Tag Archives: money

Tyrants Fear Peasants Getting Knowledge and Making Money

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Been having a rough go the last several days. I think most of my friends have been too. I just know something is bugging my friends, especially my bestie out in Denver. I rarely hear from some of my friends anymore. I guess I came from one of those very rare families where cutting people off and going completely silent just wasn’t a thing. I may have to tell my family numerous times or even yell at them occasionally, but we have never let the lines of communication completely die. It wasn’t until recently that I figure out that the vast majority of families aren’t like that.

I’m in my 40s and actually have a better relationship than ever with my family. I still find it unnerving that I can do things and say things to my family as a 42 year old man that would have gotten me in severe trouble as a teenager. I grew up in one of those families in 1980s rural America where things like yelling at your kids for yelling at the parents first, regular physical discipline, which I have zero problem with until it’s used excessively or as a first resort, parents always siding with the teachers, even when it was obvious that I was in the right, and ignoring things like bullying. I think it’s one of the reasons I became self sufficient as much as possible. Even on disability and being in a wheelchair (at least for long distances) I try to be as self reliant as possible. It’s just not worth the hassle to get other people involved.

I love using computers and typing even though my typing speed never exceeding 35 words per minute. I also love economics. Yet I never took computers and economics in high school because of the only teacher who taught such things in my dinky rural school just had it out for me and a few other students. She used to call me ‘stupid’ in front of the whole class. I took her for only one class in high school, typing. Got a C+ in that class first quarter. It was the only class my freshman year I got below a B+ in. Yet, it was enough to keep me off the honor roll. But, had I never gone to college I would have never discovered my love for computers or typing. I actually far prefer typing to writing. I find it encouraging that grade schools in my country are now teaching computer and typing skills to kids. I had an inkling that I liked computers as I started taking computer classes when I was in fourth grade. We had a good computer class teacher. But that one high school teacher that I had several run ins with almost killed my interest in things that I found out I have an ability for in college.

I cringe every time I hear someone say ‘college is worthless.’ In reality, being able to learn and relearn new skills even into old age is now more important than ever. It’s only going to get even more important in the future. The era of being able to specialize is dying, as many white-collar workers are figuring out with automation and AI. And it’s not just rich countries like USA, EU, and Japan that are automating. China is starting to automate much of it’s workforce. Probably why 1 in 5 Chinese recent college graduates are unemployed. Youth unemployment is no longer an American issue. It’s actually worse in China and EU. Multi generational homes are becoming more normal now. In the Renaissance, most rich families had as many as four generations living in the same house or on the same estate. The kids usually inherited the property and houses after mom and dad died. These estates and fortunes stayed in the family, and even grew larger, over the course of the centuries. The idea of children leaving home without support at age 18 and then getting sent to nursing homes as elders is quite recent. In fact, the age of adulthood even in the US was 21, not 18 for most of our history. The voting age used to be 21 until the 1960s. Even I wouldn’t have been able to vote for at least the first 50 years of my nation’s existence as I’m not a property owner. With as much as some politicians are trying to make voting harder to “counter voter fraud”, I imagine that someday some politician will propose changing the voting laws to allow only property owners and income tax payers the right to vote. As if the peasants, like me, who have to rent don’t have a stake in this country succeeding. I’ve read bloggers proposing this exact same thing as far back as 2013. I swear that we now have a society that actively wants to make things tougher than they used to be. Any wonder why there’s more hatred between the generations than there has been in recent history.

And it’s not just the different generations that hate each other. Workers and bosses hate each other too. It seems like that most people I know just can’t wrap their minds around the fact that no one can make it on minimum wage anymore. And any time workers try to unionize anymore, they are dealt with by firings, outsourcing, and automation. I wonder how long it will be before striking workers are getting shot and killed, like at the Homestead Steel Mill strike in the late 1800s. And that is just one example of strikers getting killed. Small business owners often complain “no one wants to work anymore” when in actuality people don’t want to work for unlivable wages dealing with unreasonable customers and stupid work policies that actually destroy productivity and morale. These kids you complain about “not wanting to work anymore”, many of them are working in gig jobs, starting their own side hustles, starting their own small businesses, and even becoming “digital nomads” by being able to work from anywhere in the world that has wireless internet service (i.e. everywhere on Earth anymore). I myself would have become a digital nomad if not for my mental illness. So I did the next best thing, I became a digital monk. Even one of my college friends recently suggested I would have made it as a monk. But, the church I grew up in didn’t have monasteries. I mean, a life of study, prayer, contemplation, isolation, and making money from selling anything from baked goods to theology books sounds like it would been good for me. Certainly better than trying to survive on minimum wage with retail jobs while waiting for disability to come through.

