“The 5 Characteristics of Incredibly Resilient People”

“The 5 Characteristics of Incredibly Resilient People”

by Smita Malhotra, M.D. 

“I remember the day I found out that my aunt had cancer. Although she was the most positive person I had ever met, I still worried about how she would handle such an overwhelming diagnosis. Looking back, now that her cancer is in remission, she continues to be the most positive person I know. But even more than that, she is what I call an elegant spirit.

Cancer, in my aunt's world, was a small valley hidden amongst the many glorious peaks of her life. While she may have had some moments of despair as we all do when we find ourselves alone in our thoughts, unable to see the light at the end of the tunnel, she never showed this to the world outside. She never complained. During her treatment, she continued to go to work and share her passion. She turned long days of chemotherapy in the hospital into a party with her friends where they would share stories, laugh and play cards. Life threw her an arrow, and she, an archer herself, caught this arrow and created her bow. She knew that she could not control the fact that this arrow had come to her, but her bow could hold it stable. Instead of defeating her, the arrow ultimately strengthened her.

As a physician, I have met many such elegant spirits. Their resilience is awe-inspiring. They have the ability to handle even the most devastating diagnosis. How then, do people cultivate such strength? And how can we do that for ourselves? Here are five things resilient people have in common:

1) They practice mindfulness: Mindfulness is the art of paying attention to your life on purpose. Mindful people monitor the thoughts that come through them. However, instead of reacting to their negative thoughts, they observe them like a storm that is passing through. Furthermore, they pay attention to what is right in their lives. They give it strength and value, thereby turning up the volume on the beauty that surrounds them. They understand their role in the universal flow of life. They realize that they are a part of a divine cycle of life and death. And in this understanding, they remain like the eye at the center of a tornado. The world will continue to change around them. But at the center of this tornado, is their mind, where there is tranquility and calm.

2) They don't compare themselves to others: They don't spend their time feeling sorry for themselves. They realize that every soul has a different journey and therefore it is pointless to compare the path of your life with someone else. They are continually trying to be the new and improved version of themselves. And as long as they are better than they were yesterday, they know they are on the right path. They are their own measuring stick of success.

3) They understand that after every big setback is an even bigger transformation: I remember in medical school when part of our rotation was to learn how to deliver bad news to patients, I shadowed a physician who informed a young 40-year-old woman that she had stage four breast cancer. Immediately, without missing a beat, this woman said, "I know one thing. After every big setback is an even bigger transformation." Resilient people understand this. They see difficulties as stepping stones to a transformation.

4) They find humor in everything: Laughter, in its very highest form, is a spiritual practice. It connects us to the part of our soul that heals. When we laugh with others, we gain a sense of interconnectedness and belonging. Laughter may help lower our blood pressure and increase our vascular blood flow. It can do wonders for our health. Resilient people look for reasons to laugh. They find humor in the mundane. They understand that paying attention to the ordinary is what makes life extraordinary.

5) They do not try to control their lives: Gary Zukav wrote about elegant spirits like this: “The journey of a hawk depends on both the hawk and the wind. The wind is your life. It is all the things that happen from the time you are born and the time you go home. Elegant spirits don't know what will come up next, the same way that hawks don't know which way the wind will blow next. This doesn't bother them, because they don't try to control their lives any more than hawks try to control the wind. Resilient people do not try to control their lives. They surrender to the flow of the wind. They adjust their sails and ride the next wave of their life.”

People that have overcome hardships, tremendous obstacles or disease often feel that life goes from black and white in the before to many beautiful colors in the after. The have turned up the volume of beauty in their lives. They practice mindfulness. They stop comparing themselves to others. They find humor in everything. And they know that they have been transformed.”

- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

"Two Ways To Be Fooled..."

"There are two ways to be fooled. 

One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true." 

- Soren Kierkegaard

"Golden Disobedience"

"Golden Disobedience"

by Sandy Sandfort

"Inertia is a human frailty. Too often, we go along to get along. We conform. Because of this, those who claim authority can get most of us to do their bidding if it comes with a plausible justification and is only incremental. We get nickel-and-dimed to death, the death of a thousand cuts.

Back on April 5, 1933, His Majesty, Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR), had a pen and a telephone. So he issued Executive Order 6102, which made it a federal crime for Americans to own or trade gold anywhere in the world. There were some minor exceptions for some jewelry, industrial uses, collectors’ coins, and dental gold, but the vast majority of the gold had to be turned in. My father instantly understood what was going on and he didn’t like it. “They’re going to devalue the dollar!” he predicted.

Roosevelt didn’t give much time to comply either. The deadline was May 1. And if Americans did not comply, they faced criminal prosecution under the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917. Scofflaws were looking at a fine of up to $10,000 (1933 dollars, about a third of a million dollars today) and up to ten years in prison.

My parents made the conscious decision to become outlaws. At every possible opportunity for the next three weeks (and substantially longer), my parents followed Gresham’s law (“Bad money drives out good.”), not federal law. They spent paper and collected gold. My father was a dentist, so he could own some dental gold, but that wasn’t enough. He wanted to covert as much paper into gold as possible. So he gave his patients discounts for payment in gold. “Sam,” a neighbor who was a banker, also helped collect gold for himself and my parents. They would repay his help later when they periodically ‘laundered’ gold for him and themselves.

Even after the deadline, gold still kept coming in. Mostly it was from people who didn’t have the time or the inclination to turn in their gold to the government. However, many feared prosecution and were happy to deal with my parents instead of FDR. Plus they got a better deal.

So where did they launder their tidy little nest egg? Why, “South of the Border, Down Mexico Way,” of course. Mexico had no Executive Order 6102. My mother was born in the mountains above Albuquerque, New Mexico, and spoke fluent Spanish. She and my father loved traveling though the backwaters of Mexico. At first, they traveled alone, and later, after my brother and I came along, the whole family (including the dog) would go exploring in the land of mañana. (Somewhere there is a picture of me, age one, sitting on a portable potty, experiencing my first-ever bout with “Montezuma’s revenge.”)

