[431] Read That Back

I wish we could dispel the idea that people like a challenge. Stated in this way, it's far from complete. It remains a kind of myth about the nature of the human spirit that we rely on to believe “we'll get where we need to be” at an undisclosed time in the future. It carries with it the idea that we're problem solvers of the highest order, leaving out that most of us are in the stands solving the problem of how to juggle a beer, hotdog, and peanuts while the real players who work to bring it all together are on the field and in the box seats.

I'm in the reflective phase of a conversation/argument online that spanned a few days. One of my often stated goals is to get people to talk, challenge my ideas, or ask a question if I said something particularly disingenuously. I got what I wanted. While peppering a general lamentation about “Inequality For All” a motivated commenter of several pasts posts asked me to explain a joke and then expressed how oppressive all laws are and why they were an anarchist. While I don't care to re-explain the details, the situation helped illustrate what happens when you challenge back.

I've been toying with the idea of existence being a giant knot. The name for “string theory” being wonderfully on the nose. I think it speaks to the reason I persistently say “I'm at home talking” more than any particular location I may inhabit. Every unresolved question is a little knot. If we carry these knots, they lock up in the back of my neck and shoulders. You can feel choked by this knot, anchored, or perhaps you think you leave the tangled pile “over there.” I, as far as I can be bothered to, am always picking at it.

It's why as “pointless” as it consistently seems to be referred to, I like to argue online. There's a difference, to me, in feeding trolls and going line by line laying out a clearer and more manageable mess of strings. But what I find psychologically satisfying is more often than not perceived as a mean or threatening attack. In one sense, I'm going to be endlessly at odds with ideas you can't show to be true or at least semi-likely. In another, if you start to feel uncomfortable or persuaded by how something is explained, and I'm not trying to sign you up for Amway, there's probably a deeper truth than the mess of accusations and speculations you're throwing up to hold steady my inquiry.

Perhaps I simply fail in how I ask. I want to be meticulously torn apart line by line and asked questions that are reinforced with historical or scientific examples. I can spend my time explaining jokes that didn't translate, but where is that really taking us?

But can you blame them? This seems to be a kind of beating heart to a lot of my online interactions. People get angry at me for posting blogs in /r/self on reddit. People get genuinely frustrated that I would use an annoying ironic circle jerk to post my ironic annoying circle jerks. People seem to be holding and fighting for their flag, but I rarely understand what it amounts to for them in anything but irrational feeling terms. In that sense, yes, I feel obligated to blame them. I expect something out of you only because I expect something out of myself.

Be redundant, be spacey, but be honest. And honestly, most of the time, you're probably very lazy or very dumb about what you're talking about. I just tend to keep the topic focused on me and my perception first. I've found that habit providing a method and skills for breaking down what you say. Picking apart my teenage mind's ideas of “love” and “god” was considerably harder than my questions about whether or not you'll define your terms. I hate myself when I read my first jabs at unpacking my thoughts. They abused to no end “stream of consciousness.” I slowed down and tried to get better.

And I know this is where you lose 'em. I know the boring details and sincere appeals aren't the kind of cosmic displays of weirdness and passion that people laud with praise and lovingly tumble about the forest with. Though I like the idea of having an audience, I like more that I figured out I write because I need to. I clarify because it's my literal neck on the line. It's a fight to prioritize how and why I think so everything that follows is less likely to embarrass or shame me. I wish more of us would take the time. The conversation is often lost well before you started.

[430] Urban Sprawl

Do you ever just drive around neighborhoods?

I’m from Northwest Indiana. The region. Chicago if you know nothing about the United States. Gary if you live far enough away from the Midwest to use the term “flyover state.” I’m told the population is around 1.5 million. This means there are a lot of neighborhoods. There’s just “a lot” in general. And after the last few hours spent driving around, I can’t escape the feeling of it meaning “a lot of nothing.”

If you’ve followed me long enough you know I have a strong sense of self. Call it an “ego” for lack of a better word. In a sea of at least 1.5 million people, I managed to conceive of myself as “better” than what I came from and have lived within for most of my life. I constantly ask why. I start to think you can only do so when you have so many examples to reflect on and interact with. It’s when you attempt to seat yourself in the “honors classes” of everyday activities which of course I had to take.

People I think generally and genuinely mistake my “ego,” endlessly in quotes, for something naïve. I think it’s just the perpetual result of trying to answer questions. And I don’t just mean hearing “an answer” to something. I mean pulling out the meat to the hopeless, but finally not contrived, answer.

Why are you working so hard? “To take care of my family.” Bullshit answer. Taking care of your family comes with the territory. You’re working so hard because you haven’t connected the dots to how people in power fuck you, and you don’t genuinely believe you can do anything but. Why do you want that car? “It’s nice, stylish, and I’ve dreamed about it since I was a kid.” Bullshit. Besides wanting to show off, part of your emotional well being has been transferred into what you can consume. If you don’t get that car, you may get irreconcilably depressed and angry.

Cars accompany every house in every neighborhood. One striking thing that I’ve never been good at is telling them apart. For a solid 15 years there was “car,” “truck,” “van,” as my categories. I think a Corvette was the first thing that stood out to me. I tend to shy away from asking people why they want things, but I never felt myself inclined toward one over the other. When I could drive, I wanted to get from point A to B. I was given the option to pick a car, ended up with a Mini Cooper mostly because it was in the magazine on the table and my dad, who offered to buy it, suggested it first.

I’m still confused as to what makes people pick things. Vans for kids I guess. Trucks for workers. Priuses for people who want to be politely pretentious but don’t read enough. “Stuff,” in and of itself, hasn’t ever really meant anything to me. It needs to have a purpose, an endgame. I collected Pokemon cards not because kids and monsters, but because my dad told me a story of beer cans he collected that would have been worth thousands had my grandpa not thrown them away. They’re still pristine, holographics double cased, in my closet. Same reason I bought a lot of Marvel Legends around the first Spiderman movie.

