I wasted about four years trying to decipher the intent behind every move and disappeared down a number of fruitless though mildly interesting bunny tunnels. It's a natural thing to do, as the basic mechanics of trading ultimately become tedious and unfulfilling, at the very least in an intellectual sense, so of course one tries to go deeper and deeper to squeeze more meaning from the motion, indeed the profession as a whole. Or hole.
Now I'm down to one free web-based chart and have let it all go, it's such a relief. Four monitors, 85 charts with various pointless divisions of time, range and volume, bid/ask order book overlaid with pit noise, Tick, Vix, put/call open interest, A/D and Trin. WTF? Muddies the waters innit. Anything to avoid seeing the simplicity that was always there. I suppose it's kinda hard to accept that an innocent child with the proverbial crayon would probably do the job better, especially for the inquisitive male ego "But... but ... you mean that's all I have to do? Can't be right. So let's misovercomplexify it" as Bush might say.
Notwithstanding I think basics still need to be grasped: the formations and background levels of commitment and emotion that manifest as, for instance, an even-handed fierce fight; a non-commital can't be bothered to fight; woah that hurt and I grimly held on but now it really hurts capitulation; directional grind, whippy uncertainty etc. ... vague levels of view (or lack of it) and positioning à la mr marcus. but beyond that I no longer care why anything is happening outside of the nebulous bigger picture. Perhaps it gets more exciting when you can see the less obvious coming, but you don't need to. Pursue another (parallel) career if you want creative rewards, enlightening explanations or a sense of having produced something whether physically or in the mysterious carapace at the top of our bodies.
Accept that for the market to work it needs to occasionally misdirect - savagely - often during a dull moment (biggest moves often come out of these) but that it is, yes, generally quite obvious. Look at the Dante posse nonchalantly sweeping pips into their baskets with nowt more than the outrageous simplicity of price. Draw a few simple lines, exercise patience and hit those small areas of high probability again and again. That's all we can do. Thus it must follow that battles will indeed be fought in these obvious areas, as that's where the seasoned money will always be. It cannot be any other way. Our money, playing the waiting selective game. Not their money, cause they're impulsive, impatient, clueless, adrenaline diet disciples, or so rumour has it.
That said, looking at your chart, wasp, the lines you've drawn do inconveniently slice through some price action at the tops and tails that could easily disturb a noob into doing something silly. What looks flat, neat and blindingly blatant on 4H is likely to look scary - only to those that allow it to become scary of course - on a 5m. Plus that is a generous GY chart ... often, as I'm sure you know far better than me, the devious little lady overshoots both ways just sufficiently to trap the unwary, again only if they let her. With which pointless tangent I apologise for another content-free post. Wasp you had it right all along. Just do it and don't question. Allow your other interests to answer and fulfil the needling question ' but surely there is more'. Maybe there is, but I haven't found it in trading. Indeed the searching obscured the very thing I didn't need to look for.
PS trendie you mentioned the obvious only becoming so with hindsight. But if you look at any of wasp's lines in this thread, he drew them from the first peak / trough and sat back to wait until the price obediently acted again at the same level. Decision point: stand aside, enter, scratch, take small loss, add, let run as is. A number of simple options. There's no curve fitting in a line extended horizontally from one point. You can do the same. You're far too bright to need crutches, which is the problem you face, in a way, I think.