Stuck with an Investment?
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance discusses "Stuckness" together with "Quality". By Benjamin Tan
Last week, I posted an article on “Quality” after reading the book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values. The author, Robert M. Pirsig, discusses the concept in metaphorical terms and I took the liberty to apply it to stock-picking, arguing that “Quality” companies are those that have proven resilience over time. It may be hard to pin down in quantitative terms, but companies must first endure multiple economic cycles and cross the chasm before they can be deemed “Quality”.
“Stuckness”: A Familiar Friend or Foe?
“Stuckness” is another subject tackled by Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
We have all been there: Stuck in a situation where we feel frustrated and helpless. More often than not, we experience some form of “stuckness” in our lives, whether at work, with our family members, or as it relates to certain financial decisions.
Pirsig has this to say:
“This is the zero moment of consciousness. Stuck. No answer. Honked. Kaput. It's a miserable experience emotionally. You're losing time. You're incompetent. You don't know what you're doing. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
Ironically, the author argues that being stuck is not a bad thing. In fact, “zero consciousness” is akin to a gateway to fresh perspectives:
“Let's consider a reevaluation of the situation in which we assume that the stuckness now occurring, the zero of consciousness, isn't the worst of all possible situations, but the best possible situation you could be in. After all, it's exactly this stuckness that Zen Buddhists go to so much trouble to induce; through koans, deep breathing, sitting still and the like. Your mind is empty, you have a "hollow-flexible" attitude of "beginner's mind." You're right at the front end of the train of knowledge, at the track of reality itself. Consider, for a change, that this is a moment to be not feared but cultivated. If your mind is truly, profoundly stuck, then you may be much better off than when it was loaded with ideas.”
“Stuckness” Meets “Quality” in Investing
When we make decisions to invest, divest, or do nothing, we endeavor to be as objective as possible. For most investors, portfolio diversification is a key guiding principle. We try to keep our emotions in check and think rationally.
But in dealing with “stuckness”, Pirsig argues that objectivity is not enough: one has to dig deeper:
I think the basic fault that underlies the problem of stuckness is traditional rationality's insistence upon "objectivity," a doctrine that there is a divided reality of subject and object. For true science to take place these must be rigidly separate from each other. "You are the mechanic. There is the motorcycle. You are forever apart from one another. You do this to it. You do that to it. These will be the results."
This eternally dualistic subject-object way of approaching the motorcycle sounds right to us because we're used to it. But it's not right. It's always been an artificial interpretation superimposed on reality. It's never been reality itself. When this duality is completely accepted a certain nondivided relationship between the mechanic and motorcycle, a craftsmanlike feeling for the work, is destroyed. When traditional rationality divides the world into subjects and objects it shuts out Quality, and when you're really stuck it's Quality, not any subjects or objects, that tells you where you ought to go.
“Quality” of our investment portfolio may need to be reexamined if we experience “stuckness”. How we interpret portfolio “Quality” is a subjective exercise, since we have different personality traits, technical know-how, and risk appetite. What Pirsig implies in his writing is that even if we apply the most objective measures to our investments, we may still feel “stuck” and distressed. In this case, something may not be quite right.
Pirsig offers up the below analogy which I have found to be helpful:
“The trap consists of a hollowed-out coconut chained to a stake. The coconut has some rice inside which can be grabbed through a small hole. The hole is big enough so that the monkey’s hand can go in, but too small for his fist with rice in it to come out. The monkey reaches in and is suddenly trapped – by nothing more than his own value rigidity. He can’t revalue the rice. He cannot see that freedom without rice is more valuable than capture with it. The villagers are coming to get him and take him away. They’re coming closer…closer!…now! There is a fact this monkey should know: if he opens his hand he’s free. But how is he going to discover this fact? Be removing the value rigidity that rates rice above freedom. How is he going to do that? Well, he should somehow try to slow down deliberately and go over ground that he has been over before and see if things he thought were important really were important and, well, stop yanking and just stare at the coconut for a while. Before long he should get a nibble from a little fact wondering if he is interested in it. He should try to understand this fact not so much in terms of his big problem as for its own sake. That problem may not be as big as he thinks it is. That fact may not be as small as he thinks it is either.”
Conclusion: Are our Investments Serving their Purpose in our Lives?
This article is as much for myself as it is for Substack readers. Feeling “stuck” because of unfavorable market conditions is commonplace for many investors, but if that feeling inhibits “creativity, originality, inventiveness, intuition, imagination...” then perhaps we should wonder if our investments are still serving their purpose - enhancing the “Quality” of our lives - or if we are getting enslaved by externalities.
To conclude, I would like to share the below podcast episode, which discusses the same topic of “stuckness” with powerful insights. “Speaking of Psychology” is produced by the American Psychological Association and I highly recommend it:
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