Author: Reality Laughs

I spent 5 1/2 hours yesterday building an elaborate and intricate financial model in Excel. Buggy. Incomplete. But elegantly conceived and I was proud of myself and my brilliance.

I probably have another full day needed to make it workable and presentable.

Today on paper I came up with a simpler way to solve the same problem. Two orders of magnitude easier to understand, and two orders of magnitude easier for Management to implement.

(Complex system of dividing up a lot of money amongst a lot of heirs. “Fairly.”)

The point of this note is to show that first I had to get rid of my overly-complicated ideas to see the simple solution.

And the simple solution is better. It is better for the person whose trust will contain these allocation and distribution rules—he will understand and fine-tune his choices because the trade-offs are visible, not hidden in complexity. The trustee will know what to do When The Time Comes because the marching orders are simple and easily executed.

Those 5.5 hours spent in building a model that I have thrown away were not in vain.

Simple solutions are expensive to discover. You have to live through the suck to get them.

I had a dream, seeing my father as a young man—before I was born. He was standing, smiling. I went to him, hugged him, weeping, knowing it was a dream as it happened.

Spend an unreasonable amount of effort and time focused entirely on a niche question.

Don’t worry. Over time your competence will not be niche.—it will broaden impressively.

But if you are lost and feeling useless, start with a tiny question and dominate it thoroughly.

Questions and derision from others tell you everything you need to know about them. Shun them. You know why you are there.

I am doing this right now. My brain is telling me that I picked the wrong topic to get Deep Into. Fuck you, brain. We are doubling down and getting even more granular.

Display it.

If I do this for 100 days in a row am I better off or worse off?

Once you see it, you cannot unsee it. A quick visit to Google News, and . . . nausea.

Don’t use that pussy word, “misinformation.” Lies. These are lies.

Propaganda is perhaps a more precise description, but flawed. “Propaganda” is a loaded word and evokes Goebbels and Triumph of the Will. Better to avoid the baggage of that word and use a word that everyone, worldwide, since toddlerhood, has understood intimately and viscerally.

Liar. Lies.

I suppose you can infer some reality from the lies: listen not to what is said, as such, but note who is saying these words and the action or attitude they wish to encourage. Look especially for what they are not talking about.

Above all: know that these are lies. And the people writing these stories or blathering away on TV are all liars. And they know it, yet persist.

Chief among the liars? Google. Google News is a deliberately curated and organized firehose of lies.

The truth shall set you free? Equally, lies will enslave you. Refuse to be enslaved. Actively resist the liars.

Pause when agitated or doubtful. (Sad is a variant of this).

“Thy will, not mine, be done.”

Go down the mental checklist. H.A.L.T.? am I hungry, angry, lonely or tired?

For me, the H and the T are common. I push myself.

A and L are more subtle, and I have to watch for them and I’m not sure how to cope with them.

Especially being L in a crowd. Being around people is not an automatic antidote to L. It is too easy to feel alone amongst people—even people who know me well and love me.

The A. Too often directed at myself. Recriminations mostly. Self-flogging for some perceived insufficiency.

Today is not a good brain day. I believe it’s the T. Mental fatigue to be precise.

But here is a thought:

Ask yourself, “what good thing could happen if more people read my writing?”

After the Pentathlon and after the LRS, the “five minutes a day” abruptly stopped. There is a lesson in this: gentle, voluntary guardrails are useful to keep momentum.

However, the professional writing has continued. More interesting is the evolution of the professional publishing backend. That has started to move.

In any event, let’s get back to these little posts: pre-dawn (usually) coffee companions, with a contented, well-fed dog at my feet.

Posting something now. The trip to Atlanta threw me off schedule.