Tag: the-occult

  • July-Sept 2026

    Now, I gotta warn you, this post has pretty much nothing to do with stocks and everything to do with sadness. I made $4k and those results are at the bottom along with a nice, comprehensive video I made explaining every thing.

    Submitted for the approval of the midnight society, I call this story …

    Lust for Ruin

    Every so often I go through periods of, what I can best describe as, melancholy. Nothing superficial has changed, but something underneath is quietly coming undone. There’s a slow bubbling turmoil that has weight to it, and it feels as if it has nestled itself in me. My outlook turns nihilistic and every thing I do becomes pointless.

    So anyways there I was again, a bump on a log, and as we are wont to do, upon noticing something is “off” or that I’m not “happy”, I set out to try and fix it or numb it. As if contentment or undeserved bliss are some states that are to be fully realized at all times. That line of thinking could lead me to believe that my main goal is to strive for a life of comfort and reach some sort of finish line where I’m finally happy, if I’m not careful.

    So in my search for a way out of the abyss, for some words of hope, I was surprised to find that people haven’t always felt this way about melancholy and perhaps I was going about this the wrong way.

    People actually once sought out this experience, believing it could unlock creativity, sharpen the intellect, and deepen their spirituality. It was seen as the necessary yin to the yang. A crucial step in your evolution to remembering who you are.

    The Germans had a word for it; Ruinenlust. To lust for ruin. I said the title! I love when they do that in movies. People would even go so far as to place artificial ruins in their gardens wanting to conjure feelings of decay, hoping to slip into deep contemplation. They believed that there was something to be learned and extracted in this state of mind.

    And wouldn’t you know it, it’s still practiced today. This is a kit you can go out and buy. I’ll tell you what, some things never change.

    Melancholy gets its name from the ancient Greek words melas (“black”) and chole (“bile”). Black bile was one of the 4 liquid humors people believed needed to be balanced in the body. An excess of it led to depression, irritability, persistent sadness, and emotional distress; some of my most resilient qualities! It is the substance dealt with in the first of three stages in the alchemical process.

    Alchemy is the art and science of transmuting base materials, like lead, into gold and was the precursor to modern chemistry. The alchemist believed that it also required the simultaneous purification of their own mind, soul, and character in order for the process to work. You cannot transform the outer material without altering the inner vessel. As within, so without.

    *This is not alchemical advice

    In Nigredo, the initial and necessary stage of alchemical and psychological transformation, raw ingredients are broken down, burned, or left to rot until they rest as a uniform mound of black matter at the bottom of the vessel. You are stripping away all the impurities and preparing the material for its eventual rebirth in the next stage of fermentation.

    “When you see your matter going black, rejoice, you are at the beginning of the work.” – Rosarium Philosophorum

    It is the Dark Night of the Soul. It is panic, isolation, existential dread, dissolution, and chaos. A descent into darkness. A destruction of structures, false beliefs, and impurities that must dissolve so that the underlying essence can be freed. It is the unconscious suddenly becoming conscious. Rejoice!

    This long, drawn-out depressive process obviously blows chunks so the alchemist eagerly looks into the milky liquid that forms on the black matter in his vessel for any signs of color or new life. The blessed signal that putrefaction is over is known as the Peacock’s Tail, a rainbow display of brilliant colors that appears to float on the surface of the decaying matter like a peacock spreading its tail.

    This is the long-awaited indication that the next process of fermentation has begun. It represents the moment when hidden parts of yourself begin to awaken. Like a seed buried in soil, it is the required incubation period for new life to rise up and spring forth.

    Now THAT’S more like it!

    “Nobody can fall so low unless he has a great depth. If such a thing can happen to a man, it challenges his best and highest on the other side; that is to say, this depth corresponds to a potential height, and the blackest darkness to a hidden light.” — C.G. Jung

    What am I to learn from all this?

    Does melancholy leads us by the hand into some emotional state revealing that everything beautiful is temporary so that we can see all the wonderful things that were always there but have now been sharpened by sadness?

    Am I, of all people, taking this whole thing too seriously? Must I become like a child again to enter the kingdom of heaven? Is melancholy even a problem to solve or is it just an inevitable process? Boy, I sure do wanna stop it and get back to my regularly scheduled programming. It feels like my heart is somberly watching it rain through the windows of my eyes.

