Now What

From the “Who has it worse” department comes this: I was driving home and could see something distracting on my glasses, but upon trying to clean them at 55 mph, I could not remove the offending distraction.

It was only when I got home to a lesser velocity, better light, and a mirror that I discovered my eyebrows were going all Pierre Salanger on me again. I had to gear up with tweezers in hand before moving to the back porch for surgery. I had to pluck four (4) eyebrow hairs, and man did that hurt! Next time, I’m foregoing the tweezers and going back to the weed-eater.

My unsympathetic wife had no sympathy for me. (Redundancy for emphasis.) She reminded me of her torn hamstring awaiting surgery, a “possible rupture” of an Achilles tendon that is in the “wait until after the hamstring heals before we mess with that” category, and an abscess under a tooth that has already had one root canal surgery. This is about the number 5 (five) root canal that she has had redone in the past two years. Did I tell you she had no sympathy nor empathy for my eyebrow trauma? I just don’t get it. She says that too.

But come along quickly, we must move on to today’s topic.

From Eyebrows to Chimpanzees

Did you read the article in your Science magazine subscription about murder and mayhem among the chimpanzees in Uganda? Yeah, me neither. But the article went mainstream and I found it first in the Wall Street Journal, then on CNN’s web edition!

For those of you who like big words and tortuous sentence structure (stop pointing at me!), here’s the article.

First, the background. There was a group of chimpanzees in Uganda. There was a completely separate group of scientific/academic types from U-T Austin and elsewhere. The academics decided to study the chimps and did so for almost 30 years. Since the chimps didn’t have the proper SAT scores for admission, the profs went to Uganda to do the study instead of the other way ‘round.

Okay, are you up to speed? Here’s the article after my personal AI translator fixed it.

There was a community of chimpanzees in Uganda living the good life. The group got bigger and split into two groups. After a while the smaller group began to show hostility towards their former comrades and eventually conducted violent raids on the larger group and killing some former chimp-colleagues. The end.

Why Conflict Grows

I was amazed that one group of animals decided to go to war with another for no apparent reason and the animals in question were not humans. The article suggests the conflict did not seem to arise from a lack of physical territory, not enough food, or unsatisfactory female/male ratios. So why?

Here’s my theory: I think they committed these wicked deeds because one of the chimps was physically strong enough to take stuff from others without significant cost to himself, and after enough taking and abusing, he discovered it brought him pleasure to do so. He then took more. As a result, his hunger grew and he began to encourage or force others to help him take and abuse. And for good or ill, that which is nurtured grows.

A Detour Through 2001: A Space Odyssey

Now let us jump ahead (as I tend to do), as I am quite confident your thoughts have already turned to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey while all hope for an erudite chimpanzee discussion has escaped into the wild.

Did you know the book by Arthur C. Clarke was written at the same time as the movie was filmed? In a departure from the norm, those cats co-wrote the script and then Stanley took those pages and made a movie while Arthur wrote a novel. There was a glitch in those logistics that is important to us today, and it is that the parties went on to other projects before final edits and neither knew how the other finished his story. We’ll get back to that.

What you need to know about 2001, etc., that you won’t know unless you read the book is that the man/ape fellow that first touches the monolith and then discovers tools and weapons, is named Moonwatcher or Moon Watcher. There is not a good written record from so long ago to verify spellings … perhaps the notebook got washed away in the flood.

After being “taught” the concept of tools and “learning” their purposes, our intrepid anti-hero becomes “King of the Mountain,” so to speak. He has all the food he wants, his enemies are vanquished, he’s the “Lord of His Manor.” Now you can cue the timpani, then French horn, and then silence…His primitive brain slowly forms one thought and then a second: “Now what? … … I don’t know, but I’ll think of something.”

This is important to the 2001 story because, at the end of the book (and movie), there is the “evolved” Star Child that was once Astronaut Dave. He has returned to earth as a “higher being” and you’ll never guess his thoughts. Oh wait, you already have: “Now what? I don’t know, but I’ll think of something.”

The Question Investors Keep Asking

And that, dear readers and friends, is where we find ourselves some days. “Now what?”

It was a long, hard trip for us to get to the simple question, “Now What?”, wasn’t it? But I share this arduous trek with you because I sometimes get the question.

Among my clients who worry about the market, there are three types.

• Those that worry when the market quickly rises
• Those that worry when the market quickly drops
• And those that worry in both situations

Sometimes my practical and practiced answers don’t work for people:

“Stop that. Don’t worry about the markets. I do the worrying for you. We spent all that time talking about risk and goals so we could have a plan and portfolio that work for you despite market fluctuations.”

“Stop saying, ‘It’s never been like this before.’ Yes, it has. Go read a history book or ten and reflect on the upward march of progress of mankind for thousands of years. Go sit in the bathroom or kitchen and enjoy the miracles of electric lights and hot and cold running water from the same tap. I like old western movies, but not as much as I like indoor plumbing.”

When Worry Meets the Unknown

And then comes the question, “What if something happens which is different from all known experience?”

First, me and the author of Ecclesiastes don’t believe that there is anything new under the sun. One of us is likely onto something.

But we will give you the point just for argument’s sake. Apocalyptic movies, after all, are popular. And they wouldn’t be popular if there weren’t heroes populating the movies who are capable of being, well, heroic.

Thinking Adds, Worrying Subtracts

I’m writing about this topic today because I’ve received three calls recently from folks worried about the recent market highs.

I gave them some suggestions I think worth repeating here:

• Markets which go up are generally thought to be good for holders and sellers. Enjoy “good.” The saying is not “Every silver lining has its cloud.”
• While “revision to the mean” has important implications in investing, believing “Success Today = Failure Tomorrow” is no way to live your life.
• What does worrying add to a life? Thinking adds. Worrying subtracts.
• If life becomes a movie and all norms are thrown out the window, we will be the people who will be the heroes of the story because we will think of something.
• Enjoy the journey. The tide comes in and the tide goes out. You’ve seen it before.

And if you can’t rid yourself of worry, come in and visit. Like Lucy in Peanuts, the doctor is in.

May 2026