The Flippant Philosopher

I mean really…the gall of some people. Making us look bad. Making our half-assed efforts glaringly obvious. And them getting rich at too. The bastards.

-Demonax

Insisting on “winning” every argument is usually quickest way to alienate friends and annoy everyone else.

If you’re right, stick to your guns. If you just don’t want to be wrong, though, continuing to argue is much like congratulating the Greek King Pyrrhus on his victory over the Romans. Or, as he put it, “Another such victory over the Romans and we are undone.”

-Demonax

It’s now incredibly easy to stay in touch with your friends and loved ones, no matter how far away you might be.

Used to, when you moved somewhere new, you met the locals. You were almost forced to. Now, though, you don’t have to. You can live in a totally different country, with a different culture and language. And so long as you have broadband, it’s almost like you never left home.

Who needs new friends when old friends are so damn easy to reach?

-Demonax

…is still a devil.

Being worried that you might get “something worse” by getting rid of the devil you know is natural. Sticking with that devil anyway is stupid.

-Demonax

A better title for my last post might have been: “I’m not just a Consumer.”

Following the lead of Alcoholics Anonymous, it would be more honest to say that I’m still a consumer. A recovering consumer, maybe, but still a consumer.

(Of course, if you call me that I’m likely to get upset about it. But that’s beside the point.)

My third year of college I received my first credit card. From then until now I’ve had an outstanding balance.

Depressing, neh? It gets worse.

During my years as a full-time employee (I’ve been self-employed since 1999), I considered any available credit as the equivalent of cash. Unused credit was a resource awaiting allocation. It usually didn’t have to wait long.

Sure, there were times I would get disgusted with my accumulated debt load, and I would institute a pay down procedure. Sometimes I even kept that up for 6 months.

It always seemed that I was “just this close” to getting the debt wiped out. After all, $3000 isn’t that much money. Nor is $10,000. Not really, in the overall grand scheme of things. One big sale, a bit of luck in creating new software, and it could all disappear in a single puff of windfall. Why stress yourself out too much over something that could be cleaned up in an instant?

Add to that a natural tendency to pick out the most expensive item in any sales line up and disaster is inevitable.

I told myself that I was being wise with my purchases. And to some extent, I think I was. When I bought, I tried to buy to last. Hell, 15 years later I still have one of my first big purchases, my stereo system, hooked up and cranking forth in my living room. I wasn’t a complete fool. Just most of one.

Let’s add one more thing to the mix: When I went to work for myself, I didn’t adjust my or my family’s standard of living at all. On a fraction of the income I had coming in before, we maintained the same lifestyle. It was easy to use credit cards to “make ends meet”, because it was just a temporary measure, something to tide us over until the sales picked up.

The inevitable disaster shifted from “later” to “sooner”.

“Do you have health insurance,” the nurse asked when we started pre-natal care on our second child.

“I got Visa,” I told her.

“Sooner” became “Boom!” as the monthly payments combined to exceed our income before the baby was 6 months old.

Tips and tricks for how to keep your family housed, fed, and clothed in the face of insufficient income and nonexistent credit during an economic recession and depressed job market will be the topic for a later post. Those concussions you heard were me taking my credit rating out back and shooting it in the head. Repeatedly.

We’re now close to the end of our second year of “debt management”. In just over 3 years, we’ll be free of the credit card debt, maybe sooner if I can continue to build my business. After 5 years (by then) of living on a cash basis, I’d like to think we’ll stay free of credit card debt.

Still, I can’t believe how long, and how painful, the process of “paying the piper” has been, and how long there is yet to go. I was able to put it off for a long time, but the piper will be paid. Have no doubts about it.

My only consolation in the face of so totally fucking it up is that it wasn’t all the result of rampant consumer spending. There were the years we owed on taxes (OK, so I should probably take the blame for that too: poor planning) and the pregnancy and birth of the second child. So it’s not like we just spent thousands and thousands on eating out, going to movies, and taking expensive vacations until we went broke. Much of it, after 1999 especially, was just making ends meet without paying close attention to how bad the situation had become.

I’m already a much better money manager than I used to be. Extended months of watching every dollar and making sure it goes where it’s needed will do that to anyone, I think. The realization that you can buy a DVD for $20, or feed your family for 3 days (with a bit of stretching and repetition), will help you see how stupid it is to be a “consumer of culture”, whether it’s American culture or any other. Even better, I think, because of this experience, we now have a savings plan, for the first time in my professional life (besides 401k’s from former employers, which burned up in the same crash and conflagration).

Simple consumerism won’t kill you. What you spend your money on is your prerogative. It’s when you go into debt to support a consumer habit like DVD “collecting” or eating at fine restaurants that the piper perks up. This is the type of consumerism that has been rampant in the USA over the past decades.

When politicians, including the President, loudly advocate that we should go shopping (or we let the terrorists win), when they think of US citizens as only a source of taxes and revenue for those businesses that support them, is when consumerism bugs me the most.

And every year, when Xmas rolls around, and meaningless consumerism is toted as some kind of ideal and blessed state of mind, just know that I’ll be grouchy.

-Demonax

I’m a husband and a father.

I’m a sibling and a son.

I’m a friend and an observer.

I’m a citizen and a taxpayer.

I’m a lot of different things which weigh in more significantly than my purchasing habits.

I go to the store to buy what I need. Sometimes I buy something I want, but don’t need. Those activities, however, have little to do with who or what I am.

So, if the cable news networks, if the major newspapers, and if the goddamn politicians don’t mind, I would like to request that you please stop identifying me and there rest of the US population as “consumers”.

-Demonax

Make fewer excuses.

-Demonax

From the poem, “To a Mouse” by the Scots poet Robert Burns (1759-1796): 

“The best-laid plans of mice and men

Gang aft agley [often go wrong].

And leave us naught but grief and pain

For promised joy.”

Revised slightly:

“The best plans of mice and men to get laid

Oft go awry

And leave us naught but giref and pain

Because the kids wake up inopportunely.”

-Demonax

Every relationship needs Mosquito Bait. My wife has that honor in our marriage. I sorely miss her when she’s away.

-Demonax

I would like to extend my thanks, to say how much I appreciate those joggers, walkers, cyclists, and skaters who shower before hitting the River Trail. You always smell so clean and fresh as I skate past you or as you pass me.

Which leads me to my apology…

I live right by the River Trail. So I just roll out of bed in the morning, pull on my shorts, have a quick breakfast, put on my skates, and head out. I don’t shower until I get back.

Most of you smell great, especially the women. I have no idea what I smell like, especially after the first few miles under the morning sun.

Sorry about that.

-Demonax