Superstition, Luck and Vodoo

I totally agree that it's wrong, and that there's a big difference between playful nips and intentional blows. Not much different than elementary school bullies hassling the new kid at the lunch table. True cruelty is never warranted.

I guess I just take the perspective that people like that will always be around, and when dealing with them it's best to take the position that "what doesn't kill me makes me stronger."

faster / longshot / stu: i feel sorry for you man, i really do. whatever bitterness that grips you, i hope you can break free of it some day.

 

what are you talking about darkhorse
darkhorse/waxie/hitman.... get a life I feel sorry for you

where does that get the discussion.

For your info this is the first time i have ever posted anywhere on this board. You are over sensitive. Yer wont get to the bottom of stuff being like that!

 

Exactly right about the bully analogy. Pisses me off when I see these guys who have made a lot of money getting down on new traders who need to get past their initial anxieties.
I have been in a room with essentially the same guys for years. Consider them friends. But this behavior has really been getting to me lately. I saw them make a nice lady quit in tears. A guy who had a highly regarded profession but couldn't practice anymore because of physical disability got ground down to where he couldn't push the buttons. Another real nice guy who had a ton of potential just left in an fit of anger and dejection.
I have lost respect for these guys...I would switch rooms, but I don't really see an upside since I will be switching firms within days anyway. But it saddens me still. Particularly since we got a new trader (to our office...from within the firm), who is (or has been) a heavy hitter. It seems he has influenced others to be more like him. What was once a pleasant atmosphere has become one of tension and blame. Formerly considerate guys, trying to emulate this guy who is so full of himself, have become just like him.
Funny thing, he has been losing big since he transfered to our office. Maybe he NEEDS to blame it on something or someone else.

 

first of all, i have no religion. however, in a way, science is my religion. anything science has proven and can't prove yet is interesting to me. i don't need some story (the bible) to make my life feel important. in terms of the universe, i do believe my life is ultimately meaningless. i am just one animal living on this planet, like many others, for a very brief period of time. however, i also realize that this is my one chance to be alive. for me, knowing that i will be dead someday and that it's amazing that i'm actually alive in the first place is all i need to keep me going.

since we do not know why we're here and what everything is all about, i do not eliminate any possible explanation. however, if i had to bet, i would most definitely say that popular religions are not the real explanation. there may once have been a real person named jesus, and maybe he was nailed to a cross, but he was just a regular human being like you and i.

in some ways, i also think religion is a bad thing. i don't know the specific quote, but doesn't the bible open with something like, "on the first day, god said, 'let there be light,' and there was light." what a bunch of BS. noah's ark? give me a break. what's sad is that this nonsense gets repeatedly taught to children at a young age and when they get older they do it to their kids. if this wasn't the case, i think we would have a lot more open minded people today. instead, we have all these religious people not wanting to believe science...which i think is quite sad.

i'd like to make one more point. as i said earlier, things have reasonable explanations, but people like to believe extraordinary things instead. a perfect example is death. since i do not know for sure, i will not say anyone here is wrong, but... we all already know what death is. we have all already once not been born yet. death is the same thing.. you just don't exist. who your are/your soul is the product of your body being alive. when it dies, so do you. just like when a power switch is turned off and light from a lightbulb goes out. people like to ignore this reality and think that they will go to heaven and see all their dead friends and family. if that isn't wishful thinking, i don't know what is. it's amazing we even have this one chance to be alive, don't waste it.

