Author: John

Nobel-Prize Winning, MacArthur Genius Grant Near Recipient writing to you regularly about Fitness, Wealth, and Wisdom - How to be happy and how to be healthy. Oh, and rich.

The Key To A Great Job? The Right Mixture Of Important And Urgent.

“Daniel Dravot, Esquire. Well, he became king of Kafiristan, with a crown on his head and that’s all there is to tell. I’ll be on my way now sir, I’ve got urgent business in the south, I have to meet a man in Marwar Junction.” – The Man Who Would Be King

Well, maybe not this doctor.

I have a friend that I’ll call “Joe”.  Mainly I’ll call him “Joe” because that’s his name.  Since there are estimated to be 1,782,432 people in the United States named “Joseph” that’s really not blowing his cover, except to (I think) two readers.  And, no, his wife’s name isn’t Mary.

Joe is fantastically smart.  He has an intelligence that makes correlation leaps that catch most people by surprise.  In one instance he pointed out a basic physics flaw that showed a billion-dollar business deal was destined to fail.  The company did the deal anyway.  Physics won – physics always wins.

Joe had been right.  You’d think that being right about a fatal flaw in a billion-dollar business would be rewarded, that Joe would be sought after for advice.

If you think that, you’ve never worked in the corporate world.  Being right about something like that means that an executive was wrong.  Executives never like to have people around them that remind them of when they turned $1,000,000,000 into $100,000,000.

There are times it doesn’t pay to be smarter than the boss.

My boss caught me taking NSFW selfies.  They’re serious about mask-wearing.

Besides being right when an executive was wrong, one problem that Joe had is that he had a fairly high capacity to do work.   Normally that would be a good thing, but most work was routine for Joe.  When he and I were working as peers, he would often do no work at all for days on end.

None.  He’d goof off all day, or just play and experiment.  He’d break the software in his computer just to see if he could fix it.

Then, in a furious burst of energy (often before a deadline) he’d work.  Sometimes, the work would last through multiple 20 hour days.

“Joe, you realize that you could have done that work last week when you were trying to get unauthorized access to the company’s main software server and setting up an unsanctioned private e-mail just for the group.  Why didn’t you?” I asked.

“That would be boring,” Joe responded, “so I waited until I didn’t think I’d be able to do the work on time and that I’d miss the deadline.  Then it got interesting.”

I got pulled over while going to work with my loom in the front seat.  The cop said I was weaving all over the road.

In truth, I’d seen some of the same characteristics of creative procrastination in me, so I immediately understood what Joe was saying.  The work itself was rather routine, so the way to bring challenge was to wait until the real risk of losing my job led to peak production.  I had a mortgage and Joe didn’t, so I didn’t fly nearly as close to the flame.

But that’s not the only kind of job there is out there.

On the other end of the spectrum is a job that’s chaos.  Everything is an emergency.  Everything is urgent.

Priorities keep shifting on a daily basis – sometimes on an hourly basis.  It feels like there’s no end to the work, and the pressure is unrelenting.  There are long lists of things that have to be done – now.  The previous day’s plan gets thrown into the trash due to the events of today.

Well, that’s not a job that’s boring.

Don’t worry – they got jobs with Elon Musk, so they could go to otter space.

Lose a day on a job like that, and it feels like the business might implode.  I once told The Mrs., “I can do any job for two years.”  I had that particular chaotic job for 32 months.  32 months really was 8 months too long – there are only so many 70 hour weeks that I could do consecutively and not become as mentally vacant as Joe Biden circa 2021.

An example from my time in ChaosCorp®:  on Sunday around noon when I just started to feel normal, I’d realize that tomorrow was Monday, and I’d have to go back to work.  Goodbye feeling normal.  I knew there would be some fresh crisis on Monday, I just didn’t know what it would be this week.

This was a time when life was too interesting.

Perhaps, though, there was another way?

Going into my Wayback® Machine, I actually created a picture that I can use to illustrate this.  This is from a post back in 2018 (Franklin, Planners, The Terminator, My Unlikely But Real Link With President Eisenhower, Star Wars, and Kanban):

Gotta love Microsoft® Paint™, making a $500 computer just as effective as a box of Crayons® and a sheet of construction paper (plus a sticker).

In this particular graph, one axis shows how important a task is, and the other how urgent.  We’ll skip the unimportant stuff, and only focus on the two boxes on the right side of the graph:

Important and Urgent, and Important and Not-Urgent.

The job I described above where everything was chaos?  Almost all of our work was Important and Urgent.  It’s the kind of work that causes people to get ulcers, gray hair, a facial tic, and start muttering to themselves when they’re hanging out by the coffee machine.

That was me for thirty months.

The “boring” first job I described?  That was one where almost all of our work was Important and Not Urgent.  This was reasonable work that was really important, but we had sensible timelines.  Being generally Type-A personalities, there wasn’t enough pressure for Joe (and me), so we had to invent it ourselves.

Recently, though, I’ve come on a revelation:  the optimum amount of work types (for me) is probably about 80% Important and Not Urgent and 20% Important and Urgent.

Pareto would be proud of that blend.

I tried to put my dog on a vegan diet, but we ran out of vegans.

The nice thing about Important and Urgent work is that it gets me going.  Rather than get to work and plan about the plan I need to schedule to put the Important and Not Urgent work together, Important and Urgent work has to be done.  Now.  It has immediacy.  It gets me going.  Once I get momentum and a pace going, well, it’s easy to keep it going.

Then I get the Important and Not Urgent work done.

The great thing about a day with a good mixture of work like that is that, at the end, my productivity is nearly maximum.  As I get in the car to go home, I realize that, yeah, I really did give it all at work, and it felt pretty good.

But writing these posts?  That’s Important and Not Urgent.  Until I wait to 11PM to get started on writing, like I did tonight.

Then writing becomes Important and Urgent.

Joe would be proud.

Hey, look, the Sun is coming up . . . .

Money Is A Meme

“The Mandela Effect has been an Internet meme for almost a decade. It’s always been called that.” – The X-Files

Where does the Federal Reserve keep inflation?  In debasement.

What is a meme?  In general, a meme is like a bit of cultural information.  It’s an idea that spreads virally.  What are some examples?

  • “All men are created equal.” It’s an idea that no one believes in literally, because it’s not true.  But it does carry the idea that we should all have the same rights, citizen and elected official alike.  Even though we know that’s not true, either.
  • “Taco Tuesday.”
  • “One man, one vote.” Again, another idea that is so deeply bored itself into most minds that we don’t even question if there are some people that shouldn’t
  • “Never deduct a loss carryforward in a tax year when the alternative minimum tax applies.” Well, everyone knows that, right?
  • “Violence never solves anything.” Ahh, World War II was won with Nerf® rifles?

The list makes it quite clear:  memes don’t have to be true to spread and no one should ever take tax advice from me.  What memes do have to be is simple and compelling.  This is why this particular meme was so popular back in 2014:

So that’s what an elected lord and chief of state in several Italian city-states, notably Venice and Genoa looks like!

