292 days. 292 days since my wisdom has been gracefully bestowed upon the world. 292 days of me rigorously training my mind and body for my return. The question of my return was never if, but when.
Back when I was blogging, the economy was roaring back, gas prices were low, and the stock market was performing wonderfully. Since I have stopped blogging, gas prices are sky-high, the stock market is spiraling downward, and countries are being invaded.
By all relevant measures, the world is currently in shambles.
I have put myself through a lot of statistics and econometrics courses this past year and if there is anything I learned, it’s that a graph with this much correlation must mean that the two variables are inextricably linked. Confronted with such uncompromising evidence, I could no longer bear to stand by silently as the world went to ruin (because of my absence). Morally, I had no choice. But now that I have returned, it’s safe to say we can bid farewell to all these problems and look forward to balanced prosperity.
With my widely anticipated return, however, must come an apology to the readers who have expectations that my future posts will bear any resemblance to my previous work.
I was told by many that college is a period of rapid change and personal development, like a “cognitive puberty.” But what I grossly underestimated was the pace at which “cognitive puberty” would occur. Mehul’s World was a venture driven by my aspirations to essentially remain the same. I internally believed this blog would be a testament to how unbreakable my values and beliefs would be.
But not even two years in, I am on a professional path that my past self would have my current self believe to be a gateway into financing corporate-sponsored theft of the American poor and decimation of third-world countries. On a more personal front, I am now enamored with a man (Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome “Jay” Powell) who I previously believed was an evil tycoon employed by the elite to impose mass economic suffering and devastation at their will.
Intertemporal relationships with our past and future selves are very asymmetric. A less pretentious and less vague way to put this is that we often think more unfavorably of our past selves than our future selves – even though our future selves likely think the same of us, as we think of our past selves.
Having a public record of my past self’s behavior that I view unfavorably puts me in a strange position. On one hand, I want to delete some of the blog posts I made and erase some associated memories from my brain. But on the other hand, leaving them up gives me a self-righteous feeling of maturity – and an excuse to write about myself for a blog post.
Looking Backward
I did not turn out the way that 17-year-old me had planned. I can very clearly envision the judgments my past self would have made condemning the path I have chosen. And I acknowledge that my current self could possess similar judgments about the path my future self chooses. But with looking backward at my past self, comes a sense of appreciation of what I have learned that can explain the distinctions between my current self and him.
My past self was a cynic. He would pride himself on embracing populism and deviating from the “establishment.” He would convey an understanding of “all sides” except for those who he thought were evil — namely the “elites.” He frequently derided the evil “elite,” which was an abstraction conceived to be the bogeyman behind all issues we held dearly. Instead of speaking about tangible impacts of decision-making on economic inequality, he would focus on cherry-picking vague patterns in decision-making that were tangential to the problem of inequality, such as policy personnel decisions or his misunderstanding of the reliance on mathematical models in policymaking.
It was a given that free trade and deregulation, which were policies that I still don’t properly understand, were the primary reasons why inequality existed, along with the University of Chicago and Larry Summers. Such claims can be credibly argued for, but not by citing borderline conspiratorial analysis or citing people who are cynical as evidence that confirms the need to demean anyone who contributes to the status quo. Cynicism and anger alone were legitimate expressions of dissatisfaction with the status quo. The people who would express dissatisfaction, even in the vilest of ways, could be alleviated of responsibility because of how bad my past self believed the status quo was.
Though it seems I’m being hard on my past self, who so charmingly swindled a subscription from you, I do understand a lot of where he came from. For me, the age at which contrarianism and the urge to voice a dissident perspective are at their strongest happened to coincide with times in which there are many reasons to be cynical.
Even the most tranquil periods in history have issues that need to be solved and spoken out against. Our awareness of Americans who are economically immobile, cannot afford healthcare and housing, unfairly burdened financially, disadvantaged by discrimination, and losing faith in the effectiveness of our institutions, is greater now than ever. And as division and polarization keep escalating, more and more turn to cynicism to collectively cope with societal issues and ragefully demand change.
