Maintaining Sanity in the Spin-cycle Reality

A “Give your head a shake” interlude

Dec 03, 2024

Not sure to what extent AI, crypto, right wing extremism, interest rates and inflation, whack-a-mole investing and government corruption is infecting your day-to-day. But thought a conversation about maintaining clarity and priorities was in order.

Keep scrolling, as they say, if this is of no interest to you.

In my case, keeping tabs on what I see as threats to my way of life has become the largest screen-time contingent of the daily information mix.

It would become a major cause of anxiety if I was wired differently. Instead, it’s all just a distraction.

It is said that anxiety arises from contemplation of the future, while depression comes from dwelling on the past.

Both of these mental conditions occur within one’s own head, as part of the non-stop internal dialogue that we maintain.

As somebody who writes on a daily basis, it is natural to spend a great deal of time inside my head thinking thoughts that are hopefully maybe relevant…or even insightful. Trying to describe through writing what is happening in the world is an exercise ultimately in talking to one’s self.

But what I’ve learned at the ripe age of 60 is that the best things in life tend to happen outside of one’s head. Like, in the real world.

Walking around in the forest with no particular thoughts, observing and inhaling and touching the indifferent life forms for whom the entire human enterprise is only the source of all noise and destruction is a form of cleansing of the spirit.

The Japanese refer to this exact practice as Shinrin Yoku; literally “forest bathing”.

I only learned about this Japanese practice after a lifetime of emulating it without having a formal definition of it. It has been a rule of mine to prioritize exposure to forest settings every day far and above the pursuit of material wealth.

But not just intentionally immersing myself in nature.

There is immense peace of mind and gratification that comes from chopping firewood, milling timber into lumber, building goofy outdoor furniture, making chimichurri, or bread, or mucking about with irrigation pumps and pipes and filtres and washers and valves and gardens and machinery. This similarly derived from a contemplative application of the physical body to the physical world with only minimal input from the brain.

Within the mundane tasks of the physical world lies the path to mental serenity.

For this reason, no matter the burden of imagined obligations, deliverables, follow-ups, revisions, scheduling and zoom calls, I make sure to take at least a couple of hours in the middle of the short winter day and go outside, breathe deeply and forget about that fabricated mental static and relax with a menial chore or two.

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I now have two choices in creating original written content with financial and political themes: parrot the sanitized zeitgeist of the day, or wax full conspiracy theory/doomsday predictions. Everything else is just not click-worthy. Apparently.

Or worse.

If the editorial tone comes across of too political, or (especially) too critical of tech companies or their egomaniacal CEO’s, the post is deleted, or else shows up in no one’s feed, rendering the author and the sentiment invisible.

Censorship has never been more thorough or more easily triggered.

And there is nothing more triggering of agitation than to see a piece of content one has agonized over for hours or in some cases days be arbitrarily cancelled because it offends some poor billionaire’s sensibilities to the point where he has enlisted algorithmic agents of search and destruction to sniff out and suffocate them.

Truly original, controversial, or critical arguments cogently presented are now so efficiently snipped out of the media feed (thanks to Google, Apple and Facebook) that there are only chocolate and vanilla to choose from.

And so, the Closing of the American Mind (1987, Allen Bloom) has been perfected to such a degree that there is no diversity of opinion any more; there are just variations of the same opinion.

Take, for example, the “tariff” canon Trump fired that rattled Canadian PM Justin Trudeau so thoroughly that he jumped on a plane for a pilgrimage to Mar-a-lago, ostensibly to educate Trump.

The success of that mission had about as good a chance as teaching a donkey to poach eggs.

Yet why do we care? Trudeau’s smoke-blowing “we gotta take this guy seriously” posture only serves to cement his relationship with Trump as subordinate.

Anybody with a sense of even recent history knows that Trump uses shock and awe language to scare weak targets into submitting to lesser demands. If anything, Trump is the reincarnation of Machiavelli, if not his unwitting apprentice. Actually, Trump is more like Machiavelli and Nero rolled into one.

But see?

This is what I’m talking about. Under the threat of 25% tariffs, everybody in Mexico and Canada is getting all worked up and wondering “what does it all mean” for me and mine and us and ours?

Is my life about to get 25% more expensive? Am I going to pay 25% more in taxes? Are there bad men coming to take me away?

Yes to all of the above. Which is why you need chill TF out and go outside and find some forest and build some shit and go all in on XRP. Breathe.

