Throw Caution To The Wind

Let me begin this post by providing the usual caveats for this sort of advice: If you are trying to make a complex and important decision, it is always best to proceed calmly and rationally, analyze the available information, and make the most informed choice you possibly can. 

For most days in life, though, the choices and decisions we make are not so serious. It is for this reason that I recommend throwing some caution to the wind. I'd like to explore that concept a little bit this morning, and I will begin with an example from personal experience.

Why I Didn't Bike To Work Today
As I may have mentioned before, I intend to start biking to work. In my previous post, I had the good sense not to mention a specific date I would begin biking to work so as not to embarrass myself when the date came and went, and I didn't start biking to work... Of course, we here at Stationary Waves don't really have to resort to such face-saving measures, because part of the creed of this website is to confront all of our illusions plainly and simply, and work to overcome them. So, let me formally acknowledge that today was the day I initially intended to start biking to work every day, but doggone it, I chickened out.

I'm acting a bit silly here. There is absolutely nothing to be ashamed of in a situation in which I have determined to take on a new challenge, and find myself not quite ready to tackle it. It's a new challenge, which means it's something I'm not already accustomed to doing, which means it's above-and-beyond the proverbial call of duty, which means, Hey, I'm a busy guy with a lot on my plate and if I have to chicken out on a new project because I'm not quite ready, that's okay. No harm, no foul.

This is what it means to confront the illusion (in this case, the illusion being that I am totally awesome and perfect and can take on any number of projects without ever failing) plainly and simply. Now it's time to work to overcome it.

The Courage To Fail
I have discussed fear and exercise before:

I certainly know plenty of runners who are convinced that they could "never" bench press their own body weight. I know - I used to be one of them. Then I met a good runner friend of mine, call him DC, who could bench press nearly double his body weight, and could still run further and faster than I could. What was my excuse? I furrowed my brow and proclaimed that I couldn't understand his ability to lift weights. 

But by then it was obvious: I was afraid to lift.

There are two sides to fear and exercise. The first is what I wrote about back then, which is the idea that we furtively cultivate a false narrative designed to help us avoid doing something that we know is difficult. When I was avoiding strength training, I was engaged in just such a narrative. The other side of it is the fear, not of attempting something difficult, but of failing to succeed. What's the difference? One is a fear of one's own abilities. The other fear is a fear of how one's performance will appear to others.

You might be afraid to run a marathon, for example, because you think you're just not built for it - that if you even attempt it, you will suffer significant injury. That's the first kind of fear.

The second kind of fear is when you actually do want to (say) run a marathon, but you're afraid to start training because if you have to back out for some reason, you think people will judge you harshly. You're afraid of the endless supply of pessimistic jerks who are ready to pounce on anyone's inability to achieve one simple, stupid think (and there are a lot of people like that out there). You're afraid of the well-meaning, but insufferable, sympathy you'll attract from friends - the kind of sympathy that expresses their own fears, the kind of sympathy that makes you feel like, just because you couldn't succeed this one time, you'll never be able to succeed.

Regarding my bike ride to work this morning, I'd say it was a good mix of the two kinds of fear. The majority of the fear was the first kind. I felt like I just wouldn't be able to make it all the way to work, and then shower at the gym, and then start working at a decent hour. But a good part of it was the fear that, after telling everyone about my ambitious plan to start biking to work and become a fitness superman, I'd humiliate myself if I bungled the ride.

The question is, though, what's the big deal? Even attempting a daily bike commute is more than what most people are willing to try. Sure, there are many people out there who bike to work and don't make a big deal out of it. But I think if I told them I couldn't quite bring myself to bike to work this morning, they'd understand. This is no different than how I react when someone tells me that they couldn't quite run a marathon (or a 10K, or heck even a 5K). I totally understand what it means to feel unsure of myself when it comes to running.

So there I was this morning, driving to work in the vexing freeway traffic, complaining as all the other motorists bobbed-and-weaved among each other, honking, swearing, speeding. All I could think about was how gorgeous the weather and sunrise were this morning, and about how much fun it would be to be riding my bike along the route I mapped out for myself over the weekend.

I was a sucker. I really should have just thrown caution to the wind and biked to work. I should have had the courage to fail. It's part of my creed. And in this case, the stakes are so low that I was simply foolish not to have done it.

Conclusion
Hobbies aren't very fun if you succeed every single time. Think about it. Whatever your hobby might be - whether it's gardening or video games or cooking or sports or fitness or music or whatever - if it is something totally easy, with a known outcome that can be predicted with 100% certainty, it just isn't very fun. The whole point of pursuing a hobby is taking on something that is beyond your current level of expertise and trying to do it.

When you finally do it, you have to expand your horizons. That means that if your hobby is video games, you have to buy a new game when you win the previous game; if your hobby is fishing, you have to try catching a 2nd fish (or a larger fish, or a fish in a more remote area) after you've caught the first fish; if your hobby is cooking, you have to cook something new once you've perfected the previous recipe; and so on.

The remarkable thing about all of this is that, because we enjoy our hobbies, we are almost completely unaware of the fact that until we succeed, we're failing. It comes with having a hobby.

See? Failing isn't a big deal. Success is the big deal. Everything else is just a warm-up.

I'm biking to work tomorrow!