The first time I wanted a car was when Tesla hit the scene. You know why? It’s objectively the best, safest, and makes the most sense as far as sustainability. I just want the best. It’s “obvious” why “anyone” should want it. I don’t care about the packaging, the pitch, or what you think about it. I’ve seen one get hit at 70+ miles an hour and I think the car started laughing. For someone who’s flirted with semis and gone over the side of a mountain, that’s my car. Do you really want less for yourself?

“Little boxes made of ticky tacky.”

My area is heavy. You get your mortgage. You get your car. Whether you live in the area increasingly marked by cigarillo wrappers in the yard or next to the gated community as far back into rich white-ville as Broadway can get, you’re parked next to your neighbors. There’s a code of conduct. You’re not getting noisy. You’re not topping out the speed on your expensive car. You’re shopping at the same mall, hitting the same chain restaurants, and shoveling the same shit snow.

We used to drive around at 3 or 4 in the morning when the lights were off in all but a couple houses. Go around 7 or 8 and you’ll see, rich or poor, you’re all sitting around your TVs watching the same things on your 55 to 70 inches. Whether you spend 80 hours a week in your office-esc job to afford your faux-rich house or have to spend all day iron working like my dad, you seemingly aspire to the same things described by however you choose to interpret this area. I’ve never wanted to travel more, and I’ve never really cared to travel until tonight. And I say that in the face of my friends who’ve traveled and haven’t found anything “more” in other countries than I seem to find now. Which, by itself, just seems like traveling isn’t the answer.

I genuinely want to know “why” all the time. I want to know why you picked that watch. I want to know how you consider your place in your job. Obviously, my closest friends are the ones who own their shit circumstances and describe their shit circumstances in shit terms first. We all have dreams. I don’t need another “hustle until I make it” bullshit well-wishing wide eyed fuck all story. Because, if one of the most frequent responses I get to when I write about you or “argue” with myself is “that’s fair,” the consequences of my reasoning only seem to extend as far as me.

My favorite shirt isn’t because I look good in dark colors, it’s because it doesn’t show sweat stains. I didn’t know I could have a favorite shirt until it was gifted to me. I torrent because it’s fast and convenient for watching 60 different shows on different networks from different countries. Fuck Comcast, but my actual “why” reason boils down to utility and poverty. Things I can’t afford, I don’t buy. Duh. I don’t work normal jobs because I feel a spiritual suicide in perpetuating, deliberately, the killing of my time, consumerism, and (at least at Steak n Shake and the liquor store) alcoholism and clogged arteries via filthily prepared food. I feel it or there's utility. And I ask about what you feel. You usually don’t really answer.

And people don’t want to believe they sort themselves. They don’t want to believe they fell for it. “I’ll get rich and do better than my parents!” “I’ll get the nice house, car, and tv!” “One day I’ll save for my grand vacation!” But you do it in a way prescribed for you. The plan has been marketed. I knowyou don’t ask yourself what you really want because you want what every single house, big or small, wants in every neighborhood I’ve driven through over the years. At least, that’s what 1.5 million people have persuaded me I don’t, specifically, really want.

I’m at home talking. I’m at home experimenting. I’m at home drunk with people who aren’t going to resent me for being able to throw the party. I want “truth,” even and especially when it’s fleeting. I want “freedom” even if it’s just to be one of the only two people spending weeks at a time walking and driving around every night contemplating and discussing. (At least, we haven't bumped into you) I want “sense” even if it only has to extend so far as to get everyone fed and we refrain from blowing shit up first, maybe protecting the planet could follow. I like to indulge. I like expensive shit. But I love genuine work. I love honesty leading to accountability. I love possible explanations over excuses. And I don’t even believe in love.

We have our whole identities wrapped up in areas just like mine. We become what we’re obligated to. You pick, or are forced into, a shitty job; you’re now described by your shitty job. You get that abusive boyfriend, now you’re “just another battered wife.” Single mom? You can be scared or relieved by how many people have empathized with the “suffocate it in its crib” thought. Educated and in debt? Old and losing your grip? So much of your world becomes the conditions imposed on you instead of the choices you’ve freely obligated yourself towards. That’s class warfare. That’s why the language at the bottom doesn’t match with the idealized retooling from the top.

Stop trying. Pull out. Come hang out with me and do a drug trial. In 2 days I’m going to start a 3 week stay for $5900. What if I had 5 friends do something similar and we started a fund to invest and then structured our lives to live off the dividends? 30K in 3 weeks isn’t a bad start. Can you honestly assess yourself as a reliable dreamer who understands the utility of contracts between strangers? That’s all we’d really need to get started. You know what I can do with that money alone? Sit on it. You know what I’d like to do? Perform a million little experiments and business ideas. I’d like to free up your time so I could spend it with my friends instead of in my basement.

But I live in a fantasy world. I wander the streets of your homes. My complaints aren’t even first world, they’re at the hippocampus level. My whole life has been trying to exceed, or understand, or make the best of, or “get to the end” NOW. Never fear, something always follows. And it’s better than whatever “thing” was acquired in service to the moment. I want so much of the world that death feels like a sweet release. What’s everyone else waiting for? 

[429] Time To Kill

I don't know where it came from, but I've always been semi-obsessed with time.

Take second grade. We had transparent problem sheets in different colored bins with ten each lined up against the wall. Every time you filled one out correctly, you got a dollar. The same reward applied for every time you could recite a larger and larger set of state capitals. I think I got them all done the first month. Or maybe that one is easy to blame on money.

So how about 4th grade. We had timed 100 question math quizzes. You started with addition and moved your way up to mixed adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing. 9 times out of 10 I was the first one done. These had nothing to do with our grade, we got nothing for them, but I was first and I didn't even imagine we were playing in the same league.

