We who merely happen to be walking around

Here is another interesting video for you. It’s an amazingly high quality film of the view from a streetcar travelling down Market Street in San Francisco in 1905. What I found so unusual in this film is that there is nothing… unusual. It must be that we are so used to seeing bad quality films of this period that we begin to think that all people walked like Charlie Chaplin or something, or that they were in some way quaint or inferior to us. In this film we see clearly that the people are like us. The policeman gives us his universal policeman stare, people gingerly cross the street avoiding the tracks as we would do, the fellow on the bicycle rides like anyone you would see today, the boy running could be the neighbour’s son.

From there it is easy to see that two hundred years ago or even a thousand years ago, apart from the props, people were basically the same. Just because we live in an era that is technologically, politically and socially more ‘advanced’ (so to speak), it does not necessarily mean we are better or even different than people who came before us. To me, the film illustrates clearly our alikeness, our solidarity with our ancestors. We, like they, are merely living in the ‘now’ of the present moment. We go about our business, thinking - as they probably did - that we are in some way more privileged, more intelligent, more everything than those who came before. But this is not true. I am reminded of a quote from G.K. Chesterton about the importance of tradition:

Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to that arrogant oligarchy who merely happen to be walking around.

The ethical financial advisor

A stockbroker is someone who invests your money until there is nothing left.

So said Woody Allen, and there is many a true word spoken in jest. I don’t have a stockbroker. I can manage investing until there is nothing left quite well myself. And I am saving a heap in commissions. But to tell the truth, I would like to change my investment goals. So, on the look out for a financial advisor who is not afraid of the empathy gap, I read at Globeinvestor that Danielle Park had gotten her clients out of the market back in May before the crash. I did a search and found the site of her investment counsel firm, Venable Park. Here I found reports, predicting the credit crisis months in advance. Not only that but I found that Danielle has a blog, Juggling Dynamite where she posts almost daily comments, advice and pertinent links. And not only that, Danielle has written a book, which gives its name to the blog - Juggling Dynamite – which if you had read it in time would have warned you of the coming meltdown in the financial world and allowed you to protect your capital. After reading her blog and watching her interviews, I became convinced that Danielle is that rare breed: a totally ethical financial advisor. Ethical, but also smart. Smart, but also knowledgeable. Knowledgeable, but also decisive.
And Danielle knows all about the empathy gap. She tells of the sceptical reaction she got from her clients in 2007 and early 2008 when she tried to convince them that a financial tsunami was on the radar screen. I am sure they are all worshipping her conscientious prudence today.
Danielle’s firm manages clients with portfolios of one million dollars and more. I’m a few dollars short, but if you are like me, you can still profit from the million-dollar advice she gives in her book and at her firm’s website and the timely commentary in her blog, which is what I intend to do. Because Woody Allen also said:

Wealth is better than poverty if only for financial reasons.

Pass the word to your friends, get the message out. Danielle’s advice can help us get through this mess and avoid similar disasters in the future.

They said it couldn't be done

As I wrote in a recent post, we experience an empathy gap every time our actions go against the prevailing flow of our entourage or society. Keeping your cool in a situation where most people are losing theirs is an example. The reverse, seeing danger when most people are ‘keeping their cool’ or rather being blissfully ignorant is another. Think of Noah building the ark amidst the jeers of everyone in his community. Warren Buffet’s investment advice ‘Be fearful when others are greedy, be greedy when others are fearful’ is a clear example of living and prospering in the empathy gap.
For it is true to say that anyone who wishes to rise above the mass in any endeavour is going to have to become tolerably acquainted with the empathy gap. By definition, you don’t become exceptional by following the herd. By definition, wisdom is rare; if it were not rare we would not call it wisdom, we would call it ‘human nature’ or ‘common sense’.
So, when you have a sense that what everyone else is doing is not the way for you, honour it. Examine the truth, the motives behind this feeling, certainly, but be true to your own path, even (especially) if it is ‘a path less travelled’. You can have no regrets in doing this. God, the universe, the Tao will always ‘see you right’ if your path is based on a best-effort attempt at doing the right thing. And the gods always smile on the brave.
Even in small things our ‘nerve’ or convictions are constantly tested. For example, I once asked my son to help me move a plant that had graduated to small tree status. You must be kidding, he protested. You won’t be able to get it out; it will die from loss of roots etc. My son and I were experiencing a minor empathy gap. Needless to say, we got it out, we replanted it and it didn’t die. And I treated my son (again) to one of my ‘famous’ lines:

They said it couldn’t be done. They said he was a fool. They were wrong.

The Empathy Gap

Being able to define an emotional problem, or any problem for that matter, is often a key step in our learning to overcome it or at least deal with it. Often we say ‘we can’t get our mind around it’, meaning we can’t define or understand it and therefore we can’t deal with it. For example, the saying ‘to understand all is to forgive all’ expresses our need to get our minds around a situation in order to solve it. When cavemen painted images of the wild beasts they encountered, they were as it were ‘getting their minds around it’ or them, which no doubt gave them confidence and courage, or in a word, power.
In today’s information world, words and phrases are our cavemen paintings. When we can reduce a complex problem or relationship to a pithy two-word phrase that immediately conveys the idea (for example ‘moral hazard’) it helps us to get our minds around it.
Today I came across an important one at Motley Fool. An article was exposing the wisdom of superinvestor Sir John Templeton who was famous for saying "The time of maximum pessimism is the best time to buy."

Back to Sir John and his sage advice about picking up people's quality "losers" during sharp sell-offs. Of course, keeping a cool head when the heat is on is easier said than done -- a phenomenon that behavioral economists call an "empathy gap."

From The Motley Fool. Read the full article here.

An empathy gap… We instantly know what it means in this context and we instantly recognize its applicability in other areas of our lives. Any time that we know what we should do but are influenced by what those around us are doing, we are experiencing an empathy gap. Living a frugal life in the midst of conspicuous consumption all around us is to experience the empathy gap. Being kind and courteous, being a gentleman when our entourage is far from gentlemanly is to live in the empathy gap. Doing the right thing, for example lending money wisely to homebuyers who qualify when other companies are raking in the money by lending to anyone, is to be strong in the face of the empathy gap.
Of course, we can only experience an empathy gap when we actually know what it is we should do. This is where philosophy can help us, the philosophy we have gained from our own experiences certainly but also the philosophy we can learn from others. There is a great power in this: their knowledge is like a limitless expanse of caveman wall paintings spread before us. The greatest minds past and present left them for us to gaze at. They got their minds around the great problems. All we have to do is to integrate and apply their philosophy in our own lives. And the more we know about philosophy, the easier it becomes for us to sail our own course, the true course, in spite of the empathy gap.
Now we have defined what an empathy gap is, we can be more aware of its danger.