Paul E. Zimmerman.com

2026-06-27T15:09:58.534-07:00

Embracing kaizen is the first kaizen.

2026-06-17T07:18:41.311-07:00

Modern vampires do not drink blood. Instead, they seek to make someone not giving them what they want, both what is within their power to do for themselves and otherwise, a moral failing on the part of the one imposed upon.

2026-05-26T07:38:13.446-07:00

How has putting off the better because it isn't the best been working out for you?

2026-04-21T08:20:00.000-07:00

2026-04-03T12:48:00.000-07:00

Removing people from your life whose time is cheap makes a lot of things better.

(Check for your own reflection in that statement before agreeing.)

2025-12-08T19:21:00.000-08:00

"Anyone can imagine the invigorating feeling that comes with de-cluttering and minimizing, even if there are mountains of things lying around at home right now. It’s because we’ve all been through something like it at one time or another. Think, for example, of going away on a trip. Before you head out, you’re probably busy packing at the last minute. You go through your checklist of items to take with you and although everything looks fine, you can’t help feeling that there’s something that you’ve forgotten. But the clock is ticking, and it’s time to go. You give up, get up, lock the door behind you, and start rolling your suitcase along the pavement—with a strange sense of freedom. You think then that yes, you can manage to live for a while with this one suitcase. Maybe you’ve forgotten to bring something along, but hey, you can always get whatever you need wherever you’re going. You arrive at your destination and lie down on the freshly made bed—or the tatami mat if it happens to be a Japanese-style inn. It feels good. The room is clean and uncluttered. You aren’t surrounded by all the things that usually distract you, the stuff that takes up so much of your attention. That’s why travel accommodations often feel so comfortable. You set down your bag and step out for a walk around the neighborhood. You feel light on your feet, like you could keep walking forever. You have the freedom to go wherever you want. Time is on your side, and you don’t have the usual chores or work responsibilities weighing you down. This is a minimalist state, and most of us have experienced it at one time or another.

The reverse is true, too, however. Imagine your return flight. Though your belongings were packed neatly in your suitcase before you started your trip, everything has now been squeezed inside in a mess. The souvenirs you bought don’t fit in your suitcase, so you’re also carrying a couple of big paper bags. The admission tickets and receipts from the tourist sites you visited—you’re going to sort through those later, right? That’s why they’re still stuffed in your pockets. You’re standing in the security line and the time has come to pull out your boarding pass. Uh-oh, where have you put it? You start looking everywhere but you can’t seem to find it. You’re getting closer to the head of the line and your frustration mounts. You can sense the icy glares of the other people who are standing in the long line behind you, like your back is being pierced by pins and needles. This is a maximalist state.

These stressful situations tend to happen when you’re saddled with more objects than you can handle. You aren’t able to separate out what’s really important. With our desire to have more, we find ourselves spending more and more time and energy to manage and maintain everything we have. We try so hard to do this that the things that were supposed to help us end up ruling us.

Tyler Durden said it best in the film Fight Club: “The things you own end up owning you.”

-- Fumio Sasaki, "Goodbye, Things"

2025-12-04T10:33:05.761-08:00

It's easy to have a lot of friends if your aim is low.

2025-11-25T15:31:00.000-08:00

I have now seen the end of a 30 year long lesson, witnessed through the life of someone else.

The lesson is this: Do not seek to assign the responsibility for your own happiness to others, because you will then never achieve happiness.

Rest in peace, mom. All is forgiven.

2025-10-07T13:01:00.000-07:00

“Someone has to start. Other people might not be cooperative, but that is not connected to you. My advice is this: You should start. With no regard to whether others are cooperative or not.” -- Alfred Adler

2025-10-03T23:33:00.000-07:00

I've gone out of my way to attend one of Morrissey's concerts. It's a first for me after listening to his music for over three decades. It hadn't been in the cards for me before over all of that time.

It's not happening now as he's down with an infection in both of his ears.

Bad luck.

So, I can be mad about it. Or, I can try to spin this into some new opportunity.

I choose the latter.

Try it yourself the next time things go wrong. Immediately start looking for something to remake the pieces into. You'll be surprised at how much better the outcome of the thing you didn't expect often is versus the thing that you originally wanted when you decide to not just sit around feeling miserable.

It's not easy, but it becomes more so with practice.

I've done this many times, and it never gets old.

2025-08-13T14:43:00.000-07:00

2025-05-07T06:32:00.000-07:00

2025-02-13T13:56:00.000-08:00

We are now witnessing the truth of a meme being revealed: "taxation is theft."

2025-01-01T10:00:00.000-08:00

2025.

You may now be thinking of all of the things in your life and about yourself that you intend to improve.

A new year.

So what?

What about yesterday? What about that time that's passed and never coming back? Why haven't you already started?

2024-12-11T00:10:00.007-08:00

Destroying stuff is easy. Dumb, simple animals do it all the time.

Comparatively, building things is hard.

Keep this in mind when you think about who your heroes are.

2024-12-09T14:07:00.000-08:00

Intentional communities are superior to organic ones.

This also applies to the concept of family.

2024-12-01T13:44:00.002-08:00

Reading over the average response to any Yahoo Finance article about Bitcoin is an exercise in having fun watching other people stay poor.

2024-11-14T10:59:00.000-08:00

I now understand why some people, when they attain a certain station in life, seek out gated communities to live in.

