the beaten path is always behind us

Once upon a time you could tell a lot about a woman if you looked at the one room in her home that costs more than the entire house to furnish and decorate and into which no one ever goes. No child ever plays in it and when entered by all there is a forbidding aura of formal perfection. Insurance policies often have separate riders covering the contents ahem… curtains in these rooms.

One could tell a lot about a man by looking at his garage. Some boomers still have their whole lives stacked to the rafters, others a pristine cleanliness that sparkles like an operating theater. Tools and cars tell an interesting story. For instance I take much better care of my tools (meticulous) than my cars.

I once had a 2003 Chevy Suburban and all I ever did was change the tires and oil and put gas in it. When I finally traded it in for a new Ford in 2022 it had 250,000 miles on it, the tranny was blown and the rotors were so shot I had to run a red light to get it to the dealer because it literally had no brakes. On my honor, a true story.

But I run all my cars into the ground because when your car is paid for, every day is money you keep. If you lease your cars over a lifetime the interest compounded on the implied loans is around a million dollars per a notional average 5 cars at $50,000 bucks per car. Two cars per family… $2 million… etcetera.

I always told my kids “it’s what you don’t do that makes you rich.” Don’t smoke, not because it’s bad for you. Don’t do it because at $10 a day times 365 days is $3650 a year of post tax income. With compound interest at 5% you will not have wasted $1.3 million on bad breath and brown teeth when you’re finally getting your social security.

If you make coffee at home instead of buying a $5 Venti at Starbucks every day, save another $500k and if you brown bag your lunch add another $1.3 million to the plus column. And there it is … Just say no. Pass go. Collect $200.

But times change. Fully 50% of all women of child bearing age are unmarried in 2026. Their home is where they are, not where they live. In 1964 when the last silver dollar was minted, 90% or more American women were married and aforementioned rooms, insurable contents and “curtains” were commonplace. Alas alas…

Bret Weinstein, Ph.D. in evolutionary biology, opined on a recent podcast: “An entire generation of 18–35-year-olds is walking around with the energy, libido, hormones, and protective instincts that evolution spent millions of years calibrating for child-rearing… but with zero actual children. That energy didn’t disappear. It got redirected.

Heather Heying’s (his wife) observed: young women especially began treating ideologies the exact way evolution wired them to treat babies. Climate change, social justice, whatever the cause of the month is — it gets defended with literal mama-bear ferocity, the same neurochemistry that once guarded a toddler from predators now guards an abstract idea from wrong think.

And now Elon is promising the second shoe is about to drop: AI-driven abundance will make money as “free” as sex became in the 1970s. Both of evolution’s primary carrots — mating and resource acquisition suddenly cost almost nothing.

Weinstein’s asks: When producing and protecting actual children is no longer the central organizing principle of adult life… and when creating wealth is no longer required for status, security, or attracting a mate…What is left to give a human life direction, meaning, and structure?

indeed… what is left

Well… I think the only remaining anchors that have never required trust in a government, or an algorithm, or another human being are the ones that have worked since forever. Which brings me to the subject of this week’s Sunday essay: gold and silver.