Mood dips in step with temperature (day 34)

I've noticed that the stock market gyrations need a story.  You can't just say "the stock market dipped by 300 points today".  You have to say "the stock market dipped dramatically following investor doubts about...".   I have read many of these headlines.   Over time an image has formed in my head, helped by the many trading room stock photos.  I picture chemicals (economic indicators) being piped in and landing on the crowds of traders in uneven but clustered patterns.  They there is general barking and howling that spreads to local neighbourhoods.  A frenzy of anxious trading takes place, and when the chemicals subside, exhausted stunned traders reckon with the result.   To put a story on this behaviour is interesting but most surely wrong because the traders are barking out of habit and neighbourly influence as much as reason.   The headlines are like a running commentary on a cock fight.   They create mini-dramas out of very immediate facts.  Some of these mini-dramas will actually fit the facts longer than others and you'll feel good about the narrative arc.  It's good to feel like you might know the next thing that happens, or to feel like a tragedy is in the making.  The anticipation is good.  Good like dessert.

The problem is that eventually drama exhaustion sets in.  There is only one cure for drama: deep engagement.  But how does one actually get beyond the fine grained noise to the deeper currents in financial systems?  It's not clear to me that anyone is even relatively sure of the deeper narrative taking place.  And maybe there is none.  It's quite possible that we've created a machine so mesmerizingly complex and with such high stakes that we're stuck in a fearful narcissistic moment.  This may be one reason to see the movie "cloudy with a chance of meatballs".

There is not real conclusion to this post.  The compulsion to stay at the surface of things because it's more immediately interesting is a trap that eventually robs us of insight.  It's related to discernment in the choice of information we take in.  It's also one of the topics we are researching with the Breath I/O project.  The frenzied consumption of the new eventually leads to shallow breathing and anxiety.  What kind of media consumption leads to a deeper breathing?

A song for this post.