52 Truths

I have learned in my life that the following statements are true: 

1.  Nothing is free.

2.  This too shall pass. 

3.  Everything is authentic.  It may be mis-advertised, but it is what it is.

4.  There is an inverse relationship between how creatively a child's name is spelled and the likelihood that the child will graduate from High School.

5.  The greatest privilege a young human can be afforded in this lifetime is to be born to, and raised by, his or her own married mother and father.  Any cultural trend or political policy which decreases the number of children who are afforded this privilege should be opposed.  

6.  If you start a sentence with the word "Whereas" or "While" you are about to write a sentence which is too long and will need to be split into two sentences.

7.  Good mechanics, good lawyers, and good doctors, make most of their money from people who should have hired them sooner. 

8. Power corrupts, and tends to be welded by the incompetent.  

9. Most legislation is stupid, unconstitutional, overly expensive, geared towards special interests and therefore in violation of equal protection principles, and likely to do more harm than good.  The best legislators are those unsung heroes who have spent most of their time blocking bad laws, rather than worrying about the much less important task of passing good ones.

10. Having what you believe to be high-minded political opinions does not make you a virtuous person, nor excuse you from the real-world work of becoming a decent human being, treating others with respect, and living by the same rules of kindness and integrity as everyone else. Ditto for your wealth, your athleticism, your talent, your good looks, or your intelligence.  If you believe otherwise, stop it.  

11. Human nature is such that every society will eventually fall and fail and topple, either to foreign invasion, or to internal conflict and revolution, or to unsustainable public expenditure and corruption, or to apathy and dissolution. No tribe, no city-state, no nation-state, no empire, has ever put off this fate forever.  But some societies, which are especially unfortunate or whose leaders are especially corrupt or unwise, get there more quickly than they have to. The best that can be hoped for is some lengthy and relatively stable duration between a nation's dawn and its death.  If you live in a time and a place which is mostly peaceful, mostly prosperous, and mostly free, then gratitude for the past and pessimism about the future are both appropriate.

12. No one will ever care about someone else's well-being and happiness as much as that person's mother.  

13.  The charge to you will always be more than the provider's cost.  Where there is no competition, the gap between the cost and the charge will be larger.  Where the government provides, the gap will be largest.

14.  Government subsidies cause exponential inflation.  See skyrocketing college tuition rates. Ignorance by the consumer of the actual price being charged also causes exponential inflation.  See skyrocketing health care costs.  Ignorance by the consumer of the price being paid, coupled with government subsidies, causes exponential inflation cubed.  See, anything the government claims it is providing you for free or helping to make "more affordable." 

15.  Think twice before doing business with a company that has the word "Honest" in its name.

16.  Nature abhors a vacuum.  A society's values, legal and political traditions, and cultural customs cannot be negated without being replaced.

17.  Correlation does not necessarily equal causation.  

18.  Wealth is not necessarily a sign of virtue or competence. 

19.  Aristotle was right about the golden mean: finding the proper balance and median between excess and deficiency, is the key to everything.

20.  Most stupid ideas are good ideas taken too far. Every virtue, if taken to an excess, becomes a vice.  Every truth, over-extended, can become a falsehood. 

21. Inequality is the price of liberty.  Totalitarianism is the price of equality.

22. Human beings come in two sexes.  Not one.  Not twenty-seven.  Two. These sexes are objectively and scientifically determinable, based on one's chromosomes.  They are not "assigned" and are not subjective and are not capable of being altered via cosmetic surgical intervention.  Our society's recent decision to deny these fundamental scientific truths, and the harshness with which any dissent from the new unscientific orthodoxy is punished, proves that the story of The Emperor's New Clothes was one of the wisest parables about human nature ever written.   

23. Men and women are very different.  

24. Men and women are very similar. 

25. Change should not be confused with progress. 

25. When the Judge agrees with you, sit down and shut up. 

26.  Virtually every hot savory dish can be improved by adding sauteed mushrooms and sauteed onions; and virtually every dessert can be improved by adding whipped cream.     

27.  A calorie may be a calorie may be a calorie, but I've never had to start dieting because I'd been eating too many fruits and vegetables.

28.  The scientific method is an incredibly powerful tool for unlocking certain kinds of truth and developing certain types of technology.  It does not and cannot however answer the questions of ultimate meaning and purpose.  

29. You will never be as great as you could be, at anything that you do for some other reason than the intrinsic love of the intrinsic value of the thing itself.

30.  Most of us judge other people in accordance with our own strengths.  Thus, the rich tend to be appreciative of wealth, the athletic tend to admire athleticism, the intelligent are impressed by intelligence, and so forth. If we can break free of that tendency, the range of people whose gifts and talents we can appreciate and admire will grow exponentially. 

31. It's a good idea to understand the basics of how aperture priority mode and shutter priority mode work on your camera.  

32. It is hard to be depressed when you are busy, and have people to see and things to get done. 

33.  Science is performed by humans, and its results are reported by humans, which means it's just as prone to error and politicization and dogma and logical fallacies and blindspots as any other human endeavor.  Take nothing on faith except Faith.  At least half of what you read "studies have shown" will be wrong. 

34.  People who talk during plays and movies should be given a fair trial before they are shot. 

35. Blessed beyond measure is the person who can look in the mirror and say "I love what I do and I'm really good at it."  

36. Everything is more fun if you have taken the time and made the effort to get good at it when it wasn't fun.  

37. We would all love to be trust fund beneficiaries.  But when two 45 year-olds meet at a reunion, one of whom has been taken care of, and one of whom has grinded away, paying their dues to become quietly capable in their profession, the latter is going to be the happier and more confident person. 

38. If you sometimes don't recognize the people on the magazine covers as you are standing in line for the cashier at the grocery store, and are often unsure who they are, or why they are famous, you are doing something right. 

39. Believers tend to be happier than atheists.

40. The educated and well-read tend to be happier than the ignorant.

41. The married tend to be happier than the single. 

42. People who read tend to be happier than people who watch television. 

43. Participants tend to be happier than spectators. 

44. The gainfully employed tend to be happier than the unemployed, even when the unemployed have generous means of support. 

45. The talented, competent, and skilled tend to be happier than the untalented, incompetent, and unskilled. 

46. When a society stops believing in God, it has about 125 years left before its expiration date.  When it stops believing in free will, it has about 50 years left before its expiration date. 

47. Money spent on experiences is better spent than money spent on things. 

48. Nothing will cause us more joy, nor bring us more sorrow, than our relationships with others.  So it's a good idea to keep in contact with your friends; to write a thank you letter to someone who mentored you or taught you or coached you or led you when you were young; to volunteer in ways that allow you to play those roles for others; to go on dates with your spouse and to invite family members to dinner.  If you don't have time for these things, why wake up in the morning?

49.  Whenever large numbers of politicians promise the electorate that they are going to make something "more affordable" that something (be it health care or higher education) will soon become much more expensive, far outstripping inflation in all other areas of the economy.  If they ever start promising to make food "more affordable" find another place to live before everyone starts starving to death. 

50.  Cicero was right when he said that "Gratitude is the parent of all the other virtues." It is the soil from which all the other virtues take root and can grow. 

51.  Just because your bitterness and anger are justified, doesn't mean they are healthy. 

52.  Selfishness is the root of all evil. 

53. Morality means treating other people as ends and not as means.