Many employers are downright ungrateful of the workers. And the customers are even worse. One of my best friends from college was laid off from an IT job in a major urban center even though he had been there for almost ten years, had two teenage children, and a wife with terminal cancer. And he was classified as an ‘essential worker’ during the pandemic. Caught covid at least three times. Still got laid off. I’ve already talked about my work experience in previous entries. What I got was mild compared to most people. And people, mostly under the age of 45, are using social media to talk about such problems. Since we are sharing our stories, and finding out that we aren’t alone, is probably why those in power want to shut down and regulate social media sites like reddit and tiktok. It has nothing to do with foreign nations spying on citizens. Every nation spies on their own citizens and everyone else. Besides, all of our online information has been public knowledge for many years. How do you think Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube remain free and their companies remain massively profitable. Pity they don’t share a pittance of that profit and pay us for said information. Even mining and oil companies in the early 1900s had the decency to pay land owners for the use of their land and mineral rights. We are truly living in Gilded Age, version 2.0.

I don’t see things getting better for workers and renters anytime soon unless we can elect some politicians who will actually get legislation passed to reel in the worst abuses of big business and landlords. We used to have such politicians even in the early 1900s like Theodore Roosevelt and William Jennings Bryan. We don’t even bother to enforce anti trust laws, which have been on the books since the 1890s). That’s precisely why we have ‘Too Big To Fail.’ Greed is every bit as bad now as it was back then. We are essentially living Upton Sinclair’s ‘The Jungle’ except we have computers and gas powered automobiles. I swear some people will fight against progress no matter what. The same people who complain about ‘no one wants to work’ were the exact same people who fought against labor laws. People in the early 1900s were worried about big businesses cannibalizing the world and killing democracy and capitalism. Changes in attitudes by a younger cohort of politicians and younger industrialists like Henry Ford and Milton Hershey might have saved capitalism from it’s own abuses, and thus saved democracy.

Unfortunately, even in the early 1900s positive changes didn’t start happening until elder cohorts of politicians and business managers started retiring and or dying off in large numbers. I see the same problems in the early 2020s. I say this in fear of sounding like a conspiracy theorist, but it looks like just enough people in places of power and prestige want the current state of things. It like some people actually want civilization to fail. It’s like those in power don’t want the masses to learn for themselves. I think would be tyrants fear the thought of a few billion people all over the world figuring out how things can be a lot better than they are. People aren’t angry because they don’t have electricity and running water. This ain’t 1900 no matter how bad some want it to be.

People are starting to realize how far below our potential we are living. It’s why younger workers want more work life balance. They’ve seen their parents and elders work for decades at the same place, often to be laid off and outsourced due to management’s short sighted greed. They’ve also seen their parents pensions getting cut and their parents 401(k)s become near worthless. One of my best friend’s fathers worked as a travelling repair man for a tech company his entire career. He lost a significant chunk of his retirement when his company went bankrupt. Now he’s working as a museum tour guide to supplement his social security. These managers are intentionally killing the gooses who lay golden eggs. The younger workers know this. And they are very angry, especially since they found they could be just as productive working from home, get their work tasks completed in only two or three hours (rather than the minimum eight in an office), have time for their children, and have time to cook healthy, better tasting, meals. Heck, even I lost over 180 pounds in the last three years on a disability pension while not being able to exercise much due to heart failure. I did far better on my own and in long term care during the pandemic than I ever did with nutritionists and Weight Watchers. Now some companies are trying to get rid of the work from home option entirely. I’m glad the workers are fighting back. I think the managers know work from home is productive, they just don’t want to give up their power. Some of these companies should just remodel their office buildings into cheap apartments. The futurist Buckminster Fuller (pioneer of the geodesic dome and prefabricated housing among numerous other innovations) predicted work from home, downtown offices going vacant, and said offices being refurbished as low income apartments for displaced workers as far back as at least 50 years ago.