2024-10-21T16:01:00.000-07:00

I found a map on the day that I realized that I wasn't born into the life that I want.

A door opened on the day that I realized that I would have to build it.

Things got better on the day that I started the work, and every day thereafter.

2024-08-26T07:42:00.000-07:00

2024-08-23T13:39:00.000-07:00

August 23, 2024

“Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.”

The world of George Orwell’s dystopian classic Nineteen Eighty-Four is divided into three totalitarian superpowers: Oceania, Eurasia, and EastAsia. And the novel’s protagonist, Winston Smith, is a mid-level bureaucrat within Oceania’s “Ministry of Truth”.

Early in the book we learn that Oceania is in the midst of a protracted war with Eurasia.

But suddenly the party announces that they were, in fact, at war with Eastasia… NOT Eurasia. Everyone was simply expected to forget that Oceania was ever at war against Eurasia.

The ideological dictatorship of Orwell’s world demanded that all citizens memory-hole the old truth and internalize the new truth “Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.”

Watching what little of the Democratic National Convention I could stomach; I couldn’t help but think of this scene from Orwell’s novel.

I watched as the Party leaders this week announced new truths. For example, the Party is tough on crime. They have always been tough on crime.

Everyone is supposed to forget how their cities are overrun with crime; or how they have long since been the party of “Defund the Police”, or “catch and release” programs that put violent felons back onto the street.

They say that border security is a major priority of the Party. Border security has always been a major priority of the Party.

Again, we are all supposed to forget how they let millions and millions of illegals come across the border… and went as far as to sue the State of Texas in federal court in order to PREVENT Texas from taking up its own efforts to secure the border.

They say the Party will stand up to Iran. The Party has always stood up to Iran.

Well let’s all forget about these guys paying billions of dollars to Iran for US hostages and the failed nuclear deal… or the fact that their more radical foot soldiers have essentially set up Hamas branch offices in the United States.

They claim the Party stands for Freedom. The Party has always stood for Freedom.

Feel free to believe it. But first you have to memory-hole all of the censorship, vaccine mandates, and cancel culture they shoved down everyone’s throats over the past few years.

This isn’t even about blatant hypocrisy-- though there was plenty of that on display. Remember a few years ago when they claimed that it was “racist” and “Jim Crow 2.0” for the State of Georgia to ask its citizens to show a valid form of ID before voting? Curiously, every attendant at the convention had to show ID to gain entry. But apparently that’s not racist.

Nor is this about blatant lies, exaggeration, or vague platitudes-- and there were plenty of those as well.

They went on and on, for example, about Kamala’s honest character… even though she was Liar-in-Chief when it came to covering up Joe Biden’s obvious dementia.

This is about their full-blown, Nineteen Eighty-Four style memory-holing some of their most important principles and acting as if they never existed. Kamala has always been at war with Eastasia. Kamala has never been at war with Eurasia.

It’s also notable that the Party expects its members to memory-hole the real problems facing the United States.

Kamala didn’t mention the word “deficit” even once. There was no discussion of reining in outrageously high government spending. She said “debt” one time, only to claim that her opponent would increase the national debt.

She did not say the word “inflation” either, and only in a passing footnote did she even graze past the high cost of living.

These are among the issues that real people care about. But everyone is supposed to memory-hole those too, and act like the #1 issue in the country is… abortion rights.

Abortion factored very heavily into her remarks, and into the Party’s platform.

They’re still moaning the fact that the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, which essentially turned the abortion issue over to the states to regulate.

But facts don’t matter. Because according to research cited by the Wall Street Journal, last year there were a whopping 1 MILLION abortions in the US, roughly 10% MORE than before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

So why exactly is abortion access such a huge crisis and a bigger priority than inflation, domestic security, global security, the national debt, Social Security, and all the other problems that the country faces?

In Nineteen Eighty-Four, part of Winston Smith’s job was to alter or destroy old newspapers, films, and any other evidence that the Party had changed its policies.

The legacy media will continue to serve this role for Kamala and her Party. They’ve already expunged their own headlines from a few years ago proclaiming “Kamala Harris is the Border Czar”. Now they insist “Kamala Harris is not the Border Czar. Kamala Harris was never the Border Czar.”

They’re also memory-holing every poll that showed how Kamala was widely disliked and incredibly unpopular. Kamala is so fake and wooden that she makes Hillary Clinton look folksy by comparison. And the polls reflected that.

But those polls are gone. Poof. Now we’re expected to believe the new polls, that Kamala is exciting and popular.

Look I’ve said before that I don’t buy any of it. In fact, I’m stupefied that anyone believes these people.

But I’ve also acknowledged that the Party and the media and all of their allies will pull out all the stops to take the White House. And that scenario has major consequences.

It’s no exaggeration to say that a Kamala Presidency represents a major security and economic risk. For example, I cannot see the US dollar surviving as the global reserve currency by the end of her first term.

The outcome this November is far from certain. But their Nineteen Eighty-Four is reason enough to have a Plan B.

To your freedom,

James Hickman

Co-Founder, Schiff Sovereign LLC

2024-07-29T06:43:00.000-07:00

2024-07-25T06:24:00.000-07:00

The more Forex trading videos I watch, the more convinced I become that nearly 100% of the people making them are liars.

2024-07-19T06:09:00.000-07:00

2024-05-18T07:33:00.000-07:00