Category Archives: Rants

Seeking Intellectual Freedom

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Few people may know this, but at one point in my life I was seriously considering a career in academia. For six months in the year 2005 I was an MBA student at the University of Nebraska at Kearney. To pay for my tuition and provide some living money, I worked as graduate assistant. I taught several seminars on computer basics, proctored exams, did some academic research, etc. I loved it. At least, I loved everything except some of the insane hoops we had to jump through. I was initially accepted into the program with the provision I had to pass calculus within the first six months. I never had to take calculus in my undergrad college. I thought it strange I had to take calculus when I had zero interest in doing statistical analysis or accounting. Even back then, I knew a lot of accounting was going to eventually be taken over by computer software and AI. Needless to say, my bosses weren’t impressed when I had to drop calculus at midterm but was doing quite well as a teacher and researcher. I eventually was fired from my grad assistant job because of my grades, namely in calculus. I was offered the chance to stay in the program but without the job. Since I had no way to pay for the program, I walked away. The thing was I had zero interest in statistical analysis. I really just wanted to teach, namely personal finance, investing, and economics.

My economics classes were my favorite classes in undergrad. Our instructor started his career working for an agricultural commodities broker firm. In short, he helped farmers find buyers for their crops and food processing facilities find farmers who were selling their crops. Agricultural commodity broker, the linking of sellers and buyers, was actually John Rockefeller’s first major break before he built his first oil refinery. His biggest customer was the Union Army during the Civil War. So my economics instructor had real world experience before he became a teacher. I had a banking and investing instructor in college who was a licensed CPA and I think a fiduciary (think financial advisor who makes money through hourly consulting fees and not sales commissions). My business law instructor taught only business law as he was a full-time lawyer as his day job. My accounting instructors were all licensed CPAs. My management instructors were all small business owners before they went into academia. As far as I could tell, every single one of them took a pay cut when they went to teach at my small college.

Since I had been inspired to learn more on my own while in college, I continued my education after I left college. Best thing college ever did was 1) Teach me how to learn for myself, 2) Teach me how to form my own conclusions, 3) Be able to find good advice from people even if I disagreed with a significant amount of their other thoughts, 4) Not kill my natural love for learning. I eventually learned how to ‘read between the lines’ on my own, but can we honestly expect 21 year old people to truly know how to spot liars and frauds with true accuracy?

Overall I value my intellectual freedom more than anything else.

Yet Even More of What’s Been on My Mind Since I Moved to Oklahoma City

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Talked to an old childhood friend earlier tonight. She was telling me stories about the horrors she deals with everyday at her job in a pharmacy in a college town in the midwest. Caught one of her coworkers smoking pot while on the clock recently. Her boss did nothing. No write up, no drug test, no firing, no verbal reprimand. I’ve been listening to horror stories about working in customer service from my friends, people on reddit forms, youtube videos, etc. for the last ten years. I have a few stories of my own, like getting told off by the owner of the McDonalds I worked at my very first day on the job when I was 16. I told him it was my first day and he said, “I don’t care.” None of my managers and coworkers stood up for me. I was fired a month later supposedly because I wasn’t quick enough on the grill. And yet, I saw coworkers eating on the job, literally taking burgers and chicken out of the storage and eating them while they were working.

That’s mild compared to what I saw at other jobs. I would go into detail but no one believes me. Even at the factory job I had I was threatened with death when my work was suffering because of sleep deprivation. I worked the 11pm to 7am shift, five nights a week for less than 10 bucks an hour in 2006. My work was suffering and one of my line mates yelled at me, “Quit f***ing around or I will kill you godd*****it.” Everyone on my line saw it. No one reported it. I had talked to my foreman about previous problems with this same coworker. Nothing was done. So I knew nothing was going to be done in this case either. So I went to the bathroom, told my foreman I had gotten sick and needed to take the rest of the night off. The next day I put in my request for a transfer to day shift. It was immediately denied. So I quit. Turned in my ID badge and safety equipment right there. The sad thing was, the job itself wasn’t stressful at all, certainly not as stressful as working with the public every day. While it was physically demanding, I could still do it because I wasn’t dealing with unpredictable public every day. But I couldn’t sleep during the days very well. After two months of sleep deprivation, my work was suffering and I was becoming a danger to myself and others.

I could do that job easily even if it was physically demanding. The setup sucked as did the people I was working for. If they would have just worked with me a little, I would have been at the job probably for years. That is, until I developed heart failure. Had I been able to stay at the job, I would have never had to apply for disability even with schizophrenia as I would have been covered by my employer’s health care insurance. Would have also been eligible for a 401(k). I found out in college I had a talent for stock picking and investing. I would be a hell of a lot better off personally and a financially viable member of the American workforce for years if not for the short sightedness of my employers. Needless to say I wasn’t surprised at all when I found out that same factory shut down like ten years later and moved it’s manufacturing. I could work in the right circumstances. I was never given a chance. And because I lived in a rural area, I had a lack of options. I didn’t quit work because I was lazy and didn’t want to work. I quit because the setup sucked, management treated workers worse than animals, and the customers were even worse. And that was in the 2000s.

I left my last permanent job in 2012. It was a great job for me even with my disability. I didn’t go full time because I was afraid of losing my disability insurance and full time was never available. I left because I actually did the math one night and found out for every dollar I made through that job, I lost seventy one cents via lost benefits and increased rent (I was on a sliding scale in low income housing). That was before taxes. And to think people complain about even sales tax of 6 percent.

I stay on disability even though I have a talent for stock picking and investing because Universal Healthcare isn’t a thing in my country. Even though Universal Healthcare works in most European Union countries, Japan, and Canada, I fear it would never work in America even if it was instituted. Seeing my dad’s experience with the VA makes me think that Universal Healthcare would be worse than even the mess we have now. We don’t even have decent mass transit here. People were all up in arms over Obamacare. And that was just health insurance, not universal health care. I still remember people like Sarah Palin talking about “death panels” on live tv. Universal Healthcare will probably never be instituted in America (at least not in my lifetime), but people will actively fight against it even if mass unemployment comes via automation (like I fear it will). We still have the Puritan work ethic and the idea that people that don’t work for money are worthless. As if God put a dollar sign on everything in the Cosmos. Heck, people are still fighting against renewable energy and electric cars in my country even though it’s already cheaper than fossil fuels in most cases (even without subsidies) AND already makes up 20 percent of our power grid. I chuckle when I think on the fact that more renewable was installed in my country under the Trump administration than in any other previous administration. He howled about bringing back coal jobs (even though mining jobs were largely automated even back then) and wind turbines causing cancer. We still pulled off this feat with the US being the only nation to pull out of the Paris Climate Accord. It’s the economics. Even if Climate Change isn’t a thing, the energy revolution is underway because it’s now cost effective. Granted, not as fast as the Al Gores and Greenpeace people of the world would like. “It’s the economy stupid” to quote James Carville.

People like to complain about how “no one wants to work anymore.” My dad does this occasionally. Makes me kind of annoyed every time I hear him say this. Yet, most of the jobs that are readily available are part time (that’s how most fast food and retail gets around paying benefits), and the hours are unpredictable. I explain this to people, but I just as well be speaking to myself. About the only people who get it are the people who have worked such jobs in the last twenty years.

