Deviant Rambling

A beloved relative died Friday at home doing what he loved: meth.

Meth was a great friend, always there for him in his time of need:
When he was down, meth picked him up and got him going.
When he couldn’t decide on a project, meth picked a new one for him.
When he had an itch he just couldn’t seem to scratch, meth showed him how and for how long.
When he needed money, meth showed him where all the scrap metal was.
When he wanted to brush his teeth, meth showed him how easy life is without them.
When he felt the need to sleep, meth encouraged him to get more meth. Sleep is for pussies anyway.

He was preceded in meth by millions of other high quality human beings.

(This one goes out to my brother who died on Friday, August 26. The culprit was heart failure but I’ll let you guess where it came from.)

I was the president of a business that was incredibly fortunate to receive both rounds of PPP funding in 2020 and 2021 respectively. We were in a serious bind at those times as our work is seasonal and already prone to issues of inconsistency. The total of the two loans was north of 180,000.00, in line with the math for our payrolls of the requested periods.

Both of our “loans” we’re forgiven. The process to apply for and receive these loans was simple. The process to apply for and receive forgiveness for said loans was even simpler. We basically had to pinky swear (under penalty of federal perjury) that the proceeds of the loan had been used for approved expenses. We weren’t entirely sure how forgiveness was going to work (or if it would at all) but we had to take the chance.

We understood and accepted the possibility of tax ramifications later down the line because any time the government tells you something is free, they are lying.

Fast forward to President Biden’s decision on student loan forgiveness.

Much like the decision about PPP loans and their subsequent forgiveness, the concept of student loan forgiveness is completely sound. In fact, the underlying financials regarding student loan debt warrant an even more radical response. 

All student loan debt should be forgiven.

After this first insane, but necessary act, all educational institutions should cease operations for a time. Every single trace of government involvement in these institutions should be removed. The government shouldn’t be involved in this because anywhere the government shows up, the profit motive surely follows.  

If you use the PPP program as an example, there are sitting members of Congress who received millions in PPP funds and had the loans subsequently forgiven. These same members are now calling for the beheadings of Democrats (metaphorically for now) over a reckless handout.

…Are you fucking kidding me?

The PPP program was reckless on steroids and members of BOTH PARTIES got in on it. There were approximately zero barriers of entry and it practically had a neon sign over it that read “FREE MONEY”.

Students in this country face a much more insidious series of lies before they sign up for a loan. A student loan is sold as the guarantee of a proven path to success, allowing the person proper resources to repay the debt. Once a person graduates, they are placed on a career path that gives them ample resources to pay for whatever they like. 

Only it isn’t true.

College graduates arrive in an oversaturated job market and take the first job they can get, whether or not it requires their degree. The payments start the second you receive your criminally overpriced piece of paper. And they are the kind of payment you can’t just file bankruptcy on and start over. They are the kind of payments the government specializes in: the ones you have until you die.

Much like taxes, there is no reset for student debt. When you have it, you pay it or you die, and the government doesn’t give a shit how you get the money. The fact that they get involved and subsidize the debt only proves the point. They are propping up a decades old story about how life in America works with complete disregard for the evidence that the story is fiction.

Education should be a right, not a punishment. A more educated population would make a better world for everyone and allow the United States a place at the table of the best. As it stands, we prove time and again that we deserve the derision we receive from the rest of the world.

My company received a “handout” and it saved the lives of about half a dozen of my employees for several months while the world had a meltdown. It gave us stability in an insane time and I am completely grateful for that. Everyone who got an education and is terrified of the future because they had to borrow money for it should have the same relief.

The loudest argument about broad relief is about how this is unfair. How fair is it to sell someone who doesn’t know any better a future you can’t guarantee? 

Meeting with a lawyer about medical malpractice/wrongful death was a reminder of how the world actually works. When you walk in the room, you have to do your best to leave every feeling you have for the person who was hurt or lost at the door. Your representation wants the objective information about the situation so they can assess whether or not you have a case.

It isn’t entirely certain that there is a case with the most damning evidence. When there is limited evidence, the damning can work the other way. I believe we find ourselves somewhere in the middle. There is evidence of miscommunication but what isn’t evident is how far it went and to what extent my dad was responsible for communicating his issues.

We all rely on medical professionals to read our minds at times of crisis but the fact is they don’t have to and can’t be held liable if they couldn’t. It is up to the individual to decide whether or not the lack of mind reading was worth pursuing legal action. For us, it is.