My parents carried whatever gold they intended to sell, stashed in the car or on their person. The usual routine was to go to the section of town where casas de cambio were found. (Think of it as the “Street of the Money Changers.”) My mother – all 5’1” of her – would go down the street and show a gold double eagle to every money changer at every kiosk and storefront. In Spanish, she would ask, “How much will you pay for these?” When she found the best price, she would give my father the high sign. He would join her and they would conclude the deal. Sometimes the gold was theirs, sometimes, Sam’s. Sometimes they got pesos and sometimes dollars, depending on what they needed at the time. So, the ‘illicit’ gold paid for a fun trip and got converted to ‘clean’ funds for themselves and Sam. What’s the crime in that?

And the Beat Goes On…My family never showed much respect for government laws, per se. No victim, no crime, even if the government disagreed. The general ethical belief of the Sandfort family was pretty much in harmony with the Golden Rule. It had worked for cultures and religions for thousands of years and it worked for us. That was our law. Man-made laws either adhere to the Golden Rule (don’t murder people, duh) and so are unnecessary, or they violate it, such as “The War on (Some) Drugs,” so they were nominally complied with, ignored, or circumvented.

So, when wartime laws said that a seller had to follow certain rationing rules to sell his own products, many buyers and sellers simply conspired to make their own decisions. When my parents needed and could afford a new car for business, the local Chevy dealer was happy to ‘cook the books,’ take their money, and give them a new sedan.

Later, when my family traveled in that car and others, my mother would prepare food for us to eat as we drove. We stopped only for gas… and the agricultural inspection station at the California state line. Of course, we had items that we were required by law to declare, but if you hide them in your backpack or under the car seat and lie, you can save a lot of time and keep from having to throw away perfectly good food.

And then there was the time we smuggled a live Mexican iguana in a cigar box, but don’t get me started…"

- https://freemansperspective.com/

"30,000 Workers Are Fired From Google As Tech Companies Collapse"

Full screen recommended.

Market Gains, 3/15/25

"30,000 Workers Are Fired From Google 

As Tech Companies Collapse"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

"USPS Agrees To Work With DOGE, 

Plans To Cut 10,000 Workers"

Judge Napolitano, "INTEL Roundtable w/Johnson & McGovern: Weekly Wrap"

Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 3/14/25

"INTEL Roundtable w/Johnson & McGovern:

 Weekly Wrap"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

"A Conversation with Foreign Minister Lavrov"

by Larry Johnson

Jeremiah Babe, "We Need Tax Cuts Now, The Economy Is On Life Support"

Jeremiah Babe, 3/14/25

"We Need Tax Cuts Now, 

The Economy Is On Life Support"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Dan, I Allegedly, "They Ran an Illegal Bank Out of Their House"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly, 3/14/25

"They Ran an Illegal Bank Out of Their House"

"We’re diving into the wild story of a mother and son who ran an illegal bank out of their house, making an astonishing $3M in the process! From cashing checks for construction companies to avoiding taxes on a massive scale, this operation caught the attention of the feds—and the details are unbelievable. We’ll break down how they pulled it off, who’s in trouble, and why this story is a cautionary tale for everyone. Plus, I’ll also share some insights on community banking, protecting your financial security, and a few other news highlights you don’t want to miss."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Speaking of banks...

Musical Interlude: Jefferson Airplane, "White Rabbit"

Full screen recommended.

Jefferson Airplane, "White Rabbit"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“You may have heard of the Seven Sisters in the sky, but have you heard about the Seven Strong Men on the ground? Located just west of the Ural Mountains, the unusual Manpupuner rock formations are one of the Seven Wonders of Russia. How these ancient 40-meter high pillars formed is yet unknown.

The persistent photographer of this featured image battled rough terrain and uncooperative weather to capture these rugged stone towers in winter at night, being finally successful in February of last year. Utilizing the camera's time delay feature, the photographer holds a flashlight in the foreground near one of the snow-covered pillars. High above, millions of stars shine down, while the band of our Milky Way Galaxy crosses diagonally down from the upper left.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap150126.html

"The Ides Are Come..."

"The Ides Are Come..."

but not yet gone...

by Joel Bowman

“The Ides of March are come.”

“Ay, Caesar; but not yet gone.”

~ From "Julius Caesar," 

by William Shakespeare (c. 1564 - 1616)

Buenos Aires, Argentina - "The seasons have turned, dear reader. The late summer haze fades from memory as fall’s first cooling breezes sweep through the capital city. One by one, the leaves turn from green to yellow to orange to violet brown, carpeting the cobblestone streets. The Paris of the South wears its autumnal colors well.

Peering out at the other Ends of the World from our southerly perch, we note that today marks something of an inauspicious moment in history… when Rome’s very first dictator was literally stabbed in the back on the floor of the senate. 

This singular conspiracy gave historians centuries worth of conjecture and debate over whether this event was a good or bad thing. Indeed, Caesar’s reply to Brutus, per Shakespeare, has gone down as one of the most famous lines of betrayal in history: “Et tu, Brute? (Though personally, we prefer Seutonius’s version: “Kai su teknon?” or “You too, child?”)

"Caesar’s Setbacks: Triumphs over Adversity"

By Ash G

"Even from early adulthood, Caesar faced a very real possibility of death. Sulla, the rival of his uncle Marius, became the leader of Rome, and he was executing everyone remotely linked to Marius. Young Caesar was forced to leave Rome and live off in exile for some time until Sulla was lobbied to pardon him.

