I finally understand The Big Short.

I'd seen The Big Short before. I thought I understood it. Turns out, I really didn't.

Watching it again while studying finance was completely different. Mortgage-backed securities, credit default swaps, ratings, leverage... all the stuff that used to sound like complicated Wall Street language actually started making sense.

But what interested me most wasn't even understanding the terminology. It was understanding the decisions behind it. Everyone had their own incentives, everyone was making money, and somehow all of those individual decisions helped create a system that made absolutely no sense.

I think that's what I'm becoming most interested in about finance. The numbers matter, obviously, but I'm even more curious about the people behind them. Why they make the decisions they do, what incentives drive those decisions, and what happens when you put all of that together.