my journal 3


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049796/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans-Joachim_Marseille
Hans-Joachim Marseille (13 December 1919 – 30 September 1942; German pronunciation: [hants joˈaχɪm mɑrˈseɪ]) was a Luftwaffe fighter pilot and flying ace during World War II. He is noted for his aerial battles during the North African Campaign and his Bohemian lifestyle. One of the most successful fighter pilots, he was nicknamed the "Star of Africa". Marseille claimed all but seven of his "official" 158 victories against the British Commonwealth's Desert Air Force over North Africa, flying the Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighter for his entire combat career. No other pilot claimed as many Western Allied aircraft as Marseille.[1]




 
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Very odd narrator: speaks english with an american accent, he doesn't seem on the Nazi side, but he doesn't make any propaganda against them whatsoever. And he clearly made this during the war. It's the first time I hear something with almost a nazi perspective but from an american.
 
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https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attentat_vom_20._Juli_1944
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volksgerichtshof
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Freisler

it clearly shows what democracy is for: even if it were a fake democracy like in the US, at least it takes care of changing the president every 4 or 8 years.

With Hitler, anyone who wanted to change him, had to plan a plot to kill him. First of all, because even if he wanted to take a break, he couldn't do it, because he would have gotten killed or gone to jail, after all he had done. So he could not resign. Cf. similar case with Mussolini, who was arrested as soon as he was "voted" out of power by his fascist comrades.
 
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In the end, as I said repeatedly in the last few posts, I need to practice in accepting defeats/defects/things not going my way. I have to practice until I no longer take offense at things not going my way. There has to be no build up of anger in my mind, I have to become like a machine. Not just for trading but for dealing with people.

Most don't have to do this, because they're not perfectionists. They are already this way, because they never bother with fixing anything. I am talking about the majority of my colleagues, who not only do not pick up garbage when they find it on the floor, but actually drop garbage. I am talking about a society, in Rome, where people are such degenerate slobs that they throw garbage (from candy machines snacks for example) in the elevator, in the stairs, in the hallway... these people of course are not going to have problems with details. I, on the other hand, being used to picking up their garbage, obviously am in a different situation.

Other than practicing impassibility with the few things that life sends my way, such as garbage, a cab driver being rude, or taking the wrong route, or colleagues proving to be, for the umpteenth time, the idiots that I think they are... Other than this, I need to add practice. Such as you do on quizlet. com, where you can create exercises (flashcards, etc.) and it really works. Extra practice, although it is an artificial process, really benefits learning.

So I now have to find extra exercises, such as the chartgame.com where, artificially, I subject myself to higher amounts of defeats/defects/problems to train myself to not take them as defeats nor personally but just as problems to either solve (if I can) or forget about (if I can't solve them). In other words problems that I have to face in the optimal way. Such as they do at boot camp with soldiers:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recruit_training
...According to Finnish Army regulations, the close-order drill serves four functions:

- is essential for the esprit de corps and cohesion for battlefield conditions
- gets the recruits used to instinctive obedience and following the orders
...

I need a boot camp for traders, so I definitely could use these principles, but translated for traders. I have to train myself to to react optimally to problems/defeats, in most cases by doing nothing (no revenge trading). In order to do nothing, you must learn to not build up anger in your mind as the market keeps telling you "wrong", "wrong", "wrong"...

And the market tells you this each and every trade, even when you make money, because it is impossible to enter at the exact bottom and exit at the exact top. And being a perfectionist, this factor has always been a source of frustration as well.

You see, even though it is not real money and no one else is seeing me, while winning/losing at the chartgame I experience joy and frustration:

chartgame.jpg

Each time I am right, I remember all the times I've been successful in life, and get exalted. Each time I am wrong, I remember all my failures, and get depressed. Well, neither feelings should take place at all. It should all just be about reasoning and understanding the statistical behavior of markets and humans (for the problems I experience in life).

To understand how I became like this, you have to remember that throughout my life, my father has done nothing but criticize me, whenever he could see anything that I did wrong, and he always found something, even when the overall result was excellent. And he never complimented me or encouraged me. This upbringing can lead to quite a few problems in your mind. In my case, it made me a "maladaptive perfectionist", who's never satisfied with himself and with others. I think others might become the opposite, or kill their father, or themselves. Yeah, because you're really in an impossible situation and a frustrating life. I can really relate to anyone killing their parents.
 
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Hi Travis,
there is only one area that I would criticise you for in this new challenge you are taking on - you are clearly correct that you shouldn't become emotional about each trade.

However, have you considered why it is that you get emotional at each trade? Instead of trying to fight that emotion, perhaps you'd be better at trying to recognise and accept that it is the sequence of trades in the long term that should be your main focus.

