Pearls Before Swine
A thank you from me as a writer:
It’s been one year since I started this blog. I had no expectations. I just wanted to write. And I also knew that I wanted to help someone. Anyone. The aim of this blog is two-fold: to help me become a better man, by thinking more clearly; and to offer things to you that might help you become a better person too. Every week I’m doing this both for me and for you. And it’s demanding, but it’s keeping me accountable. And that’s a good thing.
I have 619 subscribers now, which is incredible. I cannot believe that. Every time someone opens my email or interacts with me here, it brings me joy. Every time someone tells me I put something into words that help them think differently, it makes me want to do it again.
I’m grateful this year for you. As a reader. Happy Thanksgiving.
Now, today’s note.
There was a stock trader. A terrible, desperate stock trader.
He stood around all day at the New York Stock Exchange, watching the professionals do as they do. He watched them make big money. He watched them expertly read the ticker tape. He watched them digest the moves and mood of the market in real time. He was amazed.
He stood around, waiting for his moment to come. But he wasn’t waiting for his own moment, really. He was waiting to be directed by someone else. Waiting for that one stock tip that someone would give him, that would change his life. That one stock tip that would catapult him overnight into tremendous wealth and soothe all his cares in the world.
He stood around, for the 1,100th day, waiting. He could taste it. He was desperate for it. He needed to make big money. Not only to change his life, but to pay off his debts — which were building up faster than ever on the backs of his previously-taken stock tips.
His desperation caused a sort of chronic amnesia where he somehow forgot how utterly horribly things had turned out all the times before. He had taken tips before, from some of the best in the room, and had yet to make his fortune.
And it’s not because the tips were bad. Some of them were actually quite good.
It’s because he was trying to deliver unto himself something he was completely unworthy of. Nature has a way of punishing that. In fact, we have ways of punishing ourselves for that.
He went further and further into debt. He stopped shaving and eating properly. His marriage fell apart. He started abusing his kids. “You wait,” he would tell his family. “One day I’ll hit it big and you’ll all see that this was worth it. You’ll all see.”
But he never did.
He got divorced, moved out of the city, and had to rebuild his life from nothing. In trying to chase the grandiose, he gave away the excellent. In trying to chase what he was unworthy of, he proved to also be unworthy of that which he already had.
This is a true story. This is the true story of a hundred million different people who have behaved in such ways and netted similar results. This stock trader is all of us. We are all swine.
The tips this man receives are not only not helping him, but are actively hurting him. Because they are allowing him to live apart from reality. They are allowing him to live in a world where logical consequences are divorced from the actions that produce them. (And, unsurprisingly, exploiting that weakness is part of the reason why Wall Street players give tips.)
“If you hang around a barber shop long enough, you’ll get a haircut.” This sentence is true of getting a haircut, but it also requires you to want to get a haircut, and pay for one. No one is going to hold you down and give you one. Nor is anyone going to whisper something in your ear that makes you a good stock trader.
If you want to be an excellent stock trader, you have to trade stocks using your own observations, for your own reasons, on your own set of principles and goals. You have to earn it. You cannot borrow it. It’s not something someone can give you, even if they wanted to.
If you want to be a good writer, you cannot just listen to authors talk about writing. You have to write.
If you want to be a wise person, you cannot just watch “ten quick tips” videos on Instagram. You have to think, and read books, and control yourself.
If you want something that is worth having, then, by definition, it cannot just be given to you. Because it’s worth something. It’s worth the experience and heartache that go into producing it. It’s worth trading time and energy for. It’s worth compromising with.
One of the most profound phrases I’ve ever heard is this lesson from the Bible: “cast not pearls before swine.”
Now, if you’ve been reading my blog a while you know I’m not religious. But I also cannot imagine anything more profound and useful than the Bible.
The lesson is generally taken to mean “don’t put something valuable in front of someone who doesn’t appreciate it.” Which, of course, is a great piece of advice. Ask any parent of a raging child who breaks things.
