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On this day, January 13, 2014, the day before I achieve 46 years on the earth since my birth -- I discard all names previously given to me or taken by myself and I choose and embrace a new name, Mark Donohue Valor.
tldr; Because I can; because the new name pleases me. All the world's a stage, and I have changed my stage name.
To the more interested: One year ago, I journaled that, on the way to embracing Transcendentalism (the affirmation that everything is eternal spirit, with the physical world as a transient illusion), I discovered that Materialism (the affirmation that everything is physical, with the spiritual world as a transient illusion) was the underlying reality of the universe. I've had 12 months to try out this mental 'suit of clothes'. Each passing day since has served only to strengthen this conviction. In the English summary of the ancient words of the Roman poet Lucretius: "There are atoms, and the void, and nothing else". Far from bringing any sense of depression or despair, this understanding has opened up a new and exciting life of wonder, joy, and personal growth for me. I wholeheartedly embrace it and already inject it into every expression of what I say, do, and create. I am such a different person today than I have been in the preceding two decades that it would rather be a fraud NOT to express myself by changing my name.
Honestly, I never was a "Buddy", a "Bernard" or a "Bernie" in my own mind. Loving, wonderful people hung these monikers on me to give me a good start in life. Each of these names has served to identify a particular epoch of my life through the years as I worked through important transitions -- from the meek child, to the scrappy young man elbowing his place at life's table, to the hopeful seeker of profound meaning. I freely confess that each of these past phases of my life has taken longer, far longer, than it has for some of my contemporaries. Yet, at each transition, I wrung more and more traces of magical thinking from the fabric that is my life.
And further: When I was young, my family used to travel to Indiana in a motor home to watch auto races. The very first 'idol' I ever had in my life was a thrilling race car driver named Mark Donohue. He dominated every racing circuit he drove in. He fundamentally changed the rules of racing with his knowledge of physics and his willingness to tinker and experiment with the mechanics of his racing cars. The title of his autobiography is "Unfair Advantage". He died as he lived while practicing for the Austrian Grand Prix in 1975, immortalized at the top of his game like Bruce Lee, Jimi Hendrix, and Buddy Holly To this day I am moved and inspired by his life.
If you insist on calling me by the name you knew when you first met me, I'm probably not going to knock myself out correcting you. Those who matter most to me understand that this is just as big an event for me as someone else's christening or marriage.
Showing posts with label presence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label presence. Show all posts
Monday, January 13, 2014
Sunday, October 6, 2013
Meeting Princess And Her Family
I recently had a mind-expanding experience. A boy invited me into his father's gem shop in nearby Bastrop, Texas. There was a cabinet with an aquarium by the door that had a piece of notebook paper on the front with the word "Princess" written on it in magic marker.
The boy explained that princess was their pet tarantula and that she guarded the shop. While the father told me about his business, the boy took the screen off the top of the aquarium and took Princess out, holding her in his hands. I had never before been that near such a large spider. I turned to the boy and acknowledged the creature. She reared back, waving her two front legs in warning. The boy asked if I wanted to hold her. I said, "sure".
I held my hands open together near his and Princess hesitatingly approached. Then she decided to walk over onto my hands. When she did, I could feel the most unusual, marvelous adhesive sensation as the tips of each of her legs moved about on my palms. The father explained that a tarantula has its sense of smell in its feet and that if you raise one from infancy, it will bond to you through that sense like any other pet.
When my visit was over, I thanked the boy for letting me hold Princess. He thanked me for holding her. I had just made friends with a new family in a very old-fashioned way - by socializing with them about their pet.
The boy explained that princess was their pet tarantula and that she guarded the shop. While the father told me about his business, the boy took the screen off the top of the aquarium and took Princess out, holding her in his hands. I had never before been that near such a large spider. I turned to the boy and acknowledged the creature. She reared back, waving her two front legs in warning. The boy asked if I wanted to hold her. I said, "sure".
I held my hands open together near his and Princess hesitatingly approached. Then she decided to walk over onto my hands. When she did, I could feel the most unusual, marvelous adhesive sensation as the tips of each of her legs moved about on my palms. The father explained that a tarantula has its sense of smell in its feet and that if you raise one from infancy, it will bond to you through that sense like any other pet.