I felt powerful as a child. I had a consistent positive feedback loop of success on a metric that everyone had to be judged by. In 5th grade, if my teacher decided to write the day's lesson plan on the board, I would complete it before the bell for first period rang. It's like something was constantly provoking me. If I could do it now, why the hell not? What's next? What's really taking you so long?

I had a number of people tell me it had to do with being “smart.” I just got things in a way the other kids didn't. But, I call bullshit. There were definitely other kids who “got it” like I did, they just weren't obnoxious. The difference isn't one of capacity, it's one of positive anxiety. I wielded a resource that, I probably didn't consciously appreciate to the full extent then, that left an impression on me and peoples' perception of me.

While it's not bursting with the youthful exuberance of the past, I still have that sense. If I can do it now, I've never felt something was stopping me. It's how you read 12 books in a week. It's how you beat video games on their hardest settings in a couple of days. It's how you go from having zero money and zero real idea of what you're doing and open a coffee shop in 6 months, 3 if you condense how long it takes other people to answer emails and do their jobs.

I consider time a weapon. Much as you can defend yourself with a sharp blade, if you use it unwisely you might chop your leg off. When you have time, you get the opportunity to observe, think, and do more. The time I saved, or attempted to save, in elementary school allowed me to develop a habit for reading. I was able to do extra tasks around the school or for the teachers and earn more “starbucks,” our in class currency, to buy things on field days. The quicker I read the entire book list in 7th grade meant I could get my 8th grade required reading done a year in advance. This switches when you get to college of course as drinking takes precedent or high school when jaded loses all meaning, but the sword is always holstered.

I'm concerned because what was taken for granted as positive anxiety to motivate me to move and change and accomplish is turning into something darker than I ever cared to experience. I kicked it back into high gear with business starting. What they don't tell you about is so drastically more important than high fives and well-wishing, or often random arbitrary tales of caution.

For one thing, they don't tell you that nobody operates like you. In school, it's a one man show. It's your grades. I might have to wait for the teacher to put the assignment on the board, but as far as what's expected of me and when I can consider it done and done well, the last word or period wraps it up. The story changes as you load more people in your boat. Secondly, they don't tell you that nobody cares about you. As “adults,” you're expected to take every punch or shut up and do something else. It's your responsibility regardless. You made a choice! after all. And apparently there was a meeting where we all chose to do nothing well, and do it to our heart's discontent. But mostly, nobody clues you into the searing hatred bubbling just underneath the surface about what you're doing or how you're doing it. They hate that you're doing what you want. They hate that you're happy about it.

When I opened my business, I was leaning on a 40 year old who had to move back in with his parents architect for my kiosk plans. His first concern was not getting back to me in a timely manner. I was “negotiating” a contract with a 50 year old crotchety mall middle manager. Nothing about whether or not I ended up getting in the mall was going to influence her paycheck. I didn't “convince” or “ask” to be promoted when I was running through theaters, I expected it, and they knew I expected it. I left the managers at Target with no real choice but to give me the power to fuck up your credit because I was cutting into their tasks. The assistant librarian was pissed off at me for stating I should just move on to the 8th grade books.

Now, I'm old enough to not take it personal. But increasingly, I'm losing even the presumption of empathy. I phrase it in a way of having so much time to sit and watch or learn and experiment, that I've all but obliterated my capacity to even consider people “human.” There is no “it gets better” moment. I don't want you to think I'm overstating this. I've been able to watch in school, business, and general interpersonal relationships how low the bar sits with my telescope from the moon, but you're the aliens.

I want to pick back up the weapon analogy. Give it to a religious zealot. They swing it around slicing and dicing you with bible quotes if you're lucky, lobbing off your head if you're not. Ideologues wire their swords to explode on poor people. The more time they spend doing so, the more rehearsed, the more comfortable it feels and that kind of terrorism becomes normalized. Wield the sword in service to any kind of conditional power. I'm at the behest of the people who have a skill I don't or own a spot I want to reside on. Am I irresponsible with my time for attempting to engage with them? Was I simply sold a bill of goods about what to expect from them? Are they just in a battle I was never meant to join?

The poor level of conversation in society has been one of my poorly beaten dead horses. I walk the halls of this study center and I've encountered one conversation that wasn't related to violence, religion, or pop culture. Practice makes permanent, and the more you recite your superficial understanding or double down on provoking or “being real” towards the violence, one day you'll wake up at 50 with the emotional maturity of a 10 year old. I can't count how many allusions to prison have been made, arguments with spouses over the phone, or general gossip that, at some level is inevitable when you're living with 60 people in a hallway for 2 weeks, but is borderline impressive when I can see it winning against high school.

Meanwhile I'm over here planning to call every insurance company in the country, every wedding planner in the state, and attempting to suss out how my relationship to time has molded me since childhood to completely alienate myself from the gen-pop, and what that means in relation to expectations and power. Aren't I supposed to feel like proud or something after that sentence? Isn't there supposed to be an emotional reward for carrying pretense into everything you do?

I asked my friend how he conceived of power.

He said, “For me to exert power, typically means exerting influence into the decision making of another.”

I specifically asked him because he's one of the 2 believers I know who will speak honestly when they come up against the limitations of their thought process. That is, he never disagrees with me “because.”

What bugs me about this answer is that, for me, it's extremely weak. Decision making, as far as I've been able to observe, is extremely incidental for most people. They weren't born a particular sports fan, but every decision to buy memorabilia, tickets, or watch “the big game” is one pebble into the stream perhaps your parents started pouring for you, a brand manager before them. If I tell you “don't think about elephants,” the fact that you do has nothing to do with my exertion. Or, I don't feel exerted.

For me, power is fluid. It flows in the same way time does. Until you're paying attention, you're getting battered around by an irresponsibly wielded weapon. My thought then is, perhaps my contrarian personality influenced why I always needed to be on my time. The teacher was wrong in thinking I needed all day, my parents were wrong in thinking I needed that kind of school, and my managers were wrong about the reach of their authority. I'd endlessly listen to friends who were wrong about the capacity of their “love,” the reach of their “passions,” or the consequences of their “drama.” The world outside my head has never made an emotionally compelling appeal that didn't start from an irrational provocation or angry place. It's never made sense. I lightened up a bit after I started drinking and took shrooms or acid a couple times, but make no mistake, people made sure to fuck the fun out of those too!