In 2023 America and European Union, with our level of technology and know how, you shouldn’t have to be in the medical field, an engineer, in finance, or in the trades just to afford a small house. Don’t tell me, “be an Entrepeneur” either. Most people aren’t cut out to be self employed. Most new businesses fail within the first five years. Serfs in medieval times were hardly self employed even though they grew most of their own food, built most of their own shanties, and protected by the lords of their lands. Most people can no longer grow their own food or build their own houses. With our technology, we can get away with only a small percentage of the work force being farmers and carpenters. My dad’s dental office would have failed in the first five years back in the 1980s had my mom not been working as a nurse. In fact, my dad tried to get back into the Air Force as a dentist in the early 1980s when we were struggling. But they refused to take him because he was on blood pressure meds. I think some of the standards have changed since then.

Most places are now doing away with work from home, so a worker can’t even count on a move to a cheaper rural area and work via internet even though we have the tech to make it work for the most part. Covid proved that. And it would revitalize dying rural communities like the one I left a few months ago. I’ve been reading about people leaving California and the East Coast since the start of covid. But people have been leaving rural areas since at least the 1930s.

Large tech firms like IBM, Meta, Google, and Amazon are laying off highly paid technicians and replacing them with AI. I’ve been saying this would happen since 2013. Other than my futurist groups on facebook, the only people who believed me were my best friend and my mom. Looks like the STEM degrees people were hyping when I was in college are no longer safe. Even now, over 40 percent of scientists and engineers in Silicon Valley are immigrants. Many of them aren’t safe anymore either. I never want to hear “no one wants to work” ever again. The fact that over 30 percent of workers between the ages of 20 and 39 are working more than one job proves that. That’s the “triggered snowflake” millennial generation.

Now, everyone is telling these kids, “college is worthless”, “join the military” and “go into the trades” and that “some plumbers make more than most lawyers and doctors.” Fools don’t realize they are going to create the same bubble and wage crash in the trades in less than fifteen years. Those jobs will get oversaturated if college stays expensive and automation keeps taking jobs even though trades won’t be able to be automated probably not for decades, if ever. Even some medical and some STEM jobs are no longer safe.

Speaking of the army, a lot of traditional soldier work is now being done by drones, cyber hackers, and robots. The US Army was using robotic pack mules as early as Afghanistan. I think it was Boston Dynamics that demonstrated a drone on treads that could shoot faster and straighter than any human. And that was circa 2010. Besides, modern warfare doesn’t utilize thousands of soldiers on a battlefield, like World War 2. Much of the fighting is done by highly trained special forces, air strikes, drones, etc. Ukraine is proving with advanced drone tech and guided missles they can hold their own against a vastly larger nation like Russia. Just a few days ago, Ukraine shot down a Russian hypersonic missle with American Patriot missles. Patriot missles have been around since at least the early 1990s. Last I heard, over 190,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded in Ukraine since the beginning of the invasion (according to some estimates). So not even the military needs as many young recruits as they did in previous eras. That’s why a draft wasn’t issued in the years after 9/11. Not only is this not your grandfather’s Vietnam, it’s not even my generation’s Iraq.

College got too expensive for most people without going into debt. Most jobs could be learned in a year or two with on the job training and don’t even need a college degree except that most employers require it. Artificial barrier to entry if you ask me. My two best friends from college are in their forties and they are still paying off student loans. One is a high school teacher and the other trained as an IT guy but got laid off from his firm even though he had been there for almost ten years and was classified as an essential worker during covid. And people still have the gall to complain about no one wanting to work or a lack of loyalty.

Workers have been losing protections that were taken for granted by previous eras for decades. People know they are poor. Even people in third world countries know they are poor because they have smart phones with youtube and TikTok. Speaking of third world countries, those countries that some of my countrymen and politicians dismiss as “s*** holes” are regarded as “potential clients” by our Chinese rivals. Matter of perspective I suppose. People know they are being screwed by greedy sociopath bosses and politicians who no longer care about the voters. That’s why I said greed will kill capitalism and democracy faster than kids reading Karl Marx and Mao Zedong. I have zero patience for people who say “we were poor but didn’t know it and were happy.” You were happy because you didn’t know you how bad you were getting screwed over. Even kids in Africa know they are getting screwed. Knowledge is power. Peasants with knowledge are dangerous to abusive tyrants. Tyrants fear the masses getting enlightened as much as they fear an armed populace. And you know what, they should be scared if history teaches us anything. Knowledge can’t be unlearned. There is no going back now.

The fact is I make less than $1000 a month from all sources, get my meds paid for by social security (which would cost over $3000 a month without insurance), eat three meals a day, have a roof over my head, and am suffering from schizophrenia, heart failure and am wheelchair bound. People tell me I am lucky that I can’t work. Sadly, they are right. I am luckier than anyone working the vast majority of service and manufacturing and farming jobs even though I am making poverty level wages, lost my career, lost any shot at a family, and will probably die earlier than most of them due to my heart failure. Welcome to the desert of current day reality. We are underachieving as a society and a species.

Thoughts On Anger, Greed, and Living Below Human Potential

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We just had another mass shooting in my country this weekend, this time it was a mall in a suburb of Dallas. Now some politicians are starting to blame our daily mass shootings on untreated mental health problems. As if we mentally ill aren’t already demonized. Statistically, a very small percentage of violent crimes are committed by mentally ill people. Mentally ill people are far more likely to be victims of violent crimes than neurotypicals actually. I’m convinced it’s because many mentally ill live in poverty. Granted, some people I know claim that no one who has electricity and indoor plumbing is truly poor. Maybe in the 1920s. Today, over 80 percent of the world now has electricity. Of the eight billion people in the world, over five billion now have regular access to internet. I heard one of my elders saying “internet is a luxury” as recently as 2019. In 1999, that was true. A lot has changed since then. When over half of the world’s population has access to free education and news, a large percentage of whom make less than 5 dollars a day, it’s no longer a luxury. People used to think indoor plumbing and even being able to read and write were frivolous luxuries. Elders in ancient Greece used to complain that reading and writing were killing mental power and making people stupid. Things change and stay the same.

I am convinced that people are, by and large, more angry and stressed than we’ve been in living memory. Sure we have a world where 90 percent of the population isn’t starving. But the anger is still there because most people have only recently become aware of what is truly possible. Even an illiterate ten year old working in a cobalt mine in central Africa for only two dollars a day probably has heard of the Kardashians, Nicola Tesla, and Elon Mask if he has access to a smartphone or tv. Indigenous tribes in New Guinea knew who Neal Armstrong was back in the late 1970s and were asking visitors who was going to the moon next. People are very angry. Not because they are ungrateful, lazy, or not wanting to work. People are realizing how far below our potential we as a species are living. We no longer need wars. Even young men in Russia with their levels of internet and media censorship, realize that fighting a war in Ukraine is pointless and are voting with their feet. Young people in China are “Lying Falt” and “Letting It Rot” because they are realizing there is more to life than working and buying stuff you don’t need to impress people you don’t respect. Brad Pitt was talking this in the 1999 movie “Fight Club.”