When my visit was over, I thanked the boy for letting me hold Princess. He thanked me for holding her. I had just made friends with a new family in a very old-fashioned way - by socializing with them about their pet.
Monday, December 31, 2012
New Year's Eve - Or Is It?
We Interrupt This Holiday To Bring You A Special Announcement:
The calendar is a useful fiction, meant to serve us - not to be our master. In fact, the earth is not exactly where it was 365.25 days ago, because the Sun is also falling through space as is the Sun's star cluster and the Milky Way itself. It is not December or January or 2012 or 2013. It is "Now": the only time you will ever have.
Two immediate practical consequences of this observation are: You don't ever have to put your life on hold, waiting for a date on a calendar to come around in order to have a new start. And, you're always only as old as you feel you are.
You may now return to your celebrations with the people you love who imagine there are weeks and months and years to pay attention to.
Thursday, July 5, 2012
Frittering Our Lives Away
Today I saw an amusing picture someone shared on a social media website of a zebra clinging to the top of a giraffe's neck, peering over its head into the far distance. The caption asked, "Can you see Friday yet... ?" It seems that all around us, there are messages about wishing we were at some other time or some other place than where we are right now. Like candy, these mental bon-bons are harmless enough as occasional sentiments. But, also like candy, it is easy to over-indulge, leading to consequences one might not expect or prefer.
Used Courtesy of MyCommentSpace.com
Where does this desire not to be "here", "now", come from? How is it that we can live week to week, month to month, year to year, always yearning for some other day or situation to arrive? A good bit of this tendency no doubt comes from our environment. We grow up hearing our parents, relatives, and friends bemoaning their circumstances. We get sent to school where we come to feel that homework is a chore and that looking forward to Friday and the weekend is a normal emotional state. To resist these attitudes is to risk alienation from a vital circle of society. The path of least resistance is to go along with it, adopt the outlook, and mimic acceptable catch-phrases, such as, "Thank God it's Friday!" Well before the weekend is over, it hits us - Monday is coming! Soon, whatever joy we may have been experiencing gets overshadowed by the dread we've learned to affect from those we love. By the time we join the working world, it is almost a competition, at the coffee break, to be the first one to exclaim, "I hate Mondays!"
But not all of the blame can be laid at the feet of our acquaintances and institutions. Some of us take the ball and run considerably farther. We learn that we can distinguish ourselves by the thought and creativity we pour into our expressions of elation or vehemence over the periods of time approaching in the near future. There's a cost to doing this, however, and that cost adds up. Expressing ourselves in these ways tends to define us, in the minds of those we spend time with as "John, the guy who loves Fridays" or "Maria, the girl who hates Mondays". And, having trained others to see us in those ways, we tend to then reinforce that image as part of our own search for meaning and belonging. We can be counted on to say or create or share ever-cleverer expressions of ourselves as people who somehow get by in life based on the promise of a better day to come - like the caption on the photo of the zebra. In time, we believe this definition ourselves.
You have undoubtedly asked yourself some form of the age-old question, "If I could go back in time to a specific point in my life, which one would I choose to make it all turn out differently?" The mind loves contemplating hypotheticals like this. And yet, the joke is on whoever asks that question because doing so virtually guarantees you will ask it again in the future and come up with: the current period in your life. Why is that? Because to contemplate it at all is a form of escape that steals your focus away from the present moment. It robs you of the presence of mind required to soberly assess whether your current situation and activity are steering you toward the kind of life you would rather live. And just now we have gotten to the heart of the matter. Escape. Somehow, many of us have bought the message that we're just supposed to press forward in a life filled with circumstances and situations we never would have chosen if we had known better the first time around. Contemplating all of the disruption and energy it would take to press the "Reset" button, face the stark, naked unknown, and escape the gravity of expectations from all the loved ones we've trained to accept us in our default form just seems so... daunting. So we take our minds off of the subject. We distract ourselves with gadgets, amuse ourselves with content, numb ourselves with substances, and press on. No wonder Thoreau made the observation (still true today), "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." Living such a life is unpleasant, so we find ways to not notice that it's happening - chiefly in the form of occupying our thoughts about the past or the future.
