[423] In The Mean Time

“Hella sweet!... But what’s the catch?”

If society had a handful of statements that underwrote how we conduct ourselves, the kind of faux-enthusiasm chased by an impending sense of dread seems one of them. There are no “simple” pleasures. I can’t eat a cheeseburger without knowing that I’ve done more damage to the planet in doing so than driving to the burger place. You can’t pick up a nice outfit or a new phone without knowing it was made by a Chinese student slave. Try taking a shit without wondering if all the antibiotics and growth hormones that have been pumped into food are actually passing through or nestling in somewhere ready to preempt a coronary episode.

What about getting a hobby? I have a treadmill and weights. You can’t exercise your way out of a bad diet. More than your ability to make better food choices is why you have 99 opportunities to pick differently before you make it to the “organic” section of Kroger. Oh, you didn’t hear that there’s no regulation on the language or definition regarding what can be considered “organic?” What it could mean to be “healthy” pushes a little farther out of reach.

Okay, just acquire skills! I bought a book on learning to draw. So while I’m solidly under the poverty line, reading about the pseudo-jobs once professionals are being forced to take and what “recovery” means for this failing nation, I’ll get really good at pretty pictures. Or maybe play some music! Think back to simpler times when you marched or had winning jazz pieces almost memorized. Alone in your cold basement where one day you may get so good your cover of the latest Gaga track will get you over a million views and an invitation to join Ad Sense!

The modern era makes it hard to dream.

The brunt of my dissatisfaction has little to do with “having a more positive outlook” about my talents or free time. It’s that the selfish pursuits described above don’t hold the kind of dignity in and of themselves that I’m after. If the majority of music kids you know are either awkward, dicks, or otherwise unable to fit, it’s the isolating yourself and “circle-jerking,” as I refer to it, that made them miss the required playground altercations to help them get over themselves.  If you’re a music kid that doesn’t know what I’m talking about…I’m sorry, you might be one of them.

But this is kind of the, to pull it into something political, the neoliberal ideal psychologically. Everyone should be out for themselves. Magic forces regarding the free market and perfect information are going to make it so the people who really try and learn about things are going to get ahead, while the lazy and entitled can suffer their bad decision making. It’s an abject fantasy, but it’s winning.

I’m always in alternative mode. I’m not allowed to be “as sad” or “the same kind of sad” as the people around me. My worst case scenario is still being debt free. If I “hate my job” it’s after I took it to help pay for my entrepreneurial goals. If I’m starting to hate practicing music or working out, I better run while watching an engaging show or lecture or hit the practice pad to some hilarious pop/metal numbers.

The problem is I don’t know what the “next” alternative is. I’m certainly comfortable, but I’m not happy in the kind of secure way that means I can fix my car or hit the doctor if something went horribly wrong. I sense no “political” will to change things among my peers or fellow townies. People seem very comfortable adopting their own personal hells, and if you come in with too many bells and whistles singing different tunes, you’re met with that overt fake enthusiasm and doubtful stigma.

The problem goes deeper though. It’s a very “personal” issue, in a sense, to shape my own circumstances and perspective with something I can speak positively about. I’m concerned about the information I glean from the people studying the different areas I poorly reproduce in blogs. When I read a Stanford political science teacher who writes entire chapters detailing the history behind this “itch” I might have about how people are or aren’t behaving politically, you immediately close the doors to a lot of “little fixes” you might have employed to brighten your perspective. When I can set up RSS feeds about some topic or term I want to know about and make spreadsheets detailing the "state of that particular world" only to just be able to sit back and marvel at the lengths I'll go to alienate myself in conversations, you wonder why you bother learning, which is a new level of terrible.

But why take their words for it? I do, but credentials are going the way of the dodo too aren’t they? We don’t have a society that seems to know how to sort through and dissect information. Or, if they do, they need the insane amount of time I have to even begin feeling like they aren’t talking out of their ass. And this is a huge problem. Trust is one of those fundamental conceptions. You build neural networks based on what has been repeated. You get fucked all the time, your brain molds to feeling like getting fucked is “normal.”

So when I describe my friends as battered-wives, they’ve probably been mentally beaten for a really long time. When I get derisive and judgmental comments about how “easy” I have it in comparison to the 50+ hour a week worker who will remain in debt for 10 years if they're “lucky” to have a job that long, they clearly aren’t seeing any alternative than to pass the pain around. I certainly have nothing positive to spin about their system, that’s why I do whatever I can to pull out of it.

