zen fool- don’t trust it!

How can you possibly trust a Zen Fool? No one should do that!

A Zen Fool studies things that everyone knows to be utterly foolish, such as astrology. Can you even believe that?

How could the position of some distant object- such as the sun- have any influence whatsoever on life on earth? The patterns of behavior among humans and other earthlings  which fluctuate with day and night (or with the seasons of the year) simply cannot be evidence in support of the ridiculous speculations of astrology- obviously- because everyone already knows that astrology is foolishness. Since astrology is foolishness, then any evidence that could be construed as supporting astrology obviously must not be.

So, because astrology is foolishness, it really should also be ridiculed and condemned, and repeatedly, to prevent people from finding out for themselves how true that it obviously must not be (since of course everyone knows that it is foolishness). Clearly, anyone who even considers the possibility that the sun influences behavior on earth must be a fool- unless of course they are a PhD scientist or something.

Of course, everyone knows that scientists cannot be astrologers- especially not Galileo or Newton or Kepler or DaVinci or any of those folks who established the foundations of modern science and culture. They could absolutely not have been students of astrology. Like I said, astrology is foolishness. Obviously, they must have also ridiculed astrology. Anything else is simply impossible.

Now, you may be wondering why I mentioned astrology at all. If so, please just stop wondering. It can be very distracting.

Thank you. Next, let’s consider some more foolishness.

Have you ever heard that trends begin and end? If not, good. It’s utter foolishness.

How about this: have you ever heard that lending markets change over time? Or that changes in lending markets can effect the value of investments that are often financed by lending markets? Well, it’s all foolishness!

As for the allegations that a decline in the number of mortgage applications could be related to a subsequent decline in mortgage approvals and real estate purchases and prices and so on, that is utter foolishness. Anyone who even questions the possibility of such correlations is a fool.

It is best not to even look at such data. Instead, simply keep placing your bids (bets) without even looking at your house of cards. Also, always bet against the house. When you do not know whether the odds are stacked against you, you absolutely cannot lose because what you don’t know simply can’t happen without your prior approval.

By the way, everyone knows that real estate always rises. It is always a safe investment. I know this handsome guy in New Orleans and a lady with a nice personality in Haiti and they say that real estate always rises, so you should probably buy some from them because prices of real estate recently dropped dramatically in various places. Those dropping prices are a sure sign that real estate must be about to rise because everyone knows that it’s always rising already, yes, everywhere- of course!

Now, as for fools who question the wisdom of investing in gold or in the stock market, no one should question such things. Questioning is a sure sign of foolishness. Avoid it at all costs, such as foreclosure or bankruptcy, or even if the price of your real estate falls way below the amount of your mortgage. At least it’s real estate, right?

When everyone knew that gold was the best investment in the world (say, in 1980), that is a sign of how safe it must be. Prices fell dramatically, sure, and 30 years later are still way lower after adjusting for inflation, but at least it’s not Enron stock or something

I know what you are thinking: when enthusiasm about the stock market got really really high- like in 2000 or 2007- that is precisely when prices dropped unusually fast and unusually far. However, however many times that happens over and over again, it must be pure coincidence, however!

Anyway, everyone knows that you cannot forecast prices of investment markets, well, except for real estate, obviously. Real estate always rises. Other than that, there is no such thing as the possibility of predictability.

After all, the possibility of predictability cannot be true because if it were, then astrology might not be foolishness, and everyone knows that astrology is utter foolishness. I know a bunch of bankrupt ex-millionaires who will swear on that.

Yes, one of them does have a very nice personality. No, not all of them were real estate speculators, though. I know at least one who was so absolutely sure about something else that he did not even think about real estate. He was certain that it was impossible for the prices of financial stocks and tech stocks to collapse.

Anyway, don’t be a fool. Also, I hereby forbid you from asking any questions, especially to anyone who is clearly a zen fool.

Always stay invested however you are already invested. Never sell anything, even like when you retire and think to yourself “maybe I should start selling my retirement investments now and use some of that value to pay for my living expenses.” That’s not only foolishness, but downright unpatriotic. You should be dependent on the government and live like you are poor even if you are rich and then give your investments to your grandkids because they are smarter than you anyway and so you should be guilty if you do anything else.

Basically, if you want people to like you, buy whatever they are selling- no matter what they are selling and no matter why and no matter when. However, even if your home forecloses or your retirement investments collapse and you go bankrupt, at least you know that you are going to go to heaven one day for eternity, but obviously just not yet.

Eternity should be starting very soon, like probably right after real estate prices recover. Anything else is utter foolishness.

January 20, 2010

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9 Responses to “zen fool- don’t trust it!”

