Wednesday, May 26, 2010

After it's all gone...

"Where are you from?"

"New Hampshire."

"Oh well, um, I'm sure there are plenty of lovely people there."

She bellowed and then mentioned "I made sure to tell her Sherman's Army was not the Northern army, he was from the midwest. We were more civilized than that. I knew how sensitive everyone was about the War."

She was over 90 and told me that story at least 7 times as we sat down over dinner. It didn't matter what we were talking about, as soon as the subject came back to Columbia, she replayed it, almost verbatim. It was her first day in a new city with her husband at her mother-in-law's bridge club.

The same smile, the same laugh. It was as if she was reliving it for the very first time.

I wonder what my stories will be. What memories are etched so deeply they outlast the atrophy and decay of my faculties.

Can't get it out...

audiences tend to cause that...

Cleaning up...

I threw small orange slips of paper and two bobby pins in my memory box

A tire's last thoughts

I could have told you
but I wanted a few more miles
not a landfill
my outside is crumbling
but all I can think of
are the roads I have traveled

Perception

rip rip rip
your clothes are gone
tear tear tear
the walls are gone
push push push
you in the ocean
naked, homeless, all alone

cling to something
anything, anyone
a memory
how you remember me

Monday, May 24, 2010

Wow

I didn't realize how out of it I was over the past few months...

I was just packing up my clothes and felt something in my old pants. I just found $400 in one of the pockets...

Sunday, May 23, 2010

Manners

we had a discussion today at the UU forum about the importance of manners...

I came to the conclusion that there are two sides to manners....

The first is the ability to expediently and unambiguously transfer information through shared expectations about speech and behavior.

The second is the use of niceties that often border on dishonesty.

Because I have so much disdain for the second use, I have for some time scrapped any application of manners outside of purely business transactions such as interviews and things of that order.

I try to be as frank and candid as possible when speaking with people. The problem with that is that most people have an expectation of how individuals interact, and any violation of these expectations is taken as offensive even when it is not intended to be the case (For example, I have a friend who is Chinese and because of his very thick accent he is able to say many things that would ordinarily be perceived as provocative to someone who was native. However, since people assume is is foreign it doesn't usually arouse their ire).

I think Bridgewater was good because they didn't give one shit about propriety and were exclusively focused on content, but this comes at the expense of interactions with the rest of the world.

Unfortunately, in most human relationships the delivery carries much more weight than the content. What this means is that if I really care about the ideas I have, and my goal is simply share them, I should focus on the best way to transmit them to someone else and not the best way to precisely state them.


I guess this could all be summed up with the following phrase:

Manners, ignore them at your own expense or at the expense of what you really want to say.

Friday, May 21, 2010

My lot...

"Do you have any plans for the summer?" I asked.

"No, I've got bills to pay. Some of us have to work you know."

She's done


I am not entirely convinced that it looks better than when I started, but it definitely looks much, much more well maintained, which doesn't exactly come through in the photos...

I had a dream

I was dancing naked by the window with my friend laughing at the cars going by. Someone saw me, pulled in the drive, parked and came to the door. I ran to make sure it was locked, and stood there as the person knocked. They put their hand through the mail slot and attempted to get in. I began to get nervous. Then the guy said me name and slapped me in the face which woke me up.

Then I noticed my phone was ringing...

before and after

since she left her home, she's felt alone
always talking on the telephone
to her mama, give me some space
she says that's not the case

we just started, but now we're through
she says that's not true, i love you
now I know I was a sub for her father
she says that's not true, i love you
but it's so close, why bother

I thought she liked me for me
not for what I could do for her
So when she saw "me", I saw "we"
but some spaced helped a lover uncover
truth in uncertainty

we just started, but now we're through
she says that's not true, i love you
now I know I was a sub for her father
she says that's not true, i love you
but it's so close, why bother

she called it self defense
but it seemed like recompense
In an effort to protect herself, she stabbed me
and I was blinded-sided by her generosity
didn't see it coming,
didn't know she had it in her
I thought she was so loving,
Et Brute' you're her bother

we just started, but now we're through
she says that is true, i don't love you
you don't love me like my father
I say that is true, but I loved you,
why'd I bother

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

I hate asking my parents for stuff... but...

