 100% chance that you can buy something and it will make you feel a little bit better. It gives you that sense of control, no matter how poor your decisions were today, you can find a breakfast cereal or, say, 436 pairs of shoes. You can make a choice and follow through. People even have a name for this type of shopping – “Retail Therapy.”

The nice thing about Retail Therapy? It costs about the same as real therapy, and you can still hate your mother when you’re done shopping for those 436 pairs of shoes. So you have hatred and shoes left. I call that a win-win.

Why not shop until you drop? You can. If it’s not a problem:

Well, if you’re going into debt for power tools just to chase the kids around with (a circular saw works well as long as you have enough extension cord) or sacrificing your ability to retire just so you can have a “Hello Kitty®” ashtray, it’s a problem.
If you have boxes of stuff you’ve never opened inside of other boxes of stuff you’ve never opened, it’s either a problem or a movie premise for Leonardo DiCaprio© for a movie called Inshopsion. There is a rule, however, that DVDs starring Burt Reynolds™ do NOT count in this category, so don’t even ask.

If you really need something to complete you, shopping isn’t it. It’s short term, and only lasts until you’ve bought the next thing. And the more crap you buy, the more confusion you bring into your life – sooner or later you have to spend more time managing the crap than it is worth. Again, I know this from experience – my own. And I still can’t find that spare kidney I bought on Kidney-Bay® on Black Friday back in 2012. Maybe it moved back to the original owner.

How do you cut back? Thankfully, the solutions are simple:

Replace shopping with something that’s a real achievement. Blogging for thousands of wonderful readers who have wonderful hygiene, immaculate mullets, and stunning good looks counts. You know, as an example.
Look for real competition in the world. I mean, soccer was invented by European beatnik nudist jugglers to provide something to do while their berets dried and they drank cappuccino. But, yes, even soccer will do. Find something.
Bored? Learn to not be bored. Take up chainsaw juggling. European beatniks do it all the time between cigarettes and poetry readings.
One of the things we don’t thing about too much when we think about shopping is time. And time, my friends, is all we have, each day that ticks away is lost forever. Plan your time to be and do something real.

We have to shop. We have to buy things. But as the Roman philosopher Seneca said, any over used virtue becomes a vice. Or was that Captain Kirk? I’ll go check my 12 disc collection of Star Trek: The Original Series Commemorative 32^nd Anniversary Edition Complete with Pink Tribble Box Set. I got it on Black Friday in 2009 on sale for $24.99. It might be here over behind the Original Smokey and the Bandit 2 jacket. Who knew that Burt Reynolds was exactly my height, but only weighed 155 pounds? Thing doesn’t even fit around the shoulders.

Eastbound and Down.

Bonus: Deliverance interview between Burt and Johnny.

Okay – I love comments, and would love to have more, so don’t be shy. Or I will dropkick another kitten through a box fan. And don’t forget – you can just subscribe to this in the box above, and I’ll show up at least three times a week in your inbox. Which won’t break it. And I won’t send or sell your address, ever.

The 13 Keys to College Success. Beer Bongs Suspiciously Absent.

“Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son. Mr. Hoover, president of Delta house? 1.6; four C’s and an F. A fine example you set! Daniel Simpson Day . . . has no grade point average. All courses incomplete. Mr. Blutarsky. Zero. Point. Zero.” – Animal House

Meet my freshman adviser, Mr. Morpheus.

Here is my advice to a new college student, or even one currently in college if they’re slow. Hey, roomies, if they’re currently passed out on the floor of their bedroom after one too many $1 Zombies® at Applebees™, you can write the following post on their face in Sharpie® for them. Don’t worry, they’ll thank you later.

Sage Wilder Advice Number One: College is an investment.

And not like a lame “investment as a metaphor” – college is an actual, real investment of your time and somebody’s money.

College costs a lot, tens of thousands of dollars a year, plus the cost is going up every year. The primary reason costs go up is that colleges are a great machine that turns the maximum amount that you can borrow for college into debt, a hangover, and twenty extra pounds of weight where you used to have a waist, all while giving you fancy coffee and climbing walls. Why those things? It’s well known that Socrates did no teaching until after he’d had his caffeine and a good climb.

The other cost of college is your time. During the four or five years you spend chasing sorority girls studying hard for a degree, you could be out working, making money. The time spent at college has this second cost – the income you give up – embedded in it.

So how do you make money?

Well, depends on your degree. If you’re getting a degree that’s not directly tied to a career, often you emerge from college well suited to be a retail clerk. Oops! You were qualified for that before you went to school. Hmm.

Degrees matter. Science. Engineering. Accounting. Finance. Economics. Computers. Construction Management.

Those are good. They pay well, and there are often more jobs than graduates.

Sociology. Anything with “Studies” in the target. Exercise Science. Music. Art History. Anthropology (over 12,000 grads, 700 jobs). Art.

These are a waste of your time and effort, if you expect to work in those fields and/or be able to afford to eat anything more than ramen.

Average return also depends on what school you go to. Not as much, but there really is a difference in the job offer you’ll get if you go to Northern Southwestern State Community College versus, say, Harvard. Ahhh, good old NSWSCC, no one can hold a candle to you! The school does matter, both to employers and to the quality of connections you make, but more on that below. If you’re more likely to impress an employer with your school? Yeah, you’re more likely to get a job offer.

What’s the net cost? This varies greatly by school. Every school has a list price – what they’re saying they’re going to charge you. But after scholarships and other discounts, what will you really pay? This hits to the cost side of the equation. Combined with the lower income during the college years, this is the cost your degree must pay back.

And it has to pay this back not with your total income, but the difference in what you would have made if you never graduated college. And we all know that no one could ever make fortunes like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg if you don’t finish college. What? Gates and Zuckerberg were dropouts? Hmm. Well, could it be that college graduates would be more successful . . . even if they didn’t graduate?

That’s the difficulty – you can’t live your life 15 times and measure which way you would be more successful. But college has free beer and climbing walls, so, it’s got that going for it.

Sage Wilder Advice Number Two: GPA is probably important.

When I was doing college recruiting, we specifically recruited for graduates from a window – too high a GPA? We were pretty concerned that they might be, umm, not real humans, but that was a very long time ago. Grade inflation has taken the average grade at Harvard to an “A”. Yes. The average grade is an “A”. So if you don’t have a great GPA? You’re below average.

But the second part is we can use GPA as a real estimate of what you’ve learned. So, study! Spend the hours, learn the material. Get together with friends to study. Have smart friends. Get examples of old tests, and study those. By my junior year at school, I was studying an average of eighty hours for a test in my harder subjects. For one, I spent over 120 hours studying for the final. I was thrilled when I got a ‘B’. There were about two A’s given for about 150 students. So, I was thrilled with my ‘B.’ Especially since I dropped that class the first time I took it.

Yes. Drop classes if your grade is like one of those “fail” videos on YouTube. Oh, wait. Those fail videos took the name from the grade. Yes. Drop the class. Go again next time. Avoid YouTube. Seriously.

And the best way to a good GPA? Go to class. I had one class that was just . . . so very early. On the occasions I went, I actually learned lots of stuff that was helpful and showed up on the test. But going to class was . . . so early. So I didn’t.

