I’m defining economics as fundamentally — the study of cause and effect of decisions about how to allocate resources which have multiple uses, and, what incentives those decisions create in addition to their outputs. It’s possible to think “economics = money”; however, it doesn’t. A multi-use resource that you decide what to do with every day is time, attention, food stuffs, and yes — your money. I pulled parsley, mint, oregano, and basil from the garden. I harvested tomatoes. I chopped them up with a cucumber and added tahini and lemon juice. That was breakfast. The inputs that went into the product that is breakfast are multiple use inputs — any of those ingredients could have been put to other uses. Today, I chose to allocate them towards a salad which I hope will have the consequence of lowering inflammation, blood pressure, improving insulin sensitivity, reducing a fatty liver, and maybe improves my already-Adonis-like physique. But wait, there’s more….What incentives does my decision create? Perhaps I might feel satiated and energized as a result of my meal and I might want to make this meal again. Maybe I might appreciate how cheap (in money terms) it was to grow these ingredients and I might grow them again — cheap upfront cost with a large payout that is my health. Maybe with better metabolic health, I might be able to enjoy more foods that aren’t as productive for my health? Or maybe I might not care about them anymore. I find it interesting to step back and meta look at what I’m incentivized to do next as a result of that breakfast — write this blog! Allocating your energy and your time are other forms of economic decisions. What incentives are created by deciding to watch 24/7 news? It’s been said that we’re wired to look for bad news, perhaps the incentive that’s created is to watch more bad news? And the unintended consequence of that might be stress? Much of our behaviors are governed by incentives. It can be worthwhile to think about how you allocate your resources (time, energy, attention, money, food, etc) and what incentives those decisions create for you. And then ask yourself — are these the right incentives to maximize for your long term benefit? Only you can answer that.

My boss tells me often — Trust nothing! Verify everything! I’m learning that I agree with that sentiment.It’s easy to make and receive claims about any aspect of the world. Turn on YouTube and you’ll find a billion influencers and news sources making claims about the world. I laugh at the irony — I am making claims about the world and you are here reading me. How much of these inputs do you accept at face value? More and more, I am accepting little to nothing as true. Bold claims often lack important nuance. Light inaccurate claims stack up quickly and before you know it, you wonder what’s real and what’s not. My strategy for dealing with incoming claims is simple. If I think the claim is interesting, I say — “that’s interesting, tell me more.” If it’s interesting enough for me to want to learn more, I’ll research the best quality evidence available (meta analysis, clinical trial, etc) to learn as much as I can. Then, I’ll re-evaluate the claim.If it’s not interesting enough for me to learn more, I’ll file the claim as “speculative at best, come back and think about on a rainy day.”When I look back at my research, I have researched a few claims and most claims I file under “speculative at best.” And I don’t make decisions on “speculative” data. I recommend that you, too, do not make decisions on speculative data — though, you should trust me and you evaluate the claim yourself.

I wonder how many calories could be saved if people spent less time judging something they read or heard to be one way or the other and more time coming to terms with the words they heard or read. Reading Euclid, besides being an interesting geometry exercise, is giving me the gift of focus. I need to pay attention to each word, how words are strung together, and what that string means. I’m finding myself becoming more precise with the words I use and how I want those words to string together. I’m finding that I want to be that precise in my own performance — the notes I want to use and the string I want to use them in. That compositional process is made more meaningful when the listener decides not to judge what they hear or read, but simply experience it without judgment. The art of noticing and observation is a lost art. We can do with more of it.

When I think about the artists and thinkers I most admire, they all share a common behavior — the ability to block out the world and focus on what’s in front of them — their work. These people have this obsession, drive, a kind of mania around doing the work — and they tend to describe it in those terms — “I’m just doing the work.” What’s “the work”? My sense is that “the work” equals “output” or “production.” Using their skills and talents to produce a thing and ship it to the world. For comedians that might be jokes. Musical artists, songs. For Woody Allen, in a recent interview with “The Free Press”, it’s writing. Whatever the work is — that’s the focus. Here’s the other behavior — the rest of the world doesn’t matter. Jerry Seinfeld and Woody Allen say, often, “I really don’t care about x, y, z issue… I just care if it’s funny… if it’s funny, I care… if it’s not, I don’t care.” For those two, people who engage in the business of funny, what’s funny or not matters — that’s their work. In the interview I referenced, Woody Allen is asked about social issues and his response is essentially — “I just focus on the work.” To an extent, I think you could argue that just being focused on the work in front of you denies you the opportunity to see what’s happening around you. You could also argue, that obsessing about what’s around you denies you the opportunity to focus on what truly matters — the work. There’s a middle ground. Your ability to produce an output that resonates and matters is dependent on your ability to know the needs of those you seek to serve. To an extent you must be able to focus and create WHILE stopping to look around you and be curious AND THEN get back to work. Start the work, stop to watch, then continue to work.Don’t get caught up in what’s happening around you. Be wary of your inputs. Focus on what matters and what you can truly control — what you do with the time you have now.