Caesar came back to Rome a poor man, as even though he was able to keep his head on his neck, all his personal and ancestral belongings were confiscated. This would prove to be one of the basic dynamics that would haunt him for his entire life, and at the same time, drive him to attain his legendary status in history.

Yes, his prime motivation to go on to that daring suicidal-cum-genocidal conquest of Gaul was to pay off his debt that he had been taking all his life to compensate for the losses of his properties. If not, he faced imprisonment at home.

His second-biggest source of adversity was his relationship with his peers or, more aptly put, his enemies. As it would turn out, this was almost everyone.

He had many enemies. He was hated and mocked with almost everything he did. Any individual would obviously get angry if he’s called “every man’s woman in Rome.“ He was rumoured to have been in a homosexual relationship with the King of Bithynia. “Queen of Bithynia,” they would call him in Rome.

These kinds of allegations were fairly common in ancient Rome as a political tool, but Caesar’s reaction made it far worse. He vehemently denied these rumours, and would go to great lengths to prove he was the “ladies’ man in Rome.” He would humiliate his accusers like Cato by sleeping with their sisters and disclosing their love letters in public. This would earn him evergreen enemies in the Senate of Rome, who would ultimately give him no option but to declare war on the Senate after his term as Governor of Gaul and his alliance with Pompey ended.

He was ordered by the Senate to come back to Rome as a private citizen and face justice for his illegal warfare and numerous other crimes. He again faced imprisonment or death. He was thus forced to choose to go back to Rome at the head of his army; a move that many at Rome translated as yet another criminal act. Yet “the die was cast” for Caesar. This decision would kick-start a series of developments in the form of civil war that would result in Caesar becoming the most powerful man in Rome.

During the civil war, most of his trusted lieutenants and allies would leave him to join the Senate. Marcus Brutus, who he considered to be his son, and Titus Labienus, his most celebrated cavalry commander, both turned against him. Although he was able to defeat his enemies during the civil war and pardoned those who he considered as friends, his difficult relationship with his peers would not subside throughout his life.

Caesar wasn’t raised to become a military genius by birth like Alexander the Great. Yet, arguably, he surpassed the glory of Alexander.

Julius Caesar weeping before a statue of Alexander the Great.

Caesar reportedly used to ponder how he had wasted his entire life when he used to look at Alexander the Great’s statues because, unlike Alexander, he only got his first major military command when he was at the ripe age of 40. For the most part of his life, he himself didn’t know that he was destined to change the very history of Western civilization.

In hindsight, if Caesar was with us today, he would tell us how his adversities made him the legend he is. He would probably tell us that destiny has its mysterious ways. The adversities he initially wished weren’t a part of his life eventually led him to unprecedented greatness. As Marcus Aurelius would say: “The impediment to action advances action, what stands in the way becomes the way.”

- https://joelbowman.substack.com/

"Reality..."

“Reality is what we take to be true.

What we take to be true is what we believe.

What we believe is based upon our perceptions.

What we perceive depends upon what we look for.

What we look for depends upon what we think.

What we think depends upon what we perceive.

What we perceive determines what we believe.

What we believe determines what we take to be true.

What we take to be true is our reality.”

- Gary Zukav

Free Download: Joseph Chilton Pearce, "The Crack in the Cosmic Egg"

"The Crack in the Cosmic Egg: 

New Constructs of Mind and Reality"

by Joseph Chilton Pearce

"The classic work that shaped the thought of a generation with its powerful insights into the true nature of mind and reality.

• Defines culture as a "cosmic egg" structured by the mind's drive for logical ordering of its universe.

• Provides techniques allowing individuals to break through the vicious circle of logic-based systems to attain expanded ways of creative living and learning.

The sum total of our notions of what the world is - and what we perceive its full potential to be - form a shell of rational thought in which we reside. This logical universe creates a vicious circle of reasoning that robs our minds of power and prevents us from reaching our true potential. To step beyond that circle requires a centering and focus that today's society assaults on every level. Through the insights of Teilhard, Tillich, Jung, Jesus, Carlos Castaneda, and others, Joseph Chilton Pearce provides a mode of thinking through which imagination can escape the mundane shell of current construct reality and leap into a new phase of human evolution.

This enormously popular New Age classic is available to challenge the assumptions of readers and help them develop their potential through new creative modes of thinking. With a masterful synthesis of recent discoveries in physics, biology, and psychology, Pearce reveals the extraordinary relationship of mind and reality and nature's blueprint for a self-transcending humanity."

Freely download "The Crack In The Cosmic Egg", by Joseph Hilton Pearce, here:

- https://selfdefinition.org/psychology/

The Daily "Near You?"

Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico. Thanks for stopping by!

"You May Wonder..."

"You may wonder about long-term solutions. I assure you, there are none. All wounds are mortal. Take what's given. You sometimes get a little slack in the rope but the rope always has an end. So what? Bless the slack and don't waste your breath cursing the drop. A grateful heart knows that in the end we all swing."

- Stephen King

"The Difference..."

"One of life's best coping mechanisms is to know the difference between an inconvenience and a problem. If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire – then you’ve got a problem. Everything else is an inconvenience. Life is inconvenient. Life is lumpy. A lump in the oatmeal, a lump in the throat and a lump in the breast are not the same kind of lump. One needs to learn the difference."

- Robert Fulghum

“I Know How to Live… I Don’t Know How to Die”

“I Know How to Live… I Don’t Know How to Die”

by Bill Bonner

“I’ve never done this before…” The woman on the bed was almost a skeleton. The flesh had already gone from her. What was left was an 86-year-old empty tube – shriveled, bent, used up. “I know how to live,” she said. “I don’t know how to die. I don’t know what I’m supposed to think or what I’m supposed to do.”

