Infoholics Anonymous
All of a sudden it’s December 31st, a day that’s tailor-made for both retrospection and projection. This past year was as productive (13 podcast episodes, eight newsletters), rewarding (11 new clients), and chaotic (one new baby) as I could’ve hoped for. Cheers to next year having the same level of excitement.
WHAT’S NEW
In our current Age of Abundance, there’s almost nothing easier than gorging on content. The digital universe offers an effectively endless number of options: Millions of books, thousands of podcasts, hundreds of newsletters. And that’s not even counting the bottomless pit of video streaming, social media, and artificial intelligence that purport to captivate and educate the modern (wo)man.
But the hyper-curious have to be reminded that absorbing more content does not necessarily lead to more understanding (data ≠ information). This is demonstrably true when it comes to investing, but also applies to other fields like politics, history, and even medicine. There’s a tendency — especially amongst the intellectual bourgeoisie — to mistake consumption for comprehension, when in fact the correlation is quite low, and sometimes negative.1
In a post-scarcity world, “discovery is the original sin” and the road to deliverance is paved with Curation & Contemplation. One becomes enlightened (i.e., an independent, deep thinker) by consuming only the best content then expending time and energy to process what was read/heard/watched.2 For information addicts in the 21st century, where quality has a quantity all its own,3 less is more.
📚 If you'd like to get a quick start on some C&C, below is a list of the ten most reflection-worthy books I read in 2023 (yes, books; not newsletters or blogs or TikToks). Peruse them, pick one out, and let me know what you learned, why it was impactful, or how it changed your thinking:
A Heart That Works by Rob Delaney
Titan by Ron Chernow
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
Number Go Up by Zeke Faux
Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
The Lessons of History by Will & Ariel Durant
The Escape Artist by Jonathan Freedland
Free Food for Millionaires by Min Jin Lee
Those Bastards by Jared Dillian (see more below)This newsletter is sponsored by
You hate personal finance, and rightfully so. Let Adda handle the boring stuff — like investments, student loans, and insurance — so you don’t have to.
MONEY READS
👉🏼 Year End Financial Planning Checklist by Cullen Roche
“Good financial planning is all about asset and liability matching across time. That means you need to make sure you understand how your income and assets relate to your expenses and liabilities.”
👉🏼 A Few Laws of Getting Rich by Morgan Housel
“Measuring wealth is easy. You just count it up. Measuring some of the downsides of wealth is so much harder and more nuanced.”
👉🏼 Ray, This is a Religion by Rob Copeland
“This corporate culture, featuring a strict and overarching dogma created and enforced by a charismatic leader, has been repeatedly compared to a cult. It’s a comparison Dalio rejects.”
RECOMMENDATIONS
🎧 PODCAST: Nat’s Notes
Nat Eliason is a Renaissance Man — a writer, YouTuber, entrepreneur, and educator. Pound-for-pound, this is one of the most informative podcasts I’ve ever listened to, and has become a must-listen.
💻 ARTICLE: The Treason of the Intellectuals by Niall Ferguson
One of the world’s great historians on what happens when political hatreds go too far and why extremists on both ends of the spectrum are much more alike than they care to admit.
📼 VIDEO: EMOTIONAL GARAGE SALE
(NSFW warning!) This skit is hilarious and absolute genius. I have no idea how these guys keep pumping out brilliant video after brilliant video, but I’m here for it. Here are links to some of their other hits.
THE JUKEBOX
Watching a natty, 20-something Billy Joel sweating and crooning his butt off in front of a live audience is a great way to usher in the new year.
MY LIFE
Some guy promised a free copy of Jared Dillian’s newest book, Those Bastards, to anyone willing to write a review. Being a glutton for punishment, I raised my digital hand and began turning digital pages. A few months later (I’m a slow reader these days), I finished the book — really, a collection of short essays — and started to formulate my thoughts. The short version: Two thumbs up, highly recommend. For the longer version, read on.
I’m relatively new to the Dillian-verse, only subscribing to his newsletter in early 2023 after reading a great piece on personal finance. Since that fateful day, I’ve read a few of his short stories, several dozen emails, and now this book. But Jared is actually a prolific, accomplished writer. He cut his teeth as a Bloomberg Opinion columnist, has published a memoir and a novel, and is about to release another book4. By his own account, he writes 3-4,000 words per day. See above: prolific.
Let’s contrast Jared’s sheer volume of creation with my own voracious consumption: I read a lot. And I read widely. But I’ve never encountered a writer with such an off-the-cuff, no-holds-barred, staccato style. At times orthogonal, but always entertaining. It’s Michael Lewis meets Anthony Bourdain, with fart jokes and f-words added in for extra spiciness. In short, he’s unique, an attribute that I (as both a reader and would-be writer) hold as a paragon of the pen.
Most critics would say that Jared has “no filter” and I can see why; this book has countless opinions, anecdotes, and euphemisms that I thought I’d never see published in the Year of Our Lord 2023. But that description wouldn’t be precisely true, because he definitely has a few bombshells up his sleeve. Even so, a muzzled Jared Dillian is far more risqué than most writers, leaving us readers wondering what lays, stinking and unpublished, at the bottom of his hot-take hamper.
Like George Carlin on steroids, he dives head-first into almost every “untouchable” topic. It’s both raw and refreshing. There are takes on stupid people, poor people, rich people, and lazy people. Politics, mental illness, drugs, sex, and — of course — finance. With a potpourri of potty words sprinkled throughout, he regales us with story after story of his own mistakes, regrets, and failures. I’m not sure what I hold in higher regard: his vulnerability or his courage.
While the PG-13 content is highly entertaining, that’s just Jared’s way of hooking the reader, lulling us into a false sense of low-brow ease, then blindsiding us with deep philosophy. His musing are packed with insights and takeaways that rival anything you’ll see on the bestseller lists. And while I don’t agree with everything he believes (obviously)5, I found myself highlighting passages, nodding my head, and even clapping on seemingly every other page. It felt less like reading a book and more like having a one-way conversation with a very wise uncle.
At the end of the day, Those Bastards was a joy to read. Not least of which because its vignette-like chapters were able to hold my father-of-three, goldfish-level attention span for more than the usual 45 seconds. These days, if a book doesn’t catch my interest within the first few pages, I’m quitting with no regrets. But giving up never entered the realm of possibility, and not just because I committed to this review.
So do what I did and pick a copy (or ten). You won’t regret it. Just make sure there’s no writing requirement.
🤙🏼 Pura vida,
Sent with 💛 from Pittsburgh
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Disclaimer: Nothing in this newsletter should ever be considered investment advice.Nassim Taleb: “The toxicity of data increases much faster than its benefits.”
This newsletter is nothing if not a compendium of curation and contemplation. My aim is to 1) introduce subscribers to top-tier content and 2) include a few paragraphs of musings to get their gears turning.
Which will jump to the top of my reading list when it comes out.
If you find yourself agreeing with everything that someone (anyone!) says, it’s time for a sanity check.