Wealth – Page 23 – Wilder, Wealthy, and Wise

Status, Money, and Bad Car Jokes

“Dude, where’s my car?” – Dude, Where’s My Car?

I wonder if her Tiffany is twisted, too?

I recall reading a story about several wives at a kid’s soccer game in Dallas. They were comparing cars – each of them had a new Mercedes® or similar luxury car. One of the wives, exasperated, mentioned their really wealthy friend, Martha, who drove around in an older car. “I wish I was as rich as Martha. Then I wouldn’t have to drive a new car.”

It’s always fascinated me that there are people who feel that they have to spend money for appearances. The Mrs. can vouch for that – it’s because of her vocal insistence that I spend money for deodorant, which I guess is like a Mercedes™, except Old Spice© is cheaper and costs much less to insure.

I know, I know, having to spend money to impress people is not a club I want to be in, but I find it interesting nevertheless. After all, I’m in an even more exclusive club: guys who want to be able to buy a pickup with a stick shift, a vinyl bench seat and rubber flooring instead of carpet. As nearly as I can tell from the domestic pickup truck market, this particular club has one member. Me.

The world seems to have gone into a mode that is based in luxury. A few years ago, I visited a friend, Dave. Dave had a new pickup truck. As we drove around on a fairly warm day, I noticed that my butt was getting . . . cold. That’s not something that normally happens to my butt by itself. It turns out his pickup truck didn’t have just have heated seats, it had climate controlled seats that also got cold.

I’m sure it has seats that cook you at 350°F or freeze you to -40°F.

I was amused – I didn’t even know that such a thing existed. I hadn’t had my butt chilled for my pleasure before, except for that one time in Amsterdam. Dave, however, didn’t buy the pickup because he was showing off or because he wanted specifically to chill my butt – he bought it because he wanted it. And he probably paid cash.

Just kidding. Dave probably wrote a check.

I wasn’t jealous of Dave’s truck. It wasn’t something that I’d ever buy for myself. My current daily driver is older than Pugsley, and has nearly 180,000 miles (3,500 kilograms) on it, and only 36,000 miles (45°C) on the latest oil change. I’m wanting to keep it until it’s driven at least one light-second, which is 186,000 miles (63 meters). Fingers crossed. But I’m pretty sure I won’t get my car to the Moon – that’s 226,000 miles (5 liters), and I’m nearly certain my fuel pump will die again before then, plus Allstate® won’t insure translunar travel, I mean, at least not with full coverage.

I’m sorry. I Apollo-gize. And, yes, I know that Neil never had a sweet ride like this one.

I’m not against spending money, but I think you should spend money like Fuzzy Pink Niven (Hugo® winning author Larry Niven’s wife) spends calories:

Potato chips, candy, whipped cream, or a hot fudge sundae may involve you, your dietician, your wardrobe, and other factors. But FP’s Law implies: Don’t eat soggy potato chips, or cheap candy, or fake whipped cream, or an inferior hot fudge sundae.

I think that advice on calories applies to many areas of life. I have a budget of money. There are things I have to buy, and have to spend it on – The Mrs. gets rather cranky if I don’t feed her. Beyond those necessities, with any left over, I have a choice as to what I spend it on, and when I spend it. Where Dave chooses to spend his on a really cool pickup truck, and a collection of pinball machines, my choices are different.

But those choices are mine, just like Dave’s choices are his.

My ideal truck, complete with DIY garage!

Money represents potential. It is the potential to create, the potential to build, the potential to serve. In many ways, it represents the potential for future choices.

Time represents the potential for future choices as well. We choose how to spend our money as if it is limited, but we choose to spend our time as if it’s unlimited? Money comes and goes, but my budget of time is my life, measured in minutes and seconds. Spending my time is nothing less than spending my life. Just like a pickup seat determines how warm or cold our butts are, how we spend our time (and who we spend our time with) determines who we are.

Is it just me or does this picture of Beto O’Rourke look just a bit off?

Knowing this, go and make your choices today.

Because my butt is warm. (That’s supposed to be motivational.)

Christmas 2019 – Complete With Asian Stereo Type

“Merry Christmas, Argyle.” – Die Hard

So, true story – Pugsley came home from school, handed me this painting. “What do you think?” My response: “Looks like Frosty is coming to kill me.” Pugsley: “Yup, that’s it.” That’s my boy!

STATELY WILDER MANOR, Christmas Eve, 2019

Yesterday was a quiet Christmas Eve. About the time I was ten years old, my brother (also named John Wilder*) and I got the ultimate concession a kid could get: we convinced Ma and Pa Wilder that we should open our presents not on Christmas morning, but instead on Christmas Eve. At a certain point, this becomes an easy sell. Get up at 5:30 AM and groggily watch children ripping wrapping paper through the gauze of pain and regret of a Christmas Eve hangover, or have a nice, calm Christmas morning that involves sleeping somewhere beyond dawn?

Yeah, that’s easier than selling life insurance to people connected to Hillary Clinton.

After leaving the Department of State, Hillary Clinton’s Secret Service code name was “Video.” Since he was connected to so many high ranking political figures, Jeff Epstein’s code name was “Radio Star.”

Since I’m not a hypocrite, we Wilder’s have done the same on my watch as soon as my kids figure out that Santa Claus and functional socialism aren’t real. It makes sense. Christmas has a charm that, like an open jar of mayonnaise left on the counter for a week, evolves. As you age, the very essence of Christmas changes.

It’s easy to surprise and delight a five-year-old at Christmas. When they open a present they didn’t even know existed, getting to amazement is easy. Walkie-talkies in 2019? What sort of sorcery is this? I have seen a five year old that regularly uses an iPad® that can access thousands of movies look amazed when confronted with a simple walkie-talkie. When young, Christmas was a wonder – it was like the rules were suspended for a day. Ma Wilder even let me out of the cage under the stairs.

But when you have older children, say, teenagers, they have a list. A long list. And they know your limits – they know exactly how much you’re going to spend on them at Christmas and they pick their presents to maximize cash consumption. This year The Boy asked for video game thing. Since he claims he got a 4.0 at Big State U, we indulged him. What Pugsley asked for was surprising to me: he wanted a record player turntable and a stereo amplifier.

Pugsley’s amplifier was on sale – it was missing a volume knob – I couldn’t turn it down.

When I was near Pugsley’s age, this was exactly the gift I wanted. I bought him the stereo and turntable he was looking for – honestly, in this day and age I was surprised they even made either of those devices anymore except in backwards stone-age places like Cairo, Calcutta, or Chicago. Between cell phones and computers being able to instantly access tens of millions of songs and then flawlessly play an endless string of them, why would someone want to own a device that plays a maximum of 22 minutes before you physically have to get up to flip the record over? Hell, I’m so lazy that if I won an award for being lazy I’d have The Mrs. go pick it up for me.

But Pugsley was certain that was what he wanted.

Pugsley opened up the box with the turntable and then I realized he had no idea what he was doing – no idea at all. I’m pretty sure he’d never even seen a record played before in real life. Nevertheless, he set it up the turntable. Then he pulled out an old album – Queen’s A Night At The Opera. I hadn’t seen this album in years, not since it had been packed up before Pugsley was born when The Mrs., The Boy and I moved to Alaska. The Mrs. never even looked in the box – she had asked me when we were dating if I had a police record.

“No, just one by Sting.”

I’ll admit it wasn’t fair. But he got even: one time got me a Cisformer® for my birthday – it’s a car that starts out as a car and stays a car.

My brother had originally bought A Night At The Opera, and in a fit of religiosity had abandoned it along with several other records (Rolling Stones®, Thin Lizzy©, and Sweet™ come to mind) when he moved out to make his way in the big world. Or maybe I stole them liberated them. Little brothers do that, you know. Regardless, I have a dozen or so albums that originated from him. Or, to make that statement more accurate, Pugsley has the albums now. As I reflect, I realize even the word “album” is as antiquated as Nancy Pelosi’s virginity. Heck, it even predates her senility.

