I’ve been sitting with the word available lately—not in the calendar sense, but in the deeper, more revealing way we either show up to life… or don’t.
Available shares a root with avail—to make use of,
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The Philosophical Investor's Blog
Available: Staying Glued Together Enough to Say “Hineni” — A Reflection Inspired by Jacob
by 
Gary Carmell
Gary CarmellThe Super El Niño That Could Rewrite 2026
by Gary Carmell
Gary Carmell
Meteorologists are currently staring at climate models with a sense of profound unease. Recent projections from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) suggest that Pacific sea surface temperatures are not just rising; they are threatening to move “off the charts”. Some models predict temperature increases exceeding 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit (4 degrees Celsius) above average by the fall of 2026—a level of warming that would signify one of the most powerful El Niño events in recorded history.
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From Inversion to Aspiration: Choosing Vitality Over Comfort
by Gary Carmell
Gary Carmell
Last week, my reflections were guided by Charlie Munger’s favorite mental model: inversion.
Rather than asking how to design a good life, the question was simpler and sterner: What does a bad life look like—and how might we avoid it?
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How I Won a Tennis Tournament by Doing Less, Not More
by Gary Carmell
Gary Carmell
I recently won my first doubles tennis tournament in a few years. This was the most satisfying because we won four matches on three surfaces, with one of the battles being quite challenging, requiring a come-from-behind victory.
It took longer than I expected—and probably longer than I wanted—but in retrospect,
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A Date with Success
by Gary Carmell
Gary Carmell
“Watch out, you might get what you’re after.”
The line floats through Burning Down the House almost as a warning—half playful, half ominous. I’ve heard it countless times, usually sung along to without much thought. But lately, it’s been echoing differently.
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Playing in Our Own Plays
by Gary Carmell
Gary Carmell
Barcelona, the zoo, clay courts, and the art of living awake
We were in Barcelona—intentionally and accidentally at the same time.
Heather and I arrived after spending the prior week at the Rolex Monte‑Carlo Open,
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Trade-Offs in Monte Carlo
by Gary Carmell
Gary Carmell
Sometimes the Place Trumps the Play
On Trade‑Offs, Tennis, and the Economics of Time
Thomas Sowell famously defined economics not as money, markets, or math, but as the allocation of scarce resources that have alternative uses.
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The Mind Is in Every Cell — An Investor’s Reflection
by Gary Carmell
Gary Carmell
After finishing listening to Sound Man on Audible, which is a book I highly recommend for music lovers, it cycles through snippets of other books the algorithm thinks I might like. One of those books was The Uncool by Cameron Crowe.
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Pattern Recognition Is Not Prophecy
by Gary Carmell
Gary Carmell
On Energy, Empire, and the Seductive Power of Coherent Stories
One of the most intoxicating human capacities is pattern recognition.
It is the engine of intelligence, the source of insight, and the reason we survive complexity at all. But it is also the birthplace of our most confident errors—especially when patterns begin to feel inevitable.
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Houston - Gaining Energy?
by Gary Carmell
Gary Carmell
Last week was quite busy, so for this post, I decided to turn to Copilot to help me produce the output. Over the past year, our acquisitions at CWS have been heavily concentrated on properties in the Houston area. Of course,
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