Caveman Confessions
By Gordon Philips, Director of Trading and Research
Institute of Higher Earning
I wasn't always this way. I used to be intelligent, suave, persuasive. I
knew which snifter to use for which brandy, and could charm a dog off a meat
wagon. Women gave me a second look. Men marveled. Then I discovered Forex.
That's when things started to go downhill and life has never been the same.
It started with my grooming. I used to be a clothes horse. I would spit
shine my shoes until they blinded passersby. I never had a hair out of
place. A lint brush was as indispensable as a Colt .45 to a high school
guidance counselor.
But after just one week of Forex currency trading I found myself wearing the
same sweats all day. And then the next day. And sometimes the day after
that. Then I stopped wearing shoes altogether and traded in my socks. Then I
was down to my undershirt. Gosh it's warm in here. Must be the anxiety. So I
was down to my shorts. Man, I need some fresh air.
And what happened to my intellect? It seemed to be shrinking. I could swear
I noticed a distinct new slope to my forehead. I heard the president
explaining America's policy in Iraq and found I could actually understand
him. Slowly, my vocabulary shrank. I no longer used words like
'splendiferous' and 'avaricious.' I now said 'nukular,' 'liberry' and 'Americuh.'
And my personality... Where once I was a great humanitarian, now all I cared
about was ripping out the other trader's guts out and handing them back to
him on a stick. All I wanted was the pips. Nothing else mattered. I could
picture myself back 10,000 years ago, huddled just inside a small cave on
the edge of a great snow covered mountain, a club in my hand and a small
fire crackling next to me. A band of homo sapiens was hunting on the
precipice below and I was going to provide them with a little one-man
welcoming party.
Snap out of it!
After an entire day spent staring at the charts I was morphing into a
currency caveman. I found my hearing had become so acute I could almost hear
the market moving. Although it hadn't yet been a week since my last shower I
noticed that I could no longer smell myself. But I couldn't tear myself away
from the screen. Five o'clock shadow turned into a hairy face that would
frighten my own mother. But I didn't care.
I was living on raw beef jerky now and making grunting sounds as the candles
lurched up and down on the screen. I pictured a herd of red and blue gazelle
feeding in the prairie outside my window and clutched my imaginary spear so
tightly I was beyond carpal tunnel, I was developing rigor mortis of the
mouse.
I threw all those currency trading courses I bought on the Internet into the
fire and used the embers to toast some venison. Candlesticks? MACD? Pivot
points? Who needs that stuff? Price can only go up and down and the less I
thought about it, the better I instinctively knew what to do.
Two million years from now I'd be working the trading desk at a top Wall
Street investment house and stealing money from babies and little old ladies
-- from their IRA's anyway -- but for now, back here in the Mesozoic, I was
the king of my kingdom.
I owned the Forex. And I wasn't about to evolve.