    My left eye is Chandler.

    Is melancholy’s point to give life texture? Why does it feel pointless when you’re going through the thick of it? Why does it take effort to realize that it’s not pointless and what happens if you never do?

    I frequently come across people who seem doomed to repeat the same trials over and over because they won’t let a part of their selves die and be transformed by the process. They never level up. You ever talk to a 70 year old that’s never dealt with their anger issues? In my line of work that’s quite common to come across.

    “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate” – Jung boi again

    I will freely admit that one of my biggest pet peeves is for someone to act unconsciously, unaware of how they are affecting their surroundings. But I think, deep down, it’s a state of consciousness that I secretly long for sometimes. Ignorance is bliss, after all. I think it’s a big reason why I was drinking myself into oblivion everyday all those years ago.

    When I’m feeling down usually the last thing I want to hear is someone giving me advice. I feel like that’s pretty common. But if I’m prepared with the advice beforehand, it will arise from within when it’s needed most and I won’t have an immediate resistance to it. It’s a great idea because I thought of it! Like a lyric suddenly taking on a profound meaning in a song you’ve heard a thousand times because you’ve just now shared in the experience it was touching on.

    So I’ve come to learn that I have to be prepared for another visit because I know it will come knocking at my door again and again. These alchemical processes happen repeatedly throughout our life. You simply level up and start over with more complex issues but equipped with a higher understanding. So I have to try my best to greet each visitation as an old friend with something new and exciting to teach me if I’m brave enough to be quiet, sit still, and listen to what it has to say.

    I don’t have the answers to any of these questions I’ve asked here and that’s not my goal for this site. My goal is to show that things are worth figuring out. Drawdowns are part of the process in life and trading. But don’t let that keep you from prospering anyway.

    Maybe it’s not so bad staring out the window and thinking things through when I need to. Maybe there are other things I could shift my perspective on and turn a little bit of lead into gold with some effort.

    Tomorrow marks five years since I’ve quit drinking. I wrote about it here in case you missed it. Feeling deeply is better than feeling nothing. It’s a slow process learning to embrace the cyclical nature of all things without needing to numb it.

    Monthly Roundup

    Here are my trades for the last 3 months. $4,088 in total profits.

    July – $980

    Clicking the image will take you to my Theta Gang profile where you can view more details and notes on all of my trades.

    August – $938 in a quarter of the trades compared to July thanks to HOOD’s price recovering and the premium returning to their options!

    August

    September – $2,170 – A huge chunk of profits came from selling shares that I had whittled down to $100 each through covered calls. By selling covered calls I was able to drop my price down from an average of $114/share to $100 by this point (a $1,400 discount). I then agreed to sell them at $110/share and received $270 for doing it. So that one trade was $1,270 in profits.

    September

    Here’s a video I made showing my results from running The Wheel strategy on HOOD for one year. You’ll see exactly how I pulled these trades off and I get a chance to explain my thinking and process behind all this.


    Bye now,
    Chris

    Lend as little as $25 to create a more equitable world.
    Donate directly to the poor.


    If you’d like to give trading on Robinhood a try, you can click my referral link HERE and we’ll both get some free stock.

    This is not financial advice.

  • June 2026

    Heyyyy, sorry I’m late.

    Things are picking up… which is pretty much the same thing I said in last month’s episode.

    But, hey, we need to talk.

    My approach to trading and my perspective on the market have evolved and matured (hopefully) since I started this site and pretending to know what I’m talking about. I’m less swayed by the daily noise and have little problem waiting for the better trades and the bigger moves. This can lead to less exciting content as these opportunities can take their own sweet time to arise.

    I’ve come to realize that posting less fits more appropriately with my style of trading these days, and it also takes quite a bit of pressure off of me, honestly. This will allow me to show you the full life of a trade instead of having to recap and update on the same dang trades every month.

    This is what I mean: this here is a little graphic I made of The Wheel Strategy.

    I did Step 1 there at the top, “Sell Puts Get $$$”, back at the end of last year. I was assigned and forced to buy the shares, like, 8 or 9 months ago. I’ve been on Step 2, “Sell Calls Get $$$”, ever since and have yet to be assigned and have my shares called away.