I passed. Barely. And I was thrilled about it. Easier method? Actually go to class.

Sage Wilder Advice Number Three: It really is who you know.

Successful people hang out with successful people. Make connections at college. When you graduate, you should know 100% of the top 10% smartest people in your major. Also? Know the rich people. They might not be the best students, but I have never gotten a job from a poor person. Meet them. Don’t be fake or lie, but don’t miss the chance to hang with the son or daughter of a billionaire. One major mechanism of moving social classes is, well, being useful to a billionaire’s kid. His dad will set you up. Or, better yet? Marry one.

I had one friend who went to college and married an heiress who was worth over a billion dollars. Nah, just kidding. It didn’t work out, so he dumped her. And, yes, that’s a true story.

But almost every job I ever got was from someone I knew who liked me. So know those people.

Sage Wilder Advice Number Four: Avoid debt. Avoid debt. Avoid debt.

Debt is horrible. Student loan debt is the worst. With a car loan, a home loan? Declare bankruptcy and you can walk away. How do you get rid of student loan debt? Die. Bankruptcy won’t do it. I wrote about it here (College Funding, Value and Grade Inflation: Should Your Kid Go? Should You Pay?).

Even with an awesome job, college debt is a killer, and you don’t even have a crappy used car to show for it.

The best strategy? Have someone else pay. Get a scholarship. Have your parents pay or help. The Reserve Officer Training Corps? Yeah, you can get the Army, Navy, or Air Force to pay for your college. And all you owe them is one weekend a month, and two weeks a year. Not a bad deal for tens of thousands of dollars in tuition.

Sage Wilder Advice Number Five: Nobody cares.

Instructors and professors don’t care about you. The school doesn’t care about you. Your friends? They might care about you, but as soon as you’re off campus if you flunk out? Yeah, that door is closed.

It’s not meant to be a demotivator. You were raised and told you were a super special precious snowflake of a human. But the reality is that if you’re “one in a million” that there are 7,200 people just like you on Earth. And if you flunk out? The college doesn’t care. The world doesn’t care. Your mom and dad will care. But don’t get mad at the situation – the situation doesn’t care.

Your roommate might care. But he or she might be happy you’ve headed to other locations. Privacy so they can play their progressive jazz harmonica at 2:24am!

Sage Wilder Advice Number Six: Activities are a yes.

Join clubs. Join sororities. Join professional organizations. Do all of those things.

I was in a car reviewing résumés from my alma mater while on a recruiting trip. The leader of the recruiting team, a graduate of the same school as me, asked about a particular candidate.

“What clubs was he in?”

I listed them.

“What offices did he hold?”

“Um, none.”

“So, a member, member, member. Pass. We’re looking for leaders.”

This was the guy who hired me. So, if you’re in a club? Do more than be a member. Lead. Bring cookies or beer. Do something.

Heck, that might be great advice for life: don’t be a non-player character.

Sage Wilder Advice Number Seven: Manners.

You’ll be surprised how often you’ll be expected to have a tie. So, have one. Or whatever fancy things girls wear. Dresses? Pantsuits? Whatever. Have at least one of those with you on day one at school.

Also: drink slowly. You’re not used to alcohol.

Don’t eat like a pig. Your mom taught you better than that. Use your knife and fork properly and KEEP YOUR ELBOWS OFF THE TABLE.

And don’t try to eat a hot dog in one bite. It might nearly cause you to choke to death. Not that I’d know.

Sage Wilder Advice Number Eight: Relationships.

Get married later. Like after you have a job and some money. But have lots of relationships. Go to parties. After you’re done studying and your homework is done, unless you’re going with your billionaire girlfriend. Also? Don’t leave any evidence on YouTube.

Sage Wilder Advice Number Nine: Have a “Plan B.”

Your high school boy/girlfriend will dump you. Your plans for Friday will change. Life in college is the most tumultuous period of your life. Ride the wave. You will not have the same major on day one as on day 300. Your ideas will evolve. Wonderful!

Sage Wilder Advice Number Ten: Discipline.

Be disciplined in sleep, study, exercise. College will try to pull all of your routines away. Maintain them even though you’ll see a lot more nudity than ever before in your life. Odd nudity. Weird nudity. Party nudity. Covered in 7-11 nacho cheese nudity. But keep your discipline.

Sage Wilder Advice Number Eleven: Go all in.

When Cortez or Obama or whoever it was that conquered the Aztecs landed on the beach, he burned the boats. That way his sailors had no way out. They had to be committed to the conquest. Thus, they peacefully slaughtered thousands of Aztecs until they converted them all to Scientology. I think.

But the point remains: If you’re in college, you’re in. All in. Go for it.

Sage Wilder Advice Number Twelve: Is it for you?

The narrative is simple: do well in high school, go to college, get a good job, work 40 years, retire and die.

Okay, we’re all going to die. But what if . . . you could get a good job after high school without college?

You can.

My neighbor is a lineman. That means he knowingly works with high voltage lines to fix them when they’re broken. This is a big deal after hurricanes – these are the guys that bring Netflix® back. And they make good cash.

So do plumbers. And guys that fix air conditioning. And guys that suck septic systems. All of those people make pretty decent money, at least around here. And they don’t have to worry about office politics, or showering.

I had one youth I worked with in Scouting. He wanted one of the careers above. My basic reaction was to tell him – “Go to college.” I would have been wrong. He has three job offers. He’ll be making $80k a year before an engineer his age will.

Good for him.

Sage Wilder Advice Number Thirteen: Enjoy.

Life is like a bodybuilding elf. It’s short and hard. So? Enjoy yourself. But understand that your choices at 18 might impact your ability to be a billionaire when you’re 30. Or 50.

Unless you married the billionaire heiress. You did do that, didn’t you?

Bigfoot, Aliens, Farrah Fawcett, and the Guide to Real Inner Peace

“I have droppings of someone who saw bigfoot.” – Futurama

I think this happened to me in the summer of 1982, but I don’t remember when, or where I was. Pictured (green abductor): Brett Kavanaugh.

I was staring straight up at the ceiling in my bedroom, under the seven* heavy quilts that made the -40°F nights comfortable in my unheated** bedroom, every muscle tense. This was what terror felt like.

I had seen him, or at least his glowing red eyes, on the small hill that was visible 1,175 feet from my bedroom window. And I knew that he was headed toward me. I knew that he had seen me.

I couldn’t see him headed toward me since I was too scared to look out the window, but I knew his inhuman, ground-devouring strides would be taking him to my window soon enough. And then? What would he do?

I gradually fell asleep, as the adrenaline drained from my nine-year-old bloodstream. I remember wondering as I dozed off how exactly I knew that the hill was exactly 1,175 feet from my back window, and then I remembered. Google® Maps™.

Okay, I didn’t know that it was 1,175 feet from my window until just now when I measured it on Google® Maps©. But it was uncomfortably close.

What, though, was it?

