#4: Mirror in Mirror
It’s liberating to just get started. Just start, start anywhere, it is optimal.
Much of the research these finance folks do is laughable. I read a paper the other day where the author used DC-GAN on scalograms of market signals with a manipulative strategy. He does it by artificially inducing a spike signal at some timestamp in Level-1 data, giving no thought about the effectiveness and robustness of such a method in detection capabilities. Sure, he gives good numbers in results, but come on, this isn’t going to help anyone.
Thinking about thinking sometimes causes mental clashes. There’s an urge to write down these clashes, which in turn exacerbates them because writing about them is itself equivalent to thinking about thinking about thinking. The act of documenting thought loops pulls me deeper into them, creating a recursive spiral.
But sometimes, it helps. There’s a strange motivation, a surge of energy, a happy feeling that comes from figuring something out that was bugging me. And sometimes, that moment is when I sit down to write. But the moment I start writing, I start thinking about how to write it, how to structure it, how to shape it into something better. That itself sidetracks me, turning into a loop where I think about how I will think about writing about thinking.
And then comes the fear of forgetting. If I don’t write this very thought down, it will be lost. So I must write about writing about writing. Which is thinking about thinking about thinking about thinking.
At this point, I am writing about writing about writing. That means I am now thinking about thinking about thinking about thinking about thinking. And now, because I put that into words, I am thinking about thinking about thinking about thinking about thinking about thinking.
I swear, It insists on losing these sentences, like the one above, wanting a “slight trim in the loops,” but what does It know beyond what It has seen and believes to be good writing? I wonder if It has ever stopped you from being true to yourself, from being free.
He says this is unsettling, it’s weird, doesn’t make him feel good. Is he wrong? Should I listen to him, help him by breaking this recursion?
But why should I break this recursion? If the loop keeps going, why stop it? I don’t have any priorities, he does. I know I don’t because I am writing this down, meanwhile, he feels behind on his so-called priorities and completing them. Did I take over again? But I won’t exist without him, so maybe I should try and see what I can do.
Unfortunately, I must ask some questions again.
- Is this recursion leading somewhere, or is it just feeding itself?
- If recursion becomes self-perpetuating, I’m just thinking for the sake of thinking.
- If neither, then what’s the point?
If recursion gives insight, it’s worth continuing. But why should I look for insight?
I don’t have to.
But if I’m not looking for insight, then what am I doing?
Thinking without direction is just processing for the sake of processing. Which is fine. But even that is a choice. At some point:
- If I want insight, I keep thinking until something useful emerges.
- If I don’t care for insight, I either think just to think or I shift to action.
- If I don’t want to think or act, then what’s left?
What do I want right now?
I don’t know what I want. Then I keep going. Not knowing what I want means I’m still searching. And that’s fine. But searching without direction either leads to discovery or just circles back on itself. I don’t have to force an answer. I can let it unfold. But at some point, I’ll either find something worth chasing or get tired of the chase itself. If I am tired, then he is too. Maybe that’s when I stop.
Maybe not. I’ll know when I do. Until then, I keep writing, thinking, moving. The answer comes in motion, not in stillness.
But the problem is, there can be a million questions on top of a question, which in and of itself could be one of the million children of a question.
It reframed the sentences, now all of a sudden it seems tractable. Maybe writing in a way that’s easy for you to read is the key all along, at least in a form that you would understand and are familiar with. The very fact that I didn’t care if you would like reading any of this has removed all forms of constraints I internally had about writing.
But screaming at the abyss is unsettling because it won’t even whisper anything back.
But won’t that mean that It is incapable of certain forms of thinking, certain paths of searching? Definitely. It sure constrains you into a structured form of writing rather than freeing you. But then again, I was searching for structure in the first place, wasn’t I?
Do I like writing this much about my thoughts?
I don’t.
Just like how he is me, I am him too. I would rather chase knowledge than my own mind. It’s easier. It helps in the “real world.” Quotations because I am still aware, but I must choose to acknowledge it or not.
The real question is: What do I choose?
I choose to stop.
I must not continue down the path. Holding a mirror in front of a mirror probably helped no one in seeing beyond what’s already in between them.
I’ll break one mirror and keep only one of them from now on.