Nice Guys & Wise Guys

 GOD, SELF-PROMOTION, SUCCESS

It's difficult to excel and prosper in the world's systems of commerce and economy.  It ain't easy.  Maybe it's easier for some people than it is for others, but it isn't easy to succeed in the world.  I used to imagine that success would come naturally as a consequence of personal gifts, good character, and human generosity.  Ha!  Fat chance.  Don't nobody give a damn about you and your gifts and nice guy routine.  Nice guys finish last, because wise guys exploit them and jump ahead of them in line.  If you want to be a nice guy for your own satisfaction, go ahead and do it, but don't expect the world to reward you for it.  When it comes to commerce, the world doesn't care how nice you are.  It just wants to know what you have to offer and how much you're charging for it.

Commercial success requires self-promotion.  If you're squeamish about promoting yourself and your ideas, stay home.  There isn't any recognition, endorsement, and implementation of good ideas without promotion.  That's the way the world works.  Self-promotion doesn't guarantee success, but success doesn't come without it.  I want to be a better promoter.  It just isn't something that I grew up doing.  I never gave promotion due respect for the role it plays in the implementation of good ideas and the achievement of human success and prosperity.  I thought success was a gift from the gods, a reward for good morals and well doing.  I didn't want to admit that I might have to be smart, work hard, and take risks to achieve a worthy goal.  Why bother!  You don't have to bother, but don't complain about being stuck in the mud without any good prospects.  The world isn't going to make things right for you.  God isn't going to make you successful for being a nice guy.  Get over it.  Get on the stick.  Do something for yourself.

Answering the Call

SPIRITUALITY, ART, COMMERCE

I live in a world that doesn't care about me and the things that are important to me, a world with values that are fundamentally different from mine.  Spirituality, art, commerce, home, and a world that doesn't care.  Spirituality is a way of looking at the world and living in it.  Value system.  Perspective.  Guide.

Commerce is what I do to earn a living.  It's a basic, human necessity.  Got to do it to live in the world.  I can't do much of anything else if I don't work.  Part of life is figuring out how to earn a living without spending all of my time doing it.  I want to spend time doing things that I like, whether they make money or not.  Everything can't always be about money.  Sometimes things have to be about inherent value.  Things have value whether they move in the marketplace or not.  Commercial value is neither the only nor the highest value.  Part of life is learning how to earn a living easily.  I won't let commerce rob me of my life.  I won't let labor deprive me of enjoyment.

Spirituality is a perspective.  Commerce is a necessity.  Home is a gift I give myself.  What is art?  Art is what I do for love, whether it makes money or not.  There isn't always a lot of time for art, because it takes a lot of time to make money.  It takes a lot of time to earn the right to live in the world, even before you get to enjoy it.  Commerce can be difficult and challenging.  It carries its own sense of struggle and accomplishment.  But, that is before I ever even get around to what really matters to me in life.  Whatever it is, there isn't a lot of time left for it after I get done working.  Ah, but there's some, and I have to make the most of it.  I have to learn how to make the most of what's left over, after laboring for the privilege of living in the world.  That isn't something that anyone else can give me.  I earn it.  I claim it.  I use it.

Art is what I do for love.  Writing.  Writing what I want to, whenever I want to, and sharing it with you because I can.  Art is the untold story.  It's the part of life that commerce doesn't care about, but I do.  It's what the world wants to take away from me by indifference or design, but it can't.  Only I can destroy my inspiration by refusing to answer its call.  Commerce is my struggle to survive, art is my struggle to be a fully realized human being.

The Monster

ASSAD, OBAMA, ISLAMISM

The Fox News interview with Bashar al-Assad was fascinating.  Assad is confident, intelligent, well-spoken, and speaks English with a French accent.  He listened carefully to the questions from Palkot and Kucinich, which were typically leading and insinuating, but refused to be boxed in by them.  His points about democracy, culture, and national sovereignty were apt, clear, and corrective of the interviewers' American line.