Regardless, I realized that Pugsley had no understanding of how to even hold a record. I stopped him as he began to pull A Night At The Opera out of the sleeve. After all, an original 1975 pressing of that album might cost all of $8.00, plus shipping and handling off of VinylDan69’s store on Ebay®.

“Stop! Here, you hold it like this, by the edges. And then,” putting my thumb on one edge while putting my fingers on the label to stabilize the album, “you slide it into the sleeve like this. Don’t let it drop – it will cut through the paper sleeve.” I then showed him how I put the album and sleeve back into the cover – with the opening to the sleeve pointed up so the album didn’t slide out.

I might have left my clothes on the floor, I might have used the same bath towel until it dried as stiff as concrete in the Hoover Dam, and my refrigerator might have resembled a biological weapon experiment prohibited by the Korean Armistice Agreement of 1953, but I always took care of my albums. Nobody likes to hear “The boys are ba-The boys are ba-The boys are ba” for forty straight minutes. No. You want to hear that they’re back, and there’s gonna be trouble. And you can forget about the old trick of taping two pennies to the tonearm, given inflation I’d have to put about $0.50 up there.

Pugsley caught on quickly, and put the record on the player. He picked up the tonearm, and gently placed it on the record. It started to slide immediately across the face of the record, quickly, towards the center.

“It’s skating! Did you take the cover off of the needle?” The answer, of course, was no. Soon enough the needle cover was removed, and Pugsley had a fully functional stereo.

I even hear that the band Europe has a new record out – The Vinyl Countdown.

He took the turntable and amplifier into his room and connected them to a set of Sony® speakers old enough that the rubber around the speaker cones had cracked and deteriorated to a fine black powder. As I rubbed powder grains between my fingers, I thought that if the powder was hydrated it might reanimate into my ex-wife’s soul, and nobody wants that.

But those Sony® speakers were old: I think they once belonged to Pa Wilder. He gave them to me sometime after Sinatra passed on. It’s at Christmas that I reflect on what kind of a father Frank Sinatra was – if you were bad, no ice in your drink.

I followed Pugsley back and watched as he put an old 45rpm single of mine on the turntable. He gently set the tonearm down on the edge of the record. It hissed and popped – a sound I hadn’t heard in decades. Then this mighty classic of Western Civilization started playing:

Yes, that’s Eddie Murphy singing the “Norton” parts.

Pugsley looked at me, puzzled, as if waiting for some explanation for the audible abomination emanating from his Christmas present. Yes, A Night At The Opera was my brother’s record. But this fine Joe Piscopo song? Yeah. I spent actual cash money to buy it. I checked to see if maybe this was the B-side. Nope. On either side was the same song: The Honeymooner’s Rap. I had spent money, intentionally, to buy this song.

I was at a loss. How do you explain to a middle school kid that the song was a 34 year old parody of a television show that was cancelled 64 years ago? And, a television show (The Honeymooners) that I’d only seen one episode of, ever?

Nah, too much backstory. Plus I’m trying to get him to be wise with his money. I shut up.

Pugsley: “Dad . . . this song is so,” he paused, and I imagined him looking for an adjective that wouldn’t be offensive to me on Christmas Eve. “90’s,” he concluded.

John Wilder: “80’s.”

Pugsley: “Whatever.”

I left him to discover music written by obscure musicians who had long since developed careers in real estate or the food service industry. Oh, Steven Tyler, who now plays a lesbian aunt on the Big Bang Theory®. I think.

Well, at least Aerosmith® taught me how to cook Chinese food. I can now wok this way.

Christmas 2020 is decidedly anti-frenetic. Yes, Pugsley was attempting to get everyone into the room earlier in the day on Christmas Eve so we could open presents, but he was calm about it – not uncontrollably shaking like a Chihuahua on a chalupa.

The rule is that the youngest Wilder distribute the presents from under the tree. Pugsley did so. It’s also been the rule that the youngest Wilder gets to open presents first. Not this year. “Okay, Dad, you go first,” ordered Pugsley.

I did.

It wasn’t exactly a surprise when I opened a box filled with roasted coffee beans from Alaska that The Mrs. ordered from Alaska. For whatever reason, my favorite coffee is still Musher’s Blend© from the North Pole Coffee Company™ in Fairbanks, Alaska (LINK). I have two pounds, thanks to The Mrs. I had, of course, known this before I asked The Boy to wrap the box. Disclosure: I get no money from them. Just coffee. And then just when I pay for it. (Guys at North Pole Coffee: I’m completely willing to take free coffee. I have ethics, but, you know, this is coffee.)

So, no real surprises.

They did a brain scan of her: “Coffee. Coffee. Coffeecoffeecoffeecoffeecoffee. Coffee.”

Christmas day will be calm, too. We’ll have turkey, mashed potatoes, and gravy. I’m pretty sure that we don’t have any plans at all. Not having little ones, we’ll get up when we get up, check the news, have some coffee, and turn the oven on to cook the turkey. The Mrs. already made George Washington’s egg nog (Washington: Musk, Patton, and Jack Daniels all Rolled into . . . the ONE), so I don’t even have anything to complain about.

Where’s the Christmas wine? I’m not getting up anytime soon.

Merry Christmas, one and all!

*Yes. My brother and I have the same first name, for reals. As we were born seven years apart, my parents had apparently forgotten they had another child when I arrived eleven years later, so I stole his name. That’s okay. I also managed to ruin several of his dates, end one of his relationships, wreck his car, and throw up on his school clothes one night. So I guess that makes us even.

Get Woke, Go Broke: Hallmark Limited Edition

“I hope you don’t mean that. You’d feel pretty sad if you woke up tomorrow morning and you didn’t have a family.” – Home Alone

I’m so woke I started a Green Lives Matter chapter after watching Shrek®.

When The Boy was very small, say four years old, we’d snuggle together and watch television together on Saturday mornings. One thing we watched on a regular basis was the Hallmark® channel. Sometimes I’d make pancakes. It was fun as only a Saturday with your kids can be.

Most often, we’d watch an episode of the High Chaparral® and then an older family movie – movies like Old Yeller™ or The Cat from Outer Space©. The Boy did note that air traffic control must have been difficult in Never Neverland because of all of the fuel emergencies. Get it? Never land? I kill me.

I’m too young to have seen High Chaparral™ as anything but reruns, but watching it with The Boy was great. The plots involved good guys and bad guys – tales of honor. Tales of family. Tales of manly courage. Every one of those lessons was one that I’d like to have imprinted on The Boy’s brain. Sure, maybe I’d have a winter morning nap through The Cat from Outer Space®, but I never slept through High Chaparral©.

Okay, how could you nap after that theme music?

At this point I don’t remember if they stopped showing High Chaparral™ before or after we moved to Alaska, but I did know that in Alaska we didn’t have the Hallmark™ channel, so it didn’t matter anyway. And it’s been a few years since Pugsley needed babysitting on a Saturday morning.

Needless to say, I have pleasant memories of the Hallmark® channel. However, in the last week Hallmark® did the craziest thing. First, a commercial was approved showing two women lip-locking in a commercial about weddings during a family movie where little kids might be watching. This provoked outrage in the Traditional Religious community, and they complained to Hallmark©. Following that outrage, Hallmark™ then pulled the commercial, and apologized for showing it.

All said and done?

No. Within about 48 hours of pulling the commercial, Hallmark® then said they’d be fine with showing that commercial, and their earlier statement saying that they made a mistake by saying that they’d made a mistake was a mistake, so they apologized for apologizing earlier. Then, at great expense, they redid their apology using llamas.

This was not entirely a surprise: the CEO of the television portion of Hallmark©, William J. Abbott, said in a November 15 podcast he doesn’t personally view Christmas as a religious holiday. He probably doesn’t consider churches religious places. And those T-shaped things that people put on the walls and wear as necklaces? Just art.