Assorted Analogies

• A career is like a windmill; you'll only be productive when there is change in the air.
• Life is like a telephone; the more you put into it, the more you get out of it.
• Women are like poetry; the most exciting ones are new, the most inspiring are old, and the ones that can tell a good story are simply epic.
• Ambition is like a stamp collection; For the most part, it's only really interesting to you.
• Vanity is like pie; the biggest mouth indulges the most.
• Truth is like sunlight; a little lifts the spirits, a lot of it warms the heart, too much burns.
• The creative spirit is like a hot rod; endless fine-tuning produces a masterpiece.
• Politics is like a pork farm; so much filth and noise to produce something that only rots us from the inside.
• Happiness is like a cup of coffee; wait, not like. Just is.
• Children are like stars, twinkling, sparkling, bringing light to the darkest moments, pointing us in the right direction.
• Life is like a cubic zircon; it doesn't take something exceptional to be beautiful.
• Men are like raindrops; one or two can be charming, but more than that and you're all wet.
• Knowledge is like riding a bicycle; without a little legwork, you'll never get anywhere. The most difficult part is building up a good momentum. Once you do, you can really get going without a lot of effort. The moment you stop trying, you start to slow down.
• Courage is like pennies; seldom used despite the fact that most of us have more than we realize.
• Time is like wisdom; it's easy to waste too much of it on the wrong people.
• Music is like food; best taken in large portions, among friends.
• Irony is like a fine spice; the right dose is genius, but too much reveals a lack of substance.
• Words are like automobiles; usefully propelling us forward up until they start crowding each other out.
• Friendship is like a wardrobe; the right combination will always reflect well on us; the wrong combination can ruin an evening; boring people should add to it; shallow people collect it merely for their own vanity.
• Philosophy is like a map; you have to know how to read it to get anywhere.
• Love is like art; without passion, it's really only a pretty picture.
• Religion is like expensive cheese; fine, if you don't mind the taste it leaves in your mouth.
• Circumstances are like modern art; if you don't know how to look at it, it appears bad even when it's good.
• Health is like love; the fun is in the chase, but the real benefits come later.
• Logic is life's secret ingredient; if you don't use it, you'll always be missing something.
• Family is like a New Year's Eve party; everyone's having a good time whether you're there or not, so you might as well join in the fun.
• Thoughts are like greeting cards; if you don't share them with others, they're worthless.
• Life is like a boat; keep your head up and you'll have many great adventures, keep your head down and you'll make yourself sick.
• Heartache is like eating a bad meal; most of the dissatisfaction comes from thinking about what might have been.
• Arguments are like silly string; it seems satisfying when you're going at it, but the moment it's over, you realize how much cleaning up there is to do.
• Trust is like the floor; it's hard to stand on your own two feet without it.
• Romance is like an expensive sports car; if you spend all your time considering what's practical then you'll never have any fun.
• Life is like horticulture; anything can be beautiful, if you know what grows where.
• Love is like money; you have to invest it if you want to make it.

The Minimum Wage Issue Wears Thin

Robert Murphy responds to Daniel Kuehn, providing us with more empirical evidence of disproportionately high youth unemployment and employment volatility, and suggesting that "proponents of a minimum wage increase (or at least, those saying it won’t be harmful) need to do more than simply say, 'This is nothing new.'"

Kuehn writes multiple replies, as he is often wont to do. In the second reply, he asks:

Surely there are more explanations for persistent youth unemployment than just the minimum wage. Are you saying that because you have one potential explanation the ball is in their court?

There are only two reasons youth aren't working:

1. They can't get a job; 
2. They don't want a job. 

Seeing as how the youth in group (2) aren't part of the employment statistics, that means we are only really talking about group (1), people who can't get a job.

Someone might not be able to get a job for a variety of reasons: she doesn't have reliable transportation, she can't be bonded, she has a history of delinquency, she has white supremacist tattoos on her face, she is mentally ill, there is insufficient "aggregate demand" (whatever that means), and so on. Most of those things aren't policy questions.

But a few of them are. I mentioned insufficient aggregate demand to be fair to Keynesians, even though I'm not a Keynesian. Keep in mind, however, that stimulating aggregate demand need not have any effect on wages at all, and certainly never involves the minimum wage. (Go ahead, ask Paul Krugman if raising the minimum wage is an effective way to stimulate aggregate demand.) So, let's take that one out of the picture.

What's left to consider?

There are a series of policies that keep youth unemployment higher than it needs to be: Minimum wage laws, child labor laws, payroll taxes, union shops, "forklift operator licenses" (that one kept me out of a few jobs when I was a youth), legal curfews, mandatory benefits provisions, and so on. These are institutional barriers put in place to prevent youth from working as much and as many hours as they might otherwise choose to work.

The fact is, there are only so many considerations that are under our control. We know what those considerations are, and we have the means to address them immediately.

So why do we not take steps to alleviate the problem?

What Happened To Jury Trials?

Yet another alleged shooter has been gunned down by law enforcement.

In a statement from Governor Cuomo’s office, law enforcement personnel have shot and killed the man responsible for killing civilians in the upstate town of Herkimer, New York. The engagement between law enforcement officers and Myers resulted in one fatality – that of an FBI dog. 

"This morning law enforcement officials entered the building and, after being fired upon, shot and killed the suspect, Kurt Myers. There were no injuries to law enforcement officials, though an FBI police dog was fatally shot. We commend the courage and extraordinary efforts of the state police, the FBI, and local law enforcement officials in finding the suspect and ending this horrific spree of violence and bloodshed,” said Cuomo in the statement. “It is now time for mourning those who we lost in this senseless act of violence. In the darkest of times, the bravery, kindness, and the spirit of community of New Yorkers shines the brightest, and that is what we saw yesterday in Herkimer and Mohawk as the community came together during this difficult time. The thoughts and prayers of my family and of all New Yorkers are with the friends and loved ones of the victims."

The crimes that Kurt Myers is alleged to have committed are atrocious, let there be no doubt about that. However, the true identity of the shooter will never be know, thanks to trigger-happy police officers.

I am sympathetic to situations in which police officers, forced to defend themselves or others in immediate danger, may have to fire upon suspects. However, any time a suspect is not brought to justice through the standard channels of the legal system, your own rights, articulated in the Bill of Rights of the US Constitution, have been compromised.