I’ve read some news articles about work from home people are sometimes able to work more than one full time job just from their home laptops and collect multiple full time paychecks. I see zero problems with this because we don’t stop people from owning more than one rental property or business. It’s the same principle except it’s the working class getting in on some of the action. Online investing platforms like Robinhood and Stash allow poor and working-class people to invest on their own. Pity these weren’t available ten years earlier. I’ve seen plenty of articles about students being able to pay of hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans by investing their stimulus checks or start small businesses off their earnings. Most of my friends invested their stimulus checks. I invested most of mine too, still have most of it in the market, and had over a ten percent year on year return, which is better than the whole market did. Half of hedge fund managers and financial planners can’t beat the market most years.

Some of my friends did better than even I did. Some more than doubled their money but still left it in the market. Before you dismiss that as the exception and not the norm, the Fortune 500s started out of garages are not the norm either. Besides, many successful business men like Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Donald Trump, etc. got started by borrowing some money from their own families. Elon Musk came from a wealthy family in South Africa. Mark Zuckerberg was a college dropout, but even he dropped out of Harvard, not University of Alabama. The original modern business magnate, John Rockefeller, borrowed $1000 dollars in 1860s money from his own father to buy his first oil refinery. Even my dad had to borrow some money from his father in law to start his dental office in rural Nebraska because the banks wouldn’t lend him money. And he stayed in the same practice for 30 years, sold out to a young dentist, and that dentist is still practicing in the same office. The banks were too short sighted to see that our rural county needed another dentist. Sometimes the people with the most money aren’t the smart money. Even Warren Buffet missed out on the computer and internet revolutions. And his company is making the exact same mistake with AI. I’d invest even more in the market but social security won’t allow anyone on disability to have more than $4000 in savings at any time. Otherwise I’d get kicked out of the program and lose my medicaid. In short, I stay poor so I can keep my necessary treatments. That provision not only chaps my hide, it’s making me less prosperous and self-reliant. God forbid poor people be able to make a little more money and be a little self reliant. Used to be the US government encouraged self reliance and even enabled it through things like the Homestead Act and GI Bill. Those days are long gone.

Investing isn’t that risky, especially if one were to buy into dividend paying stable mutual funds like the Dow Jones or S&P 500 and just put in a little every time you get paid. ‘Pay yourself first’ is the advice I got from every business instructor I ever had in college. It’s a crime against humanity that money isn’t taught in most grade schools and high schools. It’s why guys like Robert Kiyosaki and Dave Ramsey are worth millions, they are merely filling in the knowledge gaps that our schools won’t. They recognized that the public at large didn’t know much about money. Their advice has freed millions of people from debts, allowed others to get out of dead end jobs and start their own businesses, and taught the poor and middle class how to make money work in their favor instead of against them. I applaud such people. I wasn’t required even a year of personal finance in high school. I hope that’s changing. Lack of knowledge about how money works can be just as destructive as unrestricted greed. Even poverty stricken people on disability are learning these lessons. I am far from the only person on disability who has had some financial education. Amazing what one can learn from a few books, youtube channels, and a few years. It’s why tyrants fear peasants with knowledge. Heck, tyrants might fear peasants with knowledge as much as they do peasants with guns.

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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.

End of Holidays and Sticker Shock

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Another holiday season has come and gone. And we are now in full winter. Supposed to get some snow in my town tomorrow night. Makes me glad I have enough supplies I don’t have to go out.

This was kind of a let down holiday season. I spent Christmas alone as I told my parents I didn’t think it was safe for them to travel several hundred miles when the pandemic was picking back up. The case numbers have skyrocketed in my country. So I stay close to home most days. I haven’t seen my family since Thanksgiving. I can hardly wait for this pandemic to burn out.

I drop in on a couple neighbors at least once a day. Found I have a new neighbor a couple doors from me. She seems nice. Seems like we’re getting more and more younger people in here all the time. I was the youngest when I moved in 15 years ago. There are plenty of residents older than me but only a handful who have been here longer than I.

Found out my internet bill went up this month. Cancelled my cable several months ago because of price increases. Cancelled Netflix too. I watch mostly youtube and Amazon Prime. I get most of my news reading free online journals and newspapers. I definately suffered some sticker shock the last time I bought groceries. I’m looking for ways to cut expenses. I can’t really increase my income without social security disability cutting back on benefits. I definately do not want to lose Medicaid right now. I’m sure my three week stay in the hospital would have cost a fortune if not for Medicaid.

I keep myself occupied by reading books, watching educational videos on youtube, and reading online journals. Currently working on a Ray Dalio book. I’m not sure what my next project will be.

Knowing Thyself

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One of my teenage nephews got his first job shortly after school ended for the summer. It made me think back on the types of work I had over the years. It also made me think back on the career advice my parents, teachers, etc. gave me when I was growing up.

