We have suffered a devastating flood in Texas.
I believe an even more devastating Flood is to come.
Now we must build an Ark of story. Now we must build an Ark of love.

It’s 9am on a Sunday, and my wife and I are currently 2 hours and 177 miles behind schedule. We’re sitting in a tire shop, with a screw puncturing the side wall on our front, passenger tire, and wondering why they’re blasting old episodes of “Saved by the Bell” so loudly.
There’s a guy directly across from us busy on his phone. He won’t say anything to us for the entirety of our wait. But there’s another guy coming inside, who just finished a cigarette out front, and now that he’s ready to sip his coffee as he sits down at our immediate left and eyes us up.
“Phillies fans, eh” he says. We both have Phillies hats on. This is not an episode of Sherlock Holmes.
“We are!” my wife politely tells him. I can already tell there’s a story here we’re about to get. My wife can too, we both have that weird thing where people look at us and want to overshare, but she’s not exactly in the mood for that and tries to change the subject quickly with, “What about you – who’s your team.”
“I like the Mets.” “Uh-oh,” my wife adds, jokingly. “Yeah, I just couldn’t ever support a team from Philadelphia, nothing good ever happens to me in that city,” he responds.
“Here we go,” I say to myself. My wife taps my leg to echo my thought. Somewhere above us Zack Morris is sweet talking a character named Stacey, that I can’t quite picture but I’ll swear she’s wearing a leather jacket in this scene, and he’s talking her into participating in the 4th of July Miss Liberty pageant. I somehow remember there’s a voting scandal or something in this episode but… ADHD takes back over and I look at the Mets fan who’s about to tell us a story.
Read more at cultishcreative.com
Do you know Bob Seawright? He’s a brilliant financial writer, sports enthusiast, and cross-generational community builder who writes “The Better Letter” on Substack.
If not, allow me to introduce you. Bob is someone who sees the deep connections between sports, investment philosophy, and human behavior across generations. He’s been a Manchester United fan since before the Premier League existed and coaches his grandchildren while watching games with them every weekend. I wanted to connect with him because he embodies something I value deeply: the ability to find profound wisdom in everyday shared experiences, whether that’s a soccer match or a family gathering.
Our conversation is LIVE now on the Just Press Record YouTube channel (and this Cultish Creative Playlist). Listen and you’ll hear us dive deep into sports as community assets, the psychology of fandom across generations, and why accountability matters more than talent in building lasting success.
Read more at cultishcreative.com
“When I was a kid” is usually the sign of an incoming bad argument. Well, maybe not bad, but definitely flawed. And the person saying it usually isn’t acknowledging the flaw which is part of the issue.
Bob Seawright isn’t the type to avoid a flaw though. With him, it’s all and always about exposing nuance. So you have to pay extra close attention when he says, but mostly observes, that the shift from three TV stations when he was a kid to infinite streaming options today means way more of life has changed than just what we watch.
Infinite options means less common ground for starters. Not that topics have become uncommon, but with so many topics to choose from, we’ve come a long way from 100 million+ final Mash viewers to me wondering where the water cooler in some obscure corner of twitter is for the 67 people who watched what I otherwise believe to be an incredibly thoughtful Just Press Record solo episode with Matt Reustle.
Bob isn’t opining the death of monocultural experiences. That’s not his style. He is pointing out the nuance of finding new micro-cultural experiences to keep some quality in human existence.
Read more at cultishcreative.com
I can’t shake these 2023 survey stats:
- 86% said arts and culture improved their community’s quality of life
- 79% attended an artistic or cultural event in the past year
- 48% said they actively create: painting, making music, writing, crafting
Despite this, creative people still struggle to earn a living from their work:
- 85% of artists earn less than $25,000 a year (source)
- 13% of artists earn a full-time living from their practice (source)
86% of Americans benefit, so first off, who are those 14% and tell me they’re not even on Netflix or something, but sure, AND 85% earning $0-$24,999 I see and feel your frustration with this creator-consumer gap.
It’s brutal. But here’s what it really means for creators.
Read more at cultishcreative.com
Larry McMurtry said, “Incompetents invariably make trouble for people other than themselves.”
The definition of incompetent is more generous than the word feels: “not having or showing the necessary skills to do something successfully.”
But if you invert the quote and the definition,
“Competents invariably eliminate trouble for people other than themselves.”
And “having or showing the necessary skills to do something successfully,” this is telling.
