if you can't discuss it then it is not worthy of consideration in the first place.:eek: ps i too have learned a thing or two, please let's continue.
Well you can discuss it only to a certain extent Faster, what people like Dan, Stu, Dark, and certainly Jem do not understand is that this is not philosophy nor is it religion. It is an experience... Try and keep an open heart, mind and spirit... And please folks try and keep in mind this one simple truth about trading... Trading at the higher echelon is an experience, and as such words will never do it justice, for what one can express with the use of words will always be immeasurably less than what one can experience... To put it a little more poetically and to quote one of my favorite Zen proverbs; ~The finger pointing at the moon; is not the moon itself~ My intention with this thread was not to make it about eastern philosophy, but trading... The only thing eastern flavored about it from the onset was the title... Everything posted up until a few weeks ago were my words or two quotes from Hemingway and Poe that I found much trading truth in... I aslo found truth in the Zen and Gita passages so I figured I would share them, should have had my head examined :eek: For some reason people like Dan, Dark, Stu, and Jem get very insecure about the things their closed minds can't quite grasp and as a result they attack instead of just asking me where I was coming from and how it gets applied to trading... Sad really Anyway Faster we can continue to converse about what we got into last night if you would like, but I will not engage in any conversations with these clowns (you know who you are) about anything relating to eastern philosophy! PEACE and good trading, Publias BTW-----> whats up wit the Anna Nicole Smith video, you just had me laughing out loud with the dog picture!
i don't know about the others but dark seems a pretty smart guy and very well read. are you so sure you want to ignore him? personally i'd like his input but i must say i am a bit surprised by his opinion here -i thought he'd be the first to embrace these concepts. i thought i knew him somewhat, now he has me totally confused. I am intrigued by this concept of inner peace. where does this inner peace originate, i mean to say does it have a rational basis or am i missing the boat here? for instance i get the feeling dark has a kind of inner peace of his own and i believe he would agree that this stems from his absolute (albeit irrational) conviction in a supernatural higher power. is this where you too find your inner peace? am i way off here, too "westernized"? please explain. on the anna nichole smith thing, she said she has contracted to do a porn movie that will include 2 girls, 7 guys and a dog. see the pic for that lucky dog's reaction when he first heard he is to be anna's leading dog in her new porno movie.
The labels 'wins & losses' exist soley within the realm of thought, as such they are not only relative they are inseperable... They are just two sides of one reality, which is opportunity... Your mind and ego is what categorizes and labels the two events... I don't feel that seeing the two events as being seperate from one another would be seeing reality, it would be seeing reality as my ego distorts it...She does not know whether she is accomodating or hurting a trader by moving up or down, she just moves of her own accord... When I started to see that they cannot co-exist without each other and I started to see the folly in longing one and avoiding the other I started to approach her in a selfless manner. I broke through the illusion that "I" could control the distribution. I simply surrendered my will and ego to her... I am detached and indifferent to the results of my actions because I see that I cannot control the result, only my actions... This is NOT to say that I don't care! It is not to give up all responsibility for my actions like Dark thinks... It is just a matter of having the humility to accept that I cannot have any control over anything external such as wins and losses or the distribution in which they may come... They really only exist in my mind and the only thing that matters is how I interact with her... It does not mean that I simply give up and no longer care and walk the earth as a bum, like Dark so eloquently posted a few pages back... Nothing could be further from the truth... So yes Faster I started to feel, see, understand, and most importantly intuitively sense the "oneness" of the two... I stopped looking at them as two seperated events existing outside of my head, and started to see them as one, just one more opportunity to strike on my edge... Not sure this little rant makes any sense to you Faster, but it is my truth... PEACE and good trading, Publias
