Among the many things you learn on the Georgia O'Keeffe Landscape Tour at Ghost Ranch is that O'Keeffe's ashes are scattered upon the top of Pedernal - that magnificent mountain that occupies the western horizon. And so, in addition to painting Pedernal so famously and so often, she is also a part of it, in a certain way.
My grandmother's ashes are scattered at the Grand Canyon - a place she loved. I don't know whether she got the idea from O'Keeffe, but it is quite reasonable to assume my grandmother knew the fact about O'Keeffe, at least.
Being made up to look alive and lowered into the ground in a plush, overpriced box makes no sense to me. I had long wished to be cremated when I die - mostly because, I think, it seems simple and pure - a sort of graceful return to the earth - full circle, all that. But recently, I find myself feeling that even this is unnecessary. What does it matter what happens to my body when I am no longer alive within it?
Perhaps mine is a stoic impulse. For a long time, when I would pass an animal dead in the road, I would feel terribly bad not just for the suffering I didn't want it to have felt, but for the humiliating and exposed location in which it died.
Well, I know no remedy for the way the suffering makes me feel. But I no longer feel bad for the location of the animal. I can see now that where and how it died cannot subtract from the grace, and joy, and miracle that was its life. It hurts me no longer that an animal might be laying in the road, but for all the other places it might have met its end. If I say anything to myself, it is that I hope it experienced what happiness its nature afforded it during its life. In such a moment, I might more likely feel pride as feel despair - the idea of celebrating, rather than mourning, life at its end is not some "life hack", but a natural reaction for anyone with a stoic mindset.
And now, I have found that I feel the same for myself. No thought of how I might die - no matter how my body might break, or what dehumanized end I could some day endure - can subtract from the grace of my life. Place me gently in the ground with a ceremony, or throw my lifeless body in a ditch to later be scavenged, it does not matter to me - only what I have done during my life will ever matter.
And so it is, that I have come to feel that it does not matter to me where I am buried, or how my body is otherwise disposed of. I believe that it will matter more to my surviving family and friends. That is not to say, necessarily, that they should be left to decide - I don't think it's right to put such a decision on others - but I think that, in time, I will decide in a way that is compassionate to them and that I believe will give the event whatever meaning it can have, to help them make sense and go on living their own lives to the fullest.
Wednesday, July 13, 2016
Things I Thought About At Ghost Ranch
Today, I visited Ghost Ranch, near Abiquiu, New Mexico - best known as the location where Georgia O'Keeffe spent her summers for the last fifty years of her life, and where many of her most famous paintings were completed. I had long wanted to visit, O'Keeffe being a link to my grandmother, from which my own fixation on the artist has grown.
But, first: what portion of my love for the Southwest is attributable, respectively, to O'Keeffe, my grandmother, or neither? I wish I could say. Unfortunately, I have trained myself to be highly skeptical of each of two very different narratives, each its own epistemological archetype, so to speak:
1) The one that says that one of these was some magical seed that grew into substantially all of my fixation, as if after some critical event, nothing could have prevented it.
2) The opposite one, which says that "it was a buncha stuff" simply because, I suppose, my life has involved so many events, well, how could it have just been one or two things?
No, the truth is probably more complicated - it usually is. I actually think my grandmother - along with the family vacations I took, and the time I spent with her at the Grand Canyon - planted something like the metaphorical seed, which mostly remained dormant for a very long time. Then, two things happened: I started traveling to the Southwest to hike - but, really to explore; and, I rediscovered O'Keeffe not just as something identifiable from my grandmother's wall, but as a compelling artist.
I thought a fair bit about these things at Ghost Ranch. I thought a lot more about what my grandmother would have been thinking, and feeling, had she been there with me. In doing so, I remembered nuances of her personality better than I had in a long time - perhaps better than I had ever remembered them - her sense of humor, her curiosity and love of learning and love of teaching and love of nature and of discovering the world, as it is. Yes, more than a love of nature, I think she taught me a broader lesson about reconciling your own idealism to the reality of the world. To do so is to find joy in real things. To fail to do so is to live in a bubble, and by doing so, to predispose yourself to suffering.
But, I digress.
A number of O'Keeffe's paintings that I was already familiar with struck me more profoundly in this setting, aided as many were by the very landscapes from which they were derived, and the stories surrounding their creation. To see Pedernal in person left me in awe; to see Ladder To The Moon at the same time choked me up. It's been moments just like that one that taught me how important it is to put forth the effort to find some connection, to actively try to understand what others have sought to express.
