Author: Anne Z
-
Day 501 of 1000: Everyone Has Hopes and Dreams
Harlen Coben says “everyone has hopes and dreams.” That’s true for fictional characters and real people too. In which I reflect on my dreams.
-
🎉 Day 500 of 1000 🎉: Self-Worth | Do You Need it?
Halfway through my 1000-day blogging project, I reflect on the primary struggle I’ve faced: pursuing external recognition and validation vs doing what I love to do.
-
Day 498 of 1000: Incredible Earnings Growth in Chip Stocks
A Citadel report suggests that investors focus on single stocks rather than “index beta” (i.e., SPY). Can these incredible earnings continue?
-
Day 497 of 1000: The Psychological Pendulum in Investing
From Mastering the Market Cycle, Howard Marks on the pendulum between euphoria and greed in investing.
-
Day 496 of 1000: Blocking the Emotions of Trading
Thoughts from Howard Marks on emotions in trading, and how the Two of Swords suggests a stance to take.
-
Day 495 of 1000: The 39th Anniversary of Black Monday
Tomorrow marks 39 years since Black Monday, October 19th, 1987, when the S&P 500 fell more than 20% in one day.
-
Day 492 of 1000: Why Average Work Weeks are Still High
In 1930, John Maynard Keynes suggested that productivity brought on my capitalism would lead people to work only 15 hours a week. It hasn’t happened.
-
Day 491 of 1000: The Pleasures of Frugality
Planning to add a new Friday theme: frugality. Why and how frugality works for me at this stage of my life.
-
Day 490 of 1000: Creative Work as Ballast Against Despair
What it feels like to make progress as an artist, from Paula Hawkins’ thriller The Blue Hour.
-
Day 489 of 1000: Danshari and the Self
The Japanese philosophy Danshari calls on you to refuse, discard, and detach. Using the Buddhist philosophy of no-self to help.
-
Day 487 of 1000: Culture, Context, and Consciousness
Reflections on consciousness and conceptualization as well as focal and tacit awareness.
-
Day 485 of 1000: Against the Three-Stage Life
Ideas from The 100-Year Life. If you might live to be over 100 maybe it doesn’t make sense to follow the standard learn-work-retire pattern.
-
Day 484 of 1000: Questioning Standard Retirement Advice
By questioning standard retirement advice, you might come up with alternatives that suit you better.
-
Day 483 of 1000: Solitude and the Creative
Sarton’s Journal of a Solitude celebrates solitariness for creatives, but what did she really want in her life?
-
Day 482 of 1000: Investing When There’s Financial Repression
How to invest if we enter a period of financial repression, where the government takes steps to manipulate fixed income markets.
-
Day 481 of 1000: Nietzsche on Free Will
Nietzsche argued that we don’t have free will, but just the illusion of it. Where consciousness fits in.
-
Day 480 of 1000: Fiscal Dominance and Financial Repression
Considering fiscal dominance and financial repression in light of Pres Trump’s comment that inflation can help pay down the debt.
-
Day 479 of 1000: Against Free Will
Hard determinists say there is no free will; compatibilists say “yes there is” mainly so as to rescue moral responsibility. Some alternatives.
-
Day 475 of 1000: Bond Market Volatility and Stock Market Investments
The MOVE index that measures expected volatility in U.S. treasuries is up. The stock market has weak breadth. Time for caution?
-
Day 475 of 1000: Building a Cat Enclosure
This week I’ll be building an outdoor cat enclosure for my cats, especially Carlos, who loves the outdoors.
-
Day 474 of 1000: A Return to Tangibles in Investing
Have we left the U.S. tech multi-year investment theme and now moving into a commodities supercycle? One investment manager’s theory.
-
Day 473 of 1000: New Realism vs Old Abstraction
I’m moving from abstract acrylic paintings to assemblage, inspired by artists like Betye Saar and Arman.
-
day 472 of 1000: Where Fusionism Falls Down
Stephanie Slade’s new book Fusionism describes an appealing approach to conservatism in the U.S., seeking liberty and virtue. Traditionalism vs Jesus.
-
Day 471 of 1000: Why I’m Not Holding Any Bonds
My signals and charts as well as the macro landscape says bonds are not the place to be right now.
-
Day 470 of 1000: The Spanish Price Revolution
Spanish conquistadores went searching for precious metals in the new world, and they found it. This led to an almost unknown phenomenon: inflation.
-
Day 469 of 1000: Men in My Dreams
I dreamt of being told what to do by a male manager, and of my car being driven up to ski for me by another man. Why?
-
Day 467 of 1000: Beloveds Come and Go
Thinking about saying goodbye to my foster dog Sally, for the second time. Thinking about how the things I’ve loved have spiraled into and out of my life.
-
Day 465 of 1000: Things my Things Say To Me
On the convoy of stuff I’m responsible for. What some of it might be saying to me.
-
Day 464 of 1000: Fed Decision Day
The market overwhelmingly expects a 25bps hike in the Fed Funds Rate today. What might happen to long-term yields in response?
-
Day 462 of 1000: Cultivating Self-Loathing to Drive Goal Completion
Author and writing teacher Elizabeth McCracken suggests that a little bit of self-hatred can help drive you towards goal completion. I’m gonna try it!
-
Day 461 of 1000: Varieties of Relational Happiness
Living in a one woman – one man marriage is not the only one to achieve happiness in your relationship life.
-
Day 460 of 1000: There is No Manual
I found myself trying to live according to a societally-defined manual of how a midlife adult should live. What is an alternative?
-
Day 459 of 1000: Doing What Matters
The Queen of Pentacles focuses on what is worthwhile, what is precious. What is precious to me right now? Writing and artmaking, and managing the resources to support it.
-
Day 458 of 1000: Inspiration, Perspiration, and Desperation
In his writing guide and memoir Plot Twist, author Harlan Coben says that a writer needs inspiration, perspiration, and a desperation to create.
-
Day 457 of 1000: Pondering Future Living Situations
After spending time at both my mother’s and my father’s senior living places in the last few days I’m pondering what my own old age living situation might look like.
-
Day 454 of 1000: Called Towards solitude
You’d think I had enough solitude but I want more. Setting down societal demands that I share more. Seeking coherence not connection, for now.
-
Day 452 of 1000: A Writer’s Retreat
When talent is naked and immature, it’s time to decree a moratorium on socializing, loving, and consuming.
-
Day 451 of 1000: Art that Inspires the Creation of Art
Lewis Hyde writes as art as an agent of transformation. How art makes more artists.
-
Day 450 of 1000: Managing my Retirement Savings Myself
I’ve developed an asset allocation model with simple timing models for managing my long-term retirement investments. I couldn’t make it work without the web app I’m vibe coding.
-
Day 449 of 1000: America’s Military Weakness
While modern war is fought with drones and AI, Hegseth fixates on the shape of men’s bodies. Are we going the way of the late Roman empire?
-
Day 448 of 1000: Settling Down into the Muck of My Mind
Allan Ginsberg recommends writing secretly so you can be free to say anything you want. On painting and writing in private.
-
Day 447 of 1000: Focusing on What I Truly enjoy
I’ve found I don’t enjoy entering art shows. But I do enjoy money management. So I’m focused on the latter, not the former.