What to put in the jar of financial independence

 Something struck me today. 

Six, seven years ago; financial security was so important for us. Getting to a work-situation that was sustainable, and then amass enough for financial independence was the most important thing to do.

Let's imagine that all things we wanted to do in a year would fit in a jar; something like collecting pebbles. 

Priorities shift for good reasons - so beware of the autopilot that keep going on old goals

Financial security was the first pebble to put in the jar of things to do in that year.

And that was a big pebble, pushing so much else out.

Only after we had put in the pebble of amassing as much as possible for financial security and independence; then it was possible for us to even consider other things. 

But now; we have passed financial independence. We have passed a possible monthly spending significantly higher than what we spend now - and what keeps us fairly happy.

We are probably on the path of having wealth beyond what we will be able to spend, or want to spend, and will end up in our 60ies and 70ies with more than we can understand.

So do we do what's most important today as well?

Or are we going on autopilot, and just put in the pebble of amassing more money in the jar of things we can do in a year? Do we really consider that what was a very important priority 7 years ago, has changed, when we have passed all those stations along the tracks to and beyond financial freedom?

Shouldn't we perhaps consider that other things are important, and need space over a year: health, for instance, why not go from decent health to top-health? Or friends? Or appreciate the shifting seasons and the small beautiful things in life? Visiting family?   

Everything is fleeting, and the moments will be lost if we don't attend to them.

How important is that, compared to but another bunch of euros in the barn? 

Have we set our priorities straight? 

Is it time to give up the feeling of financial insecurity, and understand that the pebble of amassing, now, hides other things; things that are more important to us.

Perhaps it's time to realize that we have arrived. 

Farewell,

antinous&lucilius 

The Moral Thing To Do

Not contributing productively could - and will - be seen by society, and the slave mentality, as something amoral. 

Not that it would be wise to argue.

But let's stop for a second and consider the argument.

Is not being productive ... amoral?

The Face of Arete in Ephesus, the Goddess of Excellence as in full realization of potential or inner function 

Carlos Delgado, CC BY-SA 3.0

What would be the purpose to agonize over how much one can produce; if it's one's insatiable thirst after recognition and plenty, that one is trying to quell: a more beautiful house, another car, another expensive pastime for one's children. 

Wherein lies the moral prominence in squandering one's life in the pursuit of any such insatiable appetite? Are these delights a worthy cause to worry over, and loose the little time that was given to us?

Or is it more moral to recognize what is enough, and instead of everlasting production pursuit health, wisdom and love?

Free people are far between. Shouldn't we, then, pursue what would only happen, if we are free to choose to do it.

That is the moral question.

Farewell,

//antinous&lucilius

Shifting priorities

When we started the journey, we were so focused on getting to financial freedom. We put our eyes on the money, and we didn't expect superior results if we behaved normal.

We still don't behave normal, and we still have our eyes on the money.

Yet, there is a shift in our priorities. It is as if we start to settle in, realizing that we have enough and will soon have abundance.

And now, other things come back to our cone of light. 

Friends. But not the friends from before. Instead our friends have grown closer. It's not the ones we want to hang with, like one would hang with a bottle of beer. Instead our friends are those we care about, who don't compare themselves with us, that don't give much for the normal, that inspire us and attract us, that we can spend a night and a day chatting with. 

Family. But not the struggles of the past, but the appreciation of in-laws, the happiness of our nieces and nephews, a good hour spent with an old grandpa or aunt.

Art. Art is developing as a concept for us a little as well. But here we are still searching. We have some enterprises that reach out, and we feel that art wants to reach out. We still don't know everything that hides here.

Travel? Not so much. Even though we realize that with tons of bonus points piling up it's basically free for us to go where ever we want. But we still can't think that much of where that would be. We start to realize that there are other factors that are important to us. We don't want to travel for the same reasons as before, with the emptiness of escaping, for we have nothing to escape from anymore. 

That doesn't mean that we're never going to change the scenery around us. But then travel is more a background, and not actually of much importance.

We start to realize that most important for us might be to help the sun wander over the sky; helping ourselves, helping those we care about, and helping humanity to be a little better. 

Hermes, messenger from the Gods and wanderer of light over the skies.