Doge was and is funny.  It’s simple.  It’s stupid.  Almost anyone gets it.  The idea stays with you, and, in 2014 Doge was the rage.  Sure, in 2020 there were plenty of memes about quarantine, but those were all inside jokes.

Back to 2014:  Bitcoin was still in the early stage, and numerous people used the same idea to come up with a huge variety of alternative crypto offerings, most of which are worth zero now.  One alternative was the Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency based on the Doge meme.  It was done as a joke.  Recently, though, Dogecoin spiked up in value.  The current market value of all existing Dogecoin?

Over $7 billion.  I’m not making that up.  Dogecoin, a crypto based on a joke, is worth more than Uzbekistan.  It had a huge jump recently.  Why?  Elon Musk made a joke about it.

Elon is like Superman® – but every Monday evening he trades Bitcoin.  That’s his crypto-night.

So, that’s one data point.  Here’s another.  This is from the Wall Street Journal®:

Michael Levy was scrolling Twitter last September when he noticed someone mention something that he wanted to know more about. What is NBA Top Shot? He wondered.

This platform to buy, sell and collect officially licensed video highlights was months from becoming a market that would captivate and mystify basketball fans, cryptocurrency enthusiasts, sneakerheads, pandemic day traders and thousands of people stuck at home. But it wasn’t long before Levy texted his friends: “This could be big.”

He [Levy] was so convinced that he decided to spend $175,000 over the next six months on digital trading cards. They are now worth $20 million.  Levy is one of the biggest winners of a manic new market that true believers say is the future of collecting and skeptics call a slightly absurd form of speculation.

That second data point was clear to me.  Unless Levy is money laundering for the mob, there is only one logical conclusion:   Money is a meme.  There is no other logical reason for a video clip to be worth $20 million unless it shows Jesus and Jimmy Hoffa riding the Ark of the Covenant.

I had been playing with the idea that money is a meme recently.  Historically gold and silver were the currencies of choice, possibly because when the Hittites traded with the Aztecs there weren’t enough computer servers to validate a blockchain, and the Hittites weren’t big fans of Michael Jordan, so they couldn’t trade NBA® clips, either.

Little known fact:  the Aztecs worshiped a salted baked bread god called Pretzalcoatl.

Nope.  They had to settle for the original meme, which is a little bit heavier than the data.

It was a lot, lot later that the Romans invented their own particular meme:  they took the silver out of their money and started making it out of Chinesium – you know, that mystery metal you get with cheap stuff from China?  To substitute for making crappy coins, they had to make a lot of coins, thus creating the meme of inflation.

Why I’m concerned about inflation is this:  collectively, we as a nation believe inflation into existence just like a cartoon version of Santa Claus.  Right now, money is sitting in huge pots everywhere.  As soon as people start believing in inflation?

They’ll buy stuff.  Any stuff.  They’ll want to turn their cheap money into something that isn’t losing value day after day and it will flow like quicksilver through the economy.  One story from Weimar Germany during their inflation mentioned a person who bought bedpans.

Why bedpans?  It was better than hanging on to the German Mark.  At least it was worth something.

Apple® is doing a great job to help the economy – they’ve already adjusted their prices for the next 15 years of inflation.

Inflation isn’t a big thing, until it is, until we collectively believe it’s a problem – as soon as the meme takes hold?

Wow.  Much moneys.  Much smalle.  Sad.

Disclaimer:  John Wilder is an Internet humorist who is much better at writing dank memes than predicting the economy and is not a registered financial advisor.  Be responsible for your choices.      

Podcasts . . . Catching Up

Good news, everyone!  Bombs and Bants is not dead, though we did take a few weeks off while The Mrs. and I fended off Ebola.  The better news is that I got a little goofed up and didn’t post links to the podcast a week or two when I should have so there are extra episodes!

Here they are.  As soon as The Boy sends me information, I’ll put up links to Bombs and Bants – we’re on the Apple Podcast thingy and Bitchute in addition to YouTube.

I think we’re getting better most weeks.  The Mrs. handles all the production, and is really getting the hang of it.  So, enjoy!

Edit:

(Here is the Solzhenitsyn Harvard Commencement Address mentioned in the vidya and comments)

I drink, I read, and I make bad puns.  What can I say?

 

Civil War 2.0: Censorship And A Change In Narrative

“Look what I did to this city with a few drums of gas and a couple of bullets.” – The Dark Knight

Perfect name for a clock store in 2021?  Uncertain Times.

  1. Common violence. Organized violence is occurring monthly.
  2. Opposing sides develop governing/war structures. Just in case.
  3. Common violence that is generally deemed by governmental authorities as justified based on ideology.
  4. Open War.

February was a silent month as far as violence goes.  Very cold weather, combined with a change in Leftist strategy (see below) calmed the situation.  As such, I’m backing down for this month to “just” a 9 out of 10.  That’s still two minutes to midnight.

As I said last month, the pressure will continue.

I currently put the total at (this is my best approximation, since no one tracks the death toll from rebellion-related violence) holding at 650 out of the 1,000 required for the international civil war definition.

As close as we are to the precipice of war, be careful.  Things could change at any minute.  Avoid crowds.

In this issue:  Front Matter – Slowing The Boil? – Violence And Censorship Update – Changing The Narrative:  Citizen Vs. Terrorist – Updated Civil War 2.0 Index – The Leadership Vacuum – Links

Front Matter

Welcome to the latest issue of the Civil War II Weather Report.  These posts are different than the other posts at Wilder Wealthy and Wise and consist of smaller segments covering multiple topics around the single focus of Civil War 2.0, on the first or second Monday of every month.  I’ve created a page (LINK) for links to all of the past issues.  Also, feel free to subscribe and you’ll get every single Wilder post delivered to your inbox, M-W-F at 7:30 Eastern, free of charge.

Slowing The Boil?

So people *gasp* are able to talk to each other without the New York Times fact checking?  Horrible!  (note, most memes this issue are “as found” on the ‘net)

The smart move for the Left is to turn down the temperature, politically speaking.  In general, I think they’ll take the opportunity.  Turning down the temperature means:

  • Keeping the leash on Antifa® and BLM©. That is ongoing.  BLM™ and Antifa© served their purpose – they put pressure on Trump.  Already, they’re being set loose as “thanks” for their service.
  • Putting fear into the general public about the Right. This explains the hyperventilating overreaction to the unscheduled January 6 field trip to Capitol Hill.  They’ll use this to drive public opinion, and, after a few show trials, stop.
  • No real action on a gun control bill this session. I think the Left, even as blinded by ideology as they are, realizes that this isn’t an issue that has any acceptable compromise in the minds of 80,000,000 people.  “Not one step back, not one gun turned in” is the default position.
  • For the time being, just work on the mundane blocking and tackling of basic government, all while changing out personnel that don’t meet Leftist ideological principles.

