Gregorian calendar says it's 2024, BTC is through the roof, my trading career in the basement and more milestones have been reached! The sort of spiritual milestones anyway :) It feels sort of like this Albanian village looks:
So, it's high time I gifted my future self an update looking back - before I forget this (recent) transition phase of my life after it has all blurred too much. You know how life is, throwing new things at us constantly in this weird age we find ourselves in. And Hive has always been good to me, sitting there and always welcoming me back when I feel there is something to record for the future. I am back in the van and I want to HIVE again. I miss Hive.
So, where to begin... trading...
Come on you didn't REALLY think it was a good idea, did you? Well I suppose I did, and while not everything has been lost and I have learned immensely important lessons about charts and myself, the bottom line is: All HODL'ers - however simple-minded and FOMO'y - are way ahead in their PnL these days. WAY!
Sort of like a cosmic joke to the smartass in me. BTC was simply more... simple... in its very firm direction than all the clever (meaning 'stupid and heady') ideas I brought to the table: 2 years down (so far so good, had no holdings), one year up (yeah you completely let that go by you ahahahaha). No deeper meaning or patterns worth speaking of (though there were patterns). But when you are an overly "clever" shorter and do it obsessively so, any bull market will stampede you. I like to say I learned this the hard way but honestly: I don't really think I will ever learn that.
So maybe that isn't the right job for me I don't know.
Many have tried, and most fail, and though my stops have always saved my ass and I have a bitter sweet ego smile on my face when I read about yesterday's 200 million or today's 500 million dollar liquidations in either market direction (that will never happen to me and my stops) - I still have to realize that I am not getting ahead. At all. After all the years invested - essentially years of lifetime burned to learn how to make lasagna and it still comes out as a mushy wet mess. So much for a... good harvest after a lot of work? Nah... ;=)
SO... I think this daytrading thing... is over, pretty much. If anything a few trades per year should suffice, and having alarms ready to trigger, even if they take months to go off. Much better chances of actually getting a decent entry that means something for more than a day or two.
Maybe I have just shaken off something that was never really intended for me... better late than never I guess.
My inner compass has long told me to look for a more actual method of focusing my energy, namely in the physical or rather: in the actual. A little house and homestead. Now that I can still get behind.
And so my woman and I have been looking for over a year now, have looked at many properties but nothing has really clicked so far. And I feel it's safe to say we are getting more desperate but also somehow less... clingy (what a paradox!)
We are currently back in Albania (still one my most favorite places to be) and everyone here is working their garden now, feverishly. I am jealous ahahaha. We have been trying to find something and may have a candidate but everything just stretches out forever and - as we have been told by some friends - the only thing you really need in Albania is patience. Which is what we have been cultivating. A lot of PATIENCE.
Spent the winter doing a housesit not far from the one we did 3 winters ago and that was a step up. A heated home with electricity for the laptop and being able to make our own bread and casseroles - high five. Part of the deal was to look after and care for 12 dogs and two cats which was about as much work as it sounds like. We still managed to get a lot done with our projects but man, living someone else's life constantly, is getting old. I'd rather be in my own yard where nothing is finished yet and there is but a ruin of an ancient stone house - at least that I can work on in my own way. But house sitting for other people - however friendly and devoted they are to their life - is like having a job you don't really find fulfilling. In the end I realize I just want to do things my way, and I always find a common ground with my woman, so who else is there to make happy then? We had left Germany to find our own life and after every house sit or apartment rent we feel not an inch closer to that life of our own - only by seeing how much we don't like certain ways things are done and how we would do them differently. Guess that is progress after all...
But yeah, the garden patch of our own is still waiting somewhere. The system is going bonkers as expected, despite being absurdly over-educated on anything regarding permaculture, sustainable living, off-grid power systems, rainwater harvesting and ecofriendly sewage treatment all we have is theory. And that is not enough. Enough with the theory already, I want to get my hands dirty!
So while exercising patience and learning all we need to make a homestead work, the universe seems sort of shy to take our commitment to heart. Or is just way more patient than me... The property we had been looking at and waiting for for months was a "no" finally. Better an end with a scare than a scare with no end, as that bit of German wisdom goes.
Looked at other places but that decision can be made in late April at the earliest... So van life is but a necessity these days, we feel no real drive to keep exploring more countries, after that dodgy time we had in Georgia in the summer of 2022. Albania would work just fine for now. The van is starting to rust at places now, and she has always been meant to be our ark to carry us to that new shore. She is holding on just fine for a car her age but all of this seems to have become too small and limiting. Maybe that's a sign we have been expanding inwardly. But none of that will grow any tomatoes.
See, it always comes back to that homestead idea... I sometimes whish it didn't but it does, so I walk that way. Something like this view would be a good starting point for the next years:
Had our 4 year van anniversary on February 1st. Fireworks! But we are tired of it and all we really want now is a home. A place to craft and design in our way and work with nature to do more than just cope. Travel life has become a lot of coping and though we really are grateful, coping just doesn't cut it anymore. If it did we never would have left Germany in the first place.