Assad understands Obama better than the American people do.  He knows that Obama's policy of alignment with the Islamic Brotherhood is couched in pro-democracy propaganda.  He knows that Obama and his state department deftly equate democracy with freedom in the public mind, and that the Islamists use the language of democracy to conceal their struggle to force Sharia law on a global scale.  Obama and the Democrats have re-aligned American foreign policy in support of Islamist absolutism, and most Americans don't get it.

Americans need to realize that democracy doesn't necessarily mean freedom.  Indeed, it can be misused as an entree to the absolutism Obama says he abhors.  Using democracy to install despotism is politically perverse and retrograde.

Krauthammer calls Assad a liar.  I don't know whether he is or not.  I know that Obama is a liar.  Assad is intelligent, articulate, and compelling.  It was good to see what Obama and the Democrats want to blow away with their bombs, before they do it.  Now I know what they're trying to hide.

If Assad is a monster, as the press is fond of repeating, what is Obama?  Oh, I forgot, he's the darling of the liberal/left American media, and an Islamist ally.

The Better Part

LOVE, SEX, SOLITUDE

Love matters to me, but I can't control it, except as a quality of thought and action embodied by my own frail character and offered freely to the world.  It would be a great privilege and blessing to share my life and work with a lover.  But, I don't have a lover.  I never have had a lover.  I don't know how to get a lover.  It is not a question of sexual preference for me, and I would embrace either a male or a female.  It's about the quality of affection, not the gender.  I am sexually predisposed to males, but that is a natural accident, not a divine decree.  I can choose whether or not to indulge my sexual predilection for males, and the extent to which I want to indulge it.

But, none of this sexual parsing has anything to do with romance.  What about love?  What about romance?  Is it denied to some poor souls, like me?  And, what do we poor, lonely souls do to fill the void?  How does one make a virtue out of loneliness and solitude?  By doing something good.  What?  Whatever you like.  Choose something healthy.  Choose a way of life that fulfills you.  What to choose?  That's an important question.  Does casual sex have a place in the dispositions of a lonely soul?  Should it?  Is abstinence a virtue?  How is it achieved?  Abstinence must be a balance between fulfillment and the determination to refrain from problematic behavior.  Nancy Reagan was right.  Sometimes the right choice boils down to just saying, no.  It doesn't have to be an argument, the consequence of ideal circumstances, or politically correct.  It's simply a matter of choosing the better part of life's imperfect alternatives.  What will you choose?

True Love

 STARBUCKS, PAIN D'AVIGNON, BLONDE BEAST

Love is such a problem.  How can I live for love when I can't control it?  Unless I take the universal, spiritual approach of loving rather than being loved.  It is much easier and more accessible to love than it is to be loved.  I don't need your permission to love you, I just need to do it.  However, I have to do or be or say something to earn or win your love.  I have to work hard to draw feelings of affection and attachment from you.  Feelings that are so hard won and so soon lost to time and changing circumstances.  How can I make you love me?  How can I get your attention?  I have to get you to notice me first, and then I have to be or do something that will delight you and make you want to know and be and communicate with me.

Looks are an important part of it.  Not the most important part, but it all begins with what catches the eye.  Someone catches my eye and I hope to make contact.  I want to meet him.  I want to find an excuse to talk to him—any stupid, little reason to talk to him.  "You dropped your Starbucks card."  "Could you pass the half-and half?"  Sometimes just making that momentary contact is enough.  Sometimes it has to be, because he doesn't want any more to do with me than that.  Which is fine.  I learned long ago that one of life's greatest pleasures, one of its graces, is to leave other people alone.  But, how many times have I seen a guy that I wanted to get to know?  Usually an excruciatingly handsome and attractive guy.  And I know nothing about him.  Nothing.  Only that he catches my eye.  And I'm so proud of myself for not trying to glom onto him.  I'm so proud that I didn't make a fool of myself by presuming to greet him or make conversation with him.  I'm not a stalker, and I proved it!  I'm so proud.

