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Bob Veres writes a well-respected newsletter for financial planners. Recently Russ Thornton posted one of Mr. Veres’ articles, The Scream of the Lizard .

I loved this article, because I believe that Veres captures, so perfectly, the fear that is motivating, not just many inexperienced investors, but himself, as well. What’s interesting is that, while he has a very well developed and rational understanding of what investing in the stock market sometimes entails, he is still gripped by the fear of the “roller coaster ride” and the scary (but unrealistic) feeling that we are about to fall into the abyss.

Even though he knows better, he still can’t help the way he feels, because of what he refers to as “the lizard-like part of the back of (the) brain” which screams “against all logic and against many things I (know) to be true.”

If you are extremely fearful and cannot possibly imagine that there is a bottom to the stock market, give yourself a little understanding and possibly a little more TLC. You are not alone; in fact, you are in good company.

I recommend that you read the whole article, but here is the conclusion.

I’m one of those financial media types, and also a pundit on occasion, and I can tell you that I can hear the lizard’s scream echoing across the financial landscape, so loudly that it’s hard to remember that stocks are on a fire sale now and they are certainly a hell of a lot less risky than they were last August, and that these rides are seldom fatal to those who stay in their seats, and they are usually at least harmful to those who panic, unhook their seatbelts and jump over the side toward the distant anthill below.

I can hardly wait to look back on those charts and wonder what the hell we were thinking getting so panicky about a blip, and I know at that time that the lizard will be giving me a different message: that if only I’d had the sense to buy when everybody else was selling…

This too shall pass, and 99% of your brain knows it. The market belongs to the lizard now, and I am ashamed to admit that I, the pundit, the media guru, still feel that sense of panic on the way down, irrational as I know it is. I feel it so much that sometimes I can barely hear the rational part of my mind over the screaming that echoes that are calling up from a deeper part of my consciousness. I would curse the designer of this roller coaster, as I did the fiend who put that damn thing up at Sea World, but I’m afraid this time it is us, collectively, who designed our own fear machine.