I have come to believe that the attitude one has toward life is the most precious mental commodity he or she possesses. More valuable - by far - than a sharp wit or a quick memory. Intellect and recall will always serve to the best of their ability. But the thing that they serve - the one who calls the shots - is your attitude. The good news is, unlike your other mental faculties, attitude can be changed. And yet, how rare it is to meet someone who actively works to improve his or her attitude toward life in adulthood! I heard someone once define "personality" as "the set of social strategies for survival you came up with in Middle School." Are you the Joker in your group? The leader? The cynic, the quiet one, the critic, the facilitator? When was the last time you examined the fundamental building blocks of how you respond to life and asked the question, "Does this way of expressing myself really serve me anymore?" If the answer is, "Longer than a year", I suggest it's time to get your journal out, jot the question down, and let it work its magic. You'd be amazed at what you come up with when you take yourself seriously enough to call yourself on your own assumptions and allow what is really important to come up to the surface.
A surprising and delightful benefit of learning to focus in on the present moment is that life seems to slow down considerably. A lot of the mental chatter you needed to sustain in order to distract yourself from your former sense of drudgery just melts away. The daily commute is no longer an unpleasant necessity for getting from point A to point B. Instead, it becomes a fascinating adventure that's new each day. You stop avoiding "certain people" and take on the outlook that you're going to deal with them as if you were meeting them for the very first time. You give that restaurant another try, even though they messed up your order once upon a time. And so on. Perhaps some of this sounds far-fetched or even naive. People who have invested their lives in cleverly pointing out snarky angles and flaws in every situation might make fun of you. Friends who've known you for years might wonder what the hell has gotten into you. I guess there are trade-offs for every path one may take. But for me, the price has been worth it.
I get on the elevator at work. A co-worker I've never seen before exclaims, "Thank God, it's Friday!" The door opens at my floor and I reply, "Oh yeah - Friday is one of my favorite days of the week!" I step out of the car then I turn and add, "Just like Monday." The look on his face as the door closes: Priceless.
Used Courtesy of MyCommentSpace.com
Where does this desire not to be "here", "now", come from? How is it that we can live week to week, month to month, year to year, always yearning for some other day or situation to arrive? A good bit of this tendency no doubt comes from our environment. We grow up hearing our parents, relatives, and friends bemoaning their circumstances. We get sent to school where we come to feel that homework is a chore and that looking forward to Friday and the weekend is a normal emotional state. To resist these attitudes is to risk alienation from a vital circle of society. The path of least resistance is to go along with it, adopt the outlook, and mimic acceptable catch-phrases, such as, "Thank God it's Friday!" Well before the weekend is over, it hits us - Monday is coming! Soon, whatever joy we may have been experiencing gets overshadowed by the dread we've learned to affect from those we love. By the time we join the working world, it is almost a competition, at the coffee break, to be the first one to exclaim, "I hate Mondays!"
But not all of the blame can be laid at the feet of our acquaintances and institutions. Some of us take the ball and run considerably farther. We learn that we can distinguish ourselves by the thought and creativity we pour into our expressions of elation or vehemence over the periods of time approaching in the near future. There's a cost to doing this, however, and that cost adds up. Expressing ourselves in these ways tends to define us, in the minds of those we spend time with as "John, the guy who loves Fridays" or "Maria, the girl who hates Mondays". And, having trained others to see us in those ways, we tend to then reinforce that image as part of our own search for meaning and belonging. We can be counted on to say or create or share ever-cleverer expressions of ourselves as people who somehow get by in life based on the promise of a better day to come - like the caption on the photo of the zebra. In time, we believe this definition ourselves.
You have undoubtedly asked yourself some form of the age-old question, "If I could go back in time to a specific point in my life, which one would I choose to make it all turn out differently?" The mind loves contemplating hypotheticals like this. And yet, the joke is on whoever asks that question because doing so virtually guarantees you will ask it again in the future and come up with: the current period in your life. Why is that? Because to contemplate it at all is a form of escape that steals your focus away from the present moment. It robs you of the presence of mind required to soberly assess whether your current situation and activity are steering you toward the kind of life you would rather live. And just now we have gotten to the heart of the matter. Escape. Somehow, many of us have bought the message that we're just supposed to press forward in a life filled with circumstances and situations we never would have chosen if we had known better the first time around. Contemplating all of the disruption and energy it would take to press the "Reset" button, face the stark, naked unknown, and escape the gravity of expectations from all the loved ones we've trained to accept us in our default form just seems so... daunting. So we take our minds off of the subject. We distract ourselves with gadgets, amuse ourselves with content, numb ourselves with substances, and press on. No wonder Thoreau made the observation (still true today), "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." Living such a life is unpleasant, so we find ways to not notice that it's happening - chiefly in the form of occupying our thoughts about the past or the future.