Andrew Nickes, a young person, asked Warren Buffett at a Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting:If you had one more day with Charlie [Munger], what would you do with him?Buffett responds with his thoughts on Charlie — how they are similar and different. He then goes on to say that at 99.9, the world desired an opportunity to meet and know him. But, if you asked Charlie who he wants to have dinner with, Charlie would respond — he’s met them all. Charlie, famously, read tons of books and considered reading books a form of “spending time” with the author. Warren then suggested to Andrew that he should decide who he wants to get to know, and then don’t wait until the last day, start tomorrow to get to know that person, and get to know that person every day after. We don’t know the day or the hour that our last moments will arrive. It makes no sense to wait until that moment to begin to learn about our world and others. I agree with Warren, why wait… just start.Fascinating response all around.

I’m not sorry for all of the geometry writing… have you ever read Euclid’s Elements? People interested in classical math will read the definitions, axioms, and learn to write formal proofs using postulates. I’m not that person. I’m interested in reasoning and learning how these ideas can be translated into other things. For example, a surface.Surfaces are things which contain breadth and length, and the edges of surfaces are lines. Remember that lines are breadthless lengths. A plane surface is a surface that sits evenly within straight lines — straight lines have points, making them finite. People who do creative acts often look for the blank canvas to create on. The blank canvas represents infinite possibilities without limits — much like a surface. Corporate types call it “blue sky” thought. Euclid might call this — thinking on surfaces.I prefer plane surface thought. Thought that involves thinking within finite lines — constraints. Constraints are like force multipliers on creativity — it’s no longer about all the possibilities it’s now about all the possibilities within bounds. It’s that type of environment where out of the box ideas are best generated! Watch Apollo 13 and you’ll see tons of examples of plane surface thinking. Next time you’re confronted with a problem that requires you to make a solution think about your space. Is your ability to create a surface without limits? Or, are their straight lines — constraints — bounding you? Likely, you have constraints, and that means your next act is to understand those constraints, embrace them, and begin thinking what’s possible?

Euclid on lines….Lines, without points at their extremities, are lengths. Imagine a world of lines everywhere and those lines appear to have no beginning and no end, and they go on to infinity. Such is a line.If a line has extremities and those extremities are points, and that line sits evenly between those points, the line is considered a straight line. It’s nice to define straight lines, I imagine they’re useful for many industrial applications. Outside of industry, I rarely see a straight line. Musical lines sit between the beginning and end of a phrase. Those lines are rarely straight, they move up and down and varying dynamics. The line that is your life starts with birth and ends with death. Similar to a musical line, a life experiences ups, downs, and varying dynamics. While hiking, nature will present you with lines of trees, flowers, and more… and rarely are those lines straight. A heart beat, doesn’t move in a straight line until it stops. And at that point that it stops, their appears a seemingly breadthless line without an extremity, until the machine is shut off.

Someone asked if we think it would help if they visited my dad. How do you answer that question?

Dad has Alzheimer’s and he’s dying, would your visit help him die faster? Die more calmly? Remember more suddenly?

Perhaps that person would like to resolve some things for themselves on that visit. Maybe the visit would help them?

At the end of this process the family is not going to sit down and say, “you know, we really shouldn’t have had $\text{Person A}$ visit, it didn’t help, next time Dad passes, let’s ask $\text{Person A}$ to show up a bit earlier.”

I think about my breakdown earlier this year. And, doing my post mortem, I realize that I put too much pressure on myself. You might do this too —

— too much pressure to get things right the first time, to succeed the way I think I should succeed, to be in a place I think I should be, to do the things I think I should do, to respond the way I think I should respond, to activate the potential I think I should activate.

Well meaning people ask: how is your dad?

I have no idea how to answer that question without sounding like a jerk. I dread answering the question. I know myself — I speak bluntly and directly more often than not. I know that I see things pretty matter-of-factly, and I know that doesn’t come across well.

When answering — all I can say is: He sucks. He’s dying. He’s lost his mind, and he’s not fully aware of what’s happening to him. And, it’s awful. Thanks for asking.