Taking Stock in Strange Times

I’m back. Perhaps you hadn’t noticed that I’d gone. Well, too late, because I’m back.  

For a few days last week, I suffered an abundance of thoughts, though few of them – none, actually – merited sharing with an audience. There are times when it’s advisable to keep one’s counsel. As fugitive thoughts bounced and echoed along the rutted canyons of my mind, I invoked my inalienable right of self-censorship. No animal or human was hurt as a result of my refusal to hold forth. 

The thoughts remained, though. They were distressingly persistent, forcefully telling me that we’ve embarked on a temporal funhouse ride that features amusements and horrors in equal measure. 

I suppose nearly every epoch has its eccentricities and defects, but perhaps because we’re in the midst of a seemingly unprecedented techno-socio dislocation-cum-transition, we’re experiencing a seemingly daily onslaught of weirdness.

If you’re an inveterate and inquisitive reader as opposed to a passive recipient of algorithmic video and social media, you likely try to detach yourself from the torrential flow of effluvium and flotsam that passes, by the slimmest of margins, for digital culture. From an ostensibly safe distance, one is able and willing to ask questions about the psychic drift of the economic and social strata of contemporary society. There’s madness at the top, and indignation at the bottom. Meanwhile, the center, the fulcrum on which balance depends, erodes by the hour.

Many recent news reports are, by any reasonable measure, a little outlandish. I realize that an arbitrary selection of some articles over others is an inherently subjective exercise. Nonetheless, that some of these things are even happening should capture our attention.

Worse, there are so many of these preposterous news items on a daily basis that we risk becoming inured to the lunacy. Humans seem to possess nearly unlimited adaptability. You might think that’s an asset– and, in a way, I suppose it is – but extraordinary adaptability is both a blessing and a curse. Over time, conditioning becomes normalization, and what was once considered anomalous and even aberrant gradually and imperceptibly becomes the new normal. Just consider the last ten or fifteen years. Think about how events and occurrences you never would have imagined at the beginning of that time span have become lived experience today. The line between the surreal and the real is more permeable than we ever imagined. 

If you carefully and critically read the news, rather than passively consume influencers’ self-interested takes on worldly events, you will find yourself asking, “Just a few short years ago, would I have come across a news article like this one?” If the answer is no, as is increasingly true, you have to ask what has changed, and whether the change is accelerating. Furthermore, you need to wonder about the destination, where it might be going, notwithstanding our implicit understanding that collective human experience is always moving, has always been and presumably will be in flux, which means that no destination is final in our evolutionary process. The show goes on, even when you’re gone.

Bypassing the Dark Forest

I’m not heading into the darkest parts of the forest today. There will be no gawking at alleged “freak offs” or sex trafficking or even a studied inquisition of our marauding digital robber barons. I’m keeping it relatively bright and light today, at a time of year when the northern hemisphere gets more than enough natural darkness. 

Let’s consider the following: 

In Germany, a property developer, according to Agence France Press (by way of Barron’s), “has sparked outrage” by planning to transform a World War II tunnel system, originally built for the Nazis by prison laborers, into a luxury bunker for rich survivalists who fear the outbreak of World War III.

Trick question: Is it objectively better or worse that some observers think the developer’s motivation is the desire to profit from a contrived real-estate transaction rather than to actually build, as the article so felicitously phrases it, “an end-of-days hideout for the super-rich.”? There is no right answer, of course, which means my question was rhetorical, which further means I shouldn’t have concluded the sentence with a question mark. 

Closer to home, in the Canadian province of Ontario, a teddy-bear toss at a junior hockey game, which should be an occasion effervescing with holiday cheer, degenerated into the avant-garde surrealism you’d see in a film by Luis Buñuel. Embedded in a news article is a video of the bizarre scene that transpired, but, before you click on the link, the following text gives you some idea of what to expect:

With the 67's hosting the annual charity event on Sunday night, teddy bears began to rain onto the ice midway through the second period after Ottawa forward Luca Pinelli scored the first goal of the game. 

However, the stuffed animals weren't the only thing that hit the ice. With hundreds of teddy bears being hurled over the glass, the 67's and Colts decided to take the opportunity to engage in a massive line brawl. 

It was like a scene from a movie. Players were down on the ice wrestling while being pelted with stuffed animals. Even The Grinch could be spotted lurking in the background.

I’ve seen dream sequences in 80s rock videos that were less bizarre than what transpired at that hockey game. 

