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I’ve been trying to understand the GameStop news. I get that there is a store called GameStop. I get that there is a stock market. I get that there is a website called Reddit with various online forums, including one devoted to meme-loving people who post about Wall Street. I get that there are things called hedge funds operated by evil rich guys, at least one of whom surely will be played by Christian Bale in a forthcoming movie about GameStop. And I get that there is an app called Robin Hood that allows you to trade stocks without paying a commission … except when it doesn’t.

But how these things mix together has me baffled, no matter how many stories I read or podcasts I listen to. There is a point in every story or podcast about GameStop — usually around the time when “short selling” enters the mix — where the expert tries to explain complicated concepts in the most simplistic way, and it’s not nearly simplistic enough for me. It’s a line drive over my head, over the left-field wall, out of the whole stadium, and I’m just gazing toward the infield, shrugging and spitting sunflower seeds.

I made enough sense of Walter Johnson’s “guns and butter” lectures to pull a solid B in Econ 51 as a Mizzou undergrad, so I have a basic notion of supply and demand. But this story has defeated me.

So I have made peace with the idea that there are mysteries that I cannot grasp. I accept this whole thing probably will result in a market catastrophe that wipes out my whole retirement account and I will live out my last days welcoming customers to Walmart. I’m not happy about it, but I accept it.

I feel the same about the NCAA Evaluation Tool — NET — which is one of the metrics the selection committee uses to determine the field and seeding for the NCAA Tournament. Since the NCAA adopted the NET in 2019, I haven’t had much reason to pay attention to how the NCAA Tournament field is determined, so I’m behind.