Ghost Ranch was much, much bigger than I thought. And, the history of Ghost Ranch is quite a bit bigger than O'Keeffe. That's fine. It was interesting. But not all of the history combined could match the small details about O'Keeffe, such as the admission that she would climb up on her neighbor's roof at night when they were gone (she had her own roof onto which she could climb...) - that insight into someone's personality is rare, and it is utter gold. I heard it, and I laughed, and I knew her better at once - I was sure of it.
I sat in the shade and read an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story collection from the library which I have been thoroughly impressed by. I thought about work a little bit - there was just enough reception for me to get random work messages and emails at awkward intervals. I thought about the bottle list at Casey Brewing, which I will visit Thursday.
Why did I go to New Mexico? A combination of reasons, so I say, but Ghost Ranch was the seed that told me that I needed to visit, and was the one thing I was certain I needed to do while I was there. Looked at that way, the time off work and travel expenses made for one pricey visit to Ghost Ranch! And yet I am not disappointed. The people at Ghost Ranch were friendly, and the place was welcoming - you could wander as you wished, and there were hiking trails and small exhibits and plenty of places to relax, in company or solitude. The lunch that was served was wholesome and satiating and communal. And yet, it was not the place with which I connected - it was the mythology of O'Keeffe and her paintings, and through this, my grandmother.
But, first: what portion of my love for the Southwest is attributable, respectively, to O'Keeffe, my grandmother, or neither? I wish I could say. Unfortunately, I have trained myself to be highly skeptical of each of two very different narratives, each its own epistemological archetype, so to speak:
1) The one that says that one of these was some magical seed that grew into substantially all of my fixation, as if after some critical event, nothing could have prevented it.
2) The opposite one, which says that "it was a buncha stuff" simply because, I suppose, my life has involved so many events, well, how could it have just been one or two things?
No, the truth is probably more complicated - it usually is. I actually think my grandmother - along with the family vacations I took, and the time I spent with her at the Grand Canyon - planted something like the metaphorical seed, which mostly remained dormant for a very long time. Then, two things happened: I started traveling to the Southwest to hike - but, really to explore; and, I rediscovered O'Keeffe not just as something identifiable from my grandmother's wall, but as a compelling artist.
I thought a fair bit about these things at Ghost Ranch. I thought a lot more about what my grandmother would have been thinking, and feeling, had she been there with me. In doing so, I remembered nuances of her personality better than I had in a long time - perhaps better than I had ever remembered them - her sense of humor, her curiosity and love of learning and love of teaching and love of nature and of discovering the world, as it is. Yes, more than a love of nature, I think she taught me a broader lesson about reconciling your own idealism to the reality of the world. To do so is to find joy in real things. To fail to do so is to live in a bubble, and by doing so, to predispose yourself to suffering.
But, I digress.
A number of O'Keeffe's paintings that I was already familiar with struck me more profoundly in this setting, aided as many were by the very landscapes from which they were derived, and the stories surrounding their creation. To see Pedernal in person left me in awe; to see Ladder To The Moon at the same time choked me up. It's been moments just like that one that taught me how important it is to put forth the effort to find some connection, to actively try to understand what others have sought to express.
Ghost Ranch was much, much bigger than I thought. And, the history of Ghost Ranch is quite a bit bigger than O'Keeffe. That's fine. It was interesting. But not all of the history combined could match the small details about O'Keeffe, such as the admission that she would climb up on her neighbor's roof at night when they were gone (she had her own roof onto which she could climb...) - that insight into someone's personality is rare, and it is utter gold. I heard it, and I laughed, and I knew her better at once - I was sure of it.
I sat in the shade and read an F. Scott Fitzgerald short story collection from the library which I have been thoroughly impressed by. I thought about work a little bit - there was just enough reception for me to get random work messages and emails at awkward intervals. I thought about the bottle list at Casey Brewing, which I will visit Thursday.
Why did I go to New Mexico? A combination of reasons, so I say, but Ghost Ranch was the seed that told me that I needed to visit, and was the one thing I was certain I needed to do while I was there. Looked at that way, the time off work and travel expenses made for one pricey visit to Ghost Ranch! And yet I am not disappointed. The people at Ghost Ranch were friendly, and the place was welcoming - you could wander as you wished, and there were hiking trails and small exhibits and plenty of places to relax, in company or solitude. The lunch that was served was wholesome and satiating and communal. And yet, it was not the place with which I connected - it was the mythology of O'Keeffe and her paintings, and through this, my grandmother.