I don’t like using the term waking up as the word “woke” has so much baggage in my country. But people, thanks for free information via the internet and universal literacy being a thing in even the poorest countries, are starting to figure out we can do better than we are. It doesn’t matter your race, creed, sexual orientation, age, political beliefs, or even economic ideals, the vast majority of humanity is not benefiting nearly as much from our science, technology, and education as is possible even now. I’m convinced it’s unrestrained greed that is the root of many of our problems today. I think unrestrained greed has always been at the root of most problems. Greed has been universally condemned by every major religion and legal code since the start of civilization. Greed’s even more dangerous now.

Banning books in libraries and book stores is becoming more common in my country than I can ever remember in my life. Sure, a lot of literature isn’t age appropriate for grade school children. Then again, neither are most parts of the Bible. Neither are some tv shows. My parents had no issues with me watching war movies like Rambo, War Games, and Red Dawn back in the 1980s. But The Simpsons and Al Bundy were completely off limits. Some states are starting to revoke tenure for college professors and scholars. Others are repealing some of their child labor laws. Some states are banning foreign social media like TikTok. Who benefits from these changes? As far as censorship goes, Martin Luther was excommunicated by the Catholic Church (meaning he was damned to burn in Hell forever) partially because he thought Christians should be able to read the Bible for themselves. Since the printing press had recently been popularized, it was only a matter of time before the Church of that era to lose their monopoly on literacy and information.

What is the internet other than the 21st century’s printing press? The most popular book to be printed on the 15th century printing press was the Bible. The second most popular were manuals about how to spot and persecute those who practice witchcraft and heresy. Some of the early explorers, like Christopher Columbus, were inspired by reading about the travels of Marco Polo. The printing press did lead to mass literacy, mass education, etc. But, problems came too. Some of the bloodiest holy wars, like the Thirty Years Wars (1618-1648) between Catholic and Protestant kingdoms of Europe and the English Civil War probably would have never happened without the printing press. Then again, neither would the scientific revolution, the industrial revolution, rediscovery of mass democracy, rights for women and minorities, end of slavery, etc. Same can be said for the internet. I’m old enough I didn’t get an email account until I was 18. Personally, I love that children can do real time Google and Wikipedia searches if they think an authority figure is talking nonsense. Google and Wikipedia are what old codgers like me use. For all I know, some of these children are using even better sources of information that I am not aware of. Censorship ultimately failed after the invention of the printing press. Censorship will fail even worse now with easy access to information.

As much as I love the internet, it’s only the first of several breakthroughs that will define the 21st century to future historians. Advances that are only in recent years becoming commonplace include artificial intelligence, robotics, 3D printing, regenerative medicine, renewable energy, etc. are already impacting the world. Just a few days ago, IBM announced they were laying off almost 8,000 employees and replacing them with the AI tech we already have. I’ve been saying this was going to happen since 2013. I am surprised it’s happening sooner than I thought. Naturally, there is no talk about retraining the displaced workers or even providing some kind of safety net while these displaced workers look for other sources of income. IBM laying off a significant chunk of their workforce is only the beginning. I expect headlines like these to become common faster than most people think.

I’m all in favor of allowing machines to take over some work duties as long as the proceeds get passed on to the public at large, whether it’s though reduced prices on robot produced goods and services, taxes on robot labor (which is favored by some tech gurus like Bill Gates), etc. But that’s probably not what’s s currently happening. And it won’t happen in the near term, at least not without serious social unrest. I’m not sure most people realize the parallels between our current Information Revolution and the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century. I think we are still in the phase of unregulated greed and ambition. If we as citizens were smart, we would be electing senators and presidents in the mold of Theodore Rosevelt. I’m convinced he did as much to make industrialization beneficial to everyone as any politician of his times. I’m convinced he even saved capitalism from its own excesses. In our current world, we have hit the point where most of the world’s people see the possibilities of better standards of living for everyone regardless of what country they live in.

What’s truly holding us back is plain old fashioned greed. There is a fine line between self interest and greed. Unfettered and unregulated greed will do more to kill capitalism and democracy than kids reading Karl Marx or Mao Zedong. It will also kill life on this planet just as dead as any nuclear war if we don’t reign it in. And we are all guilty of this, not just the wealthy and powerful. Manufacturing wouldn’t have been outsourced or done with slave labor ever if people weren’t addicted to cheap goods. We could make all of our electronics and household items in our own nations if people were willing to pay higher prices and employers more willing to raise wages. Just today I saw an episode of Shark Tank and a young married couple were pitching a product that cost $15 to make with American labor and selling for $24. And it was making decent sales. But the “sharks” were saying they wouldn’t fund this couple because the profit margins were “too low” and they “should move their manufacturing to China.” This young couple was already profitable. It’s not like they were losing money. It just wasn’t enough for the sharks to provide any seed money. Greed caused this project to be held back.

Recently saw lots of articles that a majority of people under the age of thirty have an unfavorable view of capitalism. Naturally, some pundits blamed the education system being communist. But, the only capitalism these kids experienced is seeing their parents lose their jobs and houses in the 2008 crisis while Wall Street got bailed out. They saw a lot of businesses go under during covid. They saw the shortages in grocery stores and retailers with their own eyes. They see the homeless camps every day. They undergo live shooter drills in their schools. They see people carrying firearms in malls and churches. They see people have to file for bankruptcy for having to go to the hospital. They themselves are working more than one job just to afford food and an apartment. They have never seen a world where a father could own a house, two cars, and support six children on only one income from the factory or the mine. They have never seen a world where 80 percent of the population were either farmers or factory workers. They’ve seen their parents factory and office jobs get sent to China because of lower wages, no benefits, and fewer environmental protections. Now it’s automation that’s coming for their jobs. Jobs that employ millions of people like drivers, warehouse workers, accountants, much of legal, etc. are no longer safe from automation. The only reason those aren’t automated yet is because it isn’t cheap enough. Give it a few years. Even cheap labor countries like China are going heavy into automation. Too Big To Fail, profitable companies not paying taxes, state sponsored capitalism (in China), mass layoffs, etc. are these kids experiences with capitalism. They have never seen a world where most businesses were local and large corportate jobs payed livable wages and provided pensions. The Founding Fathers, Adam Smith, F.A. Hayek, and Ludwig von Mises would have argued against this style of capitalism. Even Adam Smith talked about “enlightened self interest” back in the 1770s. I take enlightened self interest to mean don’t be a greedy jerk.

Human nature may not be completely changeable, but it can be regulated and restricted. The most free people in human history were Stone Age hunters. But even they had over half of their children die before they hit puberty. Giving up part of our freedom for the prosperity and stability that comes with civilizing ourselves is part of the deal. People today are angry because they know greed is slowing down our progress as a civilization and as a species. The old appeals of nationalism, racial bigotry, ideology, sexism, etc. were losing their appeals even when Carl Sagan talked about them in his Cosmos series in 1980, the year I was born. These are even less appealing to the mass of humanity now in 2023. Things like Occupy Wall Street and The Tea Party protests of a dozen years ago were only the start.

