Like an insecure child who collects toys, I collect projects. And the “child” refuses to share his toys with other children, or to give some of it away, or to allow his mother to sell some of it at a church bazaar.
“I am going to play with it!” he’ll cry out, and fold his little arms tightly over his toys.
“When?” his mother would ask, exasperated.
“Tonight,” he would mutter. “Or tomorrow …”
“You know you’re never going to play with it, Johnny,” his mother will say. “You have too many toys!”
“But I was thinking …” Johnny would start, and then he’ll try to convince himself more than his mother that he still has great plans to play with all of his toys simultaneously one day.
12:24
My projects are like a bloated bureaucracy that threatens to undermine the state it is supposed to serve.
Optimism and faith sometimes propel you forward, and sometimes it leads to your downfall.
It should also be mentioned that if you launched a business venture and it becomes successful, the likelihood increases that your next venture will also be successful.
If you have made an investment and it turns a profit, chances are that you will repeat this success with your next investment.
If a book you have written is read by at least a few hundred people, the probability is strong that your next book will also be read by at least a few hundred people.
If you develop a website that regularly gets visitors, chances are your next website will also get decent traffic.
If you release some of your own songs and a few thousand people listen to it, chances are that these people will also listen to the next song you release, and maybe they will even tell other people about your music.
Success, after all, often generates more success, and if you have little of anything, you will probably have even less in the future.
Last night I thought how it usually doesn’t take much to reignite my interest in the concept of identity. One of the things that makes it so interesting is that many people believe their identity is absolute – that who and what they are have been identified, so to speak, and that is simply how it is.
One example is a 22-year-old woman who works at an electronics store. She might think of herself in a certain way, but change her surroundings, the people around her, the economic needs of the community, and within a few years she may be mother to a few children and married to a poor farmer who tries to eke a living out of a patch of dry land.
Of course it is your own business to contemplate what other roles or identities slumber within you that may not currently have an opportunity to come out. You may currently be a single man or woman in your thirties, but inside you lurks a very competent mother or father. You may currently be struggling in your career, but within ten years you’ll be giving talks about career choices and how to improve your chances of success. Or, you may currently be struggling with health problems or even addiction, but hiding inside you is a health consultant and a fitness instructor.
Identity is a fluid concept – don’t lock away your best identity before it has had a chance to develop.
If you have any hope or ambition to make money on the financial markets, it is of the utmost importance to start the learning process when you do not need to make money from it.
Start reading books on how to interpret the markets and how to trade and start practising at least two or three years before you want to make a penny from it. This should eliminate desperation and impatience. It will give you time to make mistakes and learn from them. It will teach you how to be disciplined and how to control your emotions. You will have time to get to know yourself as an operator on the markets. You will learn where your strengths and your weaknesses are. And you will learn how, when and in which markets to get involved.
The same advice applies to any way with which you may hope to make money independent of boss and corporation. Learn how to do something long before you need to make money from it.
• Neanderthal DNA differs only 0.3% from that of modern humans.
• The first people with proto-Neanderthal traits lived in Eurasia 350,000 to 600,000 years ago.
Credit: Tim Evanson, via Wikimedia Commons
• The first so-called real Neanderthals made their appearance between 200,000 and 250,000 years ago.
• A comprehensive 2014 study of Neanderthal bones and tools have proven that Neanderthals became extinct in Europe between 41,000 and 39,000 years ago.
• This estimate coincides with the start of a very cold period in Europe, and is 5,000 years after Homo sapiens had reached Europe.
• A comparison of the DNA of Neanderthals and Homo sapiens suggests that the two groups separated from a common ancestor between 350,000 and 400,000 years ago. This ancestor was probably Homo heidelbergensis.
• Heidelbergensis developed between 800,000 and 1.3 million years ago and became extinct about 200,000 years ago.
• Heidelbergensis’ habitat ranged over eastern and southern Africa, Europe and West Asia.
• It is believed that the African branch of Heidelbergensis started to develop in the direction of modern humans between 350,000 and 400,000 years ago and the Eurasian branch developed in the direction of the Neanderthals.
• According to radiocarbon dating the earliest known remains of Cro-Magnon-like people are between 43,000 and 45,000 years old.
• The Cro-Magnon people are regarded as the ancestors of modern Europeans.
Credit: Original uploader Elapied at French Wikipedia, via Wikimedia Commons
• There are indications that some Cro-Magnon people had blue eyes and dark hair, and a “black” complexion.
• It is estimated that anatomically modern humans made their first appearance in East Africa 100,000 to 200,000 years ago.
• According to one theory an exodus from Africa through the Arabian Peninsula about 60,000 years ago brought modern humans to Eurasia, with one group settling in the coastal areas around the Indian Ocean and the other group moving further north into Central Asia.
• The inland group is regarded as the founders of North and East Asians, Caucasians, large parts of Middle Eastern populations, and the populations of North Africa.
• Migration from the Black Sea region to Europe began about 45,000 years ago, and by about 20,000 years ago modern humans had reached the western edge of Europe.
• Cro-Magnon people shared the European landscape with Neanderthals for 10,000 years or more, until the latter disappeared from the fossil record.
• There is uncertainty about the relationship between Neanderthals and Cro-Magnon people, and about the disappearance or destruction of the former. Theories include peaceful coexistence, competition, interbreeding, assimilation and genocide.
