ARGH!

Why is the H at the end of Argh! AARG-HHHHHH. I don't know . . . be wise to have a mint first before you cry out in rage and exasperation.

I have insufficient funds to maintain my $1 minimum. I withdrew $40 last night only have $20 available (why in the hell would my bank let me do that if they knew I would be forced into the negative and have to pay them a penalty??? I obviously have no money to do that!!!)

What's more is that I spent that money on a round of drinks. You can't be nice anymore in this city I swear. I mean that too, the one's responsible for my insufficiency is the New York State tax and finance jerks who removed the $500 I owed them directly from my checking account instead of from the $900 I was getting from Federal. They did it on the same day I got my Unemployment allowance, meaning they took that completely and add $100 for an untimely withdrawal for a school loan payment that was scheduled last week.

A certain online do it yourself tax prep site that rhymes with completetax.com shafted me nice.

It's my fault. Conscious living isn't just a suggestion, it's a raft in open water. It's the beginning to a semblance of order. And no amount of intelligence really asserts that emotional urgency that keeps your instincts a live and watchful.

Rule #1 for Americans (the hardest to learn): Make it hard to screw yourself.

Things I can see.

Dear America,

I can see the ass-end of Brooklyn College from my bedroom window. It lies across the tracks nestled in a stripe of forest-growth that goes from here to there; who knows where? In preparation for return, I did my taxes a couple of nights ago and concluded that the IRS doesn't mind the bidding war going on between various tax preparation agencies, offering up greater and greater returns as if a standard should have never been set up. Everyone wishes to gain and avoid loss. Multiply that by millions and turn the cheek on the deficit. It's only natural.

Those of us surviving unemployed with heat, a roof, and running water are probably now (after the quakes in Haiti) sleeping a little better. It's not pretty, but Americans have an existence where they still get to THINK about where they wanna go. There are too many places in the world where you can't afford to ponder because circumstances push to hard.

Still, the inevitable reality is that at our pace, resources for daily living will raise in value. We'll buy less for more and share with those we love until days are added to stretch our endurance over sickness and starvation. The homeless know it but they aren't the ones with the chance to change it. Those that due will be surprised and by the time a plan swells there'll be no more money to make a change. How long is it before we lose the right to THINK about what's right to do NOW?

I'm contemplating . . . The American Dream is also called economic mobility. It means a bloodline can rise in status and become more affluent with each emerging generation. This assumes people can make more money than they need so that each generation to come after will have a launching pad to reach their own loftier goals.

Americans in general (not the wealthy who understand the worth of risk, or immigrants who get nice gift basket upon entry, or the homeless whom generally deteriorate if it isn't for some saving grace the current populace is loathed to spare) spend more than they earn. Our economy is evolving on the motion of money that doesn't exist; credit. The false wealth doesn't cut it.

Maybe some service provider or bank figured out one day that if people were earning more than they needed in one lifetime, they could afford to spread a little more out to the world. But now too few, at least from my standpoint, have anything to give anyone; especially their children. The new plague will just be refusal, and if the population is smart they'll withhold their right to reproduce until we get this under control. We can't afford it and it's our responsibility.

I like to imagine the world Ayn Rand built in Atlas Shrugged and wonder if anything like the industrial age will repeat itself. The information age has a lot of technology but too many are just building excess amounts of power without anyone really understanding how it makes us stronger. TB hard drives for what? iPad for what? There's no problem with excess capability if that eventually translates into utility. But when $500 impulse items are abundant, and people are losing their homes because our economy can't support them, then what happens to the pursuit of happiness? What happens to the dream that the lower and middle class have?

The simple solutions of self control and fiscal discipline aren't really educated in schools. Somewhere along the lines policy makers haven't recognized that the majority masses with less money are moving in cycles like cattle. If they have recognized it, they've found justifiable reasons to keep their eyes focused on what the people of power are capable of. These people are fighting for survival as much as everyone else. They do it like they're playing chess. We do it like we're playing monopoly in reverse.

From what Obama says, he believes the country can change itself. He offers his ideas and is fighting for the ideals that I agree America should adopt. He's getting fought on a number of issues because there are entire industries that thrive on impulse, false hope, and depravity. And they do it firstly, because the people that are responsible forgetting themselves caught up in the downward spiral weren't properly warned or educated.

Every man is an industry. Local community issues, good business practice, a little brainstorming on how to offer something of value to someone else at benefit to them and profit to yourself, home-cooking, and pencil/paper ledgers on the financials are the basics. Be conscious of where you are, be vigilant, start small. Get involved and make smart decisions, not fearful ones. Don't escape. DON'T. Every time an American looks away, is another lifetime in future generations a child will be faced with the prospect of starvation or murder or some rich-kid heir will hang himself out of depression and boredom (as if there were no purpose great enough for his opportunity at education and application). It's already happened in the ghettos and the suburbs. The decline of the dollar is mutating our disposition as Americans.