Because if you’re competent, you reduce frictions.
If you’re incompetent, you create frictions.
If you’re competent you reduce burdens.
If you’re incompetent, you increase burdens.
Read more at cultishcreative.com
The cure for the cancer of gun culture and police culture is not to be found in reform laws around guns and police, but in reform ideas around culture, ideas that create a new dimension of American society that rejects LARPing and LARPers alike.
Inflation
What made Bitcoin special is nearly lost, and what remains is a false and constructed narrative that exists in service to Wall Street and Washington rather than in resistance.
The Bitcoin narrative must be renewed. And that will change everything.
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Crypto
Recent Notes
Narrator: The cause-and-effect was, in fact, that simple
The Fed Is Likely to Make an ‘Insurance’ Rate Cut [Bloomberg]
The Zeitgeist – 5.22.2019
Retirement plan menus are ground zero for what is delightfully referred to as “choice architecture” … steering and Nudging you into making the “right” choice.
Ad men understand choice architecture. So do mob bosses. It’s all about creating a Hobson’s Choice … a choice that’s no choice at all.
It’s not a Wheel. It’s a Carousel.
The Zeitgeist – 5.21.2019
“According to the Aspen Institute, close to 6 in 10 working-age Americans do not have a retirement account. Sadly, the Aspen Institute also warns that things are likely to get worse due to the changing nature of work.”
The American worker is the proverbial boiled frog. Or Milton from Office Space. Same thing.
The Zeitgeist – 5.20.2019
The best part of Robert Smith’s pledge to repay student loans? The pressure this puts on other billionaires when they get an invite from alma mater.
Then again, most billionaires are high-functioning sociopaths, so they truly believe that their words and moving speeches are reward enough for graduates.
The ET Election Index – April 2019
Today we introduce the Epsilon Theory Election Index, a service intended to help you spot when you are being told how to think about the upcoming election, and to help you make up your own damn mind about it.
In this edition we introduce the key terms of our analysis and show you how the early days of the Democratic primary season are playing out.
In short? Whatever polls are saying, the narrative from the media appears to be that progressive is in, and Biden ain’t it.
A Clear Eyes / Full Hearts Story
I like to think that we do a good job responding to our readers’ questions. If we have a weak spot, however, I know where…
The Weekend Zeitgeist – 5.18.2019
It’s the Weekend Zeitgeist! In which anti-Semitism raises its ugly head (again), the iconoclasm debate joins the fray (again), we stress about the gig economy, observe a campaign that doesn’t fit the narrative, explain away funeral cost increases and finally – finally! – hear the true story of…sky penis?
The Life Aquatic
New from ET contributor Demonetized … how do you handle a counterparty that has engineered a Heads I Win, Tails You Lose investment?
You must be able to hurt your counterparty for realz. No matter what the docs say.
Or in the immortal words of Steve Zissou, “What about my dynamite?”
The Zeitgeist – 5.17.2019
That’s a live shot of me today, reading an important and useful paper by a Fed economist. Seriously.
Also, a Mr. Wonderful bot, and Bill de Blasio winning those Midwestern hearts and minds one camo-wearing diner patron at a time.
The Zeitgeist – 5.16.2019
It’s the Thursday Zeitgeist, from sporadic United Wi-fi, high in the air above all of you. Today is about bank cartoons, the warm afterglow of an industry conference that ‘really shook things up’, the drumbeats of value, a reminder to ask ‘why am I reading this NOW’ and some trade war trading advice we can (mostly) get behind.
The Zeitgeist – 5.15.2019
Preparing today’s Zeitgeist, I couldn’t stop staring at this picture of Larry Kudlow.
There’s a famous body of work on how serving as President ages you in office, and I’ve got some examples of that here in the note.
My strong sense of the Trump White House is that The Donald will look exactly the same when he leaves as when he entered. It’s the people working for him that age in dog years.
The Zeitgeist – 5.14.2019
I’m old enough to remember the Asian financial crisis of 1997, and what happened to the Vietnams of the world the last time we had a shock currency devaluation.
I’m old enough to remember Q4 2015, and what happened to the Vietnams of the world the last time China started threatening a currency devaluation.
It was Barzini all along.
Office Hours – 5.14.2019
Ben and Rusty discuss games of chicken and multi-level games, and where we think the previously complacent trade and tariffs narrative has gone in early May.