I'm worried about what I'll turn into, more than anything specific that I could do, once any sense of compassion is gone. If I estimate correctly, usually when I write an in depth blog about how the tide is changing in my head, it's not even 4 months later I'm living out the consequences of the switch. You hear about how hard people are struggling or how the powers that be are killing us. Not once have I thought a wish and a prayer could fix anything. Not once have I not conceived of at least 10 questions that could be asked and sought after about whatever problem. I've never been confused about who to blame or why. A handful of warmongers and billionaires aren't supposed to placate the response of 300 million people; unless those people are wagging their swords like they wag their dicks.

And until recently, not once have I wanted to fall in line with the rest of the walking dead. Which would only be to preserve the last kernel of respect I can feel slipping. Don't be fooled. It's easy for me to hate. I can feel myself loosen up at the thought of going back to treating people like cattle. I'm not a martyr and don't care to claim the stress of ignorant hope and beliefs. If I feel like my whole life has been molded by being incidentally fucked by the people around me very independent of my ability to try, learn or care...what happens when I take my moon-shooting habit and turn it against you? I've argued indifference as the worst position you can have about people. At least I'd maintain reasons for my behavior. The passion to destroy is still a creative passion. I'd just make people what they try to make me. Incidental.

I've been fleeing this mode of thought for so long. Maybe it's time to accept and fight.

[428] Do Or Do Not

I think there's an important distinction between types of people that isn't often talked about. When attempts are made to talk about it we tend to regard people as “optimists” who contrast with the “pessimists.” I think the distinction has less to do with your positive or negative outlook on life. I think the distinction lies in how you are socialized to think about your circumstances. That is, it's the difference between people who “want to live” and those who are “waiting to die.”

I get hung up on old movies, shows, and documentaries about bands and political theater. You get the impression that there is a genuine underlying cultural sensibility and understanding. Regardless of what you can say about misogynistic and civil rights failures, people seemed to “get it” in a way that I absolutely cannot find today. This is surely part media bias and rose colored glasses, but at the same time, I think it's the same reason I tend to get along with older people in general if not old women in particular.

Old women seemed to be socialized to “take care of the family.” A very life affirming, always on the go, navigate a million moving parts including your children's needs, husband's emotional distance, and whatever the neighborhood gossip or family secrets. Men were just expected to work and provide. Being tired at the end of the day and teaching a few life skills was tantamount to good parenting. While I was antiquing the other day, a couple of older women lamented that you can't just get into a fight now-a-days without getting sued or put in jail and, no exaggeration said, “in my day things were different.”

It's often talked about “the simpler times.” When what you knew you knew and what you didn't you didn't. Information wasn't being uploaded to the cloud to be checked and debated endlessly every minute. You didn't have a million TV channels and competing sources for your attention like the 1000 people you follow on twitter or the hundreds of friends and their meme pictures and statuses. I genuinely think from a psychological standpoint, this was a better circumstance than what we have today.

I think this because I consider myself an educated person without a fucking clue as to what I should be doing. I spend so much time “doing everything” and absolutely none of it has felt like the “right” thing to do in anything but philosophical or health terms. That is, I don't want to be a wage slave if I don't have to, and I respect my time to a greater degree than my money. I feel a genuine sense of responsibility towards the world because I chose to adopt a stake in it. How I got to a point of adopting that stake is a long and complicated picture that I don't think the modern era makes clear.

Today, if you can even define “friend,” when you don't like them you click an "x" and add a new one. We'll have more jobs by the time we're 25 than our parents had their entire lives. What does that do for your conception of a relationship? A relationship to your job, your town, neighbors, coworkers, or how you conceive of your work? I used to think the words “union” and “collective bargaining” went hand in hand, but with union membership at like...7? 8? percent, and if you poll people, you'd think 1900-1935ish didn't exist in this country. We've destroyed respect for your effort, time, and health.

I was listening to a Jack White song where he says something like “we're not entitled to a single damn thing.” If that's true, does that mean we don't owe anybody anything? Because surely someone is entitled to my basic respect for their being. Perhaps you only get the idea of entitlement when you subscribe to wanting to be alive in the first place. But what is it to entitle something? You are held in trust. You should be living up to said title or taking responsibility for claiming ownership of something. Do we just overwhelmingly abdicate responsibility and therefore feel like we don't deserve things?

I've been wanting to shit on myself for trying. And I feel like that has way more to do with the overall culture than with me. It's that no matter what you're doing, you're being punished. I got the degree, for an exorbitant amount of money. I'll let you talk to my fellow graduate and friend what it feels like to apply for 100+ jobs, in the same field, and get nothing for it because I skipped that headache and went for opening my own business. There again, punished for not being able to afford a lawyer with better advice, or a lawyer to sue when you were lied to and sunk costs, also by “the terrorists,” often mislabeled as Islamic extremists, who gouge you on insurance, rent, and of any scraps of self-respect you might have left. You're certainly being punished in a minimum wage anything. And now, I'm finding a way to punish myself in the stress of trying to rely on my blood pressure and drug studies to even begin something resembling savings or investment.

And I'm still supposed to remember that by not being in debt and having my bills paid for a year, I'm doing better than nearly everyone on the planet. At such point I'm supposed to what? Bend the knee and thank the gods? It isn't about me.

