When things are not going the way I like, I stop looking

As we all watched the uprising in Lybia, followed by tsunami and nuclear fear from Japan, it seemed to me that only terrible things were happening in the world! I didn't do the obvious thing and sell my uranium miners. I've lost a bundle.

The lesson I've taken: when I don't like the way something is going, I blank it completely. This month I see that is not just in the world of investing: it's in my marriage, and everywhere else. Now, I'm catching myself every day as I react to the many things I don't approve of....and I see there is something very useful to learn here. There is a different way to be. All I have to do is be willing to experience pain when it's present. Simple, but not easy!

Now that I'm admitting to my recent losses, I am back in business. It seems we live in interesting times (reminded of the Hebrew saying "May you not live in interesting times")  It seems that things which have gone the same way forever, are shifting. I am not upset at the shift, but it's going to take some staying awake to steer through it! The US dollar will fall, unemployment will not abate, the large corporations will continue to generate profits, and the internet savvy young people of the world may just be able to shake up the status quo of endless wars and repression.

I think I have too many holdings. I'll be writing about them as I consider which ones to keep and which ones to sell. GE, for example, earns only 1% of its income from the nuclear business, but has been hit out of proportion to that. I'll keep it.

The perceived threat of  possible impending nuclear disaster has overshadowed the real disaster brought about by the earthquake and tsunami, and I am disgusted by that. Let's pray for the suffering people of Japan, and let's pray for the rest of us too. We are usually prepared to accept real death cause by burning coal, because it's slow, sneaky and familiar. It helps if somebody else has the chronic bronchitis and emphysema. I read somewhere that we are much more resigned to death and injury from falling tree limbs and "nature" than we are to the same injury afflicted on us by a human agent, and that makes a lot of sense.

I'm working on myself to let go of all this righteous disapproval! After all, most people don't have my perspective on life. Medical school surprised me in the first year, by being the study of death. We spent every Saturday in the dissecting room with our cadaver. Part of the traditional training is of course designed to desensitize us as a group, and  it is successful. I see there is a tepid backlash against the desensitization, but so far the forces of reaction appear to be winning.

What I'd really like to spread about before I die is an understanding that all of life is a risk, and that by contemplation we can sometimes limit the risks, but we can never eliminate them.  I love investing because it keep my nose pressed hard up against what's happening in the world  but in the past month, I just haven't wanted to know. Now, it's past time for me to go back to looking at those risks!