I was surprised at my friend's reaction. It was as if I had confessed to bigamy. All I said was that I bought and sold individual stocks. He was incredulous, "You mean you choose your own stocks?"

He felt safer buying mutual funds rather than choosing stocks for himself, but was that based on risk versus reward, or is the modern American temper so bureaucratic that individual decisions seem risque? This might be the most direct explanation for his behavior, but of course, in the blogging racket, we never settle for a direct explanation when a more circuitous and colorful one will suffice.

It is generally acknowledged that the height of chutzpah is exemplified by the man who, having just been convicted of murdering his parents, begs the judge for clemency on the grounds that he is an orphan. Perhaps the next best example of chutzpah is to "endorse" the stock market during the last few months.

Actually I'm not endorsing the stock market. Over my years of full time RVing in the western states I sometimes wished that I had bought raw land on the edge of retirement boom towns, rather than stocks.

We tend to judge work by its results, prestige or image. But years ago I decided that what mattered most to individual happiness was how well the activity of a job lines up with one's personality, which is why stock market investing is a great hit with me personally, even though my results have been mediocre.

Look at what one is actually doing when buying and selling stocks: reading and thinking, alone and without a boss; cogitating and counter-arguing while pacing; and finally deciding. What could be more fun?

You must grope for a big picture that transcends the noise and clutter of daily news, while paradoxically searching for juicy specifics about individual companies; specifics that have been overlooked by lazy thesis chasers. There is something exquisite about maintaining a mental balance between opposite ways of thinking in your own mind, at the same time.

Then you react to the success or failure of your decision. How much of the result was just luck? Emotions conflict with other emotions. The rational faculty comes in to adjudicate. Ultimately investing is an exercise in governing yourself more than anything else.

Compare these activities to a normal business where one spends the day talking on the phone; listening to customers' complaints and suppliers' excuses; dealing with attorneys, insurance companies, and employees; and as the crowning glory, wrestling with the tax code and accountants. None of that is the least bit interesting to me.

Of course there would be no need to invest if I had a nickel for every retiree who says that he keeps himself sharp by working crossword puzzles. I share his affection for trivia, but why choose such a fruitless way to indulge in it? Investing can be a more remunerative outlet for the same proclivity.

Or consider someone sitting for hours in front of the television, watching sports. Personally I can't wait until the football season starts in September. But in the final analysis what difference does it make which group of millionaires wins the game?

Sports are mock battles. Somewhere I read a quote from a contestant in the War Between the States. He said that nothing is more exciting, and never do you feel more alive, than when you are marching across a field and men are dying on all sides of you. I'll take his word for it. Still, how un-valiant is the mere watching of sports on television!

Investing puts you on the front lines of a battle between the bulls and bears. It is real battle that can make you a real casualty or a hero. Investing is the moral equivalent of war.