Technically, zuihitsu are longer reflections than what I tend to collect. But, the general idea is right. Here’s this month’s installment. If you want the complete set, please download the fortune file.

• Failure requires objectives.
• Hedges are not for keeping people out, but directing them to the path.
• Do not mistake games for wasting time.
• A society is the commingling of dreams.
• Our ideal ought to be, not union, but gravitational pull.
• Proximity to power can ensure survival in tough times.
• Carve out room for nonsense, for that which has no practical meaning.
• Code-switching is a prerequisite for survival when living among different tribes.
• Fabricated individual identities require external validation to transcend fantasy.
• Liberalism is a cult of self-creation.
• No salvation without Satan.
• A morality without mercy or forgiveness in error isn’t a morality.
• Wisdom accepts the world as it is and a role in that world. Folly is creating new worlds or living apart.
• Only sick souls find Christianity appealing.
• For a believer, chance is the work of Providence.
• Rights are founded on state power. No state, no rights.
• Modus vivendi over agreement. Promoting rights demands agreement.
• It is enough to occasionally punch a hole in the big lie.
• Materialism is the orientation of impotence.
• Ubi nihil vales, ibi nihil velis. English translation: Wherein you have no power, therein neither should you will.
• No freedom without limits.
• Science is the servant of madness.
• One right way for everyone is just another tyranny.
• Real fear or fear of a bruised ego?
• Never get between a man and his meal.
• Take your time. Go deeper. Be critical. After accepting something, reevaluate again.
• The most serious problem is the one that cannot be discussed. Marc Andreessen
• What other people think or say about me is none of my business.
• Mind your own business.
• Replacement is the most common variety of change.
• Good fiction’s job is to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.
• The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts and the stupid ones are full of confidence.—Charles Bukowski
• In your closet and your life, subtract whenever you add.
• When the wrench is on the nut, tighten it.
• Stop reaching for people who aren’t reaching back.
• Give positivity an equal chance.
• Compensation reflects the difficulty of training.
• Behavior is communication.
• An erection can not be argued with.
• Talk a dream. A plan makes it possible. Put it on a calendar and review it weekly, and it becomes real.
• Time, dry powder and patience.
• If at first you don’t succeed, try giving up and going back to bed.
• Do not be part of groups where speaking honestly is less important than some member’s comfort.
• If you trade 50:50s, you’ll end up broke.
• There are two types of investors: those that make money and those that don’t. You can learn from both.
• The money is not in the cure. The money is in the comeback.
• Be true to your truth.
• It’s expensive to own nice things.
• A fit body, a calm mind, and a house full of love are things that must be earned.
• Start in the right place.
• What type of person are you interacting with, e.g., trader, killer, influencer, maker, drone, or something else?
• Life is loss. Learning to lose and to accept limits is key to longevity.
• Success is being dumb enough to do it, and smart enough to know when to stop.
• Pain stops when you learn its lesson.
• It might not be your fault, but it is your problem.
• Fundamentalists must fight pragmatists.
• Rules are to induce conformity on a multiplicity.
• People accustomed to winning feel every loss more keenly. Privilege implies vulnerability.
• Should you do something because you want to or feel an obligation?
• True love is selfless.
• Conservative decision-making, risk mitigation, and a focus on costs over growth tends to longevity.
• Reject unfounded blame and praise.
• Imagination gives us access to strange new worlds.
• When you leave, you find out who your friends are.
• Know when something does not concern you, and you have no contribution to make.
• Kindness begins with regard for those weaker than us.
• What kind of artificial do you prefer?
• Any question asked in bad faith can be rejected, out of hand.
• No gift is free.
• Laughter should travel with empathy as a companion.
• Power shapes information to its convenience.
• Sometimes Dionysius wins.
• Education, in the modern context, is how to construct, evaluated and then reconstruct different worldviews and lens to use in problem-solving.
• Whose stories are you telling, and what are their incentives?
