20060716 Going Concern

In accounting class we learned about the Going Concern principle. This principle states that the financial activities of an economic entity should be accounted for as if the entity will be operating indefinitely, unless significant evidence exists to the contrary. For example, the day-to-day operations of a furniture store will be accounted for as if the store will be in business forever, unless the owner is about to be tossed in the slammer for tax fraud. Then a different set of accounting rules applies and the store has that going-out-of-business sale that seems to last for years..

At this point, two months and one week into a four and one-half month season in Katmai, we are at the halfway point. The realization sinks in that this job will not last forever. We will be leaving Brooks Camp on September 20, perhaps never to return.

In light of this realization should I manage things differently now? More than half of my beloved breakfast cereal is gone. Should I buy more or live with the thought of rice and beans for breakfast during the last three weeks of my stay? At what point should I give up polishing my programs and begin in earnest to look for winter work? When does studying the life cycle of sockeye salmon become irrelevant?

Sockeye salmon swimming towards Brooks River as I type have interesting lives and interesting deaths. In winter they hatch from eggs buried in the gravel of a streambed, then move to a freshwater lake to spend the first two years of life. From there they undergo an amazing physiological transformation into saltwater creatures, generally spending the next three years in the ocean. Yet another big change allows them to reenter freshwater to swim to natal streams. A third metamorphosis puts them in breeding condition. Those that survive the ursine gauntlet at Brooks Falls will swim upstream to spawn, and then die shortly thereafter. Every one of them will die—none will survive. Had a salmon the same cognitive powers as a human, it would realize at a young age that its time on earth is finite; it would know within days the date of its death, and could manage its life accordingly.

With humans it is not so easy. Even with our cognitive powers, for most of us our lifespans remain a mystery until the end. I have always thought that I would live to be 100. This is not an unrealistic expectation. Many examples of extreme longevity exist in my family among those who did not smoke or drink themselves to death.

Even if the century mark of my life does come to pass, at 51 I am now more than half way there. Many questions come to mind. Should I be managing my life differently now than when I was 21 or 31 or 41? Is it time to become concerned with amassing tremendous wealth and towering social status? Should I begin seriously saving for my retirement? Does it really matter if I ever lose the spare tire around my middle? To avoid loneliness in my old age, should I give up bachelorhood and get married before I am too shopworn? Should I get my first haircut in almost five years and dye my graybeard brown? Is it too late to start a family? Should I finally buy a sofa?

The answers to these questions come more easily when I think of the Going Concern principle. I expect to live to 100 but I live my life as if I will live indefinitely, or until I am forced to have that going-out-of-business sale.