Well it must come from understanding Faster, but sometimes the rational and logical mind is not the "right" tool... If you followed his posts for some time you would know he will never understand the above statement. In his simplicity he thinks there is nothing beyond REASON.
Stu I totally agree that ALL forms of indoctrination are bad- religious, political, social, material or otherwise...I also find the subtle hint of suggestion that I am indoctrinated to be a chuckleworthy one...au contraire mon frere. My eyes are wide open, my landscape crystal clear. Let me say this loud and clear: if your perspective is correct and your understanding true, then reason and emotion are not internal enemies- they are true blue allies and the best of friends. The mind and heart were meant to intertwine with no conflict between the two. Bad ideas, faulty philosophy and incorrect perception of true reality is what drives them apart. I agree that is tough to harness emotions and make use of them instead of trying to deny them or anesthetize them. But the toughness of it also speaks of the rightness and trueness of it. Life is hard. Competition is brutal. Getting to the top is hard because there are precious few spots available. Great achievements require great strides require great motivation. You don't get to be a badass by smiling and sipping your tea. No bliss without the abyss. Physics uses the term velocity to combine the elements of speed and direction. I consider the term excellence to combine the elements of working smarter and working harder. The first determines your direction and the second determines your progress. See, relativists are fond of saying that there is no right and wrong. But as soon as a standard is applied, that no right or wrong stuff goes right out the window. Excellence is concretely objective. Compare all the race horses who have ever won the Kentucky Derby, and you will find that they have multiple points of similarity in their strides and muscle distribution and frame. Compare all the race car drivers who have ever won the Indy 500 and you will find that even with their style differences they all have points of similarity in how they view and respond to the road, the track, the conditions, their own mental and physical conditioning. Compare all the carpenters, painters, athletes, accountants, WHATEVER- and you will find that the best all have multiple points of similarity that represent an objective reality curve. I think of it as a curve and not a straight line because although the shortest distance between two points is a line, a curve better represents the shifting elements of space and time and the complexities of life. If there is no agreed upon standard, there is no best way to look at things because there is no agreed upon place to go. If we don't care where we go, it doesn't matter what direction to take. But if there IS a defined standard, a tangible goal we want to attain, then there is absolutely a best way of getting there. There are levels of efficiency, strength, speed, elegance, EXCELLENCE- that are available for all with open eyes to see. How anyone can consider reality subjective even as the objective nature of excellence beats like a human heart in all great undertakings is beyond me. The reason I can come across so adamant is because I know that underlying standard of excellence is there, and while there will be myriad differences in style the nitty gritty of the deep substance is always the same. Going back to trading, it is hard to harness your emotions and control them. But it is even harder to fight them and pretend you are not fighting them, which is the only other way to go really. Facing down emotions and making them into your ally makes you stronger, whereas trying to defang or ignore them makes you weaker. Strength builds on strength, allowing you to ever expand your horizons. Weakness builds on weakness in a destructive circle as well- pretend this little thing isn't bad and pretty soon you'll be pretending all the bad stuff in your life is no big deal and taking the rationalizers' way out. A motorcycle does not fight with a car because the car will win. When the conscious mind fights with the subconscious, the subconscious will win. When illusions fight with reality, reality will win. Or at best there will be a truce that leaves you weak. This is why I stress embracing reality and harnessing the power of our divinely granted ability to objectively assess and learn from reality if we give it our all. (This is why my belief in God is more certain than my belief in mathematics or gravity, by the way, because contrary to being an illusion, He is at the center of reality and His presence is so powerful, immediate and inescapable that I could not deny Him if I tried with every fibre of my being. The objective reality curve of excellence is ultimately His stamp on things. Why does a line of power and excellence run through all endeavors, no matter how varied or dissimilar they may be? Because one Creator resides at the very center of reality, one creator has shaped and formed all things with His standard in mind. The objectivity of excellence resonates with the source.) Logic without desire has no drive. Desire without logic has no direction. Talent without motivation will never be fully tapped. Intelligence without common sense is more dangerous than helpful. Denying reality in any way shape or form is always and forever a bad idea. And that includes any and all relativistic talk that is ultimately a case of the conscious trying to fool the subconscious, rather than proper integration of both through true understanding and by extension right action.