More Overnight Musings

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Just today, I read an article on CNN.com that it’s forecasted by the World Economic Forum over 14 million jobs worldwide could be lost to automation by 2027. While I am glad that even traditional news outlets like CNN and 60 Minutes (when they interviewed the CEO of Google about AI and automation a few weeks ago) are starting to report this, I am disappointed that it seems like none of our elected officials (at least not here in USA) are discussing this. Back in the 2020 election, the only candidate that even addressed this is Andrew Yang. I highly recommend watching his interview with Joe Rogan on youtube even if it is a few years old. I also recommend Rogan’s interviews with Elon Musk.

I am convinced that mass technological unemployment is coming by the early 2030s, at least in developed countries. I’ve been convinced of this since 2013. As much as I love economics as a subject, I haven’t seen many economists discuss even the possible problems this could cause. Traditionally, automation has created more jobs than it destroyed and lead to enough resources and revenue being produced that social safety nets like unemployment insurance, public education, social security pensions, disability insurance, and Medicare could be funded. But, will this always be the case? If not, how do we adapt our society and cultural norms if it comes to where we have a society where less than half the working age citizens can even find employment that pays livable wages? Seems like a lot of people are at least 20 years behind on what the tech is already doing, let alone what it can do in the near future. Politicians are even worse, at least in my country. Then again, I don’t look to politicians to solve problems related to tech and science. Most simply can’t as most are lawyers by trade, they aren’t trained to solve problems related to tech or psychological problems associated with a loss of meaning and purpose.

Yes, tech has made it easier to communicate and learn new skills. Yet, has it made us happier and more hopeful overall? Probably not. Physically, our lives are far less taxing than even our grandparents. Yet, they are also more mentally stressful. Maybe that is why we are seeing more cases of mental illness, mass shootings, extremist politics, doomsday preppers becoming normal, and conspiracy theories becoming mainstream. Our Stone Age hunter brains are simply not adapted to dealing with issues like loneliness, information overload, abundance of resources yet lack of meaning and purpose. The human mind reacts to things like getting cut off in traffic or dealing with internet bullies the same way our Stone Age ancestors dealt with tigers and bears. Fight or flight may have been great survival strategies for most of our history, but it’s now causing us needless anguish and pain. I think one of the main reasons most people I know are nostalgic for past decades is that the world is changing technologically and culturally faster than most human minds can process and adapt to.

I don’t know how many of my readers have heard of the concept of Technological Singularity. But it’s a term for a hypothetical time in the future when our science and technology advance to the point where the changes are too fast for the human mind to comprehend and civilization is changed in ways that can’t be reversed. Some futurists, like Ray Kurzweil (chief AI engineer at Google) are convinced it will happen by mid century. Others, like Michio Kaku, think it won’t happen until the 22nd century. Others are convinced it won’t happen until centuries from now. Others are convinced it’s not going to happen ever. I imagine if our great grandparents could see the world of 2023, they would think “Aren’t y’all already there?” While I’m not necessarily worried about a Terminator or Matrix scenario, I am worried that most people simply won’t be able to mentally and emotionally keep up with changing skills and careers every few years. Being obsolete (at least in terms of job skills) is more likely than war against the machines I think, which will cause lots of problems on it’s own. Even I can barely keep up with just the news of changes in tech, culture, and geopolitics and I have the time to research these because my disability pension takes care of my basic needs. I think mainstream media is doing the public a disservice by not devoting more time to science and tech advancements. That’s why I haven’t watched 24 hour cable news since 2007.

Some people I know can’t do a proper Google search, get frustrated with automated customer service, and hate self check out at the Wal Mart. Yet I know children as young as five years old who can already use computers and smartphones, I know children who can already write computer programs and games, I know teenagers whose knowledge of internet, 3D printing, and robotics I probably will never be able to match. I worry about the widening knowledge gap even more than the widening wealth gap. Personally, I don’t bother with self check outs because I get everything delivered to my house. I even had Amazon delivery when I lived in the long term care facility. I guess my opinion on self check outs taking away jobs, well, people said the same things about self service gas stations in the 1970s and gasoline powered automobiles taking away jobs from horse stable workers in the early 1900s. Besides, delivery drivers and warehouse workers will probably eventually get automated too. As much as I love my parents and have known some really cool elderly people over the years, I fear the cynics may have been right when they said ‘science advances only one funeral at a time.’ I think the same could be said about cultural norms and social attitudes.

Speaking of funerals, there are now doctors and scientists who are researching longevity treatments and even age reversal medications. They’ve already been able to double the life span of lab mice and even reverse some aging in mice already. But this tech creeps me more than even book banning and cancel culture. Part of me hopes they fail, like everyone who has ever looked for the Fountain of Youth. I just fear that if we are successful in finding longevity medications that we will have a stagnation in culture and science. We already have wage and economic stagnation. Also, the gaps between the generations and the socioeconomic classes will become impossible to navigate. OK Boomer and Triggered Snowflake could just be a warm up for what’s to come in the next few generations. I mean, we already have 80 year old politicians and businessmen who obviously don’t need the money and past their prime who refuse to retire. I guess that power and prestige are just that addictive. I wouldn’t know. Maybe I’ve been watching too much Altered Carbon and Black Mirror. But even the Bible and ancient folklore talks about elders who lived for over 900 years. Maybe that really is possible with the right treatments. We are only in the beginnings of a new industrial and scientific revolution. Our institutions like politics, education, organized religions, legal, etc. have lost the confidence of the public at large. I think it’s because we haven’t figured out how to adapt to this new world, at least not yet. We’re just figuring this out as we go like with every other revolution. It could get real bumpy before we adapt. Buckle up.

These are just a few of the thoughts I’ve had in recent weeks even though I’ve been studying these topics for years. I am convinced that many people are not prepared for the advances coming within the next several years. We weren’t even ready for the covid pandemic even though pandemics have happened many times over the centuries. I don’t think we as citizens, our politics, or our institutions are ready for what could happen in terms of science and tech that we are already researching. There’s a Chinese saying that goes something like ‘May you live in interesting times.’ Could be both a blessing and a curse at the same time.

Advice To My 18 Year Old Nephew

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My oldest nephew is going to graduate high school in a few weeks. He’s going to the same college his parents did to study electrical engineering. Since he was in an advanced study program all the way through high school, he already has most (if not all) of his general education requirements out of the way. This post is my advice to him (and other 18 year olds) about life after high school. I’m doing it as a list of things I’m glad I was told at 18 and things I wished I knew in high school. Here goes.

Things I Knew At Age 18 That Most People Didn’t

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t want to get married or have kids. Marriage and kids aren’t for everyone. Focus on your self development and early career first.

Dating is more dangerous and difficult now than it was in previous generations. It only takes one out of wedlock pregnancy or one accusation (even if it’s false) of misconduct to ruin your entire life. Don’t feel guilty if you struggle with dating. Sometimes it’s not worth the trouble.

Never stop learning. Especially now.

You’re probably going to change careers and even industries several times in your working life. Forget about retiring at age 62 like your grandfather. Social security alone won’t be able to support you in old age. Life expectancy could be crazy long 40 years from now.