I have come to believe that the attitude one has toward life is the most precious mental commodity he or she possesses. More valuable - by far - than a sharp wit or a quick memory. Intellect and recall will always serve to the best of their ability. But the thing that they serve - the one who calls the shots - is your attitude. The good news is, unlike your other mental faculties, attitude can be changed. And yet, how rare it is to meet someone who actively works to improve his or her attitude toward life in adulthood! I heard someone once define "personality" as "the set of social strategies for survival you came up with in Middle School." Are you the Joker in your group? The leader? The cynic, the quiet one, the critic, the facilitator? When was the last time you examined the fundamental building blocks of how you respond to life and asked the question, "Does this way of expressing myself really serve me anymore?" If the answer is, "Longer than a year", I suggest it's time to get your journal out, jot the question down, and let it work its magic. You'd be amazed at what you come up with when you take yourself seriously enough to call yourself on your own assumptions and allow what is really important to come up to the surface.
A surprising and delightful benefit of learning to focus in on the present moment is that life seems to slow down considerably. A lot of the mental chatter you needed to sustain in order to distract yourself from your former sense of drudgery just melts away. The daily commute is no longer an unpleasant necessity for getting from point A to point B. Instead, it becomes a fascinating adventure that's new each day. You stop avoiding "certain people" and take on the outlook that you're going to deal with them as if you were meeting them for the very first time. You give that restaurant another try, even though they messed up your order once upon a time. And so on. Perhaps some of this sounds far-fetched or even naive. People who have invested their lives in cleverly pointing out snarky angles and flaws in every situation might make fun of you. Friends who've known you for years might wonder what the hell has gotten into you. I guess there are trade-offs for every path one may take. But for me, the price has been worth it.
I get on the elevator at work. A co-worker I've never seen before exclaims, "Thank God, it's Friday!" The door opens at my floor and I reply, "Oh yeah - Friday is one of my favorite days of the week!" I step out of the car then I turn and add, "Just like Monday." The look on his face as the door closes: Priceless.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Fall 2009: Stock Market Likely to Decline
If you have exposure to the stock market, you may want to dial it back to a money market fund or cash. Both the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ composite indexes pierced below important levels of support today. (their 50-day moving averages) This often happens when the market is going to decline for a period of time.
All in all, not a terrible run since March when the market turned positive: a 58% increase for the NASDAQ and a 45% increase for the S&P 500.
Several companies declined sharply this week after reporting earnings that just barely missed estimates. Some declined even though they beat their earnings estimates. This is typical behavior when the market is turning south, when even good news is not enough to keep stocks moving up.
I have sold all the stocks in my personal portfolio and am looking now for opportunities to make money on declines.
Remember - don't blame the government or your retirement plan company if you fail to keep an eye on your nest egg!
All in all, not a terrible run since March when the market turned positive: a 58% increase for the NASDAQ and a 45% increase for the S&P 500.
Several companies declined sharply this week after reporting earnings that just barely missed estimates. Some declined even though they beat their earnings estimates. This is typical behavior when the market is turning south, when even good news is not enough to keep stocks moving up.
I have sold all the stocks in my personal portfolio and am looking now for opportunities to make money on declines.
Remember - don't blame the government or your retirement plan company if you fail to keep an eye on your nest egg!
Monday, October 12, 2009
Not-As-Bad No Substitute for Good
After leaving my full-time job in September, my inital inclination was to immediately relocate to a faster growing city. This notion was influenced by two major hypotheses: 1) If I start a business, I want to do it in a market with plenty of demand for my products or services. 2) If I invest in real estate, I want to buy in areas where the rents will produce great cash flow even after paying for the mortgage, taxes, and repairs. Orlando has a lot going for it, but it's been hit pretty badly by our current recession. No. I reasoned that since I had nothing tying me to Orlando, I should select the best US metro area I could find, start from scratch there, and allow its rising tide to lift my boat as well.