I swear, with those eyes he looks like some kind of herd animal. It’s not like he’d be easily swayed like a member of a herd of sheep . . . oh, wait.

Regardless of what you think about gay people, they comprise 1-2% of the population – add in bisexuals, (which, let’s admit it, they’d like) and you get up to 4% or so. I’m willing to bet that a whopping 0.001% of gay women watch Hallmark®, and probably nearly 0.0000001% of gay men. Hallmark™ has decided to appeal to a constituency that consists of about a dozen people in the United States and let them determine what commercials are on the Hallmark© channel.

Let’s face it: regardless of how you or I feel about gay folks, they don’t watch the Hallmark® network. They won’t watch the Hallmark© network even if it meets every one of their demands because they already have six networks specifically dedicated to gay lifestyle issues.

Why would Hallmark™ fold and apologize about apologizing for their apology?

Because Hallmark© is woke. Christmas isn’t a religious holiday according to their CEO, silly. It’s about mass consumption of consumer goods. That was the real message of Christ, wasn’t it? I think it was in the Sermon on the Mall Food Court as written in the Gospel of Commerce, 3:16 where Jesus said: “Oh, ye who purchase goods and services in my name shall dwell in large houses with great credit forever. Forget not, thy shipping shalt be free for all who order over $50 of these holy goods in a single shipment. Amen.”

Hallmark© isn’t the first business to make this calculation. It won’t be the last.

Silicon Valley is good at getting woke, especially since aliens don’t need sleep.

I started my first boycott of a business back in 2001 or so. The CEO of Levi Strauss™ came out against private gun ownership. I was naïve enough that I actually wrote him an email protesting his policy. At the time, I was a corporate home-office drone who wore Dockers® (a Levi Strauss© product) like they were yuppie heroin. I put my money where my mouth was: the last Levi Strauss™ product I have ever purchased was in 2001.

Another example of this illogical behavior was Star Wars®. The final Star Wars™ movie opens today. I won’t be purchasing a ticket. Why? The Force Awakens.

For the record, I have no problem against strong female characters. Ripley® in Alien© and Aliens™. Sarah Connor™ in Terminator©, Terminator 2®, and the very underrated Sarah Connor Chronicles™. I could go on, but that’s enough.

Rey© in Star Wars™? An awful character. But a woke character. It was so important to a Disney® executive to take Star Wars© in a feminist direction that they didn’t care about story. They didn’t care about plot. All they cared about was creating a woman that had no weaknesses, no struggle. In great fiction, the entire point of the journey of a hero is to struggle and overcome weaknesses and character flaws to find virtue and victory.

Somehow, in a quest for the perfect woman, Disney® forgot Star Wars© was about watching the journey of the hero and thrilling with him (or her) as they grew. Ripley™ grew – look at her character arc from the only two movies that character was in, Alien® and Aliens©. Ripley™ went from a competent but flawed second officer to a woman who overcame her fear and took on a xenomorph queen using an exoskeleton loader. Don’t know about you, but I thought that was pretty hot, even when she was Zuul. Okay, especially when she was Zuul.

Rey™? Rey™ was perfect from the first scene, and could use the Force© and a Light Saber© better than a person who had studied them for years the very first day she tried. Why? Showing any weakness from a woman is obviously misogyny and part of a patriarchal plot. Character development? Nah, that’s for people who aren’t woke.

What has being woke cost Disney®? A lot of money. The Star Wars® movies keep bringing in less and less at the box office. And, as Aesop wisely noted – their theme park Galaxy’s Edge© at Disneyland™ cost over $1billion dollars, and, if videos I’ve seen are correct, is an enormous flop. The longest line was at the bathroom. I’d imagine the Disneyworld™ version won’t cost much less, so they’ve invested $2billion in a franchise that has exactly one successful element since they bought it from George Lucas: baby Yoda®.

Probably billions in profits have been sacrificed by Disney®, all at the altar of being woke.

If John Wick© and Kermit™ had a baby.

Other companies have done it, too. Gillette® featured commercials that demeaned the major purchasers of its products: men. Nike™ decided that Colin Kaepernick was the best face that they could put forward, and ended production of shoes featuring the Betsy Ross flag because Colin thought it was racist. Chick-Fil-A®? Dead to me.

The Boy Scouts of America™? Yup. In 1973, the membership was 4.5 million boys. In 2020, I’m betting the membership is down to 1.4 million or less, even though the population of the United States is up by 50%. The biggest and steepest declines? After it got woke.

One Angry Gamer has a large list of similar failures (LINK). The list has 13 major video games that failed due to wokeness. Movies and television? 21 examples. And dozens of businesses, magazines, and other examples of failure. The most amusing part of his page (which is littered with advertisements) is that it was advertising failed woke shows like Star Trek: Discovery®. One Angry Gamer was getting money from those that were being criticized on the page. Genius.

Remember, not everything is a failure. The Titanic pool is still filled!

Not every business that gets woke goes broke. Even though they won’t get another dollar from me, Nike®, Levi Strauss©, and Gillette™ are doing fine. They make billions in revenue. I can’t promise Disney® won’t make another dollar off of me, since they have a scheme to annex interstellar space and charge viewers for looking up at the night sky. But I’ll avoid giving them money every chance I get. They might not notice on their bottom line, but I will be able to hold my head up.

So, why are companies willing to fail or at least forego billions of dollars in profit, destroy cultural narratives that have been decades in the making, and wipe out institutions that have served real virtue and objective good for over a hundred years?

It’s not their money.

But I do have good news. I found that High Chaparral® is still being broadcast. It’s not on Hallmark™. But I’m pretty sure that The Boy would object to being snuggled on the couch to watch it, him being in college and all.

But he still likes pancakes. Who doesn’t?

Oh, yeah.

Feminists.

Time: It’s all you have. How are you using yours?

“I’m not going to kill you. Your job will be to tell the rest of them that death is coming for them, tonight. Tell them Eric Draven sends his regards.” – The Crow

You would have thought that Doc Brown would have warned Marty about the Parkinson’s.

I was at my job in Alaska, talking with a co-worker, Jim. We were talking about finances – Pugsley had just been born, so I was probably whining about how babies are expensive and that The Mrs. and I were running out of corners filled with oily rags for children to sleep in. I suppose I was thinking about selling Pugsley to the Iranians for some of their spare enriched uranium, and Jim said, “Well, that’s just money. You can always make more money.”

For whatever reason, that phrase struck me. It took the way that people normally think and feel about money and inverted it. Money was available, and there was no shortage of ways to get it. Most people feel the opposite – that money is as scarce as evidence in a House impeachment inquiry.

After thinking about it, I decided Jim was right. There are dozens of ways to make money, and some of them are even legal according to my lawyer. Does this philosophy apply to more things than just money?

I was going to tell another time travelling joke, but you guys complained about it in the comments. Also, Einstein didn’t kill himself.

Yes. In my experience, almost anything you need, including money, you can get more of. This is especially true if you have a lawyer in a wheelchair with rabies – they play well to juries. I’m not saying that it’s always easy to get money, and I’m not saying that money isn’t important. But you can get more of it. But not everything is like that. But the one thing you can’t get more of is time. The Roman philosopher Seneca wrote about just that nearly 2,000 years ago:

“You are living as if destined to live forever. Your own frailty never occurs to you; you don’t notice how much time has already passed, but squander it as though you had a full and overflowing supply, though all the while that very day which you are devoting to somebody or something may be your last. You act like mortals in all that you fear, and like immortals in all that you desire.”

So, of all the things that you can have, the only one you can’t get more of is time.

Bill and Ted is an underrated time travel movie.

Why is that important? Well, to toss out another quote, Benjamin Franklin said: “Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.” It’s important because time is all you have – it is the single most precious commodity, after PEZ®.