It's a bit like taking a long journey at night when there is very little traffic around, and getting angry with the red traffic lights and joyous about the green ones. You know that the frequency of red and green lights you pass is irrelevant to the fact that this journey normally takes so and so many minutes.

I'll admit that when you get to the end of the journey and all the red lights, or to the end of the trade sequence, then you should be wary that your emotions don't destabilise your analysis.

I suspect it will be easier to work out why you are getting emotional about each trade when in fact each trade on its own is irrelevant, rather than trying to morph yourself into an unfeeling ice-man. Does that make sense?
 
A life without feelings.

A life without feelings. At least when they're harmful.

For all the damage feelings have been doing to me, and my extreme sensitivity, I should devise for myself a life without feelings or maybe a life where I can turn them on and off at will.

I should be like a soldier, except that I'd be obeying my own orders.

After having analyzed my trading problems (similar to those I have in life, but with immediate and negative financial consequences), and having them grouped them and defined them in various categories, I can summarize them further and say that all my problems can be grouped as "feelings".

Let's review the problems, and comment on their nature of "feeling".

Recently I had grouped them all as "urges", that I had to eradicate from my mind for good (rather than repress them through discipline, which won't always work):

1) urge to control everything up to the last detail
For example, now the child is back from his holidays, and he's banging on floor, walls, in various ways. I think if I could, I should definitely exterminate this guy, because this means solving a problem for good. But if I can't, I should not "feel" bad, due to an unsatisfied urge... to control everything up to the last detail. So, this urge should not be there, and maybe then the feeling of "dissatisfaction" is a consequence of the urge. But it could also be the other way around: the noise he is making, drives me mad, and in turn I feel the need to do something about me, even just scratch my head, or lose some money in the markets. Well, whatever it is: a machine is not bothered by a child making noise, so I should always ask myself if a machine would be bothered, and the answer should tell me whether I am doing something wrong or not.

2) urge to get even with those (people or things) which have wronged by not acting according to my plans and expectations
Once again, it is good knowledge to know what will fail to go according to my plans, but it is not good for my interests to harbor hatred, revenge and waste time on something that doesn't benefit. Unless of course avoiding/killing the person (all theoretical, because I might have to go to jail afterwards) is good for the future.

3) urge to fight boredom by trading or other harmful activities
This, too, is definitely a human feeling: a machine does not get bored and it does not get frustrated. So I must deal with this for good. If it is something a machine wouldn't do, I must realize that I am doing it wrong.

4) urge to break all rules (even my own) out of rebelliousness - this shows why I need to eradicate these urges rather than repress them: because sooner or later self-discipline fails
Yes, it seems to me that I can conclude that where there is an urge, there is also emotions, and where there are emotions there are humans, and therefore the consequence is that I have to become, at least for a given amount of hours and situations in the day, an emotionless human.

5) urge to impress people (including myself)
Emotions, again. Pride and so on.

6) unidentified urge related to restlessness/delusional state that is triggered by having a large capital
Emotions.

Naturally, if I suppress emotions, and the objective is not happiness, we must find an objective in all this work and changing of myself. And the answer is simply that I want to make money, to in turn buy time, by quitting my work and other various methods (such as what I do every day by taking a cab to work, which is a way to buy time through money).

So, the objective is getting money from trading, in order to buy time.

Another objective, as a side-product of all this, is to optimize my life and minimize the damage I incur in my daily interactions with other people.

For example, once again, the child.

What can I do about him? For various reasons, I will not go, ring their door bell, and find a way to make him stop the noise.

So, how does being emotionless improve my daily life (as a byproduct of becoming a better trader)?

1) I don't scratch my head
2) I don't complain about it
3) I don't think about it

That's a lot of advantages.

So this animal next door is like a boot camp, something to train me to be emotionless. Like in Officer and a Gentleman (that movie with Richard Gere, I can't remember the exact title) or in Full Metal Jacket. Only I am training myself in slightly different and less traumatic ways, and for different final objectives.

Among the other things, I am thinking that, as part of all this training to resist urges/feelings, I should even train myself to not scratch some parts of my body that itch. It is pointless and it is a good exercise.

---

After about ten minutes of this, I completely forgot about the child. So now I know that if I decide to not be bothered by it, I can be just like a machine. The same should apply to itching and to many other things.
 
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More on emotions and their effect on trading.

When I make a trade in a given direction, if I am wrong (as I recently was on the BUND), I keep trying to make a profit in that same direction. Not because I see a second or third opportunity, but mostly because... out of revenge. This cannot happen. It is a mistake. A consequence of emotions.
 
Thoughts lead to feelings. Sort your thoughts and your feelings/emotions will follow.
 
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