    If I waited to show you the whole life of the trade, you could see all the ups and downs, how much I was able to lower my average cost over that time, and the total amount of premium received, plus any lessons I learned along the way. I would be able to show you the whole picture. This stuff is confusing enough, probably even more so if you’re only seeing a few threads of the quilt.

    I’ve tried some new strategies, like hedging… you know, what options are actually meant to be used for? I’ve also been buying some stocks with the intention of holding onto them for a bit, with a portion of the premium received, instead of putting it all back into the same cash pool to sell options with.

    Very exciting, but it’s difficult for me to report on changes or results when I’m only looking at such a short time frame. I also don’t want to write about something I’ve only just implemented and don’t have much of a feel for yet. Ya know?

    Plus, it never hurts me to practice the art of talking less.

    Monthly Roundup

    Here are my trades. I made $143 in June.

    Clicking the image will take you to my Theta Gang profile where you can view more details and notes on all of my trades.

    But wait looooook, just to prove things are picking up, I’ll go ahead and show you my trades from July as well, where I made a few bucks shy of $1000.

    Seeee?!

    So, this isn’t goodbye. I’m not quitting the race; I’m just changing my cadence. I’ll be back, and with greater numbers. Feel free to reach out on here or social media if you have any questions. You can click the subscribe button below and be notified when I post.


    Be excellent to each other,
    Chris

    Lend as little as $25 to create a more equitable world.
    Donate directly to the poor.


    If you’d like to give trading on Robinhood a try, you can click my referral link HERE and we’ll both get some free stock.

    This is not financial advice. Unless you’re into losing money.

  • May 2026

    I’ll keep this one short with just a brief recap and a quick update of how things are going.

    Click here if you would like a simple primer on what I’m doing here. I’m selling Cash Secured Puts until I am assigned shares. Then I sell Covered Calls to sell the shares, collecting premium along the way. This is known as The Wheel Strategy.

    You’re Probably Wondering How I Got Here

    By the end of last year I wound up with a lot of shares of SOFI and HOOD through selling Cash Secured Puts. The problem now is that both of these stocks continued to drop, losing almost half their value for most of this year.

    With their current stock prices being so far below the price I paid for them, the premium I was collecting back in their heyday has now completely vanished. These past few months, I’ve been forced to sell contracts for just a few bucks at a time as I wait for the stock prices to recover.

    Thankfully, both stocks are finally starting to bounce back. HOOD has almost returned to my cost basis and it feels good to sell juicy contracts again. I opened two Covered Calls recently for a combined premium of over $670. A pale comparison against the $30 or so I was collecting just a month prior.

    These mistakes that I made have had long-term consequences. I made these errors back in October and I’m still dealing with it and course-correcting to this very day. However, I do know that when I come out of the other side of this, I will be a better, more seasoned trader. I will be a Bishop in the Chapel of Extreme Experience.

    I won’t sugarcoat it, it has been difficult. I haven’t been able to trade as much. In May, I went through a brief period of being too gun-shy to take on a trade or found myself closing winning trades early, fearful of losing more money. It’s challenging, at times, to keep chipping away, penny by penny, to crawl back out of the hole I dug. It’s humbling to do it publicly.

    Ultimately, I was left with 2 choices. I could either decide the road to recovery was too long and difficult and throw in the towel and return to passive investing.

    Or, if I thought about it for a minute, I could project myself into the future, even just a year down the road, and see myself being proud that I stuck it out. The tricky part is trusting the process. Or maybe it’s having the patience for it. Maybe it’s Maybelline, what the hell do I know?

    Now I don’t want anyone getting the wrong idea that I lost all my money or anything, turning you away from trading. Like I mentioned in my video last month, I made around $25k in the market last year, I’ve just given a lot of that back now, is all. The reason for the loss is because I strayed from the plan that was working just fine.

    I’ve already advanced about half an inch since last time!

    Like a nice vacation, some time away can help to put things in perspective. When I return, I notice the urgency has been stripped away from life along with all the little things that I thought were important or absolutely crucial. I can see things with fresh eyes.

    We just returned last night from spending most of the week in the mountains in Georgia. Had a nice, little cabin by the creek.