I see nothing genuine. I see no hope, no plain just past the horizon. I see a huge deliberate structure that is clear in its goals and capacity to achieve them that has everything to do with keeping people as financially and mentally insecure as they are now. And I’m always looking. I’m not trying to be unnecessarily depressing, but I couldn’t imagine a more depressed and sad circumstance. Maybe more weather disasters and a deeper food and water scare? Rooting for catastrophic disaster to wake people up feels like the “best” thing that can be done. If that’s my informed conclusion…

Some things have to be genuine. Some people actually can change things. But unless you’re asking me for the names of a handful of billionaires and politicians (who I’m sure got where they are completely transparently) barring intrusion of fate, I don’t know what anyone is supposed to expect but more of the same, if not worse, as they shuffle around trying to pretend little daily accomplishments make the blight of their larger reality better or justified. 

And I could go through, hyperlink every line that feels like my "shitty opinion," pass you around the internet on the same dizzying trip, recommend the 12 books I read during my last clinical trail stay, tell you about a bill you could oppose locally and give you every number and email of everyone even remotely responsible for overseeing, voting, and proposing the shit that fucks you, and the larger I make the basin of resources, the quicker it will be ignored. Because I'm naive in my tactics and position?

[422] Try Try Again

Be careful who your friends are.

I want you to take away feelings of sadness more than anger. I feel I should state that up front because I don't know yet if I'll manage to sound like anything but angry.

“That's life.”

Surely we're all aware of what it means to have an idea conditioned. You'll learn what it means to be an “adult.” The closest representation I have is working yourself to exhaustion, making sure you have the kind of staples of the picturesque Edward Bernay's dream world. House, spouse, and the finest designer kitchenware. The American Dream is so well understood and reinforced, you can find remote tribes in countries you can't pronounce who will claim they want part of it if not to also go to Disney World.

I suppose being such a heavy consumer of media, I'll claim to be “more aware” of the kind of impact ideas seem to have on the world. For even when we have entire industries and disciplines dedicated to “impression management” we can find ourselves believing and behaving much differently had we never engaged with their model or specific framing of an idea.

So let's talk about goals. I have big ones. They include being able to buy a bad ass artsy personally designed house meant for entertaining, whatever the latest Tesla is out at the time, and any number of things you might wan to call fun that comes with having money. But there's a problem with having this goal. It is extremely similar to the well-wishing and hopeful story we tell ourselves in America about our potential. If we work hard enough or are really passionate or some other sentiment meant to over placate the details, things are just supposed to sort of fall into place.

To me, this kind of goal, like all goals, can be approached in a pragmatic way that has nothing to do with the kind of sentiment carried by “I wish I could just win the lottery!” I draw distinctions between wishes and dreams, and a list of things I haven't done yet in service to getting what I want. I'm also under no illusions about my capacity to focus and get something done. It's really hard to talk “business” with people who have a lot of ideas about business and no desire to start or operate one. Yet, to go from having nothing to starting one, in 3 months, and manage to run it for 6 months without going into debt, is extremely harder than but what a handful of people seem to give me and Sam credit for.

But even that's not the point. The point is the climate you're operating under. Say I heavily disagree with one or most of your choices. 99 times out of a 100 I'll write about “a friend” or “a situation” and how I've been put off. Rarely, if ever, do I go out of my way to dismiss how you're conducting your life or what you think you'll achieve in the future. Immediately you may say “didn't you just write a blog saying 'fuck your god?' Yes, but I know about the god conversation in a way I can't discuss your particular discipline, didn't make it personal, and didn't do so “out of hand” or “naturally.” My views on religious positions and ideas came out of years of studying and discussing.

I'm lucky I'm not an impressionable child. When I hear someone say, so convinced and so disparagingly “you know that's not going to happen, right?” about some statement I make about the future I envision, I want to say “who hurt you?” I'm well worn by my lower middle class background. I know explicitly how much it costs in insurance or “oh shit money” to run even the most modest of businesses. And I don't think my circumstances will change without persistently applying my knowledge and mindset.

So what is that mindset? Succinctly, it's the squeaky wheel. Questions never end, and as long as you have them, you have the ability to open doors to potential. Leaving aside the basic math required to buy things necessary to look like a business, most of how you get anywhere in life is through connections. I've never grown up with the “rich friend” who's family has started several businesses and has money in a hundred different things. I've also never went on the prowl for one. Business can be as much about grassroots door knocking as it can be what you glean from business school. I've already lived through making the money I want with the business things I've done. It's not a “theory” what my potential earnings are when I get the financial legs under what I've already created.

My mindset involves risk mitigation. I don't just think I'm going to create some “awesome” thing that takes over like Starbucks. I think we live in an era where every state hasn't legalized pot yet. What would a few thousand dollars invested in the right levels of that mean? Not every dispensary is going to turn into the Apple of weed, but that's a dumb way to approach investment. I want my money in stages, in parts, and from many “smaller risks.” My coffee van isn't on the beat selling right now. But, I own the van and everything in it, debt averted. Whatever further inherent risk, I have something that “needs” an insurance payment to start seeking business again, and that's only if I want to keep playing by the rules. It's math, not magic. And the math for poor people with dreams involves a lot of trying, “failing,” and sitting around while accumulating until you can try again. It's going from poor to “anything” that's the hard part; then you duplicate.