Cynicism is very similar to a disease. Once it infects an individual, it can have highly viral effects. For many, cynicism is nearly impossible to resist. It often stems from as little as an inkling of negativity drawn from unfortunate and unfair occurrences in life, but can rapidly consume one’s entire existence. As cynicism spreads, the feedback loop between hopelessness and helplessness keeps intensifying.
It is never wrong to be cynical. But as justified as one’s cynicism may be, it is a corrosive mindset that can become dangerously inescapable no matter how much reality may improve.
Cynicism has many forms. I would call what I described above “pure cynicism.” Along with pure cynicism exists “sympathetic cynicism” and “recreational cynicism.” Sympathetic cynics may not be as subject to unfairness and misfortune as pure cynics but feel a very genuine and good-natured sympathy for them. Recreational cynics have also faced less unfairness and misfortune than pure cynics. However, they are driven by a sense of fulfillment from rebelliousness that eclipses their actual kind-heartedness.
My past self was a recreational cynic, with my blog posts being the channel through which I received a twisted sense of fulfillment and validation. And while I won’t make any inferences about what percentages of cynics are pure, sympathetic, and recreational, I suspect that there are other recreational cynics out there.
All cynicism, however, is corrosive at the individual level and very regressive at the societal level. The network effects of cynicism at the societal level culminate in widespread unhappiness and zero progress.
Cynicism is counterintuitive because it often stands in its own way of its most effective cure: progress.
My past self certainly thought about political and economic solutions that would promote progress. Though he would often frame issues in a way that was compatible with solutions he favored – which were often talking points that were easy to memorize. Moreover, he thought that solutions to most problems were plentiful because, after all, anything could be better than what the outcomes are currently. But by zeroing in on negative aspects of reality, the progress that has been made becomes overlooked by solutions that are proposed.
When I think critically about solutions my past self favored, I come to different verdicts again and again. Not because I memorized different talking points than him, but because my method of analysis is no longer infused with cynicism. I can now paint a more holistic picture of problems and their proposed solutions. Most importantly, I comfortably can admit, “I don’t know.”
I know, for instance, that single-payer healthcare systems in Nordic countries are more functional than ours, but I don’t know if our very fragile and overly complex healthcare system could withstand such an enormous administrative disruption from implementing a Nordic-like system. Also, I don’t know how politically viable advocating for such a system would be. While polling indicates “universal healthcare” is very popular, American voters are among the most politically change-averse people and some of the most demanding consumers in the world.
A US single-payer healthcare system requires a political gamble that many voters will approve of selflessly sacrificing a broader range of healthcare-based amenities for better insurance coverage across income levels, hedged by an administrative gamble on whether single-payer can be executed properly.
If the administrative gamble pays off but the political gamble does not, it will have been worth it. Like Medicare and Social Security, I expect a well-administered single-payer healthcare system to gradually win the approval of Americans over time. Losing both bets, however, is a dangerous outcome that could lead to not only political disapproval but also potentially repercussive consequences for US healthcare outcomes.
I don’t know about the odds of each of these gambles for me to make an informed policy recommendation. I don’t know enough about the inner workings of the health care system to intuitively calculate such odds by myself. And while I share the desire with my past self to achieve universal healthcare in the US, I don’t know whether such a radical change to the healthcare system — which would dramatically impact the healthcare experience of all Americans, including those who approve of the status quo — is the most cautious and effective pathway there.
To be honest, I am less interested now in writing about topics such as policy than before because I am unsettled by knowingly assuming the false certainty that pundits and analysts must assume to be successful at their jobs. The overall uncertainty we have about nearly everything – not just policy outcomes – is appalling. Our consistent failures to acknowledge this uncertainty is horrifying.
In my experience, the deeper that you understand how complex something is, the less certain you become about how it could be definitively improved. Because this view is inherently more consistent with incrementalism rather than radicalism, I am sure there will be many who disagree. My past self would surely disagree. And perhaps my future self will write a blog post deconstructing my current viewpoint, incorporating the lessons he has learned since now. It’s all part of “cognitive puberty.”
I am eagerly awaiting the headlines of Putin surrendering to Ukraine due to Mehul Sachdev's triumphant return to blogging.
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