Evening Pages: November 9th, 2020

My life right now.

You know the saying "the days are long, but the years are short"? When I think about this year, and how the beginning of the year happened with the almost-war with Iran, I think it's a bit less true. That feels like 10,000 years ago. It feels like 100 years since this past Saturday. But then I think about it even more, and the timeline flexes in my mind. Yeah, it does feel like it's yesterday, even with all the horribleness crammed into one year.

I'm mostly thinking about myself and what I could have done differently over the past few years. Being less of a dick would have helped some, but honestly I don't think there was any way in order to avoid it. I think I made a pretty big mistake in terms of investing. I thought the stock market would pretty much tank like back in '09 because of Trump, and that's why I held back all my cash reserves. I did not expect Jerome Powell firing off a literal money eruption into the economy in order to at least save the stock market. Now I'm worried more about hyperinflation or stagflation than I am about deflation, and as it turns out keeping cash on the sidelines is a bad idea when that occurs. Cash is trash, capital is king. Then there's the matter of making the most of my sabbatical. My company was extremely generous in terms of respecting my time, but I didn't respect my own time, and I kind of just lounged around for a few months. I did not realize I was that lazy, or could be that lazy. It is nice to learn how to relax, and I think that's important, but I think it'll be important to continue to develop my own skills (albeit at a slower pace now that I'm learning things at work).

It feels good to be able to spend money again. I look at something online (an electric folding bike, for instance), and I can add it to my cart and look forward to purchasing it sometime in the future. I don't think I would have been able to do that just a few short months ago. I was scrimping and pinching on buying grain staples. I think after talking to a friend, I should spend a bit more money in order to feel happy. I shouldn't feel guilty about spending money if I'm still in large part responsible.

I talked to my downstairs neighbor when going outside for a walk. He asked how I was holding up these days. I replied that the sky was above me and the ground was below me, so most like any other day. I forgot to ask him how he was holding up. I should have asked, I forgot because music was playing in my ears.

Things are...different. Trump is playing Jenga with the DoD, but if we're still around in 2021, I think there will still be good things and there will still be bad things. Pretty much like always, and it'll be up to us to make the most of our own lives, just like always.