    Monthly Roundup

    Here are my lil baby trades for May. I made $92. Man, I’ll tell ya, I’m just now seeing this number for the first time, just like you are. Not great lol. Not great.

    Clicking the image will take you to my Theta Gang profile where you can view more details and notes on all of my trades.

    Welp, that’s all for now. I’m excited that things are picking back up in my portfolio. Remember, kids, don’t buy options. Sell options.

    I promise more exciting times are coming. Once I’m able to get out of these two stocks, I will free up almost $30k of buying power in just one of my accounts. This will allow me to wreak havoc once again. Man is a creature with an apocalyptic view point who responds best to violent change.

    Until then,
    Chris

    Lend as little as $25 to create a more equitable world.
    Donate directly to the poor.


    If you’d like to give trading on Robinhood a try, you can click my referral link HERE and we’ll both get some free stock.

    Subscribe if you want to be notified when I wait till the last day of the month to talk about things that happened last month.

    This is not financial advice. Unless you’re into losing money.

  • April 2026

    Trying something different this month. I hope you enjoy it.

    Monthly Roundup

    A little behind, I’ll be back with the numbers. I can tell ya … they ain’t pretty.

    Chris

    Lend as little as $25 to create a more equitable world.
    Donate directly to the poor.

    If you’d like to give trading on Robinhood a try, you can click my referral link HERE and we’ll both get some free stock.

    This is not financial advice. Unless you’re into losing money.

  • March 2026

    “Thankfully, persistence is a great substitute for talent.”
    – Steve Martin

    Here’s something that’s been tossing around in ye olde noggin’ recently.

    You ever notice the sense of awe that comes over people while watching someone extremely talented? It’s hard to describe, but there’s something gripping about witnessing someone effortlessly create, work, or play at a higher level.

    For me, I’m usually thinking about all the time and dedication that must have gone into it and what it would take for me to reach that level. I’m usually left inspired and find it can often refuel my tenacity with regard to my own passions.

    It’s as if you can perceive how much time and effort it took to reach that level of expertise, and it magically takes you out of the mundane, bringing you right into the moment for you to pay respects to it.

    It’s like they’ve transcended and have tapped into something deep within themselves.

    Witnessing it feels like a mini out-of-body experience where the world fades away and your focus becomes single-pointed on them.

    This is a sick cover of “Crazy Train”

    I’m currently rereading The Occult by Colin Wilson (1974) and I found this passage relevant to this month’s theme.

    “Whenever I am deeply moved by poetry or music or scenery, I realize I am living in a meaning universe that deserves better of me than the small-minded sloth in which I habitually live. And I suddenly realize the real deadliness of this lukewarm contentment that looks as harmless as ivy on a tree. It is systematically robbing me of life, embezzling my purpose and vitality. I must clearly focus on this immense meaning that surrounds me, and refuse to forget it; contemptuously reject all smaller meanings that try to persuade me to focus on them instead.”

    Side story.

    I had my bandage leak all over the place where I donate plasma last week. A nurse had to come get me, leaving behind pools of blood in an empty office with only this book lying next to it.

    I hope it comes across that I’m not trying to speak from some place of higher enlightenment, as if I’ve got things figured out over here. I write as if I’m reminding myself, whether I’m going on about trading or the trials of life.

    I believe in the collective unconscious and think that sometimes we can all be learning lessons or experiencing similar themes simultaneously. If I talk about my current situation, more often than not, someone else can relate, and that can be comforting. And frankly, it’s helpful for me to write it out.

    Oftentimes someone has some handy advice or a slightly different viewpoint to offer that can change one’s perspective. Sometimes you just need someone to listen. Wisdom comes from within yourself, other people just help to remind you of what you already know.

    Everything is practice

    In this post, and just about every other post for that matter, I talk all about the things I do every day. It includes: yoga, meditation, aprendo un poco de español, journaling, ceremonial magick, and I toss in a weekly run for good measure.

    Of course, I can’t seem to leave well enough alone, so at the beginning of the New Year I added one more to the list. Guitar. I’ve played for around 25 years, and though I identify as a drummer, I sure do play an awful lot of guitar.

    “Music has always soothed my vicious temper.”

