The following is intended as prose, food for thought, and is meant as a departure from the typical business website. See the commentary section below for more detailed discussion. Broad statements are never without risk; see our first section for business-oriented discussions on Partnership, Information Flow, and related.

All of us strive to advance ourselves and our community. Even in selfish endeavor most have family and friends as their true motivation. It is a rare soul who seeks to hold wealth and power without the ability to enjoy and share these riches with others. Stories such as Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet, Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist and countless others remind us that often we seek far and wide for what resides inside our hearts in our own metaphoric backyard. We, humans are hungry men who lament the earth when our crops lie fallow as we stand at the vast edge of the abundant sea; opportunity is nearly always before us if we shift our perspective. Often we fail to recognize the talent that we hold within our hands and minds may create all the joys the world has to offer. We are born with blazing sight, wisdom, kindness, and immense potential only to cup our eyes and bemoan the darkness that blights our reality. At times, we are the infant who cries at his mother's leaving, the son who longs to be a man, the woman who clings to her youth with abandon. We may hold selective sight, hearing, when all may embrace who we are and become the awakened grandmother who blesses the world with each glimmer, glance, and breath. Often we hold immense attachments, we mistake ephemeral pleasures for lasting happiness, and struggle to accept who we are and to love ourselves unconditionally. We look outward but not within; we seek structure but not silence. We think and live in the past and the future but seldom in the present. All things are cyclical and death and life are forever locked in a cosmic dance.

As time turns, myth becomes reality, magic becomes science, and sunlight burns away the fog that obscures the brilliant clarity of which we all know and seek. Though we may have built skyscrapers and cathedrals to touch the Heavens, our tenure on this earth has been exceedingly short from any true perspective. Mountains such as Everest, known as Chomolungma in the East, exhibit the resting point, the slowness of change compared to the fluidity of our minds. Westerners have sought to conquer mountains; Easterners worship these peaks as sacred. This explorer's photograph shows the warm light of dawn painting the lower peaks with the summit and ridge cast in shadow awaiting illumination.

Attaining inner knowingness, philosophical foundation, the anchor point within is neither easy nor without consequence. If decoding of life were a simple puzzle, we wouldn't have thousands of variant viewpoints by the greatest woman and men who have walked far and written of their inner pursuits. In the West we are often unaware of the majesty of such scholars as Nagarjuna, Tsongkhapa, Lao Tzu, or Rumi as opposed to our Rousseau, Kant, Aristotle, and Descartes. We often see reality on a linear upward track with our place being that of the highest evolution, whereas many old traditions on our planet see life in a much more complex, dynamic, cyclical way. Our philosophy as Associated Capital emerges from the soft light that warms the highest peaks on this planet. To us our minds and hearts are often covered in a great fog. We are able to discern the lower rungs of truth on which most all of us in life agree. To me, the higher deeper truths are as sharp, complex and foreboding as the great peaks that adorn our planet. The inner and outer peaks are equally difficult to transcend requiring great courage and effort. To us, the fruits of discernment and self-awareness multiply many-fold, enriching our inner and outward lives, empowering our communities, and bringing contentment, joy, and love to our daily endeavors. The rewards of questioning who we are, sharing the depths of our fears, ideas, and visions, and embracing each other in friendship and expansion - these riches are as self-evident as the majesty of the Himalayas.

-Marcus Simpson, President Associated Capital