Black Swan

This past weekend, I finally decided to get a tattoo.

Yeah, big deal right? It's not that I never wanted one or was chicken or whatever. It's that I didn't want to get anything too serious or too stupid. I figure it will be a one-of so I wanted to make it count. If you follow my Twitter posts you'll already be thinking, "Uh-huh, too stupid is a definite possibility." The thing is, I try not to take things too seriously and tattoos can get pretty serious (I've seen both Miami & LA Ink OK?). None of that for me. So stupid would be the way I would lean if anything. Something to make me chuckle, which is my primary goal with Twitter, Facebook, this blog etc. Make ME chuckle you understand. If you come along for the ride .. ya know .. welcome friend.

My youngest daughter (18) had made an appointment with an artist in Pasadena that her older sister (26) had found a few years back and was going to have some work done to cover up a "Scarification" that had not been finished (don't ask). I had promised to go along with her and had actually decided on a design that I was going to discuss with the artist. A month or so ago there was a bru-ha-ha about there being a 13th and new sign of the Zodiac which just happened to cover my birthday. Apologies to those that believe, but I just find the whole astrology thing to be a farce. So now that my sign had changed to Orhiciphus-er-sum-such-BS, and since the picture I found was pretty cool looking ... how could I pass it up?

Well, it turns out it was a little too intricate to put a version small enough to fit on the back of my calf so, I had to either let the artist trim off some of that detail, or go in a different direction entirely. Let the Second-Guessing BEGIN! For me, there is nothing quite as bad as having to re-think a decision that was already in the can. My wife, Madeline came to the rescue with a suggestion from a book, The Black Swan, that I had been reading and re-reading over the last year or so. Not the one they just made the movie about, the other one .. yeah that one. On the cover of the dust jacket was a silhouette of a Black Swan which looked more than OK to me. The more I thought about the book and it's content, the better I liked the idea. Done. Tattoo.

Not too shabby huh? I don't care, I like it. And I think he did a really good job.
So what's the story anyway? I'm going to try and keep this short .. well .. not too much longer anyway.

The book is about what the author refers to as The Black Swan Theory. The name comes from the fact that, until 1697, black swans were thought not to exist. The term came to mean something that is impossible or simply non-existent. In 1697 an explorer to Western Australia (Oi Oi Oi!) discovered there were indeed black swans. At that point, the term came to symbolize the fragility of any system of thought or theory once one of the major components is disproved. After the stock market crash of 1929, and then again in 1987, many people believed such crashes would not or even could not occur. We have so much more sophistication and tracking and warning signs  and blah blah blah. Do you know anyone who happened to get out of the market prior to the “Panic of 2008?” They’re usually quite happy to inform you how they knew something was off. Something was not quite right. Bullshit. Ask to see how they did in the 10 years prior. I guarantee they will have demonstrated no such acumen.

A Black Swan Event, to drastically over-simplify, is an event that is 1) A surprise or extremely unlikely; 2) Has a dramatic effect and 3) Is subsequently rationalized by hindsight.

On a global scale, September 11th would be an example of a Black Swan Event. It fits the definition perfectly. Parts 1 and 2 of the definition are no-brainers. Part 3 may require a little more thought .. but not much. Remember all of the conspiracy theories? All of them were based on viewing the event in retrospect, and with perfect information in hindsight. The truth is that all of the specific so-called causes or warning signs were hidden in a vast sea of white noise. Rationalization by hindsight. Our history is full of such events. Pearl 

Harbor. Every major stock market crash. Barney The Dinosaur (Super Dee-Duper!)

The book explores much more than specific Black Swan events.  It explores randomness in our lives and how we process it, how we react to it and how we filter knowledge acquired directly and from experts. It ended up being one of a handful of books that I always have handy in my, ummm, personal library. It keeps company with Dawkins-The Greatest Show on Earth, Leonard Mlodinow – The Drunkard’s Walk and the most recent copy of altSCV.

So finally, there is something that happened to me recently and, not too coincidentally, could be described as the reason I'm writing this blog in the first place. About a year or so ago, I started contributing to a local talk/news-forum. That led to a Facebook account which led to a Twitter account which led to an event at a local restaurant. A Tweet-up. Yes a Tweet-up. On that evening, I met with, basically, a bunch of strangers ... just for the hell of it. A year later, we've become good friends. We get together on a regular basis. Adventures galore! What's that you say? A Black Swan Event? Hmmmm ...