If it happens that the altercation between Myers and the police was captured on video, and that video is made available to the public, and also happens to clearly show that the police officers were both in immediate danger and had no option available to them except to use deadly force, then I will be the first one to thank them for their service and give them a pass here.

Unfortunately, these instances in which the police deem themselves judge, jury, and executioner are becoming far too common for comfort. All that need happen in the State of New York is for you to be accused of a crime. From there, the police may simply shoot you. As long as the governor issues some cursory claim that you had fired on officers first, all will be forgotten. You'll be dead and no one will know the truth.

Is this the kind of world we want to live in? Are we sure?

My Response To The Google Reader Thing

As you may have heard, Google is shutting down Google Reader, which is a great feature that I will sorely miss. Much is being made of the hooplah, and people are asking how they will react. I can't solve all of your problems, but I can tell you what I'm going to do.

First, I'm going to scribe to all of my favorite blogs via email.

Second, I'm going to create filters in my Gmail that route each blog-related email to a special Gmail folder titled "blogs."

Voila. In two steps, I've replaced Google Reader without any significant additional work on my part.

UPDATE: I just discovered dozens of perfectly viable RSS readers that are available as add-in applications for Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox. The hubbub surrounding G Reader is a lot sillier than it needs to be.  Microsoft Outlook, of course, already has RSS feed capabilities if you have a full version of the software. There are great options out there.

It Will Always Be Real Estate

Part One: The "Housing Is A Bad Investment" Crowd
Robert Shiller is a bear on the housing market. He considers housing investments to be a fad. As he puts it, "Housing traditionally is not viewed as a great investment. It takes maintenance, it depreciates, it goes out of style. All of those are problems. And there's technical progress in housing. So, new ones are better."

Shiller has been beating this drum for a few years now. Frankly, he's made a name for himself this way. He's been quoted and lauded by Stiglitz and Schiff alike (no small feat, considering how opposite those two viewpoints are). Nancy Grace, the Ludwig von Mises Institute, Suze Orman, Oprah... everyone wants to participate in the flogging of the real estate "myth."

Lucky for you, you're a faithful Stationary Waves reader, so you already know about The First Stationary Waves Principle Of Coming Out On Top: When you see a crowd of people all going one direction, that's your queue to go the opposite direction.

Part Two: A Ten-Year Vision
Simon Grey has more, and as usual, his thoughts reflect a higher degree of rationality than the mainstream media's soundbite culture is capable of generating. Grey's response is:

If you want to remodel your kitchen because you want something prettier or more functional, or more spacious, or whatever; then remodel your kitchen because you want to.  But don’t pretend that remodeling your kitchen is somehow an investment in your home.  That’s just bullshit that salesmen use to get you to spend lots of money on upgrades.

If you want a nice, comfortable place live that you can customize to your exact preferences and specifications, more power to you.  But don’t lie to yourself and pretend that modifying your home to your specs is somehow a reasonable business investment.  It simply is not.

And if you want to invest in real estate, either buy rental property or buy development property, or some other property that you can flip in short amount of time.  That’s investing in real estate.  Remodeling your home is not.

The bottom line is that, at some point, people developed the idea that "flipping" houses was a good way to invest. Or did they? Flipping houses is, by definition, market speculation. I am not convinced that the idea ever took hold that flipping houses was a way to invest money.

I remember when day trading first became a fad. Because buying and selling stocks has long been part of savvy investors' overall investment strategy, I think people somehow started using the word "invest" interchangeably with the phrase "buy something and make money when you sell it." To be sure, that phrase probably qualifies as some sort of extremely crude definition of the word "investment," but it seems to me that there is more to it than that.

In a more traditional sense, investment connotes a long-term strategy, a policy of choosing purchases that will yield a large payoff far into the future. Those with extremely lengthy cognitive time-horizons will excel at this sort of thing. Those who see any kind of investment as a bit of a gamble will never do very well, because they don't have very long cognitive time-horizons. They fail to see the long-run connections between A and B, and so to them when prices become volatile, the best explanation available to them is one that involves "luck" and "risk" and "gambling." But the only people who think this way are bad investors and people too afraid to invest in anything at all.

So Grey is correct to point out a few things that seem obvious when we shine the light of longer cognitive time-horizons on the issues: (1) Buying a home isn't automatically an investment; (2) Remodeling your home isn't an investment at all; (3) If you want to make money buying houses, then buy income or development property. I approve of this advice because it demonstrates the savvy and rationality associated with about a decade-long cognitive time-horizon, perhaps even two decades.

Part Three: Seeing Across Many Milennia
For most people, it is wise enough to adopt Grey's strategy. That is good enough to make them wealthy. We have to add the usual caveats about developing an eye for good real estate location and potential land value appreciation. It wouldn't hurt to develop good relationships with local contractors and the good folks at the Title Registry. The more you do it, the better you get at it.

Nevertheless, there is a very important, eons-long game at work in real estate that I think it is extremely useful to keep in mind when thinking about the housing market.

There is a reason, after all, that real estate is the most reliable form of loan collateral for an underwriter. There is a reason real estate can be leveraged more highly than other assets. There is a reason there was a "housing bubble" in the first place. And yes, that reason involves government intervention, but that "explanation" really just kicks the can down the road, and begs the question: Why did the government promote real estate so much in the early 2000s?

The Ludwig von Mises Institute crowd seems to believe in something they call "the myth of the American Dream," or "the myth of Home Ownership" or whatever else. To hear them tell it, the government just magically decided one day to promote the myth that we could all own houses, thereby saddling us all with debt and skewing the American economy toward debt and debt management. I suppose their explanation involves some attempt to seize power through the financial and banking sectors. This explanation is ironic, considering Ludwig von Mises' own views on the demonization of bankers*.

To properly understand economics and real estate, one has to recognize the crucial role real estate has played in human history with respect to the structure of power.

