Holiday wishes

This blog came to life on February 23rd of 2009 with a three-part mission: to help crystallize my thoughts on markets and travel, to share these ruminations with whomever might care to read them (caveat: such readers would surely be better served by investing their time elsewhere), and to archive these personal considerations and experiences for my own later review.

Some semblance of elegant symmetry exists between this 2/23 christening date and the 12/23 appellation of the present, perhaps rendering as auspicious this post’s design, which aims to be an overview of sorts, an essay for taking stock. Additionally, the elapsed time between incarnation and the present amounts to just a few weeks over the round number of 1000 days – 1033 to be precise, according to the calculator on timeanddate.com – further adding impetus to the idea of thoughtful review.

And yet, there’s precious little to comment upon. The blog has generated few posts (and yes, the author knows who is to blame!) – 37 in 2009 and again in 2010, then a mere 18 in the nearly-elapsed 2011, inclusive of these scribbles.

Limitation in quantity also extends to quality. As epitomized by this review, too much focus appears directed toward aimless verbosity, too little on impactful substance. At least breadth of content has proceeded according to original design, spanning the disparate realms of markets, aviation and travel, with unification indirectly attempted by tie-in to my own experiences. But whether such a collection of less than congruous topics carries any merit besides satisfaction of my own ego remains an open question.

This is where a promise of improved engagement would logically fit; indeed, a hollow allusion to the shortly upcoming season of New Year’s resolutions would beckon. But I’ll refrain from any such statement.

Instead, I’ll offer the comment that, should regular posting of markets-related analytics come to fruition, it would likely meet the original three-part mission of the blog, and quite emphatically at that. I’d better examine my own views, these would be shared with some semblance of a public, and my record would be open to subsequent self-examination. The same could be said of regular output of aviation and travel content.

Perhaps the most emotionally fulfilling motivation for true engagement with this at-once public and private pad is still altogether different. I savour the deliberately, elegantly, purposefully written word. And while I have never taken much interest in literature or composition, I do feel alluring and deeply emotional parallels in reading, say, an expertly edited article in the FT’s Arts section and, on the other hand, intensely experiencing an evocative piece of art or music. All potentially bring about an intense happiness, a flooding of the brain with some neurotransmitter, a sometimes subliminal experience akin even to that felt in romantic pursuits or significant personal accomplishments.

I’m not fooling myself; my own child’s play on this (cob-web filled) corner of the internet, when set against the kind of writing that I find inspiring, is even more inferior than is the painful screeching of nails on a chalkboard vis-à-vis brilliant calligraphy. Making matters worse is that I can’t devote the requisite time to polishing my attempts at a coherent essay. The blog has always been meant as an evening “wind-down” vehicle, a phase-of-day when neither time nor the perfection-seeking motivation is in relative abundance. In any event, my current professional goals center firmly on technical analysis and trading profitability (in that order), not on packaging bits of markets wisdom for wider dissemination.

Those disclaimers aside, I sincerely hope you’ll join me on this journey to more committed and substantive engagement with the markets, et al – and, moreover, that I take up the invitation, too!

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, often the most joyful day of the year, individually and collectively, in the Polish community of which I am a part. In that spirit, I wish everyone a most restful and lovely holiday, that each might discover their most hopeful and selfless selves, that generosity and the spirit of communion with others, loved ones and friends and acquaintances alike, might flourish in each of your minds. May you re-evaluate and re-discover, re-think and re-commit.

I will certainly be treasuring the upcoming days’ re-orientation of mind and soul. But all the same, I will return with bubbling eagerness to my great love of the present, disciplined analytics of that bewitching social creature known as the financial markets, upon the resumption of business in the New Year.

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas!