Hard at work

There's me hard at work (in the fur) for a taping of Dragons' Den. It's the golden rule of television production. When in doubt... gotta wear the fur.

Taking Stock

For a long time, I always deeply uncomfortable with money. I liked it when I had it; hated it when I didn't. I remember as a 19-year-old university student (in English Literature), I took a class called "Personal Finance 101." "Pah," I would say. Saving for retirement? Why would I do such a thing? Save money instead of having fun? Put aside stuff now to enjoy it when I'm 70 years old (you mean, basically, when I am dead?). Surely you must be kidding. What about life? Trees? Friendship?

Some of that has changed. Now, after years of reluctance, I track stocks, buy mutual funds and take an interest in the financial markets. Not for greed, necessarily. But it is interesting - once you forget about how geeky it can be.

But along the way, I've noticed some similarities between investing in money and investing in, well, understanding the world. As I was researching an RRSP purchase, I came upon an something...

We all go through many ups and downs. And, like a lot of people, I ride the highs and loathe the lows. When I was that 19-year-old brat in university, I remember freaking out over a first-year exam for a course on Ancient Greek Pottery. I didn't know, nor did I care, about cracked clay bowls. Come exam time, I was stressed, panicked, sleepless, hopeless. What if I fail? Will I amount to anything?

But now that pottery exam is something I remember only for a fraction of a second. And I laugh about it. But that fear, that terror was so very potent at the time. But that's how life seems to go. Those lows seem so insignificant. And I see the same now with some stocks I've been following: This graph shows the movement of a stock over three months:




You can see a lot of sharp dips and rises. Lows and highs. Like a stocks, we too go up, we go down. Caught withinin the moment, the downs seem unending. But as the chart shows, everything usually goes right back up. As soon as its up, it's down. Sound familiar?

But if you look at the same stock over the course of four years it looks much different:




All of a sudden those highs and lows - that caused so much joy and pain - are smaller, less significant. And another thing you might notice is that over time, it goes up ever so slowly. If I were to zoom into the daily movement of the stock, you'd see precipitous falls, stunning highes. But they all get worked out and smoothed over time. I like to think of that slow movement upwards as wisdom.

Hopefully, with a little wisdom, a little experience, things get better, stronger over time. Those highs and lows acutally add up to something good. The company grows.

Funny thing is that capitalists and good investors have always had the keys to self-help and wisdom. They learn to appreciate the lows as times to buy shares. The lows are when tbe company reorganizes, reflects, finds new products and management. And if that gets sorted out, they bank on the stock going back up. So, sometimes a stock drop is a good. Kind of like the cliche "out of good comes bad."

Another capitalist rule: invest for the long term. If you hang in there, and not ride the daily highs and lows, you will eventually earn more return over time.

For the touchy-feely people stuck in the depths of dispair, or riding those good times, the same idea applies. Hold on for the long run. Things will work out if you take care of business. Ancient pottery dispair becomes ancient history.

Finding footprints without snow

I have been watching the dog out there in the field all afternoon, with his nose to the muddy brown grass, as all hounds do when freed from leash and home. He is making wide circles, quick dodges over ruts and ATV tire tracks; he is following scents, invisible trails of creatures that may have passed this way before. Now they are hidden up in the forest. Only their invisible smells remain to tease and haunt him. Only he can sense them. His tail whips about like a car antenna on a bumpy road. And every few moments he lets out a howl, AHWOOOO, that echoes through the valley, announcing something so very important that only he understands. The dog. So busy in his work: the detective, the scout, the hunter, the savant, the pet. Whatever he is, he knows the ground well, the grass, the rock and those tracks. It's a day's busy work.