In the days before the Enlightenment, land ownership made all the difference between a lord and a serf. To procure land from a king or queen meant to either gain access to the corridors of power through favor and insinuation, or to fight for that land to the death. Nearly all battles fought across Europe during antiquity were wars waged for the conquest of land and territory. Those ancient people had no concept of modern land utilization economics. They did not seek to acquire land in order to build factories and housing developments. They sought only power, and land was the ticket to that power. With land, one gained control of the denizens living on top of it, whom you could now tax, conscript, and otherwise exploit. Money was in sufficient to gain this kind of power. Being a member of the king's court was insufficient. Only land ownership could suffice to grant that kind of power.

When the New World was discovered and the Enlightenment unfolded, people gained an understanding that being free to produce and trade is what lead to prosperity. Those who were most passionate about these ideas found many ingenious ways to gain access to the New World, where existing property rights were not yet established. There, they could homestead a patch of land free themselves from the burdens of taxation and conscription. Instead, they could leave peaceful and productive lives trading with one another. Power transferred out of the hands of kings and into the hands of democracy, and land was the vehicle through which this occurred.

Yet, those in control of the American government never lost sight of the value of land as it pertains to power. The Lousiana Purchase was made by America's second president, the author of the Declaration of Independence, a man who had the good sense to know that America's prosperity and the gateway to the ascension of its people was through the acquisition of more real estate. Thus was born the idea of Manifest Destiny, which Americans used to justify a mad dash toward gathering up all the empty land they could get their hands on.

Those who made it to the West coast profited most. California turned out to be a literal gold mind, and a silver mine, an agrarian paradise, and a fabulous well of oil and natural gas. Anyone who managed to acquire this land during the 19th Century must surely have guaranteed the wealth and power of several generations of his progeny.

But this was only the beginning. Even the sparsely populated American midwest is dominated by the few old families who have descended from the initial inhabitants who took advantage of the wide and unwanted expanse of land by setting up their homesteads on tracts so wide they extended further than the eye could see. For one hundred years, they existed in modest poverty, king of a domain no one was interested in. But in the 21st Century, those unable to compete with the prevailing power structures in New York, California, Pennsylvania, and so on, are gradually migrating inland, into the midwest, where land is comparatively cheap and plentiful.

Don't kid yourselves: The folks who managed to gobble this land up in the first place will make the first millions, or billions. It is the land that gives them the money and the power here. And it always will be.

Finally, people in the United States and Canada are taking notice of the many foreign real estate investors who are making a long-term play in North America. The media is replete with stories of Arabian, East Asian, and South Asian millionaires who are excitedly buying up real estate here at prices that we locals consider to be insane.

Are these foreign millionaire's stupidly buying into the Federal Reserve's lies or the long-standing myth of the American Dream? No. They simply understand that even high prices here are a bargain when it comes to a long-run vision of acquiring wealth and power. Throughout the ages, it has only ever been land that has provided men with access to wealth and power, and it only ever will be.

It will always be real estate.

___________________
* Cf. Mises, Ludwig von, The Causes of the Economic Crisis, Chapter 5, Section 1. Remember, folks, there is more to Ludwig von Mises than just freedom and gold standards. Just because we reach the correct conclusions doesn't always mean we reached them for the correct reasons!

Bike Review: Windsor Clockwork Plus (Part 2)

As I previously blogged, my household has seen the addition of a new member. I hear the pitter-pattering of tiny spokes. That's right, I'm talking about my fabulous new Windsor Clockwork Plus. These babies are selling right at the top of the single speed page over at BikesDirect.com. Last time, I covered everything I covered short of the actual ride, so I won't hold you in suspense any longer. On with the real review.

Assembling this bike was a piece of cake, but at the urging of my avid-biking older siblings, I took the bike to the local shop before giving it a real ride to ensure that everything was as it should be with the bike. I went to the mechanic's counter and asked for a tune-up, explaining that it was a new online purchase and that I wanted to make sure it was ready to go. The mechanic pulled out an invoice, then looked down at the bike. He narrowed his eyes for a moment before muttering, "...hang on a second..."

From there, he took the bike into the shop and gave it a full inspection, checking each of the parts. It took only a couple of minutes, and then he wheeled the bike back over to me, shrugged, and announced, "Looks good to me..." No service, no charge. This is an important point because this means that the bike shipped in a road-ready state. That's great!

Finally, I was ready to take it out on the road. Rather than start by braving the morning commute - bear in mind that I haven't owned a bike for about three years, and I haven't even ridden one in six or more - I thought I'd do some easy riding along the local neighborhood streets.

Because this is a track bike fitted with brakes, the narrow wheels and single-speed configuration initially felt like an "advanced ride" from my novice perspective. I was wobbly and unsure of myself. Within a few minutes, though, I really took to it. The bicycle is remarkably quiet, and it glides smoothly and briskly on the street. The more I rode, the better I liked the ride. After about 15 minutes of riding, I couldn't stop smiling. Everything about the ride of this bike is fun, fun, fun.

There are a number of small hills, dips, twists, and turns in my neighborhood, so I had a good opportunity to experience the full range of what riding my Clockwork has to offer. Downhills are predictably speedy - it's easy to work up to quite high speeds, but the ride is so smooth that I hardly even noticed. But riding uphill was, for me, a phenomenal experience. Naturally, the big "if" in the single speed equation is this: It's a fun bike to ride, if you don't mind the difficulty of riding uphill without changing gears. On that front, I can safely say that riding uphill on this bike is an absolute pleasure. Whether this is due to the single-speed setup, or the nice wheels, or what, I'm not sure. All I know is that my legs felt connected to the road in a way that I don't remember experiencing on a bicycle before. Every degree of motion on the pedals corresponded to smooth, direct pressure on the road below. I have decent leg strength, so the effort was not too much. It was a blast. I soon found myself seeking out uphills and attacking them hard.

