US Markets - Five Points
US markets are flattish and holding record highs as we wait on Powell to speak.
You’ve probably all heard of a gratitude journal, but a “failure and disappointment journal” may be more functional. Writing about fuck-ups prompts you to move beyond rumination (your Limbic System) into analytical thinking (Prefrontal Cortex). Unlike brooding, journaling externalizes your emotion, allowing clarity. Gratitude journals focus on positives now, but failure journals engage deeper processing by tracking emotions, extracting lessons, and noticing eventual positive outcomes. A setback journal shifts the issue toward rational problem-solving, turning raw emotion into insight and action.
My ear bled for seemingly no apparent reason last week at the gym, and it’s still swollen and sore. I’m putting on headgear and going back to training today, but my brother (also a jujitsu guy) is going to be jealous when he sees how ugly my face gets.
I forget where, but I heard an informed opinion that medical technology is improving so rapidly that it reverses aging in various experiments. I’m 50 now, and since I see life through my children’s eyes, I can plan on having 25 more years with them. With advances in treatment, that might double. It's time to pay more attention to what we eat and do while we wait for a miracle.
I’m not a conservative, I’m a liberal from the year 2000. Even so, it has become increasingly clear to me that conservatism begins with gratitude, recognizing that much of the world is good and worth preserving. By contrast, progressives think it's miserable, and everything is the worst ever. The generation behind them (13-22 year olds who were kicked in the balls by Covid restrictions) will decimate the progressive movement, so we will look back at this as a flash in the pan. However, that's how you find your way to socialism in the 21st century.