It was bigfoot. I had been reading a UFO magazine that day. The UFO magazine had several helpful facts for me:

Bigfoot was, in fact, not a creature from Earth at all. Bigfoot was an alien.
Bigfoot was a psychic alien.
Bigfoot, the psychic alien, had glowing red eyes.
Bigfoot was known to inhabit the hills near where I lived. Since I lived in the hills – the exact hills the little gray and white map in the pulp UFO magazine had shaded as “high bigfeet activity areas associated with alien psychic bigfeet that will probably kill, dismember, and eat wee John Wilder in his sleep, and if he’s lucky, in that order.”
Okay, the graph didn’t say they would kill, dismember and eat people, but it did talk about increasing incidents of violence against people.

So, I was a little tired when I went off to school the next day. Thankfully, I also concluded that the glowing red eyes might have been something else, like a reflection in the window. Or maybe that was a memory that psychic bigfoot put into my nine-year-old brain?

Really, it had been quite a long time since I was allowed to be scared, specifically since the night when I knocked on my parents’ bedroom door at 2AM and Pop Wilder made it clear that my presence was no longer requested at 2AM waking him up because I was scared. At that point, I became more afraid of what Pop Wilder would do to me versus anything a psychic bigfoot could do. Besides, I was sure Pop Wilder was real.

Alien psychic bigfeet? Not so sure that they existed.

Farrah kept me safe from the bigfeet. And made me feel real funny when I was 13.

Honestly, after this one night of terror I didn’t give bigfoot a whole lot of thought. My focus shifted to girls, where huge feet and lots of hair wasn’t exactly a selling point for me.

Words only a teenage male bigfoot would type into Google®.

So, I grew up. Then one day, I heard the words again . . . Alien Psychic Bigfoot.

The Mrs. and I were travelling across country, and listening to a radio program as we drove through a cool high desert night. A guest was on talk radio, patiently explaining that he was a bigfoot researcher, but more specifically, a bigfoot researcher that had the theory that bigfoot wasn’t a critter, it was, instead, a some sort of alien creation, just like in the UFO magazine from my youth.

But it gets better.

You’d think that the biggest enemy of bigfoot researchers would be skeptics? No.

The biggest enemy of bigfoot researchers is . . . bigfoot researchers that have a different theory than them.

So, if you’re in the “bigfoot is just an animal that we haven’t found conclusive evidence for yet” camp then your biggest enemy is the “bigfoot is a psychic alien” guy.

And vice versa.

This makes me laugh, inside. But it’s a truism of life. When people believe in something, their biggest enemy isn’t someone who doesn’t believe, it’s someone who believes, but just a little bit differently than them, most often over something that doesn’t have any real bearings on the truth of their belief.

I was talking about a particular Christian denomination with a friend.

He asked, “Are they dunkers or splashers?” Dunkers are those that baptize by immersing the baptized into water, while splashers use a Papal-Approved® Super-Soaker™ to baptize.

I replied, “I have no idea.”

“It’s important, you know.”

And that’s always amused me – the biggest fights are about the smallest things, often with the people that are closest to you in belief.

So I guess that’s the thing that I learned when alien psychic bigfoot held me in its hairy loving arms: love one another – it’s the only way to get to a true inner and outer peace. Except for the “bigfoot is just a critter we don’t have proof of” people – don’t love them. They’re awful.***

To be clear, I do not claim to have seen a real bigfoot. I also do not claim to have seen a UFO, except the band, UFO, and them only on YouTube®.

*Yes. Seven is an excessive number of quilts. It was also quite warm.

**The bedroom was unheated because I turned off the electric baseboard heaters, and, in an escalating war with Ma Wilder, I eventually flipped the breakers off. Eventually she got the message. I like/liked it cold. I even had the windows cracked sometimes when it was below zero. I was an awful child.

***Just kidding. I don’t really care. My current bet is they’re both wrong.

What is Wealth? Is it More Than Money?

“Aristotle was not Belgian, the principle of Buddhism is not “every man for himself”, and the London Underground is not a political movement. Those are all mistakes, Otto. I looked them up.” – A Fish Called Wanda

This may be the most important philosophical question of our lifetime, especially if you’re haulin’ oats.

The other day I was listening to the radio and the hosts (Walton and Johnson) were discussing wealth. Since actual radio around Casa Wilder consists of a single AM station broadcasting crop reports and lean cattle futures and an FM station that is “All Hall and Mostly Oates, All the Time!” Therefore? We listen to radio stations on the Internet. Walton and Johnson are out of Houston, but we also lived in Alaska, so we also often listen to a station we like out of Fairbanks. Obviously, when the radio in the bedroom says it’s -40°F and the kitchen radio says it’s 85°F, there’s likely to be wind and a rainstorm down the hallway.

Maybe I misheard that lyric?

Anyhow, Walton and Johnson were discussing wealth. They mentioned that a recent study showed that, in Houston, a survey said that to be considered “wealthy” you had to have $2.5 million dollars in net worth. To be considered “well off” you only needed to have $1.4 million dollars – which is quite a bargain – many people work a whole year and don’t make that much money!

After a bit of research, I found the source of the story: Charles Schwab®, the investment firm. You can read the study here (LINK). In San Francisco (according to Schwab©), it’s even more money than Houston to be considered wealthy: $4.1 million.

Looking at the best numbers I could find, the median household net worth is about $100,000. To be in the paltry $2.5 million Houston-wealthy club (versus the expensive San Francisco $4.1 million club), means that your household is in better financial shape than 96% of American households.

But that’s the problem with this survey – since, at most, 4% of the people taking the survey would be considered “wealthy,” most of the people taking it have about as much idea about how much money it requires to be wealthy as a monkey trying to understand Nietzsche. I mean, apes read philosophy, but they just don’t understand it, Otto. And I imagine people who aren’t wealthy don’t understand that, either. The answer is just a bit more complicated . . . .

I’ve done about 70 posts on wealth, but I need to step back and ask that question: what is wealth? To say it’s purely a number is to show that you don’t understand wealth. Money represents not a fixed number, but a possibility.

If you measure wealth in love . . .

What is wealth?

Wealth is time. In fact, if you go to the basic equation – your life is made entirely out of time – nothing else. Your life literally is the sum of the things that you do with your time. So wealth is doing what you want to do with your time, which means doing what you want to do with your life. It’s entirely probable that a Wall Street investment banker with $10,000,000 in the bank from a job he hates and shrill wife with more implanted silicon than actual original equipment is less wealthy than a hunting guide who lives in a log cabin in Alaska who has less than $5000 in the bank.

In my case, I’ve traded a LOT of time for money in the past. My theory was to work hard while I was young so that I could build my career so I could save enough money so that my family would be secure in the future. You would say that working all the time is not a very wealthy (or in some cases healthy) thing to do, except . . . I loved the job I was doing! In many cases it was stressful. Difficult. Uncertain. Long hours. And when I did an awesome job? Yeah, it was like winning the World Junior Baking Championship. Not that I can bake, or even that there is a World Junior Baking Championship, but I think you know exactly what I mean.

I watched the documentary Lynyrd Skynyrd: If I Leave Here Tomorrow this weekend, and those guys simply loved playing music. They’d do it all day long, even when they weren’t getting paid. Being a rock star was awesome, sure, but it wasn’t the point. They were wealthy as soon as they could get paid for playing small clubs. Arenas were just the gravy.