The Dream needs protecting, and through all my generalizations I realize that much. The headlines in the papers don't give much hope. It's all finger-pointing. The leaders won't do it. Law isn't a substitute for habit. It's time to look inward. Money doesn't make the world go round, the opportunity to make it does. If you can't find it, you've got to make it.

What are we supposed to do?

I let this question fly. It's important. Within the news, the poetry, the documentaries are the keys to breaking down the subtle destruction of our country's economic condition, and redisigning mobility for our people. There is no dramatic upset included, just a leveling out. Let the nature of a man's ingenuity be the force behind his wealth, not the level of sophistication in which he chooses to rape his neighbor. The wealthy are dying, the seeds that they have planted have simply inherited their mess. There is an opening for new minds to set the pace, rectify the damage, protect the pursuit that was intended for us since the beginning.

But still, the question begs an answer: What are we supposed to do?

The ratio of debt to income stability is staggering. The family is the American unit and it is weak. The rich have little to complain about because they do not see the landslide spilling beneath them, at least the majority don't or they don't respect the implication.

The power lies in recognition and adjustment and that is given usually, to the desperate or the prepared. In each community in NYC, there are thousands of strangers, many of which accepting the consequences of actions that betray the reality of their influence on the current state of affairs; myself included. Life is a state of ambivalence when leadership is expected as an external experience. I'm not sure how many families discuss the power of individuality or the responsibility of existance, but with how many unguided children are out there today, how can it be a majority?

A legacy exists in the strength of endeavor passed through gut and pride of a father to his son, the emotional clarity and elegance of a mother to her daughter, the cross fertilization of logic and sensitivity to children of the opposite sex, the product of sensible effort in the form of surplus and security, and most importantly: worth as a direct consequence of love. What hasty decision can be made when an utterly true appreciation of the moment's gravity is laid bare?

...I just saw "Maxed Out." It's a documentary about debt. Not just individual debt but it's relation to our economy, our country, and the downward spiral of the common citizen. People are dying, money is being used crazily to avoid late interest payments while a host of sensible programs are diminished or cut altogether, not least of which is our own social security. I have family that will never be able to retire and I fear for being forced to work in an environment without protection, without options, without a chance for relief when my bones are far too old.

Our generation is stepping into position. We should be curageous. We should be honest. We should not gamble with life, especially the lives of others. Deliberation of cause is never folly when the future is at stake. No environment should be an excuse to fail at humanity.

Some cycles are meant to be interrupted. They just need to be wrong.

Middle Class Blues cont.

There are a set of conceptions responsible for the placement of everyday energy. You expect the requirement of a 9-5, never factoring all the obvious reasons why that function has become abundantly risky. A new and strange calling has arrived with far more benefit and stability and its called entrepeneurship (that's not a word). Managing and maximizing the use of your time is the real money maker and offering services within your capacity for a price relevant to sustaining your living standards is an equation aimed hitting all the necessities for an adequate profession while creating a possibility of living life you find suitable. There is not enough industry to sustain the common man. He must create an industry of himself and this machine must create industries that compound upon his momentum. Perhaps I'm blabbing, but the point is that the box was broken long ago, and the idea that people still had a choice to fit their thoughts within it is a fallacy. The consequence is a doomed legacy. America fails without its people. This generation bears the burden of returning ingenuity to a world falling upon its indifference. I don't know where the citizen has gone but the economy is a sign of the absence of mind only children have. I don't have all the answers yet, but maybe I'm getting interested. Maybe I've decided I want to know why and thought I've been up all night and it's too late for me to coherently mean a great many things, I know that this concern is not idle. It's something I've been failing to escape for some time.

Middle class blues

UNEMPLOYMENT.

It's more a state of mind than a condition. More on this later, I just need to write it down. It's tough remembering.

How many first attempts...

How many first attempts does it take to make a success out of oneself? You've got every potential start-up marred by uncertainty and the distraction that causes makes it easy to fall back on patterns and habits that are irrelevant to success.

I hate to be a hard ass. I'm only 26. While I can appreciate the entrepreneur, the savant, the polished archetypes which make the most out of America, the truth is that I think the average person my age is very ignorant and complacent about his place in the world. I mean it's easy for the college student to become enraged over geopolitical issues, environmental concerns, human rights, and more. But nothing presses at our potential than the arena we are born into.