Mortgage rates are really low right now....

I am obviously not working now, so it's pretty clear there will be no one to give me a loan. For a long time I knew I was choosing between unemployment and a chance to refinance my home but the benefits of unemployment >> working again right now.


I have been receiving letters from all sorts of lenders trying to get me to refinance and finally gave in and asked dad if he would cosign because I think what's going on in Greece is obviously going to have an effect on rates in Euroland (who wants to lend and then have money printed... no one... it's called inflation). I think this in the short term has pushed people into US treasuries, and thus increasing bond prices and decreasing yields. Since mortages are priced off of treasuries it's driven mortgage rates down in the short term. However, I think it is going to be very bearish in the long run. I am afraid rates will be much higher, and possibly in the near future, so I didn't want to miss the opportunity to refinance my mortgage. So I gave in to common sense and asked my dad if he would put his name on my loan.

He obliged, which means I need to be in my house and have it as my primary residence when the loan closes, which might push back my plans to rent out the house a few weeks unless I can work out something with the guys who want to rent it, which honestly, shouldn't be that hard.

Anyway, the kicker is that the new mortgage on my humble abode will only be ~$400/month.... or about what it would cost to rent out a double wide trailer in the country...

But then when I consider the fact that it's (interest expense, taxes, insurance) tax deductible and rent is not, the effective monthly cost is closer to $250-$300 a month!

Hell yeah!

Monday, May 17, 2010

You can get good deals on used cars...

I think single moms are similar....

How I live my life....

Insure your biggest risks, (and spend time thinking about what they are) or find ways to protect yourself against loss

Pay people to do what you don't like to do or aren't good at

Always ask for more just to see what someone will offer. People will surprise you

Deal only with people you trust

Avoid debt if possible

Know that there are only about 1 or 2 things you will do in a given day that actually matter. Spend time thinking and researching these, and less on the process of making it happen... Undoing things can cost a lot of time/money

Ask questions about everything, you will learn a lot more than you expected about things you didn't know...

These next few are recently learned lessons:

Pay extra for things that really matter and the things you will use often

Don't over-analyze the cost of small one time purchases - focus on the big ones are recurring ones...

Get it done right the first time

The guys liked the house.....

their application is in

they wanted to put down a deposit today

Cory said he definitely wants to canoe from Columbia to Charleston

I got health insurance again today, which will cover me internationally as well

spoke to dad about refinancing my home

the puzzle that is my summer is coming together

Lessons relearned

Someone just pointed out something on my FB profile I'd written a while back...

"I would say I am very level headed, except when it comes to relationships. Then it's all about intentions which are often impossible to discern. I think sincerity is hard to find, but I hang on to it when I spot it. It takes a while to believe in another's judgement, and by extension trust them. But once I do, I am a very loyal friend. It takes lot for me to give up on someone."

I guess I really do know myself...

You can't blame yourself forever...

If you make a mistake, you try to fix it.... Some things you can repair, some things you can't.

Just do what needs to be done, and then a little more for good measure, then you can be at peace with yourself.

It's hard to regret doing your best...

Sunday, May 16, 2010

I don't understand myself lately

Note to self: Never apply for a job at a motel.


Yesterday morning I was a pitiful mess crying in bed. Today I am out with a hunger for life I haven't had in a loooong time. I am guessing it had a lot to do with the fact that I was spending about 23 hours a day in that small room, getting buzzed multiple times a night to book a hotel room, but I didn't realize it could have such a dramatic effect on my mood. I didn't realize how much human contact sustained me.

Anyway, I am starting to get really excited about this summer.

1) The house is painted and looks great. All of the improvements I have made should make it really easy to rent. I called the property management company and they already have several applications on file. Hopefully they can fill it within the month.

2)My friend Poppy cleared me staying in her house with her landlord, and it's free. Charleston for a month or so...

3) I have been emailing Earthaven and I am going to visit the ecovillage this Saturday to see about staying there this summer.

4) After that I am on my way to NYC for a few weeks to hang out with Rob and see some old friends...

5) Then Europe if I'm not broke.