Thursday, July 7, 2016
On The Road, and some random thoughts
Today, I am in Wichita, Kansas, on day two of a long - and hopefully low-speed - trip through northern New Mexico and central Colorado. I have a bad habit of trying to rush my time on trips, but today I am near-giddy to admit that I am feeling no such rush. I once called Wichita "the poor man's Omaha"; this goes back to Reid and I's propensity to use that phrase whenever possible. It always makes me giggle a bit inside - not least when it is an unjustifiably reductive and one-dimensional comparison.
To wit: is blogging just the poor man's writing of literature? It often feels that way to me - but, perhaps that is because in my blogging I strive to rise above the mere accounting of facts and to write something internally consistent, something with a shade of permanence, something encoded with some wisdom. Literature is supposed to be nothing BUT that, but I usually find it to be a lot of work. If literature is a world where I might spend a whole morning crafting a particular paragraph to be just right (and I have spent much longer than that), then blogging at least allows me to quickly complete something that I feel accomplishes its purpose, and release it into the world.
Will I ever publish anything literate that I have written? I suppose it pivots on the word, "publish." I would like, at least, to call something finished, and put it in some format that feels, well... Set in stone in some way. I love to think that could be a book that sits on my shelf, but perhaps even that is unnecessary. In any case, I have perhaps six or seven months before my free time largely evaporates; it at least suggests a natural deadline to finish something. And, I suspect I have enough short stories that I like - or, at least like well enough - to form into something that feels "of a piece."
If there is any problem with this strategy, it is that I have not learned how to tell when something is done - I think a person can go on changing a story essentially forever; the longer you gaze into the characters, and the situations, the more cracks you see, and the more you can try to go about fixing them by shifting elements in the story. Doing so, it turns out, is approximately as likely to cause additional cracking as it is to fix the original cracks. Because of this, determining when a story is finished seems to me to be, itself, an artform.
-------------------------------------------------------
I have a Twitter account (@D3302) which I use mostly to follow particular topics - Finance chiefly among them - and a spattering of other unique individuals that I stumble across (Twitter is especially good at that sort of "discovery"). One of those is Chris Arnade (@Chris_arnade). He is an ex-Wall Street banker who travels the U.S. and photographs the poor, especially certain groups that stand for what you might describe as particular "structural" issues in our social fabric - things like drug addiction and immigration. I am not often touched by works of art focused on those subjects - to me, many of them can't help but feel of a piece - trod upon ground, and so for me their impact has largely been drained. But his photos and writing make it through - they feel unlike anything else I have experienced, and they feel important. Somehow, his work seems more real (that old artistic trump card!) than anything else out there right now.
To wit: is blogging just the poor man's writing of literature? It often feels that way to me - but, perhaps that is because in my blogging I strive to rise above the mere accounting of facts and to write something internally consistent, something with a shade of permanence, something encoded with some wisdom. Literature is supposed to be nothing BUT that, but I usually find it to be a lot of work. If literature is a world where I might spend a whole morning crafting a particular paragraph to be just right (and I have spent much longer than that), then blogging at least allows me to quickly complete something that I feel accomplishes its purpose, and release it into the world.
Will I ever publish anything literate that I have written? I suppose it pivots on the word, "publish." I would like, at least, to call something finished, and put it in some format that feels, well... Set in stone in some way. I love to think that could be a book that sits on my shelf, but perhaps even that is unnecessary. In any case, I have perhaps six or seven months before my free time largely evaporates; it at least suggests a natural deadline to finish something. And, I suspect I have enough short stories that I like - or, at least like well enough - to form into something that feels "of a piece."
If there is any problem with this strategy, it is that I have not learned how to tell when something is done - I think a person can go on changing a story essentially forever; the longer you gaze into the characters, and the situations, the more cracks you see, and the more you can try to go about fixing them by shifting elements in the story. Doing so, it turns out, is approximately as likely to cause additional cracking as it is to fix the original cracks. Because of this, determining when a story is finished seems to me to be, itself, an artform.
-------------------------------------------------------
I have a Twitter account (@D3302) which I use mostly to follow particular topics - Finance chiefly among them - and a spattering of other unique individuals that I stumble across (Twitter is especially good at that sort of "discovery"). One of those is Chris Arnade (@Chris_arnade). He is an ex-Wall Street banker who travels the U.S. and photographs the poor, especially certain groups that stand for what you might describe as particular "structural" issues in our social fabric - things like drug addiction and immigration. I am not often touched by works of art focused on those subjects - to me, many of them can't help but feel of a piece - trod upon ground, and so for me their impact has largely been drained. But his photos and writing make it through - they feel unlike anything else I have experienced, and they feel important. Somehow, his work seems more real (that old artistic trump card!) than anything else out there right now.
