Fuzzy Journey

    I make strong distinctions between betting and investing but I see them both as legitimate routes to making money. Participating in these activities has paid off for me. They are all learned skills: at a younger age I wouldn't have been interested but later I accepted you're only going to make real money by allowing money to work for you; ie don't spend it on stuff you don't need.     The earliest reference point for learning this stuff was reading 'The Intelligent Investor'. Value investing doesn't completely cut it anymore but it's the firmest foundation from which to build a style or risk profile upon. Capital perservation and the tortoise approach won't stop working anytime soon.     Then it's takes the discipline to inform yourself. Reading, reading, noticing work-societal trends and intuition does the rest. One perceives the trends of cycles, prospects of growth or decline without thinking: the latent knowledge accumulated rises to ...

      The Irish have a phrase: she's a real mé féiner. Mé féin translates as myself and so the idiom means for one to look our for one's own interests above all else.      The spirit of the term ós gaeilge does not connote an altruistic, 'good' person. Rather it's a nudge to your friend to look at her, thinking she's above our station. Wouldn't lift a finger if it wasn't good for herself.     I'd have been one of those to sneer at those selfish fiends for a long time. In my own blinkered head I was always putting others first, serving, pretending. Anyone who wronged me or said no was someone I would defer and bend to. Supplicating, smothering my own needs and inclinations.       No longer. It's time to be a bit more of a mé féiner.