This economic crisis we're in requires some uncomfortable moves, some unsteady footing into new territory for every citizen capable of making it. Does this necessarily translate into the "high-powered" mentality? I'm not sure. But this digression has a lot to do with the fact that I managed to make it out of bed about half an hour ago, I have my track suit on and after I'm done here I'm going for a jog. I haven't done this in a while, it's cold out, I usually sleep till 2pm despite my best intentions, and the small break from habit allows me to look on the rest of the day like a general at war. The options are mine now, where as at 2pm I am pressed to take back the initiative lost to me out of complacency. Should this early rise become a habit, then the mindset to make use of this advantage of time and perspective may also become so. I know there are opportunities in this country that stem from punctuality and the ability to clearly state what is on what's mind. Investor meetings, small business start-ups, education, all these initiatives and more seem to come from shared decision to make the best of the time we have and then, and more importantly, acting on it.

I wish I could control the state of my disposition and will power tomorrow. At best I can attempt to remain vigilant through the day and set up a momentum that will cause a consistent scale of productivity from my thoughts and actions. However, as always, the challenge is never against the world and it's state of affairs. It is against a limited view, which limits accountability. It is against external reliance, versus self-reliance. It is against the childish dependence on the voices of more determined men and women, who can never be, nor should ever be, the direct cause of my break from relent and passivity.

I have dreams of writing and film making. I have dreams of owning my own businesses. I have dreams of making the most of my wit, intelligence, youth, humor, and charm, to whatever degree I am able to. I have dreams of being more than the unemployed, non-registered student, without a proper writing discipline, without a proper cause, routine, faith, or element of guidance that I happen to be. I have no afflictions, addictions, or extended dilemmas save apathy and I'd like to now go and sweat that crap out on the running track.

Before I go, let it be known that doubt, that great demon, is forever a distraction from pure endeavor. I hate to be a hard ass, but if micromanaging my ego were easy, I wouldn't have to be. Wish me luck, and good luck to you as well.

a tugging horizon

Being young, creative, analytical, and sleepy just doesn't work. You can only get away with so much bullshit before everyone realizes nothing is going on, there's no music at the party, the cake never got picked up.

I can only begin to identify the traces of success by the lack of it in my own life. Conveniently, I manage to protect myself from total defeat by never actually becoming the challenger. But that complacency is changing. The toys I want are getting bigger, the hole inside me is growing, the internal event calendar is mailing call sheets and whether I'm ready or not, some part of me is gonna show up and expect a show. Do you even know what I'm talking about?

How exactly does one save for a car? How does one buy a home and avoid foreclosure? How do people manage to fall in love and prepare for a family? How do people live long enough and healthy enough to be there for their grand-children's graduation? How does a person keep from being sedentary? How do we grow proud from accomplishment? How does one amass his power and use it purposefully?

Friendship, Family, Wealth, Style, Momentum, and the Health to hold it all up; this goes together or nothing goes at all. Wealth isn't a definition of how filthy you are, just how capable you are of staying ahead of the game, living below your means and being able to handle monetary emergencies without stress. It means providing to those that depend on you. Health isn't about running the marathon every year, but how about running for 20 minutes without wanting to quit, let alone actually stopping. It's about understanding that the definition of running for the benefit of health requires strain, you shouldn't have time to regret, to admire the scenery. You should be appreciating your own systems as the limitations are lifted one push at a time.

Humans consume everything on the planet. But we are not stronger than a bear or able to out-think the various dangers of our natural world. Our ideas are supported and developed within our race. We are our greatest resource; PEOPLE are your greatest resource. Relationships, social calibration and dynamics are not just ways to get laid but also to get paid. Relationships are how things change, they are a necessity to any type of better life. Even I, as a general loner, can accept that.

I don't really care about others in a sense that I think it would matter to them. Time and distance strain the assumptions that come with a relationship. But incentive is universal. Everyone wants something, you figure it out and stimulate that goal, the individual responds in kind to feel less vulnerable.

The other elements like style and momentum are born from the realization that you are only pushed to the front when you set yourself apart. Your identity is one of your greatest commodities, no one else can possess it. So don't settle for neutrality.

My dilemma is that conceptually, the world falls together into something cohesive and complimentary. But my own weaknesses prevent me from engaging the fruits of my wonder. Even now I'm having a hard time staying focused and awake. I also never created a purpose for this blog which I will have to do soon so as not to confuse my future readers.

My point, despite all this digression, is that the minute you accept the existence of a desire for all the normal and abnormal things you want, if they are honest pure wants, then a part of you begins to hold you accountable for all the decisions you make. And so realizing some simple things like wanting a family, a home, a car, I've had to guess at whether or not I want them more than I want to write for a living. If so, I can go get a city job or something. But doing what I love and living a life with all those gifts included is the true goal. Knowing that I can see how many times a day I betray myself and it hurts.