April 25, 2024
Behind the facade of normalization, even high-income lifestyles have been ghetto-ized.
Emerson defined self-reliance as being our best selves thinking for ourselves rather than following the conventional path. Self-reliance in the 21st century means reducing our dependency on fragile supply chains and becoming producers as well as consumers.
Self-reliance is often confused with self-sufficiency--the equivalent of Thoreau s a cabin on Walden Pond. But self-reliance in the 21st century isn t about piling up money or a cabin in the woods; it s about humanity's most successful innovation: cooperating with trustworthy others in productive networks.
The book details the essential mindset of self-reliance and 18 nuts and bolts principles of self-reliance in the 21st century.
Podcast with Richard Bonugli: Self Reliance in the 21st Century
(43 min)
I decided to write the guide I wanted but could not find. This is my experience of burnout, reckoning and renewal.
This book is my account of what helped me. The intended audience is other burnouts and those who want to better understand the experience of burnout.
Burnout is a life-changing experience in a good way , as absurd as that may sound to those in the depths of burnout. To paraphrase Samuel Beckett: I can't go on but I must go on. There is a way forward.
Read the first section for free (PDF) . The Introduction
The Epidemic Nobody Talks About: Burnout
The threats to the republic are unprecedented, and conventional responses are an accelerant of collapse: the status quo is now the problem rather than the solution.
We have an opportunity to redraw America s Grand Strategy from the ground up. Should we fail to do so, the United States will fail, along with all the other nation-states that are incapable of grasping degrowth and social unity as solutions.
This revolutionary Grand Strategy will be the deciding factor between nation-states that fail and the few (if any) that will not just survive but actually thrive.
Read Chapter One for free (PDF) . Read the Introduction
Podcast discussing the book: A Grand Strategy to Address the Global Crisis (54 min., with Richard Bonugli)
The Ghetto-ization of American Life April 25, 2024
Cities' "Doom Loops" Are Even Worse Than You Imagined April 24, 2024
Is the 'Housing Shortage' the Result of Housing-Hoarding by the Wealthy? April 22, 2024
Living on Uneasy Street April 19, 2024
The Spear in AI's Back April 17, 2024
Financial Forecast 2025-2032: Please Don't Be Naive April 15, 2024
Sound Money Vs. Fiat Currency: Trade and Credit Are the Wild Cards April 11, 2024
Could US Treasuries Become the Trade of the Decade? April 9, 2024
Staving Off Revolution April 8, 2024
What Orwell and Huxley Got Wrong and Kafka Got Right April 3, 2024
YOLO Spending, Inflation and the Wisdom/Madness of Crowds April 2, 2024
Fed to Offer Every Household $1 Million from its New Discount Window
April 1, 2024
January 2024 entries
February 2024 entries
March 2024 entries
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"You shine a bright and piercing light out into an ever-darkening world."
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"We are what we repeatedly do." (Aristotle)
"Do the thing and you shall have the power." (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction." (E.F. Schumacher, via Tom R.)
"He who will not risk cannot win." (John Paul Jones)
"When we drink coffee, ideas march in like the army." (Honore de Balzac)
"Progress is not possible without deviation." (Frank Zappa, via Richard Metzger)
"Victory favors those who take pains." (amat victoria curam)
"The man who has a garden and a library has everything." (Cicero, via Lee Bentley)
"A healthy homecooked family meal and a home garden are revolutionary acts." (CHS)
"Do you know what amazes me more than anything else? The impotence of force to organize anything." (Napoleon Bonaparte)
"The way of the Tao is reversal" Or "Reversal is the movement of Tao." (Lao Tzu)
"Chance favours the prepared mind." (Louis Pasteur)
"Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm." (Winston Churchill)
"Where there is ruin, there is hope for treasures." (Rumi)
"The realm of gratitude is boundless." (CHS, 11/25/15)
"History doesn't have a reverse gear." (CHS, 12/22/15)
Smith's Law of Conservation of Risk : Every sustained action has more than one consequence. Some consequences will appear positive for a time before revealing their destructive nature. Some consequences will be intended, some will not. Some will be foreseeable, some will not. Some will be controllable, some will not. Those that are unforeseen and uncontrollable will trigger waves of other unforeseen and uncontrollable consequences. (July 8, 2014)(thanks to Lew G. for retitling the idea.)
Smith's Neofeudalism Principle #1: If the citizenry cannot replace a kleptocratic authoritarian government and/or limit the power of the financial Aristocracy at the ballot box, the nation is a democracy in name only.
The Smith Corollary to Metcalfe's Law (The Network Effect): the value of the network is created not just by the number of connected devices/users but by the value of the information and knowledge shared by users in sub-networks and in the entire network. (CHS, 4/6/16)
My Credo of Liberation: I no longer care if the power centers of our society--the distant, fortified castles of our financial feudal system--are changed by my actions, for I am liberated by the act of resistance. I am no longer complicit in perpetuating fraudulent feudalism and the pathology of concentrated power. I no longer covet signifiers of membership in the Upper Caste that serves the plutocracy. I am liberated from self-destructive consumerist-State financialization and the delusion that debt servitude and obedience to sociopathological Elites serve my self-interests. (Thank you, Klaus-Peter L., for reminding me)
"We've become a culture of excuses rather than solutions: solutions always require sustained effort and discipline." (CHS 4/9/16)
"Fraud as a way of life caters an extravagant banquet of consequences." (CHS 4/14/16)
"Creativity = problem solving = value creation." (CHS 6/4/16)
"Truth is powerful because it is the core dynamic of solving problems." (CHS 7/21/17)
"We live in a system of human emotions that masquerades as a science (economics)." (CHS 1/1/18)
"Always remember, your focus determines your reality." (George Lucas)
"Diversity is for poor people. Sameness is for the successful." (GFB)
"When power dissipates suddenly, it dissipates completely." (CHS 7/14/19)
"Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves." (Henry David Thoreau)
"Markets cannot price in the value of non-monetized natural assets such as diverse ecosystems." (CHS 7/14/19)
"Magical thinking isn't optimism, it is folly." CHS 1/3/22)
"Tune in (to self-reliance), drop out (of hyper-consumerism and debt-serfdom) and turn on (to relocalizing capital and agency)." (CHS 1/5/22)
"The path to everything you desire starts here: like yourself as you are right now." (CHS 11/20/22)
"There are only two signals: how many essentials you produce and share and if you're consuming less with better results. Everything else is noise." (CHS 12/17/22)
"Liberation is no longer needing any confirmation or feedback from others or the world for one's sense of self. Wealth, fame, recognition, admiration, praise, prestige, approval, sainthood, martyrdom, success: none are needed, none are desired." (CHS 12/26/22)
"When fame, wealth, prestige, status and glory are out of reach, you're free to pursue other more valuable things." (CHS 2/6/22)
"It is the sacred duty of every activist who seeks to better their community to grow and share as much life-giving food as is humanly possible." (CHS 6/15/23)
"Being anonymous, gray and unknown is the ideal state of freedom." (CHS 3/15/24) click here for more Extra-Special Bonus Aphorisms .
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