Wilder, Wealthy, and Wise

Possibility, Your Choices, McDonalds, and Your Responsibility . . . (and too many “Your Mom” Jokes)

“And in Paris, you can buy a beer at McDonald’s. And you know what they call a Quarter-Pounder with Cheese in Paris?” – Pulp Fiction

This is a picture of the McDonald®’s shoe car, circa George W. Bush’s presidency. Notice the French fries dangling from the rear view mirror. Must be some sort of talisman that makes him attract your mom.

There is a brief moment at your birth, when every single possibility of who you will be, and what you can achieve is open to you. If your genetics support it, you can do it. You will never have more possibilities open to you than at that moment. And, over time – slowly at first – those possibilities narrow. Your life is a funnel, and the wide open end is the possibilities that you have on day one. Eventually, that funnel narrows. You make decisions that cut off possibilities – you decide to dedicate yourself to a single sport rather than trying to letter in three. Possibilities disappear. You decide to go to college rather than open a business. Possibilities disappear.

Possibilities never reappear. They were always there. You can’t conjure them out of nothing, but you can fulfill them.

Your life consists of two things: the choices you make (which determine the possibilities that you have) and time. And your choices even determine how much time you have. Choose wrong? You lose a few options. Want to shoot up heroin? Chances are poor that you’ll live very long, unless you’re Keith Richards – honestly, I imagine that if you could isolate how to kill him you could make cockroaches AND mosquitos extinct with a single drop of that stuff.

But your life consists of your choices.

Some good choices, some bad choices . . .

Ray Kroc was the guy who got involved with a little restaurant in 1952. He helped franchise it. Kroc built it into a brand we all know today – his vision drove the entire process. Ray Kroc is the single person most responsible for McDonalds™. He created, single-handedly, the concept of a clean hamburger place where you could get a decent meal inexpensively and wouldn’t be afraid that bikers or rowdy teenagers would cause a scene in front of your family. Sure, a dollar burger isn’t five star French cooking, but it’s a dollar burger in a clean restaurant with a clean parking lot.

What Ray was doing at the time he got involved with McDonalds® was selling milkshake mixers to the McDonald brothers (who owned the restaurant). He looked at the hamburger shop and saw it had great possibilities. He went to work with the McDonald brothers (named Ronald, Bono, and Sting), and eventually bought the brothers out. Oh, and in 1954 when Kroc started with them? Yeah. He was 52.

He was a FIFTY TWO year old milkshake machine salesman, and let’s be real – nobody puts that as their career ambition under their senior picture in the annual. And Kroc was trying to sell a dying brand of milkshake machines. Like your mother, his machines weren’t very popular, and unlike your mother, they were expensive.

He didn’t create a single new possibility when he made the jump from being a travelling salesman – that possibility was always within him.

Ray made the choice. He was going to do more, and be more than a washed-up 52 year old milkshake salesman waiting to collect social security. Why didn’t he do it before? Don’t know. Maybe in 1954 he just got up feeling like he had nothing left to lose – at 52 you know you’ve got more weeks behind you than in front of you, and maybe he sensed he had to make something go.

I know that many people like to put the cause of their situation in life and give up. And it’s easy to blame everyone around you. It’s easy to blame society, or your mother (let’s face it, we all blame your mother) or genetics.

Sure, it’s pretty unlikely that Ray could have been competition for Elvis in 1952 – Ray was too old. Likewise, his shot at pitching for the Yankees® was finished. He was past his prime – he would have had to start much earlier, rather than, you know, fight in World War I.

Those possibilities were closed down for him – but the reservoir of possibility was still open for him to lead a restaurant franchise system that’s served billions of meals and created an entire industry – without McDonalds® there wouldn’t be a Burger King™ or a Wendy’s©. And if he hadn’t created that industry, there’d be no place for your mom to work.

Kroc eventually bought the San Diego Padres®, so there’s an argument that not all of his ideas were great, although he bought that team (when he was 70) for $12 million dollars, roughly as much as a current Major League® ballboy makes per inning. As of today, that team is probably worth about a billion dollars.

So, I guess even that was a good deal. True story: when he told his wife he bought the San Diego Padres™ she asked, “What, is that a monastery?”

Friday is the day for health posts, so why am I posting about choices and Ray Kroc?

You are where you are today, almost entirely due to the choices you’ve made in your life. If you feel that your situation is beyond your control, and blame everything else besides you, you’re done. And those are a horrible people to hang around with – always whining and complaining about how the world is out to get them and the deck is stacked so they cannot win.

People who believe that the world outside controls them and their ability for success have what’s called by nerdy psychologists an “external locus of control” – and that’s not a good thing. People who feel that way are stressed out all the time, and it shows in the results: people who an internal locus of control believe the ball is in their hands. The have better jobs that pay more.

Perhaps, oh, just perhaps, people who think that their output matter – work harder, and get better results.

So, short version? Get your big boy pants on (or big girl panties on) and understand that your life is what you make of it. The crappy time that you’re having at work isn’t because people are out to get you. Unless your last name is Kennedy. Then? Yeah, maybe.

Repeat After Me: Never Buy a New Car (and other lessons for young adults)

“Everything I have is yours. My four lawnmowers. My sister. My 35 ferrets. My massive student loan and real estate debt. It’s all yours.” – Anchorman 2

I took this picture on June 2 from my hotel room. Well, over a decade ago – in Anchorage. Dinner that night was salmon, red wine, Caesar salad, and a beer for dessert. I was still paying on my student loans, but I didn’t have a car payment . . .

It was about 10:30 on a warm summer evening. I was sitting at a stop light in my home town. I had my (then) best friend with me, a case of beer in the back, and we were going to go and watch HBO® over at my apartment. I was a senior in high school. Yes, I had my own apartment while I was in high school – it was amazing, thank you very much. It’s a longer story – maybe I’ll share it sometime – danger it involves striking workers, cans of soup, and volleyball.

Anyway, back to the stoplight.

I looked behind me as I heard a squealing sound. In the rear view mirror I saw a car (headlights off, even though it was night) heading right for the rear end of my brand new car. Brand new! I did the mental calculation. It wasn’t going to stop in time. It didn’t.

The squealing sound ended in a crunching sound.

My brand new car (I got it because I’d gotten a full-ride scholarship) now had a wrinkled back end, just like Cher®. Crap.

So, off to the local auto-body place it went. The car, literally owned by me for less than two months needed a lot of repair. I went in to find out when my car would be done. The manager (the father of a girl that had graduated a year before me) invited me into his office. He had a fairly long speech that he shared, indicating that he had found some cheaper parts than he had originally quoted the insurance company, and, well, my $200 deductible could go down to $40 if I only paid him in cash, right then.

I’m not sure how he knew that I had exactly (and only) $40 on me at the time, but his cash radar was perfect. I pulled out my wallet (brown nylon with a Velcro® strip that kept it closed) and pulled out my $40.

I felt vaguely dirty afterward, like I’d done something wrong. Honestly, I still fill icky about it writing this down.

The reality is that he probably just needed money his wife couldn’t track for booze or lunch and saw an 18 year old coming . . . and decided to separate me from all the cash that I had . . .

Fast forward to today:

I was walking in a local department store and ran into a kid that I’d coached for a while. She’d just bought a new car, and was excited about it. But she’d had a “new” car two years ago – a 2008 vintage car. What was up with that?

