[988] Compounding Interest

I’ve been having these flurries of inspiration to write on Monday mornings. I listened to part of a philosophy podcast with one of the hosts from Know Your Enemy appearing as a guest. The usual incredibly specific and intellectual banter, questions, and theory ensued. I felt a few familiar things and began to think on the purpose and direction of when I “intellectualize” things, particularly when it comes to what I work on and why.

I’ve known few highs like when I was obsessed with reading about religion and science. I liked the fight. I liked that the purpose of my reading was to argue and organize the best ideas and information. “Obsession” is the correct word. I was watching not just debates and reading things from the most famous names, I was watching the field-specific conferences and speeches getting into the kind of details absolutely no one outside of that particular realm cared to consider or debate.

The energy to dive so deep into that world was held over from my frustration and confusion tied to my ideas of “love” and then my naive sense that human ignorance and injustice could be mitigated with better data and clear ideas. They aren’t replicable conditions, but were I to try, it would be conjuring a series of “impending doom” feelings related to democracy, the environment, and any taken-for-granted luxury we’re not prepared to lose. I listen to these incredibly informed nerds and am envious that I know what it takes to be like them, but I spend most of my time brushing past dozens of topics instead of diving into a few.

It’s the next day and I’ve woken up early, returned to a work environment, and listened to two Sam Harris podcast episodes. The first talked about time-management and the various strategies we use to trick ourselves into thinking we have control or avoid feeling negatively about all we can’t. The second was about wealth and the psychology of markets or how people spend their money. Much of the sentiments from both feel very familiar and I believe to be insights I’ve attempted to build into how I conduct my life. They served as little reminders of the things I’m not suffering as deeply as I have in the past.

Take, for example, my propensity to try and do “everything.” This could easily be conceived of as distracting myself from a “deeper” or “more meaningful” set of behaviors in service to “larger” goals. The thing about me though, I conceive of my goals as both big and small and synonymous with my overall sense of orientation and purpose. There is little difference between my playing Candy Crush while marathoning a season of a show and me making phone calls to search for referrals. Both are concerned with my moment-to-moment sense of my agency and ability to make decisions.

Consider inputting notes. I have 3 sets of notes to put in from groups yesterday. 3 sets of notes I pretty deliberately ignored while I was in the office yesterday and certainly upon getting home. I thought I might do them after getting to the office today about an hour and a half early. I’m writing this instead, or at least, first. I have every intention of getting the notes done, but I’m wired psychologically and through practice to make a certain kind of peace with what’s informing my awareness before I introduce less-gratifying or abjectly meaningless tasks into my experience. It’s a process I’ve learned to begrudge less, but still begrudge because it testifies to my remaining impediments to more agency and choices.

And here we may tie into the sentiments offered yesterday. There was an invigorating sense of control in having an intimate understanding of complex fields of information. I could anticipate what the argument was going to be, the very words they were going to use, and the proper response. I knew there was another book around the corner that was going to be a fun weapon to swing. I also managed to get a better understanding of how intimately my behavior and sense of being in the world was tied to an infinite array of things that had very little to do with “me.” It helped me slow down and mellow out when I started to embody the broader futility of my effort.

It would be foolish to pretend that every moment I spend in an office I didn’t make, making money for people I don’t know and a company I didn’t start, was anything less than an admission of defeat. My initial ideas about how to “own my effort” or enrich myself were wrong. I had to be humbled and give up. I had to sacrifice the foggy dream of what things were supposed to be and ground myself in the practical reliability of sacrificing a certain experience and utilization of my time for the monetary teats I must suckle. I’m less concerned, now, with the sucking than I am with losing the awareness of how hard or long I have to, and whether or not I’m still feeling fulfilled and able to pursue what I put on my plate otherwise.

As such, my concept of “debt” has definitely evolved. Less-consciously, I’ve always known that I’m perpetually indebted. I can’t live in a capitalist society and own property without a lingering bill. I can’t be on-grid and share my ideas with my handful of followers unless I’m spending money in service to transportation to free wifi or paying for the internet. I have to keep or maintain the technology I’m typing on. I’m not growing my own food nor wiping my ass with leaves. I’ve described my debt as a practical corner I box myself into to compel an easier capitulation to these work environments. It’s become something more.