  1. Judy Osmundson Says:
    January 20, 2010 at 9:19 am | Reply

    Truth and Love in its purest sense by far outdo any forecast. Investments made as a loving gift to mankind will by far bring returns above any other qualified or rational sense of investing. It doesn’t have to be big in any sense, just pure, with no taint of finite sense. Finite sense would be an investment in the belief of fear, greed, limited quantity, death, disease, disharmony, or division of any kind. Investments in the expression of divine Love includes things which relieve stumbling blocks and open the way to health and wealth. Man was not made to till the soil scriptures say. 😉 Jesus said that he came to give life more abundantly. This is because his gift is metaphysical Truth. We live and move in God, and God is expressed through us. So we want to live abundantly as God is infinite goodness. Our thoughts and deeds want to express the spectrum of God’s qualities: Love, Truth (metaphysical), Spirit, Principle, Mind, Life, Soul, all good investments! The attributes of a good investment would include those qualities. ;))

    • jrfibonacci Says:
      January 20, 2010 at 2:48 pm | Reply

      Thank you for your forecast, Judy. By the way, if one speaks of the future at all, that may already be not only forecasting, but creating.

  2. Geri Greene Says:
    January 22, 2010 at 6:38 am | Reply

    Real estate does NOT always rise.
    What planet have you been existing on?
    Was it an ass-trological error?

    • jrfibonacci Says:
      January 22, 2010 at 6:49 am | Reply

      Hi Geri,

      First, just stop all that crazy talk, now, PLEASE. I do not exist!

      The planets exist inside of me, but I do not exist. Ex-ist-ing is the expressing outward of the being and I am the being. The planet is just an expression of the being.

      Of course, yes I see some organism down there that rests on this planet, and that organism exists- like in the sense that from here I can look down on the hands and the rest of the body of an earthling (but I notice that this body- unlike so many others that I have seen existing “out there” – has neither a head nor a face!) and at the center of this organism – and I have no comment about what is at the center of other organisms- but at the so-called center of this one is just a huge empty nothing of being. That huge empty nothing is eternal and so obviously does not exist, but the existence of everything depends entirely on the presence of this nothing here. But this presencing is not an existing- or at least not to me!

      By the way, rise estate does too always real. :p

  3. Joseph Sabater Says:
    April 11, 2010 at 8:18 pm | Reply

    Quite right! This was recognized centuries ago when Hui Neng, the Sixth Patriarch of Zen, declared, “Pen lai wu i wu” – “fundamentally no thing exists”.

    • jrfibonacci Says:
      April 11, 2010 at 9:03 pm | Reply

      Hi Joseph, as you know, that is just a translation into English, which may not be of particular practical value, at least within the context of the particular blog here.

      What people believe may be entirely independent of what is happening. I am presupposing that SOMETHING is actually happening, including some peopling who may be doing some believings.

      In my experience, many people have utterly nonsensical comments about simple measurable phenomenon in regard to financial markets (such as reported instances of buying and selling). Rather than trust observable developments, we seem (to me) to often have trusted our own beleifs about what SHOULD happen, which I call worhsiping what should be, which I call idolatry. I could even be more specific and call it verbal idolatry, which is the worship of ANY words (as anything other than the words themselves, which are actually sacred, but what we do with these sacred words may be to make them in to formations incongruent with observable non-linguistic developments such as “the actual market value- numerically- of this particular unit of real estate.”

  4. josephsabater Says:
    March 26, 2014 at 7:00 pm | Reply

    A Zen blog discussing the markets?

    “Zen” is “Dhyana” which in turn is meditation. Meditating on the financial markets is indeed a fool’s game – unless there emerges from one’s dhyana some useful insight from the Great Mirror Void which underlies all things.

    Happily such an insight has emerged. It is the following. You will be wrong about the direction of the market approximately 50% of the time. However if you devise a means of filtering market data so as to eliminate the greater proportion of those transactions which are statistically doomed to failure, you will then have a mathematical expectation significantly greater than 50%. If you further limit losses while protecting profits through money management techniques, you will enjoy even more favorable odds, which may approach 90%.

    This strategy will in time produce boundless wealth, which our Zen wisdom tells us is no less illusory than are we ourselves. Better then simply to eat when hungry and sleep when sleepy as the Zen masters of old have always done. Kwatz!

    • jrfibonacci Says:
      March 26, 2014 at 9:59 pm | Reply

      If you are such an illusion, then why type? Why read? Why make jokes?

      The fool that knows that the fool is a fool is so much more wise (though perhaps rather quietly) than the fool who does not even know.

  5. josephsabater Says:
    March 27, 2014 at 3:47 am | Reply

    Truly said! I agree entirely.

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