    My casual approach to playing had me feeling stagnant, so I decided to adopt a more focused, daily practice. I’ll spare you the details as my point here is to encourage you to fully commit to that thing you got going on over there.

    Time is not for the wasting.

    These rituals take up a lot of my time. I’m usually doing them after working outside all day. My energy is spent and I want to sit, watch body cam videos, and do nothing. And recently I’ve been a big baby about it, honestly.

    Normally I carry on with these daily tasks just fine, but I’ve just gone through a period where I’ve really felt bogged down by them. I was left asking time and time again why I gave myself so much daily homework.

    But every day, step by step, I attempt to get a little bit better. I’m either recalling my day and realizing some small change I could make, or just practicing some scales on guitar. I’ve learned through life and trading that success isn’t made in giant leaps. It slowly blossoms by showing up every day. It’s in the little things. But you have to make time for the little things.

    God is in the details.

    Time is the only currency we spend without knowing the balance. We spend time, save time, and, Lord have mercy, do we love to waste time.

    Time is money and it’s not gonna feel very good at the end of our lives if we spent it on a bunch of nonsense. Invest in the things that align with your true will.

    All this is to say that I’m having to remind myself to be persistent not just with my musical and spiritual pursuits, but also with my finances and trading. Things are down pretty bad right now in my portfolio, but now is not the time for quitting.

    But I will keep showing up, because that’s the part that actually works.

    Also, if you did happen to read the post linked in this section, you might recall a small portion where I mention that my dad and I didn’t talk. Since that post, we have reconnected. I’ve even been teaching him how to trade options and he’s up over $3k so far this year. So I think I should be allowed to add those profits to my running tally 😉

    Snitches Save Bitches

    One last story to round out our little chat on persistence.

    We just hit the one year anniversary of buying our house. Soon after moving in, I became aware of dogs being mistreated in the area. It took one whole year of me buggin’ the ever-loving hell out of law enforcement before my complaint finally happened across the right person’s desk.

    They had been watching the house but didn’t have access to view the conditions of the dogs. But you could from our yard.

    This led to the owner’s arrest and the rescue of 12 dogs from a fighting ring.

    Things don’t always happen fast, and at times it may seem as if you’re getting nowhere, but it’s important to keep up the good fight, nonetheless.

    “Let my people go!”

    I can’t tell you how good it felt to see those cage doors open.

    Monthly Roundup

    Oh yeah, forgot this was a stock blog. In April I made $301 lol.

    This is the boring part of the strategy where I’ve been assigned a bunch of shares and now I’m having to sell Covered Calls against them at very low premiums. Slowly climbing my way back out of this hole.

    Here are the trades.

    Clicking the image will take you to my Theta Gang profile where you can view more details and notes on all of my trades.

    As a short recap, over the past few months I’ve been assigned a few hundred shares of Sofi and Hood through selling Cash Secured Puts. Their current stock prices are a lot lower than the price I paid when I was assigned the shares. This makes the Covered Calls not worth as much.

    To briefly explain this, let’s say I paid $115 for the shares, but the price is at $80 now. Selling a Covered Call against those shares doesn’t bring in as much premium because the chances of a stock jumping from $80 to $115 in a short amount of time are very low. The contracts aren’t worth a lot because the thing I’m selling is not likely to be profitable to the person buying it from me. I’m basically selling these contracts to gamblers at this point.

    A few months ago I was able to sell Covered Calls on Hood for around $400 in premium because it was trading around the price that I paid for it. Now that the price has dropped significantly, I’m getting pennies. Hence, the low returns.

    Find home. Again.

    So I hope you’re out there setting a little time aside to do something that you love or want to improve on. 5 minutes is all it takes. You might even find yourself shedding some of the nonsense from your life in order to make time for your own pursuits.

    Doing small, meaningful things for yourself can let in the light when we’re blinded by the curtain of everydayness.

    Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
    Love is the Law.
    Love under Will.

    From me to me,
    Chris

    Lend as little as $25 to create a more equitable world.
    Donate directly to the poor.

    If you’d like to give trading on Robinhood a try, you can click my referral link HERE and we’ll both get some free stock.

    This is not financial advice. Unless you’re into losing money.