The Zeitgeist – 5.13.2019
Cheer up, farmers! Sure, you f’d up by trusting our current frat house leadership, but I’m sure that the crack team at USDA has a great plan in the works to buy up all your soybeans and corn and give it away to the poors.
Will that work?
Hey, it’s gotta work better than the truth.
The Weekend Zeitgeist – 5.11.2019
It’s the Weekend Zeitgeist, where we leave the world of finance for a day, in which high costs of credit and criminal justice remain top-of-mind concerns, Bulgaria stems the tide of its brain-drain, Reuters publishes straight opinions as news, Stephen Moore goes on Glassdoor, and we all succumb to the collective solipsism of nostalgic reverie.
The Zeitgeist – 5.10.2019
It’s the Friday Zeitgeist! In which we explore new ecological niches, dust off our not-so-dusty trade war battle plans, announce the latest winner of “Who’s Going to Blame Risk Parity First”, and talk fairness and Fair Isaac.
What Country Friends Is This?
Hyper-awareness of narrative, memes and cartoons can become paralyzing. Once we see them, we see them everywhere. But much of that paralysis comes because the demands of Clear Eyes are less than the demands of Full Hearts. And it’s the latter – identity – that truly matters.
The Zeitgeist – 5.9.2019
Process stories (what’s happening behind the scenes at the campaign / the White House / the locker room / the negotiations) are the original Fiat News. They are designed to make you angry and further the aims of whoever sourced the “news”.
Who benefits from making you angry at China and their “reneging” on a deal that never existed in the first place?
Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia. Or was it Eurasia? I don’t seem to remember so well these days.
The Zeitgeist – 5.8.2019
It’s the Wednesday Zeitgeist, in which we get the updated odds on the China Trade War, the updated ways to play the odds on the China Trade War, two quasi-sovereign oil & gas operators’ investments in blockchain-as-a-service, financialization again, and a reminder that what is dead may never die.
The Zeitgeist – 5.7.2019
Ever wonder why you don’t ever get hit with a year-end taxable gain from ETFs like you do with mutual funds? They use a legal (for now) pseudo-wash trade with in-kind redemptions.
Now Vanguard is doing the same thing with their mutual funds. And get this … they’ve filed a patent on this.
So amazing that I’m not even mad.

It’s 9am on a Sunday, and my wife and I are currently 2 hours and 177 miles behind schedule. We’re sitting in a tire shop, with a screw puncturing the side wall on our front, passenger tire, and wondering why they’re blasting old episodes of “Saved by the Bell” so loudly.
There’s a guy directly across from us busy on his phone. He won’t say anything to us for the entirety of our wait. But there’s another guy coming inside, who just finished a cigarette out front, and now that he’s ready to sip his coffee as he sits down at our immediate left and eyes us up.
“Phillies fans, eh” he says. We both have Phillies hats on. This is not an episode of Sherlock Holmes.
“We are!” my wife politely tells him. I can already tell there’s a story here we’re about to get. My wife can too, we both have that weird thing where people look at us and want to overshare, but she’s not exactly in the mood for that and tries to change the subject quickly with, “What about you – who’s your team.”
“I like the Mets.” “Uh-oh,” my wife adds, jokingly. “Yeah, I just couldn’t ever support a team from Philadelphia, nothing good ever happens to me in that city,” he responds.
“Here we go,” I say to myself. My wife taps my leg to echo my thought. Somewhere above us Zack Morris is sweet talking a character named Stacey, that I can’t quite picture but I’ll swear she’s wearing a leather jacket in this scene, and he’s talking her into participating in the 4th of July Miss Liberty pageant. I somehow remember there’s a voting scandal or something in this episode but… ADHD takes back over and I look at the Mets fan who’s about to tell us a story.
Read more at cultishcreative.com
Do you know Bob Seawright? He’s a brilliant financial writer, sports enthusiast, and cross-generational community builder who writes “The Better Letter” on Substack.
If not, allow me to introduce you. Bob is someone who sees the deep connections between sports, investment philosophy, and human behavior across generations. He’s been a Manchester United fan since before the Premier League existed and coaches his grandchildren while watching games with them every weekend. I wanted to connect with him because he embodies something I value deeply: the ability to find profound wisdom in everyday shared experiences, whether that’s a soccer match or a family gathering.
Our conversation is LIVE now on the Just Press Record YouTube channel (and this Cultish Creative Playlist). Listen and you’ll hear us dive deep into sports as community assets, the psychology of fandom across generations, and why accountability matters more than talent in building lasting success.