I'm not a visionary, either.
But what I am really talking about is the ability to see and imagine things better, in my head. This ability, that many people I know possess in much greater and more enviable qualities than I do, is very helpful; and I don't have (much of) it.
It is hard for me to imagine furniture in a room, either how it will look or how much space it will take. In tennis, my favorite sport, I don't have what they call a 'feel' for the court; that is, I don't know intuitively what shot to make (well, has something to do with my limited repertoire) or where to go. In Chess, I don't 'see' the board or sense combinations. In Bridge, I have a very limited ability to imagine 'hands' during bidding in order to constantly reevaluate what might be going on around me (in real time). In effect, in all these cases I lack imagination and intuition. I am, basically, a plodder.
There, that's off my chest. I don't mean to be self deprecatory. It's just that in order to move forward at this stage of my life one thing I am doing is trying to assess what I have, what I lack, what I need, what I want, etc. And I am trying to be honest and objective about it all. And part of the upshot of my 'visionary' limitations is that I need to work for what I want to accomplish, and also to teach myself and try to stretch my limits.
Things don't come to me easily. But my brain works generally pretty well, and I have a good memory. Especially for names, faces, dates and numbers. I 'block and tackle' well. Give me a problem (or set myself one) and I can generally find a way to understand it and figure out a way to come to grips with/solve it. I am a great believer that 'a problem fully understood is a problem half solved'. But I am rarely going to intuit or 'see' the answers.; I usually have to get my hands dirty first, so to speak.
One of the ways I help myself, especially in Bridge, is to quite directly verbalize questions in my head...'why didn't partner or an opponent do this?'. I grew up on Sherlock Holmes. Most stories have a point where Holmes has to slow down and explain to Watson (me) step by step how he came to a seemingly impossible to work out deduction. Yes, at some level there were steps for him, too, but he did not have to verbalize them.....there was an intuitive leap, some things that just made sense so quickly that he elided over the intermediary steps without having to pause and grind it out (as I would have to). He says to Watson, 'You see, but you do not observe.' That applies also to me, though I take satisfaction from W.S. Baring Gould's Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street where Watson saves Holmes from a deadly attack by Jack the Ripper and later gets one of his very rare opportunities to turn the tables and say, 'Elementary, my dear Holmes'.
Seguing slightly to a different Topic
I am lucky, maybe, that my business career to date has been in the arena of financial advice. In investments, there is almost always the benefit of time. If I was advising someone to get into the business now, I would advise them to stop and think and do all the blocking and tackling in the world, to figure out what they wanted to do and what they were comfortable doing (the two are not hardly the same; there is a world of difference from wanting to dispense financial advice, and being willing to do, over a long period of time, the everyday actions that are required to be successful at it). The 'shotgun' approach to investing is what most financial advisors are forced to recommend and it is also what most people need......a diversified, balanced approach to meet their long term goals. The problem for me is that it is boring.
The exciting part of investing would be to take the 'rifle' approach.....sit on the sidelines and try and identify big opportunities and invest heavily in them. Not for the faint of heart. But there are a couple of sterling examples of this in the world today; hedge fund managers, for one, that asked themselves 'what if' regarding the now obvious bubble in housing, and decided to short those stocks. More especially, those Managers' who took 'short' positions in credit spreads and derivatives. And, subsequently, those who took the short side of overvalued REITS. And, possibly, those who going forward who are looking for credit spreads on other bonds to widen.
Financial advice takes place in an everyday barrage of noise. We spend our days amongst the trees and rarely see or even sense the forest. And if we do, anyway, it is a dangerous place to tread. It is almost never appropriate from a compliance point of view to recommend the 'rifle' approach to a client with any meaningful (think: change their lifestyle) percentage of their money. So, we plod along and try and pick the best trees. Luckily, there are lots of those. They are boring, but they get the job done and keep everybody away from the lawyers.
But if we can glimpse the forest, there is still the research into what the best way is to profit. Some of the best investment vehicles are illiquid. Some require vast infrastructure to implement and monitor. Some are just complicated, or more hi risk than they need to be.....IF one had identified the home builders as over valued, and decided to commit to a significant investment, THEN... 'simple' would have been to short them, or even better an index. Or, maybe to buy puts. More high risk would have been to use leverage. More complex would have been to find a derivative. And hey, why not a leveraged derivative? For the individual investor to make some of these kinds of decisions borders on the ridiculous. A mainstream consultant for a brokerage firm has to worry about the time it might take out of every day to watch the investments, and compliance, and also about getting paid. It basically doesn't make much sense. Really, the best opportunity is to buy a reasonable piece of a hedge fund that can take those kinds of risks. But most individual investors don't have the net worth to be allowed to invest in individual hedge funds. So, in many cases back to square one.