“Well, John, I’d had to replace the alternator and the starter. And maybe it was leaking oil. So, I was worried that would cost a lot of money to fix, so I bought a brand new car. I know you only buy used cars, but this one is brand new! Sometimes things are just meant to be! And I got a loan – it’s only 21% interest!”

I wish I was making up these details, but they are true.

For those of you that are unfamiliar with my take on cars, it is my considered opinion (noted in this post: I’m gonna tell you about an accident, and I don’t wanna hear “act of God.” – Jack Burton, Big Trouble in Little China) that my rules are even more correct if you’re a kid.

John Wilder’s Hard Earned Car Iron Lesson One: If you can’t afford to buy a car with cash, don’t. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t.

My young friend violated this rule. Now she has interest payments. Two weeks ago, there were none. Now, each and every month, like Cher™ at the fridge after midnight, they’ll always be there.

Why?

You can use someone else’s spare money RIGHT NOW to buy what you want. RIGHT NOW! Sounds awesome! There must be a catch? Yes, they want a fee. That fee is interest. You pay it every month until you’ve paid back the money you owe.

And to top it off, loans are “amortized,” which is Latin for “will cause you to die of stress because you have to figure out how to pay off all that money.” At the start of the loan, say, of $16,000 at 21% for five years, your payment will be $432.85. Yeouch! That will buy a lot of Netflix®.

That $432.85 is made of two parts: the first is the interest you pay back to the guy who loaned you the cash. The second is the money you borrowed from the guy. So, in month one you’d expect that you pay half of $432 as interest and half of $432 as principle, right?

No, not even close. Your first payment would be $280 in interest and $152 in principle.

Why? At the beginning of month one, you are paying 21% interest on the full $16,000. At the end of month one, you’ve paid off that $152, so the next month, your payment would have less interest, since now you’re paying interest only on $16,000-$152 (which is $15,848 or something like that).

You pay lots of interest early in the loan, but not much of the money you borrowed. If I were to graph it, (and I did) it would look like this:

This graph explains why, when you buy a car, you can very quickly owe much more than the car is worth, since the car is worth at least 10% less the second you drive it off the lot. Your car is immediately worth $1,600 (if you paid $16,000 for it) less than you owe on it.

You’re trapped.

Never borrow for a car.

John Wilder’s Hard Earned Car Iron Lesson Two: You can’t possibly afford a new car.

I have ridden in a billionaire’s wife’s car exactly once. It was several years old. The CD player was broken. The case around the CD player was gone. It was a nice car, but it was old. As a billionaire’s wife, she had zero need to feel superior to anyone within a three state radius – she could get on a private jet at 8AM and have lunch in Rio and ski in Switzerland the next day. Hell, she could send her dogs off to summer camp in the jet. Who is she trying to impress?

Who are you trying to impress? So why do you need a new car?

My friend had noted that I only bought used cars. I had shared that with them hoping it would wear off.

Well, maybe next time?

John Wilder’s Hard Earned Car Iron Lesson Three: If the car is worth more than 15% of your gross income, don’t buy it.

This is the kicker for my friend, and the bitter lesson they’ll learn over the next sixty months. This car is (probably) valued at 75% of their gross income. 75%. That’s like Elon Musk® buying a car that that was worth $7.5 billion dollars that year his net worth went up $10 billion dollars. I guess that’s a really cool Tesla®.

I digress. Nobody needs a car worth 75% of their gross income. Nobody. The last car I bought was 5% of my gross income. It was for The Mrs. She likes it. The one I drive is six years older, and the oil in it is only four! I like it.

My friend would have been better off buying a car that was closer to $3,000, and having a bike ready if it ever broke down. She has a job, but she rarely travels farther than 10 miles on any given day.

Let’s look at the details – at 21%, a $16,000 car will cost nearly $26,000 in payments. You’re paying an additional $10,000. How many fixes on a used car would that pay for? Lots.

It’s actually worse. If you don’t own the car outright, you MUST pay insurance so whoever loaned you the money isn’t out if you wreck the car into a deer at 7:15AM. Not that anything like that ever happened to me . . . .

So, in addition to the $10,000 in interest, my friend will be paying another $150 a month in insurance.

My friend makes (I’ll guess) about $15,000 a year. After taxes, that’s probably about $875 a month.

This car plus insurance is costing them $580. That’s 66% of every dime they take home. OUCH! And you thought the government was bad. Cars cost even more.

John Wilder’s Hard Earned Car Iron Lesson Four: It is no longer 1940.

Used cars last longer today. In 1940, a car might last five or six years. We’ve had 80 years of engineering excellence driving cars to be amazingly reliable (shh, don’t tell my car I said that). Cars are more expensive, sure, but a good car from between 1998 and 2015 or so will last for a very long time.

New cars (like my friend bought) might have issues: in order to meet government mileage restrictions, car companies are having to make the automatic transmissions (who drives stick anymore except Wilders learning to drive?) so complicated an expensive that a car may become a disposable item when the transmission goes out. There’s a mom joke here, but I’m going to skip it.

Do your research and get a good car with a decent transmission.

People Keep Taking Advantage of Kids

Yes, at 18 you’re technically an adult, although an adult that can’t drink but that can certainly sign their figurative life away to debt. Or their actual life in the military. I could have done that at the age that greasy body shop guy swindled me out of $40.

But the $40 was cheap. I never trusted ANYONE who tried to tell me that what I should do was good for me if was going to put money in their pocket – it’s a lesson that probably saved my job a time or two.

Thankfully we now allow 18 year olds to get themselves in thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars in college loan debt that they’ll never repay because they have a degree in the anthropology of ancient Greek testosterone supplement commercials.

Because, you know, it’s good for them.

The Coming Civil War (United States), Cool Maps, and Uncomfortable Truths

“Well, l could be wrong, but l believe diversity is an old, old wooden ship that was used during the Civil War era. l would be surprised if the affiliates were concerned about the lack of an old wooden ship, but nice try.” – Anchorman

politicalspectrum

So, I guess that my “Secretly Wants To Live in a Post-Apocalyptic Society” secret is out of the bag? I guess I need more dehydrated food. And scotch.

(Part II of this series is posted at: The Coming Civil War Part II, and a (Possible) American Caesar)

There are some posts where I know exactly what I want to say, and how I want to say it. Often, those are fairly well scripted, either with a handwritten first draft or a set of researched bullet points. I’ll expand those into the full post. Those are nice. The structure has been created. The post flows out.

Some topics are topics that are well planned out (I actually plan the blog topics about three months out) and fit. Some topics just hit me with a blast of inspiration and nearly write themselves.

And some are difficult. Very difficult – they occupy headspace I know that I’m going to write about them, but the issue is so difficult that I want to make sure it comes out how I want it to come out, that it doesn’t inadvertently come out in some sort of ham-handed way. This is one of those. I’m sort of pleased with the results – it came out the way I wanted it to come out, just like the ending to Breaking Bad, or Jean-Claude Van Damme’s last optometry appointment – he still doesn’t need glasses, yay!

Don’t know a great way to put this, but we’re (in the United States, and in Europe, though my read there is much murkier) heading towards civil war. In Europe, civil war means dissolution of the EU and (likely) expulsion of large numbers of immigrants. But I’m not European, so I won’t go too far speculating about them.

