Jawad Mian Profile picture
4 Dec, 13 tweets, 2 min read
1) In Greek mythology, Cassandra was a princess of the legendary city of Troy, and the most beautiful of King Priam’s daughters.

She was seduced by Apollo, who gave her the ability to predict the future.
2) When she refused herself to him, he cursed her by making people disbelieve her predictions.
3) So she went around knowing and predicting the future, telling people what was going to happen, but no one ever believed her.

She foresaw the fall of Troy, but couldn’t prevent it.
4) Cassandra is a figure both of sagacity and of tragedy, where her combination of deep understanding and powerlessness exemplify the paradoxical condition of mankind.
5) In her frightened, ego-less state, she may blurt out what she sees, perhaps with the unconscious hope that others might be able to make some sense of it.

But to them, her words sound meaningless, disconnected, and blown out of all proportion.
6) Cassandra has become the archetype for many prophetic characters who are either ignored or cannot be comprehended until after an unfortunate event has occurred.
7) The dilemma facing investors is that there are too many Cassandras’ who have been faithfully foretelling doom.
8) Their catastrophic predictions of “The Great Crash” or “The Big Reset” over the past decade were because of ideologically motivated cognition.

In a world full of ambiguity, we see what we want to see.
9) Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman has found that confidence in ones beliefs is not a measure of the quality of evidence, but of the coherence of the story that the mind constructs.
10) What should be important is that we are agnostic in our analysis, rather than ideological; and empirical, rather than dogmatic.
11) But as social psychologist Leon Festinger, observed, “people cognize and interpret information to fit what they already believe.”
12) The truth is, to quote @dylangrice, “The future is always uncertain, it is only the extent of our self-deception that changes over time.”

Be free of speculative prejudices.
13) Pessimism is seductive but do not believe in prophecies.

As Homer said, "Everything is more beautiful because we're doomed,."

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Jawad Mian

Jawad Mian Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @jsmian

5 Dec
1) Investing in a bull market is hard enough; hearing it trivialized makes it unnecessarily harder.

In our latest issue, we discuss the far more powerful underlying forces, some outside of common understanding, that are at play.
2) The pandemic is a major displacement that will go down in history as setting new trends and social forces that spark a major bull market and mania.

We are still early in this uptrend.

stray-reflections.com/article/168/Th…
3) While the world balks at America’s failed response to a coronavirus pandemic, their economic management may yet prove to be superior.

stray-reflections.com/article/167/Am…
Read 5 tweets
5 Dec
1) The ancient Greek philosopher Epictetus said, “Be silent for the most part.”

What did he mean? Allow me to explain.

Thread. 👇
2) On August 29, 1952, the piano virtuoso David Tudor walked onto the stage of the barn-like Maverick Concert Hall on the outskirts of Woodstock in New York.

He sat at the piano, propped up six pages of blank sheet music, closed the keyboard lid, and clicked a stopwatch.
3) Thirty seconds passed.

The audience, a broad cross-section of the city’s classical musical community, waited for something to happen.
Read 24 tweets
26 Nov
1) One finds cultures founded on guilt (typically in the Judeo-Christian world), cultures founded on submission (Islam), and cultures founded on shame (typicallyin Asia).
2) There exists another culture, one without borders that encompasses all. Taking people’s stoicism captive, it seeps through everyday life and breeds disdain.

Such is our culture of complaint.
3) There is much to complain about: life, politics, treasonous friends, and, of course, work!

On any given day, all these topics come up.
Read 19 tweets
23 Nov
Since it’s been a year of lingering regrets for investors, I explain why regret persists in a bull market. 🤬stray-reflections.com/article/153/Wo…
1) Are you regretting not shorting the pre-pandemic February highs, buying too soon as the market crashed, buying too little around the April lows, or selling too early as stocks keep advancing?
2) To invest, it seems, is to accumulate at least some regrets.
Read 23 tweets
21 Nov
Before we got married, my wife complained that I write for everyone except her. 🤦🏽‍♂️

So I decided that each year, on our wedding anniversary, I’ll gift a new chapter to her in a lifelong book.

Now I’m writing chapter eight. ❤️
1) Funny story about the book.

Worked like a charm for our first anniversary. My wife loved the whole concept.
2) My smart ass idea was now I can just gift her a new chapter each year.

No more hassle of thinking about what to get for our anniversary.

This was the gift that keeps on giving.
Read 10 tweets
21 Nov
1) In a distant Indian village, a seer brings an elephant under the cover of the night.

He keeps it hidden in a dark tent and invites the local villagers to come take a look.
2) As seeing in the darkness was impossible, no one could tell what it was. Each person touches the creature with his hand to get an idea.
3) The first person felt the trunk, and perceived it as a water pipe.

“Oh, no! It’s a rope,” argued the second after touching the tail.
Read 13 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!