No great work has ever been produced except after a long interval of still and musing meditation. 
-       Walter Bagehot

A long interval of still and musing meditation is expensive. To come to fruition, a great work needs a reserve so that it can survive the inevitable setbacks, crises and mistakes.

An independent entity, a creative person or any self-actualized person who wants the freedom to pursue innovative projects should have at least three reserves.

·      A financial reserve.
·      An energy reserve.
·      A mental reserve.

Prehistoric humans faced a perilous existence. Early populations would get up to a few hundred then drop sometimes to a dozen or less. According to Spencer Wells (The Journey Of Man), geneticists have determined that we are all related to a woman that lived approximately 150,000 years ago and a man who lived 59,000 years ago.

. . . more extensive recent studies of mitochondrial DNA have confirmed and extended the conclusions in the original analysis. We all have an African great-great…grandmother who lived approximately 150,000 years ago….

            This discovery was big news, and this woman became known in the tabloids as Mitochondrial Eve—the mother of us all. In a rather surprising twist, though, she wasn’t the only Eve in the garden—only the luckiest.

There is one piece of DNA that has recently proven to be an invaluable tool for inferring details about human history—providing us with far greater resolution than we ever thought possible about the path followed by our ancestors during their wanderings. It is the male equivalent of mitochondrial DNA, in that it is only passed from father to son. . .

A worldwide sample of men from dozens of populations on every continent was studied using the newly discovered treasure trove of Y polymorphisms. Applying the same methods used in the earlier mtDNA studies, a tree diagram was constructed from the pattern of sequence variation…The man, from whom all men alive today ultimately derive their Y-chromosomes, lived 59,000 years ago. More than 80,000 years after that estimated for Eve! Did Adam and Eve never meet?

            No they didn’t…
- Spencer Wells, The Journey Of Man

Why? Because few humans survived in that intervening eighty thousand years. We’re related to one female because all prior female descendants died before having babies, or all their descendants died before reproducing. Then, it took sixty thousand years for the same to happen to male descendants.

Relative to other primates, the human brain requires an inordinate supply of calories. Humans that survived developed the ability to store calories. Get fat in preparation for winter. My point is that having a reserve, even though it may slow you down, and even though too much of a fat reserve is unhealthy, since the beginning of time a reserve has been important to long term survival. Now food is so inexpensive and available that calories to support our energy-intensive brains are no longer an issue for almost all of humanity.

But the principle of the value of a reserve in the survival of creative or innovative work remains. Creative or innovative work can’t be rushed. It can’t conform to a schedule based on financial imperatives if it is going to achieve its potential. As Frédéric Back, recipient of two Oscars for his groundbreaking animated films, said to me:

Beauty isn’t achieved easily. It isn’t the first pencil stroke that is maybe the kind of line you need. It is always a search. Without end. It is very important. Too many people don’t look for beauty. . . It took about five years to make the film The Man Who Planted Trees. Continuous work. There are about twenty thousand drawings in the film. Even the last film I did – The Mighty River – I worked for four years to make it closer to the message it should carry. I find it is fantastic to spend a long time writing a book or working on a piece of art. If you want a book to be something who really gives, who is a kind of gift to humanity, you should work on that a long time. Not just write and push it to the publisher.

Jean Giono took twenty-three years to write The Man Who Planted Trees. It ended up to be only seven pages of typewritten text. If you work too fast…time is much more than money…time is the most precious thing…no money can buy time. It is not only the drawing. I threw a lot of drawing in the garbage. And I had to plan the camera angles and shooting. That is why time is important.

When you come to the end, you see the beginning very different. You have to change many parts of the book. You make a kind of psychic work on your book or on your film. I think that is important. I think it is better to go less at speed, but think more over, and take more out, in order to make the thing more useful and positive.
     - Frédéric Back, Heron Dance Interview. I interviewed Frédéric several times over a period of years. You can read more excerpts here.

To create a physic work that truly gives, you need time to work and rework. Time to think. When you get to the end, you may see the beginning differently. You may need to start over. A financial reserve gives an artist the flexibility to produce work that benefits from the elapse of time. To produce work of maximum power, that serves others to the maximum extent possible, we need to serve the work rather than serve a time objective.

These principles apply to those engaged in any innovative, independent work. We need to be able to say no to projects that are uninspiring or that don’t fit our overall objectives. To do that, you need a financial reserve both to get you through the tough times, the times when your innovations fail to catch on, and, equally important to free yourself from anxiety so you can be intensely focused on the work. To do that, you need a financial reserve.