The handlebars are incredibly comfortable. I was reticent when I saw that the website described them as "padded foam," since it immediately called to mind images of the 10-speed bicycles of the early-80s, with their black sponge grips. On the contrary, the Clockwork has a nice, comfortable grip that is easy on the hands and feels very ergonomic. The drop handlebars put your body in a nice, aerodynamic posture that is still totally comfortable. Here I should probably note that I used BikeDirect.com's sizing guide for track bikes, and it ended up being the perfect fit for me, but of course I am of average height, so that is to be expected.

If you are accustomed to pedaling on the balls of your feet, the Clockwork's pedals will be perfect. If you are a less-experienced rider who is used to situating the pedals under your arch (or worse, your heel), then you need to be aware of some overlap: when you turn, the front wheel may hit your toes. Keeping your feet in the proper position, though, ensures that this will probably not be an issue for most people.

Bumps in the road are as noticeable as they would be on any road bike. Those riders more accustomed to mountain bikes or bicycles with bigger tires may be a bit unnerved at feeling that much of the road. But to me, I feel as though I am gliding on my Clockwork Plus, even when I roll over bumps.

It should be obvious by now that this is a glowing review of the Windsor Clockwork Plus, and I highly recommend it to anyone who is similar to me: Looking for a good, fast, high-quality, single-speed commuter bicycle for a low price. What else can I say about this? It seems to be a pure winner. My primary motivation in buying this bicycle was that I thought it would be a fun bike to ride. I couldn't have been more correct. What a great bike.

I will provide a Part 3 of this review once I have had the opportunity to put in some better mileage at higher speeds and in a wider range of conditions.

Incremental Fitness

Lately, I have been experimenting with placing a greater emphasis on strength training than on endurance training. To that end, I have been adhering to a muscle-building workout regimen that will be the subject of a long post/review as soon as I am finished. (I am just over the half-way mark on this, and so far the program is delivering what it promised. But I will withhold further details until I have completely finished.)

Naturally and by design, I have had less time and energy to devote to aerobic activity. I have time only for short cardio workouts after my strength training sessions, and defer the longer and more serious aerobic activity to strength training "rest days." This has resulted in an anticipated trade-off; that is, my cardiovascular ability has suffered for the sake of better muscular fitness.

Well, everything is going fine, but for the fact that I am really starting to miss the feeling of having an endless supply of endurance. I'd like to recover a large portion of that, but at this point I don't feel as though I can because I am dedicated to my current fitness regimen.

Not only that, but I see the current regimen as part of a longer-term, more ambitious fitness plan that will encompass almost an entire year of working out. By this, I mean to say that my recent dedication to strength training fits in the context of an overall goal to achieve a much different kind of fitness profile this year than I have in the past. Where a runner might start by building an endurance base before gradually phasing-in ever-more-demanding speed training workouts on his or her way to the goal of running a personal best marathon, this year I am applying similar principles to achieve an overall sense of profound personal fitness.

Therefore, I have started out the year with what is essentially a body-building program to achieve a "base" level of muscle strength, size, and shape. Just as an endurance base serves to provide the underlying backbone of an athlete dedicated to achievement in the endurance sphere, a strength base should (conceptually speaking, at least) provide the backbone for more strength-related objectives. In fact, when I think back to my days of competitive running, seasons of competition tended to be preceded by "off-seasons" during which athletes would focus on the weight training and muscle building that was to be largely neglected during the days of heavy competition.

From there, I will phase-in ever-more-demanding plyometric training. Plyometric exercises aim to convert muscle strength into speed as efficiently as possible, resulting in some sense of muscle "power." The combination of strength and power should provide me with a very different kind of fitness than I am used to. In the past, "being fit" has meant being able to run a large number of miles (endurance training) in a very short period of time (speed work). If I achieve my goals this year, I hope to be very strong (strength training) and very agile (plyometrics).

Of course, just as there is an important need to maintain some strength training during an endurance training regimen, so I still have a need to maintain some endurance training as I pursue more strength-related goals.

Back to increments: The process of starting with one thing, and then gradually taking on more is what I mean when I say "incremental fitness." In this case, I start with some weights, and then I phase-in plyometrics and endurance workouts incrementally.

Pitfalls Of Self-Producing

I am wrapping up the recording of my aforementioned contribution to a DFW-area artist showcase CD. Overall, I am mostly pleased with the results of my efforts. Nonetheless, the mixing process has been excruciating, thanks to the psychological difficulties of hearing the sound of my own voice and my own instruments.

If you don't play music, then you may have noticed something similar in regard to, say, re-reading a letter, a postcard, or an email you previously sent to someone else. If you re-read what you've written with close attention to detail, you find the sound of your own voice creeping into your thoughts. Not only are you reading what you've written, but in a way, you sort of "hear" yourself the way you intended the message to be written.

For this reason, you may fail to see spelling and grammatical errors. Your mind is taking shortcuts as you read. You know what you were saying, you know what you meant. Your brain simply skips over anything that isn't perfectly clear, because it's filling in the holes.

...And, of crosue, mnay of us are aawre of the biran's alibtiy to atuo-crorcet wrods and pharses as lnog as the frsit and lsat lteters of ecah wrod are the smae...

Similarly, when recording and mixing one's own music, the mind attempts to take similar shortcuts, gloss over imperfections, and make excuses for things that, to an objective third party, would not sound particularly okay.

But in my case, there is one additional mental hang-up that is particularly difficult to overcome: When I hear my singing voice or the sound of my own guitar playing, my mind starts to sort of "tug" on the sound, trying to push it into the place it's supposed to be. I think this is because my brain knows both how things are supposed to sound, and how they actually sound.