I did lots of chores for my parents from as far back as I can remember. I was mowing lawns for my parents from about age 8 and helping mom cook supper from age 6. My grandma used to let me help her in her vegetable garden. My grandpa and dad used to take me and my brother with them whenever they went out to cut firewood on a local rancher’s property. They didn’t let us run the chain saws, but they did let us stack and store the cut wood even before we started school. When I was 8, my dad gave me an old hacksaw so I could practice cutting on small pieces and limbs. When I was in junior high, I helped out at my uncle’s farm every summer. I usually had to store and stack hay bails, help take care of pigs, clean chicken houses, and things like that. And I loved it. I loved it all. I’m glad my family thought it was good to get their kids involved in chores and family business when we were still in grade school. I even helped my dad organize files and clean in his dental office.

I got my first “real job” as a fast food cook. Got told off by the owner my first day out of orientation. He might not have known it was my first day. I’ll never know. Lost the job a month later when I couldn’t work fast enough to be a cook in fast food. For the rest of the summer I worked on a construction crew at a livestock sale barn. We were in charge of rebuilding pens and fences to keep cattle and pigs in while they were being sold. It was hot and dirty work. But it didn’t bother me as much as working fast food.

Over the next several years, I worked in retail. I hated dealing with customers. Caused me too much stress. I usually did better when I was unloading delivery trucks, organizing the store room, stocking shelves, and cleaning.

There is an underlying theme in all of this: I did much better at jobs that didn’t involve interacting with the public and weren’t really fast paced. As bad as I struggled in retail and restaurant, I would have struggled even worse in sales and in person teaching. Of course, the mental illness made this even worse.

I think in addition to my mental illness, the big reason I struggled at work was I often took jobs that weren’t aligned with my personality and skills. As much as working in crowds and with people I don’t know bothered me, I’m sure more people are bothered by work when they would have to spend entire days alone or with the same people. Most people I know don’t understand how I spend days on end alone and not break. It’s just the way I’m wired and my skill set.

As it is I’m on disability for my mental illness. But because I don’t work a regular paying job doesn’t mean I don’t keep occupied. I read alot. I have this blog, while it may never have a large audience, has several hundred postings since 2013. And I spend my time reading up on lots of science and tech advances that most people simply don’t have the time or energy to research on their own after dealing with work and family duties.

Sure my work probably won’t make me rich, but I have what I need. I may be just below poverty line (at least by American standards) yet I don’t feel deprived. But I do have simple tastes. A good time for me was going to the bar with my then girlfriend and playing darts and singing karaoke. Or having a plate of chicken wings with a few college buddies while playing board games. Or going to watch a couple friends play baseball for my college. Or going to listen to a couple local bands perform at on campus concerts on Friday nights. I may not have enjoyed going to high school sporting events as much as some people in my hometown, but I certainly enjoyed playing football and competing in speech meets.

I guess the only work or life advice I could give my teenage nephews or any teenagers is simply “Know Thyself.” Find out what your strengths and weaknesses are. Try a variety of jobs and activities, especially when your still young, have lots of energy, and still living with your parents. If you don’t like being around people or don’t handle rejection well (like myself), you’re not going to do well in sales or as a business owner. Don’t try to be what your family wants or do something just because it pays a lot of money. Do something you have the skills for. Also be ready if you have to change jobs. Science and tech are destroying and creating jobs far faster than they were even twenty years ago. Know Thyself and keep leveling up.

Thought on Marriage, Social Relationships, and Life’s Callings

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I love being 40 years old. I enjoy that I no longer feel pressure to get married or have kids. I never could stand going to family gatherings and my old high school for home football games and have people asking me when I was going to start a family. People think I’m a liar for saying this, but I decided I wasn’t getting married when I was 18 and a senior in high school. For one, I saw that most married people I knew argued and fought all the time and about the pettiest crap. I still remember when I was 16 and my parents started arguing at the dinner table and I had just had it. I had a rough day at school already and I had a few hours worth of homework ahead of me that night already. I got up to just walk away, and they both shouted at me to sit down. Then they just went back to their argument like I wasn’t there. Sometimes when they argued, I’d yell at both of them just because I had enough. And my family was mild compared to most of my friends and extended family. Two of my high school friends and three sets of my cousins parents’ went through divorces in my youth. Seeing that scared me real bad. And I always heard this crap about how “you just gotta pick the right girl” or “love is all you need” or “love is forever” or “there is someone for everyone.” But I knew even in my teens I hated drama and fighting. I’d often hear that fighting makes relationships stronger and then I’d get punished for hitting my older brother or the neighbor kids. I always got mixed messages like that. I still do, though more through social media than my immediate family and friends. I love that I am no longer pressured to get married or have kids. It’s a pity almost no one respected my desire to stay unmarried twenty years ago.