Investing, like America, is a land of opportunity. You only need a few good/great ideas. We have a bubble somewhere in the world every five years at least. One could sit in a balanced position when there were no obvious bubbles, but have it in mind to watch specifically for them to develope and also to investigate how best to invest in their bursting. It would hardly be simple, but it could be very profitable and certainly more interesting.
Ahhhhh....I specifically don't want to talk about investing. But, it was a natural transition. So be it.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
Early Morning: Jan 9, 2008. Memnoch and I/German Farmers
I just had an interesting dream. And something extremely unusual has been happening to me in my dreams in general. Regarding the latter, all my life as long as I can remember I have been at, or have put myself at, a disadvantage in my dreamlife. I always lose fights, I often freeze when being chased, I never have the right 'comeback' in dreams with a social connection. When I wake up I ask myself 'why'.....am I a coward at heart?, are these deep feelings of inferiority, or is it perhaps that my subconscious doesn't want me to be over confident when I am awake (something, as an aside, that my daylife, painfully at times, also teaches me)? Or, is it just the nature of (my) dreams to be enigmatical? I have never been a believer too much in 'meaning'; there are often, I believe, stimuli we add to our daily lives...think alcohol, for instance...that might be a simple cause of subconscious wanderings.
But in the last 6 months this has changed considerably. Now I find myself winning fights, having verbal success/being quicker witted, and being on occasion enigmatic and even powerful.
In the dream I just had I was dressed in dark clothing with a broad brimmed hat. I had a horse. I was in a dark, cold medieval type of countryside. Poor. Cold. Muddy. Farm animals, filth and stench. Winter. There had been a calamity in this village and I had been beseeched for help, even though mostly unknown to the inhabitants. I had been passing through or had briefly stopped on some mission of my own for myself, gathering information. People and livestock in the village had been mysteriously dying and the survivors were superstitious and ignorant. They feared the plague or other supernatural factors.
And for reasons unknown (but perhaps they, in this wild, dark place could also help me in my search) I had set about to help them. On my own I had quickly discovered that one of two plants, growing around the paddocks of their livestock and also along their unpaved streets, was deadly. But I was unsure which, and a wrong choice would lead to more death. One plant might be used for a cure and there were many sick in the village. Death might take a week and it was unclear how long it took for symptoms to appear. Thus, I did not have time to test each on animals. Thus, in haste I invoked Memnoch.
Memnoch, a demon, appeared to us all as a dark, indistinct swirling form, not much bigger than a man, pulsating with energy and power. He did not have a voice and I can not remember how 'he' told me how to tell which plant to use for what and how. But he did and I was able to stop the terror in the village and cure the sick. And afterwards the elders came to me and wanted to know how this had come to happen and whether they were in thrall to the demon, or cursed. And I laughed and said that if anyone was in thrall it was me alone. I explained that demons, although knowledgable and powerful, could not spend much time on our 'plane' because it weakened them, and that I had met Memnoch under unusual circumstances many, many years ago and we had formed an 'at will' understanding. Memnoch had a questing mind. I did legwork and research into areas he found interesting and could not investigate himself. In return he gave me guidance and occasional assistance. I explained that we had each learned what the other would and would not do. I explained that most demons were not all bad, though they did things in anger and avarice that often had awful consequences for humans.
Was there then, afterwards, something I wanted in this village; something they themselves perhaps did not know they knew or possessed? I woke up.
Well, a number of things. Firstly, the character could easily be Enoch Root, a centuries old player in many of the historical novels by Neal Stephenson. He dabbles in alchemy and science and rides a horse, and etc; I think he is even described with a similar hat. For the environment I am surrounded by villages with a medieval past and many look like they haven't changed much *. The weather is the same as the one outside my door. For stimulus I have last nights red wine and Johnny Walker Black. I am perhaps surprised I don't have this dream every night!
But, I am happy about the change in perspective in my dreams. Maybe it does signal some vote of confidence in the direction I am going, in some of the things I want to accomplish. Maybe it signals that I am more at peace with myself.
(*There are local farmers in each village that look like they stepped out of central casting for ignorant, stupid, medieval B movies. They are dirty and shuffle around in their little centuries old farm courtyards, bent over or leaning on pitchforks. The dung is piled nearby, often enough, and the smell (landluft, or 'country air' as they smiling grimly call it) is enough to sting the eyes and offend the nose. Together by the road, they converse in subdued tones and cast glances in my directions as I wander past. The dialect, even the quarter-hearted acknowledgements sometimes returned, is impenetrable. They could easily be out of a Stephen King or Tom Tryon, or Poe or Lovecraft, novel set in New (or olde) England. On the other hand, around the corner from their tractors are also often enough their BMW's or Benzes. Their farms are small, and cannot support them. I am told many are bankers in Frankfurt, the land in their families for perhaps centuries. Some cling possessively and maybe nostalgically to the few acres they have left and pool their farm equipment to keep costs down, swapping their produce for that on neighboring fields. I remember one night wandering in the summer at 10 or so. It was after dark, but on the field I was passing one farmer was still plowing or cutting, a blazing headlight on his tractor showing him the way. I imagined he had put in a full day somewhere in a suit, came home to a hurried dinner, and then went out again, exchanging the comfortable seat of his Audi for unyielding metal. And perhaps it was cathartic for him, as woodwork is for me.