There was a handsome, trim, blonde tradesman I used to see at Starbucks.  He had a habit of turning his ankle while waiting for his coffee, an unconscious gesture carried over from childhood.  I saw him almost daily.  He was one of the best parts of my day.  Never in a million years would I ever have a reason to talk to this guy, nor would I go out of my way to find one.  It was enough just to see him, waiting for his coffee and turning his ankle.  And then I didn't see him.  I started going to Pain D'Avignon for morning coffee, and on my less frequent visits to Starbucks I didn't see my handsome friend.  I missed him.  I wondered if he was going somewhere else for coffee.  The tradesmen tend to go somewhere convenient to their current job.  One sees the same people day after day for months at Starbucks, and then the job changes and they're gone.

One recent morning at Pain D'Avignon, I saw the familiar build and coloring of my blonde beast out of the corner of my eye.  I wasn't sure until I saw him turn his ankle while he waited for his coffee.  O damn, it was him.  And there we were thrown together again.  Did he recognize me?  I doubt it.  But, I was happy to see him.

Pedestrian Uncertainty

PENN STATE, WRITING, MGIS

I've learned so much from Penn State.  I love Penn State.  But, I've also learned that I don't want to neglect writing anymore.  Even if I were to pursue more education, I would not want to neglect writing the way I did for my master's degree.  If I had done things differently, writing might have supported my master's experience.  But, I was so absorbed in what I was learning, and in the process, and in my desire to excel, that I allowed myself to neglect it.  I don't regret doing that.  I don't regret my devotion to the master's degree and Penn State experience.  It has been one of the highlights of my life.  I'm just reflecting on it, now that I'm close to the end.  And I don't know what will happen next.  I don't know what I will do next.  Writing has come to my rescue, helping me to cope with the transition back to normal life and pedestrian uncertainty.

New World Order

POWER CORRUPTS ABSOLUTELY

"Vengeance is mine," saith Obama.

Romans 12:  19.  Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.

Muslim Liberation Politics

CUCKOO, COLLECTIVISM, REVEREND WRIGHT

The Muslim Brotherhood is to Islam what liberation theology is to Catholicism.  It is a collectivist political movement with religious trappings, much like Obama's Trinity United Church in Chicago.  Obama wants to go to war against the enemies of collectivism in Syria.  Otherwise, he wouldn't be interested in punishing Assad's alleged use of chemical weapons.

There's something gruesome and unseemly about people like Kerry and Obama posing as self-righteous, indignant war-mongers.  Obama has set himself up as a global moral arbiter, ready to punish whoever defies his authority with rough justice.  And as usual, the Democrats drag out "the children" to justify whatever crazy, despotic thing it is they want to do.  How far are they willing to go?  Maybe they'll start caning people for spitting on the sidewalk, like they do in Singapore.  Or, if Kerry and Obama have their way, they'll just shoot them on sight, no questions asked.  Cloud cuckoo land is alive and well in Amerika.

Morally Obtuse

OBTUSE, ISLAMIST, COSMOLOGY

In the puerile, liberal cosmology, morality is the emotional attachment to one's friends and the ruthless destruction of one's enemies.  Not to understand or agree with this ethic is to be "morally obtuse."  Obama, Kerry, and MSNBC are emotionally attached to the Muslim Brotherhood.  The Alawite Assad is fighting a war against the Islamist Brotherhood and liberals want to punish him for attacking their friends.  The indignation over chemical weapons, whether or not they were actually used, is a liberal ruse to get the United States involved in a quarrel between Muslim cultures.  Obama, Kerry, and MSNBC need a deus ex machina to enter the fray, punish Assad, and champion the Islamist cause.  Enter the United States.

