Weltanschauung

The Philosopher’s Stone

zenothestoic@protonmail.ch

Tag: Blogging

  • Moving On

    Moving On

    Change, never welcome, always necessary.

    When it comes, frightening, unsettling. Breaking chains of unnoticed habit forged over a long life of doubt.

    Time, it seems, to bid farewell to the dry pastures of financial markets. Can life flourish in fields where self promotion and deception rule. Where success seems inextricably bound to falsehood and brash salesmanship.

    Two decades of writing algorithms and trading them. Twenty long years of battling chaos in a universe where prediction is impossible and where flow is the only rule worth following.

    What now I wonder.

    Why would a seeker have wandered the canyons of Wall Street and the crooked allies of a then almost Dickensian London. In those far off days, Marley and Scrooge still had their brass knocker bolted to some ancient oaken door, in a tarnished corner close to the river.

    Apparent security must have been the answer. To say nothing of foolish naivete – stability was nowhere to be found, least of all in the carnivorous banking halls at the heart of the city of mammon.

    Were they all bad? The scurrying minions and rainmaking bosses. By no means but they offered scant companionship to someone who preferred the marbled pillars of St Paul’s to the polished floors of the counting houses.

    A kind lady from Kangaroo Island was good enough to read my words today. “Call It As it Is” she says. Once the Island of the Dead, where better to contemplate life, death and all stations in between.

    As far removed from the brash and the modern as you would need to go, how often have I thought of a life of solitude in just such a place.

    But peace is an effort of will not some physical realm. As easy or as difficult to achieve in a heaving metropolis as a desert island, if only you know the trick.

    And now? To write more, perhaps. Or better. There is a thought, but to what end. To no end, of course. There are no ends, just as there are no beginnings.

    There is flow, just flow. And the need to go with it.

    There perhaps is the lesson I never learned in those early days. The folly of battling one’s own nature instead of working with it. The futility of forcing a quiet and contemplative mind to enter the fray alongside the swagger and the talk of those better built for combat.

    What now I wonder.

    A one man closed order, I remain in a walled garden. No teaching, nothing to impart. No grand gospel, no treatise on all that is.

    To talk of peace may be to spread it. One soul flowing quietly with the stream may encourage a few others.

  • Blogging – A Window onto the Soul

    Blogging – A Window onto the Soul

    I was struck today, looking at my collection of Blog “Tags”, just how much they reveal about my character and obsessions.

    If you look at the “Tag Cloud” in the footer to this post, you will see the topics which have most interested me these past two years.

    Of course it is not an exact science, but I found it rather revealing. Depression and happiness are the clear winner,s followed by some obviously and closely related topics: peace, mood, qualia, consciousness.

    And how about “Stock Market”? While it features prominently, it is not something I have written about much recently. It is true that I have recently spent weeks drafting a new trading algorithm (with enjoyment I might add) but writing about markets is not something that lights up my day in the same way as contemplating happiness or trying to beat gloom.

    Happily I have been on a roll recently – for the time being the beast is tamed, but who knows if and when a downturn into the murky waters of the Styx may next come.

    Many of my other well trodden themes are also closely related to my big number tags. The whole spirituality gig is clearly a major part of my personality and so “Book of Common Prayer” looms large as do the topics “Meditation” and “Mysticism”.  Reality and silence also feature quite highly but I find it interesting to note that actual “religion” in the form of dogma barely features at all. Christianity, Buddhism and Islam are more notable by their absence than their inclusion. As I have often stressed, man made god in his own image rather than the reverse, whereas to me at least “spirituality” is something inbuilt and natural in many of us. A yearning for transcendence and meaning.

    If I wanted to tread the boards of psychoanalysis (which I assuredly do not) then I suppose these tendencies of mine could be usefully placed alongside dreams and rorschach tests, to reveal the murky depths of my damaged mind.

    As it is, I no longer feel the need for third party interpretation of my peculiarities, and self observation is a tool of far greater use to me than the therapists’ couch. True, there are rare occasions I feel so weary that chatting seems an attractive option, but after so many years of staring up my own fundamental orifice, I do not believe there is much either they or I could add.

    In a circular way this brings me back to something I wrote a year or so ago about the purpose of a blog, the motivation for writing when few will want to listen to my meandering drivel.

    As I said then and repeat now, I write to explain myself, not to my audience but to my own mind.

    Yesterday’s post on ignoring the past is a good example. I do not claim I felt dismal retreading a childhood journey, and witnessing the somewhat dark memories that were brought to the surface, but writing down my feelings last night was very healing.

    I have no right to complain and little to grumble about and yet I have found aspects of family life and dynamics deeply destructive and disturbing over the years. To write about my feelings was, therefore, a catharsis. It was getting real with myself. This is my interpretation of what happened and this is how it has made me feel all these years.

    I no longer intend to feel that way.

    I must be ready to drop those useless worries, those sometimes sad memories of childhood and move on.