If your pistol isn’t working, check the manual under “trouble shooting”.

One real wildcard is the coming trial of Derek Chauvin for the murder of George Floyd.  There is a significant chance that Chauvin walks away from the trial a free man – his department trained him (and every other officer) to use exactly the techniques he employed.  George Floyd was going to die of a drug overdose.  These will be compelling facts to any fairly selected jury with a competent and fair judge.

Of course, it’s 2021.  Fair trials and an impartial justice system just might be a thing of the past.

Violence And Censorship Update

The biggest story in censorship this month is the canceling of Dr. Seuss.  It’s ironic because Ted Geisel (the real name of Dr. Seuss) was pretty Leftist.  This proves again that, in time, every historical figure is eventually condemned because they don’t meet the needs of the new Left.

How is weed the same as the Koran?  Burning either will get you stoned.

Next:

Amazon as late as 2012 fought against banning any book.  That was then, this is now (LINK, account required, H/T to Vox Day, LINK):

Conservatives are sounding the alarm about an updated Amazon policy that bans books the ubiquitous billion-dollar company deems offensive or includes so-called “hate speech.”

Amazon has ramped up its censorship on conservative views in recent weeks. For example, a popular documentary on U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was banned from their streaming service this past week. Before that move, the company deplatformed conservative Ryan Anderson’s book critical of gender theory, “When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Movement.”

So, during Black History Month, they banned a documentary about the second Black Supreme Court Justice because . . . on the Right?  And also ban a bestselling book from a major publisher that just has a different opinion than 0.3%-0.6% of the population?

Next:

The phrase “Blue Anon”, a term based on “Q Anon” was at the site Urban Dictionary™.  Anyone can submit a word, and the rules are really, really open.  But the phrase “Blue Anon” apparently rustled their jimmies, since it is banned.  Here’s a link to the story from ZeroHedge® (LINK) where they show that Google® is censoring searches for Blue Anon.

Oh, and for added irony, here’s a quote from the founder of Urban Dictionary©, Aaron Peckham:

Free speech and the Internet go hand in hand, because online, anyone with a computer can be heard. The Internet equalizes people like that — no matter how much money you have, or how old you are, you can connect with a huge number of people. And it’s getting easier as computers become cheaper and easier to use.

Urban Dictionary is one of a huge number of sites where people can talk and think about the world. It’s a place for people to freely express themselves and to write about their lives through the definitions they post. Everyone’s a wannabe sociologist, and you can see that come out in Urban Dictionary. It’s also a way to watch our language evolve and to see what’s hot in pop culture.

Freedom of speech?  Only for certain people.

Changing The Narrative:  Citizen Vs. Terrorist

Trump wanted the military to secure the border from an invasion of illegal aliens.  The Left is using the military to secure the Capitol from American citizens.  Guess who the Left thinks the enemy is?

If you’re reading this, probably you.

What is the difference between an American home and a terrorist training camp?  Don’t ask me, I’m just the drone pilot.

And the Air Force is quick to jump into that spirit, as documented by Academy Watch   (LINK)(h/t Heresolong(LINK)).

Here is a list of things that Air Force Academy students can no longer do:

  • Interest
    • Watching impermissible videos
    • Reading impermissible literature
    • Visiting websites promoting impermissible ideology
    • Membership in an impermissible group
  • Language
    • Making statements sympathizing with impermissible ideologies
    • Making social media posts that mention impermissible causes

What’s impermissible?  Head on over to the link and RTWT.

The idea in play is one from the Clinton era – re-brand the citizens who like freedom as terrorists.  Scare people with stories of militias, and then run the FBI out for a jog to incite a bombing or assassination plot or two with a mentally-challenged member of the group you want to tweak, and, presto, instant public opinion switch.

And this month has been an inflection point in that narrative, and it will be used to get rid of anyone in the armed forces that doesn’t agree with Leftist ideology.  And it will be prohibited to read any other viewpoint.

Updated Civil War II Index

The Civil War II graphs are an attempt to measure four factors that might make Civil War II more likely, in real time.  They are broken up into Violence, Political Instability, Economic Outlook, and Illegal Alien Crossings.  As each of these is difficult to measure, I’ve created for three of the four metrics some leading indicators that lead to the index.  On illegal aliens, I’m just using government figures.

Violence:

Up is more violent, and to no one’s surprise, the perception of violence dropped less than I expected in February.  I think the propaganda of “home grown terrorism” was the likely cause.

Political Instability:

Up is more unstable.  Instability dropped a bit.  Wonder what warm weather will bring?

Economic:

Interest rates are starting to rise, which caused this to take a big dive this month.  Inflation early warning?

Illegal Aliens:

After a month’s absence, the data is back, but now delayed 60 days.  Must have been the Capitol Riots?  Regardless, as expected, the border is more active.

The Leadership Vacuum

Handy Tip:  If you’re starting a revolution on a budget, use a coup-on.

Very few of the levers of power are in the hands of the Right – I’ve established that before.  Right now is a particularly difficult time for the Right because there is a very real leadership vacuum.

Why?

Because no one trusts career politicians anymore because Trump was the first President in a very long time to fight.

Did he accomplish as much as he promised?  Well, no.  The levers of government are rusty in the hands of someone on the Right.  In the hands of someone on the Left, however, the Executive Orders were flashing by so fast that President* Biden had no idea what he was signing, and even admitted that he was confused while signing them.

Trump did fight.  And Trump did make some temporary gains, most of which will be erased in the first six months or so.  But his biggest legacy was that he was a leader.  From watching him, I think Trump loved the moments when people were attacking him more than any other time.  Trump fed upon the controversy.

Now, though, he’s largely silent.  The Right doesn’t appear to have anyone else in the wings, ready to lead.  Trump will be a tough act to follow.  Until that time?

We wait.

LINKS

As usual, links this month are courtesy of Ricky.  Thanks so much!!