I’m not sure if it will be a decade off or longer, but I put the arrival of this war as soon as 2024, and as late as 2032. Not really any longer than that. What would stop it is a prolonged, total war that would challenge the very existence of the United States. External threats and an external enemy are the best way to create unity (and second term for a president named “Bush”). And that’s not good, because a prolonged war always leads to extremes, and we have extreme weapons – in that way, a civil war might be the best-case scenario. But I digress – back to civil war.

Why? Again, this won’t be exactly the same civil war as THE Civil War – there are some facets that will rhyme, but others that won’t. The major theme is division. And what better way to show that than with . . . maps.

Here’s a map from Colin Woodward and Tufts University, and Brian Stauffer, depicting the 11 cultures that they contend make up the United States:

11nations

So, there’s this. Accurate? I would personally draw a line between those who like Star Wars® instead of Star Trek™. Those people are awful.

And it’s not just culture, the Woodward/Tufts map is pretty accurate at predicting where we are today politically. Here is a map of the Clinton/Trump 2016 vote count:

vote-by-nation-2016

The redder you are, the more Trump. The overlay of the Woodard/Tufts map is clear. These cultures are significant, and real, and explain NASCAR®, country music, and the inexplicable popularity of PEZ®.

And I think I’ve graphically made my case for there being a division. But how significant is it? Well, research shows that it’s pretty one-sided. Liberals (at least young ones) are significantly more close-minded than conservatives:

civilwarstats

Yes, you read that right. 45% of liberals would be uncomfortable with a roommate with opposing political views. 12% of conservatives would be uncomfortable. I guess this means that liberals don’t like diversity?

In 49 B.C., Julius Caesar was ordered back to Rome. Quite specifically, he was ordered to leave his army, the 13^th Legion (Legio XIII, Gemina, or “Twins”) beyond the border of the Rubicon river, which was considered the northern border of Rome. He didn’t, and then spawned a civil war that (ultimately) led to the end of the Roman Republic and Caesar being proclaimed Emperor. To this day we celebrate this event by ordering salads in Caesar’s name.

geminaxiii

The last time the 13^th Legion was active, I think they got in line in front of me at Arby’s® in Boulder, Colorado after a Van Halen© concert. Man, when 4,000 people are in front of you in line, you’d expect they’d run out of roast beef. They did. Thankfully they had lots of panda and koala bear left. They also ran out of Horsey Sauce L. They claimed they ran out of horses.

So we have divisions that are significant, enduring (these divisions aren’t new), and deep. Yet for decades we haven’t had a problem. Why are we at the Rubicon?

Well, we were ethnically much more uniform than today. The United States in 1965 (at the time of a major change to immigration policy) was 85% white. Now? 62%. That’s a pretty significant change, and one that impacts politics. Again, cultural divisions lead to war. And the easiest division is what you look like. I know that people like to fight and will pick any old reason to fight. Religion in Northern Ireland (Protestants and Catholics), football in California (Raiders™ vs. 49er’s©), and really important stuff (Star Wars© vs. Star Trek™). People will fight each other to the death because we don’t like each other’s hats. Historically, multi-cultural societies . . . fail. Spectacularly. (Again, this is not an indictment of any individual group, just a reading of history.)

But civil war in the United States is . . . very singular. The Civil War was built upon philosophical differences (with very human consequences). Issues involved in the Civil War include slavery, states’ rights, and Northern industrialism versus Southern agrarianism. But one of the underlying causes might just be that map of the 11 cultures shown above. The Northern states were built on the Puritan ethic. They make up the Boston/New York corridor and the swath heading west from that. The Southern states were built upon scoundrels – the Irish malcontents and Scottish reivers that immigrated later. They’re the ones that make up Greater Appalachia.

So what will cause a civil war in the United States?

The first thing is the philosophic divisions listed above. The desire for the freedom of individual determination is still strong in the Deep South and in Greater Appalachia and the Far West. That hasn’t changed. The Puritans in Yankeedom and the Left Coast still very much want to make their values the only values that matter. Note the graph above that shows relative discomfort with diverse exhibited by liberals. Ouch!

These groups have hated each other since the 1600’s. And it will never go away, especially as long as the New England Patriots® keep winning Super Bowls™. The two sides have never spoken the same language. The time that both North and South united? After the Civil War, the North (magnanimously) allowed the South to keep their heroes (Lee, Stuart, Jackson, Davis) and they were transformed into American heroes rather than insurrectionist traitors. Not a bad trade.

There were places that held out – the first celebration of July 4^th after the Civil War in Vicksburg was on July 4^th, 1945. Admittedly, Vicksburg surrendered on July 4^th after a horrific siege and devastating defeat for the Confederacy. It took 80 years and winning not one, but two world wars for Vicksburg to celebrate national unity on a regular basis on July 4. These divisions remain to this day.

But what else will cause this war?

The Fourth Turning – it’s time. Here’s a previous post (The Economy, The Fourth Turning, Kondratieff, and You.) that explains this timing in more detail. The last generation to have experience the horror associated with total war, with the mobilization of the entire economy of the United States to defeat a foe is . . . dead. The youngest boys that landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day are 95 today. They control nothing.

Our leadership, our population has no connection to those that saw the horrors of a continent ripped apart by war. They led our nation (and all of the nations of the West) and their actions were held in check by the horrors that they had seen. Now their experiences no longer temper the actions of the leaders (and desires of the people) to avoid apocalyptic levels of violence.

Let’s continue with economics – I’ve discussed before that the current economic practices have a time limit (More Budget Doom, The Rolling Stones, an End Date, and an Unlikely Version of Thunderstruck). One cause of civil war (not necessary, but certainly an exacerbating cause) is economic collapse. When people have more to lose than to gain, they won’t fight. As Janis Joplin said, “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.” And when people are ruined? They fight. See the French Revolution (Robespierre, Stalin, Mao, Mangos and A Future That Must Not Be).

Economics will be a trigger, but not the underlying cause of division listed above.

So, we have a civil war. What’s the end look like?

Breakup.

I don’t think that the things that have held us together as a nation will continue to hold us together. What values do we have in common anymore? It seems like . . . none. Let me elaborate. I could do a post on each of these (and likely won’t – other people cover this on a regular basis, so unless I have a Wilder take, I won’t):

Guns
Abortion
r versus K (r/K Selection Theory, or Why Thanksgiving is Tense* (for some people))
Economic Freedom
Role of Absolute Morality
Definition of what is an American
Globalism versus Nationalism
Cultural Relativism
Judicial Activism
Does Evil Exist?

We don’t speak the same language at all, anymore. Even though I have friends that don’t (at all) agree with me politically, I fear that they aren’t the norm. The end state isn’t 11 countries. It’s probably (at least) four. I can see a Heartland State, an East Coast, a West Coast, and a Northern Mexico. Los Angeles will be Mexico. Portland, San Francisco, and Seattle will be East Coast. The Boston/Manhattan/DC corridor will be East Coast. Northern Mexico will be as shown as El Norte.

But on the bright side? Jean-Claude Van Damme doesn’t need glasses!!! How awesome is that?

Health as a System – Or, Ignore What Keith Richards Does and Treat Your Body Like A New Tesla.