It's concordantly hard to deal with having, barely, examples of people who “represent me” in the public eye. As far as the political realm there's maybe 4; Warren, Sanders, the Seattle Green chick, and Nader. With celebrities, Michael Moore on a good day and I suppose Russell Brand is a little batty, but he speaks true shit and gets his hands dirty.(edit 2024. Oh, how people change.) Writers like Naomi Klein, Chomsky, Hedges (most of the time), and Taibbi. I can give as much shit about Bill Maher as your fundie uncle, but when he's lucid I can nod along. Mostly, I prefer Jon Stewart or Colbert, and increasingly Oliver if we have to leave real reporting up to comedians. Thankfully, albeit very recently, Vice's HBO show is filling such a massive void their facebook editorials should feel ashamed of sharing the same name.

But each name or organization I could point to feels like a pebble. They belong to the old women, and me, who have the time to read their books and “educated liberals” who can laugh more than cry about what's being reported. It's for the people who can afford HBO or aren't so baffled by technology they can figure out torrenting is easier than Yahoo Mail.

My world feels so small. It's why when I like my friends, I really like my friends, drunk “fuck everything” blogs aside. It's why I'm really sad when one of them gives up or becomes too busy or writes off my genuine concern as “just what Nick P. does or thinks.” I'm pushing a full stop when it comes to existential exploration and the exhaustion that comes with putting yourself out there so often to ill or non-defined ends. I don't want to be Nader publishing a book about all my letters that didn't get answered and call that not giving up.

Literally all I can do is wait and learn more. But even if I figure out something new to try, I feel like I'm going to be doing it alone, and setting myself up for a new punishment. Still none of those personal wins or promises to yourself are gonna matter. If I don't consider it about me, I can't endorse you making it about you. But, I want to choose life. That includes how our culture helps or hurts, even and especially for those who feel like they're stuck waiting around to die.

[427] And I Just Can't Hide It

I'm too excited to sleep.

I shit on the word passionate. It's a cover up word meant to obscure details. When I'm in the heat of moments where, try as I might, I'm absolutely not falling asleep until I'm done writing, it has nothing to do with my “passion.”

I'm an idea man. I'm a million questions. In the course of a day I have 10 to 15 things accidentally I'd like to put together or have already laid out plans to hit the ground running if I had the cash. Whether it's further exploring real estate or renting, kick starting the coffee, exploring green technology and living, food, recycling, teaching, middle-manning any number of tasks from business start-up step by steps to initiating co-operative and actual owner based businesses, it's all doable, it's all budget-able, and the only way I can get excited is after looking up the numbers.

I lamented earlier today the lonely world of the entrepreneur. It's really hard to explain to someone how much you learn and how little you actually fucked up when they look at your ventures. Other entrepreneurs get it. They've gotten lied to, had to sign a contract, had to pay the insurance, had to meet a deadline, had to get and stay open at all costs so as not to fuck themselves for 5 years instead of a few months. There's sometimes no bigger charge than talking to someone who truly empathizes with the real world fuckery that you experience for actually trying.

I sat through another pyramid scheme presentation today. A middle-man insurance company that wants to pretend to be your investment broker. They want to attract young motivated people to work for them, and keep played “expertise” under thumb to keep funneling their effort up the chain. The guy at one point even explicitly said “some people wanna call it a pyramid, I call it keeping on good earners.” He pulled numbers out of his ass about what you can earn by investing and meeting unrealistic market conditions. He assured you you'd be in on the “rich people funds” that “previously only allowed 250K and above earners.” He's got the secret, you know, so that you can piggy back...so long as you pay him monthly for it and ignore the finer points of a complicated investment portfolio, or the general scam of insurance. And don't you dare call him a middleman.

But I get excited. I've sat through so many presentations like his because I was gunning for my own business at sixteen. I already know the bullshit of Amway-esc structures whether they hock energy drinks, “healthy” smoothies, knives, exploitative brokerage structures, or yes, even and especially your life insurance and investment scam. I can anticipate his presentation, pick apart his language, ask the appropriate questions and then, certainly feel dead inside that this person preys on ignorant peoples' pensions and savings (what's left of them), but endlessly excited that I learned how fucked up the philosophy he's selling is 10 years ago. I never interject unless they fuck up and ask me a question though.

I'm excited that I have the opportunity to even get rejected from drug studies and not shit myself because my rent's paid for the next year and a half. I can explore, annoyed, but not fucked. I'm excited that I'm looking for a few couple thousand dollar acres of land here and there; I could start the path to build something on it personally from scratch for cheap. I'm excited I already know personally people who do all the paper pushing behind the city council desks in Bloomington. If I put a plan together, they'll ask a few questions and almost assuredly sign off on whatever it is I want to do. I love the idea of one day celebrating so hard I hurt and throw myself into something because I lived the moment over and over in my head for years until it finally came true. And it came true because I counted, I tried, I learned so goddamn much that even the things I fucked up you're hard pressed to really blame me for considering the scale or scope of what was accounted for.

I get these moments from time to time. When I get on the cusps. When I can watch the bank account grow. When I've shifted gears into a new line of thinking and start to see the consequences manifest. This is my lifeblood. This is why I bitch and bitch and bitch and bitch and it never matters. I'm not bitching in “my life sucks” terms. I'm bitching about what's fucked up and needs to be bitched about, and now I get another chance to show you how I can do it differently. Now I'm dreaming again. I have to be on the road in 3 hours and nothing is going to get me the ounce of sleep I need until I express how goddamn genuinely excited I am at the prospect of kicking so much ass.

And it's because I want you on board. Little differences. You want to own and explore something, I want 10 percent, or 2. It needs to be yours but I want to keep building. I'll open a hundred coffee vans that you own if it means I get a dividend that keeps me exploring. Everything about the modern system works the completely opposite way. You're an indentured servant. I don't want slaves. You need to serve yourself in serving other people, not give me complicated bullshit language that justifies exploitation.

I'm excited because I don't believe in anything. I don't hang my hat on a prayer. I don't cross my fingers. I don't hope. I don't even really care in an important philosophical sense. I just like to see things come true as I say, predict, and can shove down your ever-doubting throat. It's exciting to be right. I'm in love with getting what I want and work towards. All I do is count, read, ask questions, and wait. And this impossibly idiot proof formula brings me more joy than anything else in the world. Now let's not crash from sleep deprivation on the ride to Madison and shit all over this whole thing.

