I’m undertaking a 1000-day reinvention project, blogging here daily to track my progress. In Wednesday Writing, I consider my writing practice and skills and how to improve upon them.
I signed up for a new app yesterday on the suggestion of my daughter: Finch a “self care” app. Actually it’s a habit tracker, and though I’ve only used it for one afternoon, I really enjoy it!
You create a bird friend who grows and learns as you complete the daily and other tasks you set out for yourself. When you create your bird, you decide on a trait for them from a list that includes curiosity, resilience, compassion, logic, and more. I chose curiosity as that is the trait I most value in myself.
My bird Pebbles went on her first adventure last night before I went to bed. She was to be gone for eight hours, so I was motivated to come back this morning and see what happened. She traveled with an arctic fox minifriend that my daughter had sent to me.
By trying some cherries she found in the Finchie Forest, she learned she liked them! And she gained curiosity points that way. Pretty silly, but it gave me a little hit of happiness.
I often worry that I’m constantly flitting from one project to another, sometimes finishing what I started, and sometimes not. Framing this as curiosity instead of dilenttantism or something worse helps me see it not as something to change but rather something to celebrate and cultivate.
This past week, my curiosity has led me to research precious metals in order to better understand their place and possibilities in investing. I don’t think it is at all too late to get into precious metals. You may have heard people say “we’re at the beginning of a commodities supercycle.” I expect this is true, but I want to check my confirmation bias on that, as I lean heavily into commodities in my investment portfolio.
The fact that commodities (oil & gas, metals, agricultural products) haven’t done well for ten years matters — because that means there hasn’t been a lot of investment into new capacity during that time. Instead, capital went into things like social media (Meta), web search (Google), online marketplaces (Amazon), and computer software (Microsoft), along with supportive cloud services (Google, Microsoft, Amazon). Yes there were data center buildouts for the cloud services but turns out those data centers aren’t what we need for AI. Where the money didn’t go was into metals and mining including midstream capabilities like refining or into expanding oil & gas discovery, drilling, refining, and transport. The latter may not really matter as it looks like their could be an oil glut for years to come. But the lack of investment into metals & mining has left the U.S. without what it n eeds to grow economically and protect its own security. China dominates midstream metals services, leaving us without the ability to secure the physical assets we need to build data centers, manufacture EVs, modernize our power grid, and produce modern weaponry.
Besides the shale revolution, the U.S. economic focus entirely towards information technology, online and mobile advertising, and cloud computing creatd a bifurcation of capital. All focus was on the bits (digital 1s and 0s) and not the atoms (the materials we need to produce and progress). Investors flocked to capital-light software businesses and the cloud computing services to support them while capital-heavy industry went without investment. Now we face a decade-long deficit in the mining, power generation, and manufacturing infrastructure required to navigate the material-limited and material-intensive world we are entering.
You see I could just research and write about commodities all day! That is the latest thing that has drawn my curiosity. I’m sure there will be a new thing soon. And that’s okay!
I’ll have to set it aside for now as I’m off for a day of skiing. Just like an economy needs both the mental (digital) and physical (commodities), a person needs to balance both. I used to feel like I was just a brain in a vat, but building up the physical side of my life has brought me joy and strength.