Reality Laughs

Risk cannot be destroyed, only transformed or transferred.

That’s from a write-up by a finance pro about covered-call option strategy.

I suspect this rule can be extended to most of Life.

Including in my professional life where the things that I build for customers do not zero out a problem. The problem is transformed. It might be transformed into a time-bounded risk (the risk goes away at a specific date in the future but you’re exposed to the cruel wind in the meantime). It might be transformed from the risk you don’t want into a friction you will accept.

“I don’t want none of THAT” is a common position for my customers. Yeah but you will have to give something to get rid of some of “that” — and you might not be willing to pay the price needed to get rid of ALL of “that.”

So, too, in personal life. I want a happy family. Ok are you willing to pay whatever price is asked of you, with the possibility that you might not get what you want?

In short, “risk” (to use the financial jargon) is a mathematical constant. Like energy. You might transform electricity into light into heat but the energy is there.

No free lunch, if you look at it from a high-enough vantage point.

That’s the Golden Rule.

And of course, there is the Silver Rule (h/t Nassim Taleb): don’t focus on what you want less of.

(To give a blindingly obvious current-day example: you want less racism? Stop looking for racism. Fucking Idiots.)

Anyway. This quick thought is brought to you by my eclectic X.com feed, which tossed this Neville Goddard quote (yes in all caps) at me:

DO NOT DWELL ON THE IMPERFECTION OF YOURSELF OR OTHERS. TO DO SO IS TO IMPRESS THE SUBCONSCIOUS WITH THESE LIMITATIONS. WHAT YOU DO NOT WANT DONE UNTO YOU, DO NOT FEEL THAT IT IS DONE UNTO YOU OR ANOTHER.” — NEVILLE GODDARD

Silver Rule. Do it.

Compare to Emmet Fox’s Golden Key: turn away from thinking about the problem, and think about God instead.

Same thing.

The question to be explored is how far out can I get? How lost without being utterly lost?

Alan Watts.

LFG — way way way out.

Still don’t have statistics here. Still don’t care.

It’s even easier to not care ever since WordPress split off the internal stats into Jetpack. They helpfully put stats one more gratuitous complexity task out of my reach.

The hidden power of tiny bits of friction to keep me on The Path—again revealed.

Of course, tiny bits of friction can keep you firmly in The Wilderness, too.

But in this case, the choice to ignore visitor statistics is clearly The Way. Just considering the question (“are people reading this?”) elicits emotions with a clear signal: wrong way! And “don’t care, just type with your thumbs” feels right.

I can feel the change.

I decided to adopt a new persona. In the same way that I feel like a different man in Milan, I feel like a different man at home. Deliberately.

One day, he decided to be different.

And it worked. Or is working.

It is easy to be different—just do different stuff. Do it enough and it’s a permanent change.

Not permanent-permanent. You know how they say that every cell in your body is replaced every seven years? (True or not, I believe this for the purpose of the point I’m about to make). I think character traits can be seen to cycle out over some period of time. A whole new (behavioral, psychological) you, every whatever number of years.

At least, if you are growing spiritually.

See the words above: “it worked” is not right. Nothing is static. Especially consciousness. “It is working” is right. Change is happening.

If you let it.

Ignore outliers: Mozart, Musk, etc. Everyone else is not that different from me.

Almost everything is done by people not that different from me. Almost every thought I have has been thought before by someone not that different from me.

People very much like me have done the exceptional, the extraordinary. And they have done the exceedingly ordinary, the blindingly obvious.

What they did, I can do.

Repeatedly do the blindingly obvious to achieve the extraordinary.

You already know what you need to know. The Kingdom of God is within.

Relax and go about your day.

Interesting. I clearly remember, in the midst of my Prodigal Son phase, I had a clear vision of who I am now. In professional skills, I mean.

I had a clear sense of when I would arrive at that feeling of mastery.

I’m late, but I got there. And I’m late by approximately the same number of years I spent as a Prodigal Son, wandering in the wilderness.

Wandering in the wilderness. I didn’t waste my time there. Without that time I would not be the man I am today. And becoming that man (in the spiritual sense) helped me stay on the path of mastery.

Truly, in my mind I am but a journeyman. Others tell me otherwise. That is of no mind.

Show up daily and be the journeyman. The happy, unstressed, ever-learning journeyman fascinated by his craft.

Mastery is not, I know now, a destination. Mastery is a path, a path you choose to stay on, knowing it has no destination.

LFG.

A Twitter conversation.

one of the cool things about being known as a helpful person is you constantly have people showing up asking for favours and also another thing is they generally suck at helping you in return and also maybe your self esteem is dependent on you constantly being useful to others

https://x.com/RichDecibels/status/1821183401937760763

And the reply, echoing and amplifying:

what do you MEAN if I derive my worth solely from being helpful I’ll end up overextending myself and ending up lacking the reciprocity necessary to sustain myself, are you implying I might have VALUE beyond “useful to others”???!!!!!

https://x.com/loopholekid/status/1821184571754307618

Why are they talking about me behind my back?

How many times have I looked at you?