[426] Is As Does

I find that I think I consider myself an elitist, but hold no respect or value in the arguments and odd justifications for elitism. I truly will need to be dragged into the public sphere, temporarily, to enact my civic duty, as Plato ordains, and have no genuine interest in the petty conceptions of power or control offered by modern political and financial apologists. My platform is one of ideas. First and foremost that, in general, we're all incredibly ignorant and perfectly unreasonable.


Here we can go very different directions. Some use that sentiment as an excuse to pretend everything is so unreliable they can unironically only believe in their own personal experience and justifications. Others will throw their whole backs into expressions of science as a form of "absolute truth" deliberately and haphazardly undermining how and why you pursue something scientifically. I like to think, like with all ideas, it's simply something that stands as an opportunity to be proven wrong. It's admitted that it can be wrong. If anything, it's hoped, desperately, that someone will explain in detail the depths of its wrongness.


Because we operate in ignorance. We don't really have a choice. In order to make one assertive declaration, you default yourself to denying a thousand points of view that might see it tempered or incorrect. And it's not always for lack of effort or willingness to pursue knowledge. I rest many of my positions in life on people I consider authorities on different subjects. But, I don't just "opine" that they're authorities, they tend to bring more references to a single speech or essay than one would feel comfortable contending before much study. They counted something. They did the work.


My concern is when people scapegoat, when they make excuses. I don't care what the idea is, religious, greedy, solidly ignorant like a claim about race...when it's used in service to bury the obvious questions or dodge the obvious answers, it's probably a bad idea. Watch 15 investigative pieces from Frontline or 60 minutes back to back. It doesn't matter the topic, the asshole who's lying employs the same language and often facial expressions when they're contorting a deliberately incomplete and contrived answer to account for what went wrong, particularly why they aren't the one to blame. Seriously look, from financial scams to Indian baby mills, when normal people find themselves in unjustifiable exploitative positions, they revert to children in their body and actual language, but with bigger words.


People get emotionally and personally invested. Thus, they're prone to lying and fucking things up. I don't trust anyone who's so overtly invested that of course it's in their best interest to sell me. I don't want to hear a pitch, I want the details related and to see the results myself. Because often, that's a simple matter-of-fact story. It can be a rather boring story. It's the only story I really care about.


I wish I had the perspective or the teachers to better explain to me people from history. We've all been told the Allegory of the Cave, but that hasn't been tied to Hamilton and The Federalist papers or how people in the Bush Administration literally quote them and use bastardized interpretations to justify war crimes. That makes the ideas matter in a way that "hey kids, Plato was important, so memorize his birthday and read this short story" very much doesn't. The idea that ideas need to be maintained as much as they need to be fought for rarely comes up. Things like the Civil Rights movement and women's suffrage are presented to be taken for granted on the road of progress. They're not precariously placed in history and in need of further advocacy. At least, not at my schools.


I find nothing more consequential than ideas. A single idea can provoke you to endure any hardship or create seemingly endless fallout. Every idea needs to have a check, a doubt, a reason it could falter. It's uncomfortable (who would dare to argue against Frankle and his search for meaning in a concentration camp?), awkward, and often terrifying, but there is no substitute in fighting against proud headfirst dives into wading pools. If we don't figure this out, it's the bottom floor idea I have as to why we won't last, and don't deserve to.

[xx-15] Erroneous

I've only ever lived in Indiana.
I used to have a mini cooper (terrible cold weather car)
I've never been in a car accident except with a deer (poor deer, mini handled it like a boss)
I've owned 2 collies and 3 cats
I've traveled to Wisconsin, Michigan, Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, Florida, Louisiana, Colorado, Canada, and accidentally New York when I missed the exit for Montreal
I can play the saxophone and guitar well and the drums and piano less well
I write frequently
I was in student government, FCCLA, spell bowl, and chess club as last minute extra curriculars. Marching band as practically a job, and jazz band for fun.
I've graduated high school and college
I've had 12 jobs I didn't own, in order, usher, (later hourly manager), Target cart boy, high school woodwind teacher, IU Telefund operator, twice a website developer/promoter, cab driver, steak n shake grill guy, cell phone cover seller, real estate agent, liquor store cashier, landscaping/yard worker
I've never been fired
I've had 2 jobs I did/do own. Coffee shop owner, now coffee van delivery owner (currently in stasis)
I've done ~20 medical drug trials
I've seen at least 1,379 movies, not including documentaries, lectures, and debates
I've read or listened to ~200 books
I've seen every episode of over 300 television shows
I mostly stopped playing video games around 15, but play Little Big Planet and Smash 1 & 2 occasionally with friends
I've had both my tonsils and wisdom teeth removed
I've only ever broken my nose
I've played soccer, basketball, baseball, and dodge ball on a team, ultimate frisbee semi-competitively when it's warm
I've had sex with 30 women, and fooled around with 70 or so.
I've been a member of a gym, library, Kroger, and the Federal Body Inspectors club
I've got 2 best friends and a dad that I'm beholden to more than myself, might throw my brother in there if shit got too real
I've got about 15 people who are legit as fuck that I'd look out for more than the average Joe
I've had a restraining order filed against me by my mom that just expired this last Thanksgiving!
I've been pulled over ~35 times and only been given 1 speeding ticket (10 years ago) and one for not having my registration
I'm dramatically below the poverty line and you'd never guess it based on the sheer amount of nice shit I have
I used to be a thief (from big box stores), this is unrelated to the above point
I wear a yin-yang necklace everyday, not because I know really anything about Taoism, but because the idea of balance strikes me as right and proper
I've been to Ozzfest (when System headlined), Warped Tour a few times, a Beach Boys concert, Linkin Park and Incubus, Victor Wooten, Sara Watkins, Jimmy Eat World, Sum 41, Senses Fail, Shiny Toy Guns, Sleigh Bells, All Time Low in a dinky coffee shop in NW Indiana first before I knew of them, and then front and center for a Warped performance a few years later
I've been to So You Think You Can Dance's road show, seen the Madison Scouts, The Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the ballet something in Chicago, all the museums and the Shed Aquarium, the Taste of Chicago, the zoos, and Navy Pier
I've been to Cedar Point, Six Flags, and Universal Studios, Deep River and ridden every roller coaster and water slide
I've seen American Idiot's crappy road crew Broadway performance, and listened to Richard Dawkins give a talk at IU auditorium
I've seen Neal Brennan, Al Jackson, Marc Maron, Guy Branum, and Ron Funches live.
I've been to 9 Cubs games, and 1 White Sox game
I've tried cigarettes, shrooms, acid, cocaine, weed (likely allergic), molly, ecstasy, but currently just drink and not often enough :(
I used to have a stripper pole in my kitchen and a silky room with black lights and a ton of pillows dedicated to hookah
I survived drinking 31 shots in one night.
I have long curly hair, an eyebrow piercing, and a back tattoo.

