Oh the Things I Take for Granted

Welcome to the first edition of the Tuesday Tardyletter. Before you question my resolve, please know this tardiness was by design, as I was busy celebrating Memorial Day at the beach. Speaking of which, happy MDW to all who celebrate.

Alright, time to get this over with so you can move on to the more boring emails.

It’s an unfortunate reality that luxury tends to morph into necessity. The features, objects, opportunities, and ideals that make life grand become so ubiquitous that we forget they aren’t the norm. This isn’t the baseline.

With that in mind, here are a few I’ve become a bit too comfortable with. I needed reminding not to take these for granted.

1. Power Steering

   Strange start, I know, but this feature is ingenious. As my steering while just glides round and round, smooth as can be, I quickly forget the mechanical advantage this gives me until the feature goes out. Then I’m reminded what’s actually going on. I’m cranking the wheels to and fro as they sit under 2000+ lbs of weight. Why did I ever take for granted the reality that such an immense physical task could be reduced to such an easy experience? While we’re here, I figure power braking deserves praise as well. Ingenuity, man…

2. The Symphony Orchestra

   What a fascinating musical machine. To perfectly synchronize such a complex array of tools is nothing short of mesmerizing. So complex, in fact, that it needs a conductor, as if it were a fleet of battleships. A typical symphony requires 80+ musicians. Throw in a choir and you could hit 200. If I were to see a rock band that had even 12 members, I’d be impressed if such an endeavor could produce a consistent art form and an instrumental harmony as amalgamated as the sound that comes from the orchestral pit. The orchestra is perhaps the best example of being greater than the sum of one’s parts. In theory, it should sound like a bunch of people playing different instruments, but it doesn’t. It sounds like one vibrant supernova of music, a unified testament to the art’s intangible divinity. Everything in sync, all puzzle pieces that, while starkly different in shape and color, form one big, beautiful picture. It can make any sound, evoke any emotion… It is one force, and it is magnificent.

3. The ability to make money without working

   For all its risks, faults, and confusing jargon, the stock market is pretty cool. The fact that we have a marketplace whereby we can essentially store money, and have it reliably slowly increase in value because of this, is… neat. No, I don’t mean buying $14,000 in Dogecoin and hoping Elon tweets about it. I mean the slow, steady, reliable returns associated with securities like bonds and index funds. Yes, one must work in order to have disposable income to buy such securities, but after that point, you’re making money by doing nothing (assuming you don’t freak out at every downturn and sell it off). Imagine if, 30,000 years ago, you could store a few berries in a hole, and, at no more cost to you, the food simply doubles, triples, 10x’s in quantity over the next few years. All you did was store away one meal’s worth of food, and you get back 100, at no extra work. Now that I think of it, I suppose I’m describing agriculture. It’s the real-world equivalent of investing. You’re putting away a small amount of resources, in the hopes that in the future, it will multiply. There are risks of losing the seeds you could’ve eaten, but the potential returns dwarf the amount you put away in the ground. I suppose farms require more maintenance than a conservative brokerage account, but I still like the analogy.

    “Farms… the original index funds, est. 9500 BC.”

4. Good Architecture

   What if you could live… in a piece of art? When passion and craft go into building, that becomes possible. Shelter has been a human necessity for as long as we’ve been kickin. I would imagine in most cases, people were simply too busy trying to survive to worry about the artful taste of their abode. But, thanks to specialization, we have a whole vocation dedicated to making beautiful buildings; houses and skyscrapers alike. Homes built in a plethora of styles from Greek Revival to Mid-Century Modern provide a glimpse into the past and allow artists to put their stamp on what would otherwise just be a shelter from the storm. What a gift. And the skyscrapers, oh the skyscrapers. Walk through downtown Chicago and you’ll see just how great it is to have architectural beauty and variety applied to the gargantuan. Perhaps the largest pieces of art ever made, and yet I take them for granted. Well…. no more. I will balk at them like a child in Wonka’s factory. I will weep at their feet with the longing of a lost Athenian finding a temple to Zeus. I will do other melodramatic things too.

Though there are certainly more things I take for granted, I’ll end it here with a tweet. I have no idea who this person is, but I came across this long ago, and it stuck with me.