Red flowers of random

Another red day for alts by the looks - are you buying or selling?

I would like to be buying, but all of my disposable income is entangled with the renovation, as we are trying to make up for shortfalls by driving as much as we can from our salaries into the project, so that come January, we aren't too far behind. This is far from easy this year, since I was furloughed a lot for 4 months and my own business has taken a very large hit due to a lack of face-to-face sessions.

While I am still hoping to keep my unbroken run alive and not use any crypto to cover life obligations, if I do have to, the lower the price goes, the greater the percentage bite it will take out of my holdings. So, to mitigate damage, it is reduce obligation as far as possible on one side and, cross fingers on the other. I have to come to terms with the potential that I won't be able to reduce exposure, there may be new unexpected expenses and of course, value of my portfolio will keep dropping.

I think that this while on average a lot of people will benefit from crypto, there will always be the unexpected circumstances that come up to cause pain - either through a lack of preparation or luck. Life is full of surprises on both sides of the equation and we have little control over some aspects of experience, like personal illness or the health of those around us, those we are obligated to serve.

For example, before my daughter was born, my wife and I were doing pretty well financially and starting to get into a position where we could save. Post-birth, this changed rapidly due to our daughter's health issues. While the direct costs were one thing that exacted a heavy toll, the knock-on effects it had on other aspects of our life, my wife's health, my work opportunities and a position of not only no savings, but debts to service - had far longer ranging implications.

I was doing the math on this the other day, and the likely "cost" of opportunity was an eye-watering amount. My conservative estimates would put it at potentially a 25% pay cut over a 3 year period, with last year being the point where we reached back to our zero point and started building again.

Unexpected circumstances are so costly because of their unexpected nature of course, and unless very well prepped or having a large amount of excess resources coming in often, they are always going to hurt. When there is no safety net or fallback position to rally against, it is either "do or die" and nearly without exception, humans try to do, even if they end up dying.

Of course ideally, one hopes to be well-prepared for most eventualities, but that is not always possible and for probably most of us, we do not invest enough time, effort and resources into our preparation. It is interesting that we are by nature risk averse, yet we do not see the risk in not investing, which I think is probably the far greater risk, as it means that we are more likely to end up living more hand to mouth and even the slightest discomfort becomes painful.

As much as there are large swaths of the last 4 years I would have preferred my family not to have experienced, I do think that we all learned something. When my daughter was in the ICU, I remember having a discussion with my wife about whether there will be some kind of latent effects of all the needles and tests on our daughter, that while she wouldn't remember, would influence her in later life in some way. It will be impossible to tell, but it isn't outside the realms of possibility itself. Since she has already experienced it, all I can hope as a parent is that she is stronger for it, not weaker.

Antifragility is the concept of getting stronger under pressure, not staying the same or breaking. Yet, I don't think we often willingly look for the pressure to harden us and instead, we tend to avoid. It is natural of course, but maybe this is why the randomness of luck is so valuable, as we don't have the ability to avoid it, it just happens to us and all we can do is try to cope.

Some are more successful at coping than others, some are much less successful than the average. The thing is that like everyone being "good under pressure" until they are actually under pressure, most don't have a very good understanding of how they will react in adversity, unless they have already faced it.

Through the course of my life, I have got to know many people at a deep level who fall on both sides of the equation and while no one wants pain in the future, there are some who fear it strongly, others who understand that it can be a part of life and back themselves to cope with it well and perhaps even benefit from it.

There have been several times where I was very close to losing my life, with the first being when I drowned as a child. While I was glad I was revived, I realized as an eight year old that death is nothing to fear, or at least, I am not that afraid of it. I think this frees me up in some ways, though I still don't like heights.

The thing is that while we can and in my opinion should prepare for bad times, we can never be fully prepared and the unexpected can always happen. It doesn't really matter whether one is investing into a highly volatile market, or smoking playing Russian roulette with cancer, with 4 in the chamber. - random happens - good and bad.

Today while the markets are red or tomorrow if they are redder, there will be people buying and selling. Each group will see it as an opportunity to get something out or invest something in and each will hope that they make the right call. If it keeps dropping, the sellers will be happy, if it starts climbing, the buyers will. However, the question is whether the long-term position is higher than today and who will hold something when that arrives.

Five days, months or years from now might tell a very different story as to what was the right decision to make - but each will have their own account of the past. It doesn't really matter where one is though, because humans will always find a way to justify their behavior, no matter how good or poor it might be today.

Taraz [ Gen1: Hive ]