Human nature in the cyclical pattern of the speculative market almost always gives rise to a nearly religious belief in the latter half of a major bull market: “This time it's really different,” “This time it's a new paradigm, a new era,” “The fundamentals have completely changed, the old valuation system is invalid,” “There will never be a bear market again, at least not in the next ten years.” And almost every prolonged bear market’s mid-to-late stage, another equally devout despair emerges: “The capital market is a scam,” “It will never go up again, this generation has no chance,” “Human nature is too greedy, the system is too corrupt, it’s a zero-sum or even negative-sum game,” “Completely leave it behind, never touch it again.” The cruelest part of these two statements is that the people who say the first are often the same as those who say the second, just 18–36 months apart. This isn’t a matter of cognitive ability, information gap, or emotional intelligence or IQ. It’s the cycle itself, cyclically harvesting humanity’s most primitive emotional operating systems: • Euphoria-Greed-Conformity-Faith system (most easily activated in the late stage of a bull market) • Fear-Disgust-Isolation-Nihilism system (most easily activated in the late stage of a bear market) Both systems are extremely efficient, capable of causing large groups of normally intelligent and experienced people to collectively forget what they said, believed, or cursed in the previous cycle in a very short time. So the truly cruel conclusion is only one sentence: the market never owes anyone an “always rising” or “always falling” outcome; it only cyclically makes participants take turns going crazy. And what we can do is probably only to remind ourselves during the next extreme euphoria: “The last time I felt the world was about to change for the better, I had this feeling too.” During the next extreme despair, remind ourselves: “The last time I thought the world was hopeless, I had this feeling too.” Then give a bitter smile and continue to do what needs to be done. Because the cycle won’t stop because we see through it, and human nature won’t change because we curse it. It will only replace one group of faces, with similar lines, playing out again in roughly the same place. I’m talking about stock investors.