“Don’t worry about it,” we advised. “It’ll come naturally. Do you need anything?” “Need anything? I need nothing at all. Absolutely nothing. I’m dying. And I have everything I need to do it.” “How about some more pain medication?” “No. I don’t want any. I am only going to do this once. I don’t want to get doped up. I don’t want to miss anything.”

Heaven with Tobacco Fields: People who are dying have a status somewhere between Nobel Prize winners and mobsters. We are reluctant to contradict them. We remember a scene from childhood: We had gone to visit a dying uncle, Edward. Like all our relatives, he was a tobacco farmer. But now the plant he had cared for all his life was killing him: he had lung cancer. Other relatives had gathered at the house to say goodbye. The mood was gloomy, dark… quiet. But the conversation, in early spring, ran in a familiar direction – toward the weather and soil conditions. “They won’t be planting tobacco where I’m going,” said Uncle Edward.

The group fell silent. Some looked down at the floor. Some shuffled toward the kitchen. But Agnes, a cousin, challenged him. “How do you know where you’re going or what they’re doing there?” This enlivened and emboldened the confrérie of tobacco growers. “Yeah, for all we know they’re pulling the plants already,” said one, glancing out the window to see if the rain had stopped. (The plants were “pulled” from the nursery beds for transplanting in the fields. We particularly disliked pulling them because black snakes enjoyed the warm of the gauze-like covering and slithered among the plants.)

The 12-year-old in the group – your editor – forever admired his cousin Agnes. She could see the truth and had the courage to speak it. None of us knew what happened after death. Why not tobacco farming? We tried to imagine Heaven with tobacco fields. It was so implausible that we had a hard time with it. But we persisted. Rows of the green plants, tended by generations of deceased farmers. The sun must not be so hot in Heaven, we concluded, for there was nothing heavenly about the scorching summer sun when you were cutting tobacco. The ghost farmers must hoe each row… and “top” the plants to remove the flower and force the growth to the leaves, just as we did in the Maryland fields. At the end of the day, sweat-stained and tired, they must gather around their pickup trucks – one foot up on the running board, an elbow on the raised knee, with a cigarette in the right hand.

An Unexplored Mystery: The other professions must have their quarters, too… Wheat farmers need broader fields. Cobblers could enjoy their trade, too. Why not? Heaven – immeasurably large – could have a place for everybody. Even bankers and lawyers might find a spot. For a moment, we imagined what it must be like, with mechanics tightening their bolts and dairymen milking their cows. But if everybody did in Heaven what he did on Earth, what was the point of it? The juvenile mind, like its adult successor, stalled.

Half a century later, it is still stopped where it was left – like a tractor abandoned on the edge of a field, with trees grown up between the wheels. Rust has covered the hood. The tires, cracked from the sun, have flattened and disintegrated. It has moved not an inch forward… leaving the mystery of Heaven completely unexplored. “Well, you’re not dead yet,” we replied. “How about a little apple juice?”

The death rattle began two days later. The goodbyes have all been said. Prayers have been offered. Undertakers contacted. A church put on alert. Remembrances shared. Toward the end there was no one there to share the remembrances with. The spirit seemed to have packed up and moved out before the body got the message. Life always come to an end, sooner or later. New technology offers delays, unfounded hope, and stays of execution – but never a full pardon.”

- http://www.thedailyreckoning.com

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Bread, "Everything I Own"

"If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call 

you could make, who would you call and what would you say? 

And why are you waiting?"

- Stephen Levine

"How To Recover When The World Breaks You"

"How To Recover When The World Breaks You"

by Ryan Holiday

"There is a line attributed to Ernest Hemingway - that the first draft of everything is sh*t - which, of all the beautiful things Hemingway has written, applies most powerfully to the ending of "A Farewell to Arms." There are no fewer than 47 alternate endings to the book. Each one is a window into how much he struggled to get it right. The pages, which now sit in the Hemingway Collection at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston, show Hemingway writing the same passages over and over. Sometimes the wording was nearly identical, sometimes whole sections were cut out. He would, at one moment of desperation, even send pages to his rival, F. Scott Fitzgerald, for notes.

One passage clearly challenged Hemingway more than the others. It comes at the end of the book when Catherine has died after delivering their stillborn son and Frederic is struggling to make sense of the tragedy that has just befallen him. “The world breaks everyone,” he wrote, “and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills.”

In different drafts, he would experiment with shorter and longer versions. In the handwritten draft he worked on with F. Scott Fitzgerald, for instance, Hemingway begins instead with “You learn a few things as you go along…” before beginning with his observation about how the world breaks us. In two typed manuscript pages, Hemingway moved the part about what you learn elsewhere and instead added something that would make the final book - “If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them.”

My point in showing this part of Hemingway’s process isn’t just to definitively disprove the myth - partly of Hemingway’s own making - that great writing is something that flows intuitively from the brain of a genius (no, great writing is a slow, painstaking process, even for geniuses). My point is to give some perspective on one of Hemingway’s most profound insights, one that he, considering his tragic suicide some 32 years later, struggled to fully integrate into his life.

The world is a cruel and harsh place. One that, for at least 4.5 billion years, is undefeated. From entire species of apex predators to Hercules to Hemingway himself, it has been home to incredibly strong and powerful creatures. And where are they now? Gone. Dust. As the Bible verse, which Hemingway opens another one of his books with (and which inspired its title) goes: “One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth forever…The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to the place where he arose…”

The world is undefeated. So really then, for all of us, life is not a matter of “winning” but of surviving as best we can - of breaking and enduring rather than bending the world to our will the way we sometimes suspect we can when we are young and arrogant.

I write about Stoicism, a philosophy of self-discipline and strength. Stoicism promises to help you build an “inner citadel,” a fortress of power and resilience that prepares you for the difficulties of the world. But many people misread this, and assume that Stoicism is a philosophy designed to make you superhuman - to help you eliminate pesky emotions and attachments, and become invincible.

