Cycles

The share price of Keppel Corp is now S$5+. Way back in 2008 when its share price dropped to $4 and the market was just too bleak to enter, against all seeming logic I bought one lot. Since then I have gone in and out of this counter which had reached a high of more than $11. Out of sentimentality I still retain one last lot. Now the price seems to have gone one full cycle after 7/8 years.

So is the price of crude oil . In my previous life I used to hold weekly meetings with my staff so as to produce a weekly report on the main currencies plus oil ( a lame corporate treasury trying to provide senior management with a weekly update by largely copying from those provided by the banks). Way back in the late 1990s, US$28, 30, 30+ were the norm. After more than 15 years and having seen US$100+, the price of crude oil has also gone one full cycle crashing below US$30.

If you haven't got it, I am leading you to think about events that come and go in cycles as well as what the Chinese term the wheels of fortune 风水轮流转. Recently a prestigious golf club in UK was bought over by a Beijing billionaire. The subscription fees was subsequently doubled with the local members accusing the owner of trying to evict them. Think back more than 65 years when signs of No Chinese and Dogs Allowed appeared in the foreign concession zones of China.

Yes things do go in cycles, economy, financial markets, fashion, wars/historical events and civilisations that swing from dark to golden ages and back in terms of values and social consciousness. Even in our private lives, there are waves that swirl from challenging times to calmer years only to be repeated again and again.

Skillful living as thought in Buddhism is to be able to accept every moment in these cycles. To hanker for "good times" to remain forever in an inevitable cycle is foolish agony.