I love that I can cut toxic people out of my life and not feel guilty at all about it. I may have fewer friends at age 40 than I did at age 22, but all of the friends I have are amazing. My best friend from college and I have never had a shouting match. Sure we’ve been irritated with each other many times but have never shouted at each other or ghosted each other. I’ve cut lots of people out of my life after we changed as people and after I figured out we weren’t good for each other. I’ve had to cut people out of my life that had been friends for years because we no longer shared the same values. I’ve even cut out family members. I find few things as irritating as going to family gatherings and hearing that one older relative rant on and on about the “damn kids” or that second cousin go on about politics or how much of an idiot his boss is. I don’t put up with toxic and rude people anymore. I would rather spend the rest of my life alone and in my apartment than socialize with toxic people. Anymore, most people I know are toxic. I refuse to put up with it. I don’t have to at this point in my life. And I don’t feel a shred of guilt for not socializing with people like that.

I love that I can do pretty much what I want for money, at least as long as I’m not breaking any laws. When I was a kid I was constantly asked what I wanted to do for a living. Originally I wanted to go into science research. I wasn’t really concerned with making lots of money. I enjoy what money can do as much as anyone, but it isn’t the primary focus of my existence. Another truth about me that most people think is a lie is that I decided I wanted to go to college when I was eight years old. The idea of being around well read people and getting to study things I wanted to sounded like winning the lottery in my eight year old mind. I always loved learning and reading. I didn’t have to be forced to read. Hell, I had to be forced to socialize with classmates. Mom and Dad were scared I’d never develop social skills if I just read books and made up stories in my back yard all day every day. Yet I still had a good social life in college, far better than what I had in grade school and high school. I’ve been accused of being anti social my entire life, but especially when I was a kid. The thing is I can talk with others all night about things like history, philosophy, economics, literature, science, and tech. But I can’t stand to talk about things like politics, the weather, sports, gossip, and school rumors. These things don’t interest me. Never have. Yet I was condemned for being anti social for not enjoying things like ballgames, county fairs, watching cable news, discussing politics, or the weather. I’ve never been anti social, I just have different interests than most people I’ve ever known. I’m thankful that the internet allows me to connect with people who have similar interests. I have more in common with people from my tech and futurist groups that I will never meet than I do my neighbors and most of my family. The internet is a godsend for the black sheep and small town eccentrics. It’s a pity I don’t have a couple hard core scholars or retired engineers living near me. In short, I love being a free lance independent scholar. Sure I will never get rich off my knowledge. Yet as long as I can pay my rent on time, keep food in the pantry, clothes in my wardrobe, keep my daily medications current, and keep the internet paid up, I don’t need much else. While I’m not convinced on the idea of previous lives or reincarnation, maybe I would have been wise to become a monk had I lived in medieval England. Maybe I could have been cured of mental illness and gone on to write parts of the Encyopedia Galatica if I lived in Asimov’s Foundation universe thousands of years in the future. I’ll never know. Being a scholar is like crime: It doesn’t pay and can land you in prison if you’re not careful. But, damn, I don’t know any other way to live my life.

Learning, Education, Work and Mental Illness

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I was a sophomore in college when I was first diagnosed with schizophrenia.  That was in the fall of 2000.  I had been struggling with depression, paranoia, and anxiety for a few years before I had my diagnosis.  At first I thought it was mainly just teenage angst and moodiness.  I was still doing well in school and was able to at least appear like I had everything together.  I was still on the football and speech teams, I was still making honor roll most of the time, I still had some friends, etc.  But inwardly I was a wreck.  I was fearful of going to the school guidance counselor as I attended a really small high school of less than 90 students.  Back then, almost no one talked about mental illness or depression issues.  It had far more stigma back in the 1990s than it does now.  The internet was still in it’s infancy, there was no youtube, and blogging was still a few years away.  So I suffered in silence and in solitude.