6) Also headed home to spend time with mom and dad and see Daisy/Drew while they are off for summer vacation. I don't think I will have this chance ever again. I should be able to squeeze some studying in there as well for the CAIA. When I was home for Mother's day I also told dad I was going to put back up some of the fencing he took down a few years ago. This way we can get some cows or goats or some sort of livestock at the house again. I miss how neat they kept things around our farm.

7) Definitely camping out here for a few weeks... and my friend seems pretty serious about canoeing from Columbia to Charleston, so I am thinking it would be a very appropriate to transition directly from one right to the other. Now I just need to order my canoe.... I still can't believe there is an untouched island paradise a few hundred yards right from the center of downtown...

Anyway, the goal of all of this is to prove to myself that I can do what I want on limited income. The checks are going to run out soon, but I want to see how difficult it is to survive doing things relying on myself, my tent and the generosity of friends in strangers.

What I hated about working at my last job was that I felt like I "needed" it. I also was a little jealous of all the spoiled rich Ivy League kids who had a chance to do all of the things I wanted to do since a child. What bothered me more was that they didn't even seem to appreciate what valuable experiences they'd had. Anyway, when I go back I don't want to be distracted by all of this class jealously and economic insecurity. I just want to be able to do my job and know that I can support myself if shit doesn't work out. I want to be free of the stress of the "real" world that seems to bring everyone else down...

Saturday, May 15, 2010

And he shall believe on....

Music seems to say things more clearly than I can lately... It makes me want to make some of my own...

I did't realize how convoluted the lyrics were to "Levon", but it's amazing that the meaning still comes though so unobstructed... and how, when I was letting go of all my air-filled caricatures, the song seemed written just for me...


Levon wears his war wound like a crown
He calls his child Jesus
`Cause he likes the name
And he sends him to the finest school in town

Levon, Levon likes his money
He makes a lot they say
Spends his days counting
In a garage by the motorway

He was born a pauper to a pawn on a Christmas day
When the New York Times said God is dead
And the war's begun
Alvin Tostig has a son today

And he shall be Levon
And he shall be a good man
And he shall be Levon
In tradition with the family plan
And he shall be Levon
And he shall be a good man
He shall be Levon

Levon sells cartoon balloons in town
His family business thrives
Jesus blows up balloons all day
Sits on the porch swing watching them fly

And Jesus, he wants to go to Venus
Leaving Levon far behind
Take a balloon and go sailing
While Levon, Levon slowly dies

He was born a pauper to a pawn on a Christmas day
When the New York Times said God is dead
And the war's begun
Alvin Tostig has a son today

And he shall be Levon
And he shall be a good man
And he shall be Levon
In tradition with the family plan
And he shall be Levon
And he shall be a good man
He shall be Levon



This would have changed my entire trip....

I guess it can change future ones though...

Friday, May 14, 2010

Another little ditty that pricked my soul...

Music and Coffee have been loyal friends...

(skip the first 30 seconds)


\

I feel cheated...

but science makes sense...

http://people.howstuffworks.com/love6.htm

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Making other people smile

making other people realize it's nothing to stress about

helping other people find a new way to do things

helping someone uncover a new place

teaching someone something new

...these are the kinds of things that make me happy

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Entropy

I have this strange feeling that my universe is shrinking. It seems like it's an unavoidable part of life for most people. I've felt for the longest time that I was constantly meeting more and more and more people. Then I graduated college, moved away, my friends scattered, and old people I knew since I was a kid started dying off. Bridgewater was nice because it had assembled a network of hundreds of really bright 20-30 year olds, but beyond work, it was really, really hard to meet new people. After I made it back to Columbia, things still seemed a little easier, but the sense of stability I'd known since I was a kid was gone. People are mobile, even in backwoods South Carolina. With all the technology it's still so easy to lose touch with people you really care about. Let's also add that people get married, have kids, and get tied up in their own little universes, or they chase some career they think will make them happy. I just feel like I am trying to make this nice neat little core group of friends, but life/time is like some centrifuge pulling apart the pieces of life I cling to so dearly.

---

On to other, more inspiring topics. Neitzsche talks about the Ãœbermensch, or overman. It's his archetypal person.

"All beings so far have created something beyond themselves; and do you want to be the ebb of this great flood and even go back to the beasts rather than overcome man?"