Well, nobody's perfect, and it would be a mistake to follow the quest for perfection into a bottomless rat hole. Sometimes we record something that sounds great, but still falls short of perfection, and due to time and other constraints, we have to make due with "great" instead of "perfect." Ordinarily, this would be fine. But, I find that as I try to mix and produce the track, and small diversion from perfection captivates my whole attention, drawing important cognitive resources away from being able to focus on how, for example, a vocal melody sits in the mix, and instead focusing on the fact that in a perfect world I would have hit a particular vowel sound with a bit more grit.

I think this kind of obsessive thinking is a one-way ticket to the funny farm, and I am utterly certain that this is why even the very best recording artists hire producers, professional third parties, to help them record and mix.

However, until such time as I can make music professionally (ha ha ha...) I will have to content myself with tackling my mental hangups and artistic objectivity head-on. The better I get at overcoming such things, the better my music gets.

Some Links

The internet is just full of great links this morning! Here's a sample of some interesting things I've been reading:

Allan Savory argued that while livestock may be part of the problem, they can also be an important part of the solution. He has demonstrated time and again in Africa, Australia and North and South America that, properly managed, they are essential to land restoration. With the right techniques, plant growth is lusher, the water table is higher, wildlife thrives, soil carbon increases and, surprisingly, perhaps four times as many cattle can be kept.

That is from this link, and Lubos Motl has more here.

Frances Woolley looks at negotiation usefully. Here it is in a single chart:

Those two links alone are worth the price of admission, but this morning, it's like Christmas in my Google Reader feed.

Next, Simon Grey gives us a remarkably insightful post describing how economic uncertainty becomes a list of "phantom jobs" that don't really exist. Anyone who has been in the job-search market recently knows that Grey is preaching the truth:

As a result, the jobs being advertised by major firms are more appropriately thought of as phantom jobs since filling the positions are generally viewed as risky.  Employers want to find the absolutely best candidate, so as to ensure that no money is wasted by hiring someone new.  What this means is that employers are interested in minimizing hiring and training costs (HR is basically a fixed cost, so having HR people jerk applicants around doesn’t really affect the bottom line while the extra costs of actually bringing a new employee aboard aren’t realized until the actual hire) and thus take their time hiring.  They make rescind the position if the macroeconomic data trends suggest that potential economic growth is diminished or negative.

These jobs are phantom jobs because their existence is contingent on improvements in macroeconomic trends and conditions.  If the economy doesn’t get better, employers will continue to delay hiring people.  If the economy gets worse, they may forego hiring altogether.  Thus, these jobs are mostly contingent on macroeconomic trends, which are themselves subject to government manipulation.  Therefore, the hiring freeze could be nothing more than unrealized government stimulus, which makes these jobs essentially fake, since economic stimulus is nothing more than a false signal of demand.

Finally, here's a note of housekeeping: Some of you may have noticed that the music videos have stopped coming on a weekly basis. I am knee-deep into recording a new rock vocal song for an upcoming DFW artist showcase CD. The core track is finished, only the vocals are left to record, and then some final mixing and it will be ready to submit for mastering. Details on how to acquire this CD will be provided as soon as they are available. In the meantime, you can expect the videos to start reappearing later this week.

A Final Mutiny

Here's a symbolic little poem a wrote some time ago...

A Final Mutiny

With water all around us
Weathering the storm
You built yourself a sailboat
And welcomed me aboard

We set out on the ocean
Steady as she went
And over the horizon
Our journey reached its end

Captain, did you build this ship
To carry us across the sea?
Was our lonely expedition
Really what you hoped to see?
Captain, is this timber true?
Or is this boat just me and you;
And are we only swimming?

When the sun was setting
Bathing us in red
The mast began to falter
And waver overhead

It came down without warning
And shattered on the deck
Descending much like rainfall
At least, in retrospect

Captain, did you build this ship
To carry us across the brine?
Was a voyage to the maelstrom
Really what you had in mind?
Captain, is our timber true?
Or is this boat just me and you;
And are we only swimming?

Fighting for survival
I reached out for a plank
And threw my weight upon it
But found I only sank

Upon the cresting waters
The tipping of the hull
Gave rise to realization
As I overcame the pull

Captain, did you build this ship
To travel safely to the shore,
Or did my wild imagination
Tell me there was something more?
Captain, was our timber true?
Or was it all just me and you;
And are we only swimming?
Captain?

Misunderstood Male Psychology

My recent post on "masculism" elicited a fair number of responses, including several critical comments from a faithful Stationary Waves reader. In thinking through my responses to her thoughtful comments, it occurred to me how deeply misunderstood certain male sentiments are. This misunderstanding is one of the reasons I think a new concept of "masculism" is desperately needed in society, and so I would like to explore that aspect of it now.

In that last post, the misunderstanding is confusing the concepts of "women shouldn't be competitive" (which is a terrible thing to believe) and "a woman cannot be offered a prize that she has already won for herself." What does a woman who runs a 2:30 marathon care that I ran a 2:47? As a marathoner, I have failed to woo her. To be sure, I may yet have a chance to woo her on related grounds, such as the ability to train with her, or the ability to share an interest in road races, or to pace her, etc. I may also be able to compete on unrelated grounds, with my sense of humor or my big blue eyes or my multi-million-dollar investment banker salary. But in the competition to impress her as a runner, I have not succeeded.

It's true that women own the issue of whether or not women should compete. That question belongs to feminism and has long since been answered in the affirmative. But the question of whether a man has any desire to compete with the object of his affection belongs to men. If men answer this question in the negative, women can have no say in that, even if they dislike the answer.

A New Example
Consider the following two statements:

1. An equally qualified woman should be paid the same salary as man if they are both doing the same work.
2. A man should never feel ashamed of earning a lower income than his wife.