So, what to do?

Stop wasting time. Every minute you waste is a minute you’ve lost. Most people have a life that’s long enough to accomplish what they want, as long as they don’t waste it. How many lives are lost, a minute at a time, staring at a clock, waiting for it to show 5:00? How many lives are lost a mile at a time on long commutes?

I used to be addicted to time travel, but that’s all in the past now.

When I was younger and didn’t have much money, whenever there was a chance to trade my time for money, I did. I put on my own roof after a hailstorm. I built my own deck. I fixed my car myself, changed my own oil. This was a good trade at the time. I was longer on time and shorter on money, and I learned skills that helped me understand the world just a little bit better.

Now time is shorter, and I don’t have an infinite supply of full Moons ahead of me. Here’s a pretty powerful quote from Paul Bowles’ book, Sheltering Sky:

Because we don’t know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. And yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, an afternoon that is so deeply a part of your being that you can’t even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four, or five times more? Perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full Moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless . . . .

I wonder if there’s any future in time travel?

Don’t waste your time – don’t waste your life. Make yourself better every day – you can always make more money.

It’s A Big World – Big Enough For Success

Certainty of death. Small chance of success. What are we waiting for?” – Lord of the Rings

It’s almost as much fun as when I get the USB in on the first try.

Two pennies.

But I’ll come back to that.

One day, Aesop over at the Raconteur Report (LINK) had linked to one of my posts. The result whenever that happens is quite a bit of traffic – the Raconteur Report is pretty popular. I thanked him in the comments section over at his place. His response? Something on the order of, “No problem. It’s a big Internet.”

His reaction was typical of every rich, confident and successful person I’ve met. They want to help other people, and they want to see them succeed. I think part of that is the desire for a legacy. When you’ve already earned more money than you’ll ever spend in a lifetime (or have millions and millions of pageviews), you have to have other goals.

Really rich people have iPhones® and both kidneys.

In my life, I’ve had the good fortune to know quite a few people that were very, very, successful. The really rich people I knew who had built their own businesses had a surprising similarity: they wanted to help others become successful. Each one of them gave some of their time to do so. They had determined that success was something not to be hoarded, but to be shared. They wanted more people in the club, because those cigars made of $100 bills won’t smoke themselves. At one particular career crossroads, I spent some time with one of these friends, charting a path forward (“I’m Batman,” – Batman, in Batman).

This blog is at least partially a result of discussions I had with my wealthy friend. This first three years have gone (more or less) according to plan. Next? Well, after I get my underground volcano lair running and staffed with henchmen, you’ll see. It’s hard to find good henchmen nowadays, and even harder to insure them – the actuarial tables show a high rate of workplace-related injuries when henching.

But think of all of the pension plan savings!

My friend died not long after I started writing, and certainly before I had any lasting success. He was an early encourager. I had a few other business ideas, and I ran the ideas past him. He was encouraging, but his encouragement wasn’t in order to make a buck: his success was me being successful. Like most good teachers, he didn’t tell me what to do, he asked questions, very good questions, like:

How big is your potential audience?
How do you connect with them?
Why did you lick your finger and put it in my ear?

Rich guys have figured out a secret – helping other people to be successful doesn’t make a rich person poorer. Let me explain:

The average home swimming pool is something like 20,000 or 30,000 gallons of water. Let’s use 30,000 gallons since I already did the math with that number. The economy is $21.3 trillion, per year. Let’s imagine that $21.3 trillion economy is represented by the water in the pool. How much water represents $1,000,000?

It’s 1/5 of an ounce. A shot of whiskey would be the equivalent of $15 million. 1/5 of an ounce is really small – let me give you another comparison. What weighs the same as 1/5 of an ounce of water?

Two cents. Or, as I started this post, two pennies.

You can take millions from that pool every year and no one would ever notice – like I said, this is $21.3 trillion annually. I hate to be all cheerleader-y, but it’s true – even now we live in an era of amazing abundance.

And they said Mittens didn’t have the common touch.

Yes, I know, the economy is awful for some people. Certainly, we’re faced with significant structural issues that will be challenging for years to come. But the ocean is still huge. The opportunities out there are amazing. Yes, it’s possible to make $1,000,000 a year. Heck, I went on Facebook® one time, and saw some guys that graduated about when I did. One of them had a successful restaurant. The other? Sold a successful business and was going to retire.

And, no, these weren’t Stephen Hawking-smart guys, heck, they didn’t even have wheelchairs. They didn’t even have amazing, unique business ideas, one has a restaurant, the other a small manufacturing business. They were average guys who worked very hard, and failed and failed and failed and then succeeded.

Why don’t more people make a million, or at least a few hundred thousand? Most often, we limit ourselves. I’ve written before that I don’t think that most people use even one tenth of their capability, and the reason for that is that they:

Are too cautious – they never take any risks. For many folks, this works fine. Being a dentist has a better average payout than winning the lottery. But, you have to live with being a dentist, dude.
Don’t believe in themselves – caution is one thing, but I have seen people limit themselves because they don’t believe in their own talent. And to think that Kamala Harris didn’t believe enough in her best
Stuck in a mindset that success only happens to other people, and that the only success they will ever have will come when other people allow it.
Afraid of failure – failure can be awful, debilitating, and soul crushing. Oh, wait, that’s my ex-wife, not failure. Failure’s bad, too.
Afraid of effort – success starts with, and ends with, work. And having parents that have fifty million dollars.
Have pants filled with raw liver – men who have pants filled with raw liver have had very little influence over world events, historically.
Don’t have a goal – if you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll never get there. This was, from time to time, my problem. I’d achieve a goal, and then? Shrug and say, “What next?”

Hey, at least she has experience.

I’ll admit, the first time one of my posts really hit big, it was featured by Remus at the Woodpile Report (LINK). I was happy, but almost apprehensive, like a dog that finally caught a car. What the hell do I do now? I was ringing up more views in a day on a single post than the entire blog did in the first nine months of existence. My apprehension: Was it good enough? Was there enough content on the site to keep readers? What the hell do I do with this car?

I guess I have to add another two reasons people fail is that they are:

Are afraid of success – I’ve seen people self-sabotage because the very idea of succeeding scared them. Their solution? Screw up.
Feel unworthy of success – likewise, people who don’t feel worthy will actively avoid situations where they are successful.

I’ve been lucky throughout most of my life to not be afraid of success, but driven to achieve it, maybe a bit too much. My wife says this is one of my personalities. There is easy-going Juan DeLegator, but this one she just calls The General. The General doesn’t care what time it is. The General doesn’t care if you’re tired. The General wants results. Now. I imagine it’s just as pleasant for everyone around me as it sounds, but, honestly, I enjoy it. Plus? The General gets results.

A personal hero, plus he shows up every Christmas to remind me of the true spirit of Christmas: maneuver warfare. The neighbors will never try to sing carols here again.

My idea is that what I accomplished yesterday was fine, but what I’m going to accomplish tomorrow better beat it. I have worried from time to time that the best post I’ll ever write is in the past. Then, however, I’ll put together a post that I like so much that I find it hard to go to sleep afterwards because I’m so excited about what I just wrote. I’m sure that someone is going to laugh, or learn, or both.

It is a big Internet. It’s also a huge economy. And to go out and make more money is, generally, easy.

But success isn’t necessarily only measured in money. There’s also other things. Like food and cars and cable television: the things that money buys.

Oh, okay, fine. There’s also family. And community. And faith. The same principles apply there, as well.

See what you made me do? The General is not amused. But he’s just pitching in his two cents.

34 Random Thoughts About The Economy, Money, and Jobs

“Well, Saddam owed us money.” – Arrested Development

Maybe I should get more sleep.

It’s nearly Thanksgiving, and the next few weeks will be busy. Now that The Boy is off at college and no longer engaged in half a dozen activities, we’re down to just having to chase Pugsley around. Not so busy that there won’t be a full slate of posts – those are planned for the next few weeks, barring a change based on current events or me being distracted by shiny objects.