Friday, June 10, 2016
June of 2016 Update
Today I wanted to take a little time to describe what my life is like, so that ten years from now I have more than my memories to rely on, which by that time will be hazy, distorted, conflated, and simplified. I want to learn how living my life a certain way impacts my happiness and success, but how would I know if I can't accurately reflect on the past?
Where to start?
I drink too much coffee. It gets me through my work mornings without eating (a form of intermittent fasting for which my discipline has sadly degraded), and spurs me to write - especially fiction. It fills my stomach with zero calories, but the dreaded second-order effects of its overuse include my own intolerance for empty-stomach hunger, intermittent inability to sleep, and I suspect, frentic dreams where I am always striving to complete tasks that feel utterly detached from any spiritual drive.
I drink too much beer. It is automatic with most social interaction and a social pasttime of its own. I don't believe I drink too often, but when I drink it is frequently too much. This pattern throws my metabolism out of wack - often back and forth from ketosis - and plays havoc on my digestive system. I inevitably crave more carbs for a day or two afterwards - the combination makes it difficult to stay at the weight that I know I am capable of maintaining in a healthy, steady state.
I have been a contractor at work for almost a full year now, which allows me to travel as much as I have long wished to. Travel rejuvenates me, even as the planning and logistics frequently stress me out. But, travel also exacerbates the same problems I experience at home, because there are more free days, and more free hours, for my day-to-day, hour-to-hour compulsions to assert themselves. I drink too much coffee and drink too much beer. But worse yet, I'm almost always anxious, and I have to constantly fight the impulse to hurry up with whatever I happen to be doing, so that I may get on to the next thing.
It's all a vicious cycle, right? The miracle of productivity can be achieved with coffee - its only cost is sanity, any chance of mental clarity, any chance of watching clouds move across the sky or listening to the water running through a creek on some pastoral afternoon. There has to be a better way, a middle ground.
I am going to Santa Fe in about a month. This middle ground is my goal - I wish to experience gloriously unhurried days even as I make the most of my time. I want to read books for pleasure and not to be urgently seeking wisdom, a leg up, skipping pages, throwing books aside ten pages in.
---------------------------------------------------
I have gotten closer to my friends and further from everyone else. And you know what? That's something I consciously decided to do. But, now I can see that it is misguided. I should wish to be closer to my friends and closer to everyone else, as well. Or, at least be open to meeting new people - I should ruthlessly seek to come to know people well enough to discover what we can offer each other. I know I will regret it later in life if I never learn to do this.
A couple years ago at work, I concluded that I needed to open my mouth less, advertise myself less, and execute on my work more. I knew, just knew, that if I simply worked at doing my job better, than recognition would follow. But, it hasn't. Quite the opposite - even as I have become an informal authority on the team (earned the hard way, one careful decision at a time), recognition has all but disappeared. What can I make of this but to chalk it up to the reality of human systems, the reality of people? People are not rational - not even *your* boss - the person you probably assume, by default, knows how to be fair. That person is not fair - they are only fair enough to seem fair, if you are lucky, at that. They are probably playing for themselves, and whether that means also playing for you is a coin toss, a matter most likely out of your control altogether. And so, I am enjoying travel, and executing on my work anyway, because what else would I do? Intentionally shirk my responsibilities and fail to execute, just to get revenge? Nothing exists in a vacuum, and I wouldn't expose the whole of myself to such corruption. The one thing I will not regret at the end of my life is not compromising my values.
Merry is satisfied, I think, with her life. Living stoically is great until you look to your partner to validate your own virtues. Have I been a good partner for her? Have I given her all that she deserves? No, I don't think I have, but I wouldn't know it from looking at her, because she is self-possessed, and because her natural state is one of contentment for what she has. We have each other, and a home we enjoy. We have hobbies, we have adventures. We have family and friends to pass the time with. We have a cat, and a blueberry.
Where to start?
I drink too much coffee. It gets me through my work mornings without eating (a form of intermittent fasting for which my discipline has sadly degraded), and spurs me to write - especially fiction. It fills my stomach with zero calories, but the dreaded second-order effects of its overuse include my own intolerance for empty-stomach hunger, intermittent inability to sleep, and I suspect, frentic dreams where I am always striving to complete tasks that feel utterly detached from any spiritual drive.