~~ James West, Midas Letter

A “Give your head a shake” interlude

James West

Dec 03, 2024

Keep scrolling, as they say, if this is of no interest to you.

In my case, keeping tabs on what I see as threats to my way of life has become the largest screen-time contingent of the daily information mix.

It would become a major cause of anxiety if I was wired differently. Instead, it’s all just a distraction.

It is said that anxiety arises from contemplation of the future, while depression comes from dwelling on the past.

Both of these mental conditions occur within one’s own head, as part of the non-stop internal dialogue that we maintain.

But what I’ve learned at the ripe age of 60 is that the best things in life tend to happen outside of one’s head. Like, in the real world.

The Japanese refer to this exact practice as Shinrin Yoku; literally “forest bathing”.

But not just intentionally immersing myself in nature.

Within the mundane tasks of the physical world lies the path to mental serenity.

*****************

Or worse.

Censorship has never been more thorough or more easily triggered.

And so, the Closing of the American Mind (1987, Allen Bloom) has been perfected to such a degree that there is no diversity of opinion any more; there are just variations of the same opinion.

Take, for example, the “tariff” canon Trump fired that rattled Canadian PM Justin Trudeau so thoroughly that he jumped on a plane for a pilgrimage to Mar-a-lago, ostensibly to educate Trump.

The success of that mission had about as good a chance as teaching a donkey to poach eggs.

Yet why do we care? Trudeau’s smoke-blowing “we gotta take this guy seriously” posture only serves to cement his relationship with Trump as subordinate.

But see?

This is what I’m talking about. Under the threat of 25% tariffs, everybody in Mexico and Canada is getting all worked up and wondering “what does it all mean” for me and mine and us and ours?

Is my life about to get 25% more expensive? Am I going to pay 25% more in taxes? Are there bad men coming to take me away?

Yes to all of the above. Which is why you need chill TF out and go outside and find some forest and build some shit and go all in on XRP. Breathe.

~~ James West, Midas Letter

We believe the emergence of a USD stablecoin carries the potential to be a transformative event in monetary history, one as consequential as the day the United States severed its link to gold and as powerful in shaping the world’s financial order as the moment it abandoned Bretton Woods.

This paper does not offer reassurance of the status quo. It confronts a reality that few seem to have yet recognized and even fewer truly understand. It describes the quiet emergence of a tool whose strategic potential remains largely unseen, even as it begins to reshape the foundations of global finance.

After its blistering rally, gold shocked newcomers with a 6% two-day plunge this week, the steepest drop in twelve years. CNBC dubbed it “gold’s Halloween scare.”

In a welcome twist, J.P. Morgan called the decline “a much-needed breather,” predicting that prices will “reset for the next leg higher.” Goldman Sachs kept its $4,900 year-end target, saying “sticky, structural buying” from central banks remains intact.

“Gold isn’t falling,” Reuters happily agreed, “It’s catching its breath.”

Leverage is a two-way street. Investors get a tailwind on the way up. But small drops become a considerable problem – leading to “margin calls” when an investor is forced to settle the debt for a loss.

Forced sales are a downside feature of stock market bubbles. The forced sale of stocks and hard assets like gold push prices lower even if the participants don’t want to sell.

When the government has to spend the bulk of its tax revenue just to service the debt, it means there’s substantially less money for everything else, from military spending to border patrol.

Now, the White House hopes to be able to reduce its annual interest bill by slashing interest rates.

Think about it— even with a $38 trillion national debt, if the average interest rate is just 0.5%, the annual interest bill (at < $200 billion) is extremely manageable.

After its blistering rally, gold shocked newcomers with a 6% two-day plunge this week, the steepest drop in twelve years. CNBC dubbed it “gold’s Halloween scare.”

“Gold isn’t falling,” Reuters happily agreed, “It’s catching its breath.”

Forced sales are a downside feature of stock market bubbles. The forced sale of stocks and hard assets like gold push prices lower even if the participants don’t want to sell.

When the government has to spend the bulk of its tax revenue just to service the debt, it means there’s substantially less money for everything else, from military spending to border patrol.

Now, the White House hopes to be able to reduce its annual interest bill by slashing interest rates.

Think about it— even with a $38 trillion national debt, if the average interest rate is just 0.5%, the annual interest bill (at < $200 billion) is extremely manageable.