Today, though, I thought I’d change it up a bit, so here are a few random thoughts on business, economics, and wealth.

The last economic crash was about a housing bubble. The next economic crash will be about our “everything” bubble where money flows faster to chase smaller and smaller returns.
The biggest thing to crash after the next bubble pops will be money. It’s never fun when the value of money drops to zero, since having a little inflation is like being a little pregnant – not much happens at the beginning, but by the end everyone is yelling and screaming and covered in blood.
The next economic crash will be the biggest in our lives.
Or not. I’ve been wrong before.
But I still think 2025 will be interesting.
Most jobs don’t require thinking nowadays – they are a set of procedures and rules based on the lowest common denominator employee. The best jobs like this are at the DMV, which at least allow you to be mean and unpleasant, plus government benefits.
Jobs that don’t require thinking can be paid at the lowest possible wage. If you’re lucky enough to be hired at Old MacDonald’s farm, I hope you can rise to the C-I-E-I-O position, but you’ll have to be out standing in your field.
Businesses that do things immorally don’t automatically fail because they do things immorally – many immoral and even evil businesses flourish. It’s only in the movies that the good guys always win.
When I gave career advice to The Boy, I advised him to build expertise and skills in things that couldn’t be done over the Internet or by an outsourced employee working in a country where the native language consists only of vowels, grunts, and humming noises but yet has 355 terms for “waddle”.
Always be worth more to your company than your company is paying you.
“What have you done for me lately?” is a good and fair question from any boss.
The second mouse gets the cheese in the trap. No, I’m not going first.
If it’s choosing between money and honor, choose honor. The bills might be more difficult to pay, but at least you can look yourself in the mirror. Until the power company cuts the electricity.
Seriously though, choose honor.
It’s the risk that you don’t take that you’ll regret. But you only hear successful people say that.
Never build a business on what you love, since no one cares about medieval Norse poetry. Build a business on what you do that other people love and will pay for. You’ll learn to love it.
Capitalism works great to allocate spoils in an expanding market. Capitalism fails in a contracting one. There’s nothing easy about the transition.
Being short of money and optimistic about the future is better than having lots of cash and being pessimistic.
Money can’t make you happy, but you can avoid most of life’s miseries by having a few hundred thousand dollars. Not every one of life’s miseries, but most of them.
Whenever anyone says it’s not about the money, it’s really about the money.
Whenever anyone says cost is no object, you can expect that statement to be proven false once the estimates arrive. Make them pay in advance.
The reward for work well done is more work. This is actually a pretty good deal – we tend to buy video games built around this same premise.
The rewards aren’t linear – the closer to the top, the greater the rewards. But you have to fight the big boss at the end before you retire.
Great bosses are rarer than you might imagine. Most bosses are okay. Some are awful.
The worst kind of boss is a weak boss. They will praise you when you don’t deserve it and sell you out when you don’t.
Teamwork makes it easy to blame someone else.
In America, when two men meet, they ask “What do you do?” Too often we equate ourselves with “what we do,” while forgetting we get to choose who we are. Unless you’re Johnny Depp, in which case you are stuck being Johnny Depp.
If you find yourself dreading the alarm clock and not wanting to go to work you go anyway. It’s your job. If it’s too much? Find another job or retire.
True story: a friend of mine had a sister that decided to retire one day when she was about 30. She was shocked when the checks stopped coming, she seemed to think that when you retired, the company had to keep paying you. I think she’s a Bernie® voter now.
Me? I’m trying to start thinking about retirement before my boss starts thinking about my retirement.
When I was first hired into a job, I heard a statistic that 70% of a typical workday for a typical employee was unproductive. I was shocked that the figure was so high.
Now, after working for years, I’m shocked that the figure is so low. I tried to come up with jokes about lazy people, but they just won’t work.
Meetings often happen just because they’re on the schedule. Look like you’re paying attention and don’t sleep, no matter how quickly it makes the meeting go.
I had a friend who worked at the Unemployment Department who got fired. He still had to show up the next day.

Dare To Live Your Life And Scarring My Children For Life

“Now it was serious: a double-dog-dare. What else was there but a triple dare you? And then, the coup de grace of all dares, the sinister triple-dog-dare.” – A Christmas Story

Which is more daring, a pebble or a stick? The pebble: it’s a little boulder.

Almost 2,500 years ago, Thucydides said, “luck favors the daring.” Thucydides is dead, so, really, what did he know anyway? But part of being young is being daring – it’s on the label. There are so many things that you know, especially things that aren’t so. Life hasn’t yet given you curve balls and unexpected experiences

The lessons that you can learn from unexpected experiences can be helpful ones. The first lesson I was ever taught in high school chemistry lab was: “cold glass looks exactly like hot glass.” The second lesson was “never trust a naked man selling slightly used sulfuric acid, you can never tell where the acid has been.”

But the biggest loss is when we let one bad experience create fear in our lives. Let me explain: One time when we were getting firewood back when we lived in Alaska, Five Year Old The Boy was tromping in the forest. While jumping up and down on a little hill (five year old kids do that), The Boy managed to stir up a group of wasps that had burrowed into the ground there. All of them, and I mean all of them, came out of the nest and swarmed The Boy like Japanese jets on Godzilla©, all while The Boy flapped his arms like Greta Thunberg™ on tweaking on meth.

I would pay money to watch Greta in Marine boot camp – I’m sure the D.I. would nicely tell her, “As soon as you’re done getting your beauty sleep, princess, GET OFF OF MY OBSTACLE COURSE!”

After The Boy yelled “How dare you!” at the wasps, they left, because that technique always works. The Mrs. and I calmed him down, and treated the bites. The experience, however, was enough that The Boy was pretty scared of wasps – and there were a lot of them in Fairbanks that year.

So, one day after we had moved to Texas, we were in the backyard and just like in a cartoon, a beautiful butterfly had flown right up to The Boy.

“What is it?” There were butterflies in Alaska, but none that was as amazing as this one.

“It’s a butterfly,” I responded. His eyes lit up as he smiled at the colorful, delicate wings. “They bite,” I added. I had, of course, forgotten about The Boy being surrounded by wasps like ice weasels on a cheese wheel. The Boy had not.

The Boy ran into the house, screaming. The Mrs., who had observed every second, was not pleased.

Yes. This really happened. I made my son run screaming from a butterfly, so you know I had “Father of the Year” pretty much in the bag after that back in 2007.

SJW means Social Justice Wasp? Hmm. Wasps have about the same temperament as Antifa©, but at least the wasps have jobs.

But there are many things in life where the first experience wasn’t great, but like The Boy’s fear of butterflies, you’ve learned the wrong lesson if you avoid butterflies because of wasps. Mark Twain said it well:

We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it and stop there lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove lid again and that is well, but also she will never sit on a cold one anymore.

Twain had to work out – he was constantly on the run later on in his life after assassinating Abraham Lincoln. He also never wore shirts – he didn’t believe in concealed weapons.

Receivers in the game of football have to have a short memory – after coming across the middle, being hit by a linebacker at a combined velocity of 40 miles per hour, you’d never run another route again if you kept that in mind. They even have a phrase that describes receivers who are jittery – they say they are “hearing footsteps” – they’re more concerned about being hit than playing the game.

And me – I had to have a short memory as well. I’ve heard that Samuel Johnson said that a second marriage “is the triumph of hope over experience,” and that’s right. It is. And if I had spent too much time overthinking it? I’d never have married The Mrs.

Hmm. Dr. Lechter Says. New feature?

I think the key is optimism and a sense of confidence that the future will be okay. I think that’s why older folks sometimes stop taking risks – they’ve had such a large number of experiences that they can see sixteen ways something that can go wrong. A teenager learning to drive, however, sees no way to lose. It’s only after experience that caution comes into play.