It's winter time. But you would never know that by looking out the window. The fields should be white with snow up to our hips. Instead there has only been rain for days and days and days. The fields are barely able to stay solid; every step is greasy and unstable. The dog looks like he is wearing brown ankle socks. A warm wind is coming from the south, scaring away the arctic air. The sky is perfectly blue. The low yellow sun barely edges over the horizon, casting long twisted shadows on the ground. The fields are so empty, without leaves or snow. As if they are caught naked. Warm gusts of wind make the bird feeders sway. A blue jay comes and goes.

And as the afternoon comes, the light empties and is gone in a sad peaceful kind of way - like it's never coming back. The dog now makes his way back to the house where he knows it's warm. He is waiting by the window, panting, muddy and hungry. And not a single animal to show for it.

Tomorrow the radio said a major system is coming. Fifteen centimeteres. The fields will be white again. And the dog can return to those fields, to make his own tracks in that stormy wintry snow.

Getting Away

The second night in Temagami, we left the comforts of the wilderness lodge to spend a single night in the backcountry cabin five kilometers through the west. It's a journey by foot, starting by crossing over the surface of the frozen lake and following a trail cut through a swath of pines, balsams and sugar maples. By noon, we packed a frozen dinner and left with two backpacks full of gear. During the night, now had fallen, dusting the ground in a fine white power that sparkled in the sun. There was not a cloud in the sky. The air was crisp. Long undies were necessary.

First we passed over the lake, something I realized only a few people in the world can ever experience: the idea of walking on water. At any step, there is a tinge of fear that you could slip through the ice. And gone forever.

Soon the trail picks up past an old gold mine (abandoned because it was full of nothing but pyrite) and twists through the forest, passing unnamed lakes. And as you walk, the sounds of the road fades away. You can feel the city losing its grip. Under the sun, despite the cold, your body starts to warm. By two in the afternoon, the winter sun is already on its way down, its ray strobing through the trees.

The trail rises and falls, passing over small creeks, and through patches of old -growth pines that curve up and up with a gentle swoosh. And just when we begin to tire, we arrive at the cabin. It's a simple plywood structure painted red and nestled in the boughs of overhanging pines. It overlooks a small frozen pond. When we arrived the sun was already pink, the shadows creeping to the front door. And inside there were three bunk beds, a cast-iron potbelly stove, and simple tables and chairs made from scraps of wood. For light there were two windows, candles and kerosene lamps. For water... well, there was no sink, no faucet. For water, we had an axe and a few tin tubs.

We got to work before we lost the light. First, the fire. I chopped up some good dry birch into small kindling, set it in the stove and cooed it alive. Soon it roared into orange flames, the smell of wood smoke filled the room. The birch started to pop and crackle. The metal stove and pipe exhaust creaked as it expanded. Water started to drip from the top of the roof.

I remember between chops, just as I was about to swing down to split the wood, noticing something that wasn't there: noise. I didn't notice it at first. But I put the axe down and just listened. As much as my ear tried to grasp at something, a slight sound, it picked up nothing. The silence was like a noise in itself. Looking across the pond, nothing moved, there were no clouds in the sky, no wind, no leaves flutter, no animals running. Nothing. Stillness.

Next, water. By chopping a wide divot into the ice about four inches, then puncturing the bottom of the depression with one precise chop, we had a small ice-sink from which to draw the icy water. We filled several pot and kettles and placed them by the stove.

An hour later, the sun was gone. The temperature droppped to -20 degrees. Outside, during a water-getting run, you could look up and see stars. And if you held your breath you heard that deep silence again.

It was part of just getting away. Really away. To take pleasure in something as simple as chopping wood and getting water. Two very basic, very primal tasks in life that are so very easily forgotten. To do the essential things like heat and water and do them well. Honest work, far far away. During those moments, I felt like I had really gotten away, a thing I always say I want to do.

A few days later, a friend who grew up in the countryside said that my experience was the last thing she would want to do for a vacation. She prefers city things. She's done camping. And yet, I am from the city and prefer doing country things. I go wild over a tree, she for a good meal, a good bar. Anything but the usual can be a simple pleasure.