I didn’t talk about my internal problems until they became unbearable because, first, I was certain no one would believe me.  Two, I still had images of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest in my head as to what mental problems meant.  Three, I was often told to “suck it up” and “others have it worse than you” even while in grade school.  Four, I feared appearing weak.  So I just suffered in silence for a few years.

As far as I know, no one knew about what was going on in my mind.  If people did, they never asked.  And I was too paranoid to tell anyone.  For the first years I had problems, I was still going to school full time and working on the weekends and during the summers.  I was so anxious and paranoid about going to work, I would vomit before my shifts several times a week.  Since I had spent my entire life listening to people complain about how much they hated their jobs (like they were proud of how much their jobs sucked), I was scared to tell anyone.  I just suffered in silence.

Finally in fall 2000, I was diagnosed with schizophrenia and major depression.  It was actually a kind of relief for me in that I wasn’t the only one having these problems.  I didn’t realize that mental illnesses were more common than diabetes until after I was diagnosed.  No one ever talked about mental illnesses in our family or my town.

For the next few years, I took full time classes and worked during the summers.  When I wasn’t in classes or spending time with friends, I was in the college library reading the philosophy and classical literature books that everyone talked about but very few actually read.  I’m glad I got to do that.  I doubt I could have done that had I not went to college first, at least not until the internet really got going.  But spending all those evenings in the campus library instilled a love for learning in me that still burns to this day all these years later.  Sure I wasn’t graded on what I studied and I didn’t get a diploma that stated I had learned such material.  But I knew that I did.  That’s all that mattered to me.

After I graduated from college and worked for a few years before qualifying for disability, I still read a lot of books.  I still do lots of reading, granted it’s mostly online articles, e-books, and audiobooks.  And, no, I don’t have any certificate that says I learned this material.  But it doesn’t matter.  The most fun I ever had at a “work” task is doing what I’m doing right now, writing blogs about navigating my life while working with a mental illness.  I don’t consider it “work” or “a job” because it doesn’t have the stress of any of my traditional jobs.  I love writing about my experiences and trying to be of assistance to others even though it doesn’t pay at all.  I don’t care that it doesn’t pay.  Sometimes, I’m glad it doesn’t.  For I fear if I ever were to accept a writing job or get pay for writing, I would be at the whims and mercy of those paying me.  Screw that.  I want to tell the truth, the good, bad, and mundane of living in the modern day with schizophrenia. I know what living with schizophrenia is like.  I’ve done it since at least my late teens.  I doubt any book editor or manager at a blog service has that kind of first hand experience.

I fear I couldn’t be completely truthful if I did accept pay.  I fear some boss would want me to “Hollywood up” my writings by exaggerating or being more dark just so I could get more readers.  I don’t want that.  I want this blog to be an educational tool and a means to communicate to others what it’s like to be mentally ill without it being threatening or divisive.  I do have good days with mental illness.  I have bad days with mental illness.  Some days getting out of bed and calling my parents is the best I can do.  Others, it’s writing a blog entry that resonates with some of my readers and getting a lot done.  Some days I just want to stay home and keep to only my thoughts.  Others I would road trip for several hours to visit friends out of state or go to baseball games, concerts, etc.  Some days I can talk for hours on end with almost anyone.  Some days I don’t want to even hear the sound of another human voice.  It’s ebb and flow, high tide and low tide.

Self Quarantine April 4 2020

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I was tired enough I went to bed around 9pm.  Woke in the middle of the night to take my medications.  Stayed up for a few hours playing computer games.  Went back to bed for a few hours until 9 am this morning.  Spent most of yesterday reading.  Picked up some meat from grocery delivery.  Should last me several days.  I usually make smaller orders than usual lately.  Sometimes the store is out of what I order.  So I make up for it by ordering smaller orders twice a week instead of the every two weeks I did before the outbreak.

When I wasn’t reading I was listening to music.  Put some of the music I listened to in high school and college on.  I no longer have music CDs.  I get most of my music via youtube or spotify these days.  And it doesn’t cost me a dime.  I don’t mind sitting through advertisements every few songs, at least as long as it’s free.

I haven’t spent much time on social media the last couple days.  Usually go on to promote my blog posts and drop in on a few friends.  I still talk to my parents most days.

I am still lifting weights almost every day.  I regained much of my lost strength from when I took a couple weeks off during my remodel.  I don’t sit as long as I used to.  I make a point to get up at least once an hour.  I get fewer aches and pains that way.