And, yes, I’ve said in the past (and still maintain) that to support yourself, support your family you might really have to suck it up, buttercup, and work jobs you don’t like because an Alaskan hunting guide has really crappy health insurance and his spouse has neurohemoblastaphobia which can only be cured by a mouse egg (before the baby mice hatch) extract that’s been strained through bigfoot hair and breathed on by an honest politician. Yes, it’s as expensive as it sounds. Then you have to work the job you have rather than a job where you play guitar all day.

Wealth is freedom. Could you quit your job tomorrow without having a new one and still meet all of your obligations? For most people, the answer is no, either because the obligations are too high or the amount of cash they have is too low – 60% of people in the country live paycheck to paycheck. However, sometimes it’s self-inflicted.

Some people trade their freedom for a car payment. I’ve seen people who purchase a $60,000 pickup, and then have to pay $1,200 a month in car payments. I don’t know about you, but my 4,000 square foot house has a payment of less than $1,000, so it’s not making me freer to be tied to a depreciating asset that I have to pay $14,400 a year for. Plus insurance. Plus whatever taxes the state would extract for a $60,000 vehicle.

I have a pickup. It cost $6,000. I paid with cash. It didn’t cost very much because the car dealership was having a hard time selling a stick shift. The truck runs fine. Engine is a bit small, but 95% of the time it’s just being driven by a teenager to school and back.

But if your idea of wealth is a $60,000 pickup, I’ll never be wealthy in your eyes.

But I can be free without a $60,000 pickup.

And, no, I’m not a radical get rid of stuff and never buy anything sort of person – I’ve probably got more books on some topics than any library in my state. And, I’ve bought more than my share of crap in my life, but very little of it has made me happy, and very little of it has made me a better person. Except for the PEZ®, of course. And I’ve been on some incredible vacations.

Wealth is time. Wealth is freedom. And your wealth is determined by things you “need.”

The less you need? The wealthier you are, and the more choices you have.

Retirement Spreadsheets, The Apocalypse, and You

“Mama always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.” – Forrest Gump

I have no idea where this came from. But it’s exactly like the one they read to me when I was a wee Wilder.

I have an enormous spreadsheet. Okay, it’s not really enormous – I’ve made and used much bigger ones at work to calculate the number of licks to get to the center of at Tootsie Roll® Tootsie Pop™. The number of licks is 573,212 – and not one lick more or less.

This particular spreadsheet:

Has yearly calculations from the year 2014 (when I started it) until I turn 103 years old.
Divides my spending into 16 categories.
Has separate rates of inflation for each category (average inflation rate is 3.6%).
Has spots for assumed investment income as well as variable future income from work.
Has projected balances on 11 accounts, plus assumed rates of growth.
Graphically projects income and net worth . . . until I reach an age where 99.9% of people are dead.

I did use this spreadsheet for one pretty important decision – whether to change jobs back in 2014. My option back then was to chuck my current job and take a job where I would have a risky proposition at making a big payout in three years or so. The big payout would have been enough to retire on when combined with my net worth back then, for sure. Attractive, right?

But it was risky. How risky? My first guess was that there was a pretty low probability that it would pay out. How low? Maybe 20% chance?

I ranked that against staying in my current job. I did the math, and it looked like if I could keep my current job for three more years that I could take a differing job, say a high school teacher or flaming poodle-juggler (juggling flaming poodles, not juggling poodles while on fire – that would be stupid), and still keep my standard of living. Three years of high stress for (relative) economic freedom, or at least more choices.

Hmmm.

I ended up not taking the job, and the risky part won – the job would have been worth much less than the job I would have left, plus the boss I would have worked for? Yeah, he died three months later. And my math was right – I’m about where I expected to be as far as net worth.

But I know my prediction is wrong:

It assumes that inflation is rather low for a long-ish period – something that I’m not sure is realistic in an economy where the government is attempting to print money as fast as Elon Musk says stupid things on Twitter®. Seriously, Elon, filter, dude, filter.
My investments earn about 2.5% every year, after inflation.
There’s nothing in there about a civil war or societal collapse.

Huh? What investments make 2.5% every year after inflation?

No, I kid.

But there’s an entire subgroup of people of people who are preparing for societal collapse – preppers. They even make television shows about them so that people who are stockpiling food for when the apocalypse comes advertise where they keep all that food. Thankfully none of their neighbors will remember that after the apocalypse.

I guess (in a small way) that I’m a prepper, too. The spreadsheet was my prepping – preparing for my career future – and my saving for eventual retirement is prepping, too.

Prepping is preparing, and when done right, it should prepare you for a range of options. I could liquidate my retirement fortune and buy lots of oatmeal, bendie-straws and PEZ®, but in the sad event that Mad Max® is not the template for the future world, well, what do I do with all those bendie-straws now that California has made them illegal since they enacted common-sense straw registration.

In Houston, we rode out Hurricane Ike back in 2008. Here is part of what I wrote then – you can find the full thing here (LINK) if you scroll down a bit:

Wow. Didn’t see that coming.

Oh, wait, we did. On radar, on the radio, on the Intertubes. As I said, it was unlikely that we’d stop until the power stopped or the beer ran out.

I still have beer.

At 6:20PM, the lights went out. They flickered on, off, on, off, on, then finally, utterly, off.

(Skipping long description of storm – and moving to the next day.)

We listened to the radio, which mainly told us that the power company wasn’t going to do anything that day (though, that afternoon, The Mrs. indicated that the power had flickered while The Boys and I went out to reconnoiter. Sorry that we missed it, but we did find that there was power on either side of us, not three miles away. No stores were open, and we had no phones. Thankfully, one of the previous announcements for hurricane preparedness had told us to have “food, water, and ammunition” (I am not making this up). We had food for a month, water for a similar time, plus more ammunition than the Pakistani army. We were set.

Eventually, washing came up. I avoided the subject. The Mrs. doused The Boy and Pugsley with coldish water (they howled) and then we ate cold Spaghetti-O’s® and sat around in the dim candlelight. Living in the 18th Century was rapidly losing its charm.

The radio had limited information. The hosts kept telling us to check their website for more information, even though 98% of their listeners were without power. Perhaps the average person has a hand-crank satellite Internet connection?

Then FEMA came on and indicated that you could contact them by calling (no phone!) or by Internet. The Mayor of Houston indicated that within 24 hours they would have 24 trucks of ice in, but he didn’t say where they’d be. He didn’t know.

A representative from our power provider indicated that we might be out of power forever, really, since they had no idea where that mythical lightning in the wire came from. It was really a mystery to them. They even indicated that changing a light bulb might require Federal authority. They began blaming FEMA for the problem. (In actuality, they said that it might be four weeks until the power was back on, in which case I would be looking for a suit of armor, a mighty steed, and a really cool battle-axe.)

On night one, The Mrs. and I had grilled hot dogs over candles. It worked okay, but our hot dogs tasted a bit like apple potpourri. We started cooking over propane the next day.

The next morning I made coffee for The Mrs. and I. It improved our disposition greatly. Then I cooked ribeye steaks that I’d gotten on sale and frozen. That helped our disposition more. Ribeye for breakfast? Mmmmm.

I took The Boy and Pugsley to see if we could get a generator. This act in Houston (currently) would be like searching for Paris Hilton’s virginity – just not there anymore. Lowe’s® was open, and had a generator. Nah, just kidding. They had bottled water and some Chiclets©.

