Blessed are the forgetful, for they “get the better” even of their blunders. Friedrich Nietzsche, “Our Virtues,” Beyond Good and Evil (1886)
Our summer tradition is to update you on our ruminations and recommendations from three (or five) years ago. That exercise serves three purposes:
- It provides a reality check on whether our recommendations for options to consider bear fruit. (Or are bare of fruit.)
- It provides a reminder of how much chaos you’ve already experienced. If we did a pop quiz (quick: the market three years ago this week was a. crashing, b. flat, c. soaring, d. huh? The best answer is “d” but the historic pattern for 2022 was crash into a bear in spring, soar into a bull in summer, crash again in fall.)
- It provides focus. For me, mostly. Summers are some combination of lazy, hazy, and crazy. The discipline of looking back precisely three years and reassessing our lead story keeps me from spending time obsessively cataloging the types of bees (at least eight species, including two distinct sets of bumblebees) swarming the garden.