WIR-024

Previous goals

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• 1. Write 400+ new words (or edit an equivalent amount) at the start of each day for 7 days.
• 2. As an alternative to (1) two uninterrupted hours spent working on figures will count as 200 words.

Work completed

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• Work on my manuscript continues. A draft (or a very poor draft) will be ready by the end of next week.

Reflections

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A concept I find myself thinking about more often these days is that of human capital, or how much a person is worth in an economy independent of their monetary worth. At the end of the American Civil War, General Ulysses S. Grant was renowned in the North (and even tolerated in the South) for his service during the war. This turn of good fortune propelled the West Point graduate from the dregs of alcoholism to the White House—where he would serve two terms in the late 1800s. But despite his proven capacities as a military general and diplomatic leader, General Grant struggled his entire life with various financial woes. Whether he was being conned by his closest allies, placing ill-timed bets in the stock market, or simply the victim of misfortune, Grant went broke several times during his life. None of these details I find too fascinating, aside from the fact that it was clear that Grant held demonstrable merits independent of his net worth. These superlative attributes buoyed him through difficult times and brought him and his family financial security, following periods of destitution. Perhaps the most harrowing chapter of the general’s life came at his end. One day, taking a drag from a cigar (a chronic habit he started during the war) Ulysses felt a spark of pain deep in his throat. A much belated trip to the doctor revealed that the former president had advanced throat cancer and a grim prognosis of just over a year left to live. At this stage in his life, Grant had found himself penniless yet again, in desperate need of any means to recoup his fortune. Facing a deadline set by his own mortality, Ulysses wrote an astonishing 300,000-word volume chronicling his life to be sold to the publishing house of Mark Twain—only to die two weeks later. This astonishing feat of personal resolution and intellectual capacity in the face of death sticks with me. But perhaps the most important lesson we may gain from this story is that personal value cannot always be quantified. This brings me to the concept of personal capital, which describes the economic utility of one’s skills and abilities independent of the money in their bank account. To further illustrate this point, imagine a young doctor, just finished with residency and swimming in an ocean of debt, who clearly has some values absent from a recent lottery winner. And despite the intuitive nature of this concept, many of us fail to plan and act as if it were fact.

My decision to do a PhD is a personal one. I make no prescriptions for anyone other than myself when I say that I think a doctoral degree is a “good” use of time. Nonetheless, some vague instinct tells me that it is worthwhile to invest in my own knowledge and abilities, even though there are many other ways I could be making money at present. During education, the net value of my humanity increases, even as my net worth flatlines. So long as my skills and abilities continue to be valued by the society in which I live, my human capital continues to rise. I do allow for the (likely) possibility that I am completely wrong. That by choosing to spend the better part of my twenties cloistered within the confines of academic institutions, that I am making an irrevocable sacrifice. My personal view is that this kind of “background risk” is something that all freely acting people must accept. We make a few assumptions, we make decisions based upon them, and the rest lies largely out of our control. There are ways in which we can incorporate knowledge, theories, and experience to guide our plans–but ultimately, the outcomes in life are not ours to decide. I’ll conclude this paragraph by reiterating that my personal choice to invest time into a PhD represents just one of many valid perspectives. Every single thing we choose to do is a deliberate decision not to do many more things.

I’ll close with the concept of hedging, a ubiquitous notion in finance, basically meaning spreading one’s bets to offset risk. So too this idea applies in our own lives. For example, I’ve chosen to work in a “highly specialized technical profession”, and as a result, I am completely unsociable. It would be wise that I made time at least a few times a year to leave my house and practice talking to other people. For if I were ever to live in a world where my “highly specialized technical skills” were suddenly no longer in demand, then I would be in real trouble. Hedging in the context of personal development challenges neat and clean notions about “productive” versus “unproductive” uses of time. Affable, easygoing people create real economic value precisely because they are not constantly working. As I’ve grown older, moreover, it’s become significantly harder to denigrate those who allocate more time socializing and enjoying the fruits of life than me—because they are simultaneously developing skills I do not have. Skills that are fundamental, ubiquitous, and essential to our human economy. The person who only develops a deep technical expertise occupies a subtly precarious position. As stated previously, should our narrowly scoped abilities ever fall out of style, the one wobbly stool leg holding us up in society will fall. It would be much wiser if we, instead of deciding that we know absolutely what is best for society, adopt an agnostic approach and attempt to be well-rounded for its own sake, expecting there will be unforeseen positive consequences of our antifragility.

Action items

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Weekly goal

• 1. Write 400+ new words (or edit an equivalent amount) at the start of each day for 7 days.
• 2. As an alternative to (1) two uninterrupted hours spent working on figures will count as 200 words.

Until next week 👋