From Ricky:

“With no further need to rally Left voters with scary Boogaloo profile stories, the entire tenor of civil war coverage has dramatically changed…”

 

With Biden Inaugurated, MSM Narrative Control Engaged:

The Alt-Right Civil War

https://zogbyanalytics.com/news/997-the-zogby-poll-will-the-us-have-another-civil-war

https://www.oregonlive.com/history/2021/01/is-america-on-the-brink-of-civil-conflict-biden-calls-for-unity-but-some-worry-current-moment-recalls-run-up-to-civil-war.html

https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/02/18/how-civil-wars-start/

https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-us-news-race-and-ethnicity-conspiracy-theories-philanthropy-f8f793b94b0dd7e8ec62957dcbeb53d8

https://www.facingsouth.org/2021/02/far-right-accelerationists-hope-spark-next-us-civil-war

https://www.theburningplatform.com/2021/02/08/a-strange-game-part-two/

The Republican Civil War

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2021/03/01/trump-won-republican-civil-war-cpac-showcased-unity-column/6866748002/

https://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/Op-Ed/2021/03/04/Jonah-Goldberg-CPAC-shows-there-s-no-Republican-civil-war/stories/202103040047

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/in-americas-uncivil-war-republicans-are-the-aggressors/

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/anti-trump-republicans-are-facing-punishment-back-home-don-t-n1256292

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56240856

The Black Civil War

https://www.thearticle.com/is-this-the-last-battle-of-the-american-civil-war

https://www.newstatesman.com/world/2021/01/american-civil-war

https://www.salon.com/2021/02/09/were-fighting-the-second-american-civil-war_partner/

https://www.recorder.com/my-turn-davis-civil-war-38265615

https://hbr.org/2021/03/the-u-s-needs-a-third-reconstruction-and-business-should-lead-it

https://lasvegassun.com/news/2021/mar/05/show-us-the-tubmans/

The American Civil War

https://cms.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/image%20%2814%29_0.png?itok=zqOf_YKB

A Wolfe, Stab Wounds, Dolphins, And Snot

“I’m Winston Wolfe.  I solve problems.” – Pulp Fiction

What’s the difference between a knife juggler and a multiple stab wound victim?  Practice.

I first started reading Claire Wolfe back around the turn of this century in Backwoods Home Magazine.  I have several of her books and have enjoyed them greatly.  Claire is one of the most wonderful of wordsmiths about freedom, and she has a great post up (LINK) now.  The title says it all:  “Freedom Is Dying:  Be Of Good Cheer.”

Of course, regular readers know that I couldn’t agree more.

Claire has a great story that’s contained in the post.  A person named “Lox” came into Claire’s Internet freedom group, and the group tried to help him to freedom:

But “poor” Lox sucked up everything we had to offer, then spat it back out. None of it applied to him. He told us a thousand reasons why all our ideas and experiences were worthless. We were blind and insensitive to the depths of his plight. Nobody had ever been as unfortunate as he. Nobody had ever been as helpless as he. No one had ever been as depressed, as oppressed, as mistreated, as ugly, as inept, as trapped, as misery-laden as he.

Of course, there’s more, and Lox shows himself to be even worse than what’s written above.  Seriously.  I’ll let you read the rest over at her place, because if you’re not going to her place regularly, you should.

Genghis Khan was a ruthless baby.  Why, I remember when he took his first steppe . . .

I’d like to focus for this post on what Claire wrote about Lox in the quote above.

When I was younger (and not yet a wiser Wilder) I can recall running into more than one person like Lox.  The names were different.  The situations were different.  But the behavior was always exactly the same, so I will collectively name them Blandy Blanderson:

  • Blandy has a problem. It is the worst problem of anyone ever.
  • I try to help, either though giving advice, or giving them assistance. I’ve moved furniture on a Sunday evening when Blandy was being kicked out of an apartment, I’ve waxed dolphin armpits (flipper pits?), and I’ve even lent Blandy money so that the Auckland Auk Ark Cartel wouldn’t break his leg.
  • Even if the initial problem is solved, Blandy will then have another problem.
  • I try to help. The next problem is solved.  I’m never going to do dentistry on a dolphin again, let me tell you.
  • Blandy then comes up with problem number three.
  • I decide that Caller I.D. is worth every penny.

If I Photoshopped® myself a dentistry license, would that a doctored image?

I had finally figured out that Blandy didn’t want the problem to be solved.   And I realized that there would always be a problem.  Blandy was in love with the problem.

This was new to me.  I have always had a sunny disposition – one of my Professors in college always said, “Keep smiling, John.”  That’s why it took me so long to understand Blandy.  Why would anyone want to be sad?

I couldn’t understand it, so I observed it.

I noticed that whenever I helped Blandy, especially if my help solved the “problem of the day”, Blandy would never, ever say “Thank you.”  Why would you thank someone who took away the problem you secretly loved?

I can only speculate the causes of Blandy’s behavior:

  • If Blandy could blame someone else, then they weren’t responsible for their situation. Someone or something else was responsible.  They could live their life blaming others.
  • How could Blandy get attention? Having problems got people to pay attention.
  • By having problems, Blandy could get sympathy from others. Without problems, what would start the sympathy flowing from others?

I’m sure that after I stopped helping, I became yet another one of the long list of Blandy’s problems.  “Oh, Wilder, he’s so lucky and fortunate, but he never helps anyone else.”

Dracula returned a mirror to the local Wal-Mart®.  When they asked him why, he said, “I can’t see my self using it.”

In one sense, Blandy’s behavior is vampirism.  Blandy takes a personal tragedy and exploits it so he can get fun and prizes and emotion from others.  The bonus for people playing along at home is that Blandy can also shield a fragile psyche from the consequences of his actions.

But wait, don’t people have real problems?  Don’t people really need help sometimes?

Certainly.

I recall one time calling up a friend and saying only, “Bar.  Now.”  It was noon.  It was an awful day.  He picked me up in 20 minutes, and he got me home safely later that night, even though it took more than a little while to work myself out of the problem.

There are times that people have streaks of bad luck.  I can recall once when I was on such a streak.  I called my friends for help.  They did.  But I noticed that the longer I had my problem, the less one particular friend was interested in talking about it.

That’s when I realized:  by staying negative on a topic and not owning it and putting it behind me, I was starting to turn into Blandy.  That was my signal that it was time to put the problem behind me and stop complaining.

Even Liberals aren’t safe you see; the Left always eats itself, yippee!

Perhaps the biggest takeaway in learning to deal with my problems is that I own my attitude – no one else does.  If something bad happens, well, I could spend every moment of my life being mad at the situation.  Does the situation care?

No.

Heck, I could spend every moment swimming in the salty warm viscous mucus of self-pity.  If I do that, all I get is sticky and become the Michael Phelps of victimhood mucus swimming.  Maybe Coca-Cola® would sponsor me?

Good things and bad things will happen to me.  If my happiness is dependent upon only good things happening to me?  I’ll be forever disappointed because bad things happen, too.  Tires go flat.  Plates break.  The Yellowstone volcano erupts.

Know the difference between snot and broccoli?  A five-year-old won’t eat broccoli.

The Truth as I’ve seen it so far:  if I’m happy on my bad days, I’m going to be ecstatic on my good days.

Do I see many difficulties in the years ahead?  Certainly.  Does sitting around worrying about them make them go away?  Does it make them better?

Nope.

The Blandy Blandersons of this world waltz through it surrounded by a cloud of misery.

I think I’ll skip that.

It’s much more fun being John Wilder.  I’ll echo what Claire says:  “Be of good cheer.”

What You Can Learn About Economics From The Big Mac

“A Roy-ale With Cheese®. What do they call a Big Mac©?” – Pulp Fiction

Picard doesn’t have an iPhone® he got unlimited Data with his Android©.