This is wrong. Yes, Stoicism is partly about making it so you don’t break as easily - so you are not so fragile that the slightest change in fortune wrecks you. At the same time, it’s not about filling you with so much courage and hubris that you think you are unbreakable. Only the proud and the stupid think that is even possible. Instead, the Stoic seeks to develop the skills - the true strength - required to deal with a cruel world.

So much of what happens is out of our control: We lose people we love. We are financially ruined by someone we trusted. We put ourselves out there, put every bit of our effort into something, and are crushed when it fails. We are drafted to fight in wars, to bear huge taxes or familial burdens. We are passed over for the thing we wanted so badly. This can knock us down and hurt us. Yes.

Stoicism is there to help you recover when the world breaks you and, in the recovering, to make you stronger at a much, much deeper level. The Stoic heals themselves by focusing on what they can control: Their response. The repairing. The learning of the lessons. Preparing for the future.

This is not an idea exclusive to the West. There is a form of Japanese art called Kintsugi, which dates back to the 15th century. In it, masters repair broken plates and cups and bowls, but instead of simply fixing them back to their original state, they make them better. The broken pieces are not glued together, but instead fused with a special lacquer mixed with gold or silver. The legend is that the art form was created after a broken tea bowl was sent to China for repairs. But the returned bowl was ugly - the same bowl as before, but cracked. Kintsugi was invented as a way to turn the scars of a break into something beautiful.

You can see in this tea bowl, which dates to the Edo period and is now in the Freer Gallery, how the gold seams take an ordinary bowl and add to it what look like roots, or even blood vessels. This plate, also from the Edo period, was clearly a work of art in its original form. Now it has subtle gold filling on the edges where it was clearly chipped and broken by use. This dark tea bowl, now in the Smithsonian, is accented with what look like intensely real lightning bolts of gold. The bowl below it shows that more than just precious metals can improve a broken dish, as the artist clearly inserted shards of an entirely different bowl to replace the original’s missing pieces.

In Zen culture, impermanence is a constant theme. They would have agreed with Hemingway that the world tries to break the rigid and the strong. We are like cups - the second we are made we are simply waiting to be shattered - by accident, by malice, by stupidity or bad luck. The Zen solution to this perilous situation is to embrace it, to be okay with the shattering, perhaps even to seek it out. The idea of wabi-sabi is precisely that. Coming to terms with our imperfections and weaknesses and finding beauty in that.

So both East and West - Stoicism and Buddhism - arrive at similar insights. We’re fragile, they both realize. But out of this fragility, one of the philosophies realizes there is the opportunity for beauty. Hemingway’s prose rediscovers these insights and fuses them into something both tragic and breathtaking, empowering and humbling. The world will break us. It breaks everyone. It always has and always will.

Yet…The author will struggle with the ending of their book and want to quit. The recognition we sought will not come. The insurance settlement we so desperately needed will be rejected. The presentation we practiced for will begin poorly and be beset by technical difficulties. The friend we cherished will betray us. The haunting scene in "A Farewell to Arms" can happen, a child stillborn and a wife lost in labor - and still tragically happens far too often, even in the developed world.

The question is, as always, what will we do with this? How will we respond? Because that’s all there is. The response. his is not to dismiss the immense difficulty of any of these ordeals. It is rather, to first, be prepared for them - humble and aware that they can happen. Next, it is the question: Will we resist breaking? Or will we accept the will of the universe and seek instead to become stronger where we were broken?

Death or Kintsugi? Fragile or, to use that wonderful phrase from Nassim Taleb, 'Antifragile?' Not unbreakable. Not resistant. Because those that cannot break, cannot learn, and cannot be made stronger for what happened. Those that will not break are the ones who the world kills. Not unbreakable. Instead, unruinable."

- https://ryanholiday.net/when-the-world-breaks-you/

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Freely download "A Farewell To Arms", by Ernest Hemingway, here:

- https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.209262

"How It Really Is"

 
Never...

Bill Bonner, "The Last Temptation of Musk"

Icarus falls after flying too close to the Sun.

"The Last Temptation of Musk"

by Bill Bonner

"Live happily. Live hidden."

- French proverb

"Poor Elon. Such a genius. Such a fool. Bullied as a child. Somewhere ‘on the spectrum.’ Elon set out to prove that he was the greatest human being who ever lived. He would make more money than anyone… start more businesses… develop more technology… and even put humans on Mars… the first ever extra-terrestrial colonization by our species. Or, maybe any species.

A polymath. A tech rock star. Inventor. Investor. Innovator…and now…in over his head. The public is turning against his cars. Investors are selling his stock. His net worth is collapsing. His influence is waning. His popularity is plummeting. Newsweek:

"Elon Musk, the world's richest man, saw his net worth plummet by more than $100 billion in 2025, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The decline is largely tied to Tesla's struggling stock price, broader investor concerns about the increased competition in the electric vehicle (EV) market, and the knock-on impacts of Musk's political activities on his business ventures."

USA Today: "Tesla stock was the biggest S&P 500 loser on Monday and for 2025 as Musk's politics according to Investors Business Daily reports, having dropped 45% so far this year and 54.5% from the record high of $488.54 set on Dec. 18."

Today, we shed a tear of sympathy for the nation’s most successful African-American immigrant. LA Times: "'I've been betrayed.' Tesla drivers are pushing back on Elon Musk. In late February, Culver City resident David Andreone posted a photo of his black Model 3 Tesla on Facebook and Instagram and offered it for sale for $35,000. Though the posts received dozens of comments, no buyers emerged. Andreone, 59, said he loves driving the car, but made the decision to sell after the brand’s association with founder Elon Musk became too much to bear."