“Think big, think positive, never show any sign of weakness. Always go for the throat. Buy low, sell high. Fear? That’s the other guy’s problem. Nothing you have ever experienced will prepare you for the absolute carnage you are about to witness. Super Bowl, World Series – they don’t know what pressure is. In this building, it’s either kill or be killed. You make no friends in the pits and you take no prisoners. One minute you’re up half a million in soybeans and the next, boom, your kids don’t go to college and they’ve repossessed your Bentley. Are you with me?” – Trading Places

It’s a new martial art – we call it “Slap-foo.”

I’ve been posting on health topics weekly for, well, over a year every Friday, which is well over fifty posts on health (my basic math is still intact, so my senility is at least another week off). The Friday health posts have examined some important relationships between all sorts of issues, and generally attempt to tie back to things that impact (or will impact) our health, health care, and the future of what technology might do to health care and longevity. It’s a pretty big topic, and well within the blog’s mission, which was stolen shamelessly from Benjamin Franklin’s “healthy, wealthy, and wise” quote.

But what I haven’t done is look at health from a bigger picture. Health as a human system. Let’s examine the human body as if it were a Tesla® Model 3™ or any other engineered system. That car rolls off the assembly line (or not, if it’s a real Tesla©, they seem to be having trouble making them) in as good a condition as it ever will be. Every moment, every mile degrades a system in one way or another. The tires get worn down by the road. The batteries experience a slow failure as they are charged and discharged. Your Elon Musk™ bobblehead gets faded by ultraviolet rays. The paint gets chipped by a rock from the road. And yet, we can look at the systems that impact the life of the car in a dispassionate way because they’re governed (mostly) by things that we can analyze, failures that we can predict based upon way we use and treat the car.

So how is a human body different? In many ways it isn’t. Human longevity depends on many predictable, controllable factors that determine how long and how well a human will function. It reaches its peak genetic health at birth, its peak physical health between 16 and 30 (depending upon the system) and then ages. What determines how long this machine lasts? How much of it do we control?

Quite a lot, really, and it’s simpler than you might imagine (though I didn’t say it was easy):

Diet – if I were to pick my number one choice for something to focus on for longer human life, it would start here. “You are what you eat.” “Don’t be such a pig, John Wilder, and save some for the rest of us.” “No, you don’t have to finish off the second plate of fettuccini alfredo. That’s not the way to stick it to Olive Garden®.”

I’ve discussed this on numerous posts – and it appears that a low carbohydrate diet is demonstrably the best in many respects. But sugar tastes so good, even high fructose corn syrup. Obesity is one that more and more people struggle with every year. It’s a major factor in heart disease and cancer, too – the number one and number two killers.

If you want to live longer, start with diet. It’s hard, and society is making a frowny face at you if you don’t conform. But in the end, you (and I) control the fork . . . .

Here are a couple of relevant posts from the past:

Doritos, Obesity, Addiction, and Nic Cage

Diet, then Exercise. Diet first. Atkins and Paleo work.

The Link Between Sugar, Cancer, and the Kardashians

Exercise – this is my number two on the list. Exercise tones and trains the body, so that when you die you will look awesome at your funeral and also helps you lose weight so that you don’t need thirty pallbearers. I kid.

Exercise is clearly related to a stronger body. It’s clearly related to a healthier heart (though it’s not a cure all for heart disease). It’s clearly related to lower incidence of cancer. And it’s clearly related to smaller pants (which helps with stress, below).

If you’re not exercising and are healthy enough to do so, exercise. Duh.

Russian Wrestlers, Pylometrics, and You’re Probably Not Trying All That Hard

Sitting? Death. Get up. Neal Stephenson says so.

Stress – third on my list of factors influencing how long you live, stress seems to be a byproduct of modern life. But many of the things that stress us are chosen, and most of those things we choose to stress out about are based on future consequences that will never happen. Stress is dangerous for nearly every system that you require for operation: your brain and memory deteriorate under long-term stress. Your heart and blood pressure are aggravated by stress (and stroke risk increases). Negative behaviors like eating a whole cake, or living on a diet that consists entirely of pre-made frosting tubs (chocolate sour cream, of course) increase with stress. Tobacco use increases. Alcohol/drug consumption increases.

Sure, you say, but what are the negative behaviors? I kid. But long term consequences of stress and the behaviors that we engage in to cope with stress kill 4 billion people a year.

Okay, not 4 billion people a year. But it’s not good. According to one source, stress-related conditions are responsible for 75% of doctor visits. Stress is a contributor to the top deadly conditions (heart disease, cancer, accidents, suicide) in the United States.

So what do you do?

Surviving Stress, Still Proudly Caffeinated

Superpowers, Stress, Ben Franklin’s Nails

Relationships and Social Engagement – having friends is key to living longer. While it may be related to stress reduction, I think it’s more than that. Engagement in something that gives your life meaning and purpose is inherently fulfilling. And it gives you something to look forward to each morning when it’s time to get up. Being married is also key. Having people you can share with – you can confide in – makes you stronger.

Recently, however, people doing more social interaction on places like FaceBlock® or Tweeter©, and these interactions don’t and can’t replace taking a five mile hike with your son or a spirited conversation with your family, just like you can’t fight evil with a macaroni duck.

Lonely? Ditch Facebook, Find Real People. Live Longer.

Friendship and Health – and When Friendships are Made . . .

Lifestyle – other lifestyle factors can greatly influence your lifespan, especially if you overdo them:

Alcohol/Drugs/Smoking – I would say these might void the factory warranty, but Keith Richards is still alive. I also had a relative that smoked several packs of cigarettes a day. And slipped in the shower and died when she was in her mid-seventies. Those are outliers – be moderate in your vices. Ben Franklin and his Thirteen Virtues

Sleep – Get enough. Too little will hurt you and make you fatter over time. Sleep Deprivation, Health, Zombies, and B-Movies
Be Wealthy – everything is easier if you’re rich, and that’s part of the mission of this blog. So get a lot of money, or change your name to Richard.
Personal Safety Habits – I had a dream that my youngest son was using my table saw to turn trees into planks. He kept putting his fingers near the blade. NOOOOO! Don’t do that. Be . . . at least a little
Supplements – Might some help? Sure, but you have to have your basics (above) in place. Vitamins and You

Sure, there are things you can’t control and that are difficult to assess:

Bad luck –
- Accidents,
- Meteors,
- Being a skinny marathon runner who has a heart attack
- Being Job, that guy from the Bible. (Never be the subject of a bet between God and Satan – it’s like being Dan Ackroyd from Trading Places.)
Genetics – Ever see a family of fat people? Or skinny people? Some people just have those genetics. And if you’re lucky you’ll have the “only allergic to being stabbed and are impervious to cancer” genes. Heck, I’d settle for Keith Richards’ genes.

Luck aside, if you control your diet, exercise, stress, relationships, and lifestyle, you could live 10 to 20 years longer – you can get a lot more mileage out of your Tesla® if you take care of it. That is, if you can get one . . .

Again: I am Not a doctor. NOT A DOCTOR. Not a doctor. Not a doctor. Not a doctor. Doctor.

NOT A DOCTOR. So see a real one if you think you need to.

Giving Up? Steve Jobs Would Never Give Up! (Except for the times he did)

“Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?” – Animal House

The Boy prepares to defend Houston from The Hun.