If you truly want to get rich, your best chances are with starting your own business. Even then, the odds are against you. Some of the best business leaders would make terrible employees.

The industry you will be working in at age 40 might not even exist yet.

Be flexible when it comes to working. This is even more important now than twenty years ago. Entire industries can rise and go obsolete within ten years.

Don’t expect loyalty out of your employer, employees, government, etc. The world is changing real fast. It’s going to be even more insane twenty years from now.

Don’t participate in any conversations you wouldn’t want going viral on TikTok

There are no secrets anymore. It no longer pays to be a jerk in business. If you are unethical, you will get found out by the entire world. The internet never forgets.

Things I Wish I Knew At Age 18

You can do everything right and still fail. Chance and luck play more into life than anyone wants to admit. No such thing as a truly self made man.

Divorce isn’t necessarily a failure or the end of everything. But, it’s the kids who get hurt the most.

Getting laid off from a job isn’t a failure on your part. Getting laid off is normal now. We’re all independent contractors and hired guns now.

Coworkers are not your friends. Office politics are real and exist everywhere.

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t own a house by your 30th birthday. As much as the job market changes, it might be best to be a renter and able to move to another city or even nation for job opportunities.

Don’t dismiss working overseas. Cost of living is lower in many nations, most developed nations have universal health care, and many countries have better attitudes towards work life balance.

You are competing against the entire world now. If your job can be done cheaper overseas and or by a machine, it will be eventually.

You will probably be worse off financially and standard of living wise than your parents and grandparents. It’s no reflection on you. It’s just a sad fact of living in a declining culture. Hence, don’t rule out moving overseas for your career.

Land is a good investment if you can afford it. But even the Chinese are making man made islands anymore.

Investing in the stock market isn’t necessarily risky. Being short sighted and trying to time everything makes it risky. Don’t panic when the press tells you to panic. Screw the press. You want to be buying when everyone is selling and selling when everyone else is buying. Bulls make money. Bears make money. Sheep and Hogs get slaughtered.

Don’t watch 24 hour news channels. They will only make you bitter, hopeless, angry, and fearful. In fact, don’t even own a TV unless you own a gaming console.

Don’t major in something that can be learned in a few years of binge watching youtube or Khan Academy. In fact, don’t even go to college if you aren’t studying something for a specific career or industry. Many employers are dropping their college degree requirements.

Don’t major in something that can easily be automated or outsourced.

Sometimes the best education is free. Even more so now than ever with internet.

Don’t feel guilty about drinking Starbucks instead of putting the 5 bucks a day in a 401(k). You’re probably not going to retire at 65 anyway. In fact, you could probably easily live to 100 with as fast as medicine is advancing. Expect the social security age to be much higher than 65 before long. Sticking 5 bucks a day in a retirement account probably won’t make you rich. You’re better off trying your chances with starting your own business.

Keep up on science and technology advancements. They can provide good ideas for undervalued investments. They can also make you tougher to replace with robots become our overlords.

Don’t be nostalgic for the past. Your elders are full of crap when they talk about the ‘good ol’ days.’ The world wasn’t better in the past. Those elders were just in better health and less cynical and bitter. Actively fight against being a grumpy old man who complains about everything.

Middle of the Night Musings About Tech, Economics, and the Near Future of Humanity

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I’m up in the middle of the night, again. My mind has been far more active than what was normal the last several months. Maybe the move to a large urban center has stimulated my mind. Maybe getting my heart problems under control made me more hopeful. Maybe seeing my parents everyday has given me more food for thought. Whatever it is, I’m enjoying these new changes.

I saw my new general practitioner a couple days ago. I’m guessing he’s in his forties. I liked him right away. I liked the nurses and office staff too. Even though I don’t have my new insurance card yet, the office lady was able to find all my info pretty quickly. I’ve found medical staff, social workers, and even fast food employees to be more helpful here in Oklahoma City than anywhere else I’ve ever lived. It’s definitely a change living in a place that people actually are moving to in large numbers. It makes me feel like I’ve officially joined the 21st century rather than just read about it online.

Been reading a lot of articles about tech advancements since I moved to Oklahoma. Some of this is advancing faster than even I would have thought. Ten years ago, I never thought I could talk history and economics with an AI Chatbot easier than I could with most people. Certainly not as soon as 2023. And I use a free low end service, it’s not even ChatGPT as far as I can tell. And the fact that people are already using chatbots to aid in the office jobs and even work multiple full times, I would have not imagined that even in 2020. Makes me think the possibility to make workers far more productive with AI is already here. It makes me think that some companies will automate as much of their white collar staff as possible if they aren’t already. Much like blue collar factory jobs were outsourced and automated in the 1980s, I think the same thing is starting to happen in office and tech jobs. I can now understand why some plumbers, electricians, and welders make more money than some lawyers and accountants.

I imagine that if AI and automation become as big as I think, that alone will make college education pointless for most people. I could see more apprentices and on the job training. We already have that to a degree with unpaid internships. Personally, I think unpaid internships are a modern day version of serfdom. Even most academic instruction is done by graduate assistants making poverty level wages and no benefits or tenure, at least for undergrad. It’s one of the reasons I didn’t get a career in academia. For awhile I was pursuing a career as a college professor. I wanted to teach investing, finance, and economics. These were my favorite business subjects in college. But that was until I realized that the majority of college professors aren’t full time, don’t have benefits or tenure. And since I wanted to teach more than do research, it wasn’t for me. I also didn’t want to spend years in college racking up a small fortune in student loans to get a PhD and do obscure research that only a handful of people would actually acknowledge. Even my small blog has more readers than most doctoral dissertations.

Another thing I didn’t like about working in academia is that I felt too much pressure to specialize my knowledge. Personally, I think specialization is too narrow for most workers nowadays. As fast as technology is advancing, a worker starting out today is going to change careers at least a few times. The days of getting a job at age 22 and staying with the same company until age 65 are over. I think that businesses today would be wise in hiring more Humanities students and philosophers, especially AI firms. Not only most employers no longer that loyal, the tech advances and economic changes mean that they can’t afford to be as loyal as they were 100 years ago. The world is simply changing too fast to ensure life long employment. Life long employment was a bigger deal in Japan and Korea than even the USA. I try to tell my teenage nephews and niece that people like their dad and mom who stay with the same company for over twenty years after graduation are not the norm. The only career advice I give to any teenager is ‘be flexible and never stop learning.’ Some of the most lucrative careers in 2023 didn’t even exist in 2000. I think the most lucrative businesses and careers of 2045 haven’t even been invented yet. I also wouldn’t be surprised if the world had its first trillionaire by then, and probably from an industry that only now on the drawing board.

Not only do I think we are entering a future world of mass technological unemployment, I think in some ways we are already starting to see it in real time. Big tech firms have already laid off almost a quarter million workers since mid 2022 even though most of the firms doing the layoffs are profitable. Even tech companies in China and India are laying off some of their tech workers. Youth unemployment among recent college graduates in China is a major problem, though they don’t have the student loan burdens most American students have. I also think real estate and land prices will only continue to rise even if interest rates keep going up, which they probably will to combat inflation and encourage saving and investing. The days of cheap credit are over. So are the days of cheap commodities like oil and food. 3 dollar a gallon gas, 6 dollars for a dozen eggs, and one million dollars for starter homes are only the beginning. And, yet, it doesn’t have to be this way. At least not permanently.