Admittedly, you have to be a certain kind of person to pursue things like this. I didn't believe college meant dick with everything I was reading about college not meaning dick to so many people who had completed it before I did. That is, I didn't care to be a doctor. I don't believe in adopting debt or leveraging, even if that's how 98% of businesses may operate in their starting years. I've read enough to know that's not the only way or necessarily wise, particularly when you don't have unlimited funds to prop you up and explain a rosier picture than you're due. I recognize the different, and significantly, harder in some ways, circumstances we live in today for me to get what I want.

And while I'm not necessarily looking for encouragement, I don't respect or understand going out of your way to disparage me. It suggests you've done things like I have and attempted to explain something to me that I simply refuse to hear. It suggests you're living an idealized version of your life having pursued a job within in your major or after incurring the debt in order to continue school. It suggests that I'm first speaking out of my hopeless dreamer ass and don't actively pursue and put money where my mouth is. I don't find this acceptable behavior as a general person might engage with a stranger, let alone friendly or attempting understanding.

It's the snapshot problem. You experience your life every moment of every day and yet you'll take a snapshot or a comment out of someone else's and use it to mold their being into something you can manage or judge. I won't willingly play the scapegoat for someone else's unresolved feelings concerning their own life. It's not wise and it's not fair.

[xx-10] Brick One

I tend to understand things in terms of "arguments." Arguments need to adhere to a certain kind of "logic." There's a mathematical logic, and what I would call a "human logic." We live in an era of "big data." While often touted as used to advertise and police, my concern is for how things are argued. In my attempt to display the “human logic” of an “everythingist” who cares about a whole assortment of complicated problems, I want to lay out the foundation of my argument and activist machine.

One person, in 2-3 hours can “note” 25 articles from an rss news feed. After 2 articles you'll sense a “rabbit hole” problem. But, nay, it is an opportunity. My goal is to draw as many logical lines towards the next step in as many processes as I can personally affect. So, for example, if I come across an article some new material that is supposed to make solar panels more efficient, as a “regular person” never going to be an expert in perovskite I can note it's existence, who's writing about it and when, pros and cons, and move right along.

In a way, everything can be regarded as a first step that paints a broader picture. Perovskite comes up again in another site with slightly different information to contribute, and a few articles before that you learn of colloidal quantum dots which would also like to be a player in what makes solar panels more efficient. Who knew you could even bolster your perspective of efforts pimp out panels with moth eyes? My thought immediately jumps to investing. Wouldn't you want to know the state of the various methods and compounds that are going to infuse the solar market? Barely scratching the surface I get to start a spreadsheet “Compounds to keep tabs on” which begs the question who's developing them and what time frames are we looking at?

But even this is still too abstract. I want to enable people at a local level. So, where do we go after learning about Virginia private colleges and what an $800,000 federal grant does for their efforts? Now I'm clued in to what the government is actually allocating and where. New spreadsheet “Government Grants.” If I'm trying to get you to apply, might it be relevant to hand you the program most relevant on a silver platter? These schools are just in the exploring stages, having been allocated this insane amount of cash to do the kind of fact finding that a handful of people could pull off in a few days with Google and a phone. If I can find inefficiencies and undercut other applicants, how many opportunities can I open up for similar projects in other states or schools?

And I say local and manage to not even talk yet about Indiana and net metering. My stabs into “the whole world of solar” clued me into a fight at least in my own back yard. One person, 2 hours, and now I know I dislike HB 1320 and messaged the Mark Maassel guy who's president of the old energy group making really shitty arguments against net-metering. Broad void of information condensed to something “anyone” can do.

I could find a way to artfully place every hyperlink to every article that could serve as a seed. But the point is not to inundate you with things you're not going to click and read. The point isn't to show off “how smart I am.” The point is to direct the sea of information into the most pathetically easy things YOU can do to fix things I care about. Incidentally, it'd be great if you had the time and inclination to care as well, but wish in one hand, shit in the other, then ask which fills up first.

My engine is 10 or 20 “little researchers” who can plug in the variables of any topic, not unlike what I imagine journalism used to operate like, and it boils down not into a simple “here's me reporting on what's fucked up” but “here's the smallest easiest thing you can do to see some cause and effect.” It's not mindlessly dumping money into a charity you don't whether or not is actually helping. It's not asking you to “trust” me or it to be anything more than as good as its inputs. I want facebook or Instagram level of participation leading towards change. Or better stated, I want the effort exerted to feel like that's all they're doing. Why fight the conditioning if you can figure out how to exploit it?