When was the last time you gave up an opportunity because you felt that it was too risky? When was the last time you decided not to take a vacation because the last one was bad? The minute you stop living in your life, taking risks, and knowing that the future will take care of itself, you’re dead even if you’re still breathing.

I think that most of the mistakes people make is in not being bold enough. There is an advantage to trying, especially trying things you don’t know how to do. Mark Twain said it well:

There are some things that can beat smartness and foresight. Awkwardness and stupidity can. The best swordsman in the world doesn’t need to fear the second best swordsman in the world. No, the person for him to be afraid of is some ignorant antagonist who has never had a sword in his hand before. He doesn’t do the thing he ought to do, and so the expert isn’t prepared for him. He does the thing he ought not to do and often it catches the expert out and ends him on the spot.

So, in your life, you have one shot. Do you want to regret not doing something in twenty years? Come on – join me. Convince all the grade school kids that butterflies bite. Bonus points if you convince them that butterflies produce deadly poisons*.

This may be the most Australian picture ever, but I’ll defer to Adam (LINK) and Tom (LINK).

*Not applicable in Australia, where literally everything wants to kill you, and even ladybugs can leap seven feet and have venom-tipped spikes for legs.

Bonus unrelated content – JP on Epstein:

Why Character Just Might Be A Better Indicator Of Marriage Stability Than What Her Butt Looks Like

“Just because you are a character doesn’t mean that you have character.” – Pulp Fiction

When the bugman began to hate . . .

There was a time after She Who Will Not Be Named was forever banished from Stately Wilder Manor, but before I met The Mrs. Yes, your host, the John Wilder was single. Can you believe I didn’t beat the ladies off with a stick? I mean, the restraining order and all . . . well . . . the less said about that the better.

There was one particular woman who had caught my attention. One evening, I introduced her to my friend who I’ll call Jim, mainly because his name is Jim. Oops – I think I’ve said too much. Now everyone will know who he is. If only Jim weren’t such a rare name!

“What did you think?” I asked Jim.

Ever the good friend, Jim said, and this is an exact quote: “What do you two have in common besides your eyes and her butt?”

They say that for a statement to really hurt, it has to be true. Jim had delivered the Atomic Wedgie of Truth®. He was, of course, correct. And you should be so lucky to have friends that will tell you the truth as bluntly and completely as Jim. The relationship between the woman’s butt and my eyes ended soon thereafter.

A friend of mine went to the hospital because of a wedgie – sadly, he was diagnosed with Stage 4 dorkiness.

Not only is character important in dating, it was pretty important to a company I worked for once upon a time: I was one of the employees lucky enough to be trained in behavior-based interviewing. The basic idea of behavior-based interviewing is that people, like the official results of Jeffery Epstein’s autopsy, don’t change very much. Therefore, the best way to get an actual prediction of the candidate’s future behavior is to understand the candidate’s past behavior. Then we were taught how to interview so they would share relevant situations so we could understand the candidate really well.

If the interview technique is done right, it doesn’t feel like an interview, it feels like casual conversation.

I was horrible in my first few interviews, as in scaring the candidate because he thought the company hired robotic androids that only appeared to be human. Thankfully, there was a feedback system from the candidates, and my boss gave me some tips based on it. He told me that it was okay to blink and breathe while conducting an interview, and that wouldn’t be perceived by the candidate as weakness. I took a risk that he was right, and the candidates stopped shaking so much during the interviews. I guess staring unblinkingly directly into their eyes nonstop during the interview is a bit creepy, so I allowed myself no fewer than three blinks per minute.

I really messed up this interview. They asked me if I was a people person. I answered, “Yes! I am a people! Or is they go great with mustard a better answer?”

But if you do anything several hundred times, you can get pretty good at it unless you’re Nicholas Cage acting in a movie. It (really) did bug the candidates that I could take notes without looking down at my notepad. It’s not a great superpower, but I decided to keep that quirk going, since it was a sign of dominance that I could use to weed out the weak. And I eventually ended up interviewing hundreds of new graduate applicants – heck, I even used the behavior-based interviewing techniques on The Mrs. the night we met to see if she had any of the character, um, difficulties that led to the untimely departure of She Who Will Not Be Named.

The Mrs. didn’t have those flaws.

So, on one blind date the girl said she was a huge country fan. Me: “Well, I like Russia, too.”

The thing that surprised me the most was that interviewees would tell me the most incredible things – like how they’d lied to people. How they’d stolen from their employer. How much they felt the world was out to get them. By the way, if you lived in Fayetteville, Arkansas in 1998 and never figured out who shaved your pig, dyed it blue, and dressed it like Dolly Parton, I think I might know the guy that did it. Don’t worry – he told me it was mostly consensual. Except for the perfume.

The interviewing system was based almost entirely around character. The company I was working for considered good character the most important factor in what constituted a good employee. More than once I heard, “You can teach a good person to do their job, but you can’t teach a bad person to be good,” from my boss. Then he’d shake his head and look at me with a sad, defeated expression on his face. Of course I didn’t blink. I had to show him the respect due the alpha of the pack.

But there were employees who actually possessed good character there, too. As an example, one employee I know was attempting to find some financial information that was relevant to his job. Somehow in working through the company computer network he stumbled upon the check writing software.

Thankfully the money is headed her way from that Nigerian prince.

Yes. My friend found the software that would have allowed him to write himself a check for $50,000,000. No human would have seen the check – it would have been printed on company check stock, signed with a dot-matrix signature, popped in the mail, and delivered directly to my friend’s house. The company had billions (really) in the bank. It wouldn’t have been immediately caught.

My friend called me over and showed it to me. It was a moment I was in awe. This company had huge piles of money in various bank accounts. I realized that just a few keystrokes could end up making my friend an overnight millionaire, at least until the audit found a few missing millions. In a situation that would tempt some people, my friend calmly picked up the phone, called accounting, and let them know they had a really big problem. And he didn’t do it from a beach in Brazil while sipping some drink that comes with an umbrella. But not flaming. That’s for tourists.

That’s good character.

Climate science has taught us that science demands seriousness.

The company actually had a list of traits they were looking for. What did they consider good character? Humility was on the list, as was honesty and a few other things people generally think are representative of virtue, as I wrote about Kardashians, Hairy Bikinis, Elvis, Wealth, and Virtue. There are a lot of things that change about people, but absent a significant psychological event (and sometimes not even then), their character doesn’t change.

That brings me to this statement: the most important part of parenting is helping to build character. I think I’ve established that character is important, so when is it important?

I think that the primary focus of parenthood is guiding children through one critical age range: middle school, from the ages of around 11 to, say, 14. Did you go to grade school with someone who was pretty cool, only to watch them become a complete dirtbag in high school? I know I did, and the time that they went downhill was in middle school.

The ages of 11 to 14 are where kids are first practicing at being adults, and are in the process of crystallizing the character that will define them for the rest of their lives. They’re understanding being really hurt and rejected for the first time, how to deal with defeat. What love is. What their values are. How to deal with victory. They’re understanding what true friendship and loyalty really is. They’re finally (thankfully) understanding what deodorant is, though generally just a few weeks too late.

Knowing how to relate to Pugsley is everything.

And they’re deciding if they want to reject virtue and turn to the Dark Side© evil. Sorry, but Disney® has trademarked that phrase, along with all jokes related to mice, intellectual property abuse, and and ducks. And, yes, I understand that some percentage, say 70%, of character is flat-out genetic in nature. There are families of dirtbags that have been dirtbags for 100 years. If you think about it, you’ll know who I’m talking about.

As I mentioned before, I even used the techniques I learned from interviewing in the blind date that eventually netted The Mrs. When I finally took The Mrs. over to meet Jim and his family, Jim approved. “You guys seem great for each other.”

