Geeking Out: Chatting with a Fellow Actuary about Writing

even if he's a non-fellow (currently)

I had fun talking with Dominic Lee on Instagram Live today, he of the Maverick Actuary:

themaverickactuary

A post shared by Dominic Lee, ACAS (@themaverickactuary)

I discussed issues re: writing as an actuary.

Much of my professional writing you can read (for free) can be found at the Society of Actuaries, and I mention a couple of the things I enjoyed writing.

Getting away with it

It is true, I often push the limits, to see what I can get away with writing and still make it relevant to an actuarial audience…. such as this piece I wrote about Julia Child: Training Lessons from the French Chef: Being Resourceful and Making Mistakes

“The French Chef” was filmed live to videotape, without pauses, so Child had to power through 28 minutes for the full performance. As with anybody in live theater, the show must go on—but in live theater, many times the audience can’t tell if you’ve made a mistake. However, if you’ve dropped the chicken breast on the floor in a cooking show, the audience definitely knows that wasn’t supposed to happen.

To be sure, because the show was well-prepared ahead of time, she had backup chicken breasts and the like she could pull in to replace the messed-up dish. She did do such things from time to time.

But most of the time, she didn’t, because the home cook often did not have such an option. Most people did not want to throw out perfectly good meat because they singed it a little or dropped it on the floor, if it could be salvaged in some way. Most people couldn’t afford to throw out good food, or they really didn’t have any backup as she did.

From her training, she knew a variety of fixes—also, she knew that some of the mistakes weren’t really serious but only cosmetic. You could always rinse off the chicken breast and cook it some more. Or for burnt food, sometimes if could be salvaged by throwing it in a stew or chopping it up, mixing in some sour cream, putting it over noodles and calling it stroganoff. (Yes, I’ve done this.)

Speaking of more food makers, I also managed to write about Granny Mochi, who appeared on the Japanese TV show, The Professionals:

At the end of each episode of “The Professionals,” they ask the person profiled: “What is a professional?”

Here are some of the answers (translated into English):

Fish broker Hasegawa: “What’s important is how you live.”

Bus driver Omori: “It may not be a flashy job, but someone who puts in effort and pays attention to the detail.”

And finally, the oldest professional:

Granny Mochi: “The best way to live a life? Goodness, if only there were a textbook.”

Interviewer: “If you don’t know at 93, there’s no hope for me.”

Granny Mochi: “Ignorance can be bliss. … Accept that you can’t know, and good things will come.”

We have a limited life, and it’s okay that we don’t know. The work is worth doing, and we all can improve how we do the work.

In the interview, I mention an entirely different piece, which I wrote for an SOA publication, due to this blog… but you can listen to our conversation to find out which one it is.

Not getting away with it

There are certain things I have not gotten away with in my years of writing for the SOA, such as a section headed “WHY PIE CHARTS SUCK” (I had to change it to “Why pie charts are awful”).

This was the pie chart I was also not allowed to re-publish:

It’s great when it’s your own blog.

Not only do pie charts suck — that is an extremely poorly-designed pie chart.

But back to the things I wasn’t allowed to get away with. I also was not allowed to put this in an SOA publication:

Man, I wrote that article as a 40th birthday present to myself!

Non-Geek Recommendation: Thomas Sowell

I did recommend Thomas Sowell as an inspiration in the interview (spoiler!), and he wrote a lot!

We had limited time, so I didn’t mention that I came across Sowell’s writing first due to his book on late-talking children:

And I mentioned the biography Jason Riley wrote about Sowell, which links very well with Dominic Lee’s brand: Maverick

I still highly recommend Basic Economics as the quintessential Sowell starting point. It is a classic. (and no math!)