In an outpost of technology industry – and you knew I’d eventually nudge these observations a little closer to home – I continue to watch in amazement as a purely sentiment-driven “Trump trade” lifts the values of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to pump-and-dump heaven. There are no fundamentals, or anything vaguely resembling reality, pushing Bitcoin’s value up and down. It’s all powered by fickle sentiment, which is currently favorably disposed to Bitcoin because of, well, the mercurial Donald Trump, whose apparent affinity for Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies represents a discharged starting gun in a speculative race to the sun.

Look, I’m not telling you what to do with your money – I would never be so officious or presumptuous – but I will caution that you probably shouldn’t bet the farm on something that has a valuation predicated on the caprice of extremely powerful market makers who no doubt have their own agendas. In a tempestuous, unregulated sea, the whales invariably eat the minnows.

Excelling at Excel on ESPN 3

In my reading I also learned of something called the Microsoft Excel World Championships, which were hosted by the Financial Modeling World Cup (no, I’m serious) on December 4 at the HyperX Arena in Las Vegas. After all, when you think of Excel, Las Vegas isn’t far behind. 

In a report on the event published by the Globe and Mail, we learn that the winner of the Microsoft Excel World Championships – at it happens, a resident of Toronto emerged victorious this year – claims a prize of $5,000 and a shiny title belt, the sort you’d envision held aloft by a triumphant boxing or wrestling champion.

The event has its own theme song, a lengthy number reminiscent of the progressive-rock-inflected bombast of Saga (some of you might not know of or remember that group) or the “supergroup” Asia.

Competitors train assiduously for the Microsoft Excel World Championships, which even attracts avid spectators, as this excerpt from the article attests:

Typically, Excel is something taught at school or work, where it’s used to analyze data and perform calculations. For those who don’t take to it right away, the software can seem mundane or tedious. But at the world championships, held at the HyperX Arena in Vegas, Excel feels anything but mundane. Flashy lighting, huge screens and loudspeakers fill a room packed with people – and 64 finalists – whose passion for spreadsheets extends beyond their day jobs.

I suppose it’s all good, clean fun, or at least good and clean. (Two of three favorable attributes bats an impressive .667 percentage, which any Excel aficionado will tell you is a relatively decent result, much better than .333, though that percentage reflects, in this particular instance, the absence of just one more of the three key attributes.)

From the article, we learn that the Microsoft Excel World Championships, co-sponsored (to the surprise of no one) by Microsoft, have been broadcast on ESPN 3 as a form of e-sports. Now I don’t mean to disparage the world’s foremost Excel professionals, but I thought e-sports involved, well, electronic sports such as video games. Excel is many things to many people, but I’ve never heard even the most passionate spreadsheet enthusiast describe it as a game. On this point, I’m willing to wager that CFOs don’t want members of their accounting departments to approach their spreadsheet ministrations as a game of chance that necessarily involves elements of luck as well as skill. 

To their credit, participants in the Excel championships recognize that they belong to a select niche; they know that their peculiar enthusiasm isn’t shared universally.  

The community, which tends to stay in touch through platforms such as LinkedIn, WhatsApp and Discord, is spread out all over the world, Mr. Male said. Often, people who take an interest in Excel can find their passion quite isolating, he added, because others only think of the tool as an extension of work.

“The vast majority of people aren’t waking up every day and thinking, ‘God, I wish I could do better in Excel.’ They use it because they have to. But there’ll be 5 per cent or 10 per cent of people at most companies that do start using it and love it,” he said.

That’s why these in-person events in Las Vegas are so exciting, Mr. Male said.

“Because not only are you, for the first time, in a room with people that share your nerdy passion, you’re in Vegas, in an e-sports arena, looking around, going, ‘How on earth is this a thing?’” he said.

Oddly enough, that’s exactly the question that occurred to me. I’ve had to use Excel in various professional contexts, but I can’t say that I’ve loved the experience. Okay, the preceding sentence was euphemistic, so let me revise my thoughts in the spirit of candor and transparency: Excel, for me, has always been an ordeal, a necessary professional torment to be endured rather than enjoyed. I thought everybody, even the pivot-table savants, felt the same way. I’m now forced to reconsider that assumption, as well as so many others. Remember, adaptability is a blessing and a curse. 

I have ideas on how the event organizers might make the Excel championships attractive to a wider commercial audience – involving, for example, hybrid competitions that combine Excel proficiency with sumo wrestling – but I’m sure you’ll forgive me if I keep those to myself, too.