You never know when you’re going to find opportunity. A while back, The Mrs. got invited to a dinner by her graduate advisor with the other grad school students. The professor and her husband owned a little cottage on a lake, and he owned a sailboat. He asked if anyone wanted to go sailing. I had never been sailing (and, to date, this is my only sailing trip). My hand shot up. I assumed that we would perhaps lay claim to a nearby cottage and maybe engage in some light pillaging. Sadly, it was only sailing. He looked askance at me when I had a full Viking regalia and torch (you only get to 80% pillage without the torch) that I brought for the trip.

I choked down the bitter disappointment and not going on a raid, but decided to go on the sailing trip anyway. He took us out on the lake. Making small talk, I asked what he did (since he was obviously not a proper Viking). “I have an advertising agency.”

I pressed further, asking details of how it worked and how he liked doing it and if he liked drinking the blood of his enemies while listening to the lamentation of their women. He said that was what they did in the 1950’s. I finally asked, “When did you open your ad agency?”

I’ve always been fascinated to understand that spark – that moment when people toss off their day jobs and decide to open their own place.

Him: “It was 1976.”

Me: “Wasn’t that in the middle of recessions, plus all the inflation?”

Him: “Yup. Stupid thing to do, right?” He said as he piloted his sailboat back toward his private dock by his cottage.

Duh. Obviously it was stupid. Why else didn’t he have a yacht and a private island?

And it’s easy to second-guess people who have great ideas and push for them to succeed. But flaming messes like Enron® aside, we mainly look at the companies that survived and think, “Wow! Those guys are so smart – they did everything right.”

Hey, a stock I didn’t lose money in! But I wish I could have been the guy to raid the burning building and hear the lamentation of their women.

We look at the survivors and judge their actions based upon their outcomes. Even geniuses (Steve Jobs was one) get it wrong – his board of directors had to fire him to put him into a place where he could make the biggest business comeback in history, plus redefine at least two consumer product lines, nearly singlehandedly.

But he messed things up, too. Jobs dumped all his Apple® stock when he got fired. Oh, did I mention he hired the guy that got him fired? And NeXT® computers were awesome, but no one wanted to spend $10,000 (1990 cash) to buy them. And the Apple© Lisa™. And the MacCube®. And a whole bunch of other stuff that didn’t work out.

But the ideas that he had that survived were worth over a trillion dollars.

The pattern that I keep seeing is that people who are successful don’t try just one idea and give up, they try lots of different ideas and the ones that work are kept, and the ones that don’t are thrown out.

What we look at when we see success doesn’t show the failure that success is built on.

You never know when you’re going to find opportunity. And you won’t find opportunity unless you try. And try. And try.

The Germans will NEVER TAKE PEARL HARBOR!

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.

Sleep Apnea, CPAP, and how the Medical Mafia is Killing You

â€œDid I never tell you? I suffer from sleep apnea.Â That’s why I had to bring this guy with me. My CPAP machine.â€

â€œOh, my God.Â Did you just rent that so you could have your own bed?â€ â€“ The League

So, to demonstrate how sleep apnea occurs, I cut a cartoon cadaver in half.Â Itâ€™s messier than it sounds â€“ ink went everywhere.Â Â Fortunately I had lots of ACME towels to sop it up.Â But then the towels exploded.

It looks like this cadaver died from being shot in the mouth with blue arrows.

Recently, The Mrs. sat me down and said that she was worried that I might be snoring . . . a bit too hard.Â I disagree â€“ I assured her that I had never heard myself snore, so she must certainly be in error.Â Especially when she indicated that the snoring had, on several occasions, triggered tsunami alerts in Hawaii, and we live firmly in flyover central northern Upper South Midwestia.

I started doing some research.Â Snoringâ€™s not dangerous, right?

No.Â Snoring can be deadly.Â Very deadly.Â Like 40,000 deaths a year in the United States (at least).Â Thatâ€™s more people than Rosie Oâ€™Donnell drives to suicide monthly.Â Wow!

How does snoring kill you?

Cardiovascular disease.Â Car accidents.Â High blood pressure.

Huh?

Turns out that snoring, especially loud snoring, is a sign of sleep apnea.Â Sleep apnea is where the â€œsleeperâ€ periodically stops breathing for 10-60 seconds, up to 80 times per hour.Â This, in turn (simply, neither of us are going to med school) causes a plethora of piÃ±atas problems.Â Increased carbon dioxide causes parts of your brain to die.Â It also causes your heart to freak out, and beat harder and faster to get more blood moving.Â It may even lead to shots of adrenaline that keep you from sleeping soundly.

The end result is youâ€™re tired, all the time.

Your heart is getting stressed out, every night.

You are getting (subconsciously) stressed each night as you periodically are suffocated.Â By yourself.

The causes of sleep apnea are fairly common.Â Be an aging dude, be overweight.Â Have allergies.Â Have a thick, football player neck.Â In turn, this leads to more weight gain, daytime sleepiness, heart attacks, strokes, and car accidents from drowsy drivers.

So, youâ€™re saying, â€œJohn Wilder, youâ€™ve convince me that this can kill me.Â What on earth can I do about it?â€

Iâ€™m so glad youâ€™ve asked.

Give up drinking, smoking.Â Lose weight.Â Sleep on your side.

See the problem?Â Drinking is certainly possible to give up, but why would you want to?Â (I mean besides all the documented health benefits).Â Losing weight is hard enough, but sleep apnea actually changes your body chemistry so itâ€™s harder to lose weight.

Whatâ€™s the solution?

CPAP.Â (Iâ€™ve most often heard people pronounce this as â€œsee-papâ€ as in â€œSee Papâ€™s eyes as he has another heart attack???â€)Â The symptoms (including snoring) that you might need CPAP are being drowsy during the daytime, drowsy driving during the daytime, nodding off after Thanksgiving Dinner, and generally being able to fall asleep at the drop of a hat.Â I thought I had a skill â€“ I could fall asleep anywhere, anytime, generally in thirty seconds or so.Â It turns out that it might just have been sleep apnea, curable by CPAP.

CPAP stands for Continuous Positive Air Pressure, and not Constant Peer Alcohol Provision, as one might think.Â Uncharacteristically, it is one of the three things invented by Australians that donâ€™t involve alcohol, marsupials, or Australian Rules Football.

Back when ESPNÂ® was good, it would show Australian Rules Football at 1AM.Â All the guys on my high school football team watched it, mainly because the referees were so . . . amazing.Â

As I was saying, Dr. Colin Sullivan, AC/DC fan and uncle of Angus Young (I made that up to make him more interesting) was a guy who treated people with sleep apnea.Â At that time, the prevailing treatment method was a tracheotomy.Â Yes.Â They would cut a hole in your throat to stop the apnea.

So, Dr. Sullivan figured that there had to be a better way, even if it was less cool than slitting the throats of his patients.Â He experimented with dogs (dingoes, maybe?) and must have found a group that snored but that didnâ€™t drag off babies.Â Here was the first CPAP.

After he got it to work with a patient whose throat he was going to cut open.Â He put that first CPAP on the patient, and the patient had seven great hours of sleep in the first time since forever.Â Unlike throat slitting, this was a medical procedure with no significant adverse side effects.Â None.Â Sadly, Dr. Sullivan deprived thousands of doctors of the joy of cutting open patients as the first commercial CPAP machines went on the market in 1985.