I've got a few friends who I think may be living close to their potential. One is a professional poker player, one is a professional cyclist, one ran for mayor right here and Columbia and owns his own graphic design business, one who was teaching English in South America and is going into the Peace Core, one just got her PhD in Epidemiology from Johns Hopkins. They aren't extraordinary people, but they are people doing what they love, what they think needs to be done, and making a living by doing it.

Right now I am not. I am taking the easy way. The secure way. I am doing what people with jobs do. It's not very exciting. I feel like a shell of a man. This was a chance to be great, and I suppose I did it use to do some things I have always wanted, but I also squandered it. I had unlimited free time and guaranteed income. Yes, I paid off my debt, fixed up my house, got a new car, ect.... but so what. I could have just sold me house and been done with owning it for good. I think working to make the neighborhood a better place was a solid goal, and I actually accomplished a good bit in that regard, but ever since January, I've been off my horse. Just dicking around.

Anyway, I have some things of my own that I want to do. I'm trying to be practical, but it doesn't mix very well with idealism, or what my parents expect and want out of me. I didn't think their opinion of me mattered very much, but I when I told my dad I wanted to camp out on one of the islands on the Broad River for a few weeks and then canoe from Columbia to Charleston (on top of my ecovillage, NYC & Europe plans) and he gave me some disapproving look with a furrowed brow and cocked head. It made me feel like I am just being childish and need to grow up. I didn't realize they still had that power over me. It made me rethink what I was doing, but I think he worries I am going to be some lazy indolent bum like my mom's brothers... I am not worried about that, but I really do think life is a game... a game no one can win. I see no reason not to enjoy it while I have the chance. I guess I am just torn between taking the plunge (doing what I really want) and passing up an opportunity to be successful in a conventional sense (good career in finance, lots of money, pretty wife) and I am trying to juggle the two at the same time and as a result, am doing a half-assed job on both.

Florida...

I was right. They were nuts. Never go on roadtrips with strangers. I still had fun though.

The Everglades were not what I expected, but still impressive. It reminded me of the Savannahs in Africa. I rode in an airboat which was pretty bad ass. The Keys (which comes from the Spanish word Cayo, for Island... They are still an archipelago. None of the natives seemed to know this though. I had to refer to wikipedia) were solid, but honestly, the beaches in Miami were just as good and had more people/restaurants. I wouldn't make the trip there unless I just wanted some peace and quiet. Miami was too materialistic for me (as much as Manhattan, but in a kitschy, nouveau riche way - tattoos, fake tans, Bentley's, fake tits), but I could definitely see living there. By far the nicest big city I have been in... an endless summer doesn't hurt either.

I'll post pictures soon.

Faith is fragile

I feel just a hint of what it might feel to be raped or to be robbed at gunpoint. I have that sense of being violated, of trusting whatever situation I was in and then being taken advantage of by someone else's selfishness.

I had a friend who was stabbed while walking home. She didn't mention it to anyone, but a few weeks ago we all got drunk and while we were walking home something pricked her sense of fear. She just crumbled. All of her emotional walls were broken down and she just cried, and cried, and cried.

That sense of... losing control, of not being able to trust again, of wondering if it was karma or just chance... still nags. It's not the stab wound though, it will heal, but it's just scary knowing there are other people like that out there. Even when you think you are safe, even when you are in the company of those you want to believe in, of those you trusted more than yourself.

Sunday, May 09, 2010

Lookie here!


My avocado has sprouted!

Monday, May 03, 2010

Nice little gem...

Note to self

Don't be afraid to admit that you don't have all your shit together....

Sunday, May 02, 2010

oh yeah, I ran a 5k this weekend too

went to the Rosewood Crawfish Dash just down the street from my house...



Just over 22 mins, but it looks like everyone was slow.... 10am start time in May in SC = bad idea.

Cory and my USC finance people were also in it. I hung out with them a lot this weekend, I guess they are my new group of friends. They are a fun group. I also found out Cory's dad was the mayor of the fine town of Gilbert. I find that funny for some reason. They are all going tubing Saturday if I make it back in time, which I don't think I will. They seem a lot happier than the people at BW.

Two girls I met last week are are in on my trip. Should be interesting... They seem nuts.

Sunburn is still a bitch, back is fine. Vicodin is still my new best friend, though he clouds my mind more than I would like.

My views on bettering the world....