I imagine eventually science and tech advances will make everything cheaper much the same way electronics and computers get better and cheaper as the years go on. I mean, we can already 3D print everything from tools to houses, to even guns (so abolishing the 2nd amendment will do no good). I think even chemicals can now be 3D printed. Eventually we will be able to function in a world were less than half of working age people have full time jobs. I think that reality is already technically feasible though not economically, politically, or culturally feasible. It’s definitely not feasible economically in most developing countries. It’s definitely not culturally feasible in nations that find meaning and purpose in careers. I think technological unemployment will be far tougher for the US to adapt to than most developed nations because we value employment so much and don’t believe in the social safety nets that some nations have already implemented generations ago. I see it getting really ugly in the US because of our attitudes towards work, education, and social welfare. I think the homeless problems, prison overcrowding, working poor, political divisions between the Left and Right, drug abuse, mental health crisis, and rates of suicide getting worse in the next 20 years. So much so that I think that America won’t be the richest and most influential country in the world come 2030. I don’t think we will collapse into Mad Max (even though some of my prepper friends are actually hoping and praying for this), I think the world of America being the only superpower no longer exists.

I think eventually we will achieve a world where even people on poverty level wages can have a decent life free from starvation and access to decent health care. We already have more overweight people than starving people by a nearly 3 to 1 margin. Obesity is no longer just an American problem. In fact, for most of history being overweight was considered a sign of wealth and prosperity. Now people consider it a sign of poverty and a lack of discipline. But I think it will be long and painful process to get to that world. I doubt I’ll live to see it.

I know it spooked a lot of people, myself included, when the World Economic Form was talking about a Great Reset and “owning nothing and being happy.” Debt resets and failures of currencies are nothing new. Even the Old Testament talks about debt jubilation every so often. Nowadays, some people would say you were a dirty socialist or commie for even suggesting such a thing. Maybe God Himself was a socialist in ancient times. The Founding Fathers thought that conquering a nation via debts was as dangerous as standing armies. Now that everyone is in debt to everyone else, and we as nations and individuals are needlessly suffering, the wisdom of their words concerning debts are more obvious than ever. A debt reset is probably the only way we are going to not saddle those yet born with unpayable debt. Besides, it’s not like our money is real as most countries went off gold standards decades ago. And, it’s not like we owe money to aliens or God. We owe these quadrillions to ourselves, not other species.

Going back to having most countries on some kind of gold standard wouldn’t be as tough as most people think since almost all gold mined in the last 6000 years still exists. We’re not burning through nearly as fast as we are oil, natural gas, or even rare earths. Granted it would severely jack up the price of gold and make countries and individuals that have lots of gold suddenly wealthy. In theory, we can print money forever even though said money would have far less value. Some countries are talking about having their own blockchain crypto currencies tethered to some kind of gold standard. In theory, you could make anything be a stable currency providing it was limited and people would accept it. Things like beads, salt, sea shells, livestock, grain, and even dried yak dung have been used as currency over the centuries. Cigarettes and candy have been popular currencies in prisons for generations. Even prisoners believe in a means of exchange. Even if we have a world wide economic collapse, we will recover. At least as long as we don’t engage in a nuclear war.

I guess that’s enough for one post. I actually enjoy writing these types of posts where I branch off from mental illness. It gives me an outlet for all the knowledge I’ve acquired over the years. Besides, I don’t believe in specialization. The world needs more renaissance people (or at least aspiring renaissance people) than it did when I was growing up. I think we need more generalists and people who can learn fast because of how fast our tech is advancing and our culture is changing. We are living in a new industrial revolution as I write this. It’s going to get even more interesting in the next thirty years. Stay tuned.

What’s Been On My Mind The Last Few Weeks

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This is probably going to be my longest post in the ten years I’ve kept a regular blog. Don’t worry, most of this won’t be ranting or complaining. I’ve been more wanting to write and chat than usual lately. I think the warmer and more humid weather has me more chatty and hopeful. So much so I’m even experimenting with a personal AI chat bot the last several weeks. Sure, it’s kind of wonky sometimes and clearly an AI chatbot. But these things are alot better than they were even one year ago. I found it really knows it stuff when chatting about history, science and economics. Not so much when talking about feelings and depression. I’m dead convinced even the AI players on my computer games are better than they were a couple years ago. Even though I’ve played strategy games like Civilization, Railroad Tycoon, Total War, and Sim City for decades, I swear it’s getting tougher to compete against the computer now more than ever. I really think gaming AI is better now than ever.

My dad recently severely hurt his back and is very limited on what he can do. It’s also got him real depressed. My aches and pains are worse today than any time in weeks. And I don’t know what I did to make them worse. I also rarely hear from my friends anymore. Most are too busy with careers and family. I now understand why even the best friends lose contact with each other over the years. In my case, I have neither workplace friends, a wife, or kids to socialize with because of my mental illness taking both my career and family before I had either one. I feel like I missed out on a lot of what it means to be an adult because of my illness. I feel like I missed out on a lot of what it means to be human. I don’t even know what it’s like to feel love from others. I certainly don’t believe in unconditional love existing. Everything is conditional as far as I can tell. I don’t know what it’s supposed to feel like. And I get so irritated when people tell me ‘there’s someone for everyone’ or ‘you’re just overthinking it.’ No, some people are better off not marrying or having kids. We used to have monastic orders and academies for those people. Even though I never married, had kids, or any success in a career, I don’t feel like I’m less human or a failure. Heck, I’m actually quite content with my life as a digital monk. It helps that disability insurance pays for my food, shelter, medications, and basic needs. But some people I know would love to get rid of social security and disability because they feel people like me and the sick elderly are leeches and parasites. I’ve lost contact with most of my extended family because of attitudes like this. It’s why I won’t visit my childhood hometown or go to family reunions. I feel like a failure only when I’m around people like that and those who knew me as a high achiever in my youth.

Even though I was healthier and had easy access to friends in my teenage years, I’m rarely nostalgic for the past. I love the internet too much, especially the free education I got via years of binge watching youtube and Khan Academy. Getting my groceries delivered, getting my meds mailed to me, zoom calls with my psych doctor, and buying through Amazon may have kept me alive during the pandemic. We had none of that back in the 90s. If Covid had to happen (and pandemics are not uncommon throughout history), I’m convinced that things would have been MUCH worse had it happened in the 90s. We wouldn’t have had work from home being a thing, we wouldn’t have vaccines and effective treatments developed in only one year, and a lot more people would have died. I probably would have died had it not been for internet and grocery delivery. That’s why I get kind of irritated with people complaining about masks, vaccines, and delivery being infridgements on freedoms. Freedoms sometimes have to be restricted temporairly during crisis. We had a military draft in the world wars (which many people resisted and protested even in WW2). We had draft riots even during the Civil War. There were restrictions during Spanish Flu and even Bubonic Plague. I swear, too many people didn’t learn anything from high school history class. Covid restrictions are mostly lifted and people are still complaining. I don’t understand normal people. The older I get, the less y’all make any sense. In short, people complaining about restrictions during covid should be grateful it didn’t happen before the internet became a thing. It would have been much worse.