As the negative number continued to rise as the Amazon bills registered in my Personal Capital tracking page, I felt an increasing sense of freedom. All of the things I’d been piling up, anticipating, wanting were on their way or had arrived. I was able to collapse a lot of the longing narratives in my head in one fell swoop. Why am I not practicing piano? The updated, weighted-keys, midi-connecting tool isn’t a dream, it’s plugged in waiting for my time and attention. The tire knocking on my backseat window has my replacement hoist in my hamper waiting to be set where it belongs under my truck. My fraying ratchets won’t need to be relied on as I frantically glance and whatever’s next to be secured in my truck bed. What am I going to do this weekend? At least through October, it’s some show, if nothing else, and probably bowling where I’ll get to continue experimenting with my technique and new ball of proper weight and drilled hole.

I’m functionally building a “life mortgage” that accounts for the myriad narratives I have in my head about how I wish to round-out my day-to-day options and experience. I can’t escape the debt. I can make the debt mean considerably more for my moment-to-moment experience. I can’t stop “thinking so much” or “turn off.” I can corral those thoughts into the series of solved problems condensed into a singular narrative or problem that can be addressed in a number of ways. If the goal now becomes “make money” or “make more money” or “diversify means of acquiring smaller amounts of money with smaller investments of time” it becomes easier to conceive of how I address “all of the goals” I keep on my mind in perpetuity. I don’t have to make practicing the piano compete with inputting notes in a head that’s only going to feel negative regardless, compounded by the knowledge that, until recently, the right piano wasn’t plugged in and waiting.

The word “meaningful” has been creeping into my language. I don’t want it to get away from me. There are a number of things that I’ve acted as though they are meaningful whether my efforts were recognized, reciprocated, or understood even by myself or not. My time is meaningful. I try to spend it in service to demonstrations of my perspective and agency first. That’s why the blog has to exist before the notes. That’s why the stuff gets bought and the debt raises, but the collapsing of the things to think about means more freedom of agency and discretionary use of time. I’m always in debt. It’s barely worth mentioning anymore. I’m always having things about my moment-to-moment being dictated well outside of my conscious control or even desire to be aware of, let alone control. So, how full is my moment?

I’m literally full. I’m going to a concert tomorrow, then driving to Cleveland in a car my friend offered me because he knows it would be that much more expensive to drive my truck. My truck which still runs, has that winch for my spare tire in it, as well as an array of tools I’ve acquired over time. My instruments, cats, and stuff will likely all still be waiting for me when I get back as well as a few new things in the mail. I have half a dozen projects waiting for my attention and effort in progress. I have a job in which I tangibly help people in spite of how nominally gratifying it may be in any way beyond the responsible exercise of power. I’m healthy. I’m listening to music. I don’t “technically” have to do anything for another hour and a half. I have fond memories of hanging out with a friend who we both almost every day email and text well-wishes. My dad’s coming to the concert tomorrow. I had to pause writing this paragraph to help someone get in contact with housing resources and reassure them that it’s okay to ask for help.

In the Morgan Housel episode discussing wealth, Morgan mentions that he did not get a mortgage and while it was the “worst financial decision” given the low interest rate he could have locked in, the psychological gratification of knowing the house is his and not the bank’s is practically indescribable and altogether foreign and absurd to his friends and contacts in the finance world. I get it. I live in a shed. I live in my shed on my land with all of my shit that I can afford with ever-decreasing obligations of my time and effort. Nothing really compares to that. I can own my effort and things in a way that I never will, nor want to, a person. The ownership of the capacity to practice or spend or not transcends the work in service to any instrument or effort to place another screw or move another tire.

It needs to feel real that I can escape or alter my circumstances before I can accept and work with them. It’s why I have to write before I can get up or stomach the sight of the spreadsheet. I have to access my agency and feel the infinite options before the reality of the infinite sacrifice can be swallowed. I’m not complacent. I’m content in my knowledge and potential if not the given action in a given moment.

The forever-project and task gets another reiteration. Bring moment-to-moment desire in line with awareness and meaning in a persistent, accountable, and reliable way that speaks to ideals and the means of their practical obtainment. What do I want? Everything I have, some things I don’t, and less-than realized means of compounding my exceptionally desirable moment. So, I guess it’s okay to attend to notes now…ish.