Obama's Hardon

OBAMA, KERRY, ALAWITES

Just because Obama and Kerry have hardons for the Muslim Brotherhood is no reason for Americans to join in their fight against the Alawites.  Obama wants to redefine America's strategic interests in the Middle East to promote Islamist culture and political power "by any means necessary."  That is what he and Eric Holder are already doing in the United States.  Why are Democrat politicians always at pains to prove that they are not pacifists?  Like being a pacifist is worse than being a traitor to one's own country, culture, and political system.  Liberals always use the pacifists for their own subversive, political ends.  They never hesitate to take the pacifist line if it will help them to destroy the opposition and take power.  But, power and money is what it's all about for them.  Liberals aren't morally opposed to anything.  Like the old-fashioned communists, they will do whatever it takes to get power and enslave the masses to serve their interests.

Big Gulp

REMY, JURISPRUDENCE, MARTEL

Liberal jurisprudence decrees that thou shalt not drink a Big Gulp soda; but, thou shalt return to stab thy girlfriend to death in front of her daughter, two days after smashing her face into a mirror.  Ask Jennifer Martel's parents and daughter what they think about that.

Liberals don't endorse the United States Constitution.  The liberal's "constitution" is whatever she believes to be good and true at any given moment.  It is not susceptible of proof.  It is the jurisprudence of despotism. When a liberal judge decrees the "constitutionality" of a ruling, she's means that it is right because she says so, and that no appeal to legal precedent, common sense, or human kindness shall move her.

Kennicott's Quandary

AYN RAND, JUNGLE, OPERA NEWS

In the August 2013 Opera News, Philip Kennicott said, "The basic logistics of training an opera singer . . . seem designed to mimic the cruelty of the Ayn Rand jungle:  a few will flourish at the expense of crushing all the rest."  What is he talking about?  Has he ever read anything of Ayn Rand's other than excerpts?  The only jungle in her novels is the one created by collectivism in politics and society, and the only ones doing any crushing are collectivist goons and enforcers.  Capitalism is antithetical to the jungle.  It is identical with civilization, progress, freedom, and humanity.

At some convenient time, I will read the rest of "Life After the Assembly Line," which is Kennicott's Opera News article, but I couldn't get past the Ayn Rand crack without commenting.  Kennicott either knows nothing about Rand's novels, fails to understand the story lines and characters, or purposely misrepresents them.  Being a liberal shill for the Washington Post vouches neither for his perspicacity nor his objectivity.  Is this the best that Yale and Pulitzer can do for us?

The Golden Egg

 JAY Z, OBAMA, POVERTY

One of the distinguishing characteristics of individual human beings is that some are more commercially capable and financially successful than others. It is not a function of intelligence, knowledge, or skill alone. In some individuals, commerce is innate, intrinsic, driven by aptitude and instinct. Some people excel at making money by delivering goods and services in the marketplace. This instinct includes the ability to assimilate political and cultural obstacles to commerce, to the extent of endorsing contemporaneous political fashion.

The political class has recently advanced its agenda to oppress and exploit working people for financial gain. Politicians have mastered the art of profiting from the labors of others more than any capitalist ever did. No one lusts after profit more, and does less to deserve it, than the politicians. And, be advised, you will never get your fair share by supporting them. They're greedier than you imagine. They will accommodate the accursed capitalist, who lays the golden egg, before sharing their ill-gotten gains with the likes of you and me. After all, there's only so much to go around. That's why there's a conspiracy between the politicians, the poor, and the rich to exploit and diminish middle class working people. It depends on the inability of the middle class to see what is being done to them. The politicians pretend to be going after the rich to help the poor, but they're all actually going after the middle class to help themselves. It's a shell game.

Jay Z, wealthy ally of a powerful politician, wants poor people to believe that there's no middle class, just rich people and poor people. He warns the public that violent disturbances will erupt if the gap between the rich and poor isn't filled in. Do you see what he's doing? Do you think he plans to forfeit his wealth to the poor? He gonna keep his money. But, if you can convince the poor that there are only rich people and poor people, then you give them and their political handlers the green light to go after the middle class's share of the economy. The strategy is to protect the rich, pay the politicians, and subsidize the poor, by taking more from the middle class. And, the middle class is tricked into believing that it is rich, thus enlisting it in the conspiracy against itself.