So in that my woman and I are of the same mindset like we have been and I feel grateful for that as well. You'd think we would have torn each others' heads off by now but nope, we have what so many people are looking for on Earth - a relationship that works.
But you get used to anything and want the thing you don't yet have ahahaha. Since it is more than reasonable to have a HOME for a human being though I feel it might literally be around the corner now. And all we have learnt through this delay is greatly appreciated.
The trading shock of the ridiculous bull market 24 has given me ample reason to focus on music again, which is pretty much all I have been doing this past winter. Getting back into the groove and getting better. So once I know where to set up my little studio and have electricity in my small rooftopped corner of the homestead I will be back to building beats and tracks regularly. Hey, I could even make a business out of it mixing, producing and mastering for people who require that sort of service - people need all sorts of things in the progressing stages of the internet era.
But we shall see. "Let's see" has sort of become our mantra these past years. Cause nothing is ever real until it's actual, and if you don't dare to look at new things and recalibrate your inner world to what life is telling you then that road will lead nowhere. And nowhere is where we come from, spiritually speaking.
But "Let's see" is also getting old fast so it's high time for a change there...
Onward to new shores, and maybe soon: it will happen. I pray it will. For now: Feels really good to be back again in my little online neighborhood ;)
Welcome back and congratz on your 4 year 'v'anniversary,
no matter how exhausting it might have felt/ feel at times.
Do you know that it has been over six years since I left The Netherlands?
I remember us being in touch before I even left, if I'm correct? or perhaps late 2018, when I was temporarily in Holland after having purchased my house in Monte Frio.
How time flies...
Although not a van lifer, I have lived in so many houses and - as you probably know - have even bought and sold one of my own - here in Portugal, that I like to think that I know what I want now
but do I really? ;<)
I guess this is the adventure called life,
for freedom loving 'rebels' like us.
P.S. What does it tell about me
that I find your post this quickly,
after you not having posted for 2 years?
haha!
P.P.S. Looking forward to (hearing) your future tunes!
when i think of hive i think of you first ahaha. thanks for the warm welcome back man.
it's been a fun excursion on hive today and i think i will stay a while seeing how life has progressed here.
i feel you had 'just' left or something so late 2018 might be more correct. many houses huh? i got some major catching up to do which is fine, we got the time now waiting for a potential future homestead to welcome you to when we finally meet for real.
good to know you're out there still, feels like continuing a saga of sorts.
aye the music has got me back, the long haul is back on. you'll be third to hear it.
blessings from albania vince ;))
I appreciate hearing that.
Good luck/have fun reading a couple of 100 of posts ;<)
And vice versa!
I never really left ( a month has been my record ). This place is like Hotel California to me. You can check out any time you like but...
Nice to be in touch again, buddy!
mad respect for all that endurance. i needed the break when other things came up but this place has not lost any of its appeal, i'm quite happy to say
Don't be too hard on yourself, life comes in different dimension 💕, dint forget you where once good at what you do
and i (re)discovered other things i am good at that bring me immense joy. thanks for your warm reminder dude!
Hey there, I agree that day trading is too risky and a few long term trades is fine. The bull market means buy and hodl until mid 2025 or thereabout. Just add to your stack until then. Although spare fiat is rare I presume.
aye we'll see if we get another alt run at all
good luck to both of us ;)
I got through the first half before work. I’ll try to finish the second half after work.
I didn’t know you were trading this whole time. I’ve been taking the hodler strategy. Grabbing myself a meaningful piece of corn and waiting out the flipping. Missed 2 cycles of taking profits and ready not to miss this third one, just so I have enough to travel and maybe buy/rent the cheapest space I can find in Japan to start something interesting without it draining on my living expenses (studio? Hostel? Let’s see what I find).
Anyway glad you are back in crypto etherial blogging land and also looking at the physical
thanks zak
the time for crypto will still come i feel, though the original idea was to completely sell everything when everybody asks me about it. this hive account will stay up and alive though, i really like the time capsule idea.
sounds like you got a good plan there, all the luck and fortune to you to make it happen!!
Very pleased to hear about you and your wife and that you lead a stable relationship. It makes no sense, for example, to separate after these moments of hardship, adventure and an as yet unachieved goal.
I believe that if you are over forty and have a good man or woman at your side, you will hardly ever experience a separation in order not to lose these common memory of all your experiences. Of course, no guarantee, but a solid basis. So happy to read your expressions about that.
Once in a while a couple needs inspiration and to drag themselves out of a pessimistic mood, but that's normal, I suppose. In any way, I wish you success in finding a property.
Best wishes from Germany.
thanks so much and i was super happy to see you are still around.
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Congratulations @paradigmprospect! You received a personal badge!
Participate in the next Power Up Day and try to power-up more HIVE to get a bigger Power-Bee.
May the Hive Power be with you!
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Btw. i happen to have "a ruin of an ancient stone house" on a second property i bought very close to mine. Actually it's a bit better than a ruin, foundations (and cellars) are good. Ground floor might be salvageable.
Good to see you!