NOVEMBER 2022 – Taking a really interesting course right now on cost-benefit analysis, has been solid to brush off my math skills for a change and fire up some excel spreadsheets. Sorting out the pros and cons in complex model scenarios often returns surprising results and the impact of compounding and time should never be underestimated. I feel that is often the key to art as well (the time part, not the excel spreadsheet part, haha), in that you need to rely on little incremental progress to finish monumental undertakings. To go from writing your first sentence to a masterpiece like ‘The Brothers Karamazov’ takes an extraordinary work ethic and will to keep going. But over time, you’ll be amazed at what can transpire if you continue making little gains here and there.
The current of your life can feel very still at times (which is not without its charms!) leaving it up to you to make some waves and figure out how to put the wind back in your sails. Compounding works both ways though, as bad habits and poor choices stack too, so don’t let the net present value of your life skew negative due to externalities and slippage. And wish me luck on calculating the net benefit of doubling the state building code requirement for insulation to that of the passive house standard for my project, haha. Quite confident that it will have a positive return on investment, but by how much and how long it will take I’m not really sure.
And as you may have guessed, I borrowed a copy of ‘The Brothers Karamazov’ by Dostoevsky to read, will be a bit of a project, as I intended to read it a tiny bit each day while also continuing to read non-fiction titles and texts and so forth. As Dostoevsky is literature that makes you work to get the reward for sticking with it. And as I’ve said in the past, continue boldly following your charted course in life and committing to those big picture challenges, as good things take time.
That’s it for me at the moment, future me will be back with some more insights next time.
Cheers!
~ CS