One of those statements is deeply, profoundly, importantly true from an ethical point of view. The other is deeply, profoundly, importantly crazy. Which one is which?

Well, I won't hold you in suspense. Statement #1 is true, of course! Assuming there are no important economic differences between a man and a woman (differences such as age/work experience, intentions to take extended periods of leave, educational qualifications, internal versus external candidacy, and so on) it would be morally reprehensible and bigoted to pay the woman differently than the man. Equal pay for equal work.

That means that I consider Statement #2 to be crazy. But why?

Let's turn the tables a bit. Let's compare Statement #2 to an analogous statement, as follows: A woman should never feel ashamed of being less-able to nurse her infant than her husband. You see, no matter where you stand on the issue of gender roles and male-female interaction, nursing an infant is one of the most significant and uniquely female aspects of womanhood. It's true that there is nothing stopping a man from preparing a bottle and nursing a child. In fact, it's true that every man who has a child will find himself doing this very thing on numerous occasions. Nevertheless, if an infant were to always prefer being nursed by his father rather than his mother, I submit that that woman would feel a significant - and perfectly natural - sense of inadequacy with regard to nursing her child. This is due to the fact that, as I said, nursing her infant is one of the most significant aspects of life as a woman.

Likewise - and regardless of how much women wish it were not so - being thought of as a provider is one of the most significant, and at least traditionally, male aspects of manhood. Fifty years of feminism are not enough to suddenly nullify a man's deeply felt belief that he has a responsibility to provide for his family. It simply does not matter that a woman may prefer it to be otherwise, nor does it matter if every woman were to wish it otherwise. The reason it doesn't matter is because we are talking about the thoughts, psychology, and experiences of men, not women.

Just as a woman whose husband is the child's preferred milk-giver may come to terms with this and learn to make a maternal connection with her child through other means, a man who earns less than his wife may devise other important ways to feel like a provider. He may take on household projects, he may produce artwork, he may take on responsibility for household accounting, he may pick up slack in other aspects of household management, and so on. It is possible, and perhaps even easy, for a man who is out-earned by his wife to still feel like a provider, yes.

Other men, in fact, may not feel the same way at all. Other men may be perfectly comfortable with the fact that the wife is the family's primary bread-winner. Those men also contribute meaningfully to their relationships, and the family unit can be equally as happy and successful.

Notwithstanding all of this, one fact remains: It is crazy to suggest that any man "shouldn't" feel certain emotional pangs in response to being deprived an important traditional male role.

This is not a guarantee that all men will feel this way. Rather, it is a simple acknowledgement of the fact that men who choose to hold themselves to traditional male responsibilities are doing nothing wrong. To suggest that they are is as wrong as to suggest that no woman should under any circumstances become a homemaker. Millions of women make that choice out of personal preference and personal beliefs about how they want to define womanhood for themselves. If a man likewise determines that providing for his family is his primary responsibility, that is his choice!

Conclusion
Naturally, this is just an example I am using to illustrate the important difference between male-female equality - which is unequivocally good - and the point at which feminism ends and male psychology begins. The reason I feel that men need to create an intellectual framework of masculism is so that we can learn to understand precisely these kinds of issues from a male point of view.

Being a strong male provider is unequivocally good. This certainly does not mean that all men must adhere to that role. I have no problem with any man who does not or prefers not. But the image of a strong male provider is a heroic one, one that any father would be proud of his son for aspiring toward. Moreover, it is an image that even the strongest woman would be happy to live with - even the most successful and wealthy female captain of industry would be happy to be with a strong male provider.

This archetype, and all similar male archetypes, are every bit as positive as female archetypes, from the doting mother to the comely maid to the CEO of Yahoo to the Supreme Court Justice. If it's positive, it's good. And a man who aspires to do something good is a man with a strong sense of self and an admirable creed.

Therefore, when I hear or read statements like #2 above, I have to shake my head. Feminism has done an admirable job of framing certain gender issues, and we should accept feminism as it stands today. But feminism is ill-equipped to deal with male psychology. For that, only a male equivalent can fill the void.

David Friedman Shatters A Myth

Many years ago, I heard someone on television talk about a charity that went into the homes of poor people and showed them how to cook properly. The idea was that the poor suffer from bad nutrition because the cheapest food is also the least expensive. Thus, the poor rely on food from, say McDonald's, rather than taking the time and money required to produce home-cooked meals.

As a poor college student, I myself relied heavily on inexpensive fast food to get me through the years. So, based on my own personal experience, the claim seemed highly credible. Poor people are obese because they are forced to rely on the comparatively poor nutrition offered by the least expensive foods.

All was well with the universe until the excellent David Friedman took time to question the prevailing assumption:

Flour, the main ingredient in home made bread, costs about $.50/lb and has about 2000 calories/lb, so about $.25/1000 calories.

Wonder Bread, the classic example of supermarket bread, has 1100 calories/loaf and cost $1.99/loaf on sale at Walgreens, normally more. So about $1.80/1000 calories, or seven times as expensive.

Comparing lentils to fast food, 1 kilo of lentils has about 3500 calories and costs a little over $2. So about $.60/1000 calories

A McDonalds Quarter Pounder with cheese has 520 calories and costs $3.10.  So about $6.00/1000 calories. For that comparison, fast food costs about ten times as much per calorie.

Not only are the claims wrong, both are wrong by close to an order of magnitude.

To question the claims even further, I would add that - because the obese poor are actually obese - that means they are not engaging in cost minimization. They are eating more than they "need" to (but probably less than they would like to eat - I leave that assumption uncontested).

So if the claims are mathematically nonsensical and logically inconsistent with observed reality, we may have to toss this one out as a myth. But I am open to being persuaded otherwise.

We Need Masculism

Simon Grey points us to an op-ed in USA Today discussing the treatment of boys in the American public school system. The excerpt provided by Grey is perfect, so I am re-quoting it here, however I must point out that this article is an opinion piece, not a news story. The arguments and evidence presented are disputable, although they seem correct to  me.