I’m sitting good on supplies still.  The thing I may be running out of before long is change for laundry.  I no longer have a car so going to the bank to buy quarters isn’t an option.  And I think most banks have the walk in closed.  It seems the things we run out of the fastest are never things we think about when preparing for emergencies.  I still have some cash but no way to get to the bank, at least not right now.

 

History of Humanity in Less than 100 words

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Take biology and psychology that developed over many thousands of years in the Stone Age, throw in Bronze Age spirituality and religions, mix in legal, finance, and government institutions developed in the Renaissance, toss in jobs, consumerism, work ethic, and education developed in the Industrial Revolution, add mass media and instant communications of the early 21st century, and possibly add machine automation that will make the work force far smaller and resources far easier to get as icing on the cake. Stand back and watch mayhem and chaos ensue or work toward bringing about the Star Trek future.

When It Rains It Pours

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I had been stable overall for weeks until a couple days ago.  Just a bunch of things went wrong all at once this week and now I’m having problems with irritability and anger again.  And the fact it’s been too frigid to get out and do much lately isn’t helping.  It started earlier this week when, for whatever reason, my pharmacy decided it wasn’t going to deliver one of my new medications.  This isn’t the first time this has happened.  I told my psych doctor specifically to tell my pharmacy to send this med to my house.  They send all my other meds to me via mail.  But, something must have gotten lost in translation.  I would rather not venture across town to get my meds because I’ve been having bouts when I’m afraid to leave my apartment complex some days, especially in cold and icy weather.  And of course, since I live in a smaller city, public transit is a sick and sad joke in this place.  I wouldn’t even own a stupid car if it wasn’t for garbage like this.  I really wouldn’t.  I mean, the thing just sits in a parking space looking dumb the 99 percent of the time I’m not driving it.  And it still has to have insurance and license plates whether I drive the thing two miles per day or two hundred.  I am so ready for the car sharing services to become available.  But even those will probably get needlessly delayed, just like every other advance that has benefited humanity.  Needless to say, I can’t stand Luddites.  If I didn’t want science and tech, I could move to an Amish village.  Even rural Africa has smart phones now.

Another thing that has chapped my hide raw this week is that my bank has been experiencing difficulties with their internet access banking.  I check my online balance every morning just to see where I stand.  Since the website had been sporadic the last few days I have essentially been flying in the dark all week.  To make matters even better, they often hold my checks for days at a time and cash them whenever they see fit.  The only thing I write a check for any more is my rent.  And I have timed my bank, and there have been months they have held my check for ten days before cashing the thing.  Now if I actually had money, this wouldn’t be a problem.  But, when checks bounce, banks tend to penalize their poorer customers by fining them (let’s call it what it really is) for the sin of not having money.  I sent off my rent check on Monday this week.  As of Friday night, it still hasn’t been cashed.  And this is irritating me.  It burns me that we have instant communication to anywhere on God’s green Earth via internet and cell phones that didn’t exist even thirty years ago, yet in some cases, we are still forced to rely on Industrial era tech that hasn’t changed a bit in over two hundred years.  This is 2019, the 21st century is near a fifth over.  Yet we still have institutions and people who still operate with an 1800 mentality.  It’s like I’m expecting them to renounce electricity and go back to divine right of monarchs before too terribly long.

Another thing I can’t stand is coin operated laundry machines?  Seriously?  In 2019, this nonsense is still a thing?  We had card operated laundry machines when I was in college where you could put folding money on in 1999.  I’m sure the tech has come a long way since then to where you could use even credit cards on washing machines and even vending machines if businesses would just enact them.  With inflation being what it is anymore, the metal in the coins cost more than the stupid coins are designated worth.  If I was suddenly president, the first thing I would do is issue an executive order demanding that all non gold and silver coins be no longer made.  Now gold and silver still have worth, primarily as collectibles, industrial metals, value storage, and they just look cool.  As far as worrying about the card readers at laundromats being hacked, well like ATMs at banks and card readers at gas stations get hacked all the time.  It’s just that we have better cyber security than we did in years past.  I bet for every successful hack, like what happened to Target a year ago, there are thousands that fail.  So, seriously, ditch the needless fear mongering and fantasizing for the past that sucked more than we care to admit, and join the modern era all ready.

As much as I hate stereotyping, maybe Max Planck new more than he realized when he said, “Science progress is made only one funeral at a time.”  Sadly, he could have said the same thing about social progress too it seems to me.  I dread to see what hang ups I have in 2019 the younger generations in 2049 will despise.  At this point I just hope to make it to 50 without having a stroke from the stress and frustration of dealing with one foot in the Star Trek possibilities and the other being stuck in the Gilded Age of the late 1800s.