That's it for now.
But in the last 6 months this has changed considerably. Now I find myself winning fights, having verbal success/being quicker witted, and being on occasion enigmatic and even powerful.
In the dream I just had I was dressed in dark clothing with a broad brimmed hat. I had a horse. I was in a dark, cold medieval type of countryside. Poor. Cold. Muddy. Farm animals, filth and stench. Winter. There had been a calamity in this village and I had been beseeched for help, even though mostly unknown to the inhabitants. I had been passing through or had briefly stopped on some mission of my own for myself, gathering information. People and livestock in the village had been mysteriously dying and the survivors were superstitious and ignorant. They feared the plague or other supernatural factors.
And for reasons unknown (but perhaps they, in this wild, dark place could also help me in my search) I had set about to help them. On my own I had quickly discovered that one of two plants, growing around the paddocks of their livestock and also along their unpaved streets, was deadly. But I was unsure which, and a wrong choice would lead to more death. One plant might be used for a cure and there were many sick in the village. Death might take a week and it was unclear how long it took for symptoms to appear. Thus, I did not have time to test each on animals. Thus, in haste I invoked Memnoch.
Memnoch, a demon, appeared to us all as a dark, indistinct swirling form, not much bigger than a man, pulsating with energy and power. He did not have a voice and I can not remember how 'he' told me how to tell which plant to use for what and how. But he did and I was able to stop the terror in the village and cure the sick. And afterwards the elders came to me and wanted to know how this had come to happen and whether they were in thrall to the demon, or cursed. And I laughed and said that if anyone was in thrall it was me alone. I explained that demons, although knowledgable and powerful, could not spend much time on our 'plane' because it weakened them, and that I had met Memnoch under unusual circumstances many, many years ago and we had formed an 'at will' understanding. Memnoch had a questing mind. I did legwork and research into areas he found interesting and could not investigate himself. In return he gave me guidance and occasional assistance. I explained that we had each learned what the other would and would not do. I explained that most demons were not all bad, though they did things in anger and avarice that often had awful consequences for humans.
Was there then, afterwards, something I wanted in this village; something they themselves perhaps did not know they knew or possessed? I woke up.
Well, a number of things. Firstly, the character could easily be Enoch Root, a centuries old player in many of the historical novels by Neal Stephenson. He dabbles in alchemy and science and rides a horse, and etc; I think he is even described with a similar hat. For the environment I am surrounded by villages with a medieval past and many look like they haven't changed much *. The weather is the same as the one outside my door. For stimulus I have last nights red wine and Johnny Walker Black. I am perhaps surprised I don't have this dream every night!
But, I am happy about the change in perspective in my dreams. Maybe it does signal some vote of confidence in the direction I am going, in some of the things I want to accomplish. Maybe it signals that I am more at peace with myself.
(*There are local farmers in each village that look like they stepped out of central casting for ignorant, stupid, medieval B movies. They are dirty and shuffle around in their little centuries old farm courtyards, bent over or leaning on pitchforks. The dung is piled nearby, often enough, and the smell (landluft, or 'country air' as they smiling grimly call it) is enough to sting the eyes and offend the nose. Together by the road, they converse in subdued tones and cast glances in my directions as I wander past. The dialect, even the quarter-hearted acknowledgements sometimes returned, is impenetrable. They could easily be out of a Stephen King or Tom Tryon, or Poe or Lovecraft, novel set in New (or olde) England. On the other hand, around the corner from their tractors are also often enough their BMW's or Benzes. Their farms are small, and cannot support them. I am told many are bankers in Frankfurt, the land in their families for perhaps centuries. Some cling possessively and maybe nostalgically to the few acres they have left and pool their farm equipment to keep costs down, swapping their produce for that on neighboring fields. I remember one night wandering in the summer at 10 or so. It was after dark, but on the field I was passing one farmer was still plowing or cutting, a blazing headlight on his tractor showing him the way. I imagined he had put in a full day somewhere in a suit, came home to a hurried dinner, and then went out again, exchanging the comfortable seat of his Audi for unyielding metal. And perhaps it was cathartic for him, as woodwork is for me.
That's it for now.
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