It appears that hurricanes smell like sex to fire ants (jerkusantus invictus). I got bit five times pulling branches out of my formerly fire-ant free backyard. I then unleashed a genocide of Biblical proportions on them, making the chemical warfare of WWI look like a Disney production of The Little Mermaid® in Candyland™.

I went back inside, and the power-gods deigned to tease us again. The lights flickered during dinner (T-bones and bratwurst saved from spoiling through immolation).

The utter lack of information was maddening. Anecdotal reports of FEMA commandeering truckloads of generators. Reports that Responders (I am ever so tired of that word) being stuck without food – you’da thunk they would have thought far enough ahead to stock up their patrol cars with Snickers®, pantyhose and Pez™ before heading to Houston. No. A Congresscritter was on the air complaining that the responders didn’t food, and wanted THE PEOPLE WHO HAD NO POWER TO COME TO THE NICE AIR CONDITIONED AND POWERED PLACE AND BRING THEM FOOD.

If you’re a responder without chow, you’re part of the problem, not the solution, bubba. I was not feeling sympathetic as I threw out $200 in spoiled food.

Power? That was a myth at this point, the electric company representative, and never really existed. Those things that you call “outlets”? Used for hanging meat to feed short animals. The representative suggested burning furniture to boil water to create steam to power a crude generator. I would have built one, but I had no power for my welder.

We went to bed early. Nice. The next day I went to work, to an office with power. And ice. And TV. I charged the laptops so the kids could watch Garfield© DVD’s. I had hot coffee. A functioning microwave to dry my socks. I’m not sure why I came home. Oh, yeah, the fam.

I headed home. I saw . . . our porch lights on.

The mythical lightning had returned.

We were actually really prepared for Hurricane Ike. And we were only out of power for a few days but in reality we could have handled several weeks.

And preppers are really prepared for emergencies. Some of them have complete surgery kits, antibiotics, and armored vehicles on remote homesteads powered by solar power. Plus they have gear to survive chemical warfare similar to what an army battalion could attack with after a late-night visit to Taco Bell®.

But the future is funny, because it’s squirmy. It won’t be as you expect or predict:

You might have higher inflation.
A totalitarian government might arise when Chelsea Clinton is named Pope®.
You might rip the crotch of your jeans during a softball game.
The Swiss might finally snap and launch a surprise nuclear attack at the rest of the world.

Each situation that you might run into requires a different response, but in the meantime you have to plan to live a life, but have plans to respond to most reasonable situations.

Should you plan for the stores to be out of food for a week? Sure. Should you plan for no power for a week? Absolutely – a big ice storm can take out the power for months in some locations.

But if the stores were closed for months? Yeah, that’s a response that’s categorically different, and depends a LOT on where you live. I live where most of the food comes from – there are grain elevators and cows all around. In New York City? Not so much. But like a wedding between Vladimir Putin and California Governor Jerry Brown, though possible, it’s just not very likely.

Are there general rules to a major disaster? Maybe. Here’s a first pass at some based on my experiences where I was in situations that approximated a disaster:

Be flexible. You don’t know the future, but if you’re alert, and think, you can guess at some probably things that might
Be the first out of the door. When it’s obvious that your situation has gone to hell, get out. Get in line for the re-routed plane. Get a rental car. Being late makes everyone in front of you your competition. Don’t put yourself in that position.
Understand that gone is gone. The universe doesn’t care if it’s not right. The universe doesn’t care if it’s not fair. And during an emergency, neither should you. Your plans are changed. Your house is on fire. Your PEZ® has been stolen by the ghost of Tom Petty in a kimono. Deal with the situation, not your feelings.
Understand that the old rules may not apply. Again, deal with the situation, not your feelings.
Regions matter. Your behavior should tie to the location you’re in. I’d rather be in central Iowa a year after an apocalypse than Chicago on a Tuesday.
Values and prices change rapidly. $10 for a bag of ice is a bargain if it saves $200 in food.
Laying food and supplies in before an event makes you smart, and removes you from being part of the problem. Doing it after the disaster makes you a hoarder and part of the problem. Looters and hoarders get shot.
Preppers look like hoarders to hungry people. Don’t talk about your stuff, or sit on the back deck having a ribeye when your neighbor is boiled grain from the silo near the railroad tracks.
Make sure you account for taxation when looking at your investment gains in your retirement portfolio.

Memorial Day and Memento Mori

“Ron’s sudden death was the catalyst for everything. Deborah told me later that it had been like a wake-up call for her. What people used to call the Memento Mori. Ron’s massive coronary had reminded her that life was just too short to waste any chance of true happiness.” – Men Who Stare At Goats

Philippe de Champaigne’s picture “Vanitas”, which was a Memento Mori – inspired picture – the fleeting life symbolized by the flower, death by the skull, and the amount of time until the casserole comes out of the oven symbolized by the hourglass.

Memorial Day in the United States is meant to commemorate soldiers who died on active duty for the United States armed forces. The total number of dead is about 1 million, although many families use Memorial Day to remember their dead relatives as well, bringing flowers to graves.

It’s also an appropriate time to bring up the concept of Memento Mori. Memento Mori is Latin for “remember death” – which is an admonition to, well, remember death. And this isn’t just about your relatives that have passed on, and not just for the soldiers that died. No, this is also a time to reflect on your own death.

And why should we reflect and remember death?

To start with, this is something that isn’t new. Seneca, the Roman stoic philosopher, said: “No man can have a peaceful life who thinks too much about lengthening it. Most men ebb and flow in wretchedness between the fear of death and the hardships of life; they are unwilling to live, and yet they do not know how to die.” Throughout the middle ages, the phrase Memento Mori was the lolcat meme of the day, if we put lolcat memes on tombs.

Reflect on death – if you knew that you wouldn’t wake up ever again, what would you do with your remaining hours? This reflection on death has multiple values to you and your character:

It reinforces that which is important to us, here today.
It exposes the frivolous that consume too much of our time.
It shows what’s really of value – the money you made will be less important than the lives you’ve changed.
You don’t have to worry about returning that library book.

All too often we think too little of those who sacrificed all for us. All too often we think too little of how we are spending (or squandering) our own lives.

So, on Memorial Day, by all means salute those who reluctantly laid down their lives for freedom. Spend time in remembrance of relatives who have passed on. And work to understand what is really important in your life.

Besides PEZ®, I mean.

Pizarro, The Economic Failure of Spain, and Why Bad News May Be Good News

“You don’t acquire the kind of wealth your uncle commanded by being like the rest of us.” – John Carter On Mars

I love the idea of people carrying me around everywhere I go. Now how do I become emperor again?

In 1532, Francisco Pizarro, accompanied by a force of less than 200 Spaniards, took on a portion of the main army of the Inca. Why? To defeat the entire Inca nation. The plan was at least partially desperation. To retreat would show weakness. As Cortez had burned his ships years earlier to give his men incentive to defeat the Aztec empire, Pizarro was all in.

Pizarro invited the Incan Emperor, Atahualpa, into a down called Cajamarca. Believing this to be safe since there were only 200 Spaniards, Atahualpa was accompanied “only” by 6,000 of his warriors and generals who were admittedly armed only with small battle axes. The Spaniards had waited, concealed and terrified in Cajamarca, for hours.

