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Published On: Oct 08, 2008 10:45 PM
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Published On: Oct 08, 2008 10:45 PM
Up For Air
Back from hyperfocus...
temporarily.
ADD, for those of you who don't live with it, is NOT the inability to pay attention. It's the inability to control the level of attention.
Note the words "control" and "level."
Mostly, this is a... challenge in a society that requires an ability to transfer attention on demand, and prizes steady but interruptible attention ("a good steady worker, that Fred. He can handle any assignment we give him...") White-collar work in corporate/government jobs, that which truly requires a college degree, is often about steadiness.
No one has EVER described me as "steady." I either cannot focus on a thing, or I hyperfocus on a thing to the detriment of other things. And I can't control where my attention lands (or doesn't.)
For a while, my hyperfocus was film. Then, for a few horrible months while I was losing my job, it was Dragon Quest VIII. I could not break the spell.
Right now, it's the stock market.
I apologize that blogging has been one of the things that has been out of focus for me. I just looked at my Bloglines feeds and realized that other bloggers have produced entire volumes while I've been re-learning technical analysis and options strategies. I think Diana has produced about 20 entries to my one.
But-- for once, I'm hyperfocused on something that can have a real, immediate, and positive effect on my life. This is rare, so I'm not trying to break the spell.
It's like learning to play a video game... with real money.
I've immersed myself in company research, market gurus, charts and statistics. I've been learning my own "risk tolerance" (translation: "How much money can you lose before you are scared shitless?")
What I want to achieve is -- discrimination. What factors are important? Which are not? And believe it or not, news has little to do with it. For example, I believe that the market as a whole will fall somewhat on Monday. This will be blamed on whatever negative news may be floating around, but it has more to do with the fact that statistically, prices are trending too high, and will get back to closer to their short-term averages. Even now, thousands of weekend traders are examining their portfolios and saying, "Hey, this was an up week! I need to take some profits here."
There will always be some positive news to blame an uptrend on. There will always be some negative news to blame a downtrend on. But real news-caused changes are either short-lived or are merely the triggers for something that was lurking in the statistics and/or the macroeconomics anyway.
The stock market is like poker. The brokers and exchanges are like casinos. They extract their fees for you sitting down to the game (commissions) and are the only guaranteed winners, but your real opponents are the other players.
Many of my real opponents are professional money managers. They control far more shares than private investors do. They win when their portfolios beat the S&P 500. Even if the S&P 500 is going down, they win if their clients aren't losing as much money as if they just bought a pile of index funds. This gives me a potential advantage.
The bad news is that I am notorious for not "knowing when to fold 'em." My losses so far have been entirely because I will not retreat... or retreat too early. (This killed me in college fencing matches, too. I won matches by running my opponent off the end of the strip-- but she could stop right into me. *sigh*)
I will learn. I will either learn, or I will build a buy-and-hold portfolio and walk away from the game. But I'm having too much fun, and I am far too hyperfocused to walk away yet.
ADD, for those of you who don't live with it, is NOT the inability to pay attention. It's the inability to control the level of attention.
Note the words "control" and "level."
Mostly, this is a... challenge in a society that requires an ability to transfer attention on demand, and prizes steady but interruptible attention ("a good steady worker, that Fred. He can handle any assignment we give him...") White-collar work in corporate/government jobs, that which truly requires a college degree, is often about steadiness.
No one has EVER described me as "steady." I either cannot focus on a thing, or I hyperfocus on a thing to the detriment of other things. And I can't control where my attention lands (or doesn't.)
For a while, my hyperfocus was film. Then, for a few horrible months while I was losing my job, it was Dragon Quest VIII. I could not break the spell.
Right now, it's the stock market.
I apologize that blogging has been one of the things that has been out of focus for me. I just looked at my Bloglines feeds and realized that other bloggers have produced entire volumes while I've been re-learning technical analysis and options strategies. I think Diana has produced about 20 entries to my one.
But-- for once, I'm hyperfocused on something that can have a real, immediate, and positive effect on my life. This is rare, so I'm not trying to break the spell.
It's like learning to play a video game... with real money.
I've immersed myself in company research, market gurus, charts and statistics. I've been learning my own "risk tolerance" (translation: "How much money can you lose before you are scared shitless?")
What I want to achieve is -- discrimination. What factors are important? Which are not? And believe it or not, news has little to do with it. For example, I believe that the market as a whole will fall somewhat on Monday. This will be blamed on whatever negative news may be floating around, but it has more to do with the fact that statistically, prices are trending too high, and will get back to closer to their short-term averages. Even now, thousands of weekend traders are examining their portfolios and saying, "Hey, this was an up week! I need to take some profits here."
There will always be some positive news to blame an uptrend on. There will always be some negative news to blame a downtrend on. But real news-caused changes are either short-lived or are merely the triggers for something that was lurking in the statistics and/or the macroeconomics anyway.
The stock market is like poker. The brokers and exchanges are like casinos. They extract their fees for you sitting down to the game (commissions) and are the only guaranteed winners, but your real opponents are the other players.
Many of my real opponents are professional money managers. They control far more shares than private investors do. They win when their portfolios beat the S&P 500. Even if the S&P 500 is going down, they win if their clients aren't losing as much money as if they just bought a pile of index funds. This gives me a potential advantage.
The bad news is that I am notorious for not "knowing when to fold 'em." My losses so far have been entirely because I will not retreat... or retreat too early. (This killed me in college fencing matches, too. I won matches by running my opponent off the end of the strip-- but she could stop right into me. *sigh*)
I will learn. I will either learn, or I will build a buy-and-hold portfolio and walk away from the game. But I'm having too much fun, and I am far too hyperfocused to walk away yet.
Posted: Sun - July 30, 2006 at 09:29 AM | | | | |