Now the crazy facts:

22 million Americans are probably suffering from some degree of sleep apnea.
Machines are relatively inexpensive, with many costing less than $350.
Only 10% or so of sleep apnea sufferers have machines.
Sleep studies (required for the prescription of this harmless but helpful machine) cost between $600 and $5,000.
40,000 Americans a year die from sleep apnea.
John Candy died from complications related to sleep apnea.
William Shatner has sleep apnea.

The facts speak for themselves.Â Lifesaving technology is being kept hostage to gatekeepers that could be replaced by software or a cellphone app at very low cost?Â Where have we seen this before?Â If we let Silicon Valley â€œdisruptâ€ sleep apnea treatments weâ€™d probably have machines costing less than a $100, since your cell phone would become the machine brain and the data would be uploaded to some cloud site and analyzed and tweaked in real time to provide even better performance and better apnea control (hint: as a business idea).Â Heck, it could even provide a real-time alarm if it saw actual life threatening patterns developing.

Oh, yeah, when I wrote about optometrists (LINK).Â Thereâ€™s a low-cost way to get a very accurate (I can attest) prescription.Â But they want to scare you.Â As would anyone who saw a lucrative meal ticket floating away.Â Such as anyone who does sleep studies.Â These are gatekeepers that server a very limited role in society today â€“ their skills can be replaced inexpensively by technology.

I talked to someone I know from work (he doesnâ€™t work at the same place as I do, but we talk frequently.Â I asked him if he had ever used a CPAP.

â€œMan, thatâ€™s the best thing ever.Â I love it.Â I have been using it for years.Â If you travel you will forget your toothbrush, your underwear, your deodorant, but you will never forget your CPAP.â€

John Wilder:Â â€œHow was the sleep study?â€

Him:Â â€œSleep study?Â Didnâ€™t get one.Â Just ordered one off of my dadâ€™s prescription.â€

He described a fairly tough few days getting adjusted to the machine.

â€œBut the first day you sleep through the night?Â Oh, man.Â You feel like youâ€™re sixteen again.Â Energy!Â I woke up after four hours â€“ more refreshed than Iâ€™d been in years.Â I love it.â€

As for me?Â I think this system where you have to pay an artificial gatekeeper for proven, safe technology is immoral and strangles market competition and innovation.Â And, as the facts would say, also fattening.Â Quite literally, this market manipulation to serve a few medical professionals kills thousands of people a year, but since they have nice jobs and serve on the PTA nobody recognizes them for the killers they are â€“ more efficient than organized crime.Â More deadly than gun violence.

And the people in Hawaii are probably getting tired of the tsunami warnings, what with the volcano, they have enough on their hands.Â They should take up a collection for a sleep study for me . . . or in a sane world, Iâ€™d just walk down to the store and buy a CPAP.

But the Sleep Mafia wonâ€™t let me . . . .

Repeat to yourself:Â John Wilder is NOT a doctor.Â Do NOT take medical advice from humor bloggers on the Internet.

Pournelle’s Iron Law, or, Why Conspiracy Isn’t Needed to Explain the Stupid

“An independent, international intelligence agency operating at the highest level of discretion. Above the politics and bureaucracy that undermine the integrity of government-run spy organizations. The suit is a modern gentleman’s armor.” – Kingsman, The Secret Service

When we lived in Alaska and Texas, we learned that this was what the citizens thought of bureaucracy. And taxes. And regulations. And postage stamp increases.

We discussed Dunbar’s Number a few posts back (LINK).

To refresh from that post: Dunbar looked at primate group brain sizes, and compared to the size of the neocortex to the size of the primate “group” or tribe. After running the math, he predicted that humans should have a group size of around 150 – it’s related to the size of working memory that you have about other people. The commonly accepted maximum stable group size (average) is 100-250, which is all three of your inbred relatives and the 247 from your wife’s side of the family.

Dunbar further theorized that larger groups could only stick together under strong survival pressures – you’d have to be pressed to work together by a fate as tough as death. Why? .

Dunbar’s number has other implications as well. We can’t work as tribes anymore, because the major feature of tribes is massive, wanton bloodlust on a national scale. Tribes don’t trust the law to help deter another tribe – no. Tribes kill to solve traffic disputes. So, to work around tribal violence, and to avoid nepotism, bureaucracy was created.

We all love to hate bureaucracy, but the nice thing about those long line at the DMV is that they prevent the tribe from Pixley killing the tribe from Hooterville over who got their license first.

But is there a darker side to bureaucracy? Yes.

Jerry Pournelle was a wonderful science fiction writer that I loved reading. His collaborations with Larry Niven (Lucifer’s Hammer, The Mote in God’s Eye) are amazing novels that made me turn a page a minute when I read them as a kid in the back of the bus on the half-hour ride to town. Dr. Pournelle also worked on the numerous defense department projects, and was a science advisor to President Reagan. Dr. Pournelle was instrumental in bringing down the Soviet Union, as his work on the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI or “Star Wars”) caused the Soviet Union to bankrupt itself attempting to keep up with our technology.

So, he’s kinda pivotal to stopping nuclear war. What did you get done in the 1980’s, hmmm?

Okay, the title was just genius. The writing’s pretty good, too.

Possibly the best science fiction novel of the 1970’s, if you don’t count Richard Nixon’s autobiography.

Dr. Pournelle also made the following observation:

Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people”:

First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective farming administration.

Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. Examples are many of the administrators in the education system, many professors of education, many teachers union officials, much of the NASA headquarters staff, etc.

The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization.

Pournelle picked on government – it’s known for bureaucracy. And it’s clear that NASA® has ceased to have spaceflight as part of “what it can do” when Elon Musk can put his car into orbit on a rocket more powerful than anything designed by NASA™ since it was run by the Germans we kidnapped after World War II. And Musk did it for less money than NASA® spends attempting to fix a launch pad. It’s sad that isn’t a joke – it’s true.

NASA© is now run by people whose main job in life is . . . having a job. They hire massive numbers of people, so they have a reason to be a manager. Then they need a bigger budget, and crowd out all of the work the agency was supposed to be doing.

Pournelle’s observation is true for businesses as well as government programs. I’ve seen managers fight to spend every dime they could in the last month of the year – just so they could justify their higher budget request for next year. I’ve seen people move from department to department to department until they found one that wasn’t responsible for doing anything measurable. Then they’d stay in that department for the rest of their careers. Which, I guess, describes Congress perfectly. But I digress.

Where I live, if you cut down trees and branches, and it’s cold, it’s completely legal to have bonfires that are visible from the moon. My next door neighbor and I used to burn these on a dark night, new moon, when the temperature was around 40˚F (354˚C) and watch the flames lick the night sky. He’s younger than me. And we live in a state where you don’t need to stand in line for hours for a burn permit. All you need is wood, leaves, branches, gasoline, lawn chairs, a match, and sufficient quantities of Bud Light®.

My friend and I started talking about politics (this is pre-Trump).

“John, when I look at this whole mess we’re in, it almost seems coordinated. It seems like the government agencies (he works in the highly federally regulated banking industry) want to put the small banks out of business. It seems like a plot.”

