How I look at the World
By now, you should be familiar with Macro D, who has graciously accepted the opportunity to share his thoughts and visions with your readers. The first article is below.
In the second instalment on how he looks at the world, he weaves together insights from renowned philosophers like George Orwell, Plato, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Kant, and Einstein to explore the intricate relationship between perception, action, and knowledge. By examining their teachings, Macro D provides a fresh perspective on how we can approach the mysteries of the financial markets with greater depth and clarity.
Let’s follow his thoughts and explore.
"In our society, those who know perfectly well what is happening are also those who are least able to see the world as it is."
- George Orwell
Let us immediately clarify our procedure. This is not about looking for hairs in the egg or even looking for specks in other people's eyes while there is a beam in ours. Here, it is a matter of humsimply [1] giving faith to what we recommended in the first part of this space that “the good Paper Alfa” kindly grants us in order to exchange our opinions on the mysteries of the financial universe. For this reason, our eyes on how "others than us" have laid their eyes on the object that has attracted their attention is neither intended to be a gauntlet nor the testamentary legacy of a presumption outside by the grace of nature.
All that the "modest undersigned destined to become dust" intends to do is live up to the promise he made to himself that day when, within two weeks, he laid his eyes first on “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” and then, on “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”. That child was fascinated by those two books but could not understand which story he preferred, even though the pen was the same.
In the end, that child became a man, and alongside his passion for literature, he cultivated an equally overwhelming passion for macro trading. However, the demand for that little dwarf never went away.
"Do I prefer “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” or “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn?".
Even today, I do not know the answer to this question, but I know how to respond to the birth of the desire to answer any question.
THINK WITH YOUR HEAD.
A promise is a promise: if you commit to referring to a creature that has left its mark on history, you cannot later take back your word and name a half-assed cartridge. No, I will not do it; therefore, speaking of giants, I start by relying on a Lord who never had anything to wriggle between space rockets, banners, advertising agencies and insider trading but still had the strength to earn the expansion of a grey matter capable of giving birth to pearls of wisdom that transcend time.
"The wise man will always want to be with someone better than himself."
- Plato.
However, we will return to Plato later. For now, let us get on the chariot of a man who gave bread to bread and wine to wine.
Friedrich Nietzsche wrote,
"Only a prospective knowing and the more affects we allow to speak about a given thing, the more eyes, different eyes, we know how to use to observe a thing, the more complete will be our 'concept' of it, our 'objectivity'".
I ponder: Is there a consensus to be reached? Can the accumulation of numerous perspectives lead to a more comprehensive understanding? Does the sheer quantity of a hundred disinterested glances outweigh the profound depth of a single, extraordinary observation?
Moreover, now we turn our attention to a Lord who did not fear the forest's solitude.
Heidegger says:
"Our primary way of existing in the world is as actors within it and as users who use it."
I ask myself: "But aren't actors the ones who know from the beginning what part they will play before going on stage?".
When I wake up in the morning and get ready to live the day, what do I know about the part I will have to play on the stage of life?
Absolutely nothing.
But let's delve further into Martin Heidegger's thought. Instead of focusing on perception and understanding, Heidegger focuses on the role of action. According to Heidegger, our primary way of existing in the world is as actors within it and as users who use it.
I (in a low voice, broken by shyness) objected that an actor knows his part before going on stage, while a human being does not know the part he or she will play during the day they are about to live because they do not know in which play they will star.
Now, Heidegger emphasises not being an actor who plays a part but an actor who performs an action. According to Heidegger, the actor/man is not first a "thinker" but a human being who acts. For Heidegger, reflection is the secondary aspect that comes after the primary aspect: action.
Heidegger sees action as the primary point of contact that binds man to the life he lives because he understands the perception of things as if things were "at hand", things that necessarily must be used in one way or another. The sequential utilitarianism conceived by Heidegger, for example, conceives doors as something through which we move, stones as objects to pull and horses as rideable. This way of perceiving objects may not correspond to their intrinsic nature, but it depends on how we can use them.
With awe, I ask myself, bowing my head. "Can I disagree?".
Let me explain. If I reacted with action and not thought first, then the idea of a world created in the image and likeness of thought that wriggles in the wake of the action would arise. However, then, what would the action be guided by? If thought is par excellence destined to think, action is equally destined to act. Moreover, here we are at the point. We can certainly act without thinking, but is it really from this horizon that we want to start? One could respond that acting without thinking is a natural/instinctive activity that precedes the necessary human need to think to build a world that is thought about and not just acted upon.
