Forward Motion

I just got through Lessons For Living by Phil Stutz, probably the world’s most famous psychiatrist, where he writes about something he calls forward motion. I am paraphrasing: when we stop moving forward, we die. He is more specific: when we stop creating, we die.

As you can imagine, I am in agreement. In my fifties, I am constantly taking on new challenges. I just built a big honking house with a big honking mortgage because…why? Because I was getting too comfortable. I am a big believer in blowing up your life and starting over. I started an investment firm this year, because…why? Because doing the newsletter was getting a little bit stale. I teach every semester at CCU. I don’t have to do this. I am working on my sixth, seventh, and eighth books. I don’t have to do this. I got an MFA in 2023, at age 49. I didn’t have to do that. I probably spend 100 days a year on the road. Etc. And this year, I think I am going to try something new: screenwriting.

I have written about the dangers of retirement. I’m sure you know someone who worked their whole life in finance or law or some demanding profession, they retired, and were dead within a year? Cancer got ‘em. That’s not a coincidence. They stopped moving forward, and they rolled a seven. That’s not to say that you should be doing finance or law or publishing or whatever high-powered profession you are doing until you die, but you have to keep creating. My grandfather-in-law is 102. He works in his wood shop every day. This time of year, he is especially busy—he will make a few hundred toys for local children in need. 102 years old, and the dude is still creating. He has a purpose. This is what it’s all about.

No need to think about retirement at the moment. What are the ways in which you could be constantly pushing yourself? Well, if you are a small business owner, if you did $1 million top line this year, maybe you think about doing $1.5 million? Or $2 million? Maybe, if you made 9% this year at your hedge fund, you think about making 12% or 15% next year? Maybe, if you are a writer like me, your goal is to finish a book and start another one? Fill in the blank. When I use the word “creating,” you might think of artistic endeavors such as painting or writing or filmmaking, but really, anything can be “creative,”’ including being a corporate bond salesman. You’re a creator, you’re a builder, you’re a maker of things, you’re a doer, and you keep doing these things until your body or mind can no longer sustain it, and then you quit and create or do something else. John Updike is one of my favorite writers. He never stopped writing—he was writing well into his seventies, and published his last novel the year before he passed. He was worth $20 million at his death, could easily have stopped a long time ago, but he kept creating. I should add that he had some longevity.

I sort of implied that there is a connection between forward motion and physical health. There is. This has no scientific basis in fact, just a matter of observation, but people engaged in work or play or creating or living, tend to live a long time. People who sit on the couch with the TV turned up to eleven will die. There are a lot of people who watch their diet and exercise and don’t eat seed oils and all that crap, and they think that physical fitness is what will keep them alive until age 90. Nothing could be further from the truth. Longevity is mental, not physical. I can’t explain it. Let me put it this way: I never met someone in their 100s who didn’t want to keep living. When they make a decision that they want to die, they will die. There are people in their 80s, 70s, or even 60s who decide that they want to die. This isn’t a decision made on a conscious level, but on a subconscious level—why is it that physical afflictions always hit the people who have the least to do? The people who have checked out? Let me put it this way: I am going on 51 years old, and I am not in great health. I am about 40 pounds overweight, I have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, a bum knee, and spinal stenosis. I am going to outlive a lot of people, because I get out of bed every morning like the Raiders of the Lost Ark theme is playing, and run around like a crazy person trying to get all this stuff done. It would suck if I died, because there is so much left that I want to do. Maybe I get to a point where I run out of things to do, and I give up. You may disagree with me, but I would say that we all get to choose the time and place of our own death, whether it is a conscious choice or not. And forward motion doesn’t have to be up and to the right in my chosen career. Maybe I get to be age 70, and I decide I want to do something completely different, and I become a bartender, and I put on a white shirt and black bow tie and become a purveyor and lifter of spirits, and that is my new calling.

TV is the enemy. Remember in the 80s when we all thought that TV would rot your brain? Newsflash: it actually does rot your brain. Now, I have a TV (one, for a giant house) and I do turn it on (mostly sports), but I am usually working on my laptop with the TV on. I’m not “watching” TV, per se. Maybe one time in the last five years I have sat down on the couch and zoned out watching Judge Judy or something like that. Theoretically speaking, the only time one would watch TV is when one has nothing to do. And I always have something to do. In our house, the TV time is for the family to hang out together on the couch—me, my wife, and the cats. Everyone gets cozy, there’s some noise on the TV from the baseball game, I’m tapping away at my computer, and my wife is reading a book. It’s a ritual, and ritual is important. But I basically wrote all of No Worries in front of the TV, and a good part of Night Moves, too. The foregoing also applies to social media, doomscrolling on Twitter or going deep into Facebook where all the ads for boner pills and hair growth live. I try to take social media in small doses. These days, my mom will ask me if I have seen something on Facebook, and I haven’t, which I think is a good thing.

There was one year in my life when I was going backwards, not forwards: 2010. I had just moved to South Carolina, I had been running The Daily Dirtnap for about 18 months, and I inexplicably became satisfied with what I had, which wasn’t much. I got practically no business that year. I’d write my newsletter in the morning, and then I’d walk about a mile to Starbucks and get a coffee and sit and stare out the window for the rest of the afternoon. I should add that by this point, Street Freak was already written, and was going through the editing process, so there wasn’t much to do with that except to wait for it to come out. I wasn’t depressed. In fact, I was quite happy to be living someplace new, I liked the weather, I liked the people, but instead of working on the newsletter, or another book, or something else, I was just killing time. By the way, killing time is one of the worst things that you can do. Time is our most precious resource. You wouldn’t kill time any more than you would light a $100 bill on fire.

I’ll give you one more example: Richard Russell, the famous financial newsletter writer with his “Dow Theory Letter,” who passed away at the age of 91. He wrote that damn thing up until the day that he died, and never missed a day. At one point, he had over 12,000 subscribers. He did not have that many at the end. But he kept doing it. I can tell you that writing a financial newsletter can be a grind, and it’s tough to sustain that kind of enthusiasm over decades. I am on year 17. I have a long way to go before I catch up to Richard Russell. But you want to talk about forward motion—egad. That dude kept going and going and going.

We could talk about Buffett and Munger here, for sure.

Keep going. Never stop. Am I clear?

Speaking of which, I’m still making music, and have been since 2008! Check out my latest mix, Licks of Love on SoundCloud. People love it. The best thing for your New Year’s Eve party, or for grinding away on your computer. Go here.