Gadfly Deluxe

DAS KAPITAL, KORAN, INTELLIGENTSIA

The following was a letter I submitted to the editor of our local, small-town newspaper several years ago.  It wasn't published, so I take the liberty of sharing it here.  I poke fun at Leon, a community gadfly of the Democrat stripe.  He fancies himself a radical activist, but he's just a comical member of Falmouth's ersatz intelligentsia.

Thank you, Falmouth Enterprise, for giving a regular column to Leon, peace be upon him.  It is far too long between town meetings, when we are blessed by hearing directly from him over and over and over again.  Whenever my friends and I deliberate over some article on the warrant, I always say, "Let us not rush to judgement about this issue until Leon, peace be upon him, has spoken.  Let us wait and listen to what Leon has to say [and he always has something to say] before we attempt to decide for ourselves."  The wisdom of this policy has been demonstrated over and over and over again.

I had a shocking, but very precious, experience at the April 2009 town meeting.  Leon stood to speak, and his countenance was altered.  His apparel was white and glistering.  On his left, Karl Marx appeared, bearing an unopened edition of Das Kapital.  On his right, President Obama, peace be upon him, appeared, bearing the holy Koran.  The three of them chatted amicably, but I could not hear what they were saying.  Leon seemed to be doing most of the talking, as Marx and Obama nodded in agreement.  Above them, floating in a cloud of his own carbon emissions, was Al Gore.  Remember him?  And a voice came out the cloud, saying, "If you don't like the weather, just wait a minute."  Below them, attending to the vision, was Cindy Sheehan dressed in sackcloth, and doing penance for being stuck in the 60s.  To these mighty men, who once considered her to be a useful idiot, she was now just an idiot.

Let us build a monument in front of the library to commemorate the exalted vision of Leon, Marx, and Obama.  Cindy will have to build a monument to herself somewhere else.

New Boys

 RUSTY, SAILOR-BOY, SEX

Rusty and Jimmy were new to the neighborhood.  New neighbors.  New boys in town.  They moved into one of the new duplex apartments next door.  The modern brick building, which we watched them build between the Lowry's house and ours.  They built a duplex apartment building in our field, the field we played in.  They built a modern red-brick building that Rusty Barnes and his family moved into.  Rusty, Jimmy, baby brother, Mom, and her young sailor-boy friend.  I always wondered if the sailor-boy had sex with Rusty and Jimmy.  Rusty never said so.  He didn't say much about the boyfriend.  But, it wouldn't surprise me to find out that they were messing around.  Rusty might even have been the one to start it.  He might have seduced the young man who was attached to his mother.  He seduced me.  He seduced his little brother Jimmy.  Why not seduce the handsome young man right in his own home?

Be Warned!

WHOOPASS, LEADERSHIP, LAW

Moral leadership says that, if you physically attack me, and I have a gun, I have a right to defend myself with it.  No half-wit politician or sycophantic, sexual deviant journalist can tell me otherwise.  If you attack me, I will not wait to make a determination as to whether or not you intend to kill me.  I don't want to make a mistake in your favor with regard to my self-preservation.  I will use the most efficient means at my disposal to stop you, which may mean killing you.  Tough luck, gangsta.  You started it, you pay the price.  And remember, "Don't bring a knife to a gunfight."  You're the one who should be thinking twice before you get all offended and open a can of whoopass on some guy you know nothing about.

We live in a time when every man makes his own rules.  We have replaced common law with loony law and government fiat.  Despotism.  Tyranny.  The law is no longer what we, as civilized men and women, agree upon in an orderly manner for our collective well-being.  It has become the supercilious, petulant airing of personal grievances by incompetent politicians and journalists.  But be warned, I play by my rules, not yours.  And, my rules say that if I can stop you before you stop me, you're a dead man.

