Letter III: On the Madness of Constant Information
Why the investor who seeks to know everything learns nothing
"The man who seeks wisdom in the daily clamor of the marketplace will find only the echo of his own confusion."
Seneca to his dear Lucilius, greetings.
Your most recent letter has reached me, and I confess it troubles my spirit more than the news of any storm or pestilence might.
For the affliction you describe—this restless hunger for constant information about your investments—strikes not at your purse, but at the very seat of your reason.
You write that you cannot pass a single hour without seeking news of how your holdings fare.
Before dawn breaks, you rush to hear what transpired in distant markets while you slept. At midday, you abandon your duties to learn whether grain prices have shifted.
Even at evening's close, when wise men turn their thoughts to rest and reflection, you seek out traders returning from the forum, desperate for one more morsel of market intelligence.
This fever has consumed not only your time but your peace.
You report that you cannot enjoy a meal without wondering what news you might be missing. You cannot hold conversation with friends without your mind drifting to thoughts of what information flows through the marketplace in your absence.
Most troubling of all, you confess that this constant seeking brings you no closer to wisdom—indeed, the more you learn of each day's fluctuations, the less certain you become about the true value of anything you own.
Is this not a curious madness?
That the very thing you pursue to gain knowledge serves only to deepen your ignorance?
🌊 The Fisherman Who Forgot His Purpose
Allow me to share a tale I heard from a captain who trades along our eastern shores.
In a village by the sea lived a fisherman renowned for his skill and the abundance of his catch. Each morning he would set sail before sunrise, returning at sunset with nets heavy with the day's bounty.
But as the years passed, this fisherman became fascinated not with fishing itself, but with the countless signs that might predict where fish could be found.
He began to spend his mornings not casting nets, but studying:
the color of the water
the direction of every breeze
the flight patterns of seabirds
the shape of clouds on the horizon
Soon he carried with him scrolls recording the wind conditions of each successful fishing day from years past.
He consulted charts showing the phases of the moon during his best catches. He spoke with every sailor who entered port, seeking their observations about the movements of fish in distant waters.
The more information he gathered, the more paralyzed he became.
One morning he would delay his departure because the wind was not precisely as it had been on a profitable day three summers prior.
Another day he would race to a distant fishing ground because a merchant had reported seeing birds diving there at dawn.
His fellow fishermen, meanwhile, continued their simple practice: setting out each morning to the waters they knew well, casting their nets with patience, accepting whatever the sea provided.
At summer's end, the information-obsessed fisherman discovered a bitter truth.
Despite possessing more knowledge about fishing conditions than any man in the village, his catch had dwindled to almost nothing.
He had spent so much time gathering signs and portents that he had forgotten the fundamental skill of fishing itself.
His nets, unused for days at a time, had grown rotten.
His understanding of the sea, once built through direct experience, had been replaced by a mass of contradictory theories.
Worst of all, his confidence had vanished—faced with conflicting information about every possible fishing ground, he could no longer trust his own judgment about where to cast his nets.
🏺 The Collector of Echoes
This fisherman's fate mirrors precisely the trap that ensnares the modern investor who mistakes information for wisdom.
Consider the nature of the daily news that flows through our markets, Lucilius.
Each morning brings reports of grain harvests in distant provinces, rumors of political changes that might affect trade routes, speculation about the intentions of foreign merchants, gossip about which wealthy families are buying or selling their holdings.
This torrent of information creates an illusion of knowledge.
The man who knows that Egyptian wheat harvests are abundant feels himself wiser than one who does not.
The investor who learns that a senator has purchased silver mines believes he possesses valuable intelligence.
But here lies the deception:
Most of this information is either irrelevant to your particular investments, already known to others, or simply false.
Worse still, the very act of consuming this endless stream of data corrupts your ability to think clearly about what truly matters.
Like the fisherman studying bird flights instead of learning to read the sea itself, the information-addicted investor becomes so focused on external signs that he loses touch with the fundamental principles that actually govern investment success.
⚖️ The Merchant's Scale
I knew once a spice merchant who weighed every grain of pepper with obsessive precision, checking his scales hourly to ensure perfect accuracy.
Yet this same man would purchase entire shipments without properly examining their quality—so distracted was he by the ritual of measurement.
The daily checking of prices serves a similar function for many investors.
It provides the illusion of diligent attention to one's affairs while actually distracting from the deeper work:
understanding value
maintaining patience
making wise decisions about the future
Ask yourself, my friend:
When you learn that your holdings have risen in value since yesterday, does this knowledge change anything about their fundamental worth?
When you discover they have fallen, does this information alter the reasons you chose to invest in them originally?
If the answer is no—and it should be no, if you have invested wisely—then what purpose does this daily measurement serve except to agitate your spirit?
🌱 The Garden's Rhythm
The wise gardener does not dig up his seeds each day to check their progress.
He understands that growth occurs according to nature's rhythm, not his anxiety.
Daily inspection would harm the very process he seeks to encourage.
Investment follows the same natural law.
The businesses in which you invest grow through:
the patient accumulation of customers
the gradual improvement of their methods
the slow building of reputation and skill
These processes unfold over seasons and years, not hours and days.
The investor who checks his holdings daily is like the gardener constantly disturbing his soil.
The very attention he believes shows care actually hinders the growth he desires.
🎯 The Practice of Selective Ignorance
Here, then, is the discipline I counsel:
Learn to treasure ignorance as much as knowledge.
Choose specific times—perhaps once each month, certainly no more than once each week—to review the performance of your investments.
Outside these appointed times, practice the virtue of deliberate ignorance about daily fluctuations.
When rumors reach your ears about market movements, train yourself to receive them as you would gossip about the weather in distant cities:
Mildly interesting, perhaps, but irrelevant to your immediate concerns.
Fill the time you once spent seeking market news with activities that actually enhance your wisdom:
reading the works of successful merchants from past generations
studying the fundamental principles that govern value
contemplating whether your investments align with your deeper purposes in life
Every moment spent consuming irrelevant information is a moment stolen from genuine understanding.
Every hour devoted to daily price movements is an hour not spent developing the patience and wisdom that actually produce wealth.
🏛️ The Eternal Truth
The great irony, Lucilius, is this:
The investor who pays least attention to daily noise often achieves the greatest success.
Like the river that flows steadily toward the sea, ignoring the pebbles that would divert its course, the wise investor moves according to his own deep currents—rather than the surface turbulence that captures lesser minds.
True knowledge in investment comes not from knowing everything that happens each day, but from understanding the few timeless principles that govern how wealth is created and preserved.
The man who seeks to know all learns nothing.
The man who chooses his ignorance gains wisdom.
"In the silence between the market's daily cries, the wise investor hears the voice of eternal truth."
Vale,
Seneca