But for now, let's stick to the "question of doors as something to move through, stones as objects to pull, and horses as rideable".
The door is something to move through because when I look at the door (perhaps closed), I cannot pass through the door, and therefore, I cannot go beyond the door if I do not don't open the door first. The fact that the door represents an obstacle means that I thought about the nature of the door before I even opened the door. I certainly act on the door, but I do it "thinking of the door in the act of opening it". The fact that I perceive the door as something that must be opened and which calls me to immediate action justifies the fact that I perceive the door as something that must be opened, but this door that must be opened cannot precede my thinking about it, because I act on the door only after thinking about it.
Central to Kant's philosophy is the idea that objects conform to our ways of understanding. Reason, therefore, is not just a tool for comprehending objects, but it actively shapes and creates them in the process of knowing. This perspective, known as the World Vision, is a transcendental a priori structure that underpins and configures every possible individual experience. Understanding this aspect of Kant's philosophy is crucial in exploring the implications of his ideas on human perception and knowledge.
It follows that knowledge is a union of the active, coordinating force of the mind with the passive and available function called "sensitivity". In the process of knowledge, we human beings tend to model reality on the basis of our particular needs, and therefore, the reality of the surrounding world is the result of a re-elaboration process by our mind, which reveals the interpretation that our own mind makes of the world.
Kant was mainly interested in the knowledge of phenomena (things outside of things - things outside of themselves), but not knowledge of noumena (things inside things - things in themselves), while what interests us here (as passionate adepts of the MACRO) is the overall and total vision of the world around us and of what is within us.
In the Critique of Pure Reason (1781), Immanuel Kant argues that we can understand the world within our minds' limits and impose a particular order on what he calls "the multiplicity of pure intuition". It follows that it is by necessity that we experience the world through time and space, even if there is no evidence at hand to demonstrate that these structures (TIME and SPACE) exist outside of our mind. What we take for granted as an integral part of the structural fabric of the world, such as objects and causality, is how our mind organizes the flow of information that reaches us through our senses. After analyzing the three ideas of reason, Kant concludes that metaphysics cannot, therefore, be an object of science. Therefore, it cannot produce synthetic judgments a priori.
At the heart of this discourse lies a profound critique of reason: the audacious attempt to rationally prove the existence of a noumenal, non-phenomenal, and metaphysical reality. Through this critique, Kant seeks to dismantle the dogmatic explanations of the world, those that assert every understanding of the world must stem from realities that one is compelled to prove as existing. However, it is crucial to note that the inability to demonstrate these ideas rationally does not negate humanity's need to earnestly engage in the sacred pursuit of a unified explanation of everything.
Isn't it perhaps the sacrosanct search for a unified explanation of everything that encourages every discretionary portfolio manager in this world to get out of bed in the dawn, before the rooster crows, with an ever-increasing enthusiasm that is never the same in terms of emotion and passion as that of the previous day?
Well, if we want to ask Mr Kant to sit on the bench for a moment, we must first make sure that he is not replaced in the middle of the pitch by just any man.
I have in mind a giant of history who is anything but an ordinary man.
The good Einstein expressed some thoughts that are not precisely waste paper for sunbathing on the beach in midsummer.
"The best feeling is the mysterious side of life. Knowing that something impenetrable exists."
"For me, the mystery of the eternity of life and the vague idea of the marvellous structure of reality is enough, together with the individual effort to understand a fragment, even the smallest, of the reason that manifests itself in nature. "The ideals that illuminated my path were good, beauty and truth."
"It is not the eyes that see, but we that see through the eyes."
What trait-union links this triad of thoughts of the good Albert?
I perceive a common thread that weaves through these three musings of the esteemed Albert. It is the mystery, that elusive enigma which, veiled by the ethereal silk curtains of eternity, beckons mortal beings like us to embark on its pursuit, fully aware that the search can only culminate in success if, during the voyage, we refrain from deluding ourselves that we have reached the journey's end. For in truth, the end of the path is a mirage, forever beyond our grasp.
Embarking on a journey of exploration, I, a fervent advocate of macro vision, am venturing towards the enigmatic realm of philosophy. I am aware that the success of my research hinges on the understanding that this journey is ongoing and that the true end is not yet in sight.
However, why, in my macro vision, can philosophy boast an essential right to look even before equally worthy subjects such as economics or statistics?
Philosophy, as the mother, holds a unique position. It encompasses all disciplines, which, like daughters, lack the comprehensive vision that the mother possesses.
Is the mother or daughter teaching her counterpart how to tie shoes?
Is the mother or daughter teaching her counterpart how to rinse her face?