A funny thing happened on the way to relocation-ville. As I researched cities according to their US Census Bureau growth statistics and monthly unemployment rates, I got a bit sidetracked from my primary criteria by the noise of the data. At first Atlanta looked attractive due to its high population growth from 2000 to 2008. When I discovered it had a higher unemployment rate than the national average, however, its luster faded. More recently, Austin, TX seemed promising due to its combination of high population growth and lower unemployment rate.
But digging deeper into Austin's data has revealed that while unemployment is lower there, it is still increasing on a monthly basis. "Slower slowing" is not the criterion I started with. I require growth. Data published on USA Today's website from Moody's economy.com shows that it may be well into 2011 before Austin or, indeed, any sizeable US city shows significant jobs growth. This correlates pretty well with our last recession: the market topped in 2000, it bottomed in 2003, and jobs began to return about 18 months later. In the current recession, the stock market topped at the end of 2007, hit bottom in March of 2009 and here we are, waiting for the jobs to show up again.
Let me mention why this is so important. Jobs are what fuel the kind of population increases that are attractive to real estate investors. As jobs grow and populations rise, people become willing to pay the kind of rental rates that can cover mortgage payments, taxes, and repair bills. Ultimately it is the prosperity of an environment like this that creates healthy growth in property values, since more and more people go for the dream of owning a home. On the other hand, when an area is simply losing jobs more slowly than others, you end up with less people in the area than there are rental units. Now your rental property is compared to others solely based on price and nobody wins in that environment.
My strategy remains the same. I will ultimately relocate to a major US metro area based on its growth in population and jobs. However, I'm not going to try to guess in advance which city that will be. I'm going to keep my finger on the pulse of the monthly data and allow candidate cities to emerge in their own sweet time. The second halves of recessions are like that: months and months of seeming inactivity, and then, POW, the heavens seem to open, corporate budgets are expanded, and jobs look like they're falling out of the sky.
A final note. I may yet relocate in the near term. But if I do, it will likely be because there was a better reason to hang out somewhere else during this current non-growth period of time than here in Orlando. I'll keep you posted.
A funny thing happened on the way to relocation-ville. As I researched cities according to their US Census Bureau growth statistics and monthly unemployment rates, I got a bit sidetracked from my primary criteria by the noise of the data. At first Atlanta looked attractive due to its high population growth from 2000 to 2008. When I discovered it had a higher unemployment rate than the national average, however, its luster faded. More recently, Austin, TX seemed promising due to its combination of high population growth and lower unemployment rate.
But digging deeper into Austin's data has revealed that while unemployment is lower there, it is still increasing on a monthly basis. "Slower slowing" is not the criterion I started with. I require growth. Data published on USA Today's website from Moody's economy.com shows that it may be well into 2011 before Austin or, indeed, any sizeable US city shows significant jobs growth. This correlates pretty well with our last recession: the market topped in 2000, it bottomed in 2003, and jobs began to return about 18 months later. In the current recession, the stock market topped at the end of 2007, hit bottom in March of 2009 and here we are, waiting for the jobs to show up again.
Let me mention why this is so important. Jobs are what fuel the kind of population increases that are attractive to real estate investors. As jobs grow and populations rise, people become willing to pay the kind of rental rates that can cover mortgage payments, taxes, and repair bills. Ultimately it is the prosperity of an environment like this that creates healthy growth in property values, since more and more people go for the dream of owning a home. On the other hand, when an area is simply losing jobs more slowly than others, you end up with less people in the area than there are rental units. Now your rental property is compared to others solely based on price and nobody wins in that environment.
My strategy remains the same. I will ultimately relocate to a major US metro area based on its growth in population and jobs. However, I'm not going to try to guess in advance which city that will be. I'm going to keep my finger on the pulse of the monthly data and allow candidate cities to emerge in their own sweet time. The second halves of recessions are like that: months and months of seeming inactivity, and then, POW, the heavens seem to open, corporate budgets are expanded, and jobs look like they're falling out of the sky.
A final note. I may yet relocate in the near term. But if I do, it will likely be because there was a better reason to hang out somewhere else during this current non-growth period of time than here in Orlando. I'll keep you posted.
Friday, September 12, 2008
A Test Of The Emergency Disappointment System II
Yesterday marked the abrupt end of my professional relationship with the computer game company I joined in mid-May. (and relocated across the country for) I won't pretend that my emotions are not upset, there is presently a sense of sadness and disappointment that the collaboration didn't work out.
