Power Of Perspective

Such unprecedented existential threats we're facing today! What are you talking about? What do you mean by what am I talking about ?!? -- well, just look around . . . .  see everything from the pandemic to the economy to the climate to all the corruption and insider dealing to all the foreign threats to the  . . . . just look -- right now! -- at the Murder Hornet invasion of the Northwest . . . we're on the precipice I tell you! Oh, stop the drama, we're always on the precipice -- it's called the future. 

Appearing elsewhere in this Weekly (and again at the end of this intro) is a delightful imaginary retrospective look at the unfolding world as seen through the eyes of someone born in the year 1900. It's not so much about the described events that took place during that twentieth-century lifetime -- WWI, Spanish Flu, the Great Depression, WWII, Korean War, Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam -- as it is about this one very simple fact: few living through any one of these events had any idea at the time just how it would actually turn out. Let that sink in. Historic events, now perhaps regarded as "interesting," were, at the time, often deemed existential in nature.

Just as it is today. To the well-known observation, "Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future" comes this helpful qualifying insightful, "The best qualification of a prophet is to have a good memory." The term Hardcore History has been coined as a way to look at apocalyptic moments from the past as a way to frame the challenges of the future. The goal of our upcoming Member Monday discussion is to assess ways in which such perspective may help us come to terms with our own.

We've been down somewhat similar roads before. Our MM 7/30/18 (click: The Fate of Empires or here for direct access to that remarkable focus essay Glubb article) was all about the lessons to be taken from dozens of previous dynastic visions. We honored the very notion of the cyclical nature of time and history as taught by the Eastern traditions in MM 10/29/18 (click: It's About Time). Then, of course, we've paid a number of visits to the five hundred year cycling of Anglo-American history as we first discussed in MM 3/20/17 (click: The Fourth Turning).

The upcoming discussion is set at a slightly different angle, this one primarily from an economic and market point of view. Ray Dalio, founder and co-Chairman of Bridgewater Associates (world's largest hedge fund), has made available the introduction to his forthcoming book The Changing World Order which will serve as our focus piece (click: The Changing World Order). The focus may sound limiting but consider that markets animate so much else in the global dynamic. May his following words provide certain insight the next time you think of some phenomenon as being "unprecedented" in your lifetime, "I believe that the times ahead will be radically different from the times we have experienced in our lifetimes, though similar to many other times in history." Game on. 

Regard the Dalio book introduction as primarily setting the stage. We may decide to continue this adventure as a series assuming sufficient interest and supplemental material. Our goal is to inform rather than soothe. Remember the stoic injunction of Amor Fati i.e. love of one's fate. 

Here, then, is the above-mentioned 20th century imaginary retrospective:

"It’s a mess out there now. Hard to discern between what’s a real threat and what is just simple panic and hysteria. For a small amount of perspective at this moment, imagine you were born in 1900. On your 14th birthday, World War I starts, and ends on your 18th birthday. 22 million people perish in that war. Later in the year, a Spanish Flu epidemic hits the planet and runs until your 20th birthday. 50 million people die from it in those two years. Yes, 50 million. On your 29th birthday, the Great Depression begins. Unemployment hits 25%, the World GDP drops 27%. That runs until you are 33. The country nearly collapses along with the world economy. When you turn 39, World War II starts. You aren’t even over the hill yet. And don’t try to catch your breath. On your 41st birthday, the United States is fully pulled into WWII. Between your 39th and 45th birthday, 75 million people perish in the war. At 50, the Korean War starts. 5 million perish. At 55 the Vietnam War begins and doesn’t end for 20 years. 4 million people perish in that conflict. On your 62nd birthday you have the Cuban Missile Crisis, a tipping point in the Cold War. Life on our planet, as we know it, should have ended. Great leaders prevented that from happening. When you turn 75, the Vietnam War finally ends. Think of everyone on the planet born in 1900. How do you survive all of that? When you were a kid in 1985 and didn’t think your 85 year old grandparent understood how hard school was. And how mean that kid in your class was. Yet they survived through everything listed above. Perspective is an amazing art. Refined as time goes on, and enlightening like you wouldn’t believe. Let’s try and keep things in perspective. Let’s be smart, help each other out, and we will get through all of this."