Philosophy is the mother not because it is a “PhD in every area of life” but because it does not bow to "it has always been done this way" in every area of life.
Suppose philosophy does not accept the status quo. In that case, it is not because it has a bad character that leads it permanently to overturn the table; philosophy does not accept the status quo because it does not recognize perfection in any status quo, and since philosophy is the handmaiden of light that accompanies us along the journey that must accompany us to the house of mystery, it follows that philosophy cannot take anything as gospel, it is constantly called to keep its eyes wide open and raise its antennas as if it were perpetually in a state of war, even when it experiences peace.
What does being perpetually in a state of war simultaneously as you experience peace mean?
It means that for discretionary portfolio managers who approach the mystery by relying on an "attempt at a visionary gaze" that is initially philosophical, it is a must to constantly see the world as if they were seeing it for the first time.
I am called to see with new eyes the world I observed just a minute ago because I know that the world now is no longer the same as before. I observe and study the data and graphs that the Bloomberg platform offers me, knowing that those data are no different from the previous data simply because a five has become a six or the word inflation has transformed into recession. I observe those data in the awareness that those data and those graphs are different from before because they are the product of a world that is no longer the same as before.
Observing the world through this style means being "perpetually in a state of war at the same time as peace", as the macro trader must necessarily immerse himself in the deepest waters of thought with an attention that is only found in those cases where the alert is maximum, but to succeed in seeing the vision, the macro trader is called to immerse himself in these intense waters with the state of mind of someone who does not want to plunder the vision he seeks, but with the state of the soul of someone who wants to offer a sip of water to the vision, which in the end is only his vision.
Now, let us take a step back a few years.
Through the "Myth of the Cave", Plato intends to explain the relationship between the physical world and the world of ideas. Some people chained inside a cave believe that this is the only reality possible. When they finally see what is outside the cave, they are immediately overcome by pain in their eyes caused by the sunlight they were not used to. How do these men react?
They prefer to pack up and go back to living in the darkness because it is what they are used to, and it is the comfortable space of their little world.
However, these men, as soon as they return to the cave, realize that their perception of the world and the things in the world has definitively changed.
Plato invites us to ask ourselves why we are chained through this myth.
It is as if Plato asked me:
Are you afraid of what you might discover if you freed yourself from the chains that keep you tied to a particular way of seeing things [2]?
How many discretionary global macro portfolio managers are there between London and New York, between Dubai and Geneva, who cannot free themselves from a specific vision that overwhelms them, preventing them from seeing inflation, interest rates, the Polish zloty, or the Hungarian forint, or a platinum contract in a different way?. How many discretionary global macro portfolio managers are there around who cannot see in Powell what is in Powell's notes, not because these portfolio managers are not able to see, but because they cannot untie themselves from that status quo, which requires seeing Powell (or whoever) only for what Powell shows and says and not for what Powell does not show and does not say.
Well, every central banker, every financial instrument, every chart, every currency pair, every stock, and every option has its cone of shadow that must be identified, that cone of shadow which is also the veil through which to see.
The shadows that those men observe from inside the cave symbolize a fictitious reality that distracts from the pure reality: what happens outside.
How many discretionary portfolio managers are there, intent on observing shadows but deluded that they are about to face pure reality?
Seeing with Plato's eyes means sensibly and continuously seeing the living presence of a world that is another world compared to the world that appears before disillusioned and disinterested eyes.
Seeing the world looking for greater depth does not mean being snobbish; it does not mean having the presumption of being able to see what others are unable to see. Seeing the world that is other than us means bowing to the unimaginable depths of that mystery to which we have referred, declaring that following the road that leads to him must be followed without the illusion that this search can reach the end of the path, as in this case, the end of the path does not exist and will never exist.
Considering that I intend to see my macro vision without accepting the intermediate filter offered by mainstream voices, there is nothing left for me to do but go to the origins of macro and ask for an audience with those who laid the foundations of that world. The journey is long, and the enthusiasm is unstoppable, but time is a tyrant.
On the next round of the carousel, we will knock on that door, and who knows if the good George[3] and Stanley[4], Bruce[5] Paul [6] and Louis[7], will want to open it for us.
[1] Humsimply: This is the union of humility and simplicity (humbly+simply). Here, we want to strengthen the humility and simplicity that characterize the original intent.
[2] This is linked to the awe one feels at the thought of abandoning a certain status quo.
[3] George Soros
[4] Stanley Druckenmiller
[5] Bruce Kovner
[6] Paul Tudor Jones
[7] Louis Bacon