 

For what it's worth, I enjoy reading the posts on the elite board. A lot of the submissions are profound and extremely interesting to read. That includes your posts darkhorse, but not when you go on one like you are with me. Superstition and psychology when trading are big problems for a lot of people. Thats why I would much prefer all my trades to be automatic,driven by my own software. Bringing God into discussions and then getting tetchy when someone responds is in my opinion naive to say the least. A lot of folks may consider that to be superstitious in itself so please go back to posting your interesting thoughts and not jumping to silly conclusions. When we do end up as worm poo, we will probably all think the same anyhow

 

Actually I don’t believe that worm poop is our final destiny. Some years ago I was employed by an insurance company and made a good friend there. This gentleman was around 58 when he became part of a four person team I was on supporting a batch claims processing system ( I was about 40 then). As the system would sometimes go down at night, or sudden change requirements would come in, we would be working together well
into the evening and sometimes at 3 am in the morning. So after a while we got to know each other. He, as it turned out, had been a history major, who switched into data processing to make a living. History was his big love. Along with stamp collecting, which went along with his interest in history. But he also lived to travel. (Being a confirmed bachelor, he could do that). Every chance he got, he would vacation in some country you’d never heard of. (How many of you have deliberately vacationed in Iceland? He said it was really great). Anyway, the friendship grew because we kept having these sessions where we could keep a conversational tennis ball going back and forth for a long
time without a break. I was then, and still am, an introvert who loves books and has more acqaintances then real friends. I’d never met anybody before who could keep a conversation going for such a long time without it breaking down into trivialities and clichés. He was a genuine raconteur. And I was able to consistently play his straight man. He was also a joiner, a member of various clubs where he would be a raconteur there as well. He said he did that to make sure he would be going out more nights that not. He told me, "You rust out faster than you wear out.".

Well, to get the point ( TOO LATE!) , he turned 60, and the company we worked for was now in downsizing mode. He was just months away from being able to retire. I was just within months of being able to vest for a partial pension (almost ten years of service). We were both scrambling to stay just one step ahead of the choppers. Eventually there was the day when the folks in our dept had to do the ‘go in door numbered with the
number on your paper slip’ routine. By a hair, I had vested by then. By a hair my friend was able to get his pension. And that’s when we got into another heavy conversation, in which he uttered a rare cliché by (mockingly) decrying our common destiny as food for worms. And of course I said “Actually Jim, its worst then that. We’ll be worm poop.” He stopped for a second, and then bellowed with laughter like I’d never heard him do before. Apparently I had broken a lot of tension he had been
under. Then he did a slight impersonation of a solemn priest and said “ashes to ashes, worm poop to worm poop”. Which made me laugh.

In the office, a month before my friend's last day with the company and the start of his pension, he had a stroke. I was the one that got in the ambulance to accompany him to the hospital. The stroke affected his speech to the extent that he now sounded like a mentally disabled person. He did not like to receive visitors because of this. A week or so later, they released him to go home. He had a distant cousin looking in on him from time to time. A week after that, just a few weeks before getting his pension, he had a heart attack brought on by his refusal to eat much of anything. And over the ensuing weekend, he passed away. I still miss him.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,
worm poop to worm poop.
In sure and certain hope of
the resurrection to eternal life through our Lord Jesus Christ.

 

Keep it appropriate...this is not the place my friend!!! let's stay secular.

 

what you guys don't understand is that everyone has a beleif, whether it's true or not doesn't matter.

you worship money, thats your religion.
you worship sense enjoyment, thats your religion.
you worship someone, thats your religion.

you may or may not be right, but to allow one type of religious discussion and not another is just censorship.

atheist thinks he's god, theist thinks he's not god. How can one be called religion and the other not.

if u promote secularism, hedonism, and atheism on these boards, don't get offended when someone promotes theism, in one form or another.

I myself am a theist (i accept the existence of God). Everyone has the freedom to beleive what they want, but for a living entity that can't see the back of his head, or doesn't know how the universe works, or can't comprehend or see life (spirit) with our scientific methods, we should all feel quite humble.

edit: besides, GOD BLESS AMERICA

 

agreed, but is this the place? would you be so ready to accept a little "Allah is Great" here? Anyway, I thought this was a TRADING site.

 

well as far as trading goes science is the proof that brings the charts to your screen religion doesnt. Science includes true fasle or maybe. Religion just maybe