I own 3 vehicles including a moving truck, coffee van, and neon, and 5 acres of land.
I've climbed to the top of a couple mountains, and been driven over the side of one.
My bills are $400 a month, including utilities, gas, and food
I'm 26, 6'2 and 205 pounds, healthy, but could stand to get healthcare
I view my aspirations towards greatness as intrinsically frivolous.

[425] ¡Viva la Revolución!

I wonder about the need for change.

As a state of existence, it might be supposed that there’s merely an expression of our circumstances. That is, there’s no choice. That which is completely stagnant is conceived of as dead, we’re alive, and therefore as long as we’d like to remain so, whatever constitutes us has to change.

The battle is between incidental and purposeful. It might be a form of naivety or weak imagination to think you can have a purpose, but nonetheless here I’ll go.

I started writing because of a need to change how I was thinking. I was deeply suffering the conclusions I was drawing about “love,” “god,” and “friendship.” The stress had nowhere to go. Even with people to talk to, if you’re a better writer than you are speaker, you can walk away even more frustrated after a discussion than if you had kept it to yourself.

I want to focus on the necessity of change. When something will either destroy you or be tamed. I often seem to adopt changes that I think need to be imposed at large that people don’t conceive of for themselves. In doing so, I’m feeling the compulsion to change into what I’ve generally characterized as “no longer giving a fuck.”

I consider this a problem. Much as if you feel like you’re drowning you should surface and take a breath of air. I consider losing my capacity to care as letting the first stream of water into my lungs. I want people to be angry that I wouldn’t care. I want to be blamed. I want to be held accountable for my perception and how I’ve spent my time. I remain unconvinced by selfish solipsism.

Let’s run with something easy, like climate change. People were ringing bells about waste, overconsumption, pollution, etc. at the start of industrial ages, but the money won. Now, we’re in the middle of the ever-growing dramatic consequences, and not only do people still deny those consequences, but you’ll find the biggest push for things changing has nothing to do with respect or knowledge about the planet, but because companies who caused the problems forecast smaller profits. As the money wins again, the “need” becomes a reflection of greed.

Most social goods seem to find themselves corrupted because genuinely life affirming needs are subverted. Occupy wants to change capitalism for crippling the world? Occupy isn’t paying the police. You can’t eat healthy, or go to the doctor, or learn without a middleman. You can’t argue on behalf of better philosophy or moral obligation. There is no memory of what those look like. There is no expectation or feeling that they are deserved. Ideals rest on a precarious ledge. When they fall to one side they’re abolished or forgotten, fall to the other, subverted.

Why fight? What is a “revolutionary” mindset? When you’ll talk yourself into a stupor? When you’ll alienate the powers that be until you’re so obscure not even rats will meet you in a basement? Why try? Are you not ultimately attempting to fix or change something so remarkably corrupt, as the human animal seems to be, that you’re advocating even beyond that which constitutes you? Are you not arguing for your own death?

And I suppose I am. I wish my worst fear was accidents. Acts of god not carried out by his terrifying and ignorant zealots. I wish I never needed another violent impulse. I wish for even a brief period of what “common sense” used to signify, but could apply to culture at large instead of squabbling at the level of whether women are capable of opening their own doors.

I almost want to say I’m scared. But I don’t really feel anything but angry or more often nothing. I don’t have to have kids who will suffer the same intellectual indignity. I don’t need to goad myself into caring more by having them either. I can’t even promise I’d like my kids given how little I can stand engaging with “anyone” in general barring anomalous or drunk situations. I wouldn’t feel like it was up to them to fix things. I’d keep blaming me and my idiot cohort as well as the “greatest generation” and their irresponsible offspring.

I’m no longer terribly sure of what my signals to change are asking of me. Should I double down on being a hermit? Should I pick up a loudspeaker and make a new home of the street? Should I take it easy and just go on vacation and try to enjoy life because, after all, it’s short, and such a precious thing to waste.

It’s just so popular to focus on yourself. Because I don’t hate who I am I can’t get on board? I’m not trying to run from anything. I’m not trying to get off some medication, don’t have 50 pounds to lose, don’t hate my job, don’t hate my girlfriend, aren’t in debt, what else? What keeps people so engaged in their lives? What makes life so selfishly special in a way that I can’t access? I’m reminded of watching my friend pray and thinking there was a magical world of experience or divine wisdom happening behind his eyelids and on his knees that was simply beyond me sitting there watching him. The answer then, as I’m sure it is again, ignorance.

And if I’d want people blaming me for acting ignorantly, it never bothers me to blame you. So if I stop caring? Should I set a suicidal example? Obviously not, you should know, I really like me. Am I merely telling myself that I haven’t learned enough?  You can learn something new every day and I can’t think of one that goes by where I don’t read at least an essay. Maybe I just need lessons in style, tolerance, or patience. History informs, but it doesn’t reassure and it certainly only proves what we already know.