    Repetition may be dull but it serves its purpose. Say it to yourself often enough and gradually with practice it becomes a habit. With a bit of vigilance and self discipline one can begin to put these thoughts aside as they arise.

    All of this may sound like the spoilt whining of someone who has actually been more blessed than most. There has, in reality, been little lacking in my life.

    And yet if we are to prove useful to ourselves and those around us, we must never cease to question ourselves, our thoughts, actions and deeds.

    If there are things in our past we would rather not repeat (whatever the reason) then we must remain aware. Self aware. So that what sounds like self obsession may in fact more charitably (and accurately) be described as making every effort to stay on track. Not only for yourself but for all those around you.

    Without constant introspection, I at least would be in danger of behaving in a fashion my better self would not admire.

    And I think other Tags on my website also emphasize a constant desire to be wary of falling into less admirable patterns of behavior.  Conflict, class, evil, purpose, other people, hypocrisy.

    So, yes, a blog can be a window onto the soul. It can help greatly (or so I find) in reminding me when I stray from the path of reasonable and decent behavior.

    Once I notice, with a bit of luck, I may be able to stagger back onto the path of decency and kindness.

  • The Internet of Fools

    The Internet of Fools

    The internet is colonized by those who do not know that they do not know.  Fools to put it less politely. Why?

    I do not suffer fools gladly, though I wish them no harm. I just wish they would keep their ignorance to themselves.

    Blogs are one area where pure horse (or if you prefer bull) shit prevails. New age quackery seems a favorite for the blogger fool, touting chakras  and useless remedies for all our ills, physical or otherwise.

    Forums are much worse – there the passengers on the ship of fools can inter-react with each other and compete in sheer misinformation and stupidity.

    For many years I have studied algorithmic trading. And indeed traded algorithms. Sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. I went into it starry eyed close to 20 years ago, believing I could potentially walk on water after a decade of very lucky trading.

    Trading and betting forums are where some of the worst fools collect; and the worst rogues. The rogues sell crappy trading systems because they can not trade profitably themselves. The fools pretend they can trade profitably and want to talk about it. And talk, and talk and talk.

    But there are many other areas of the internet where fools like to hold forth. I am not clear as to their motives and am almost certain that the fools are even less clear.  Whether it is mental health, horticulture or religion, some fool will be talking out of an orifice which very obviously is not his mouth.  It is clear as day that many such people “talk” because they can not “do”. Talk about how they grow huge bright red tomatoes because they have failed so to do. Talk about curing their depression through tantric sex because they have tried and failed. Talk about making “millions in up and down markets” because they like to engage in wishful thinking.

    Why do those who should remain quiet become ever louder?  I suppose the fool was always there but now he has a platform for his foolishness. While it is true that no one has to read the fool, it is difficult not to be affected by his asininity because whatever you Google, you can be sure a great number of a-holes will be caught in the net. And you will have to sift through and discard the mad, the bad and the ugly to get to where you want to go.

    I suppose in a sense the internet gives the fool validation, a sense of importance he is unable to find in the “real” world. No one will listen to him or value his opinion at his job or perhaps his home, so he (or she) must take up his electronic pen and find validation elsewhere. He will blog and vlog. He will pretend he has all the answers to whatever you want to know. He will have succeeded as a day trader where all others fail. He has discovered the Matrix, God. He is happy and wealthy and beautiful; in his dreams.

    Perhaps that is the answer – dreams. Perhaps the attraction is that it gives people (in their imagination) the validation and apparent success they lack in their lives. Perhaps they have better sex on the internet, perhaps on the web they are the successful traders and entrepreneurs they would so like to be.  On the internet they can grow that big red tomato that fails to grow in their suburban greenhouse.

    But there are gems to be discovered, even if they are buried in a great rotting heap of dung. Perhaps 2% of those banging away on the internet have something of value to say. It’s just a pity you have to spend endless hours wading through shyte to find the diamonds.

  • Do I mean what I write, do I write what I mean?

    Do I mean what I write, do I write what I mean?

    Rather presumptuously mis-categorised under “Psychology”, I was wondering whether I really mean what I write? Or to turn it round another way, do I write what I mean?

    Am I using my blog as a carnival mask? If so why? What would I hope to achieve by that? Why would I need to make myself out to be other than as I am?

    Personality, the human psyche is a complex, multi-faceted phenomena.  We are an emergent product of the laws of the nature but we do not know who are what we are, even after several hundred years of the Enlightenment.  Or rather we do not understand “consciousness”.

    To mis-quote Heraclitus “we never inhabit the same body twice”.  It is (apparently) scientific fact that every atom in our body changes over seven years cycles, so is it even possible to know ourselves if we are always changing?

    My belief is that our blueprint does not change much.  As our body is renewed and changes it atoms, the blueprint it uses remains much the same.

    As I have argued elsewhere, it seems to me that the bedrock of our personality stays with us, even if it is shaped and moulded by the experiences of our life.  We were born with it. It is our genetic inheritance.