• You cannot forget what you don’t notice in the first place.
• Be just, and if you can’t be just, be arbitrary.
• The easiest mark to fool is The Mark Inside.
• Some ideas can only be thought outside the confines of law, tradition and other constraints.
• A bull in the bedsheets. A bear in the spreadsheets.
• Low cost, high price.
• If it sucks, don’t give any fucks.
• No man is a failure who has friends.
• The smartest side to take in a bidding war is the losing side.—Warren Buffett
• Inner speech is your flashlight in the dark room that is your mind.
• A simple life is striped of unnecessary complication.
• Enjoy what is easily available, preferring obtaining items for the least cost. Luxuries costs more than their price.
• Persuasion is often an exercise in repetition.
• Camp as Christmas. Hard as nails!
• Every civilization must contend with an unconcious force which can block, betray, or countermand almost any concious intention of the collectivity.
• Of what use is a philosopher who doesn’t hurt anybody’s feelings?―Diogenes of Sinope
• We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our education system.—Charles Bukowski
• Your scars can give someone else hope.
• Learn enough history to: 1) bear reality patiently, and 2) respect the delusions of others.
• Travelers with closed minds can tell us little except about themselves.—Chinua Achebe
• You rent bonds. You own stocks.
• No matter the color, the cat that catches mice is a good cat.
• How alive are you willing to be?
• Never give advice.
• Mediocrity reigns.
• Wisdom is discernment.
• Reduce it to its essence.
• Deal with people where the contract seems superfluous.
• Learn from other people’s mistakes.
• When something works well, keep doing it.
• Being too busy is a sign you are not thinking enough.
• Remember the essential.
• Time and compounding can beat any problem.
• Smart people often do dumb things.
• One good test is worth a thousand expert opinions.—Wernher von Braun
• Where there is no humor, there is no love.
• Life is just one big carry trade.
• The minute you understand the right thing to do, act.
• Greed and fear are the engines of manipulation.
• The moral high ground is great for sighting artillery.
• Taking responsibility for your beliefs and judgments gives you the power to change them.
• When growth is exponential, rate matters less than total time.
• Time discovers truth.—Seneca
• What’s the easiest thing you could do to make a little progress?
• Creativity is a commitment to solving new problems.
• Disagree, then commit to a course of action.
• We can learn only when we acknowledge we don’t already know.
• Being called weird is the highest praise.
• Opinions are infinite. You cannot validate them all. Put all opinions in the not enough information pile. Then, try to select a small portfolio of opinions that help explain the world and can be reality tested.
• Nothing prepares you for completing the last third. True of races, life and relationships.
• It is okay to live a life others do not understand.
• Damage is fast. Healing is slow.
• Presentation may not be everything, but it’s important.
• A college degree shows you can finish a long project.
• There are two ways to live life: as the actor or the playwright.
• Knowing something other people don’t leads to opportunity.
• A society that values individual effort over community tends to deteriorate.
• Respect the larger discussion and be flexible in your beliefs.
• Arguments are often built with logic, but they are always sold with rhetoric.
• Discovery always begins in idleness.
• The master has failed more times than the beginner has tried.
• Our trouble is not the over-all absence of smartness but the intractable power of pure stupidity.
• Instead of calling someone out, call them in: invite them to a conversation and actively listen.
• Be a fountain, not a drain.
• Walk at least a little way down into the Grand Canyon; don’t just stay up on the rim.
• Anything with a mouth can bite.
• Not my carnival, not my bearded lady.
• In a world of toxic positivity, be authentic chaos.

Technically, zuihitsu are longer reflections than what I tend to collect. But, the general idea is right. Here’s this month’s installment. If you want the complete set, please download the fortune file.

• Trading one asset class is blind trading.
• An avalanche starts with a single snowflake, but which one?
• Lawyers: When the law is not on your side, argue facts. If facts are not on your side, argue the law. If you have neither, pound the table and yell.