Perhaps Seneca, writing back in 60 AD or so (back when your Momma was just 50 years old), said it best:

Each person acquires their own character, but their official roles are designated by chance. You should invite some to your table because they are deserving, others because they may come to deserve it.”

When you are evaluating people to be your friend, your mate, or your employee, character is primary. Great butts are secondary, in the end.

Get it? Butts? In the end?

I kill me.

Success, Fight Club, Strippers and Socialists

“We have just lost cabin pressure.” – Fight Club

The second rule of Wilder Club is if this is your first visit, you have to comment.

I had a conversation with a friend today. Oh, sure, I hear you say, what would an iconoclastic iron-jawed individualist with a body odor redolent of medium rare ribeye (with just a hint of pepper) like John Wilder need with a friend? I guess we all have our little weaknesses. And dogs follow me. Because I smell like steak.

In this particular case as with most of my friends, I’ve known this friend for years. I’ve known most of my close friends longer than The Boy has been alive, and he’s in college now. It’s nice. If a day, a week, a month or a year goes by, so what? We can still restart the conversation where we left off. It’s as comfortable as watching a movie you’ve seen a dozen times.

I’ll make the observation that the only place where the character of people change is in a movie – almost all of my close friends have the same sense of humor and the same sense of values that they had when our friendships were forming. Absent a significant emotional event, people are a constant.

And I like that.

There is a corresponding trust that comes with being a close friend – honesty. That’s why when talking with my friend, I really enjoyed the chance to be honest. Honesty is difficult because it requires that trust, because really honest criticism is hard to take, even when it comes from a friend. Or a co-worker. Or a relative. Or someone you just met. Or your UPS® delivery guy. Oh, wait. Most people don’t like honest. But my friends do.

This particular friend is really in a good position in life, which seems to be a common pattern with my friends. He has a spouse that makes more money than he does, and, in general, the household probably brings in enough cash each month so that Nigerian princes send emails to them asking for money. They’re wealthy enough that they donate to the homeless. This appears to be a more socially acceptable donation strategy than my “donation to the topless,” scheme.

Yes, this is the only joke that I’ve ever seen that involves both the Greco-Roman philosophy of stoicism and stripping. I’m sure that Seneca would be proud.

But lest ye want to class my friend as the evil, selfish, wealthy type, he’s not. The family has a huge number of kids, and it’s a close family. My friend is constantly taking time off to go to athletic events, and when we catch up, I can sense that the relationship he has with his kids isn’t a surface relationship – it’s genuine and deep. I can tell, because I know people who understand genuine relationships, who listen to both sides of a family argument – my neighbors.

And yet . . . despite the wealth, despite the great family, my friend feels that there’s something missing. He is as high as he wants to go in the company he works at – any higher and the travel demands would pull him away from family. He’s long since mastered his job – there is little that can be thrown at him that he hasn’t seen in the last fifteen or so years. So, his condition is one of high pay, mastery of work, and, improbably, discontent.

John Wilder: “You realize you have an advantage that 99% of people would die for. You’re financially secure. You can quit your job anytime. Literally, you could walk in to your boss this afternoon and quit. Your lifestyle wouldn’t change a bit.”

Not Elon Musk: “Yes.”

Unlikely Voice of Wisdom John Wilder: “So, what is it you want to do?”

Really, I Promise It Isn’t Elon Musk: “I need to think about it.”

Channeling Tyler Durden From Fight Club® John Wilder: “No. If you think about it, you’ll end up doing nothing but thinking about it. You have to do something. Physically start it. This weekend. I’ll check back on Monday to see how you did.”

There is a scene in the movie Fight Club™ where Tyler Durden holds a gun to the head of a liquor store clerk. If you haven’t seen the movie, I strongly suggest it. I probably watch it once a month while I write – I think there are few movies that communicate the human condition in modern life so well.

Pugsley doesn’t miss many school days.

JACK, in voiceover: On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.

CLERK: Please… don’t…

TYLER DURDEN: Give me your wallet.

Tyler pulls out the driver’s license.

TYLER: Raymond K. Hessel. 1320 SE Benning, apartment A. A small, cramped basement apartment.

RAYMOND: How’d you know?

TYLER: They give basement apartments letters instead of numbers. Raymond, you’re going to die. Is this a picture of Mom and Dad?

RAYMOND: Yes.

TYLER: Your mom and dad will have to call kindly doctor so-and-so to dig up your dental records, because there won’t be much left of your face.

RAYMOND: Please, God, no!

JACK: Tyler…

TYLER: An expired community college student ID card. What did you used to study, Raymond K. Hessel?

RAYMOND: S-S-Stuff.

TYLER: “Stuff.” Were the mid-terms hard? I asked you what you studied.

JACK: Tell him!

RAYMOND: Biology, mostly.

TYLER: Why?

RAYMOND: I… I don’t know…

TYLER: What did you want to be, Raymond K. Hessel?

TYLER: The question, Raymond, was “what did you want to be?”

JACK: Answer him!

RAYMOND: A veterinarian!

TYLER: Animals.

RAYMOND: Yeah … animals and s-s-s —

TYLER: Stuff. That means you have to get more schooling.

RAYMOND: Too much school.

TYLER: Would you rather be dead?

RAYMOND: No, please, no, God, no!

Tyler uncocks the gun, lowers it.

TYLER: I’m keeping your license. I know where you live. I’m going to check on you. If you aren’t back in school and on your way to being a veterinarian in six weeks, you will be dead. Get the hell out of here.

JACK: I feel sick.

TYLER: Imagine how he feels.

Tyler brings the gun to his own head, pulls the trigger — click. It’s empty.

JACK: I don’t care, that was horrible.

TYLER: Tomorrow will be the most beautiful day of Raymond K. Hessell’s life. His breakfast will taste better than any meal he has ever eaten.

How dare you . . . make Greta uncomfortable.

And it’s true. I tend to think that everyone’s life would be a little better if they had Tyler Durden to be a life coach, to ever so gently coax them to be the best they can be while holding a .357 magnum Colt® Python™ to their head. That seems to be a bit frowned upon, so that leaves my friends with me. See how lucky you are?

In my role as Dr. Durden, I’ve noticed that there’s a problem some people have. It’s being too clever. It’s thinking. How do I know? It’s my problem that I try to compensate for by writing and doing. If I think about doing something, it will never get done. I keep thinking about fixing the bannister that broke when we moved in to the house a decade ago. It’s never been high on my list, since people falling down stairs is funny, with extra points if they are really old. But thinking about doing something never accomplishes anything.

If I plan to do it, it will get done. Half of my time driving to and from work on a day I’m going to write a post, I’m writing it in my head, selecting jokes, thinking of themes. It’s also spent thinking of how I’m going to connect the idea I want to share with students who might be forced to read this post when Mrs. Grundy tells them to compare and contrast my work with that poseur, Mark Twain, in high school in the year 2248 (that’s when Kirk will be a sophomore).

Okay, generally on my drive to work I have about five or ten minutes between cars, so it would take several hours to get a group of cars behind me like that. But a man has to have goals!

It may look like I’m driving to work, but I’m really plotting out what I’m going to write about. To be honest, it sometimes takes both lanes to do that. I wish the State Patrol® would be a little more understanding to artists like me.

Thankfully, The Mrs. is.

The Mrs. and I had a conversation the other night. It may or may not have involved wine – I’m not telling unless I’ve been subpoenaed and am under oath to a House subcommittee. Actually, it wasn’t so much a conversation as The Mrs. describing to me how she felt about this little project I publish three times a week.

I don’t make any money on this blog, though I’ve made clear since day one that can change at any time. I have plans for several (eventual) ways to do that including adding subliminal messages causing you to want to pay for my health insurance. It looks like it’s already worked for Bernie Sanders.

In a socialist paradise all bloggers make $450,000 a year, right? But I worry that for this Christmas we won’t have an Elf on a Shelf, we’ll have a Bernie on a Gurney.