(this post will be rewritten in the near future.... consider it a first draft)

When I ask people what they care about in life, answers are usually similar. Family, helping others, economic security... but I wonder what people would really say if they spent time thinking about what they ultimately enjoyed, and had at least some measure of faith that pursuing their own interests would make the world a better place. What would their answer then be. What I am saying is what would the world looked like if peoples interests = what they valued most.
--
Years ago, I got caught up in a cycle of rationalization, that ultimately results in inaction. What I mean is that when I wanted to do something I could always convince myself that there was a higher and better use of my time... When I started to prioritize what I was interested in, it would go something like this...

Want to teach kids how to read? What about the ones caught in domestic abuse?

Want to help those with a violent home life? Well what about the ones in Africa who can't eat and will stave to death?

Want to feed the kids in Africa? What about the AIDS epidemic that is killing millions?

Want to cure AIDS? Well what about cancer? or global warming?

Want to cool the planet and "go green"? Well what about the fact that the sun is going to blow up and burn earth... shouldn't we be exploring outer space for places where a future civilization could live?

Well, won't the entropy in the universe ultimately mean it just turns into darkness? So shouldn't I seek ways to understand the cosmos in hopes that thousands of generations later we can alter the course of matter?

Yada yada yada... there is always something more grave, more serious, more momentus.

---

But obviously if everyone pursued highly advanced science we would all die. No one would grow food, or run water treatment facilities, or work at installing cable so we can get on the internet and help spread ideas and information.

Without the rest of the world supporting him, the guy studying particle physics wouldn't be able to do it because he would have to spend all of his time growing his own food. Milking his own cows, ect... But instead, because of our increasingly capitalized, globalized world people are working on what they are good at, and they can, for the most part, assume that the basic necessities (and pleasures) of life will be taken care of by the paycheck they earn doing something else.

For the past one hundred years we have had a capitalistic system that is based on a a tradeoff between money and time, but I would argue that tradeoff is becoming a worse and worse exchange. I am not urging a shift from capitalism to something else, but a shift in the values of its participants.

In the past, food and clothing costs made up a very significant amount of individual's needs. Seventy years ago, if you didn't work, you would starve. Even if you did work, you might go hungry (Great Depression). Today you can do nothing and have your basic needs met by the waste from society: dumpster diving for food, goodwill for clothing, abandoned homes for shelter. It's not idyllic, but compared to life a century ago, you would actually be quite comfortable. You just become socially ostracized.

Anyway, what I am getting at is that I think if we:
1) have faith that this system will continue to meet our basic needs and
2) took the time to pursue our disparate interests,

I don't think the world would be any worse off than if we just chased our economic security. In fact, it might even be a good bit better.

I think that in large part, creativity of the past century has been almost entirely linked to this productivity boom. Why? For one of the few times in human history, large masses of people have been free to pursue leisure activities and not worry about fulfilling the basic needs for survival. Since then, they have created new forms of art, cinema, music, cuisine, sports, architecture. It's the greatest outpouring of human creativity since ancient Greece, and possibly ever (though the Renaissance was nice too).

---

My views have changed a lot in the past year, and right now, they are quite simple: do what you love.

I say all of this because I never would have expected to allow myself to do something as seemingly insignificant as working to better my neighborhood or plant flowers and trees to make one little corner of the planet nicer.

What I realized was that if I hadn't stepped up in my neighborhood, the vision I had for the area would have never materialized. There was no other individual who was going to do the things that I did. The same thing goes for every other neighborhood in Columbia, and in South Carolina, and the world. I began to see how this patchwork of pet projects really did make the world a better place. Some groups cleaned up the river. Others sought to restore historic buildings. Others sought to create parks or sports leagues. If each person had trivialized their goals, there wouldn't be a city.

I know it might seem a bit far fetched that this voluntary system of participation would ever succeed, much less be used a means for a society to allocate resources, but the inspiration and basis for my philosophy comes from none other than Wikipedia and capitalism. They are both completely voluntary systems where people simply choose to do what they love. I think it's amazing that even without compensation, something like Wikipedia is able to be created. With capitalism choices are influenced by the intersection of interest and money. With wikipedia it's simply the intersection of interest and passion. The site is totally free (well almost, they do have some hosting costs and few employees to monitor malicious activity), yet it is the most comprehensive collection of human knowledge, ever.