Mozart is said to have composed entire symphonies in his head before furiously scribbling them down. Another anecdote has Michelangelo saying he "saw the angel in the marble and then carved to set him free". This is how I write software - I grok a given system as a whole over a period of time and then expend myself in a fit of creative coding that sometimes spans 24-hour periods. I like me this way - it is my own personal garden patch of genius. (we all have one somewhere, neglected or not)
I kind of wish I had done a better job communicating my style to my handlers at the company. I must have seemed a bit insubordinate when they asked to see incremental progress occurring every day in the codebase and all they got back was (in effect), "Just wait, you'll see what I can do!" In the end, the system I was working on was proven and I got buy-in for the next steps, but someone somewhere had already decided to drop the hammer. The termination was handled by the company's legal counsel, "without cause"; nobody I worked for directly attended the exit interview or gave any feedback. It was certainly well within their rights to handle the matter this way - like virtually all Americans my employment arrangement was "at will", meaning I could have left them at any time for no given reason as well.
I say "kind of wish", yet I don't really wish. Like Bono of U2, "I still haven't found what I'm looking for." I'm looking for a situation where the Mozarts and Michelangelos of code can brood and spew their masterworks together with the only criteria being whether it is beautiful and it works when it all comes together. Perhaps that stand will push me into Open Source or to starting my own technology ventures. (something my friends must be bored of hearing me perpetually threaten to do)
I am satisfied that both I and my former employer each did his best. The company is made up of a very sharp group of people and I would not want to be in their market space when they launch their product.
Yes, I used the word "disappointed" in the first paragraph and that is what is real today. Yet it is not "I" who am disappointed. Though the emotions are upset, though they calm and tempest and calm again, the self is not the emotions. The self is the one who observes and honors them and then whispers, "This, too, shall pass."
Mozart is said to have composed entire symphonies in his head before furiously scribbling them down. Another anecdote has Michelangelo saying he "saw the angel in the marble and then carved to set him free". This is how I write software - I grok a given system as a whole over a period of time and then expend myself in a fit of creative coding that sometimes spans 24-hour periods. I like me this way - it is my own personal garden patch of genius. (we all have one somewhere, neglected or not)
I kind of wish I had done a better job communicating my style to my handlers at the company. I must have seemed a bit insubordinate when they asked to see incremental progress occurring every day in the codebase and all they got back was (in effect), "Just wait, you'll see what I can do!" In the end, the system I was working on was proven and I got buy-in for the next steps, but someone somewhere had already decided to drop the hammer. The termination was handled by the company's legal counsel, "without cause"; nobody I worked for directly attended the exit interview or gave any feedback. It was certainly well within their rights to handle the matter this way - like virtually all Americans my employment arrangement was "at will", meaning I could have left them at any time for no given reason as well.
I say "kind of wish", yet I don't really wish. Like Bono of U2, "I still haven't found what I'm looking for." I'm looking for a situation where the Mozarts and Michelangelos of code can brood and spew their masterworks together with the only criteria being whether it is beautiful and it works when it all comes together. Perhaps that stand will push me into Open Source or to starting my own technology ventures. (something my friends must be bored of hearing me perpetually threaten to do)
I am satisfied that both I and my former employer each did his best. The company is made up of a very sharp group of people and I would not want to be in their market space when they launch their product.
Yes, I used the word "disappointed" in the first paragraph and that is what is real today. Yet it is not "I" who am disappointed. Though the emotions are upset, though they calm and tempest and calm again, the self is not the emotions. The self is the one who observes and honors them and then whispers, "This, too, shall pass."
Friday, August 1, 2008
A Test Of The Emergency Disappointment System
This morning I checked on my stock holdings only to discover that Biogen (BIIB) had dropped 25% from yesterday's closing price. Evidently their Multiple Sclerosis drug Tysabri has been found to possibly cause a deadly side effect. There was only one thing to do: sell my position and sell it quickly. Within one minute I had opened a browser window, logged in to my online trading account, and executed the sell order. When the trade cleared, I had lost 26% overall of the money I had spent on this stock.