No, at this point, writing is a hobby. But it’s a hobby that takes over 20 hours a week, sometimes closer to 30 hours. I still have a job, and I won’t stop interacting my family, so most nights I won’t even start writing before 9pm. A lot of that time comes from time I’d normally be selfishly engaged in what you mortals call “sleep”, but a chunk of that time comes directly from time I’d be spending with The Mrs.

When I’m writing, I’m simply not available. I’m writing.

The Mrs.: “You know, I would certainly have an issue with the time that you spend writing, if it weren’t important.” There was more to this, where she detailed the number of hours I spend. But I keyed in on the word “Important.”

I was a little surprised by that. “Important?”

The Mrs.: “Yes. I can see that what you’re writing about is important. People need to hear it. So keep doing it.”

Okay, that proves she never reads this stuff.

But as I talked more with my friend, the concept of “meaning” came up.

My Friend Who is Really Most Certainly Not Elon Musk: “So, it’s about meaning?”

Suddenly as Wise as the Roman Philosopher Seneca John Wilder: “That’s silly. You don’t go off chasing ‘meaning’ in your life. Pick out something you like to do, and do it. But figure out how to make it important to other people. You like to woodwork, right? You say you never have time to do it. Do it this weekend. Film it. Put it up on YouTube®. I’ll be checking up with you on Monday.”

I asked myself, why is my friend working at all? I think because he feels he’s supposed to work. That having a job is a rule, it’s what he’s always done. The problem that many of us have is that we tend to create rules where there aren’t any rules. I’m not sure why. Perhaps we need to justify what we do. Perhaps it’s like my two important rules for life:

Don’t tell everything you know.

Success? My friend is already successful in most ways a person can be successful. Their life is really good. I told them, directly, “You’ve been given so many gifts. If you don’t make something special of your life, you’re wasting it.”

Interestingly, this applies to you, too.

And me.

How will your breakfast taste tomorrow?

Life Insurance? Nah, They Can Suffer.

Dot: I’m sure you have the life insurance squared away?
Ed: Have we done that honey? We gotta do that honey!
Dot: You’ve got to do that H.I.! Ed’s got her hands full with this little angel.
H.I.: Yes, ma’am.
Dot: What would Ed and little angel do if a truck came along and splattered your brains all over the interstate?

-Raising Arizona

Is it just me, or was it Transformers® who started the trans debate with whole “robots identifying as trucks” thing?

A long time ago, Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert®, came up with a handy, short guide to finances. His quip was, “I’d write a book of financial advice, but it would only be one page long.” I wrote about it before, but that was two years ago and this will be funnier. The nice thing is that his list of financial advice is simple, and applicable to most people in normal times (from, say 1950 to 2020):

Make a will.
Pay off your credit cards.
Get term life insurance if you have a family to support.
Fund your 401k to the maximum.
Fund your IRA to the maximum.
Buy a house if you want to live in a house and can afford it.
Put six months’ worth of expenses in a money-market account.
Take whatever money is left over and invest 70% in a stock index fund and 30% in a bond fund through any discount broker and never touch it until retirement.
If any of this confuses you, or you have something special going on (retirement, college planning, or tax issues), hire a fee-based financial planner, not one who charges a percentage of your portfolio.

I don’t carry life insurance – I want to die just as I was born – as a burden to my family.

I think, for various structural reasons, normal times won’t continue, but I’ve blogged about that more than once. We’re seeing inflation accelerate (10 Years (or less) To A $10 Big Mac – How To Explain Inflation To Your Friends) and we are, perhaps, getting ready to party like its 1859 again. So, yeah. It all might be going to hell, but it could also be much better than my worst projections, and some of the above might matter. Yeah, I know, this is like having a mortician say, “But on the bright side….”

My insurance company is dependable – every month since I’ve had my policy they’ve sent me a bill.

So far, I’ve accomplished most of the things on the list above by Mr. Adams. When I’ve varied from the suggestions, I’ve actually suffered financially – Scott is a pretty shrewd fellow, and he’s certainly more successful financially than most people. For instance, if I had kept more money in the market, I would be that much more heartbroken when Netflix™ costs $12. Not $12 a month, but $12 for the whole company.

Being wrong in my case is okay – I’m in pretty good shape financially – I was able recently to add meat to the Hamburger Helper® (I’m not saying it was hamburger, and what neighborhood will miss a cat or two?), so not being 70% in the stock market has been okay. I’m able to sleep better at night and not worry.

Sadly, Hamburger Helper™ only works if the hamburger wants help.

But one thing on Mr. Adams’ list above that isn’t on mine anymore: life insurance. Sure, I take the company life insurance policy because it’s cheap super cheap, and if I were to pass away, The Mrs. would get the princess-ly sum of $500,000, which in the year 2029 will buy you a pack of illegal vaping juice. I hope (on any given day) that I’m worth more alive than dead to her.

Besides, if anything suspicious happened to me, she’s an author and her Internet browser history looks a list of creepy websites the Zodiac Killer was too scared to go to. The Mrs. could be 100% innocent, but it would still be difficult to explain why she’d spent several weeks researching “undetectable poisons to kill your bald husband with.” Wait. That’s just a bit too specific.

Mental note: eat only what The Mrs. eats. Also: wear a helmet.

The purpose of life insurance is simple – it’s not a lottery – it’s a mechanism so that if the breadwinner was to die early, the family could be financially secure without the income they provided. But what financial security does my family need to provide for? The Boy is off at college, and with his scholarships I think he pays tuition, room and board in pocket lint and beef jerky wrappers because it doesn’t cost very much to go to Bob’s State University and Discount Amateur Asbestos Mine if you do really well on the ACT®.

Pugsley will in a few short years be off at college, too, and that’s it. Our last financial challenge. We’re in good shape for that today. Also, if I were to die, the major source of weird family expense goes away. The Mrs. is unlikely to spend nearly as much as I do on hobbies like ham radio. I know that no one was more shocked than I was to find out that you couldn’t use a store bought ham. I think you have to get a fancy farm raised ham.

If a pig eats ham, that must make a really good radio?

So if I passed on, then what? The Mrs. would have to get by on our nest egg, which should work great as long as she doesn’t’ have any fancy needs, like electricity. My need for life insurance now is nearly zero.

But it wasn’t always so.

When I was younger, I actually bought the greatest amount of life insurance the company offered. The nice thing about life insurance is that it’s one product that’s priced appropriately – when you’re youngest, it’s cheapest. And when you’re older, it costs more. When I was young, I wanted to make sure that the family had its needs taken care of. I don’t recall it ever costing much more than $30 a month, and that was for $2 million or more.

That was good. When The Boy was first born, we didn’t have much as far as savings and we had almost two decades to plan for. And we had no idea if he would get scholarship after being dropped on his head all of those times. Now? We can afford to go bowling whenever we want. And we can get some of that fancy box wine when company comes over. And our risks as a family have dropped significantly.

Think of box wine as juice boxes for adults.

Frankly, I never needed life insurance at all. It was a product I was paying for that did me absolutely no good. I would never see a dime of return. Silly people I live with, wanting to be protected.

But in 2019, what would I add to Scott Adams’ list?

Live in a safe place. Think about population density when you determine safety. Be there and be part of the community. If the place is too big to recognize people in the stores regularly? It’s probably too big. Be there sooner rather than later.
Have food. Start with a month’s worth – nobody thinks you are crazy for having a month’s worth of food. More is better. Farming areas are nice – people are generally friendly, and they make the food.
Be able to get water. Clean water is good, but there are ways to make water clean.
Know what you can’t live without. If it’s PEZ® or insulin or fabric softener, know and either save it up, or learn how to do without. I regularly shame The Mrs. pancreas to try to get it to produce insulin. No luck so far.
It teaches you what you need and don’t need faster than anything.
What would you add?
Did I mention PEZ™?