The Authenticity Of Old Guys...

...and Old Places.

When the Money Supply is genuinely constrained, and so-called 'takeoff velocity' has not happened – or not yet happened – then it is no crime or sin to be without cash.

Whatever you would normally trade in, or have to trade, does not move with as much energy, and cash goes 'into the freezer,' as I like to put it.

But freezers are not such bad things, necessarily. And particularly when it comes to money, you will find that psychology overcomes brute force most especially when the Money Supply and the circulation velocity declines. There's plenty of money out there: it's trapped inside the frozen sentiments of people.

Can you think of ways to warm up the frozen sentiments of people?

What is it with the authenticity of old guys?

I can tell you right now, people severely underestimate the power of subtle and intelligent words and thoughts. Aesthetics is a Greek word meaning 'perceptions through feelings' – people don't need to know what you're doing, they just need to get the right perceptions from the feelings that you are evoking from them.

Thomas De Quincy, the Orientalist writer who was also an opium addict, is a fine example of how words can evoke feelings. And then of course, feelings create perceptions afterwards. I am going to tamper very slightly with the order of some of his sentences for the sake of making sense here, but, all the same, the point is how evocative he writes. Watch this:

“I am surprised to see people overlook winter in his sternest shape, when it comes to the science of happiness. They think it a matter of congratulation that winter is going; or, if coming, is not likely to be a severe one. On the contrary, I put up a petition annually, for as much snow, hail, frost, or storm, of one kind or another, as the skies can possibly afford us. Surely everybody is aware of the divine pleasures which attend a winter fire-side: candles at four o'clock, warm hearth-rugs, tea, a fair tea-maker, shutters closed, curtains flowing in ample draperies on the floor, whilst the wind and rain are raging audibly without.”

Something is raging outside these days. I would say it's called stupidity, and crassness, and hubris in the confused who yet have pretense to rule.

Close the doors. Put up the shutters. Draw the ample draperies of your mind and light the candles of wisdom. If the calm pool is only in your tea-cup, that is enough – all you need in fact - for you to experience 'calmness.'

You will find, that no matter how separate you have made yourself – even as it were, like a hermit – the world will start to beat a path to the warmth of a composed place. And also to the attraction of composed ideas. You don't have to be confident about what lies outside the doors, only in what lies inside of them. Calmness and wisdom heals... All things.