That doesn't mean I don't think manged systems can work. I think people can take guidance from others and still create good results (look at old encyclopedias or a successful communist state [ie China]). However, the more an individual enjoys something, the less (if any at all) compensation is needed to induce participation. As a result you get much higher output for each unit of limited amount of resources. For things they love, the compensation can actually be zero (or negative if they pay to participate or make donations).

Anyway, what I take away from all of this is that since I really don't have to worry about my basic human needs, and if I am willing to continue to have faith in the system to provide for my needs, then I should be using my time to become the type of person I really want to be, and not be tempted/influenced by money or prestige.

For a long time, I thought my plan was to make a lot of money, secure economic freedom, and then use what was leftover to "purchase" the change I wanted in the world. But when I really think about it, I don't think I could ever earn enough to compensate the world for not giving it my talents.

For instance in a best case scenario, I end up like Warren Buffett and have $50 billion. Now on the other hand, take someone like Steve Jobs or Larry Page and Sergey Brin (founders of Google). The products of Google and Apple easily provide more than $50B benefit to society. They probably give this much on a quarterly basis. To mean it seems clear that the knowledge one adds to the world is greater than any amount of wealth he might be able to use to reallocate resources later in life.

What I am starting to realize is that my time should not be spent on things where I am looking at the intersection between interest/time/money but should be looking at things from the lens of the intersection of passion/ability.

I don't mean this in the sense that I should eschew all income, but I am saying that people should seriously consider the marginal utility of money after it secures your basic needs - I am suggesting it's not very high. Basically, I don't think the differences in happiness for a single person making $30k and one making $100k or $100M would be attributable to money. So far I am proving myself right...

This process will require courage. It will not be easy to forge my own path and break away from the well traveled path before me. People don't usually encourage you to take less money and are generally baffled by it. I also don't expect it to be easy. It will take time.

Saturday, May 01, 2010

Vicodin rocks!

this stuff is awesome!

What I miss

It's not love, it's not companionship, it's not a pretty face...

It's being needed...

It gives me a sense of purpose I can't find elsewhere. It makes me feel like I have reason to keep on going. I think that's why this hurts so much is because my best qualities aren't needed. My judgement is no longer trusted, my thoughts are not wanted, and my heartfelt suggestions are pushed aside.

I certainly won't give everyone what they want. In fact, I think giving into silly desires is detrimental to people in the long run (My mom and dad were complete opposites here... Mom gave me everything, dad gave me nothing. I love my mom for it, but I see the problems it's caused me to have now - I don't like to work for things. I expect to get my way. I don't like to compromise). That being said, I am acutely aware of what people "need" and will break myself in two to give it to them once I figure it out.

That's why I have always been a sucker for the girl with a broken smile. It's also why independent women are a little unsettling to me.

In my last two relationships I feel like I have met a girl and helped uncover a woman. I guess the problem with that is you don't know the type of person someone will be once they mature.

It does however sound like an awfully good reason to have children, but I am not ready for someone who is wholly dependent upon me quite yet. I'm a little too selfish for that right now. The last thing I want to do is to sully the blank canvas I'll be bringing into the world.

Sneaky, Sneaky

I thought I had managed to sneak through April without a serious injury... and I did sort of, but that bitch still managed to leave her mark. I had a small cut on a mole while I was at the river a few weeks ago and it turned into a some technical term which I have forgotten, but basically means a capillary just got a mind of its own and started growing like mad. It was about the twice the size it was a month ago when I went in today. Anyway, the mole is gone and so is a small piece of my back. 13 stitches are keeping it in place. He's going to send off the skin to a lab to make sure it's not cancerous, but I am pretty sure everything is fine there. I'm just glad I was able to talk him into handling it without having to go into a dermatologist which would have been much, much more expensive. His bill was only about $250 which I thought was pretty reasonable.

Needless to say that's going to put a small crimp on my Florida plans, but not nix them all together. Hopefully I will feel well enough tomorrow to leave, but if not, I will head out on Monday. As with most things there is a silver lining... I got a prescription for Vicodin. That should make sitting on a beach in the Keys a lot more relaxing.

Second Chances