My response: “That’s too simple. It doesn’t require for there to be a conspiracy. Let’s look at your business. Do they regulate you exactly the same as large banks in New York?”

Neighbor: “Well, yes. They just have tons of staffers that can answer the bank regulator questions.”

John Wilder: “And you told me you worked for a while as a banking regulator?”

Neighbor: “Yes.”

John Wilder: “Would you have gotten in trouble for pushing real hard on an infraction with a small bank?”
Neighbor: “Never.”

John Wilder: “Would you have gotten in trouble for pushing real hard on a big bank?”

Neighbor: “I did. I got in a lot of trouble. It was why I quit.”

John Wilder: “The big banks own the banking regulators – they’ve captured the regulators and the regulators only do what the big banks want them to do. Every regulator knows that their next job isn’t with the federal government – it’s with the big banks. Don’t rock the boat. Small banks don’t matter. Never mistake that a conspiracy is present when incentives are in place for those same regulators to think that they’re on a job interview with their new boss.”

Neighbor: “I guess that’s why you never got in trouble for letting a bank not get in trouble. Only by pushing the rules too hard.”

John Wilder: “The people in Washington don’t really care about the outcomes of their regulations – the best pollution regulations came out forty years ago and cost very little for the companies to clean up 98% of their pollution – air, soil, and water. The last 2% cost billions. And that’s great with the regulators – they want to have a good budget and a great story to tell to Congress when budget time comes around. The fact that the pollution that they’re cleaning up isn’t really pollution, costs billions to “clean” and is having zero impacts on anyone? That’s beside the point. Bureaucracy acts to save itself. Right or wrong don’t matter. What matters? Department budgets and staff size.”

John Wilder continues to bloviate: “There isn’t a conspiracy. It’s a bunch of little people making themselves important. Nobody makes themselves important by cutting regulations. They make themselves important by adding new, complex regulations. And they increase their value when they go to work from some company. Heck, I was told by a guy that the main author for solid waste regulations wrote them in such a complex manner that they’re nearly incomprehensible. He did that so he could get a high paying job afterwards because he’s the only one who knows where the loopholes in the regulations he wrote are.”

Neighbor: “So, did we really land on the moon?”

At this point my neighbor was killed by a tribe of NASA™ ex-engineers. If only we had a police force and a judicial system . . . hmmm.

Ben Franklin and his Thirteen Virtues

“Only one man in the colonies has a printing press fine enough to make these. Our good friend Ben Franklin!”

“Uh-oh. Isn’t Franklin in Philadelphia?

“When he’s not in Charlotte or Marybelle or Louisa.” – Futurama

My friend sent me this picture of Prince and Princess PEZ®. Because when this Royal® Wedding© is long forgotten? My precious PEZ™ will still be strong!

(I tried to come up with a picture of a Benjamin Franklin PEZ™ dispenser. No results. But if you do a search on “Benjamin Franklin PEZ©” an embarrassing number of the images from this blog show up.)

Ben Franklin, at the age of 20, put together a list of 13 virtues. He decided that he’d try to live up to them daily. He failed. As would we all – we’re not angels. But, over time, he improved. The results? In today’s world, he’d be one of the most acclaimed physicists (electricity was a big thing back then), richest businessmen ($10-$15 billion, yes billion in today’s dollars), popular authors (his books were bestsellers), statesmen (he brought France into the Revolution on our side, and negotiated the peace treaty that ended the war), and he was an inventor – refrigeration theory, bifocals, lightning rods, swim fins, and a much improved stove.

Yeah. Pretty much everyone on Earth today isn’t fit to butter his pancakes. Sure, that sounds tame today, but in 1760 that meant something scandalous! His accomplishments outshine almost everyone today. With the exception of Brian May, guitarist from Queen®, who also holds a Ph.D. in astrophysics.

Anyway, Franklin put the lists of virtues down in his biography. Here’s a sample page:

Notice he didn’t include Chastity in places where he’d violated his virtues?? Hmm?

I’ve decided that old me can always learn from Young Franklin, so I’ll (maybe) update you on my progress as I attempt to become more virtuous. Why? Because it’s never too late to get better.

So, here are the 13 Virtues of Ben Franklin (sounds like a romance novel, doesn’t it?):

Temperance.

Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.

Ben put this one first. If you listen to later stories, it’s obvious that Mr. Franklin really did like to drink. And did drink.

But he understood it well:

’Tis an old Remark, that Vice always endeavours to assume the Appearance of Virtue: Thus Covetousness calls itself Prudence; Prodigality would be thought Generosity; and so of others. This perhaps arises hence, that, Mankind naturally and universally approve Virtue in their Hearts, and detest Vice; and therefore, whenever thro’ Temptation they fall into a Practice of the latter, they would if possible conceal it from themselves as well as others, under some other Name than that which properly belongs to it.

But Drunkenness is a very unfortunate Vice in this respect. It bears no kind of Similitude with any sort of Virtue, from which it might possibly borrow a Name; and is therefore reduc’d to the wretched Necessity of being express’d by distant round-about Phrases, and of perpetually varying those Phrases, as often as they come to be well understood to signify plainly that a Man is drunk.

Tho’ every one may possibly recollect a Dozen at least of the Expressions us’d on this Occasion, yet I think no one who has not much frequented Taverns would imagine the number of them so great as it really is. It may therefore surprize as well as divert the sober Reader, to have the Sight of a new Piece, lately communicated to me, entitled The Drinker’s Dictionary.

In The Drinker’s Dictionary (LINK) Franklin listed 228 phrases to say that someone was . . . drunk. It amuses me (and pleases me) that the government has this on its servers.

Here’s a sample from the letter “C”:

He’s Cat,
Cagrin’d,
Capable,
Cramp’d,
Cherubimical,
Cherry Merry,
Wamble Crop’d,
Crack’d,
Concern’d,
Half Way to Concord,
Has taken a Chirriping-Glass,
Got Corns in his Head,
A Cup too much,
Coguy,
Copey,
He’s heat his Copper,
He’s Crocus,
Catch’d,
He cuts his Capers,
He’s been in the Cellar,
He’s in his Cups,
Non Compos,
Cock’d,
Curv’d,
Cut,
Chipper,
Chickery,
Loaded his Cart,
He’s been too free with the Creature,
Sir Richard has taken off his Considering Cap,
He’s Chap-fallen.

And that’s just drinking. Franklin also had a pretty good appetite. Around here we call drunk “too many Gorns for his cannon.” Stupid Gorns.

By the time he was in France in 1883, he required four dudes to carry him around.

But the fact is that he did try to control himself. And did, at least long enough to make your accomplishments (and mine, too) look like a four-year-old’s drawing of a car.

Franklin drew this. Oh, yeah, he was a noted political cartoonist, whose legacy lives in our national symbols.

Silence.

Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.

As anyone who knew him would tell you – Franklin was a talker, and a leader. But he learned . . . that he didn’t learn anything when he was talking. He learned when he was listening. He even formed a club that he called a “junto” dedicated to self-improvement. By its nature, Franklin had to listen. And learn.

This probably didn’t include chatting up the ladies, but did include not being an idiot, as quoted by him in Poor Richard’s Almanack:

“Silence is not always a sign of wisdom, but babbling is ever a mark of folly.”

But also from Poor Richard’s Almanack, you could see that Franklin had a hard time holding it back:

“Sloth and Silence are a Fool’s Virtues.”