The context, at surface level, is about non-believers and people who ridicule the Gospel. Maybe you could read it as follows: “Cast not your religion before people who don’t understand its principles. Because if they don’t understand its principles, how could they appreciate them?” Or “Cast not the Kingdom of God before those who are unworthy of the Kingdom of God.”
But I believe this lesson has other applications; more general ones.
For instance, don’t try to teach someone who does not want to learn.
Do not try to lift someone up who wants to continue rolling around in the filth of their own mistakes.
Do not waste your own precious resources (including your time) on people who will unapologetically squander them.
Do not offer a tool to someone who doesn’t even know what the tool is or why it exists.
“Swine” in this sense, is not necessarily an insult. It’s not a statement of contempt or superiority, but simply of difference. Or a statement that someone is inexperienced. “We have different priorities and different values, and therefore I really cannot help you.”
“We see the world differently, and none of my tools even fit in your hands.”
I’ve tried giving people investment advice before. It never works out well, and I’ll never do it again. And it’s not because I think they’re horrible, dirty animals. It’s because I cannot do the work that someone else must do for himself. He must. It’s not a step that can be skipped. I cannot do investment research for somebody else — because all of the pertinent information exists inside my head. Not his. All of the principles and experience that are telling me it’s a good investment are my principles and experience. Not his. They do not translate.
Imagine you want to teach someone a simple parenting tactic. But this parent is a bit lazy or inexperienced, and is bad at things like tough love and gentle praises and encouragement. What if that tactic does not fit with their personality? What if that tactic does not make sense in the context of their relationship with their child?
What if they literally do not know how to follow through on that tactic, because they don't fully understand why they're doing it in the first place?
That's a pearls-before-swine thing. You're trying to give a valuable tool that works for you to a person who does not know how to use it and does not appreciate it.
You're trying to give that parent something that they have not earned. And I don't mean that to say "they don't deserve good tools because they're awful." I mean to say, they probably cannot use it effectively because they do not see the value of it. They did not do the work to come up with it themselves or build the right tool for the situation.
You can teach a parent how to get their hollering child to sleep at night. Or rather, you can offer them a tip. But the trial and error, the adjusting, the iteration — they must do that themselves. And they must recognize that they must do it themselves. If they expect it to work immediately, they are probably going to be disappointed. And then they’re probably going to claim that you gave them a bad tip, and secretly resent you for it.
Unfortunately most useful tools in life cannot be passed from neighbor to neighbor like hammers and wrenches. They must be deeply internalized and learned one by one, and they often come out of necessity.
It's almost like giving someone a stock tip. Almost all stock tips in the history of mankind have led to losses. And it's not because people are wrong 99% of the time. That's mathematically impossible. It's because, when someone accepts a stock tip, they are trying to use something that does not belong to them.
They are trying to reap the harvest of a seed they did not plant. Trying to use someone else's thinking, values, timing, principles, and investment goals with their own money. What else could that possibly lead to other than disaster? If you take someone else's stock tip, what is your time horizon? Where and when are you selling? How much are you risking? How will you know if the investment thesis has changed, since you didn't do any of the thinking in the first place? It's impossible to update a plan that wasn't yours to begin with.
There are all kinds of reasons that someone can be morally and psychologically incapable of appreciating what is before them. Sometimes by their own faults and laziness, sometimes simply because they aren’t ready. Until someone does the work to fully understand something, it does not belong to them.
Which is why Christ told his followers to walk away from the people who weren’t receptive. A lot of them simply weren’t ready.
And which is why you should always try for people — always try — but remember that they often cannot get good things through your help. They can get good things with your help. They must do the work themselves. Always encourage people to do the work.
Drink water from a feeding trough, you swine.
JDR
“Be grateful for what you already have while you pursue your goals. If you aren’t grateful for what you already have, what makes you think you would be happy with more?” - Roy T. Bennett