As Atahualpa was carried into the central square of the town, his honor guard parted to allow Atahualpa down from his litter. History records that he became angry when a single Friar approached him and asked him pledge fealty to the Spanish king, Charles, and become a Catholic. At the point where Atahualpa enraged, the Spanish sprang from their concealment, attacking the Incans with cannon, gunfire, and sword. The cavalry managed to abduct Atahualpa, and Pizarro himself blocked a sword strike at Atahualpa, catching at least part of the sword on his own hand.

Pizarro wanted Atahualpa as a hostage – a living Atahualpa could be used to give orders. A living Atahualpa could be used to prevent the 55,000 battle-hardened troops outside from rushing the Spaniards. A living Atahualpa could be ransomed.

Fake news, 1532 style: a picture of Pizarro meeting Atahualpa looking like everything is nice and rosy. Not pictured: The battle where Atahualpa lost his entire empire.

Also: Do you have a few minutes to listen to a story about Jesus?

And ransomed he was – for a room, 22’ by 8’ by 7’. Not just any room. But a room that big, filled with gold. And two the same size filled with silver. It’s certain that the gold wouldn’t have been solid, but would have been jewelry and other items. Let’s assume that it was 2/3 filled with air. That still means the gold would have been worth (in today’s dollars) at least $20 billion. The silver wouldn’t even be worth a billion.

Atahualpa was executed, anyway. The King of Spain was reportedly not pleased, but was pretty good with the over $4 billion that was his (minimum) cut of Atahualpa’s treasure. In November of 1533, Pizarro entered Cuzco, the capital of the Mayans as its conqueror. He would serve as governor of what is now Peru. Pizarro was killed in 1541 by the son of an assassinated rival.

Pizarro, with a fine, feathered hat. Makes me want to kill some tropical bird so I can have a cool feather. What, I don’t have to kill one for a feather? Spoilsport. Oh, and Pizarro had two kids with Atahualpa’s wife. She must have been attracted to that fine beard.

But the impact on Spain was enormous. The Conquistadors kept coming, and kept taking gold from the New World for over a century more. All of the treasure went back to Spain, and, initially, paid off the debts of the Spanish government. But it did other things, as well.

Seville, the Spanish city had over 16,000 shops making textiles out of silk in the year 1500, before the gold started to come in from the Americas. The population of Spain stood at (around) 10,000,000 at this time. 200 years after 1500, in 1700? The population of Spain had dropped to around 6,000,000.

What happened?

All of the gold. Such good fortune, right?

Where it would have been pretty rough for a foreign power to have taken over Spain (it was in pretty good shape, militarily) the gold from the New World did the job wonderfully. How?

All of the gold led to a change in the culture and value of Spain. Whereas before, Spain had been an industrious nation, after gold, things changed. Why do it, when you could have someone else do it? There were people in the Netherlands that would gladly build it for you and ship it to Spain. There were people in the Netherlands that would gladly come to Spain to do work that Spaniards wouldn’t do. Begging (among Spaniards) and living off of charity became to be seen as more virtuous than resorting to common work, at least that was the message the common man received from watching the nobility. Spain had traditionally been more than self-sufficient in providing agriculture. In 1578, one observer noted that the lack of production “was not the fault of the land, but was the fault of the people.”

Spain’s military and colonial establishment, however, continued to provide the currency that the country needed even as the country sank into indolence and despair.

And what brought about the despair?

Success.

Success took away the hard lessons in life. The Spanish military took the ambitious young men of Spain and allowed them to seek glory. The rest of Spain? Lived off of the glory. Eventually, the rot of success allowed the United States to completely remove the remaining Spanish colonies from Spain. When our new, steel warships fought against the Spanish? They often fought cannon that were 100 years old, and 70 years out of date.

Success allowed Spain to become an economic shambles. Success teaches no lessons.

In my life, everything that ever made me better was . . . awful. Losing a wrestling match. Being deeply in debt. Getting a divorce.

Losing a wrestling match (2-1, in overtime in 8^th grade) made me want to win. And I worked harder. Next time I wrestled that guy? I pinned him in 20 seconds.

Being in debt. That one mad me reexamine my entire life, or at least the spending associated with it. Each spending decision became a moral choice, since I was living in a constant state of (nearly) not having enough money to make it. There’s nothing immoral about being either rich or poor – it’s what you learn.

Getting a divorce, to me, allowed me to really understand how I’d contributed to the failure of the marriage, realize what I was really looking for in a partner, and allow me to both pick a more suitable wife as well as to become a more suitable husband.

If I had won the lottery or become a rock star at 20, what would I have learned? Well, besides learning what a car upholstered entirely in endangered species would drive like, probably not much. I’ve often said that if I’d been immensely wealthy when I was young, I probably wouldn’t have made it to 30. For whatever reason, I find that adversity and challenge are my friends. Success is nice, but only if it holds a challenge.

Holy cow – maybe the ultimate challenge is beating success?

Oh, Seneca figured that out 2000 years ago:

“Let us too overcome all things, with our reward consisting not in any wreath or garland, not in trumpet-calls for silence for the ceremonial proclamation of our name, but in moral worth, in strength of spirit, in a peace that is won forever once in any contest fortune has been utterly defeated.” – Seneca, Letters

So the next time you feel that you’ve just had a spot of bad luck? It might just be your best luck. Or, if you believe Seneca – no luck at all is required.

Tiny Fight Club, Taleb’s Skin in the Game, and Expensive Female Lawyer Reproduction

“A guy who came to Fight Club for the first time, he was a wad of cookie dough. After a few weeks, he was carved out of wood.” – Fight Club

The Boy and Pugsley square off in a Beta version of Fight Club. Bigfoot is in the background as an observer.

I have a fight club in my basement.

Not an officially sanctioned, Tyler Durden® approved Fight Club. Just a small fight club, mainly involving me, The Boy, Pugsley, and (sometimes) The Mrs.

What is this tiny fight club? Well, it’s wrestling.

Wrestling season ended for The Boy a little sooner than he’d planned – he’s in high school and would rather have gone on from districts. We talked about it, and he was ready to commit to working harder for the coming year – and I read somewhere that “working hard” was correlated with “success.” Sounds like crazy voodoo to me.

But sometimes a hard loss will do that to you much more effectively than a win – when I wrestled, I learned something from each match I lost. Some wins? I didn’t learn a thing. And losing can either break you or motivate you. The Boy sounded motivated.

Given The Boy’s commitment, we immediately started practicing for the next year. Since Pugsley wanted to join us, we threw him in for good measure – he’s five years younger and a bit smaller than The Boy. I will note that The Mrs. has been after me for about two years to take a more rigorous and structured approach to coaching The Boy and Pugsley in wrestling. My excuse was that I didn’t want to interfere with their actual wrestling coaches and the work that they were doing with my kids – what if I taught them moves differently than the coach liked? Yeah, a lame reason, but it was my reason.

But after this year for The Boy, he was ready. He only has so many days left of wrestling, and he committed that he’d work with me to make the most of them. Fair enough, I’d commit to him to work hundreds of hours with him to help him be better. So we started practice. But before we started practice? I started reading, studying, and preparing to coach.