The last time I had a Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese™ from McDonalds© here in Modern Mayberry, it cost me $4.79. It was over a month ago, but I remember biting into the bun feeling the warm hamburger . . . warm? Dangit.

I looked down. It was raw. Ugh. I was done.

What our local McDonalds® misses in quality they make up for by taking longer than any other fast-food place in town. Why do we go there? The fries and the $1 drinks. Anything more complicated than that is like asking a puppy to land a P-51 Mustang. You know the puppy really wants to make you happy, but it’s really only good at looking cute and sleeping.

I think the employees at McDonalds© must like to sleep. A lot.

We have exactly five fast-food restaurants in town, and my theory is that there are have two excellent managers that make good food, promptly. We also have one manager that’s not great, but focuses on making the food tasty and the orders correct even though you might not get it in ten minutes. We have another that makes good ice cream, but the burgers taste like NHL® puck rejects. Then we have the last in line – the manager of McDonalds©.

I always wondered where McDonalds™ got fish shaped like that. The asquarium?

The Mrs. and I were going to stop at McDonalds® for fries and drinks at around 1 PM. There were six cars in line before the speaker at the drive-through. They weren’t moving.

We opted to go elsewhere but noticed that all six of the “wait here because your order surprised us” parking spaces were also full.

I asked The Mrs., “Do you think that every day the manager looks at his watch and says, ‘Dang, it’s busy at 11:30 AM. Again! Who could have predicted that? Why does this keep happening to us?’”

The Mrs. laughed. “Probably. I imagine he asks, ‘Don’t people know it’s our lunch break?’”

Yes, our McDonalds© is bad. Heck, one time I asked for two large fries and got about 300 small ones.

Also, this is really a cat, your honor.

But McDonalds® can be instructive. There are McDonalds© restaurants all over the world. We have exchange rates with other countries, but The Economist™ had a different idea to judge purchasing power around the world: The Big Mac™.

This is a little bit of genius. The ingredients of a Big Mac© are roughly the same no matter where you go, and the amount of labor required to produce a burger is pretty constant, so you can use that to judge what the real purchasing power of the dollar is versus other countries.

It’s a cool idea, and like most cool ideas, it started as a joke. But you can go here (LINK) and see that, as of January 12, 2021, the United States dollar was overvalued compared to most other currencies. That’s what happens when your currency is preferred for use in international trade. The Swiss Franc is generally the most overvalued: that’s what happens when people really trust you.

The Swiss may avoid inflating their currency, and they might be boring, but their flag is a plus.

Where is the Capital of Venezuela? In a Swiss bank account.

But the Big Mac® is useful for other things, too.

One of the problems of being in a pot of slowly boiling water is that you don’t really notice the temperature going up until it’s too uncomfortable to bear. One of my old standards was the $5 lunch. Before we moved to Alaska, spending more than $5 for a lunch at a fast food place was rare. Once we got to Alaska, we at least found a use for our spare kidneys: paying for lunch.

Just like a Big Mac™ is a Big Mac© all over the world, it’s a Big Mac® even going back into the past. So, we can judge purchasing power around the world, and through time. It’s like Back To The Future minus the Deloreans® and 88 gigaWatts.

Okay, what does a Big Mac™ tell us about inflation?

Plenty.

If you look at the following graph from Seeking Alpha®, you can see what a Big Mac™ should cost if the official, government Consumer Price Index (CPI) was telling the truth. In 2016, it would have cost about two bucks.

I once made a graph of my old girlfriends. It had an ex-axis and a why-axis.

Not even close to reality – by 2016 the Big Mac™ was closer to $5.06 according to The Economist’s™ data, which matches the graph. It’s $5.66 today, according to The Economist’s™ data, but cheaper at the Modern Mayberry McDonalds™ – I guess they save a lot of money by not turning the stoves on.

I was actually surprised at the data. I guess I’ve been sitting in the boiling water too long, but I was expecting that the price would have gone up more in the last four years. I guess not.

But that’s one hallmark of economic difficulty – a period of deflation hits first. As astute comments at this very site have noted – it’s more than the quantity of money, it’s the velocity.

The Federal Reserve™ could print $2 trillion and give it to Jeff Bezos and cause zero inflation – as long as Jeff didn’t spend any of it on his goblin-like girlfriend (or anything else, for that matter). Or maybe he should spend money on her. She’s so goblin-like I worry she’ll raid my village to steal children.

When people get scared or don’t have any money, they’re not spending it. When the stimulus is popped into zero-interest business loans, well, it goes right into the business bank account. If I owned a business, I’d take all of the free money the bank could give me. Unfortunately, the banks are finally on to my “laser printer and green ink” scheme so I’ll just let the government do that for all of us.

Small businesses aren’t making money. Landlords not receiving rent aren’t out partying. And none of these people are paying taxes on income they didn’t make.

Just like me, the government can keep printing money until it runs out of ink, and force enough through the system to make it look like there’s a functioning economy. But too much stimulus eventually fails even though this year I used my stimulus check to buy baby chickens: money for nothing and the chicks for free.

What does Putin want by thanksgiving? Turkey.

However, for presidential politics, the very best time to have a recession is in the first year of the first term. Then, hopefully, the economy is in a full recovery by the time of the next election. Maybe. That’s the old calculation. As Herbert Stein said, “If something can’t go on forever, it won’t.” The ultimate failure of a currency made up of nothing but hope and ink is always preordained. It can’t go on forever.

The only question is when it won’t.

But we did learn that the Big Mac© is useful in more ways than one this week. In Modern Mayberry, though, it might be undercooked, so eating it wouldn’t be one of the uses. The Mrs. doesn’t believe me – “John, raw meat at McDonalds™ is rare.”

The Great Purge Ahead

“When a forest grows too wild, a purging fire is inevitable and natural.” – Batman Begins

Stalin was better than most magicians.  He really made people disappear.

The Soviet Great Purge started in 1936.  Stalin already had a bad reputation as a Dictator who couldn’t say no – he had gotten rid of millions already in the Holodomor (In The World Murder Olympics, Communists Take Gold And Silver!).  The Great Purge was different.  The piles and piles of earlier dead had been peasants and kulaks (kulaks were peasants that had enough money to own a cow), mainly.   Even before the Great Purge Stalin had the world record for Russian killing, a record he still proudly maintains.

By 1936 Stalin, always paranoid, decided his main opponents were, surprise, still Russians.

Anyone who had been a trusted advisor of Lenin had to go.  Anyone who looked like a threat to Stalin?  Had to go.  The Red Army had troops with guns.  Three out of five Soviet Marshalls were executed.  13 out of 15 army commanders, 50 out of 57 corps-level commanders, and 154 out of 186 division commanders were caught up in it.

The very top of the Soviet Military was decapitated.  But that was a small portion of the Great Purge.  In the end, probably a million or more were murdered or died in the Gulags.  Anyone in politics was fair game, and the more power the bigger the target on their back.  Many of the people who helped Stalin with the Great Purge eventually were victims of it themselves.