A few years ago, I would have reacted to a development like this with anger, blame, and lowered self-confidence. I might have felt paralyzed, leading to hesitation about what to do. Yet today, I didn't feel any of these things. On the contrary I was serenely aware that the capacity for stocks to dramatically rise or fall in price is exactly the dynamic that attracts me to trading. It's merely the other side of the same coin that netted me a 25% gain in a short period of time from the market's recent downtrend. (using ultrashort exchange traded funds for real estate and technology)
It certainly helps that I didn't have all my investment eggs in this basket. By the way, I'm not a big believer is diversification as it is commonly practiced. (or "de-worse-ification" as some pundits put it) That can lead to a scattering of focus, especially for the individual investor who has other things to do with his time than keep an eye on the market all day long. I follow William O'Neil's system (outlined in his classic book,How To Make Money In Stocks) which suggests buying a few of the very best growth stocks when the market in general is moving up. (using his rules, it was a judgment call as to whether the stock market had turned around to start heading upward again in the past week - which is when I purchased Biogen)
What happened in my stock account today was only a test. As is everything that ever happens in life. I don't expect to win them all anymore. In fact, it's the building of a foundation of increasingly more enlightened responses to these kinds of events that really matters to me now.
A few years ago, I would have reacted to a development like this with anger, blame, and lowered self-confidence. I might have felt paralyzed, leading to hesitation about what to do. Yet today, I didn't feel any of these things. On the contrary I was serenely aware that the capacity for stocks to dramatically rise or fall in price is exactly the dynamic that attracts me to trading. It's merely the other side of the same coin that netted me a 25% gain in a short period of time from the market's recent downtrend. (using ultrashort exchange traded funds for real estate and technology)
It certainly helps that I didn't have all my investment eggs in this basket. By the way, I'm not a big believer is diversification as it is commonly practiced. (or "de-worse-ification" as some pundits put it) That can lead to a scattering of focus, especially for the individual investor who has other things to do with his time than keep an eye on the market all day long. I follow William O'Neil's system (outlined in his classic book,How To Make Money In Stocks) which suggests buying a few of the very best growth stocks when the market in general is moving up. (using his rules, it was a judgment call as to whether the stock market had turned around to start heading upward again in the past week - which is when I purchased Biogen)
What happened in my stock account today was only a test. As is everything that ever happens in life. I don't expect to win them all anymore. In fact, it's the building of a foundation of increasingly more enlightened responses to these kinds of events that really matters to me now.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Seeds of an Economic Turnaround?
At this time, the American economy is in a downturn with a good bit of the popular press devoted to subjects such as the sub prime mortgage crisis, the low value of the dollar, unemployment, and the credit crunch. Yet, among the stories on reuters.com today:
* Hedge funds sell oil as ratio to gold narrows
* Gasoline prices retreat, could fall more: survey
And so the seeds of the next epoch of the American economy start cracking open beneath the soil.
It would be easy to miss this information. Most of the economic reports and opinions floating about (at any given time) are lagging indicators. They are based on the good or bad news of the last few months or even years. So it turns out that there's a reason why it always seems "darkest before the dawn". When a situation begins to change, we tend not to notice it because we are busy mentally processing the old bad news. The same holds true for good news too, which is why we also say, "Pride goes before a fall."
By the way, I'm not predicting a turnaround. The stories I mentioned above are merely seeds beneath the soil. They could be wiped out by unforeseen events even before they have a chance to sprout. I'm simply pointing out that since nothing ever stands still, it's useful to pay particular attention to what is presently happening if you wish to develop independent opinions about current events. And possibly even profit from them.
* Hedge funds sell oil as ratio to gold narrows
* Gasoline prices retreat, could fall more: survey
And so the seeds of the next epoch of the American economy start cracking open beneath the soil.
It would be easy to miss this information. Most of the economic reports and opinions floating about (at any given time) are lagging indicators. They are based on the good or bad news of the last few months or even years. So it turns out that there's a reason why it always seems "darkest before the dawn". When a situation begins to change, we tend not to notice it because we are busy mentally processing the old bad news. The same holds true for good news too, which is why we also say, "Pride goes before a fall."
By the way, I'm not predicting a turnaround. The stories I mentioned above are merely seeds beneath the soil. They could be wiped out by unforeseen events even before they have a chance to sprout. I'm simply pointing out that since nothing ever stands still, it's useful to pay particular attention to what is presently happening if you wish to develop independent opinions about current events. And possibly even profit from them.
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