 

 

Arm Chair Philosophy During Thanksgiving

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Spending Thanksgiving week by myself.  I had my celebration a week ago as kind of a going away party for my parents.  I guess I don’t mind spending the week alone as I’ve spent much of my adult life alone.  I haven’t had a roommate since 2004 when I graduated college.  I would actually feel kind of strange having to share a roof and four walls with someone, especially if that someone and I got on each others nerves.

This isn’t the first major holiday I spent alone.  Several years ago I stayed home when my parents were hosting it because I felt a major breakdown coming on.  I wasn’t going to have a break in front of my niece and nephews, especially when they were still too young to go to school.  It was a sad deal in that it was also my grandfather’s last Thanksgiving.  He was diagnosed with cancer a few days later and died a couple months after.  I was fortunate to been able to host the last couple Christmas celebrations with my parents at my apartment.  Not sure what I’m doing this year as all my family is now living out of state.  But I have a few weeks to figure that out.  It could be I get snowed in and not able to go anywhere.  This time a year the weather is always a factor where I live.

Starting to sleep less again.  But I’m not staying up all night either.  I usually go to sleep around 10pm and am up usually around 2 am.  I prattle around for a couple hours and then go back to sleep for another couple hours.  I’m usually awake for good by 8:30 am.  I have been feeling quite stable lately too.  I’ve now gone a full year without a major breakdown.  First time I can claim that ever since I was in high school.

In spite feeling better overall, I really have no desire to go anywhere or socialize much.  I’m content to pretty much stay at home much of the time.  Home is where I feel comfortable and accepted, even if I am alone.  I don’t like socializing in person much anymore.  I’m almost scared of other people now, especially people I don’t know.  Maybe it’s a new aspect of my mental illness.  I don’t have the volatile mood swings but just have no motivation to see anyone or try anything new.

Perhaps I really am depressed and not wanting to go anywhere or see anyone is the way it’s being manifest.  I don’t feel an overwhelming sense of despondency or sadness, but I probably do have both.  I feel no need to socialize because, in my diseased mind, I already know the outcome of said socializing: We will talk about dumb and mundane things and not much will be accomplished from the meeting.  I guess I’m used to not much being accomplished.  I’m used to people outside of family not coming through on what they say they’ll deliver.  It’s like I expect things to not work anymore.  I’m probably suffering from apathy too.  I’m just too tired to fight against it anymore.  I’m used to things not working like they should. I’ve seen it my entire life I guess.  That’s one of the reasons I don’t understand the average person’s obsession with politics or working; people talk all the time yet nothing really changes and certainly not for the better.

I would almost swear that people are intentionally screwing up and doing what they know won’t work.  I can’t believe that people are so stupid as to do what they know won’t work over and over and yet be duped by every charlatan and con artist who comes along offering the same tripe with different packaging and names.  I guess that’s why I don’t socialize anymore.  I’ve seen it all before and I’ve heard it all before.  But nothing changes for the better.  The only real positive changes I’ve seen, at least in my life time, have come via science, technology advances, and humanitarian efforts.  Yet no one wants to talk about these.  But it is science, tech, and humanitarians that are making up for the gridlock in politics and the loss of trust in education, law, and religion.  I guess that people don’t pay attention to what really makes a positive difference.

For generations we have heard old men on their death beds lamenting how they spent too much time at work and not enough time with their spouses and children or grandchildren.  Maybe it’s finally starting to get through to the younger workers who seek a work life balance more than my generation or my parents and grandparents did.  I think I’ll say something like “Too bad I didn’t get the corner office or the company car when I was working” or “Why did I take the day off to take my nephews to the museum?  There was money to be made, dang it” just to break up the somber mood and my way of saying kiss off the old style Puritan work ethic that seems to believe that those who don’t work themselves into an early grave are going to hell.

I don’t regret not having a regular job anymore.  Most people I know who got rich didn’t do so by working forty hours a week for someone else.  They got that way by working for themselves and starting their own businesses.  But even as rich as some people I knew were, I still didn’t see them take with them to the afterlife.  Even the Pharaohs had their graves robbed over the centuries.  Get a large pile of gold and jewels only to have marauders run off with it or have it collect dust in some museum half a world away thousands of years later.  Hard work may have never killed anyone, but neither did enjoying the small things of life that money, power, and prestige can’t acquire.