Poor Elon. It was just a couple days ago when the DOGE champion was going to be a hero in outer space…The New York Post: "Elon Musk says SpaceX capsule will bring home stranded ISS astronauts ‘in a few weeks’. And then… hardly a day later. The Daily Beast: "SpaceX Mission to Rescue NASA Astronauts Stranded in Space Ditched Last Minute."

It might have been enough for most men…getting into the electronic payments business early…and selling Paypal for $1.5 billion…or starting a company whose mission is to colonize Mars…or founding a global, satellite- based communications system at a cost of $10 billion…or building a whole new car company…worldwide…with a value of more than $1.5 trillion at its peak…or developing an AI company…or one that links the brain to computers…or owning the most influential social media company…or founding a recording company and putting up lyrics and voice of his own…or being selected as TIME’s ‘Person of the Year.’or being the world’s richest person ever…or fathering 14 children.

Merely reciting his achievements is exhausting. But all of this was not enough for Elon. Like Christ, tempted by Satan, he was offered political power; unlike Christ, he went for it. Elon was not the first to imagine that government ‘waste’ could be eliminated…and that the feds could operate ‘efficiently.’

Indignation over wasteful spending has been a staple of the National Enquirer for decades. A half-century ago, your editor was a ‘source’ for the National Enquirer’s research and a regular voice for its outrage. But with a surfeit of naivete…a shortage of cynicalism…and an excess of vanity… Elon got involved in politics. He’d been so successful at so many businesses…now he set out to be the most powerful private citizen in world history.

But politics and business don’t follow the same rules. Eliminate ‘waste’ in a business and you increase profits. But eliminate ‘waste’ in government and who cares? The taxpayers won’t remember…while the parasites won’t forget.

‘Waste’ is someone’s income; they’re not going to be too happy to give it up. And they’re going to use politics to a) get the money back and b) crucify the cost cutters. The US spending machine is set up to waste trillions of dollars. And as Musk probes more deeply into the fat - especially in Social Security, Medicare, and the Pentagon - more and more political power will howl against him. It is only a matter of time before his patron - Donald Trump - begins to see him as a liability."

- https://www.bonnerprivateresearch.com/

Gregory Mannarino, "It's Over. The U.S. Has To Borrow Just To Pay The Interest On It's Debt!"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 3/14/25

"It's Over. The U.S. Has To Borrow Just 

To Pay The Interest On It's Debt!"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Jim Kunstler, "Spring's Frightful Awakening"

Ursula con der Leyen

"Spring's Frightful Awakening"

by Jim Kunstler

“The notion that Europe is able to pose a military threat to 

Russia does not even qualify as trashy propaganda for sub-zero IQs.”

 - Pepe Escobar

“The left became hideously, ostentatiously, unapologetically corrupt (as ruling parties tend to do). They sold out bigtime and got bigtime rich. You want to know why none of them want to cut waste anymore? Because they’re the one’s stealing it.” 

- El Gato Malo on Substack

"In my quiet backwater of the Hudson Valley, an early spring drives all creation violently. The peaceful sleep of winter ends in twitches and spasms. The ground breaks open like one big egg and all living things emerge: green shafts of the crocus, scuttling sowbugs, slithering snakes, sleek garlic shoots, ‘possums in the compost bucket, ticks are back on the cat’s face, the ice in the river cracks in frightening booms, hungry songbirds infest the bare roadside lilacs, tiny voices trill darkly in the woods, a lone early moth in its first rapture of flight meets the pitiless windshield.

You can feel it. The northern hemisphere of this planet shudders, rattles, and rolls into the most tumultuous spring in memory. Everything is in play, turning, turning, while forgotten consequence rises on vengeful wings like an aggrieved god of yore. Nothing will be as it was. A most wicked spell has been broken. What does it feel like to be able to think again?

Messers Trump and Putin sincerely seek to end the age’s stupidest war in Europe’s dumbest country, while the European Union and its outlier Great Britain go ostentatiously more insane every week. They bethink themselves storybook conquerors out of some retrograde history written by gibbering globalists. Macron and Friedrich Merz propose a grand invasion of Russia, as if Napoleon and Hitler had never existed, and they aim to get it done on about three days’ worth of ammunition. You first, Emmanuel, Merz insists. Non, non, pas de tout, Macron demurs with a deep bow.

Keir Starmer, Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath, and PM of an empire in late-stage sclerosis, does jumping jacks with pom-poms across the channel to cheer on France and Germany in their quixotic quest to conquer of Russia. “Go get’um lads!” he cries. Think of Sir Keir as a Monty Python archbishop as written by George Orwell under the direction of Franz Kafka — there’s what’s left of your jolly old England!

Meanwhile Ursula con der Leyen rehearses her part as the wannabe Joan of Arc in this political psychodrama. Her sweet grandmother’s face will smile placidly as the flames tickle her penitent’s robe. She was born for this. A million deracinated Congolese perform the twerk mazurka around her flaming pyre while the muezzins sing out the call to prayer from every minaret around Brussells. Her Hanoverian ancestors weep for Ursula through the mists of the centuries. Was Satan himself behind the contract she signed with Pfizer for as much as 4.6 billion doses of Covid-19 vaccine at a cost of €71-billion? Where did the money come from and where exactly did it go, and what did Ursula finally have to show for it? The European Court of Auditors had a look at this tangled web and blew their lunches all over the rue Alcide De Gasperi in Luxembourg City. Snails, champignon, and shards of puff pastry on the ancient stone steps. A disgrace.

You are not compelled to understand all these occult machinations roiling Europe at the moment, except to see that the continent wants to turn itself into the world’s premiere slaughterhouse once again after a seventy-year hiatus from the exciting frolics of World War Two. Almost everyone who lived through that episode is dead now. The cultural memory has faded. Europe is sick of lollygagging in the café, nibbling effete palmier and tartelette. They apparently want to wade across the chilly Vistula River and race to the east, like berserkers, hacking off Slavic limbs and heads along the way.