Equal Oppourtunity Exploitation

RULES, RIGHTS, REALITY

We want life to play by our rules, but life has its own rules.  Life doesn't care what you want.  It isn't moved by your childishness and importunity.  It will squash you like a bug, worse than any fabled, Republican bogeyman ever could.  You think that the Republicans are your enemy, but it's really just life that you're up against.  Liberals are always looking for someone else to make their objections to life right for them.  It never occurs to them that reality cannot bear their misconception of it, or that their puerile instinct can't force mommy and daddy (Republicans) to alter the universe in their favor.

In their imaginary world, liberals are never wrong; reality is not an obstacle; and Others have the power to make reality conform to the liberal fantasy.  Liberals never get past the parent-child dynamic in their conception of reality.  There is no objective reality for them, only unequal relationships which must be exploited for personal advantage.  Equality is the last thing a liberal wants in relationships, because there wouldn't be anyone left to exploit.  All the liberal talk about human equality is a ploy to deprive all people of real rights by granting imaginary rights to discrete classes of people.  In the liberal utopia, there will be no universal human rights, only rights dispensed by the state to favored classes of people, the governing class being the most favored.

Schmoozers Are Losers

PROMOTION, MARKETS, PROSPERITY

I want to feel like I am in charge of my labor.  I don't want to be a victim of the market's lack of insight or imagination.  I don't want to be a victim of my own passivity or disengagement.  I don't want to be lazy, but I don't want to waste time on futile endeavors either.  I want to be well-informed, smart, and proactive.  I want to be engaged to the extent that it supports the implementation of good ideas.  I don't want to waste time cultivating connections that don't promote my interests.  Self-promotion is the implementation of good ideas, not the cultivation of worthless connections.  Ideas and action are more powerful than relationships.  Schmoozers are losers.

If you want to realize your human potential, it's not enough to be a good employee.  It's not enough to be intelligent, conscientious, and productive.  Funny, I used to think that it was.  I used to think that was the way things worked.  Isn't that how we were told that it works?  Work hard and wait your turn and rewards of compensation and promotion will naturally follow.  Maybe it works for some people, but it hasn't worked for me.  And, I'm not saying that diligence and hard work are bad things.  They're just not enough for a man to realize his potential in every case.

I don't want to be dependent on anyone's good will for my progress and prosperity.  I don't want my success to be defined by the extent of the world's good will towards me.  If the world doesn't like me very much, then my personal bid for promotion will be remanded to the court of mediocrity.  I want my success to be defined by implementation of the good ideas that I promote.  I will do better to promote good ideas rather than my own personality in the market.  Success is achieved by appealing to others' self-interest in the marketplace.  The extent to which one is capable of reading and responding to market forces determines the degree of one's commercial and financial success.  There is comfort in knowing these things.  I may not have the time, energy, or ability to demonstrate them conclusively.  But, I have glimpsed their truth and will attempt to live by it.

No Prisoners!

TOXIC, BALDWIN, STARK

Good writing or good communication is distinguished as much by what you don't say as by what you do say.  Art infers selectivity in the creative process.  We live in a world that enables and encourages people to bare all, whether others are interested in it or not, and whether or not it does others any good.  And, you only want to do what's best for others, don't you?  The means to tell all is cheap, easy, and readily available.  But, just because you have the atom bomb doesn't mean that you have to use it.  Just because you have the ability to tell the world exactly what you think about every little thing, doesn't mean you have to intrude your bad self into my consciousness. Easy media, liberal duplicity, and the indulgence of your worst vices are not a warrant for you to slash and burn at will.  No prisoners!  This is what happens when politics and personal preference are held to be the highest value.  Political power becomes the human tyrant's weapon of choice, unrestrained by conscience or genuine humanity.

The Liberal Menace

RADICAL, LIBERAL, SECULAR

Liberalism is not so much a threat to morality or family values, as it is a mental health issue.  Liberalism is the harbinger of insanity, inanity, and anarchy.  Radical, despotic government is symptomatic of a culture in steep decline.  Most people sense that there is something wrong with American culture.  Few, if any, know what to do to turn back the destructive tide of secular humanism that is swamping world thought.