I prepared to start Tiny Fight Club (no, this wasn’t a restart of my failed Midget Hammer Fighting League):

What sort of things should I teach them? In what order? Wrestling is easily the oldest sport known to humanity – men were wrestling each other when we still hadn’t figured out how to knock two rocks together to make a “clunk” sound and way before they’d invented the Nintendo® Switch™.

Why did we wrestle in the murky depths of history? To impress the ladies, sure. Also, because it’s fun. Most importantly, as Jordan Peterson would say, this combat allows us to create a hierarchy, and having that hierarchy is important, as I describe in my perfectly awesome post about Peterson’s book (LINK).

But something more happened. I became engrossed in study about how to coach and what to coach. And Pugsley still had one more tournament left . . . so we had exactly three practices until he would finish out his kid’s wrestling season.

Like The Boy, Pugsley had been, well, stalled in his progress if not taking a few steps backward this year. He just wasn’t getting much better. But we had those three practices. And with them, and in drilling he felt more confident than ever.

The good thing about that last tournament? There were only two people in his bracket. One was Dirk. Pugsley had never even taken Dirk down (where you gain control over your opponent) in the last three years. The other wrestler, Ezekiel, well, Pugsley hadn’t beaten Zeke in two years. Literally he had wrestled these two other boys a dozen times or so in the previous two years and hadn’t beaten either one of them. What was three hours of practice?

In the very first match in his weight, Dirk pinned Ezekiel. Quickly. As was usual. Dirk routinely took first place.

Dirk’s second match was against Pugsley. Pugsley immediately (and with confidence) went out and gained control and got the take down! He was up 2-0. Dirk was in such difficulty (and pain!) he’d done anything he could to get off the mat. Pugsley dominated him for most of the period, then got in a pretty bad position, and then got pinned. But he came off the mat with confidence – he knew what I had coached him in worked – he had been amazing against an opponent he’d never even scored on. The next match he pinned Ezekiel in the first period. Zeke was not pleased – the creampuff he always beat had grown fangs. And Pugsley was sold on our practices.

On the way home he talked about wanting to be a national collegiate wrestling champion. As Nassim Nicholas Taleb would say, I now had “Skin in the Game” and so did my boys. And it matters.

(The following link doesn’t get me any money as of the time of this writing, but at some point I might monetize it. It’s Taleb. Buy the book, anyway.)

I am thinking about reviewing this book, but reviewing Taleb might prove to be difficult in this blog – it might require five or more posts. We’ll see. Buy it, anyway, and read it.

In the process of working through wrestling with The Boy and Pugsley – I found something interesting (outside of the bruises randomly outcropping on my biceps, forearms, and chest). I felt more energized than I’d felt in ages. The very act of working with The Boy and Pugsley to make them stronger and more skilled improved my attitude about . . . everything. My daily cardio workouts became sharper (and I studied wrestling moves during them). And my muscles started to grow as I kept up with the boys when we lifted after fight club.

But I also had another epiphany.

The combat serves many purposes: It builds confidence. It teaches to never give up. By example, it shows that hard work pays off in success. It bonds fathers to sons. It builds discipline (Pugsley’s respect for me has gone up 372% and his pre-teen surliness has utterly disappeared). These are all traits that will lead (along with intelligence and Stoic virtue (LINK)) to much greater than average social and economic success.

And I’m in much better shape, and I’m learning how to teach The Boy (no, you have to rotate more than 180˚) and Pugsley (no, you have to throw your head through while you get your hips under your shoulders) and The Mrs. (dear, could you make us all some nice sandwiches). I kid. The Mrs. oversees our deadly serious play. When The Boy complained that Pugsley smelled like sour milk, The Mrs. awarded The Boy a penalty point for “Involuntary Lactation.” That caused us all to laugh.

But the epiphany is that the combat pays off down the road in the ultimate Skin in the Game moment: this work is a precursor to reproduction . . . what?

Yes. Being a high status man increases reproduction possibilities. Being a high status woman doesn’t.

Huh?

How does that work??? Check this tweet out:

https://twitter.com/DegenRolf/status/973473559933747206/photo/1

I would say that being a high-powered female attorney actually lowers reproduction access for women. The most fertile years for women are in their 20’s – after that, it lowers drastically. By the age of 40? Forget it.

But high status guys? The guys back in the cavemen days that were winning the wrestling matches? They got a chance to reproduce. And 8,000 years ago, science says that only one guy versus 17 women reproduced (LINK). The odds are better now, one guy will get to reproduce for every out 3.3 women that to reproduce. 3.3 to one? Are you kidding me? Nope. High-status guys, only the top third, get to reproduce. I guess that choosy girls all choose the same men.

High status men.

Competition – physical competition is hardwired into the brains and souls of boys. And old men, like me. That’s why I felt so good – I was throwing myself into physical combat for the first time in years, and relishing it. Winning (and coaching well) provides many physical benefits – increased testosterone, brain chemicals and other science-y things in addition to the strength and fitness ability. If you look at the math, social hierarchy is a must for men.

In today’s society, that means a cool job with money. So, in order to have children, i.e., the ultimate Skin in the Game, the behaviors of competition and working long hours to increase income are absolutely necessary for men and are negatively correlated with reproductive success for women.

There’s no wage gap, at least not one based on any sort of discrimination. Thousands (if not more) of years of human breeding have made men drive to succeed – because success is the currency of reproduction.

The final observation for today:

Raising boys is a full contact sport. To allow them to reach their full potential they have to fight. I suspect that many (but not all) cases of ADHD and the other alphabet salads of childhood disorders that have suddenly emerged after existing . . . never, are really just boys not being able to take risks or have a fistfight or nurse a bloody nose or confront a bully – behaviors that bind them into the social hierarchy.

“We’re a generation of men raised by women. I’m wondering if another woman is really the answer we need.” – Fight Club

Oops, I guess I broke the first rule of Fight Club. Again.

Stoics, Fight Club, Wealth, and Virtue

“I had it all. Even the glass dishes with tiny bubbles and imperfections, proof they were crafted by the honest, simple, hard-working indigenous peoples of . . . wherever.” – Fight Club

The first rule of Fight Club is . . . be older than six. And no swords.

Wealth – what is it?

Is it:

Something that we sacrifice our lives for?
Something we obsess about until it controls us?
Something that is never . . . quite enough?
Something we have to have more of than our neighbor?
Something that defines our feelings about ourselves?

I’ll be honest, but there have been times I’ve viewed wealth in more than one of the categories above and acted as such. “Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants,” is what Epictetus wrote about 100 A.D. Even more succinctly, Tyler Durden said in Fight Club, “You’re not your job. You’re not how much money you have in the bank. You’re not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet. You’re not your (gosh darn) khakis.”

What Epictetus may have looked like. If he were in a comic strip.

I may have it in for Johnny Depp, but Brad Pitt’s Tyler Durden is my spirit animal (we’ve started a tiny Fight Club in my basement, but I’m not supposed to talk about it – first rule, you know).