No, it is not true that Donald Trump’s ancestors invented the trumpet, but shrill brassy notes resound all over America these days as his enemies ululate and rend their garments. Liz Warren is yelling from streetcorners like her head’s going to blow plumb off her shoulders. Randi Weingarten was keening on MSNBC like an oboe with a broken reed. The entire two month-long spectacle has been a musical extravaganza. The President and his sidekick, Elon, keep coming at the country’s resident blob-of-evil like pit-bulls on a pack of wild hogs. Shreds of bacon have been flying all over the Beltway. I could have told you years ago that the blob was mostly lard and little meat. Now you know. It’s a sight to behold for the ages.

Yet, strange things keep happening day by day. The Democratic Party’s main grifting engine, the USAID, was deconstructed weeks ago, yet we hear that just this week USAID workers were ordered to go back into their offices to shred all their documents. Did they have anything to hide, ya think?

Questions: 1.) federal janitors pried the nameplate off the building back in February, and we must suppose that somebody also locked the joint up. 2.) How did these former USAID workers propose to get in the building and do their dirty-work? 3.) Why have we not heard that the FBI or the US Marshal Service was dispatched to prevent such a document shredding party?

I wouldn’t worry too much about those cheeky federal judges around the country declaring and ordering this-and-that on Mr. Trump’s campaign to fire federal workers and close down useless agencies. This is a last-gasp ultimate lawfare operation. Let’s assume that Norm Eisen, Mary McCord, Marc Elias, and associates of theirs are the ringmasters in that circus. They will eventually be indicted for all manner of lawbreaking, possibly up to treason. And the SCOTUS will eventually put a sharp end to the judges’ monkeyshines. Judges do not administer executive action out of the executive branch. And Guess what: lawfare is not law. It’s just dirty-fighting dressed up in abstruse ceremonial language."

- https://www.kunstler.com/

"US Deficit Surpassed $1 Trillion in February"

"US Deficit Surpassed $1 Trillion in February"

by Martin Armstrong

"According to the Treasury Department, America’s deficit surpassed the $1 trillion mark this February. The deficit reached $307 billion for the month, marking a 2.5X increase on a monthly basis and 3.7% higher on an annual basis. The deficit for the first five months of FY25 hit $1.15 trillion, a $318 billion increase (+38%) from the same period last year. America is paying $74 billion simply to finance this debt, with interest payments over the FY rising to $396 billion.

The deficit under the last three years of Biden-Harris grew from $1.38 trillion to $1.83 trillion as the public sector and government spending multiplied. Trump is attempting to make a dent in government spending through DOGE, but he is hitting America’s revenue with these tariffs. Both measures have only just begun and have not made a major impact on the economy yet.

Deficits no longer create economic growth; instead, they now consume it. Each additional dollar of debt generates diminishing returns, meaning the cost of servicing this debt will soon exceed the nation’s ability to function without radical restructuring.

Investors and global capital are beginning to take notice. Foreign demand for US debt has waned, with China and Japan significantly reducing their Treasury holdings. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve is trapped. If it raises rates to combat inflation, it exacerbates the debt crisis. If it lowers rates, it risks unleashing another speculative bubble, but central banks tend to lower rates when they see a recession looming. There is no way out without structural reform."

- https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/

"We Are On The Verge Of Completing An Impressive Trifecta: A Stock Market ‘Correction’, A Global Trade War And A Government Shutdown All At The Same Time"

"We Are On The Verge Of Completing An Impressive Trifecta: 

A Stock Market ‘Correction’, A Global Trade War 

And A Government Shutdown All At The Same Time"

by Michael Snyder

"We certainly do live in “interesting” times. In all my years of writing, I have never seen a stock market correction, a global trade war and a government shutdown all happen at the same time. If the federal government does indeed shut down on Friday, we will complete that very impressive trifecta. Needless to say, a government shutdown would only add to the jitters that we are witnessing on Wall Street right now. On Thursday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down for a fourth day in a row, and the S&P 500 fell into correction territory…

"Stocks fell on Thursday, with equities unable to shake a three-week market rout under the weight of new tariff threats from President Donald Trump. The S&P 500 dropped about 1.4%, ending the day in correction and 10.1% off its record close. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 537 points, or 1.3%, its fourth day of declines putting it below the 41,000 level. The Nasdaq Composite shed 1.9% with shares like Tesla and Apple lower."

If the Dow successfully breaks through the very important psychological barrier of 40,000, we could potentially see it fall a long way. A lot is going to depend on how the global trade war plays out. More new tariffs are being announced on an almost daily basis. On Thursday, President Trump announced a new 200 percent tariff on alcoholic beverages from the European Union…"President Donald Trump said Thursday he plans to put a 200% tariff on alcohol from France and other European nations in the latest escalation of global trade tensions."

The U.S. tariff comes after the European Union moved to reinstate an import tax on American whiskey. “The European Union, one of the most hostile and abusive taxing and tariffing authorities in the World, which was formed for the sole purpose of taking advantage of the United States, has just put a nasty 50% Tariff on Whisky. If this Tariff is not removed immediately, the U.S. will shortly place a 200% Tariff on all WINES, CHAMPAGNES, & ALCOHOLIC PRODUCTS COMING OUT OF FRANCE AND OTHER E.U. REPRESENTED COUNTRIES. This will be great for the Wine and Champagne businesses in the U.S.,” Trump said on Truth Social.

We haven’t seen anything quite like this in modern times, and President Trump insists that he is “not going to bend at all”…"President Donald Trump on Thursday doubled down on his escalating tariff plans, even as his economic agenda continued to rattle investors and contribute to a weekslong stock market sell-off. “I’m not going to bend at all,” Trump said when asked about his tariff plans during an Oval Office meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. “We’ve been ripped off for years, and we’re not going to be ripped off anymore,” he said.