What did Jack Nicholson say to his dentist?  “You can’t handle the tooth.”

What was the basis of the Great Purge?  Even though Stalin binged and purged, it wasn’t bulimia, it was Power.  Stalin wanted to keep power.  His greatest weapon?

Fear.

And fear is currently the weapon (predictably) used by the Left today.  They want to push people to the fringes, isolate them, and then purge them.  The first step is making them feel alone.

Of course, there haven’t been executions in the United States.  However, Obama purged 197 high-level officers in the first five years of his administration.  That’s quite close to the Stalin numbers, and perhaps even greater when you consider that the military in 2000s America is far smaller than in late 1930s Russia.

The purge has lately increased.  The current SecDef has made it clear:  “The job of the Department of Defense is to keep America safe from our enemies, but we can’t do that if some of those enemies lie within our own ranks.”

Just let that sink in.  The current Secretary of Defense has stated that he thinks that the biggest enemies of the United States are in the military, right now.  Today.  The leadership of the military has already been purged.  Now?  The rank and file is in the process of being purged.  Anyone not actively supporting the Leftist agenda will be drummed out.

If you need sink jokes, I’m at your disposal.

They want to purge anyone who is involved in “extremism” from the military.  As far as commies, I certainly agree.  But extremism for a Leftist is mere disagreement with a Leftist.  Don’t agree that having a 9-year-old boy dance as a girl in front of gay men at a strip club is entirely good and appropriate?

Extremist!  Behavior that would have resulted in imprisonment for the mother in all but the last 10 years since 1787 is now considered so sacred that it is impossible to challenge.  Now, speaking out against it is extremist.

Hollywood® is already on the job with this requirement.  Star Wars® was a part of my childhood.  I saved money when I was 12 to buy overpriced dolls action figures.  The mythos of Star Wars© was always one of Good versus Evil, which burned itself into my young imagination.

Now?  It’s Leftism versus the Right.  At every opportunity, the creative element at DisneyLucasFilmStarWars™ has abandoned the production of good movies to produce movies that are water carriers for the narratives of a Leftist agenda.

I grew up loving Star Wars©.  It was fun.  It was escapism.  It was a place where there were good heroes and evil villains.  Okay, I’ll admit, the entire series should have ended when the Emperor© said, “And now you die, young Skywalker™” during Return of the Jedi©.

Luke was late because he had to take an R2-Detour.

The latest is that an actress got fired for expressing mildly Right viewpoints.  Heck, they weren’t even something that 95% of every American wouldn’t have agreed with when Kurt Cobain was still sucking air instead of pushing daisies.

And that is the technique of the Left.  If they can’t directly imprison you, they do their best to turn you into an unemployed, destitute outcast of society.

Imagine 50,000 Leftists watching everything you re-Tweet® to catch you.

But, thanks to me, you can watch the purge unfold in real time.  The Long March through the institutions of the United States is ongoing.  Here’s the current status of the things the Left owns:

  • The K-12 educational system.
  • Colleges and Universities.
  • Most Protestant religious organizations.
  • Most Catholic organizations.
  • The psychological establishment.
  • The American Medical Association.
  • All mainstream news media.
  • All mainstream entertainment media.
  • Most departments of the Federal government, absent the armed services.
  • The general officer corps of the armed services.
  • The courts.
  • Silicon Valley tech companies.
  • Many (but not all) Most Fortune® 500™ companies.

The result in 2021 is that of the institutions of the United States, the Left has or is consolidating control over nearly all of the important ones.  What remains?  Junior officer and enlisted men in the armed forces (at least for the next few months) and the governors and legislators of a few states.

Oh, and at least 80,000,000 inconvenient people.

The idea is to scare Americans about the Purge, to scare them about their place in society.  If the State and the Media can scare Americans like that, they can achieve their ultimate goal:  to make them be quiet.

One of the greatest compliments I’ve had from a friend about this website was this, “If they (the powers that be) were really reading and understanding the things you say, you’d be much, much higher on The List.”

The Mrs. prefers the elevator, I prefer stairs.  I guess we were raised differently.

The reason I don’t feel fear is this:  I’m not alone.  As I said earlier, there are 80,000,000 other inconvenient people on the list.

Standing together?  We can’t be canceled.

Standing together?  We can’t be purged.

Standing together?  We can’t lose.

This isn’t over.  We’re not done.

Fear, Rats, G. Gordon Liddy And A Machine Gun Bikini

“Hold them back!  Do not give in to fear!  Stand to your posts!  Fight!” – Return of the King

I can jump higher than any fence.  Fences don’t jump very well.

When The Mrs. and I were newly married, and before the stork brought The Boy, The Mrs. and I had time to just do, well, whatever.  That often involved driving, and driving in that involved radio.  We listened, mainly, to talk radio.  We had to, because we had been banned from a gas station for listening to a song by The Who too loudly.

I guess we won’t get fueled again.

One day we were listening to the G. Gordon Liddy show.  For those of you who don’t know, Liddy was sent to prison as part of the Watergate break in during the Nixon era.  If I had just one word to describe Liddy, it would be intense.  I hear that Liddy was doing five hundred sit ups a day, but had to stop – he couldn’t take the ab use.

In particular, I remember one story of Liddy’s very vividly.  The dialogue below isn’t exact (this was over 20 years ago and I slept at least once since then) but it’s pretty close:

“When I was younger, I had a particular fear of rats.  It was a very, very strong fear.  I didn’t want to be afraid of rats, but I was.  So, to get rid of the fear, I killed one, cooked it, and ate it.  I was never afraid of rats again.”

If a relative passes away, you can get a free Starbucks®.  It’s your mourning coffee.

See?  Intense.  Also the kind of thing that made me glad that Liddy wasn’t afraid of me, since I have no idea if I’m good with ketchup.

On one hand, that level of behavior is bordering on insane.  On the other, it showed an amazing amount of self-awareness.  If Liddy’s goal was to go through life without fear, facing it was certainly the way to overcome it, although I’ll say the number of times I’ve come face to face with rats is exactly zero.  If that’s your top fear, you’ve gotten rid of most common fears.

I’ve related in the past how when climbing a really tall mountain I reached a ridge and looked down over, expecting that there was no way it could be as steep as what I had just climbed.  I was wrong.  Sheer cliff.  I was looking down very far.

Several mountain climbers caught the ‘Rona but didn’t give it to anyone.  Scalers aren’t vectors. 

I never had vertigo before, in fact I never had much of a fear of height at all.  But in that moment, I developed it.  From then on, whenever I could find a tall spot to stand on and look down, I would.  And I’d stay there until the vertigo went away.

It was a lot harder than just killing and eating the cliff.  It also took a few months, but the vertigo went away.  It’s mostly vertigone now, though I will admit that sometimes I get a chill when I watch Internet videos of people doing stupid stuff on very tall buildings.  Most of the videos seem to come from Russia, for whatever reason.  I’m betting it’s vodka, but it could also be . . . no, it’s vodka.

