Don't lose your validation
This Blogger blog site was initiated to put my own artwork, specifically that of the homeless, into the larger context of art. It is intended as the linear language expression of my visual work's thesis. Eventually, the correspondence between linear and pictorial expression branched-out into other areas, over time. Given the many diverse topics discussed since the blog's beginning, even I must concede art - much less art about the homeless - constitutes a minority share. Art (for me) is second nature; linear science-including mathematics-is what I find hard.
My verbal Scholastic Aptitude Test scores were quite high, even as I tested miserably on the mathematical. Nobody knew what to do with me. Usually shy, if the opportunity arose to interpret the meaning of a nonlinear expression, I shined like a performer in the spotlight. My take ended the discussion. The instructor glared at me, and moved-on to her next topic. When I say, 'nobody knew what to do with me,' what I mean is that when educators sought to aggregate students of similar aptitude, I didn't fit in. The dilemma was whether to combine high-scorers, skewed towards one aptitude or the other, or to combine them in a more representative mix.
The educational fallacy is that science is empirical, unlike language, which is supposedly not-so. A line from Shakespeare can be interpreted endlessly for its aesthetics, implicit meaning, it's historical context, and so on. However, as left-hemisphere Philistines will tell you, "That, and a buck, will get you on the bus." In other words, non-linear thinking is worthless. I argue to the contrary, that mathematics, the forte of "high-functioning autists," is a cognitive impairment. Binary thinking is the best-known feature of the autistic personality. Typically, they are poor, despite savant number ability. Prove I'm wrong. Show me a wealthy programmer.
Wealth is built upon the appropriated labor of cognitive ability, both mathematical, and linguistic. Both abilities are needed for material success and in mean proportion. The street gamin, the plucky fighter who has to compete because he isn't endowed with exceptional ability, is most often cast in the role of rich man (not the quant). Thus, it is with an acute sense of irony that I follow the drama of cryptocurrency, its decline and fall. A report in the February 9 Business Insider, written by Samuel O'Brient, quotes a comment by economist Mohamed El-Erian, chief economic advisor at Allianz, from an interview on CNBC, the day before.
Framing the situation philosophically, i.e., diplomatically, El-Erian said: "I think the fundamental theme for bitcoin is continued slow institutional adoption, and it's going to be volatile until that base of resident investors, not tourist investors, becomes big enough to absorb it." In expressing the linear proposition as a metaphor (dwellings), El-Erian tells an astute truth, by alluding to parallel distress in the housing market. The quote caught my eye, as it has a direct derivative significance on the social problem of homelessness and, finally to the circumstance of my interest in the homeless in the cluster of ideas. Homelessness is a physical matter, not limited to human, existential criteria.
Cryptocurrency is non-productive, unlike ownership of a house, wherein equity is accumulated. Home ownership is a physical asset, unlike crypto, and other ledger-based financial instruments. Futures are risky. Home ownership is a sure thing. Why, then, would anyone take a chance with one's money? Because it's fun! Indeed, only a bonafide autist takes investing seriously, when it is in fact an amusing board game. The main inducement is the big win and consequent bragging rights. Cryptocurrency, based as it is on nothing, cannot even be compared to stocks and credit which have a physical, tangible basis. Trading crypto is a computer game, pure-and-simple.
This isn't meant to knock crypto. It's a great game, one made for computer nerds. Everyone knows that just beneath the surface of all online gaming lurk computer gaming jackpots, the rewards of which are hardly different from the Japanese gambling model -that of redeemable tokens. Crypto just doesn't hide the fact, "hidden in plain sight," that it is a game of Three Card Monte. Catch me if you can is the name of the game. But returning to El-Erian's metaphor, neither is housing an entirely assured investment. His proposition turns on the difference between tourists, literally hotel-stayers, and homeowners (when they are not on vacation).
I would suggest as a better analogy the difference between parking your car on the street or at the mall and parking it securely in your own driveway or garage. Cryptocurrency his cash parked. That is not meant to imply that there's a great deal of competition for parking spaces, either for cars, or for idle cash. The metaphor could be extended to seeing car parking valets as the stock brokers of the car park concourse. The concept being that of non-fixed assets, potentially always in motion, and high-frequency motion, at that, being used for a short period of time before being traded. The tech-savvy are free to elaborate the simile to bring-out the unique character of crypto trading.
I'm not a holder of crypto in any form. My interest is in the dramatic denouement following its climactic rise, and staggering 45% fall, from its all-time high of $126,000 just a few months ago. That's drama with empirical consequences. And yet, where is the bard who will tell the tale? Nobody, because of the aversion metaphorical types have for wealth formation. That, and the difficulty creative types have for conceptualizing physics. Most would characterize it as karma -the just desserts of greed. It strikes me as willful blindness, an ostrich-like burying one's head in the sand, because it is only one liability among many in life.
My own counter-metaphor of crypto investing as like parked cars probably originated in my first gainful employment parking cars. As a youth, I grew up in the neighborhood of Northwestern University's Wildcats stadium. On game days, my father allowed me to use our house's driveway to earn a few dollars parking fans' cars, while they attended the game. The experience taught me the realities of trade, by which I mean the ups and downs, as for example remembering to ask a customer for his keys before he ran-off to the game. As anyone who has never acted as parking valet can imagine for himself, if the last car's owner in the driveway returned from the game last, it forced the other customers to wait for his return.
It was the first challenge of a financial nature I faced in life. Was a few buck's pocket change worth the embarrassment of fielding a crowd of disgruntled customers? And what about my father? The customers grinned at the kid, but it was Dad who was put on the spot, responsible for my screw-up. It was evidently worth it to Dad, because it taught me the limits of depending on an allowance for spending money. And, there was no getting out of it, because all the kids on the block did the same thing. It would have looked bad if we were the only house on the block refusing to park (like "bad sports"). It taught me to be tough, to grin-and-bear-it, and be thankful for remittances -however paltry the sum.