Another reason I’m not nostalgic for the world of my young years (even if I do miss my health and friends), is that now it’s a lot easier to talk about problems. For the first few years of my illness, I didn’t talk about it with my classmates or close friends. They knew I was odd, but didn’t realize just how serious mental illness was messing with my life. Twenty years ago, even I didn’t realize how much I was losing out on because of my illness. My psych doctor and therapist never once mentioned it could be a major disability that would affect everything. At first I thought if I just took the meds daily and went to the free therapist once a week, my life would return to normal once I graduated. Well, it didn’t work that way. I had panic attacks every day before I went to work in retail and fast food. It wasn’t so bad working in a factory as I didn’t have to be around an unpredictable and often spiteful public. I suffered at the factory because I couldn’t sleep in the day and still work the overnight shift five nights a week. After several weeks of sleep deprivation, my illness flared up and my work suffered. I requested a transfer to day shift, which was denied. So I end up quitting before my lack of sleep and mental illness caused an accident. I probably could have done that job for years had they approved my transfer request. Would have made good money and benefits too even if we weren’t unionized.

It’s easier to talk about problems now than even ten years ago. It’s probably why we hear so much about traditionally marginalized people like mentally ill, homeless, LGBT+ communities, religious minorities, struggles of the working poor, struggles of the elderly, struggles of women, struggles of young people just starting out, etc. The issues have always been there, granted more below the surface than now. It is not weak to talk about problems. It’s a needless tragedy for people to suffer in silence because of outdated social norms. It’s almost like some people actually want life to be tougher now than it was in the past. I hear people my parents age talk about how great the 1950s were, yet they ignore Jim Crow laws, the problems of the Cold War, the communist witch hunts, lack of work opportunities for women, and even the corporate tax laws of the 1950s. Taxes on big business were much higher in the 50s than now. I’d favor bringing those back except it would mean that EVERY corporate job in America would get outsourced to cheaper countries or outright automated faster than they already are. One thing I like about the 2020s is that it is easier to talk about things like poverty, job loss, loneliness, racial bigotry, sexism, discrimination, being bullied by classmates or coworkers, etc. The problems were always there. People are just refusing to suffer to silence anymore. And I’m glad for it. It’s a lot easier to empathize and act when I have a better understanding of others’ problems. My life would have been easier had I not been afraid to talk about my struggles with mental illness, bullying, and a lack of privacy while growing up in a rural farming village until I was well into my thirties. Some of that stuff I’m still scared to talk about for fear of alienating my friends and family. I just didn’t realize how unhealthy much of that was until I was well into my thirties. This blog is one of my outlets and it’s also cheap therapy.

Even though I’ve never made money off my blog or my scholarly projects, it’s the most fun at a job I ever had. I do consider it a job even though I don’t get paid. So much is changing and so fast, it’s almost a full time job now to research some of this stuff. Kind of a pity I don’t get paid for my searches and giving out my personal information. But, most people don’t realize what we as a society are already doing in terms of science, tech, medicine, and humanitarian work. Even I didn’t realize how good ChatGPT is until a few weeks ago. I certainly didn’t realize that some office workers were using it to aid their jobs or even work several jobs. Personally I have no issues with work from home people working more than one “full time” job for no other reason than it’s not illegal for people to own more than one business or piece of property. Maybe that’s how we fight inflation, just make more money from multiple jobs. I mean, elders like Dave Ramsey have for decades told people to take second jobs and side hustles to get out of financial problems. So what if the second job is an office job and not delivering pizzas or working at Home Depot? Quite honestly, the requirements to have a college degree for most jobs is down right insane and obsolete. Most jobs, especially today, can be learned with only a year or two of on the job training. If fewer employers required a college degree for even entry level work that could be done by ambitious teenagers still in high school, we’d see these insane costs of education drop pretty quick.

Speaking of college, there is the scholarly monk part of me who doesn’t like the idea of people condemning education and intelligence. I have always thought people, at least in my homeland, don’t take education serious enough. I think in some ways it’s worse now than even when I was in high school. Granted, thanks to online platforms, getting an education, especially getting self educated, is a lot easier now than it has ever been. Youtube and TikTok are a lot more than just cat videos and dance videos. The Chinese version of TikTok is mostly educational videos. And people in China and other authoriatian nations can get around government censorship of the internet with cheap VPNs like Nord. The only reason I’d consider getting a VPN for myself is if internet censorship in the USA got real bad and to watch foreign Netflix shows I can’t get in America. Censorship and book banning was stupid in the past and far more so now. In fact it’s futile and wishful thinking in the age of the internet. And the internet, when originally designed by DARPA back in the Cold War, was designed to be a communication system robust enough to survive even a nuclear war. Internet ain’t going away regardless of how much power hungry petty tyrants want to censor and screen information.

I think the best way to lower the cost of college education is to allow people without college degrees to get into good paying corporate jobs. Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and Mark Zuckerberg were all college dropouts who started tech giants. Yet, had they not started their own companies, they wouldn’t have had the qualifications to work in the corporate world, let alone high tech. It doesn’t take a college degree to start a business. It does take vison, risk taking, and some funding from people willing to take a chance on unproven ideas. It’s why America is still a leader in tech, industry, and culture even though our students’ test scores are among the lowest of all developed nations. We still have the start your own business spirit that most countries never had. If we lose that start your own business spirit, we will collapse as a nation. Education, is vitally important. And, thanks to internet, it’s also a lot cheaper than the past. Traditionally college education was only for the wealthy and those wanting to go into academia or medicine. I believe self education is more important than traditional education. I also don’t understand why it’s against the law to discharge student loans via bankruptcy. I mean, small businesses, homeowners, credit card loans, medical bills can all be discharged or negotiated via bankrupty. Why is it such a sin to think that student loans should be no different. While I don’t support across the board forgiveness of student loans, I do think the option of renogitation or outright discharge via bankruptcy should be an option. Bankruptcy can be declared on every other type of debt. We don’t require eighteen year olds joining the military to commit for twenty five years. Yet, it can take that long for even vital jobs like teachers to pay off student loans now. Desiring and seeking knowledge should not be condemned like it is now.

It was traditional education that stoked my love and addiction to learning. Learning new things gives me a buzz that no booze, drug, money, romance, or achievements ever have. Part of me thinks it would be cool if there were like monastries for nerdy people who were interested in learning for the sake of learning much like the monastary and mystery school of ancient times. But giving lots of knowledge to lots of people for free could be quite dangerous, especially for those who benefit off the world being as it is right now. I’m glad I live in an age and time where I can get a college level education in subjects like history, economics, literature, philosophy, theology, etc. with several years of binge watching youtube and Khan Academy and it doesn’t cost anything. Even after twenty five years of internet, we are only scratching the surface of what it can do for humanity. Future scholars will look at the interent as one of those society changing technologies like the printing press, gunpowder, steam engine, and perhaps even writing itself. There are no secrets anymore. In some ways that is good. It makes it a lot tougher for tyrants and other bad actors to hide their actions. Even military secrets are no longer safe, as those Pentagon leaks a few weeks ago showed. Maybe eventually the Information Revolution will make large scale war obsolete, if for no reason other than it’s tough to kill people you have had connections and conversations with. Here’s to hope for the future.