I keep coming back to the stoics. What did Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Tyler Durden, and Epictetus think about wealth? The website How To Be A Stoic says (LINK): “. . . they classed everything that lies outside of virtue as either preferred or dispreferred indifferent. To the first group belong things like wealth, health, education, and high social standing; to the second things like poverty, sickness, ignorance, and low social standing. These things were preferred insofar it is normal for a human being to pursue them because it makes her life more comfortable, and dispreferred insofar it makes her life less comfortable. But they are “indifferent” in the sense that they are irrelevant to our ability to exercise the virtues . . . .”

So, the Stoics were indifferent to wealth, but it was better to have it than not. You could be virtuous and poor, or you could be virtuous and rich. If you were rich, perhaps you could share your virtues even further than if you were poor – so it was preferred to have money. And Marcus Aurelius was emperor – it was hard to be richer than that, even for Jeff Bezos. Seneca? He was really wealthy, too. And since they are some of the thinkers that literally define what Stoicism is, well, wealth and power isn’t off limits, but the goal was to live a virtuous life.

So what does wealth signify?

Mostly, wealth is like stored energy – it’s a potential. A child may have a wealth of days before it, and an old miser a wealth of cash, cash that he might trade every dime of for just one more taste of youth. And a six year old would trade the ages of 18-30 for six Cadbury Cream Eggs®, which is another reason that kids can’t vote.

Steve Jobs certainly traded some of his wealth for additional days of life without having to cheat a six year old in a candy deal – he could honestly say he could be at any liver in just a few hours (having a private jet and all) and he could afford to have a staff of people looking for ways to improve Steve’s chance of getting one. Heck, Apple® has a project to clone Steve from a clump of his cells that they found in his comb – they just keep getting Ben Affleck copies instead. Thankfully, Ben Affleck is not considered by the state of California to be a “living human.”

Choices. Wealth buys choices. And one of the choices is always . . . not choosing right now. The wonderful thing about being rich, is you don’t take any offers you don’t want. If have to sell my car – I need the money for a new kidney for my Yosemite Sam© PEZ® dispenser, well, I have to have that money now. I can’t wait. I have to take the offer I get now.

If I have wealth and can afford to buy new, black market PEZ® kidneys for cash? Well, I don’t have to sell my car. In fact, if I have cash, I can look for people who have to sell kidney cars for PEZ© kidney cash to get a bargain.

I am willing to bet a large amount of PEZ™ that this is the first time the last sentence has been written in any language.

Anyhow. Wealth buys choices, and wealth creates the conditions for more wealth.

But what creates wealth? Well, in reality – the same virtues the stoics upheld (from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy – LINK):

“The Stoics elaborated a detailed taxonomy of virtue, dividing virtue into four main types: wisdom, justice, courage, and moderation.

“Wisdom is subdivided into good sense, good calculation, quick-wittedness, discretion, and resourcefulness.
“Justice is subdivided into piety, honesty, equity, and fair dealing.
“Courage is subdivided into endurance, confidence, high-mindedness, cheerfulness, and industriousness.
“Moderation is subdivided into good discipline, seemliness, modesty, and self-control.”

If you will look – many (but not all!) of these virtues, if followed well and long enough, will lead to . . . wealth.

But perhaps Epictetus was right: “Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.”

And then there was Tyler Durden: “It’s a blanket. Just a blanket. Now why do guys like you and me know what a duvet or a comforter is? Is this essential to our survival, in the hunter-gatherer sense of the word? No. What are we then? We are consumers. We’re the byproducts of a lifestyle obsession.”

So, be virtuous. Get wealthy. But don’t make the wealth the focus . . . it’s not the money, after all – it’s all the stuff.

Simple Way to Avoid a Heart Attack, Roman Style

“Read Marcus Aurelius. Of each particular thing, ask what is it in itself? What is its nature?” – Silence of the Lambs

So, if I’m reading this right, I’m not supposed to stress out the alligators? I’m not supposed to stress out the 400 pound armored killing machine? Okay, getting right on that.

I ran across a health article about heart disease the other day by an actual medical doctor, not an amateur Civil War surgeon like me (Motto: Splinter in your toe? Amputate.). Dr. Mercola’s theory was simple, that stress causes inflammation which causes the damage that kills you. Here’s a link to his article (LINK). Now this article was on a political site, so it wasn’t even related to the main focus of the site, but I read the article and immediately thought of you Internet. And also me, since I was looking for something to write about today.

It just might be that stress is a problem for you that actually might kill you. It also just so happens that I have a 2000 year old solution for you – all bright and shiny since I dug it up in my backyard last night:

“Your present opinion founded in understanding, your present conduct directed to good, and your present contentment with everything that results. That’s enough.” – Marcus Aurelius, Mediations 9.6

Okay, okay, you say, it’s John Wilder Talking About Dead Romans Again. And you’re right. Because they were ever so much more like us than you might imagine. Marcus Aurelius was a Stoic. And he was also Emperor. The book he wrote, Meditations, was just that. His thoughts that he meditated on. He wasn’t writing it for us, he was writing it to sort out his own thoughts and feelings.

Yeah, a Roman Emperor, able to command power few before or since ever had – King, President, Pope, and General all rolled up into one – had to work out his thoughts. This makes sense, because Marcus was the last of the Five Good Emperors (spoiler alert) and thought himself something of a philosopher. It’s like Vladimir Putin took time out of his busy schedule of wrestling bears while shirtless and dating Olympic gymnasts to attempt to deeply study and understand a philosophy of living that directly worked towards the quote from Marcus, up above.

But the quote above encapsulates in just a simple two sentences the core of the Stoic philosophy. Let’s look at how it can help you reduce stress.

“Your present opinion founded in understanding . . .”

If I were to take liberties, I would re-write that one, “Your present opinion founded in truth.”

Dealing with reality was the core of the philosophy – that’s why it came first. And if you are dealing with truth, you’re dealing in certainty. You’re not lying to yourself.

“your present conduct directed to good . . .”

So, you’ve studied and know the truth. Now you have the opportunity to turn your work towards the good. You’re doing the right thing, the right way.

“and your present contentment with everything that results.”

You did the right thing for the right reasons. You have purpose, clarity, and are taking positive action. And, the best part? You don’t have to win to win. Whatever happens, happens. If it didn’t work? You tried. Be content. If it did work? Great! This is a formula for a low stress life. The Stoics got to the core of it – things have meaning because we place meaning on them. We think that the world should be a series of results, instead of a series of truthful opinions and actions directed toward good outcomes.

What happens, happens.

I know this is hard, because every day when I try to divorce myself mentally from the outcome of an action that I’ve taken, and just be cool when it didn’t work out the way I wanted it to work out. The worst part? When I get upset about something that didn’t go my way . . . that didn’t even matter.

Perspective that I need to remember. Most things don’t matter – at all.

Back to Marcus:

Marcus Aurelius had a really, really awful son. Commodus. So bad Commodus’ wife poisoned him. So bad that Commodus’ best friend strangled him. So bad that they had Joaquin Phoenix play Commodus in Gladiator. Did Marcus have a clue that Commodus would be so awful? Probably. But he did everything he could. And his book has reached across centuries to us.

So, he did the right thing for the right reasons. And it worked.

After a fashion. To quote Marcus again: “That’s enough.”

John Wilder is not a doctor. Go see your doctor before you take medical advice from a blog written in a basement . . . .