The average man does not like uncertainties. He is not trained to cope with them. He will try to “sweep them under the rug.” He will use any device that will make it possible for him to feel “more sure,” for he is not willing to accept a “maybe” or an “I don’t know” as an answer.
And so he will resort to averages, to market indicators, to complicated charts of intersecting lines designed to prove that “it” is either a Bull Market or a Bear Market. He will accept almost any kind of nonsense if it is stated with enough assurance. He will buy horoscopes to determine the trend of the market by the position of the planets. If all else fails, he will look for some authority who will relieve him of using his own intelligence, by making the either/or decisions for him. But he must have a straight, simple answer; otherwise it means nothing to him.
Do you see how this way of looking at things is out of line with the facts? Do you see how it leads, inevitably, to frustration, anxiety, and demoralization?
It is asking too much of reality. It is setting up a make-believe world, and then crying if the world isn’t exactly like the make-believe.
We know, for instance, that trees “in general” are round. But you have seen tree trunks distorted by a cramped location, or by the trunks of adjacent trees, that are not round at all. It is useful to know that “tree trunks are round,” only so long as we understand that this is an abstraction, and the reality in any particular case has to be looked at, and if it is not round, that is that; the territory is the final answer, not our “map.”
John Magee