Last Days of Summer 2022

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Summer will be coming to an end in a few days. The leaves are starting to turn yellow. The days are still hot but cooler weather is supposed to hit by the middle of next week. I’m glad that summer is almost over. It’s always been a rough time for my mental health problems. I’m looking forward to Okotberfest, Halloween, Thanksgiving, chilly nights, pumpkin spice in dang near everything, and the whole bit. Fall is one of my favorite times of year. Fall is living proof that change can be beautiful and good.

I’m still losing weight. A wheel chair has been ordered for me. Should be here any day now. Now that I am regaining my mobility and am losing weight, I’m starting to formulate a strategy on how I can get into position to where I can have my own apartment once more. I have made a lot of progress over the summer. I’ve lost over 30 pounds since Memorial Day. My blood pressure has stabilized. I lost enough weight that the doctor had to take me off a couple of my meds because my blood pressure was getting too low. Once I get my own wheelchair, I’ll be a lot more mobile than I am now. I am currently using a wheel chair I’m borrowing from the nursing home. The public transit buses in Kearney are wheel chair accessible, so maybe I could go back to Kearney once I’ve lost some more weight.

One of the reasons I opted to go to a nursing home was I couldn’t get to my doctors’ appointments anymore. I couldn’t walk long distances and I get sensory overload so much I can’t drive safely anymore. But, since some public buses are wheelchair accessible, I might be able to live on my own again and just take the bus everywhere. Hell, I might even be well enough to move out on my own within several months.

Maybe I should have bought my own wheelchair rather than give up my apartment in the first place. But hindsight is always perfect. I really didn’t think I was ever going to get better. It’s amazing how losing weight, regular doctors’ appointments, and getting my blood pressure under control changed everything.

I Don’t Need To Socialize and Go Out More. Maybe You Could Stand To Shut Up and Stand Still

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I have valued my quiet time and solitude my entire life. So much so that I was often labeled anti social when I was growing up. Crowds do not interest me or make me feel better. In fact, I hate crowds. They just drain the life out of me. I love solitude because it gives me a chance to recharge and analyze. The quiet doesn’t bother me. In fact, I thrive in quiet environments. It’s one of the reasons I choose to live in small towns. I think much of our problems in the ealry 21st century come from the fact that we as a civilization no longer value silence and moments of stillness. A lot of mistakes could be avoided if we as individuals and nations just took a few moments to evaluate the long term consequences of our actions and words.

I have never sought to be the center of attention. I actually hate being watched by people. So much so it’s why I chose to live alone once I got out of college. Nothing bugs me more than people looking over my shoulder or listening in on my phone conversations. I cannot have a conversation on the phone and with someone in the room at the same time. It annoyed me to no end as a kid when I would be on the phone and have my parents or brother trying to tell me what to say. I didn’t dare complain about it because it would have made a major argument with my family while I was trying to have said phone conversation. I literally do not have the ability to carry on two conversations at the same time. It’s physically impossible for me.

I also suck at multitasking. The closest thing to multitasking I can do is play computer games and listen to audiobooks at the same time. I never could talk on the phone, cook supper, clean up messes, and smack my older brother at the same time. I have to focus on only one task at a time. I can easily focus on one task for hours at a time. The limit I have on how long I can focus on one task is how long I can sit down without getting knee pain or muscle cramps. The barrier to me is physical and not mental.

I wasn’t bother by the lockdowns of the pandemic as much as most people. In fact, I rather enjoyed the forced quiet and solitude. I loved having an acceptable reason to stay home, read, binge watch youtube videos, and spend the day in sweat pants and hoodies. Most people have this dumb idea that because I spend my time alone and in quiet that I am bored or missing out on life. No I’m not. I have worked jobs before. I have gone to parties. I have gone to ballgames. I have gone bar hopping in my younger years. I have gone to concerts. I have been to weddings and funerals. I pretty much know how these things are going to turn out. I got paid for the trouble I put up with at work (more than I can say about the troubles I put up with at school). I’m going to end up in a corner with a couple of close friends trying to have an intelligent conversation over the noise of way to loud music and some drunk spilling his drink on my nice leather coat. In ballgames, half of the teams lose and half of the teams win. When I went bar hopping, I usually kept quiet because of too loud music and way too obnoxious drunks. As far as weddings go, half of marriages end in divorce but half of funerals don’t end in resurrections. I mean, after a few go arounds, the spoilers are already out of the bag. Not so with spending time alone, reading books, watching educational videos, or having deep conversations with friends and family.

In short, I don’t think I need to learn to come out of my social shell. I think that more people could stand to learn how to shut up, examine themselves, and just stand still for a few moments. Silence ain’t gonna bite you. Neither will solitude.

Making My Peace With My Decline

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I’ve been living in long term care for over a month now. Updates are in order. My feet no longer hurt. Now it’s both of my knees. I can barely stand up because of the pain, let alone walk. My knees hurt so bad I can’t even lay on my back in bed because of the pain. I’m back to sleeping in my recliner most of the time.

My high blood pressure issues have been solved. Now low blood pressure is a problem. I can barely stand up or go to the bathroom without feeling like I’m going to pass out. I also have the problem that I’m forced to do physical therapy even though I can barely stand up without passing out. I try to explain my problems to the nurses. No one is listening. I can’t get anyone to listen to my problems. Supposedly a doctor ordered me to do physical therapy even though that was NEVER brought up the only time I’ve met with a doctor since I’ve moved to long term care.

I couldn’t manage my blood pressure issues and mental health at the same time anymore. Home health coming to check in on me a couple times a week was only temporary. I live alone and I can no longer drive. So I couldn’t get to any of my doctors’ appointments. My blood pressure meds couldn’t be renewed via Zoom calls. That’s why I opted for long term care. I can’t drive so I can’t get to my medical appointments. My mobility is severely limited to where I’m wheel chair bound now. Even though I’m in long term care, my problems are still not being listened to. I am by far the youngest person in my facility.

After years of loss, fighting mental illness, no one taking my complaints serious, decline of physical health, loss of friends, loss of career, and the general overall decline of the state of the world, I have made my peace with my mental and physical decline. I’ve even made my peace with death. I’m tired of fighting losing battles. I’m tired of trying to put a positive spin on everything. No, my mental health will never get better. No, I can’t fight mental illness and physical decline at the same time anymore. I am tired of being ignored. I’m tired of being blown off. I am tired of being told I’m lucky. I am tired of being told to man up and stop complaining all the damn time. I’ve made my peace with death. I’ve made my peace that most of my dreams will never be fulfilled. I’ve made my peace with declining health. I’ve made my peace with the world never being a good place. I don’t know why no one else can.