It shall be fascinating to see how all of this plays out. Meanwhile, we are right on the brink of a government shutdown. According to Politico, Trump administration officials believe that a shutdown will be avoided because Democrats in the Senate will feel forced to accept what Republicans are offering…"Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer threw down the gauntlet Wednesday, proclaiming that Republicans don’t have the 60 votes needed to keep the government open past Friday. But President Donald Trump and senior White House officials are increasingly confident Schumer will release enough centrists to put up the votes for passage, according to multiple White House officials I spoke to over the past 24 hours. “They’re 100 percent gonna swallow it,” one White House official told me. “They’re totally screwed.”

I am not convinced. Personally, I think that the Democrats are quite serious about allowing the government to shut down. We shall see what happens. Normally, when a government shutdown is looming the White House will attempt to reach out to the other side. But this time around, things have been very different…

In some ways, the White House’s posture smacks of over-confidence bordering on arrogance. During most face-offs like this - when an administration needs the votes of the opposition party for must-pass legislation - there’s typically some sort of outreach, even by the president himself. Not so with Trump. Instead of extending an olive branch this week, the president used his Oval Office bilateral meeting with Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin to attack Schumer in vicious personal terms, saying he’s “no longer Jewish” and calling him a Palestinian.

The Trump administration is counting on Chuckie Schumer to fold. But during a Senate floor speech on Wednesday evening, it certainly did not sound like he intended to fold… “Republicans do not have the votes in the Senate to invoke cloture on the House CR. Our caucus is unified on a clean April 11 CR,” Schumer said during a Senate floor speech. “We should vote on that,” Schumer said. “I hope - I hope - our Republican colleagues will join us to avoid a shutdown on Friday.”

Of course all of this is happening at a time when economic conditions are steadily deteriorating and low-income consumers are being hit particularly hard. The following comes from the Wall Street Journal…"Take low-income consumers: At an interview at the Economic Club of Chicago in late February, Walmart Chief Executive Doug McMillon said “budget-pressured” customers are showing stressed behaviors: They are buying smaller pack sizes at the end of the month because their “money runs out before the month is gone.” McDonald’s said in its most recent earnings call that the fast-food industry has had a “sluggish start” to the year, in part because of weak demand from low-income consumers. Across the U.S. fast-food industry, sales to low-income guests were down by a double-digit percentage in the fourth quarter compared with a year earlier, according to McDonald’s."

We are certainly experiencing a lot of economic pain now, but much more is ahead if we stay on the path that we are currently on. And more signs of trouble are constantly erupting all around us. For example, the seventh largest bank in the U.S. has decided to permanently close 38 branches…"America’s seventh biggest bank will shut 38 branches as it continues to roil from massive penalties related to failures in its anti-money laundering controls.

TD Bank has filed notice with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to close locations across 10 states on June 5. Closures will include six each in New Jersey and Massachusetts, five in New York, four in New Hampshire and Maine, and three in Pennsylvania and Florida, according to The Philadelphia Business Journal."

Hundreds of U.S. banks are in bad shape, and dozens of them are in very serious trouble. Of course our banking crisis is just one element of the nightmarish economic storm that is now brewing. Hopefully our leaders will make very wise economic decisions in the days ahead. If not, things will rapidly become even more “interesting” than they are already."

- https://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

o

AM 3/14/25:

"Schumer Shutdown: Senate Refuses To Pass Continuing 

Resolution After Democrats Melt Down"

Adventures With Danno, "Massive Changes At Dollar Tree"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures With Danno, 3/14/25

"Massive Changes At Dollar Tree"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Holy Sh!!!!t! Russia Rejects Trump, Nukes Mobile! Markets Crash, Gold Smashes 3000"

Full screen recommended.

Canadian Prepper, 3/13/25

"Holy Sh!!!!t! Russia Rejects Trump, Nukes Mobile! 

Markets Crash, Gold Smashes 3000"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: Vangelis, "Alpha"

- Blaise Pascal

Despite ourselves, this song always suggested the images of 

Mankind's relentless march through the ages to our unknown destiny...

Vangelis, "Alpha"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Close to the Great Bear (Ursa Major) and surrounded by the stars of the Hunting Dogs (Canes Venatici), this celestial wonder was discovered in 1781 by the metric French astronomer Pierre Mechain. Later, it was added to the catalog of his friend and colleague Charles Messier as M106. Modern deep telescopic views reveal it to be an island universe - a spiral galaxy around 30 thousand light-years across located only about 21 million light-years beyond the stars of the Milky Way. Along with a bright central core, this stunning galaxy portrait, a composite of image data from amateur and professional telescopes, highlights youthful blue star clusters and reddish stellar nurseries tracing the galaxy's spiral arms. 

It also shows off remarkable reddish jets of glowing hydrogen gas. In addition to small companion galaxy NGC 4248 at bottom right, background galaxies can be found scattered throughout the frame. M106, also known as NGC 4258, is a nearby example of the Seyfert class of active galaxies, seen across the spectrum from radio to X-rays. Active galaxies are powered by matter falling into a massive central black hole."

- https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210409.html

"It's Just... Life."

“Bad things don’t happen to people because they deserve for them to happen. It just doesn’t work that way. It’s just… life. And no matter who we are, we have to take the hand we’re dealt, crappy though it may be, and try our very best to move forward anyway, to love anyway, to have hope anyway… to have faith that there’s a purpose to the journey we’re on.” - Mia Sheridan

 "Life is short, break the rules. Forgive quickly, kiss slowly. Love truly. 

Laugh uncontrollably, and never regret anything that makes you smile."

 - Mark Twain