Again, Franklin put his biggest vices at the top.

Order.

Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.

Yeah, this one nearly toasted Franklin:

“Strangers who came to see him were amazed to behold papers of the greatest importance scattered in the most careless way over the table and floor.” (LINK)

Franklin had a lot of trouble with this virtue. By all accounts he failed – and throughout his life he was a messy, messy guy. Which was cool because he was a billionaire scientist. Me? I’d have hired people to fix up my stuff. But . . . Ben probably wouldn’t have found that virtuous.

Resolution.

Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.

Franklin was pretty good about this one. He managed to accomplish almost everything he set his mind to, which might have been his downfall for practicing the first three perfectly.

Frugality.

Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.

Franklin wrote a lot about frugality. A lot. Volumes. “A stitch in time saves nine.” “Close the door, you’re letting all the heat out – what are we, the Rockefellers?”

Franklin was so concerned about frugality that he regularly wore his cats as a hat, rather than spend money on buying a real hat.

And his points were simple. Be happy with what you have and you’re happy. Don’t spend your money on worthless crap – save it or use it for your business instead. But to get wealth you had to pair it with the next virtue:

Industry.

Lose no time; be always employ’d in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.

He coupled frugality with industry. Work hard, save your money, and you will be wealthy.

In 1760 this might have worked, but I’ve seen a zillion people that work hard and don’t spend much money. You have to have industry about things that matter. Franklin was cheap, sure. But Franklin also served thousands and thousands of people from the colonies. He made his fortune not by spending less, not by working hard, but by spending less on crap and working hard on things that provided value to people.

And that’s still the road to fortune today. Make people happy? You make yourself rich.

Sincerity.

Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.

It’s certain that Franklin had to shade the truth a bit in his role as a diplomat in France. He most certainly had to say things that aren’t true. And, it’s certain that he had . . . mistresses. So, there was an older part of him that wasn’t quite so innocent. Still – as advice goes – this one is golden. Tell the truth.

Justice.

Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.

This version of justice is one I can get behind – you do justice by not hurting people, or, by not withholding what is your duty. On a dark and stormy night, I will help someone. By calling 911. I’m totally not letting them into my secluded lakeside cottage so we have to fight after I figure out they’re evil killers.

Moderation.

Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.

John Adams and Ben Franklin were travelling with the Continental Congress and there were two rooms left for three travelers. No this isn’t a joke – there were no priests or rabbis involved. The Continental Congress could easily overwhelm a small colonial town’s hotel infrastructure, like Russell Crowe and his ego showing up at the same place and time.

Somehow (again, this sounds like a joke) Ben Franklin and John Adams got stuck with the same bed. This is the same Ben Franklin that was a billionaire by today’s standards, stuck sharing a bed with a hayseed lawyer. In a room slightly (slightly) larger than the bed. With a window. And no heating. Adams walked into the room, and closed the window, sure he’d catch his death of cold. Franklin walked over to the window and opened it wide, explaining how the cold air was much better for the body and health than being stuck in a suffocating room (with Adams). Here is a description of the night from Adams:

“The Doctor then began an harrangue, upon Air and cold and Respiration and Perspiration, with which I was so much amused that I soon fell asleep, and left him and his Philosophy together.”

Adams and Franklin never really got along well together. But if I were to guess – Ben regularly broke Rule Nine. You can’t throw yourself into industry without avoiding moderation.

Franklin flying a kite in the rainstorm is not a great example of moderation. It might be closer to a mental problem? Thankfully he has all of that underage labor to help him . . . .

Cleanliness.

Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, or habitation.

As you can see from the previous virtue, Order, this didn’t mean that everything was put away – it meant that everything was clean. And Franklin was big on being clean. He regularly took baths. Air baths. He’d stand completely naked with the window open so he could get clean with the cold Philadelphia air. It’s reasonable to think that Ben smelled better that most of his contemporaries. And was cleaner.

But you don’t want to look in his window during his air bath . . . ewww.

Tranquility.

Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.

Ben picked this, because this wasn’t him. At all. He was a person who went for the jugular vein in any argument. As noted above, he would lecture your for hours on his theories just to have the window the way he wanted it. As a virtue – it’s an awesome one – stoic. And we can see why Ben tried to make himself better.

Chastity.

Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.

Ben earned a solid F on this virtue throughout his life. There are some historians that count up to fifteen (15!) illegitimate children of Ben Franklin. Fifteen! He had more kids than an NFL® cornerback!

But he didn’t have a kid with every woman he had sex with. He favored women past the age of menopause, so that translates to him having amorous adventures with LOTS of ladies.

Humility.

Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

Franklin added this because, when speaking of pride he said: “for even if could conceive that I had completely overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility.”

Jesus he picked clearly because of his attitude of service to humanity. And Socrates? Socrates felt he knew nothing. Now Socrates also felt that, even though he knew nothing, the rest of Athens knew even less. So, there’s humility, but the kind of humility that gets you some nice hemlock.

Despite his failures, Franklin’s pursuit of virtue made him better. Had he not done that, perhaps he would have been known differently to history . . . .

Mood – It’s Your Choice. Mostly.

“Oh, dear! Her mood swings are getting wilder. She’s becoming a slave to her emotions, just like all women!” – Futurama

What kind of mood does this make you think of? If you said “salty” – you win!

Mood is mostly a choice. When I said that to The Mrs., she said, “You know NOTHING about women. Men can compartmentalize. With women, everything is all connected.”

This video makes her point, and it’s long-ish, but fun:

But I’ll stick by my original assertion – mood is mostly a choice. You get to choose how you feel (again, mostly – some significant outside events can drive your mood, but on a day to day basis, you get to choose. And yet . . . some people will intentionally seek out content (websites, radio stations, television shows, books) knowing that the content will make them mad. You see these same people at protests and counter-protests. They seem to seek and maybe even enjoy feeling angry and feeling like they’re a victim.

It happened to me, and I wasn’t even looking to get angry. I listened to a radio station on my drive to and from work that had a basic political position that I don’t agree with. And that was the reason that I listened to the station – I wanted to be exposed to different opinions. Mine aren’t always right, and I’m more than willing to debate from an honest, open position my fundamental beliefs. From time to time I even change them, but that can’t happen unless I review my beliefs and examine them.

But that wasn’t what was happening. Instead of new ideas to kick around in my mind, I found that the arguments coming from the radio weren’t ideas – they were essentially mindless, direct partisanship. And it made me mad. So started listening to music – but there are only so many times you can hear the same thirty songs from the rock music station. And the morning talk on the music stations was . . . embarrassingly idiotic. I got tired of my CDs, too. So I shut it all down, and now I drive to and from work in silence.

Silence was hard at first. I think that in today’s society we are accustomed to a constant sensory overload from waking until sleep. Confronting eighty minutes of silence a day was a new challenge. And it felt pretty good after a few days.

Outside of our moods, what else do we sacrifice when we get angry about things we can’t control or change?

Our health. Longer term anger increases anxiety levels, and blood pressure.

Anger also crowds out creativity – it kills unique thoughts, kills concentration, and sets a single mood – a bad one – which will keep producing the same thoughts.

And you can choose your mood. And I choose . . . a slight itch under my watchband. That’s a fine mood for a Friday morning!