• Either discipline or regret.
• Ist der Holocaust ein Irrweg oder eine Spiegelung unseres selbst? Or, Is the Holocaust an aberration, or a reflection of ourselves?
• Technical analysis is visual confirmation bias.
• Sometimes the best move is to sit on the sidelines.
• Consistently catch part of a move and scale your position.
• The best way to raise the price of something is to say that you would never sell it.
• Art is just money on walls.
• Answer to no one. Retain complete control.
• Biographies are blueprints.
• Relationships run everything.
• Find information asymmetries, and keep them to yourself.
• The only exit strategy is death.
• Be liquid and buy during recessions.
• Don’t get distracted by meaningless tripe. Don’t fight for prizes not worth winning. Follow through, get it done, learn to pick locks and walk long distances. Be strong, be smart, bring your toothbrush, be kind, work hard, be beautiful.
• As long as the world is turning and spinning, we’re gonna be dizzy, and we’re gonna make mistakes.—Mel Brooks
• When everyone is trying to give others a taste of their own medicine all the time, everything ends up tasting like shit.
• Guessing at unpredictable outcomes develops brain power, if you check to see when you are right and guess why when you were wrong.
• It isn’t bull or bear. There’s just one side. If you are a bull or a bear, you ain’t on it.
• Seeing the moment coming is easy. It’s the waiting for it to come, acting, then waiting for the next moment to act, that is hard.
• When times get hard, people sell what they must, not what they want to sell.
• Most people die at 25 and aren’t buried until they’re 75.—Benjamin Franklin
• Talented people are found, not hired as needed.
• Taste is rare.
• Befriend the best.
• People want information, not direction.
• Passion, purpose and discipline.
• Eliminate low performers to establish standards.
• Create an environment where excellence is expected.
• People judge based on performance, so focus on outcomes.
• Be the first to leave.
• Quality over feelings.
• Be of service, not self-absorbed. Money follows being of service.
• Relationships last longer than money.
• Do not attempt to fathom the inscrutable workings of Providence.
• The revolution will never take place in a place where everyone knows each other.
• The person kicking down a door doesn’t get to choose who walks through it.
• Deviations from the mean don’t last and tend to balance.
• Corrections are not steady state.
• When everyone agrees something is going to happen, something else will.
• To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire, and where they make a desert, they call it peace.—Tacitus
• Nothing changes sentiment like price.
• Leave the severed head as a warning to the others.
• A dealmaker primarily trades in reputation.
• Be first, be smart or cheat. Being first is easiest.
• The wider the smiles the bigger the lies.
• There are a lot of dumb whores, but very few smart prudes.
• You might as well fall flat on your face as lean over too far backwards.—Thurber
• A life oriented toward leisure is, in the end, a life oriented to death, the ultimate leisure.
• Make a commitment to finishing things.
• No complexity without compensation.
• Awareness is how we learn to keep ourselves company.—Geneen Roth
• Discovery is fueled by messes.
• We are each born with an acre of interior life to cultivate. What does yours look like?
• Be likeable.
• …you can safely assume you have created God in your own image, when it turns out that God hates all the same people as you do.—Tom, the priest, quoted in Bird by Bird by Ann Lamott
• People know their pain but often do not know what will relieve it.
• Life is a dream. Interesting lives are vivid and continuous.
• ABDCE: action, background, development, climax and ending.
• Strength can’t be faked. You can either lift it or you can’t.
• If you have an idea or goal, aligned people who will help to achieve it, and some suitable catalyst, you might be able to effect change.
• …a total unwillingness to cooperate is what’s necessary to be an artist – not for perverse reasons, but to protect your vision.—Joni Mitchell
• Man needs difficulties; they are necessary for health.—C.G. Jung
• There’s no difference, really, between the popular madness in general and the kind that requires medical treatment except that the individual suffers from a disease and the masses are afflicted by false opinions.—Seneca
• What you do in life simultaneously doesn’t matter and also is the only thing that matters.