I drink too much beer. It is automatic with most social interaction and a social pasttime of its own. I don't believe I drink too often, but when I drink it is frequently too much. This pattern throws my metabolism out of wack - often back and forth from ketosis - and plays havoc on my digestive system. I inevitably crave more carbs for a day or two afterwards - the combination makes it difficult to stay at the weight that I know I am capable of maintaining in a healthy, steady state.
I have been a contractor at work for almost a full year now, which allows me to travel as much as I have long wished to. Travel rejuvenates me, even as the planning and logistics frequently stress me out. But, travel also exacerbates the same problems I experience at home, because there are more free days, and more free hours, for my day-to-day, hour-to-hour compulsions to assert themselves. I drink too much coffee and drink too much beer. But worse yet, I'm almost always anxious, and I have to constantly fight the impulse to hurry up with whatever I happen to be doing, so that I may get on to the next thing.
It's all a vicious cycle, right? The miracle of productivity can be achieved with coffee - its only cost is sanity, any chance of mental clarity, any chance of watching clouds move across the sky or listening to the water running through a creek on some pastoral afternoon. There has to be a better way, a middle ground.
I am going to Santa Fe in about a month. This middle ground is my goal - I wish to experience gloriously unhurried days even as I make the most of my time. I want to read books for pleasure and not to be urgently seeking wisdom, a leg up, skipping pages, throwing books aside ten pages in.
---------------------------------------------------
I have gotten closer to my friends and further from everyone else. And you know what? That's something I consciously decided to do. But, now I can see that it is misguided. I should wish to be closer to my friends and closer to everyone else, as well. Or, at least be open to meeting new people - I should ruthlessly seek to come to know people well enough to discover what we can offer each other. I know I will regret it later in life if I never learn to do this.
A couple years ago at work, I concluded that I needed to open my mouth less, advertise myself less, and execute on my work more. I knew, just knew, that if I simply worked at doing my job better, than recognition would follow. But, it hasn't. Quite the opposite - even as I have become an informal authority on the team (earned the hard way, one careful decision at a time), recognition has all but disappeared. What can I make of this but to chalk it up to the reality of human systems, the reality of people? People are not rational - not even *your* boss - the person you probably assume, by default, knows how to be fair. That person is not fair - they are only fair enough to seem fair, if you are lucky, at that. They are probably playing for themselves, and whether that means also playing for you is a coin toss, a matter most likely out of your control altogether. And so, I am enjoying travel, and executing on my work anyway, because what else would I do? Intentionally shirk my responsibilities and fail to execute, just to get revenge? Nothing exists in a vacuum, and I wouldn't expose the whole of myself to such corruption. The one thing I will not regret at the end of my life is not compromising my values.
Merry is satisfied, I think, with her life. Living stoically is great until you look to your partner to validate your own virtues. Have I been a good partner for her? Have I given her all that she deserves? No, I don't think I have, but I wouldn't know it from looking at her, because she is self-possessed, and because her natural state is one of contentment for what she has. We have each other, and a home we enjoy. We have hobbies, we have adventures. We have family and friends to pass the time with. We have a cat, and a blueberry.
Wednesday, June 8, 2016
Traditional Journaling
I have, for a long time, strove to write posts on this blog within a tightly-defined scope. This was an intentional attempt to enforce discipline on my writing, and I believe it has been very beneficial to me. However, it has left me without an outlet to describe my less-formed thoughts, not to mention the vicissitudes of my day-to-day life - things I value recording.
It is possible that a separate, private journal of some form would be a better solution to this issue, but for now I have made the decision to risk erring on the side of publishing some content online unnecessarily, rather than the alternate risk of not publishing enough online. I have thought about this two ways:
It is possible that a separate, private journal of some form would be a better solution to this issue, but for now I have made the decision to risk erring on the side of publishing some content online unnecessarily, rather than the alternate risk of not publishing enough online. I have thought about this two ways:
- The risk domain is gentle - it is hard to imagine anything terrible coming of me publishing more thoughts online.
- The resilience I wish to prove in all my thought. A public thought is always more anti-fragile than a private thought for someone receptive to feedback.
It occurs to me that a further 'cost' of this choice is a degradation in the broad quality of my published output on this website. That's another thing I have two thoughts about:
- I'll tag such entries "Updates" to allow for filtering of posts.
- I would be kidding myself that many people are reading, or that a quality degradation would have a material effect.
