Inevitably things revert to the mean. Over time, and on average, a variable will tend to regress back to its historical average. The term is often used mathematically, or in the study and prediction of the financial markets. We all know, I think, that stocks for example, tend to revert back to trend. It’s the underlying principle behind investments and, specifically, pensions.

Interesting but, I wonder, does this concept also apply to personalities? Stay with me; being at home and not commuting for a year, I had time to ponder abstract concepts, sift the data and make (wild) conclusions. It’s what I do.

My starting point might be relationships. From what I’ve observed, perhaps participated in, personalities tend to move back towards ‘normal’ behavioural characteristics within a relationship. A person may start in the honeymoon period all sweetness and unselfishness - this is natural; we all want to impress. But gradually, through familiarity and, I don’t know, confidence or boredom, a personality will inevitably revert back to its previous default setting.

I think instinctively every parent knows this. Much as educationalists and social theorists may wish environment to be key - the process of socialisation is a real thing after-all - any parent can observe their child’s character from early on. It doesn’t really change. Of course, children become adults, and as they do so, they become more sophisticated and learn to mask their impulses and imperfections, but ultimately, I think, character is formed at birth.

Yes I’m aware I’m treading leadenly where angels fear to tread and my assertion is the sort that only the very clever - or very stupid - would dare to cast out publicly but, there you go, it’s why I get paid the big bucks. My tens of readers would expect nothing less of me.

What about politics and economics? Do they revert to the mean, following a shock, a disruption? There’s some merit in that assertion - a period of correction following a market distortion for example. Expected and priced in. But what if things don’t revert? Or the reversion is delayed beyond reasonable?

Dictators all die. Evil regimes all fall. Good times are followed by bad and worse by better. Interest rates will rise and debt will be inflated away. Or will it? The problem with waiting for a reversion, a correction, is that whilst you live in that time, inhabit the bubble of expectation, the end point is unclear. No one wants to be the soldier shot five minutes before an armistice, the last investor before a price crash.

So, back to the personal.

People acting out of character, following a new fad, a regime, a diet or religion, often come a cropper. Actions following a divorce, maybe. Wild changes suggest and anticipate wild corrections. We can see the anomalous behaviour in real time and await the inevitable reversion to the mean of their lives.

But what about incrementalism? Slow changes, thought through and planned seem to be a positive way to go. A reversion to the mean implies a stability within that mean but what happens if the variables that calculate the stasis change? I think herein lies the answer, less dream big and fail, more baby steps in the right direction. Constantly and with purpose.

I think people tend to be more Fabius Maximus and less Scipio Africanus though that is a gross generalisation and rather insulting to the former. We need both archetypes but I suspect the broad mass of people are incrementalists, not bold strategists. A little movement in the right direction can shift mood and perspective and recalculate the equilibrium so that when a reversion happens - and it will - we’re no longer where we were but perhaps nearer where we want to be.

I used to end articles like these - ones where I feebly grasp at large concepts and often as not grab the air - with the motto ‘Socrates sleeps easy tonight’. You know, how great thinkers may read the abstract and shake their heads at my pretensions and go back to deliberating high thoughts and complex theorems. True enough. But the simple act of coalescing thoughts and putting them down pushes the needle ever so slightly in the right direction.