Adjusting the sails
Changing the route of this writing project. To new uncharted territories we must go!
I’m not sure what to write here but I am tired of performative bullshit. I want the real thing. I’m seeking community not showing off how smart I am. I want to develop community. I don’t want to trade alone. Writing about this stuff makes me feel a little less alone in my thoughts. My hope has been the writing will help me find others who enjoy thinking for themselves. Even if the ideas are a little whacky.
It has been a while since my last post. I didn’t have a direction I wanted this site to go. I was vibe writing like I sometimes vibe trade. What I realized though was that I don’t enjoy posting about my portfolio. As Dr. Burry articulates in this tweet, exposing yourself to that level of criticism affects performance a lot more than I imagined.
When you have a non-consensus view, it’s difficult to hold tight to it. Sometimes you have a feeling. A gut intuition. It’s an idea that hasn’t fully formed yet. You see it forming maybe out ahead of others. So far out ahead, you find yourself alone in the room waiting for others to catch up. This casts doubt. Questioning yourself. Wondering if you’re a little crazy.
Why am I seeing this while others are not? Am I wrong? Am I foolish? So you try to investigate. You want to discuss the idea with others. The problem though is many of these people you try to discuss these ideas with are algorithmic zombies. They are afraid, so they cling to their precious beliefs. Unwilling to change their mind. Because who would they be without their beliefs? They are unwilling to see two steps out ahead of them. Instead they trudge along looking at the floor, going wherever their commander whips them towards.
Your ability to think for yourself rattles these zombies. You’re holding up the line. What are you doing looking up? Why are you out looking ahead?? That’s dangerous territory. These zombies have no interest in lively debate or sharing genuine perspective. What they see is an outlier. An outlying thought away from the mean. And the algorithm doesn’t like outliers, they need everybody to conform. So they WHACK you down.
How stupid of an idea they say. Laughing at you. I can’t imagine anyone strong enough to withstand endless ridicule on some small idea they had. The ridicule continues until you give in. Putting the idea in a little box. Filing it away in your mind inside a giant cabinet labeled: “dumb ideas”.
Until one day many months or years later it turns out your hunch was onto something. IT WAS NOT A DUMB IDEA AFTER ALL! You get elated. Excited. And then angry. Why did you betray yourself like that? How could you let these zombies fool you into being a slave like them? And so the cycle repeats.
All great things begin as small seeds. There is no grand perfect idea. Or fully formed way of being. Our lives are a journey. We learn by doing. By putting things out there, allowing them to fail. Adjusting our route as we go. Many of the best innovations are the opposite of some grand thought orchestrated in the depths of the mind. Often, they are happy accidents or silly little experiments.
I love this passage from Lord of the Rings when Samwise Gamgee gazes upon the ring:
“…he knew in the core of his heart that he was not large enough to bear such a burden, even if such visions were not a mere cheat to betray him. The one small garden of a free gardener was all his need and due, not a garden swollen to a realm; his own hands to use, not the hands of others to command. ‘And anyway all these notions are only a trick, he said to himself.” - J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
That’s what I want. My own small garden to tend to. I don’t care about impressing the crowds. Or changing the zombie’s mind. What I’m seeking is friendship. Lively debates. Learning from others. And offering my own perspective.
So I’m changing the route of this writing project. We are setting sail to new uncharted territory. Where Laistrygonians, Cyclops and angry Poseidon may all lay. But we will not be afraid of them. Keeping our thoughts raised high. We will not allow these creatures into our soul.
It will be an experimental project. Most likely scattered. Rambley. And a zig zag of paths taken. I will share market observations. Random notes or research I’ve been doing. Maybe some of it unfinished and to never be completed. I will share whatever I feel called to share. But will do my best to curate signal from the noise.
As you set out for Ithaka
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.