When I was kid, my dad told me about his beer can collection. When he went to college, my grandpa, while cleaning out the attic, found and threw the cans away. My dad said my grandpa thought it was trash, and didn't realize that classic or out-of-business brands of cans would be worth thousands. Even after attempting to tell my grandpa this, he didn't believe him or understand. He came from Yugoslavia and worked on a farm. Trash is trash. You work hard, you make enough to live.
I started collecting Pokemon cards with my dad's story constantly in my head as a kid. I double-cased them, arranged them in importance of perceived value. I didn't fall for the shady trader who ran the card store in town who offered to trade an array of cards for my holographic Blastoise; I had the price guide as well. I wanted to build my little investment just like my dad's beer cans. I got older and had the same impulse when the first run of Marvel Legends came out. I never opened the boxes. I bought entire sets when they were $20 a piece.
Both some of my cards (including a prized Charizard), and all of my Marvel figures have been stolen. My foresight disappeared in an instant to the hands of children who were invited to my dad's house while I was in college, and either meth heads or scammy builders when I was trying to get set up out here.
In my experience, to invest in yourself is a rare character trait. No doubt it's easy to understand how heart-breaking and precarious attempting to protect something like toys or cards for decades can be. There's also no guarantee that what you choose to invest in is going to become as popular as Marvel and Pokemon (though, even in 5th grade, I knew Pokemon was what to go with over Digimon).
When I was 16, I tried to start my own “business” with a friend who knew how to build computers. The idea was to drive to Tiger Direct, get parts really cheap, and sell gaming computers. The internet was less robust, so we found out the hard way that the inventory wasn't exactly lending itself to be worthy of the hour+ drive. The idea failed pretty quickly. I then proceeded to work 2 jobs, practically 3 with band, and continued to do well in school. I dreamed of college as the chance to take my, at the time, insatiable desire to read about religion and science, and let me turn it into something worthwhile. After being immediately humbled by my naivety about what college is, I turned to trying to profit from throwing parties you might see in the movies.
To invest in something is to have an eye on the future. It's the clearest indication that you're trying to control the future. I think it says considerably more about your present. I think it tells you about your genuine morals or values. If you are unable or unwilling to invest, it comes with a predictable set of ethics. You seek the shortcuts. You want the momentary wins and are subjected to the tumultuous whims of your feelings or latest influences. This is where the “conservative” impulse that strikes many people as they age kicks in. They can more easily see what has retained value and why in the midst of constant change or chaos.
I've asked, and continue to ask, people to invest in themselves and me. If you can't extract an extraordinary dollar amount, then I want you to feel the impact of the effort or knowledge. The knowledge that my start-up coffee shop could gross $2000-$3000 a month with all of the constraints and difficulties is extremely important to me. That there's an extra room I built attached to my house, for all of its negotiations, is the exact same kind of extremely important knowledge. When I think I'm too fat or lazy, I walk by a mountain of bricks or ¼ acre of tilled soil.
You can't see it at first, but it is impractical to live under the idea that you can always rely on the paycheck, the benevolence of the powers currently in charge, or what's most familiar. Modernity has done everything in its power to put us into little boxes of what to expect from ourselves. Advertising told us what the future would be. Consumer trends dictated your diet. You consider your relative worth in terms of '”minimum wage” and “benefits.” An endless cycle of call-and-response means you can only find protest and disobedience as the means of redressing grievance instead of infiltration, preservation, or iteration.
The people I hold in the highest regard are the ones who respond to the metaphorical theft of their plans for the future with the reiteration and celebration of the means in which they are going to pursue it anyway. This doesn't mean you have to be deliberately naive about the practical constraints. It doesn't mean you are more or less likely to get anything like what you were after. It simply indicates that your mind is oriented towards what is possible. You're not defeated by default.
When I write, my habit is to shit on people for not acknowledging how defeated they are. You'd be deliberately missing the point if you think I'm upset about not having enough money, not running my little empire, or not finding enough “on the level” people willing to indulge my every fantasy. I see the spark of the divine in so few people, I think it is a catastrophic moral and intellectual failure for those people not feel the guilt or shame that I might associate with the impulse to improve. We still can choose, every moment, to acknowledge all we've been given, either in material resources, or in each other, and explore what that can turn into. Or, we can stay lodged in our asses, hoping the waves of change leave us undisturbed at the bottom.
On my “day off,” I'm about to head on another scrap run. I cut my fingers deep while working on the room extension yesterday. I maintain my “practical” job that barely rewards my ability to play by rules and brings me zero mental peace, even if the value of it might be argued by a client or supervisor. I'd have to construe a very long karmic chain of quasi-bullshit to conjure how it speaks to improving me or my circumstances baring practical throwaway statements about money. I'm never “off,” and I work to keep myself reminded of that. I require a dozen occupations to thrive, leverage, and balance. You do too.
If I came across a post for extremely cheap living circumstances, and all that was being asked of me was to use your tools to tear apart washing machines and list them on Ebay, I'd be sure it was a scam. What the ever-loving fuck would that even mean? You don't want rent? You're not trying to fuck me? You don't want me to stay hush about your meth operation? People don't “get it,” because there's nothing to get. There's no subtext and no secret. It's just a deliberate and methodical practice in service to an ideal of future circumstances. It's physically and verbally practicing respect for that work. We've been given the world and feel miserable because we didn't have to work for it. We didn't have to see behind the scenes or feel the ache of every shovel full of dirt under the convenience store.
No one takes me up on it, besides a few friends and the support we've received from our respective parents because culturally we're defeated. We don't have the language, practice, or habits that lend themselves to actually believing in ourselves. We don't know how much we already have and how much we can do without. We don't have an eye on the future, because we abandoned the responsibility of what it takes to maintain the system. We chose, continue to choose, unsustainable ideas about what's convenient. We choose the “comfort” of what's familiar and “reliable.” We're not choosing to respect what we're made of. We're not choosing to challenge and work with the best parts of what we see in each other. We're left with constant last-minute and desperate attempts to patch holes in a submarine that's been shot through. We're literally contending with fascism.
I'm not saying you absolutely have to move out here, sacrifice your worldly possessions, secretly hate everything about your life and how it's oriented, or that I have the best or most thought out plan for engaging with it all. I am saying that I find it incredibly suspect that one could take from the constant cultural refrains and diagnose the problem as a measure of *too much* respect and understanding in the nature of our problems. I'm saying the hostility and resentment for my offer is a telling sickness. If you think you need to spend more, work more hours, fight the thoughts a post like this plants in your head, or hit a donate button, you're not doing the real work. You don't recognize, you don't respect, and you're giving the future away.
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