Warren Buffett, a legendary investor, keeps tens of billions of dollars in US Government Treasury bills on hand at all times, never to be used except in the most extreme, unlikely  calamities. He knows that he could invest that money more profitably than in T-bills earning a few percent a year. Berkshire Hathaway’s total investment return has averaged over ten percent a year, well over in most years, and thus that huge cash position is a major drain on performance. And yet he maintains it. Why? Because the ability to act independently, to act on his time schedule and according to his priorities is priceless. And these funds are not in money markets or banks or AAA corporate paper. They are in US Treasuries.

In military strategy, the concept of a reserve and the careful planning of when and how to use reserves, is of primary importance. Generals who win battles and wars first of all survive. In war as in business, things rarely go according to plan. As they say, “Amateurs talk strategy, professionals talk logistics.” So the reserve includes not only soldiers but ammunition, food, medical supplies, equipment, etc. and redundancy in supply lines. If one supply line is severed, the experienced successful general will have multiple plans to fall back on. And if a breakthrough is achieved, the army will have resources to capitalize.

We never lost the initiative; without which in war you cannot win. I planned always to make the enemy commit his reserves on a wide front; having forced him to do this I then committed my own reserves on a narrow front in a hard blow.
-       The Memoirs Of Field Marshal Montgomery

In creative work, in business, in war, you need to first test ideas without betting the farm. When something works, when something breaks through, you need the resources in reserve to exploit the opportunity. You may never use it, but a reserve takes the pressure off and allows you to make decisions according to your own priorities. A reserve allows you to survive the inevitable adversity. It allows you to keep your word. It allows you to attract top talent.

Of course, if you don’t have a reserve, that doesn’t mean you should abandon your dream of engaging in meaningful work. Many great writers, for instance, worked at menial jobs to survive while they polished their craft and assembled an early body of work. Charles Bukowski worked as a postal clerk, Ed Abbey as a backcountry ranger, Harper Lee as an airline ticket clerk. Robert Frost replaced light bulb filaments in a factory. It is important though to do menial work, work that is not mentally taxing so that there is mental energy left to devote to the creative work. I’ll get to that in just a moment.

Invest Your Reserve Cautiously But So That It Also Has The Potential To Grow

Again, the objective: maintain the independence of action and thought that is crucial to creative work. And noncreative unique work.

The purpose of this book is not to give investment advice or explore investing strategies, but the following are the guidelines I employ:

1. Keep at least half the reserve in a short-term US government money market fund. I personally use SPAXX, the Fidelity US Government money market fund, but every major mutual fund company has something similar. I notice that this is the policy Warren Buffett follows at Berkshire Hathaway although with the tens of billions of dollars he has to invest, Berkshire Hathaway buys directly in government auctions.

2.    Buy QQQ anytime the market falls 20% or more in a three month or shorter period, and continue to buy on each subsequent 10% decline, up to half the total reserve. QQQ consists of the one hundred largest tech companies – Apple, Microsoft, Google, etc. – companies that are highly profitable, growing, low- or no-debt companies with substantial cash reserves generally in the tens of billions of dollars. As of this writing the five-year return of QQQ is 15.7%, and the ten year average annual return 17.7%. Ten thousand dollars grows to over fifty thousand in ten years at a compounded return of 17.7%. Buying on 20% declines, which happens every couple of years, would add substantially to that return.

The important note here is none of this is intended as an endorsement of making money for the sake of having money, or living extravagantly. The purpose is to create unique, beautiful work that enhances the lives of others. A reserve supports that objective, and can sometimes be absolutely crucial to the survival of innovative, important projects.

An Energy Reserve/A Mental Reserve

The first requirement of being effective, of being creative, is to have an energy reservoir to draw on. Rested, the brain has tremendous, unknowable power. 

Something I’ve noticed in the lives of successful artists, writers, filmmakers and entrepreneurs: though they are driven, intense, work hard, they also take frequent or extended periods of time off. These, they plan carefully. For the same reason that we need a financial reserve to see important projects to fruition, we need an energy reserve. Otherwise, we may not survive the inevitable crisis that occur in every life. Without one, we burn out during or immediately after a crisis. Overtired, over-worked, we make lousy decisions.

The object is to persist with the work long term.

Simplify. Remove unnecessary complications. Make as few decisions as possible. Try to focus on decisions where the outcome will have a meaningful impact on your life or work. Save the mental energy so that you can focus on your innovative work. Save mental energy for the decisions that count.