Well it must come from understanding Faster, but sometimes the rational and logical mind is not the "right" tool... When you read my last post regarding "wins and losses" you will start to see that it was my "rational and logical" mind that perpetuated the folly in the first place... Sometimes these concepts are so simple and uncomplicated that they come across as pure irrational and illogical nonsense to someone who has not experienced them first hand. The temptation to overthink the simplicity can be overwhelming at times. Yes it must come from understanding, but sometimes you are going to have to accept the truth or way as existential and not solely intellectual... Remember the little spoon boy in The Matrix??? Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead... only try to realize the truth. Neo: What truth? Spoon boy: There is no spoon. Neo: There is no spoon? Spoon boy: Then you'll see, that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself. If I were to have told you wins are losses a few days ago, your rational and logical mind would have immediately passed it off as nonsense... But now that I explained myself it may make a little more sense to you... You see I did not just try to convince myself they were the same, I was not trying to bend the spoon! It was myself and my perception that had to be changed... I did not strive to attain detachment from the results of my actions, it came with understanding... Oh just a little disclaimer Faster.... The things I talk about on this thread are the way I am when I am in the flow... I do not pretend to tell you guys that I can maintain this ideal mindset all of the time, I often get in my own way! Less and less these days but I am by no means a master of 'this way'... PEACE and good trading Faster, Publias
Well I feel Dark and Dan both are very intelligent and I have told both the same, but they are still both etremely arrogant and closed minded people, which is sad because I feel I could learn from them if they just could come accross in a better manner
I just liked the 'karmic' flavor of it and the way he expresses it at the end of the song... Rage was an incredibly talented group imo, but they are a little too angry for me... Good workout music Zack cracks me up! I probably can only 'accept' less than 10% of what the guy says, BUT anybody who can get up and express what he feels without givin a f*ck and with that much energy has my respect PEACE to you my friend MS, Publias
Am I skeptical and opinionated, yes. Am I insecure or close minded, not in the least. And calling me close minded is neither here nor there because its such a freebie insult. Any person who disagrees with any other person anywhere can be called close minded for no reason other than that they disagree. A close minded person is one who does not consider new evidence or new lines of argument in the first place. I have considered what is being discussed here in great detail, deeply and fully and long before I ever came on this board. And I have found it to be wanting. That's not close minded, that's open minded but willing to stand up and make a judgment call based on what I know. Let me expand on my view a little bit. Someone suggested that being fully detached from wins and losses would equate to trading nirvana, and questioned whether anyone would disagree with that. The answer is yes, I would whole heartedly disagree with that. I believe that any attempt to artificially anesthetize reality results in losing touch with reality. Denying emotional input would be consistent with that anesthesia thesis. When you hit your thumb with a hammer, you feel pain. Why do you have pain sensors? So that you know something is wrong. Your body is telling you, 'hey buddy don't do that again or you are going to screw up our thumb!' If your perceptions are skewed, pain and fear are your enemies because your skewed perception tends to create overly negative experiences that blow the actual situation out of proportion and thus cause over reaction on the negative side. But if your perceptions are correct and objective, then emotion, pain and fear are your ALLIES because they give you valuable input that allow you to improve and grow. I believe that first and foremost we must embrace reality. How do you know you are doing something wrong if you refuse to listen to negative signals. How can you sharpen and hone your skills if you spend all your time convincing yourself that everything is perfect. How do you cultivate your drive to succeed while attempting to convince yourself that it doesn't matter whether you succeed or not. On another note, I am an emotional person and I enjoy having a wide range of emotions. I feel that having emotions contributes to the glory of life. Paul Tudor Jones once said that if he could choose between being steady and normal versus having glorious highs and aching lows, he would take the highs and lows every time. Why? Because that is LIFE, that is LIVING. But it's a two way street. If you want to feel triumph, you also have to feel despair at times. I would much rather maintain my sense of humanity and my sense of experiencing reality to the fullest. And you know what? In a weird way, the pain is as beautiful as the triumph when it's all said and done. Some of my darkest hours have led to my greatest strides forward. When I am angry or depressed, my emotions act like a catapult. I fall back, back, back- and then my self pity is galvanized into cold steel resolve and I feel a ferocious determination to come back and succeed twice as large. When I am hit with a painful blow, I take the pain of that blow