Dreams, Video Games, and Investing

I have long been skeptical of those who place too much value in their dreams.  In my understanding, sleep is when we sort through our short term memories to lay some of them down as long term memories.  (side note:  one of the reasons why managing sleep as a part of studying and learning is so important!).  So, those who think that dreams are a deep reveal, I think, are overemphasizing the messages your subconscious may indeed be telegraphing in its weighting of events and impressions formed throughout your day and throughout your life.  Not trivial, but not profound either...

So, I was quite bemused by a late august dream when I am fully expecting the usual back-to-school dreams.  (Not finding my classroom, forgetting the schedule, forgetting to get dressed, etc.) Instead, what I got was a surrealist, abstract crazy world of video game characters who were walking and talking representations of various brokerage accounts.  Once character was very steadfast and, frankly, kind of boring:  That was the account for the kids' college fund.  Another was off-the-wall, fast talking adventure-type:  The brokerage account I trade options in.  Another was the Roth IRA (risk taking cleric with healing spells in case you are wondering).  Anyway, you get the idea.

When I awoke and I was processing just how weird and original that dream was, I realized that just before the school year I was playing a lot of Baldur's Gate 3 (so good!) and rebalancing all of our online brokerage accounts on the computer.  So, when my brain was processing whether any of these events were worthy of long term memories, it created that nice little dream for me.  

This is my mashup for the post. 
The art above was AI generated with the prompt: Dreaming of stock and video games...

Mise-en-place, Activation Energy, and Better Living

 Remember activation energy from chemistry?:

Based on the work of Daniel Kahneman and others, organizations are starting to make the 'smarter' or 'better-for-you' decision the default.  Simply allowing new employees to opt out of a retirement plan rather than allowing them to opt in has an amazing effect.

In our household, we use the term mise-en-place liberally (some might say I use all words liberally but I say most people are just using words too conservatively!).  We find its utility far outweighs simply food prep or setting the table.  Dad has a big repair project? Do that mise-en-place of gathering all the tools he may need at the site of the project (sometimes days before the actual project!).  Going on a big trip?  Get those bags and must-go items gathering in a designated location.  Big test coming up?  You get it...

Recently, I needed to lose some weight* so I planned to eat a lot of salad wraps.  Thing is, when you are a hungry, it is easier to heat up some chicken nuggets or something.  So, I cut up and cleaned my lettuce in bulk ahead of time and, voila, the activation energy to eat a salad wrap was almost nil.  

The Take-Away for this post: Lower the activation energy for future you to make good decisions by doing his mis-en-place for him now.

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* being a physicist, I had two choices for this:  lower the strength of gravity or lose some mass.  I chose the latter route for simplicity's sake.

Barbie and...

... Picture Day!

Unsurprisingly, I am not one who stresses or frets over driver license, passport, or work ID pictures, so when faculty were instructed to get their picture taken for new ID badges while the yearbook photographers were on campus, I quietly exchanged my usual earth-toned button down shirt for a recent gift from colleague and friend, JI:

Soon, I will add to this post with a picture of the actual ID badge or, failing that, a picture of myself teaching in the iconic 'Kenough' shirt on some Friday in the near future...

Image courtesy of IR, most favored daughter

Although I am surrounded by those who have, I have yet to see the Barbie movie (I did catch the awesome Oppenheimer in the theaters though in case you were wondering if I was aloof from the entire Barbenheimer summer culture).  I did not own any Barbie paraphernalia when growing up either but I do recall wondering if I was suppose to 'like' Barbie or Barbie-types girls when I was about 8 years old or so.  Maybe all little boys in the 70's had this fleeting thought or maybe it was just those of us named Ken?  

Many have written about and studied the harm those early Barbie dolls have done to little girls over their early years in the self-image department.  But what about us Kens?  Where's our longitudinal study about the harm in our perception of women?  Mattel, best start writing a big ole check address to "Ken Ough"! ;)

=======October update

A bit disappointed by my school ID picture (although an enigmatic "I am ..." statement is not so bad I guess).  Maybe Mom will still want to order some wallet sized ones?