I don’t think I’ve ever finished Doom, and I mostly played it on other people’s PCs when I was in high school. Perhaps I’ll add that to my future retirement goals.
Flashbacks to 2008, when u/zemaj searched for NetworkSolutionsSucksBalls.com so we could all chuckle at the Network Solutions man at work under that domain.
Funnily enough the medieval “ Lingua Franca” creole language used in the Mediterranean was primarily based on Italian dialects with some Occitan and Catalan mixed in.
I've heard Italian described as "drunk Catalan" and, being a speaker of Catalan and having had some exposure to Italian, I'm not sure I can entirely disagree.
Wholly unrelated to the topic at hand, but while you’re here…
I minimise how many email subscriptions I have, so don’t keep pace with many writers. But I have an annual tradition going back maybe 8-10 years of over my Christmas break reading all of your content for the year.
It’s been fun watching the journey from Uberman sleep hacking to multiple properties with friends (an aspiration of mine), to more recently tea + relationship + Vegas.
I’ll join the others in chorus recommending an in-person attendance to the Van Gogh museum.
I attended after enjoying another classic Amsterdam experience, munching through a potent hash brownie. Despite giving myself the recommended enjoyment and recovery time, the effects really kicked in just as we entered the Van Gogh Museum.
It was brilliant!
My beautiful wife abandoned me, because my absorption in some of the works made her fear we’d be kicked out.
And pertinent to this thread, I maintain from that experience that Wheatfield with Crows (https://www.vangoghmuseum.nl/en/collection/s0149V1962) is also an Impressionist self-portrait of sorts. Harder in digital form to spot the cloudy eyes, crow-black eyebrows, and wheaty-beard - but if you get to Amsterdam, or Paris where it’s about to go on tour, get yourself as close as possible and see if you see what I see!
My own sense of Wheatfield with Crows is that it is what Van Gogh experienced when he looked at it. It is a painting of how his emotions colored his visual perception. For me it is the closest I have come to knowing what it is like to see the world through another person's eyes.
But no matter what you make of it, or how you try to understand it, that painting is to me simply the best.
I had Van Gogh experience at the Musee D'Orsay. I walked into a room and ahead of me was the Church at Auvers and Dr. Gachet. The two of them together was just overwhelming. One would be stunning but there were two. OMG.
And also visit the nice Kröller Muller museum near Apeldoorn while you're in our country. They also have some Van Gogh's. Helena Kröller Muller was one of the first to recognize this kind of art. And also the place is surrounded by a beautiful forest where bikes are freely available.
For sure, make sure to take a whole day though, there's a lot to get through. There's also the park (there's free bikes available or you can drive through it), and another museum called the Museonder, more aimed at kids about what happens underground.
Note that you need a ticket to access the park, pay extra if you want to take your car in, and you need a separate ticket for the museum (the museum is inside the park). Park access is €12,50 per person, museum is another €12,50, and taking the car with you costs €8,70.
They don't just have a large Van Gogh collection, but have a collection that quite strikingly demonstrates how his work fits into the evolution of styles from Rembrandt to Mondriaan.
Yep, seeing these took me right back there. Absolutely the best museum I’ve ever been to, hands down.
I’m not good at “viewing art”, and often I struggle to understand why pieces are important. This museum is the first one that really filled in all the blanks for me. I was literally a changed person when I walked out of there.
My own sense of Wheatfield with Crows is that it is what Van Gogh saw when he looked at it. For me it is the closest I can come to seeing the world through another persons eyes. I have in my own life had moments when the distance between me and what I saw or sensed vanished. Hard to explain, but that separation just goes away - at least for me.
But no matter what you make of it, or how you try to understand it, that painting is to me simply the best.
I had a completely different Van Gogh experience at the Musee D'Orsay. I walked into a room and ahead of me was the Church at Auvers and Dr. Gache
I agree with you. Debt is a terrible master, but can be a wonderful servant and I wouldn’t be as financially successful as I am without leverage. And that’s not a wealth empire - just a regular family geared into real estate.
Of course, the “ZIRP” zero interest rate environment that predominated the 10 years since this article was written has been a historical anomaly. Though perhaps part of a longer trend, investors must be cautious not to view the benefits of recent leverage as evidence of easy future gains.
But if there was one thing that differentiates our financial position from our less-financially-free friends, it would be our comfort with debt as part of a well-developed investment strategy.
On the less technical front, rebranding and repackaging my SME coaching (10-100 employees) business. I explain that AI means I bring Actual Intelligence, but increasingly I’m getting hands on implementing some actual AI tools to free up some time or cash for bigger strategic projects.
I’m also slowly making baby steps towards replacing myself with an AI coach I’ve helped build. If I don’t, someone else will, and I think I’m well-placed to give it a crack!