One thing I have learned by getting older is that understanding (and through it, wisdom) comes from a keen sense of observation - including observation of the reasons oneself changes as a result of their environment, disposition, attitude, and other factors. And so, by better observing and understanding how we become who we become, we learn to better steer ourselves towards success and happiness, and away from failure and misery.
I am 35, and by some means of which I have scarce understanding, I have managed to build a life where I am happy an inordinate amount of the time. What is to credit for this miracle? Even at this age, and even as someone who has been predisposed to self-examination all of my adolescent and adult life, it is a terribly difficult question to answer. I have many theories, but one thing the world has taught me is that explanations are a dime a dozen, while true answers are elusive, and much slower to arrive than we often believe. I intend to be patient in looking for the true answer, but I do intend to find it!
Monday, May 30, 2016
Tom Rudloff and The Antiquarium
Tom Rudloff, who was the owner/operator of The Antiquarium, passed away two days ago. It was long a cultural landmark of Omaha, a used bookstore, art gallery, and gathering place for intellectuals (really, anyone who loved ideas) located in the Old Market until relocating to Brownville, Nebraska ten years ago. I found out from a retrospective linked to from Facebook:
http://aksarbent.blogspot.com/2016/05/antiquariums-tom-rudloff-dead-at-76.html
I wish I had been the one to write the above, but I never could have. I didn't know Tom - I didn't so much as know his name, although had I passed him on the street I would have recognized him in an instant, and I would like to believe that he would have recognized me - at least, a long time ago. If the Antiquarium has been in Brownville for ten years now, then I have spent ten years procrastinating a visit, and that shameful action has cost me the very opportunity to do something that I should have done - something, indeed, that I had no right not to do, for the pull I felt to that place and the neglect I gave it. Of all my character flaws, I suspect I will go to my grave most regretful for my predisposition, under conditions of ambiguity, towards inaction. It has not served me well.
I spent a lot of time in the Old Market once I was old enough to drive, and not yet old enough to get into real trouble. I wandered through the Antiquarium on my fair share of days, and evenings, and nights. The Antiquarium WAS my bookstore, the bookstore I thought of when I thought of the word, the bookstore to which my mind drifted when first I read Borges, the bookstore that I endlessly missed when I worked part time at Barnes and Noble.
I may not have bought more than ten books, total, from the place. I was overwhelmed by it. It modified, in me, the very notion of knowledge. I knew it was there for the taking. Yes, my whole life before the Antiquarium, I had believed that knowledge was scarce and had to be dug up, like gold. After wandering those narrow aisles, I was convinced: no, knowledge was everywhere, and had only to be chosen, to be filtered down to something manageable. So how would I filter it? Dammit, I didn't know what books to buy! One of the shames (among many) of my teenage years is that I filtered it most often by NOT trying, by not touching the books upon the shelves, and then by not entering the store at all. I thought I hadn't failed because I hadn't tried. How complete and tragic a misconception that was.
For posterity's sake, two memories of the place: first, to walk in upon a conversation occurring around the coffee table by the front window, and be welcomed to join. Of course I was - everyone was. I was a stupid high school student but at least I was intellectually honest and my mind was open. I declined to join every time - because I was shy - a disability I still haven't gotten over.
Second, an art exhibit in the high-ceilinged room upstairs - utilizing a motif, among other items, of dolls and prescription drugs. I interpreted many of the pieces as a reaction to the Iraq war, and others to American modernity more broadly. That exhibit imbued me with a potent and vivid notion - modernism as a disease - that I still carry with me - indeed, one that is a core part of my beliefs. It touched me the way few art exhibits have ever done.
If only I had gone there more often - and if only I had lingered to listen to a few conversations, perhaps even opened my mouth a few times.
The lesson of Tom's passing, for me, is the same as all passings - make the most of your time, because it is finite. It is only intensified, for the immensity of the opportunity I have missed. Whatever opportunities you are passing up out of habit - maybe you are passing them up because you've been passing them up, already, for so long - remember that every passing minute is another chance to turn it all around.
http://aksarbent.blogspot.com/2016/05/antiquariums-tom-rudloff-dead-at-76.html
I wish I had been the one to write the above, but I never could have. I didn't know Tom - I didn't so much as know his name, although had I passed him on the street I would have recognized him in an instant, and I would like to believe that he would have recognized me - at least, a long time ago. If the Antiquarium has been in Brownville for ten years now, then I have spent ten years procrastinating a visit, and that shameful action has cost me the very opportunity to do something that I should have done - something, indeed, that I had no right not to do, for the pull I felt to that place and the neglect I gave it. Of all my character flaws, I suspect I will go to my grave most regretful for my predisposition, under conditions of ambiguity, towards inaction. It has not served me well.