And in the end, when the sun settles in the west, we know that the most important thing for us might be too be able to say; it was a good day.

Farewell

//antinous&lucilius

Who has got the initiative over our life-energy?

Here's a thought.

We're dependent on the paycheck for our livelihood for a considerable time.

We earn that paycheck by giving our life-energy away; our concentration, enthusiasm, wit, skill or labor. 

What guides where we focus our life-energy is the force that gives us the paycheck.

That directing force is ultimately dictated by the needs of society and the market.

What does freedom do?

It brings the control of that force, to decide where we spend our life-energy (concentration, enthusiasm, wit, skill and labor) over to us.

Art wants out

Suddenly, the initiative is in our hands. 

We become true grown-ups, adults, and sovereign in deciding where to spend our energy, without a guiding force to nudge us.

The beauty of early financial indepet is that much of that life-energy still remains in our hands; in our relative youth; it has not yet been spent in the hands of the market and society.

We still have energy to spend.

It's, though, an error to think that freedom means that the life-energy shouldn't be spent on creative, interesting endeavors.

The energy we're granted is far too interesting to squander away, in our opinion, on too simple pleasures.

Hedonism requires complexity.

And mastery of complexity is art, and art wants out.

And with freedom, the initiative to set that art free is ours. 

Farewell,

//antinous&lucilius

Why the Samurai shouldn't study too much Buddhism

There's so much mindfulness in today's world. And to enjoy freedom, the stoics, and quite a lot of thinkers like them, advice a kind of detachment from the material world - at least when it comes to deriving anger from material failures.

Yet - when we are NOT yet free; isn't it better to think of how to be good followers of our clan and company? Is then too much dwelling on the mental virtues for freedom really with what we should consider ourselves?

A Samurai is not overly concerned with a peaceful mind.

(Kusunoki Masashige, 14th century)

In the Hagakure, Tsunemoto writes that the Samurai should not study too much Buddhism. 

Instead, one finds other virtues, quite detrimental to preserving one's peace of mind, in the thinking of the way of the samurai - bushido. 

Act quickly

The philosophers in Their Elevated Elysium like to think and not make haste. 

Yet, the Samurai prefers to to act and act quickly. Only the feeble refrain from acting. 

Use the anger

The stoics stay clear of anger, and comfortably turn their fat necks away.

Yet, for a Samurai, rage can be turned into a force that can be directed at one's enemies or what needs to be done.

Don't be afraid of death

In one translation, Tsunemoto writing goes:

"This is the substance of the Way of the Samurai: if by setting one's heart right every morning and evening, one is able to live as though his body were already dead, he gains freedom in the Way; his whole life will be without blame, and he will succeed in his calling."

Perhaps we don't always have death over us, yet at some point, being attached to personal safety is obviously counter to Tsunemoto's samurai. If we accept that everything will vanish to the point that it has already vanished, we can do the right thing, free of fear. 

If we are afraid of death, we might refrain ourselves from doing the necessary.

Often, the hard way is the right way and can be enjoyed precisely because of its hardships. 

Live by honor

Honor, and the lesser byproduct of reputation, is everything in a clan-based society. 

Hint: much of business life, and beyond that, behaves like a clan based society.

In all action, show respect, stick to your word and never loose face.

Serve your master

Precisely because of honor and reputation, the Samurai cannot have anything but complete loyalty to his master.

A good follower

Most of us spend some time in a clan, nowadays called an "organization" or a "corporation". This existence can be enjoyed for its medieval, clan- and samurai-like attributes.

And being valuable to the clan is a sure way to achieve freedom.

So let's think how we become a good follower for our master, and put the horse before the cart, and consider this and enjoy this before we start to consider freedom.

A samurai shouldn't study too much Buddhism. 

Be a good samurai first, and then, be the monk who dwells on transcendental freedom in his state of higher and higher enlightenment. 

If we set our will to it, our goals will be in our grasp.

Tsunemoto again:

"Nothing is impossible in this world. Firm determination, it is said, can move heaven and earth. Things appear far beyond one's power, because one cannot set his heart on any arduous project due to want of strong will."

Farewell.

//antinous&lucilius

When lightning struck the cow

There was this farmer's tale, of a good ranch. The harvests were plenty, the meadows bountiful. 