Writing in the Cloud

CLOUD CRAP, GLUTEN FREE, SECRET WISH

Writing.  What's that all about?  Everybody is a writer in this digital age.  Everybody writes one way or another, and everybody who wants to gets published.  It may only be a kind of self-publication, but it is publication nonetheless.  Thanks to technology, every man has the potential to share his thoughts and experience with everyone else on the planet.  My posting on a blog is open and available for anyone on the planet to read.  I am not dependent on formal publication to get my writing out.  Everyone is competing for attention.  The availability of so much information of all kinds can make it difficult to stand out.  All the bloggers and tweeters are running around trying to figure out how to entice their fellow mortals to read their crap rather than the other guy's crap.  They're all little emperors trying to increase the number and power of their followers.  With so many people who have so much to say, how can one separate the chaff from the wheat?  Who has the time?  And, a lot of people like the chaff.  Not everyone wants the wheat.  Gluten free world.  Gluten free culture.

I have a secret wish, cradled here in my obscurity.  It's a wish and a theory that I would like to test.  It has to do with writing and the power of words.  It is also one more test of myself.  I don't mind trying one more thing.  I'm used to mediocrity and indifference.  I'm not afraid to fail.

I have a blog on Google.  The blog provides unlimited public access to the posts I put there.  Do my words have the power to attract attention without an extraordinary effort to promote them?  Is it enough for them to be there, available for public consumption?  I have to tell you that I believe an indifferent public will be indifferent still, if I advertise my blog.  There's something in the words themselves, the quality of the writing, that determines the response to them.  That's my theory.  It may well be that, as I continue to publish posts to my blog, there will not be much interest in them.  That would not surprise me.  But, I like the idea of putting stuff out there.  I like the idea of making stuff available for public consumption.  I have as much right as anybody else on this dreadful planet to publish my crap in the cloud.

Buyers and Sellers

DIVINE PRINCIPLE, COMMERCE, VALUES

I grew up with the idea that the various aspects of my life were synergistically and compatibly linked to each other.  I held to the wish and the illusion that the various aspects of my life comprised a harmonious, human whole, that would work together for good, for my well-being, progress, and prosperity.  I had values, good values, that I believed must necessarily result in the accomplishment of good things and a full life.  Spiritual sense, work ethic, and artistic expression were the pillars of my personal, human value system.  I embraced the spiritual vision of mankind and the universe in relation to Divine Principle, and endeavored to conform my thought and behavior to this model.  This science of being has been a deeply satisfying way of life for me.  It feels like the right way to live in a very confusing, challenging world.  I have not achieved all that I would have liked to do in life, but I have navigated my way through many difficulties to arrive at acceptable personal solutions.  My progress through life has not been as rapid or distinguished as I had hoped, but I have managed to plod along, support myself, and do a little good for others.

Individual, personal values don't always comport with collective, worldly values.  Commerce is about compatible value systems.  The exchange of goods and services for mutual benefit presumes a compatibility of values between buyers and sellers.  The seller promotes goods and services that he expects buyers will want.  The buyer depends on the entrepreneurial instinct of sellers to deliver the things he wants and needs to live a good life.  Disagreement between buyers and sellers as to the value of goods and services results in business failure and a poor quality of life.  The synergy between supply and demand makes life better for everyone.

Americans tend to assume an equivalence between personal passion and commercial success.  "Follow your bliss!"  "Build it and they will come."  Part of the American prosperity gospel is the idea that single-minded pursuit of one's own passion will elicit a sympathetic response from the world.  Sometimes it works.  It may even have worked for a lot of people.  But, it is not a universal law of nature.  Sometimes, commerce requires the entrepreneur to sublimate his own passions in order to give consumers what they want.  Who cares what the entrepreneur's passions are, if he doesn't deliver things that people want to buy?  The achievement of commercial success demands more than personal passion.  It requires a canny instinct for what it is that other people want, coupled with the intellect, skill, and capital needed to deliver the goods.

