On Surfing
January 23, 2010
Sometimes I don't know why I stick with this sport (it's not really a sport, or shouldn't be, but that's an aside). I'm lying when I say that. I know full well why I do, and I can picture the moments that make it so clear to me vividly. Riding a wave, when the wave is big enough and fast enough, is an experience that's hard to put into words. Remember the scene in "Return of the Jedi" where the Millennium Falcon outruns the explosion of the Death Star from inside the Death Star? It's a lot like that, except instead of having a spaceship with engines propelling itself, you just ride the explosion out of the Death Star, steering around the more violent sections as they explode around you. That's what it's like. It's amazing.
But everyone else who's tried it knows this, so everyone is competing for waves. There really are more people than waves at better surf spots, and you can spend a lot of time sitting around and waiting your turn. That in itself wouldn't be so bad -- you're at the beach, looking at the ocean, maybe watching some sea lions or dolphins. It's not a bad place to wait around for a while. It's not as simple as that though, there is no queueing system at surf spots. Instead there's an intensely competitive system of jockeying for position, and there's a lot of places where some people think, for whatever reason (usually, "the first day I surfed here was a long time ago, therefore, whatever I feel like" or "I have more friends here than you do, therefore, whatever I feel like" or a combination of these), that the rules don't apply to them. Thus, even if you participate in all the positioning competition, wait your turn, and finally get a decent wave, the one that promises the Death Star explosion ride described in the last paragraph, you've got pretty good odds that someone else will cut you off, either out of pure frustration or self-entitlement to the point of malevolence.
So I come back to my original point. Crowding has caused many people besides myself to contemplate quitting, I'm sure. But that "outrunning an explosion" feeling is just too addictive, and so it drives us to keep going -- through the crowds, before the crowds at dawn, around the crowds at remote, inaccessible spots. We're addicted.
Self-Deprivation Is Not the Point
January 12, 2010
So many people leave comments on various personal finance websites along the lines of, "I only go out to eat a few times a year," in a self-congratulatory tone, or conversely, "I spent $3,000 last year at restaurants!" with a hint of desperation. Just the slightest amount of reading between the lines shows the very common viewpoint that spending money is bad, and not spending it is commendable. That's not the point. You don't earn money for the purpose of hoarding it. The goal should be to spend your income responsibly, save enough of it to cover any foreseeable problems, and to be able to do the things you like. Money is a tool for improving your quality-of-life. Depriving yourself of things that would make your life more enjoyable completely defeats its purpose. You should aim as high as possible, while realizing that debt-induced stress and inability to cope with inevitable setbacks is counter-productive. Live life to the fullest while maintaining a safety net, don't spend all your assets making the world's biggest safety net.
Real Wealth is Only Created by Building Things
January 04, 2010
The wealth of the world is the sum total of the value that people have added to its natural resources. Trees and rocks in and of themselves have value, but generally they're more valuable to humans after we invest time and effort and turn them into a home (please, let's not start an environmental argument, that's not what I meant). All the things that make our lives comfortable here in the 21st century are the result of real, honest-to-god, physical work. We have air conditioning and cancer treatments and jumbo jets and hybrid cars and cellular telephones and wireless internet because a lot of very smart and hard-working people figured out how to make these things, and then built them.
This is where wealth comes from -- it comes from creation. It doesn't come from manipulation of numbers in computers on wall street, or from interest rates, or from credit card rewards. All real wealth is built by actual people. Even the mega-yachts and private jets on the extremely wealthy are built by skilled craftsmen and engineers. All these other financial tricks and manipulations -- stock markets and collateralized debt obligations and other creations of financial institutions, are mathematical machines designed to move the ownership rights of wealth around. And sure, you can use them to acquire the ownership of all sorts of wealth if you're smart or lucky, but you're not building wealth like this, you're taking it from other places. Somewhere, someone built something with his own hands, and through the machinations of the financial system, you got a little bit of it. That wealth is now owned by you, because you bought the right stock at the right time, but you didn't build it, he did.
Writing About Weight Loss
January 02, 2010
Getting in shape is a noble goal. Probably a more noble goal than lots of other things people work towards, which mostly tend to focus around being able to buy things. Being healthy changes your whole outlook on life. Things that never seemed possible before suddenly do. You feel like you're in ultimate control of your own body, instead of fighting a losing battle against it. Still, it's usually a boring thing to read about. Weight loss essentially comes down to a lot of repetition along the lines of "skipped dessert" and "went to the gym". If you take up a fun, exercise-heavy hobby, by all means, write about that. Post pictures of your bike ride up a mountain, or talk about how it felt to finish a triathlon -- even mention the weight loss that came along with those accomplishments. But the weight loss itself? It's boring to read about.