Each and every year, everything at the farm got a little better, the barns were filled, the live stock was fat, the children happy.

Then, one summer night, the farmer looked to the skies and saw dark clouds gathering. A storm was building up.

Well, he was probably not sitting on the cow.

His favorite cow grazed on the hill, and the farmer had a tingling sensation. Too late he understood what was about to happen.

Lightning struck his cow.

From that day on, what was slightly better every year became slightly downhill as the years passed by. And just five years later, the farm fell into disarray.

It was a story that ran in the village for generations. 

To have a little bit too much is not a problem. To discover that one has a little bit too little is a big problem. 

Diversification and safety margins are there for the things we do not see coming.  

As when lightning strikes the cow.

Farewell,

//lucilius&antinous.

What we wish we knew about finance when we were 20

Lucilius recall when he was really young, how he could dream about having a big money bin not unlike Scrooge McDuck and how he was playing around with Excel (or something alike, on his Commodore Amiga 500) and did the 'rich by Excel' exercise. The young Lucilius somehow understood that if one just keep compounding with 10 percent annually, one could get into high numbers quite quickly.

Antinous once won a bunch of money at the age of 12, and he went to buy index funds and stocks for it.

So there was some interests in investing. 

But then we lost all interested in it. 

At 20, none of us had connected the dots of investing and financial freedom yet.

A clueless Antinous
By Ricardo André Frantz, CC BY-SA 3.0

What was it that we didn't understand?

Here are three things we wish we knew back then.

1. Fair investment doesn't require unacceptable risk

One can become financially independent as normal, working people without taking crazy risks (such as starting a company based on a wild idea, hitting gold with a film or book contract, the odd aunt that dies leaving a huge estate, or wild speculation on the moods of the stock market or even riskier schemes). 

In other words, there's a way to become financially independent that is methodical and will get anyone who has the right dedication to the goal. We had no clue about that.

A part from the more crazy ideas, we also looked at the stock market, not to mention, stock picking, as way too risky. 

And not without reason. We're still not convinced that the stock market alone, by default, is the right place to be to get a good return on risk.

The biggest hurdle with investing, and especially with stocks, we felt, was timing issues. Timing would make us always prone to question if it was the right time to buy, or if we should wait. 

We also recall from our youth how stock picking seemed to be some kind of social signalling among middle-brow realtives, and the whole affair just smelled stupid to us.

We were partly right. But we draw the wrong conclusions, and stopped caring about investments all together.

But then, we found that there are ways of investing that has a fair price on risk (around 7% after inflation), and where the historical drawdowns have been much more acceptable (3-5 years until recovery) and faires well in most economic conditions. 

Our solution to getting a fair (and good) price on risk, and to reach financial independence, that met the criteria above was the permanent portfolio. 

There are other strategies, but our portfolio for accumulation was our way to wrestle volatility, and it got us the goal both quickly AND safely.

And it worked.

So there was a way for us to get into investing without feeling that we did something akin to go to the horse track and bet all our earnings on Thunder.

2. Money is worth attention

When we got into our careers, we felt that this money thing was something for people occupied with buying big houses, fancy cars, a new pool to aforementioned house, and so on.

Nothing for us. Both of us where bewildered with work itself at that stage, and we didn't feel like we participated in the social game. 

It might be that being gay helps in questioning the social norms, but we guess that the questioning of norms is not limited to that.

Granted, we were always somewhat frugal, but we didn't know exactly why. It just felt like a reasonable thing to be.

So while we were frugal, we kind of felt that the pursuit of money was somehow beneath us. 

Money flowed in and we put it in a bank account and that was that, and we didn't pay any extra attention to the whole affair. 

We didn't understand that it's worth paying attention to money. Because the bewilderment about work is standing on a more shaky foundation than our 20-25-years selves understood.

That brings us to the last point.

3. Financial Independence Is Achievable Quickly

As many a 25-years-old, we liked our careers. 

We didn't have in our minds that there could be issues with having our careers as our financial security. 

But, we suspect, there is a built-in identity crisis and false security in work-life. Things weren't as rosy and safe as we thought. In a way, we were lucky enough to discover in time that a career was not quite that reliable. Just hope that the paycheck would come rolling in the whole life is not the same thing as financial safety.

