“Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”William Shakespeare · The Tragedy of Macbeth · 1623 · Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5 (monologul lui Macbeth)
Power seized through crime doesn't fill life with meaning; it empties it, leaving only sound and fury.
The tragedy presents ambition as a machine that consumes its own fuel. Every step forward — a murder, an alliance, a new fear — demands another, and the meaning promised at the start is forever deferred. When Macbeth hears of his wife's death, he does not weep: he takes stock and finds his story is mere agitation. Shakespeare does not moralize directly; he lets the character hear his own emptiness in words. The sound and fury are abundant, but they signify nothing to the man who produced them.
Why it matters In weeks when volatility z-scores hit seven or eight, the market offers exactly this: abundant sound and fury, and the mistake is to read into it a meaning that is not there.