Bad pun?  Check.  Bikini?  Check.  Machine gun?  Check.  Russian hat?  Check.

Not all fear is bad, and not all fear is debilitating.  A lot of Evil comes from fear.  I used to think that all Evil came from fear, but that’s certainly not correct (Three Kinds Of Evil).

But a lot of Evil does come from fear.  Why?  Fear is fuel for Evil:

  • Fear leads to cowardice.
  • Fear leads to deceit.
  • Fear leads to anger.
  • Fear leads to hate. (Quote about the Dark Side®, there may be here.)
  • Fear leads to regret.

Cowardice might be the worst, though.

The reason is that cowardice is, at the root, a betrayal.  First, a betrayal of internal values.  Second, a betrayal outwards.  A perfect (but small) example is someone who is afraid of the consequences of disappointing a customer.  That leads to a lie to the customer.  Which leads to another lie, which will eventually end up with a very angry customer.

The Mrs. and I started our relationship with a strict “no lies” policy.  That’s why The Mrs. never asks me, “Do these pants make my butt look big?”  She knows I’ll tell her the truth.

“The pants?  No, the pants don’t make your butt look big.”

It was half an hour outside of Bakersfield when the catnip began to take hold.

Fear is natural.  A healthy respect for fires and firearms is a good thing.  But when any single fear?  That fear has to be confronted.

It has to be killed and eaten.  It can change the world.  Say, if you were afraid of undercooked bat . . . .

Consequences Of The Broken Balance

“Ummm, I’m gonna need you to go ahead come in tomorrow.  So if you could be here around nine that would be great, ummm kay. Ahh, I almost forgot ahh, I’m also gonna need you to go ahead and come in on Sunday too, kay. We ahh lost some people this week and ahh, we sorta need to play catch up.” – Office Space

Would John Henry have upgraded to the iPhone® 12?

There have been some pretty significant trends of dehumanization of the workforce.  It might seem like dehumanization is a story right out of 2021, but this trend isn’t new.  The legend of John Henry, that steel drivin’ man that raced a steam drill shows that the fear of machines replacing people and changing the way they work dates back at least as far as the 1800s.  At least John Henry’s performance review only ended with his heart exploding.

I blame Materialism, but more on that in a bit.

There are more and more jobs where each second of employee performance is analyzed and optimized and timed.  I’ve written (some) about this previously (How To Beat Any Computer At Chess*).

There are more people today working under deep surveillance at work than ever before:

  • Don’t perform as well as the computer metric says you should in customer satisfaction surveys?
  • Bosses that are upset that people get sick on Wednesday and never on Saturday or Sunday? And employees blame their weekend immune system.
  • Don’t move in the optimum path from one place to another to pick an item off of a shelf?
  • Bosses firing people with the worst posture? Well, we all have a hunch who that is.
  • Take too long per item to ring out a customer?
  • Not enough keystrokes per minute on the company computer?

These are jobs that are created that use humans as interchangeable parts – ones that wear out or are defective and that can be replaced.  Of course, jobs like this have existed since, well, jobs existed.  Mining comes to mind.  Building railroads probably wasn’t a ball of fun, either.  But in both of those, at least, the job had room for innovation, thought, and human ability.

These children actually worked in a coal seam.  Child labor laws back then weren’t a miner issue.

I think the biggest problem is that people have forgotten that businesses exist for the benefit of society – society doesn’t exist for the benefit of businesses.  In my younger, more libertarian days, I missed that point.  Even though I love freedom (still!) I was always skeptical of the power of big business.

Also, I was always concerned about businesses that produced nothing.  I didn’t have the framework to explain it then, but I do now.

Businesses exist for three reasons:

To benefit society by creating value.

A business can easily fall short of this if it’s an abusive monopoly or makes its profits based on political pull and persuasion – an example would be solar scams during Obama, and military scams, well, any time.  What’s an invulnerable weapon system?  One that has parts made in every Congressional district.  Even if the military doesn’t want it.

No, creating value isn’t the same thing as government forcing money at a company.  Creating value is a much deeper concept – it’s where someone makes something and society gets better.  It doesn’t even have to be a physical thing, the words written by an author aren’t physical, but they create value when enjoyed by an audience.

Of course, physical items are awesome, too.  PEZ®, anyone?

Z3d looks like “Zed.”  Thank you for attending my Zed Talk.

To benefit employees by providing meaningful, necessary work.

When mass business first started, Henry Ford did an amazing thing:  he doubled the wages he paid his employees.  Why?  First, to get a good, stable workforce.  Second, to increase the productivity of that workforce.  Assembly lines were new, and getting a good workforce was crucial.

The experiment was successful, and helped Ford increase production while lowering overall costs.

Today, when you’ve got a good job, you know it.  You’re working on tough things that are right at the limit of your capability.  You’re engaged.  You’ve got support so you don’t sink.  You know what you’re supposed to be working on.  And you’re part of a team.

That sort of work is fun.

To allocate profits to shareholders and owners.

This is also required.  Winners make profits and get more opportunity to manage bigger businesses.  Losers don’t, and their businesses fold.  In a well-functioning society, those profits accrue to those who are creating value, which in turn allows them to create even more value.  I don’t know about you, but I’ve never gotten a job (in business) from a company that had less money than I did.

The most profitable part of the lemonade stand I had when I was growing up?  Selling the antidote.

These three things are a delicate balance.  Too much emphasis on any one of the three is poison to the system:

  • Collective farms in the Soviet Union attempted to “create value” in society by creating awful jobs for people who had no real incentive to do a good job. Result?  Tens of millions dead, followed (much later) by the collapse of an entire country.  But the Soviets did develop an impressive system to stand in line all day.
  • Government, where often it’s set up for the benefit of the employees. What business would you go to where the customer (you and I) has to park farther away than the employee?  That wouldn’t happen at almost any business looking to make a profit.  But does your local police department save the best spaces for citizens?  Does your local DMV?  If so, you’re not the customer.  They are.
  • Hedge funds, high-frequency traders are an example of a business that does, in many cases, literally nothing to help the economy outside of extracting wealth. That’s it.  It’s a casino view of the world, where vampires that produce no value game the system for profit.

Why don’t hedge fund managers ever have problems with ticks or mosquitos?  Professional courtesy.

Imbalance in any of these features leads us to a dystopia.  Our current dystopia in the United States comes from the employee-centric Federal government.  Call it The Swamp or call it the Deep State, it’s all the same.

Even now, the function of some government agencies is so impaired as to be comical –  we have a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that wants to put Internet traders in jail and a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms that sells none of those things.  Also?  It’s nearly impossible to fire a Federal government employee.

Unless they’re on the Right.