Something more was needed. And that 'something' was second-level-stuff. Like a big money-bin, which in a way is the second level thing to a paycheck. And better values and virtues, which are second-level-stuff to a work identity. 

And freedom in early middle age, which is a second level thing to the slavery of work life.

Connecting the dots

And that was when the equation started to make sense.

We were back to where we started, with that Excel sheet and the investments. But this time we had learnt what to do.  

So to our 20-year old selves we would say; 

• invest with a good price on risk, 
• pay attention to money and save up and put them to work,
• and the path to independence will be much shorter than one might think

Farewell,

//antinous&lucilius

Life as a training arena for the stoic virtues

Antinous is the true stoic of us. If anyone would rate the four stoic virtues, Antinous would clearly come out on top.

Antinous wears a better social mask; he's friendly, agreeable, likeable.

If there's something that is going for Lucilius, then that would be that he's got his emotions on close range. Too close, according to himself.

We have come up with all sorts of explanations of the differences that are most of the time quite amusing. Probably genetics, and the role we played in our early teens seems to have colored these parts of our personalities.

A lot of things about personality are on a flip-side scale; on one hand, and on the other hand, and everything can be both good and bad, and there's no real value judgement to a personality trait, or so the common wisdom goes.

But here's something where the stoics, and the ancients before them, knew: that some scales are absolute. More is just better. And that insight is underlying the concept of the stoic virtues: fortitude, prudence, justice and temperance.

Fortitude

Fortitude, strength, the ability to endure the necessary hard times and do what must be done during challenges that life unavoidably entails.

"Are you samurai?"  is a question we ask each other sometimes, after having had a stab at the playstation game "The Ghost of Tsushima" where the phrase gets thrown around a lot.  

We say it like a; "wht the f*ck, how hard can it be?" and a "stop complaining, and get it done!"

Are you samurai?

To some extend it works. And it reminds of that some of the ghosts we face and that are stopping us from showing the strength needed in everyday life is more in our minds than real.

Prudence

Prudence, the ability to step back and think about the course of action and make cold-headed decisions. In latin, the word is prudentia, and this virtue is sometimes just translated as wisdom. 

So the ability to back off, let go of anger, giving up short term wants or silly cravings of recognition, and clearly see what path is best. 

Lucilius, as said above, especially can feel the sting of anger and get carried away by emotions. And it's dangerous. Suddenly he might have said something, let something slip, that gets a life of it's own.

Once upon a time, allegedly, there was a tribe in the arctics, that had the concept that they had a soul that always walked beside them, a kind of mirror-spirit of themselves, that they called the bigger man. 

They themselves were just the little man, consumed and dragged into the petty things of life.

But when something happens, we (and they) can always ask what the bigger man would do. 

Do we feel assaulted? Then we ought to ask ourselves: what would be the little man's response? And what would the bigger man do?

Justice.

Justice is about doing the right choice, of having an adequate sense of right and acting in accordance with the laws and what's right.

So not trying to cut a shorter path that isn't right, doing evil for short term games, and accept the just laws that govern human interactions and act in accordance with one's values.

Do the right thing.

Temperance.

Temperance is knowing what is enough, knowing how to control oneself, one's emotions and one's wants. 

There's more to temperance. As anyone striving to financial freedom knows, moderation is an absolute necessity to walk this path. Someone who cannot temper his appetites will always want more, and thus never becomes truly rich and never reach any kind of significant freedom.

Being In The Arena

The virtues are learned in the arena, with other people, while we are trying to achieve something difficult and of value.

The arena provides the training ground needed for freedom.

We suspect that it's much harder to chisel out the virtues if one is too deep into a propped-up otium. 

The world and its challenges, correctly taken on, train us in fortitude, temperance, prudence and justice.

Venus punishes Psyche with a task (more precisely to get water from a high rock guarded by dragons).

Ca 1692-1702, Luca Giordano

That's why, according to a more hardcore attitude, we should thank the gods for the misfortunes they throw in our way. 

If one should be able to truly enjoy freedom, we suspect that one better be trained, and keep on training, and embrace the training opportunities the arena throws in one's direction.

Farewell,

//antinous&lucilius