and I transform it into knowledge and energy and come back stronger than before. Metal is tempered by fire. To be fully tempered you have to walk through that fire and let it burn. If you try to deny the truth of experience, the true victories and defeats of life, your motivation will suffer. A 'false calm' perspective carries the danger of distorting input, dampens motivation, and removes some of the joy of living life to the fullest in my opinion. Do I seek enlightenment? Yes I do. Do I seek detachment? Yes I do. But NOT as ends in themselves. When I understand what is going on in the markets, that is, when I am 'enlightened' as to the current state and being of the markets, I feel detached. But it is a byproduct of my striving for knowledge. I do not worship detachment, nor do I seek it out in a hurry. Because it is only proper to be cool and calm when things are going well. When things are NOT going well, you should NOT be cool and calm in your motivations, you should be aware and alert and single mindedly intent on fixing what is wrong! I believe that trading is in many ways a microcosm of life. A fractal piece of life if you will. Attitudes that we take the markets, we should take to life. Who among you desires to live life with no concern for triumphs or defeats? When you see your children born, when old friends surface after years of lost contact, when something horrible happens to a loved one, do you want to feel the full force of your emotions or do you want to be detached and saying 'hmmm, look at that?' I resent any attempts to deny the true force of reality and consistent elements of life. This is why I say, do not try to artificially distance yourself from emotions. Learn to CONTROL your emotions, but do not dampen them with mental tricks like trying to say wins and losses don't matter. Great googly mooglies, what is the point of trading if not to ultimately WIN??? Yes I know, there is a dichotomy, a conundrum. We must be focused on the long term goal but be calm and collected in the short run. But the answer is NOT to take a short run perspective of 'ooohhhmmmm, nothing maters, oohhhmmm.' We must learn to CONTROL our emotions, not defang them. Imagine your emotions as a powerful lion. The wider emotional range you have, the bigger and more powerful the lion is. This lion can be your enemy or it can be your ally. The way of artificial detachment would be to defang and declaw this lion and shoot him up with opium, so that he has no power anymore. But then he cannot HELP you either. I say, do not declaw this lion. Learn to control him. Publias quotes Zach De La Rocha (who in turn quotes Galatians). One thing old Zach did say that I feel has merit is this: 'anger is a gift.' I suppose it depends on how far you want to go in life. But even then, emotions are your allies rather than your friends. If you take trading as far as you want it, then guess what: your emotions will calm down by themselves! If you are trading small amounts and not risking much and paying the bills, you'll have highs and lows sure, but by and large you will be cool and it will become 'just a job' NATURALLY without ARTIFICIAL PRETENSION that 'wins and losses don't matter.' But if you want to take your trading farther, if you want to walk a higher path, play a bigger game, you need that lion. You need his motivation and you need his input. You need the drive to be constantly learning and growing. You need to FEEL. And you need to stay as IN TOUCH with REALITY as possible. Traders are fond of saying 'let the market make the decisions.' In this vein, I say 'let reality make the decisions.' If reality is pissing you off or getting you down, that is a sign that YOU need to change your perception, your knowledge or your actions. Think, grow, learn, look at things in a new way. But jumpin' jehoshafat, do NOT go into some fantasy land of ohm!
Thanks darkhorse, considered thoughts so well written . I really enjoyed that post. I find myself concurring with most of it. [I think it's time for my blue pill Nurse] However , I just felt you left the last sentance a little short. ".....do NOT go into some fantasy land of ohm..." or nether world of religious indoctrination. What you have said, would I think make a better intellectual appraoch to trading and produces a far more effective grounding to work from. It can be a hell of a job to put a state of mind into practice in a prescribed format. When trading and in life as much as possible, an approach which is pre prescribed, allows states of mind to play havok without causing wreckage. Or... just work it out properly before you do it It worked better where you left the "He" & "Him" determinate out of things
I am intrigued by this concept of inner peace. where does this inner peace originate, i mean to say does it have a rational basis or am i missing the boat here? LOL Yes you are missing the boat completely. If you can't discuss it then it is not worthy of consideration in the first place. Yes, you are right again. Not on this board anyway. I don't know about the others but dark seems a pretty smart guy and very well read. Considering what you wrote about him long time ago, it seems you just need to argue.