Sitting at what feels like the apex of technology here in 2012, we all like to believe we’re different.

When it comes to investing, especially, we like to believe we must know more than the pre-Bloomberg Luddites of decades ago. We like to believe we’re more rational. Have better tools. That buy and hold is for fools. Hasn’t our thinking has progressed so much more, after all, than the generations that came before us? We certainly have oodles more information, right at our fingertips, and for free, even. Shoot, never mind investing – we pretty much know how the entire world really works at this point, don’t we?

On July 6th, Warren Buffett wrote:

“I think you can be quite sure that over the next ten years there are going to be a few years when the general market is plus 20% or 25%, a few when it is minus on the same order, and a majority when it is in between. I haven’t any notion as to the sequence in which these will occur, nor do I think it is of any great importance for the long-term investor.”

That’s good advice for 2012, no?

It was actually written two generations ago…in 1962, to be exact. One of my investors – active duty, stationed overseas – cut out the newspaper version of this article on Buffett in Stars and Stripes and mailed it in to me a few weeks ago. Definitely a reminder that is worth a read.

We like to think we’re so much smarter than previous generations, but we’re still the same human beings with the same flaws. We’re emotional creatures. Our instincts too often trump our intellects. Our egos make us do things that aren’t good for us.

In the market, our aversion to risk outweighs our reason. Our fear of the market outweighs what we know about the market.

Buffett in his stock-picking prime had one big advantage over almost every other professional investor of his day: he was stuck in Omaha. Back then he couldn’t get 24/7 satellite news. He couldn’t get on the internet and get minute-by-minute market commentary. He couldn’t even pick up the phone to get up-to-the second quotes for his portfolio.

What did he get? A couple of newspapers each morning and twenty-two minutes of the evening news. And – most importantly – time. Time to think and contemplate. Time to process what was going on in the world before he acted.

With all our knowledge and information (and pride) we often forget the wisdom of what came before us. We like to think things are different. But really they aren’t. Never mind those rare earth metals…time spent sitting still and thinking about investing may now be more precious and rare than ever.

Despite all that we know, DALBAR reports year-after-year that investors always do worse than their investments. In 2011, for instance, the market was up 9.1% while the average investor earned only 3.3%. Why? Because that investor, with all his knowledge and information, kept jumping in and out of investments. Jumped out of solid investments when he feared he’d lose money, and jumped into a hot investment for fear he’d lose out on a gain.

So maybe the secret to becoming a great investor isn’t a secret after all. Perhaps you can find out half of what you need to know in a book that was first published in 1934. And perhaps the other half can be read online, right now, for free. And maybe, just maybe, you, like Buffett, will be better off ignoring all the other noise.