I spent a lot of time in the Old Market once I was old enough to drive, and not yet old enough to get into real trouble. I wandered through the Antiquarium on my fair share of days, and evenings, and nights. The Antiquarium WAS my bookstore, the bookstore I thought of when I thought of the word, the bookstore to which my mind drifted when first I read Borges, the bookstore that I endlessly missed when I worked part time at Barnes and Noble.
I may not have bought more than ten books, total, from the place. I was overwhelmed by it. It modified, in me, the very notion of knowledge. I knew it was there for the taking. Yes, my whole life before the Antiquarium, I had believed that knowledge was scarce and had to be dug up, like gold. After wandering those narrow aisles, I was convinced: no, knowledge was everywhere, and had only to be chosen, to be filtered down to something manageable. So how would I filter it? Dammit, I didn't know what books to buy! One of the shames (among many) of my teenage years is that I filtered it most often by NOT trying, by not touching the books upon the shelves, and then by not entering the store at all. I thought I hadn't failed because I hadn't tried. How complete and tragic a misconception that was.
For posterity's sake, two memories of the place: first, to walk in upon a conversation occurring around the coffee table by the front window, and be welcomed to join. Of course I was - everyone was. I was a stupid high school student but at least I was intellectually honest and my mind was open. I declined to join every time - because I was shy - a disability I still haven't gotten over.
Second, an art exhibit in the high-ceilinged room upstairs - utilizing a motif, among other items, of dolls and prescription drugs. I interpreted many of the pieces as a reaction to the Iraq war, and others to American modernity more broadly. That exhibit imbued me with a potent and vivid notion - modernism as a disease - that I still carry with me - indeed, one that is a core part of my beliefs. It touched me the way few art exhibits have ever done.
If only I had gone there more often - and if only I had lingered to listen to a few conversations, perhaps even opened my mouth a few times.
The lesson of Tom's passing, for me, is the same as all passings - make the most of your time, because it is finite. It is only intensified, for the immensity of the opportunity I have missed. Whatever opportunities you are passing up out of habit - maybe you are passing them up because you've been passing them up, already, for so long - remember that every passing minute is another chance to turn it all around.
Thursday, May 19, 2016
Efficient Markets and Deep Learning
I'm going to posit a theory about markets which will be hard to prove or disprove, except, perhaps, in hindsight, which may take many years.
I believe markets may have become substantially more efficient in recent years due to deep learning. Because I am not an expert on either thing (efficient markets, deep learning), and because I am lazy, and because I believe it will thankfully be clearer this way, I am going to keep the theory mercifully brief.
Efficient markets theory ("EMT") states that market prices of securities tend to reflect all known pertinent information about those securities. You can also state it by expressing its opposite, which is that any disregard for information will be 'arbitraged' away by other market participants - this is the magnetizing mechanism by which markets are pulled towards 'efficiency.' People love (or at least, used to love) arguing about how strictly 'efficient' they are. Basically, is it EMT, or EMT, or EMT? But, that is rather beside the point, here.
Deep learning is a form of machine learning, or artificial intelligence, which detects and adapts to patterns in a recursive manner. Experts, please unmercifully assault that definition for being too broad, or too narrow, or whatever.
The stock market is interesting because, if you believe people are motivated by greed (which is to say, money), its feedback loop between effort (security selection) and reward (making money) is shorter than virtually any other feedback loop that delivers money as a reward. Therefore, if you believe people are motivated by greed, it stands to reason they'll prefer this feedback loop to others, all else being equal. That means they'll employ a lot of effort to gain an edge. Or, put another way, they'll employ tactics here, first, at least until it stops working.
I don't think any of the above should be very controversial.
Deep learning is interesting because it seems to solve certain classes of problems better than other methods, and notably, better than human judgment - data search, speech recognition, the game "Go". How can we broadly classify these categories? Well, for one, it seems to work well with so-called "dynamic systems," which tend not to move in straight lines, but bounce between "multiple equilibria," which is to say, behave a certain way until they don't. The stock market is a dynamic system. The stock market is also notoriously irrational - meaning, it is a dynamic system whose equilibria are a function of human judgment, which is notoriously flawed. Importantly, human judgement isn't just flawed - it's flawed in predictable ways, which means that rules-based systems can be expected to identify those patterns, to some degree.