• Competing for status is radicalizing, particularly online.
• Trading well means either: 1) cutting losers quickly and moving on to the next trade, or 2) finding hidden value and waiting for the market to recognize it.
• Commit to finding the truth. But, you don’t need to commit to sharing it.
• Comfort zones are dream killers.
• To be engrossed by something outside of ourselves is a powerful antidote for the rational mind.
• Never, ever, think about something else when you should be thinking about the power of incentives.—Charlie Munger
• The second mouse gets the cheese.
• If something is broken and you can’t figure out why, try breaking it more.
• High-grading does not imply homogeneity. Your opinion is simply not best-in-class.
• A verbal threat is the most authentic certificate of impotence.
• Sense springs from nonsense.

Technically, zuihitsu are longer reflections than what I tend to collect. But, the general idea is right. Here’s this month’s installment. If you want the complete set, please download the fortune file.

• It’s none of my business.
• Fraud is the market of a bubble.
• Each of us are a work made by our own hand.
• Attempts may fail, but those never attempted fail with certainty.
• The guilty man fears the law; the innocent man fears chance.—Publilius Syrus
• Bees don’t waste their time explaining to flies that honey is better than shit.
• Be around people focused on the future, not the past.
• Untracked is unremembered.
• Beginners ask what. Intermediates ask how. Experts ask who. Masters ask why.
• Those that know their history are doomed to think it is repeating.
• Manage risks, not returns.
• Shadowbanning is technological gas lighting.
• Beginner problems need more. Advanced problems need less.
• if everything goes wrong, it’s the lawyer’s fault. If everything goes right, justice prevailed.
• Learn. Do. Teach.
• Don’t spend time. Invest it.
• Spend time on what you excel at, enjoy and has the highest rate if return.
• Perseverance without passion isn’t grit, it’s grind.
• Call on God, but row away from the rocks.— Hunter S. Thompson
• I spell my God with two o’s and devil with no d.—Cyrus Bartol
• A lot of things are folklore.
• Some people cannot take life easy.
• Imagination is sufficient for some. Others must try to open the locked door.
• In the dying organism, the healthy cell is still doomed.
• The liar we listen to most is ourselves.
• Paradise is for those that make it.
• Live without disguise where they don’t advertise.
• Can function arise from dysfunction?
• Easy to change your mind. Hard to change your character.
• Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.—Emerson
• For people, perception trumps facts.
• To make a thief, make an owner. To make a criminal, pass laws.
• Distance and interval are sometimes necessary to see the beauty of a thing.
• Useless work darkens the heart.
• At some point, your group tendency or character will claim you.
• Violence’s most devoted ally is the diverted eye.
• Swearing is impossible where everything is permitted.
• The satirist praises through rage.
• Learn slowly, but learn.
• No suffering, no joy.
• There is no way to act rightly in our modern world.
• Everything may have been tried, but I have not tried everything.
• Sunlights differ, but there is only one darkness.
• Beware looking for goals. Look for a way of life.
• Shade often gives better profiles.
• Real leadership is recognized, not imposed.
• Sign above the desk of Ursula Le Guin: 1) Is it true? 2) Is it necessary or at least useful? 3) Is it compassionate or at least unharmful?
• Impatience is an argument with reality.
• You tend to find what you look for. The difference between Mr. Rogers and a conspiracy theorist is one is looking for the helpers while the other is looking for someone to blame.
• The best environments are characterized by intelligence, love and creative action.
• The gossip everyone knows ain’t gossip.
• The government is not particularly good at finding the winners of tomorrow, but the losers of yesterday are very good at finding the government.—Moritz Schularick
• Growth mindsets are rare between the sheets.
• Desire is fueled by beauty and art, and passion takes many forms, both good and bad.
• People hate being sold to. Buy they love to buy. —Marty Neumeier
• We live on the border between now and later.
• Everything is compromised until proven otherwise.