A man just asked me to move to the side of the table so he can continue working on his puzzle. Fitting.

[424] I Think You're Craaazy

Right now, I'm very confused with myself.

In a very important way, I consider myself a very mean person. It might be more accurate to say I'm very comfortable doing or saying things that are mean. It might be even more accurate to say I'll react in disproportionally mean ways to get the point across that you fucked up sending me the incorrect energy.

A few examples to illustrate. I grew up with an, arguably, verbally and arbitrarily physically abusive mom. When you're a kid and your stuffed animals are practically your friends, she gutted one with a pair of scissors as I cried harder than I ever have before or since. 20 or so years later after several years of not talking to her, she invites me to Thanksgiving dinner, I respond with variations on “fuck yourself you fat cunt” for several weeks at random hours of the day and night. Disproportionate response? It was to the police that showed up at my door making sure I wasn't mentally unstable.

Next is something a little more light-hearted. I went to a friend's house to party. The house portion of the night is wrapping up and me and another friend are dwindling in the living room. I'm fairly drunk, he's not so bad, but while we're chatting and about to leave another gentleman and his friend descend the stairs. One goes, “fuck you!” and turns the corner to which I respond “fuck you, you fucking faggot!” In a way that would very much convince you had a problem with the gays, which he was. He charges, we fall to the floor, I push up and put him on his back and raise my fist. My friend hooks my arm and spins me off, averting what I promise would have been a deeply regrettable situation.

Walking away is the clear and wise choice. Shutting up and ignoring are strategies you will not find me arguing against. I've been capable of it before and after these instances. Some situations just feel so “justified” even in defiance of a kind of standing hypocrisy. I could do the weird thing and claim all my gay friendly street cred, but that wouldn't really serve what I'm hoping to speak about.

The confusing part is having that representation of my person in mind while I experience the kinds of moments from a few minutes ago. I'm prompted by a picture on reddit of a fat guy dancing. The story accompanying it was someone laughing that they made him stop once he realized he was being laughed at. The look on his face in the “after” picture made my stomach sink. All the comments in the thread were in that justified righteous vein of “I wish I was there to kick those guys' asses,” just as I had felt. Now, I can accidentally make fat jokes for hours if I get on a roll, but that feels exceedingly different from tearing someone's heart out for dancing.

Maybe I like to live in a kind of contradiction? A superficial contradiction at least, as in on the surface, but with very real lines. I don't believe it is “correct” or “helpful” to spread hateful mental discord, yet, I think me sending vulgar texts is a different kind of terrible than picking on children or cutting up their friends. Who you fuck is one of the least concerning things I could think to name, but you bet your ass I'm going to sling ignorant hateful language if I think you gain a certain kind of “power” or “pride” in acting like an asshole because you think no one is going to challenge you. (He was being a dick all night.)

I like to work in obscenity. I think way too often that we have destroyed the kind of emotional significance of words or what connotation can carry. And for a population that primarily seems to communicate through feeling instead of thinking, I like to send messages that prompt you to react.

I was taught cruelty. I think it is so powerful that I can still get a little short of breath and misty eyed thinking back to situations from my childhood. I like to turn it into something superficial, cliché, laughable, and starkly contrasted to what we should expect out of ourselves. It's not about being an overprotective mom trying to pretend dirty words don't exist, it's about leaning in so far than you fall over and break the power. Small example, my friends practically ignore or don't hear the obscene or ridiculous parts of what I say anymore. A new person to our group asks every single person friendly to me why they're my friend.

I also feel like I'm standing up for something in my capacity to be mean. I can handle it, so to speak. It's borderline do as I say not as I do. I'm at home as the “dick” or “obnoxious” one as long as you understand I'm not trying to caricature and excuse myself as a person, I'm hijacking the language. As I explained to my brother who conveyed the message “mom's really worried about you, thinks you need help,” you can only speak “Crazy” to crazy.

Just this last weekend I responded to a random number scolding me over a Craigslist ad they considered too harsh and rude. I called them a nigger, assumed they must be a woman to sound this naggy, said I'd like to see (Not set! That'd be a threat!) them on fire, then innocently asked the question if texting me their number might have made them easy to find. Immensely inappropriate and disproportionate 13 year old 4chan shit...but who goes out of their way to bitch at people unprovoked? Maybe I just saved them from their own snobbery and accosting someone who's actually dangerous.

I know I'm a person, but I don't think I act like people behave. I don't think I'm appropriate or fit in unless I put myself in “normal person mode.” But I'm certainly not arbitrary. I'm not full of surprises like your friend who got a little too familiar with hallucinogens. You can see my jokes or “generally horrible sentient” miles and miles away. And I talk about it to give context, because superficially, I'm in zero disagreement with the kind of historical practicality that comes with a mature or stoic response.

I suppose if there is a war going on for your mind and battles are fought within the realm of ideas, I'd rather horrible things get thought about me, or focused on me, or blamed on me in the aftermath of my response to your wanton, seemingly random, flinging of horribleness around you. Lashing out in insecurity is the norm, no? Blaming others for your problems and making them feel as bad as you? But that can only be glancing blows, especially when you picked on someone who can take it, redirect it, and focus it back into from where it came. You may be able to rip out a “nice person's” or fat guy's heart, but mines still in the hands of a mom who tore out her child's.

I think we need new words to describe whatever my mean is. Because I'd like to believe there's a message that is easily lost in all the shock and awe of the naughty and scary words that next to no one is going to find my blog to explain to them. Simply “having your feelings hurt” or “offending” you are infinitely removed from preying on someone. To me, you've just then turned yourself into meat. Justified? I'd argue dramatically more so than our proclivity for violence. And I mean, it's not like they ever contact me again.

[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?