What does it add up to? If I'm right about the above (I might not be!), is deep learning being used in the stock market? Almost certainly. What would the effect be? I suspect it would lead to more efficient markets.
Market efficiency is a function of the marginal buyer. If 99% of the capital is controlled by 'base case' rules, and 1% allocated in some 'better' manner, well, market efficiency might be fairly low. As the 'better' percentage rises, efficiency increases. How soon does the market truly get efficient? As a whole, I'm not sure. For a single security, it gets efficient when the better manner reaches a threshold amount of the trading volume (NOT the overall holding of the security).
I think my argument makes some sort of conceptual sense, but I can't quantify it. And it's true, admittedly, that I may simply be experiencing confirmation bias linked in my head to a convenient fear, during a period of time when value stocks - by most quantitative measures - have underperformed the broad market. This underperformance has happened before. I feel this underperformance because my investment style skews towards value, by those same factors.
For what it's worth (and to skate away from that topic a fair distance), my gut tells me that since I can't quantify the risk, I should be pursuing more private investments, where the market efficiency is more likely to still be low. I could conjure plenty of supporting justification for such a decision, but that seems like a silly and unnecessary thing to do. If I am right, the above theory is all the justification that should be necessary.
I believe markets may have become substantially more efficient in recent years due to deep learning. Because I am not an expert on either thing (efficient markets, deep learning), and because I am lazy, and because I believe it will thankfully be clearer this way, I am going to keep the theory mercifully brief.
Efficient markets theory ("EMT") states that market prices of securities tend to reflect all known pertinent information about those securities. You can also state it by expressing its opposite, which is that any disregard for information will be 'arbitraged' away by other market participants - this is the magnetizing mechanism by which markets are pulled towards 'efficiency.' People love (or at least, used to love) arguing about how strictly 'efficient' they are. Basically, is it EMT, or EMT, or EMT? But, that is rather beside the point, here.
Deep learning is a form of machine learning, or artificial intelligence, which detects and adapts to patterns in a recursive manner. Experts, please unmercifully assault that definition for being too broad, or too narrow, or whatever.
The stock market is interesting because, if you believe people are motivated by greed (which is to say, money), its feedback loop between effort (security selection) and reward (making money) is shorter than virtually any other feedback loop that delivers money as a reward. Therefore, if you believe people are motivated by greed, it stands to reason they'll prefer this feedback loop to others, all else being equal. That means they'll employ a lot of effort to gain an edge. Or, put another way, they'll employ tactics here, first, at least until it stops working.
I don't think any of the above should be very controversial.
Deep learning is interesting because it seems to solve certain classes of problems better than other methods, and notably, better than human judgment - data search, speech recognition, the game "Go". How can we broadly classify these categories? Well, for one, it seems to work well with so-called "dynamic systems," which tend not to move in straight lines, but bounce between "multiple equilibria," which is to say, behave a certain way until they don't. The stock market is a dynamic system. The stock market is also notoriously irrational - meaning, it is a dynamic system whose equilibria are a function of human judgment, which is notoriously flawed. Importantly, human judgement isn't just flawed - it's flawed in predictable ways, which means that rules-based systems can be expected to identify those patterns, to some degree.
What does it add up to? If I'm right about the above (I might not be!), is deep learning being used in the stock market? Almost certainly. What would the effect be? I suspect it would lead to more efficient markets.
Market efficiency is a function of the marginal buyer. If 99% of the capital is controlled by 'base case' rules, and 1% allocated in some 'better' manner, well, market efficiency might be fairly low. As the 'better' percentage rises, efficiency increases. How soon does the market truly get efficient? As a whole, I'm not sure. For a single security, it gets efficient when the better manner reaches a threshold amount of the trading volume (NOT the overall holding of the security).
I think my argument makes some sort of conceptual sense, but I can't quantify it. And it's true, admittedly, that I may simply be experiencing confirmation bias linked in my head to a convenient fear, during a period of time when value stocks - by most quantitative measures - have underperformed the broad market. This underperformance has happened before. I feel this underperformance because my investment style skews towards value, by those same factors.
For what it's worth (and to skate away from that topic a fair distance), my gut tells me that since I can't quantify the risk, I should be pursuing more private investments, where the market efficiency is more likely to still be low. I could conjure plenty of supporting justification for such a decision, but that seems like a silly and unnecessary thing to do. If I am right, the above theory is all the justification that should be necessary.
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