On Declining Marriage, power laws, and obsession

3..Notes from the Greats 🏆

Paul Graham on following your obsession:

"If I had to put the recipe for genius into one sentence, that might be it: to have a disinterested obsession with something that matters."

James Clear on evaluating your circumstances without bias:

"How are you complicit in creating the conditions you say you don’t want?"

David Friedberg on choosing to be part of the power law:

2..Notes to Know 🧠

Power Law: Describes a relationship where small occurrences are common and insignificant, but big ones are rare and impactful. This creates a "long tail" effect, meaning few big events have an outsized effect relative to the many small events.

This pattern appears in many natural and social phenomena, from the distribution of wealth to the frequency of words in languages.

Power laws are characterized by their "scale-free" nature, meaning the relationship holds across different scales.

Principled Entrepreneurship: Create superior value for customers while consuming fewer resources and always acting lawfully and with integrity.

This concept coined by Charles Koch suggests there is a right way to be an entrepreneur, and interestingly, the concept does not mention turning a profit.

Koch puts forth a business mentality that prioritizes people and “doing the right thing” with a belief that the profit will follow.

1..Note From Me 📓 On Declining Marriage

Americans are saying "no" to marriage at unprecedented rates.

This alone is probably not that shocking to most. It's noticeable in communities and families -- there are more unmarried people around us than before.

But the degree to which this is true is staggering:

For Millennials, those born in the 90s, the percent married has largely peaked.

If the pattern displayed by this chart holds true, then only 40% of Millennials will get married. Compare this to their parents, born in the 50s and 60s, that hit almost 90% married.

The explanatory threads are many. And like any other complex social phenomenon its difficult (if not impossible) to narrow the list down to just a couple factors.

Apparently, a strong defense of the merits of marriage is needed. But I'm probably not the one to give it.

Rather, let's look to one of the key second order consequences of this decline: stable family structure.

For an understanding of the criticality of a stable family, one should read Troubled by Rob Henderson and Hillbilly Elegy by JD Vance.

These stories document the horrors inflicted on children that are robbed of married parents. The timeline also illustrates this decline in American life vividly. Both authors grandparents have stable marriages, while their parents did not.

The childhoods of Henderson and Vance are stories that has mostly been concentrated among poorer communities:

The above chart is so jarring in part because it suggests as the Millennial generation ages there will be more children growing up without a stable family, regardless of income level.

The instability documented by Henderson and Vance will increasingly become the norm.

Given his formative experience, Henderson — a psychologist — thinks the stable home should be sought after not only as a worthy end itself, but also as a means to the end of upward social mobility:

When Americans say "no" to marriage, they are also saying "yes" to unstable households that are detrimental for kids and prevent upward social mobility.

Hopefully, Millennials change course before its too late. And if we're lucky, Gen Z can buck the trend.

Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed this newsletter, consider sharing it. If this newsletter was forwarded to you, consider subscribing.

Copy this link to share: https://www.readjohnstreet.com/subscribe

A commonplace book is a personal collection of quotes, observations, ideas, and other bits of information that an individual finds interesting or inspiring. It is one of the most tried and true methods for learning & compiling information. Famously, Leonardo da Vinci, Marcus Aurelius, and Thomas Jefferson all carried a commonplace book.

This newsletter shares the notes from my own commonplace book and will add highlights to yours.