Stereotyped as "naughty," boys quickly learn that they are thought of as dumber and more trouble than girls. And that has consequences. "When boys aged seven to eight were told that they tend to do worse at school than girls, they scored more poorly in reading, writing and mathematics tests than those who were not primed for failure. And telling children aged six to nine before a test that both sexes were expected to do equally well improved the boys' performance." But the message that boys get is that they're not as smart.

The way boys are treated in K-12 also impacts how they do with regard to college. According to a recent study of male college enrollment, it's not academic performance, but discipline that holds boys back. "Controlling for these non-cognitive behavioral factors can explain virtually the entire female advantage in college attendance for the high school graduating class of 1992, after adjusting for family background, test scores and high school achievement." Boys are disciplined more because teachers -- overwhelmingly female -- find stereotypically male behavior objectionable. Girls are quieter, more orderly, and have better handwriting. The boys get disciplined more, suspended more and are turned off of education earlier.

Female teachers also give boys lower grades, according to research in Britain. Female teachers grade boys more harshly than girls, though, interestingly, male teachers are seen by girls as treating everyone the same regardless of gender. More and more, it's looking like schools are a hostile environment for boys.

In response to this, Grey provides us with what appears to be a rather thoughtful solution:

To elaborate further, there comes a point in a boy’s life where he should be raised and trained by men instead of by women.  It would appear, based on the anecdotal evidence excerpted above, that once boys reach the age of seven or so they should start spending considerably more time with other males instead of with women.  I would hypothesize that by puberty (roughly 11-13), boys should definitely be spending the bulk of their time away from the retarding influence of women, and in the presence of men, especially their father.

Perhaps I would quibble with the word "retarding," but the thrust of it is spot-on. It is a unanimous perception - and probably a scientific fact - that there are differences between males and females. Notwithstanding my belief that people can choose to be whomever they please, the plain fact of the matter is that most boys aspire to manhood while most girls aspire to womanhood.

No one should be made to feel ashamed of their identity, of their existence. If a person's identity is one of womanliness and femininity, treating them poorly for this is morally reprehensible, whether that person is biologically male, female, or whatever. Likewise, if a person's identity is one of manliness and masculininty, that person ought not be made to feel ashamed.

By pure coincidence, I was watching a documentary last night called The Science of Sex Appeal. In it, a variety of scientists discussed what occurs within the body that attracts men to women and women to men. (I suppose same-sex relations were out of scope for the documentary, since they weren't discussed, but the firing of neurons in response to stimuli probably work the same way for same-sex partners, but for the obvious difference.)

An important point made in the course of this documentary was one that we hear routinely from both women's popular publications and the new wave of men's media, such as "the man-o-sphere," blogs about "game" and so forth. That point is: Women are categorically hypergamous, being attracted to males who achieve high social status. The scientists in the documentary studied humans and a variety of other species and discovered that in all cases, females were less concerned with the competition to achieve status than they were with the actual results of the competition.

Now, men (traditionally and contemporally) compete for status in a variety of ways. One obvious way is sports. Of course, there is also the career ladder, political arguments, mathematics, contests, musical virtuosity, and so on. All of these are spheres that are not only traditionally dominated by men, but in which even today we see appeal more to men than women. This is reflective of the researchers' findings that in the realm of status competition, men are interested in the tournament while women are interested in the results.

This may be why women in recent years have excelled so much in management, medicine, government, and business administration. Perhaps these kinds of careers offer women the ability to perform work that they find useful and interesting, without diving too deeply into the actual competition itself.

Naturally, if the competition appeals to women, then I for one welcome them to participate. But with regard to women's actual interests, this has always been more the exception than the rule and I imagine that there are biological reasons for this that are deeply rooted in human evolution and instinct.

Regarding education, boys are often boistrous and disruptive as they compete over anything. So it should not be surprising that they would also be boistrous and disruptive as they create informal competitions over math problems, times tables, vocabulary words, P.E. tests, and so on. I was once a boy, and I remember this behavior full-well. Anti-competitiveness is a more feminine trait in that it is emblematic of those people who find competition uninteresting.

Unfortunately for the anti-competitive, competition is a vital component of the human experience, and more specifically a very important part of being male. We like competition. It's fun. It enriches our lives. It makes us happier people. It fills our bodies with testosterone - and that's healthy. (So strange that the modern media uses the word "testosterone" disparagingly. Men need testosterone to remain healthy.)

I am of the opinion that feminism has been unambiguously good for human society. It is unequivocally a good thing that women have earned a more equal role in society. Perhaps a better way of saying this is that it is an extremely good thing that society as a whole can better recognize the contribution of females than it could in the past. We all win when equality of opportunity prevails.

But the story doesn't simply end there. We can't close the book on gender identity simply because feminism is good and should prevail. We need to take a look at the holes that are opening up in the wake of broader equality. Women have been highly effective at creating an intellectual framework through which they can analyze women-specific issues. What we are seeing today are holes that apply to boys and men in a more modern and gender-equal society.

I personally believe that those holes need to be filled with an intellectual framework that functions as a counterpart (not contrast) to feminism. Call it masculism if you like. Men need a framework through which they can analyze what it means to be male. The sorry websites out there devoted to mindless sexual intercourse under the auspices of "Game" are nothing more than a psychopathic knee-jerk reaction to a loss of gender dominance. We don't need to become vapid gigolos. That's not manly, it's immature. It's boyish.

What we rather need is a new understanding of what it means to be a man. Manliness is a world in which competition is important, in which testosterone is healthy, and in which being tough, thick-skinned, physically powerful, unapologetically courageous, and deeply chivalrous are all recognized as the unambiguously positive masculine traits that they are.