Hedge funds and other Wall Street hangers-on don’t care about creating value for society.  They don’t care about employees of the firms they buy and gut.  They just want profits, and want them now, please.  Thankfully the SEC will regulate them.  What?  Oh, sorry, the SEC will protect them.  My bad.

Almost all of the horrors of the world are an imbalance between these forces, and each produces its own, unique dysfunctional society.

My friend told me that Biden was going to build a monument to George Orwell.  “Where??”  “Well, pretty much everywhere.”

The root cause for this imbalance is Materialism, the idea that only physical things matter, and a loss of the idea that there is a higher purpose.  Materialism is the very foundation of both Marxism and Libertarianism, and, when applied strictly, is the separation of morality from culture.

I can even prove that Materialism is in complete control in 2021:  Is there a higher crime in society than standing up against something that is morally wrong?  Well, in a world where the rule is “do as thou wilt” saying something is wrong is the highest crime.

I’d call that Materialist.  In fact, I’d bet $10 on it.

Reminder: No One Is Coming To Save You

“Wait till she finds out you’re 4’6 and peddle a Schwinn.” – Home Improvement

I had a boss once who could have worked for FEMA – he showed up late, and wasn’t any help when he finally arrived.

There I sat, in the middle of the highway, on my right side.  The back wheel of my single-speed bicycle had locked up as I had turned around to make my way back home.  I hadn’t been going that fast, since I was turning, so I wasn’t hurt at all.

Okay.  Get up, right?

I tried that, but my right leg was locked to the bike, under the bike, with my left leg holding the whole mess down.  It wouldn’t budge.

I looked down.  The reason my foot was locked to the bike is that I was wearing jeans – hand-me-downs from my brother where the cuff was so long it had dragged on the ground.  That ragged cuff on the inside of my leg was stuck between the sprocket, the chain, and the chain guard.

On a 10-speed, that wouldn’t have been a problem.  Just rotate the pedal backward until the jeans got loose.  Not on my blue Schwinn® Stingray™.  Turning the pedal backward just engaged the coaster brake – then it locked up like it was welded in place.

I looked around and assessed my situation.  It was getting dark – that’s why I had turned around to go home.  I was lying in blue jeans and a gray shirt on an asphalt road.  Oh, yeah, it was on a banked corner.  The cars coming from the east wouldn’t see me until they were right on top of me.

Then the obvious thought flashed in my mind:  “I could die, right here, right now.”

My bicycle couldn’t stand on its own.  It was too tired.

——-

When I was a kid, we lived at the edge of the forest.  The nearest kid to me was at least 10 miles away.  If I had started in the forest, I could have gone (in one direction) 45 miles before I would have seen the next paved road.

It was remote.  Oh, sure, there was a movie theater pretty close – only a fifty minute drive away.  And there was a supermarket not 15 miles away.

I think that growing up there really influenced the way I look at life.  First, I had to become comfortable with my own company.  Thankfully, there were monthly trips to the bookstore, and when I was in school the library had a great selection of thirty-year-old paperbacks that I could check out.

I learned to make models, to go hiking by myself, and make my own fun.

I once went to a car show in Mexico, but it was only for Fords®.  They called it the Ford Fiesta™.

Growing up in a place like that, one thing is certain – not only were you in charge of making your own fun, you were in charge of keeping yourself alive.  When I went hiking, even though I never went too far, all it takes is one rattlesnake to ruin your day.  They say the rattlesnakes where we lived were fast and could move at 75 miles per hour, but I never saw one driving.

Every trip we took into the forest was on us.  In the summer when we went to get firewood, we’d only be 10 or 15 miles into the forest.   That wasn’t so bad.  If the truck broke down, we could hoof it out and be home before Ted Cruz could make it back from Cancun.

I had a girlfriend that got tired of my astrology puns.  It Taurus apart.

In the winter when we went hunting, that was another story.  Pa Wilder packed survival gear, food, and extra warm clothing.  With what we had, we could have survived, but it certainly wouldn’t have been comfortable – sleeping in cold weather would have been in-tents.

The vehicle itself was four wheel drive – with a winch.  One cold November we got not one, but three flat tires.  I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to drive a car with multiple flat tires up a snow-covered mountain trail road, but it’s not something that generally works.

It does, however, work when you take a winch cable from tree to tree, pulling the car up as you drive it up.

It worked.  I think I was 12 or so when this happened.  It made an impression.  There was no one there to help us.  If we didn’t get out, our lives were at stake.

It was on us.

And that was the primary theme that we had, living at the edge of the forest, at the edge of civilization.  If we didn’t save ourselves, no one else would.  That’s why we had the fireplace, wood stove, and all of that sweet, sweet firewood:  no loss of a generation plant hundreds of miles away would stop us from being warm.  Water?  We only had a supply for a few days, but the river was only a half a mile or so away.  In the summer, a pleasant walk.  In the winter?  Well, there was plenty of snow.

“I’m, I’m not a cat, your honor.”

Life was always about survival.  Life was about always having a Plan B.  Our pantry was stocked, our freezer was full, and Pa Wilder had enough powder and primers to last a lifetime.  Sometimes we lost our power for a night, but we never had to worry – we had candles, and we had enough firewood to last until Hillary Clinton grew a conscience.

Sure, we expected the light switch to work when we flipped it – we weren’t in Venezuela.  But we had a backup plan, and that backup plan didn’t require government at any level to help us.  It couldn’t, and if it tried, being so remote, we’d be among the last people it would try to save.

Time and again, I’ve been proven right.  Outside of snowplows and preventing the Soviets from invading, the government really hasn’t been much help during any emergency I’ve been a part of.  Private companies (like power companies) have done far more to help.

Lenin put “?” behind traitors – and would ask himself, “Did they question Marx?”

The attitude of preparation and self-reliance has driven me towards the Right.  I don’t want every service that government can give me if it means that government controls everything.  No matter what pretty picture is painted, the end result is the same.  Wal-Mart® is better at feeding people in disaster areas than FEMA ever will be.

Thankfully, ordinary citizens are even better than Wal-Mart™ at disaster recovery.  Preparing for a disaster beforehand is generally not that expensive, but if you wait until the disaster is unfolding, it might not even be possible.

The biggest lie a government tells you is that it will take care of you if disaster strikes.  Governments can’t – they’ve proven that time and time again.

———-

As I was lying against the cold asphalt in the dimming light, I knew no one was coming to help me.  I pulled my leg as hard as I could.  I heard my jeans rip.  My leg was free!  I got up, and carried my bike to the side of the road.

What do you call a bike tire repairman?  A spokesman.

About two minutes later, a car passed me as I pedaled homeward.  Had I been sitting in the middle of the road, could he have stopped?

I don’t know.  But I do know that if I had waited to depend on him seeing me, the answer wasn’t mine – it was his.  By taking action, I made that possibility disappear.  And I got home before Ma Wilder missed me.

The best person to save me, was me.  The best person to save you, is you.  Act early and prepare.