We have been trained to ask, What am I passionate about, and how can I get others to buy into it?  We ought to ask, What do consumers want that I have the power to provide them with?  We waste too much time trying to get the world to buy into our wish list for life.  It is good to acquire interests and to pursue them passionately.  Our passions make life worth living.  However, it is the nature of things that a man must earn his living.  Passionate or not, life's journey is not free.  I want to pursue my passions with the integrity, comfort, and security of commercial success.  Unless you experience the happy coincidence of personal passion and commercial success, you will want to learn the laws of entrepreneurship and apply them early to your life.  By so doing, you will establish the foundation of a full and passionate life.

Big Homo

Being a big homo isn't everything it used to be.  It used to mean something.  You had to have some class to be a big homo in the past.  Now, everybody and his uncle is a big homo.  You can't get a word in edge-wise there's so many homos out there.

I've been a big homo all my life.  It's hard to believe, but it's true.  I'm a fifty-eight year old man, a fifty-eight year old homosexual.  That's a lot of time to spend being a big homo.  I probably have a few insights to add to the lore of homosexuality.  Nothing special, but homosexuality has been a part of my life for a long time.  I've seen a lot, and I've done a lot, and I am my own man.  I have never been on the homosexual bandwagon.  I've never been on anybody's bandwagon.  I may even have a few unique observations to make about being a big homo.

Of course, I'm not just a big homo.  I am some other things too.  Christian Scientist.  Writer.  Cartographer.  Land surveyor.  GIS analyst.  Computer draftsman.  Database manager.  Son.  Brother.  Friend.  Neighbor.  Citizen.  Freemason.  People ask me, How can you do all these things and still be a big homo at the same time?  And I tell them, It isn't easy, but I've had a lot of practice.

Student Life

I have been so busy with school that I don't even know myself anymore.  I've forgotten who I am.  I no longer know what I want to be, or what it was that I wanted to do with my life.  I decided to get my master's degree in a highly technical field because I was interested in it and because I wanted to be competitive in the marketplace.  There may have been a time when intelligence, experience, and performance were enough to compete and qualify for gainful employment.  No more.  Now, the job seeker needs to be formally educated, certified, and registered before he can push paper around.  People spend more valuable time qualifying for employment than they do on productive work.  It has to be done.  If you want to compete and qualify for consideration in a dynamic, technical marketplace, you must present credentials.  And, the introduction to and experience with an array of professional methodologies, standards, and technologies provides a basis from which to proceed with confidence and success.

I have thoroughly enjoyed my master's education from Penn State.  Kudos to all the wonderful Penn State staff,  instructors, and administrators who have made this experience possible for so many people.  It has been challenging, interesting, and practical.  Working on my master's degree has been one of the highlights of my life, one of the best things I have ever done.  I can see how people fall in love with education, and never want to stop being students.  It used to be that you got your education and went to work.  Now, education is a continuous process of professional and personal development.

Destroyer of Worlds

What a dreadful, little life I've had.  I don't understand it.  What has been the point of this awful, little life of mine?  Not that it has to have a point.  Everything doesn't have to be imbued with significance.  But it is, isn't it?  Isn't everything significant of something?  Isn't that what makes life interesting?

A dreadful life in a dreadful, little world.  That is me.  That is my life.  That's the world I live in.  What do I want?  What do I want from life?  What do I want from the world?  What am I doing here?  This certainly isn't the first time that I've asked these questions.  It may not be the last, though the time left for asking questions is running low.  My life is running low.  My country is running low.  The world is running low.  There may not be much time left for any of us, even for the ones who think they have the answers.  They don't, you know.  They don't have any answers.  They are trouble makers, not problem solvers.  They are destroyers of worlds, not dispensers of justice.  They are the angry mob, not wise rulers.  And, we will all go down together.  We will destroy ourselves with a stunning lack of vision and a mean, little snit.  We will destroy the world with our resentment, because we were not bright enough to save it.