Probability is not a mere computation of odds on the dice or more complicated variants; it is the acceptance of the lack of certainty in our knowledge and the development of methods for dealing with our ignorance. When things go our way we reject the lack of certainty. The epiphany I had in my career in randomness came when I
understood that I was not intelligent enough, nor strong enough, to even
try to fight my emotions. Although Soros did not deliver anything meaningful in his writings, he knew how to handle randomness. My lesson from Soros is to start every meeting at my boutique by
convincing everyone that we are a bunch of idiots who know nothing and
are mistake-prone, but happen to be endowed with the rare privilege of
knowing it.
A mistake is not something to be determined after the fact, but in light of the information available until that point. No matter how sophisticated our choices, how good we are at dominating the odds, randomness will have the last word.Mild success can be explainable by skills and labor. Wild success is attributable to variance. Bullish or bearish are terms used by people who do not engage in practicing uncertainty, like the television commentators, or those who have no experience in handling risk. Alas, investors and businesses are not paid in probabilities; they are paid in dollars. Accordingly, it is not how likely an event is to happen that matters, it is how much is made when it happens that should be the consideration.
We do not need to be rational and scientific when it comes to the details of our daily life—only in those that can harm us and threaten our survival. Modern life seems to invite us to do the exact opposite; become extremely realistic and intellectual when it comes to such matters as religion and personal behavior, yet as irrational as possible when it comes to matters ruled by randomness (say, portfolio or real estate investments). I have encountered colleagues, "rational," no-nonsense people, who do not understand why I cherish the poetry of Baudelaire and Saint-John Perse or obscure (and often impenetrable) writers like Elias Canetti, J. L. Borges, or Walter Benjamin. Yet they get sucked into listening to the "analyses" of a television "guru," or into buying the stock of a company they know absolutely nothing about, based on tips by neighbors who drive expensive cars."