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!' So essentially what you are saying is that I should feel emotional pain and elation over things that are simply out of my hands... That I should let the natural distributions of wins and losses that the market so graciously hands out effect me in an emotional way??? So I should let my emotions swing with my equity curve??? Dark your mind is so tightly bound in a dualistic manner that you cannot even comprehend the point... I never said that I do not feel emotion (frustration, pain, struggle, sometimes even anger) when I do not play well... Look back a few pages where I told the story of my blunder... Dark you are saying that I 'artificially" anesthetize emotion, but nothing could be further from the truth... When you see the reality of the game the emotions that are stemmed from the results leave on their own accord... For the last time Dark I am detached from the results NOT the process... I care a great deal if I play well or not... And that is the thing you simply do not get... One does not detach himself from reality only the reality that his ego and selfish cravings create... See your problem with understanding my view on "wins and losses" is that you are equating "losses" with mistakes... I aim inward not outward, I am detached from he results on a micro-level NOT the process... At the end of the day if I play well and end up losing 5k I feel alot better than I do when I make 10k and play shitty, because like the quote you like so much says... What you reap is what you sow! how long until those errors catch up to you?? Not long because the market will give and take unconditionally and if you are not in accord with her it is just matter of time... You say embrace reality right? Ask yourself whether "wins and losses" exist outside of your mind??? Or they just labels we apply to define reality??? My reality is they are really just the same, just one more micro opportunity to exploit your edge on a macro level... If I am delusional for thinking or feeling this way then so be it, like I said under all of my prior writings on this thread, this is my truth! Now as you can see I am not affirming or denying any external truths here, nor did I ever on this entire thread. This is what arrogant close minded people cannot quite grasp about Taoism and Zen... It is not philosophy nor religion, because they are not arrogant enough to believe they know or have the ability to comprehend the ultimate/absolute truth... This is my truth! Because as Einstein said you can never open up the watch, but I assure you that you can open your SELF! BTW; Dark I am already profitable consistently for over 4 years(ft sole source income), for me it is not a matter of seeking external methods to make money(not to say I don't adapt and cultivate new methods), for me it is only a matter of aiming inward and making sure that I properly exploit those methods... Maybe this is where some of the confusion lies around here... I hope this can clear up some of your misconceptions... As you can see this WAS NOT an attempt to say you are wrong about anything, this is an attempt to verbally express MY TRUTH... Like you guys I am simply not arrogant enough to indulge in such folly! Did you even take the time to read the first page of this thread Dark, before you jumped on to enlighten everybody on how silly my way is??? PEACE and good trading, Publias
How can you profess to care deeply about the quality of your performance, yet not to care about results? Is the quality of performance not ultimately measured by the quality of results? What exactly is in our hands vs out of our hands as traders? What do we take responsibility for and what do we declare not our faults? If we must err on the side of taking on too much responsibility or too little, on which side of the line is it better to fall? I dare say there are answers to those questions, albeit broad ones. I do not suggest our emotions should swing wildly with our equity curves. (I would suggest equity curves should not swing wildly in the first place, but that's a different kettle of fish.) I agree that the ego and other irrelevant concerns should be purged, as being overly concerned with the ego is not logical. Wins and losses exist in multiple forms, both within our minds and within reality. If a mental concept is badly mismatched with reality, that mental concept will lead to destruction. Let's say a trader not only views losses as equivalent to wins, he views them as better than wins and more desirable than wins. He will soon be out of money and out of the game. Relativism becomes dangerous when it gets too far out of synch with reality. It also becomes dangerous when the conscious mind tries to embrace concepts that the subconscious does not accept. I fear for those who would embrace a concept that they cannot fully integrate. To believe halfway is deadly because inner conflict creates outer confusion. If your truth is one you can embrace fully bro, if you can see wins and losses as the same on the deepest levels of your subconscious, and if you have reached a point in doing so without damaging or limiting your skills, then you are in a very cool place. But it is a place with no name and threads pointing to it cannot act as a guide. Why did I step in here and challenge you? There are things you have said and things you have not said, as well as interpretations by others and additions by others, that lead to my decision to offer an alternative view. Views have flavors and tastes just like ice cream. If I have misinterpreted your points here, it may be because I misinterpreted the flow of the thread and joined in an incorrect interpretation of your offerings. So be it. If this is the case, then I am like the student offering the solution to a different math problem than the one the professor wrote on the board. But it is still a viable problem to be solved nonetheless. I am glad you are successful bro, more power to you. (great feeling, is it not?) I am just another traveler on the road of truth, albeit an outspoken one. A lot in this world is grey, but a lot of it is black and white as well. In voicing my opinions I am defending truth and also learning a few new things about the way reality is shaped. You can accuse me of being close minded and incapable of sight, yet I learn more and see more every day. The best guides are the brightest and broadest ones, as they are less likely to be swallowed up by the vagaries of the path. If I anger you, brother Publias, be wise as you are clearly wise when the markets tempt you to anger (if they ever do). Take hold of the barbs in which you detect hostility and use the pain of those barbs to cleanse yourself further, purge yourself of ego, deny yourself the pleasure of retaliation. Forgive the excesses of a friend- or enemy, depending on how you see me.
LOL Preach it brother. Bottom line is the bottom line. On another note: Consider this passage from p. 44 of "Flow In Sports: The Keys to Optimal Experiences and Performances." Posted on both threads for benefit of discussion. ============== Move Beyond The Comfort Zone A fear of failure holds some people back from embracing challenge and improving their skills. Challenge involves the risk of not succeeding. Complacency may be a symptom of the fear of failure; for some individuals, complacency occurs because of their preference for staying within the comfort zone of performance. While comfort and ease may be appropriate when sport is used as a form of relaxation, they do not make a good mind-set for athletes trying to achieve new skill levels or improve. It is not possible to go forward while seeking to maintain a comfortable feeling about performance. ==============