    So I ought to be able to answer the question: “do I mean what I write?” since I have had over 60 years to come to know myself and to analyse my behaviour.

    My answer is “yes I do”. And yes, I write what I mean. I do not wear a dissembling mask, I am not trying to disguise myself, fool my readers.

    In general then, I do not try to hide too much, although I may sometimes be more polite than I feel. Basically, I want to be left alone.

    I don’t want some fool politician shoving “multiculturalism” and “gender awareness” down my throat (equally I have no problem, let alone hatred for other races and cultures).

    I don’t like the human species all that much, and have a particular distaste for business,  “businessmen” and salesmen all of which and whom I find grubby and venal.

    And yes, I do detest poverty, violence and greed and wish the world were a better place. Sadly I have never done anything to make it so. Maybe my blog is a very small step in that direction.

     

     

  • Flogging Blogging

    Flogging Blogging

    Commerce is so utterly grubby and most practitioners of the art are second hand car salesmen, whatever they pretend they are selling or “doing”.

    The blogosphere is no exception; it is an area where people try to practice commerce but usually, it seems unsuccessfully.

    The blogosphere has its fair share of oily salesmen particularly in the world of stock market trading where I spent some years and at times made a lot of money. Until I decided to quit because it had all become too nerve-wracking for my ancient body and mind to put up with any longer.

    In the world of trading I believe that most people must know they are selling nonsense, particularly where they are pushing trading “systems”.

    But it is much the same in blogging generally.

    In particular I am most amused by those whose trade is to sell blogging advice.  Their business seems to be more than usually incestuous and tautologous.  Who knows whether these people make money or not, but it is more than a little ironic that in order to make money out of blogging they have to tell other people how to do so.

    What is that all about then?

    Enough of such scepticism and negativity. I argue elsewhere in favour of freedom of choice: in euthanasia for instance or the use of “recreational” drugs.  It is equally evident to me that those who do not like blogging salesmen should avoid them – they have a choice.

    I tend to avoid “infomercials” and many blogs fall into this category.  Shopping on the internet is different – and very convenient. If I want to find a canoe or a book by Sartre I can do so with ease end enjoyment.

    Infomercials and blogs selling stuff (information or otherwise) under the guise of being interesting and informative are a tedious switch off; so switch them off.

    There is some acceptable crossover. Interesting authors may talk about their life as well as offer books. Newspapers these days are simply money making blogs – and I guess most of them carry advertising to make it pay.

    There is no harm in people being paid for what they do, provided the sales pitch is inoffensive and the goods or services offered are genuine.

    I suppose I have come across too many offensive sales pitches and too many crappy blogs. Perhaps including my own.  Who knows; as in every other area of life, I find myself mired in uncertainty, a certain amount of hypocrisy and much ennui.

     

     

     

  • Why Write a Blog

    Why Write a Blog

    I write because I enjoy writing and to educate myself.  It helps my own understanding of my cranky pet subjects as I try to convey my enthusiasms to my non-existent audience.

    It is highly probable that I will never make a cent out of it but then I find commerce, salesmen and “busy-ness” so indescribably sordid I’m not sure I care. Especially at my age.  Sure, it would be nice to generate some revenue – nothing wrong with that. But advertising and aggressively pushing product is somehow so utterly vulgar and distasteful.

    So I have taken a different course.  If there are books or films I have read and enjoyed I feel no guilt or embarrassment about adding a link to Amazon.com but I certainly don’t want to promote any old tat or to cover my blog with vulgar and thoroughly irritating commerce.

    Equally I feel pretty ambivalent on choosing content for an “audience”:  I will write exactly what I want to write, no more no less. If anybody wants to read it, fine. If they do not – well that’s equally fine. I do not imagine there are hordes of the faithful wishing to hear my cranky and often rather obscure or bad tempered thoughts.

    Self education and self awareness are an important part of it for me. I have been searching for answers to difficult questions my entire life and those answers will come, if at all, by a relentless and dedicated search for truths.

    I am aware that I very often get carried away by what I can only describe as mysticism.  I get carried away by a feeling of awe when I finally understand harmony, or meditate on a mountain or in a lonely Norman Church.

    But my awe is not a religious one. Yes, in a broad sense it is certainly spiritual but not in the sense of some religious nutter or new age fanatic. I would indeed love to hear the voice of god but my god is a very different one. Awe and wonder are to be found in excess in the natural physical world and I believe the universe is strange and wonderful enough without the need to imagine forces any more mysterious than we can discover by rational scientific enquiry.

    Those forces are numinous enough and it is my strongly held conviction that conscious beings will eventually achieve powers and knowledge which would make them godlike anyway.

    So yes, I am writing about subjects which interest me and its largely “scientific” enquiry by an ignorant laymen into the wonders of the universe.  If that sounds arrogant and intolerant – well it probably is. At heart I’m a grumpy old hermit who has lost any desire to “fit in” with what most people would call “normality”.