But now we are in a holding pattern while the lawyer does more discovery to try and assemble a case. Two months of waiting just to find out if there is any kind of case to pursue. This is a real life timeline. It’s been almost 7 months since dad passed away and it will be almost 9 by the time we see the lawyer again. The case could take years. Every time we meet to discuss particulars, we get to relive the whole experience.

Trials don’t just happen in court rooms, they happen to us all every day we have to do any of this kind of reliving. I still believe it is worth the effort to hold the hospital and professionals responsible for their action or lack there of.

The sheer amount of free time I have allows me the opportunity to ponder the world and my place in it. I watch people go by all day, some of them, presumably to their occupation of choice. It makes me wonder how much choice there really is in the matter.

There is only so much time in a lifetime and so many of us trade a substantial percentage of this time for money. I’ve given decades to this trade and managed to lose decades in the accounting. Where’d the money go? Primarily to places I can’t even remember, a gigantic list of unremembered waste.

So what value did the money have?

I can feel the loss of time keenly, as though I’ve lost a family member. When I try to focus the same energy on the money I feel contentious toward it. I took the bait and got fileted. This makes the idea of spending any more time pursuing money feel like voluntary torture. The tangled web that money weaves around every aspect of life makes it impossible to remove entirely from the picture.

As much as I might be better off losing a few pounds, I enjoy eating. My life has been made better experientially by food and the savoring of it. I’ve yet to find a way to get my food for free, but if I could, I’d probably die 10 years sooner, happier.

The greater focus of this ramble is about the never-ending quest for a sense of purpose. If I abandon this quest in favor of the practical, I will lose my time and much of who I am. So the quest becomes how to achieve the practical along the path to purpose. As it sounds, it’s nearly impossible. The world rewards the uneducated peanuts for meaningless work. That is what is available to a person like me. For all of my bitching about this, I have at least avoided the leviathan that is student debt.

I’ve had a conversation with myself about education and it’s a dead end. The formality of it all puts me off completely and the debt is one I will not saddle myself with for life. I accept the fact that despite wanting the knowledge, I don’t want to deal with the process and bureaucracy of it all. I will never stop trying to learn more and become a better person, though.

After 6+ months of back and forth with a lawyer, we are finally sitting down discussing our course of action about our case against a hospital. No matter the outcome, we still lost someone, but it is an opportunity for them to own some of their mistake.

I’m not 100% sure anything will come of this but it is worth putting the pressure on them.

The baking bug bit me last night and today I’m gonna spend some time seeing what it might take to be what’s referred to as a “Home Based Vendor”. A law came into effect at the beginning of July that allows people like me to sell baked goods from home. I can even deliver now!

I really enjoy baking and it could make a little money so that couldn’t hurt. It’s something to pass the time in a way that gives me value for my effort.

There are still a few remnants of the old business left that I need to sell and can’t find anyone to buy them. I feel as though I will have to basically give the things away at this point. If I had the option, I would.

The things left are all there is of value left from this abortion of a business, and I don’t want it to all be for nothing.

Thankfully not every day feels like today. Gotta keep on moving.

There is an image I can’t escape.
Of a man in the water.
All around him, a river, teeming with life.
He stands, frozen in his own time, viewing the spectacle unfolding in every direction.
Nothing about the water’s current feels like home.
All of this life around him is foreign, alien even.
Despite this, the water is apathetic; completely disinterested in the man and his judgment.
There is no shore, but there is no depth.
Nothing to aim for or be afraid of.
There is no man. There is no water. There is only the image of the separation.

Am I the man or the river?

There will be no compromise for me in my goal to live the life I want. Every time I even begin to consider settling for less, the pit in my stomach opens up and swallows the notion. Something inside of me rejects any reality in which I settle.

I have to acknowledge that this is the same part of me that is making me feel uneasy about my ability to provide for the real world concerns of my loved ones. But the part of a normal (?) person that shoves desire down and buries it isn’t in me anywhere. In my mind, if I am not living the life I want to live, I will only have a fraction of myself to give to the people that matter to me. This division makes me feel weak, like I’m no real help to anyone in this state.

So I reject any form of resignation. The only thing that is inevitable is death, the rest is infinitely malleable

Upon this occasion I sit to write and notice myself spacing out and staring at the blinking cursor. What did writers of old stare at when they were using a typewriter?

I can remember taking a typing course in high school and using typewriters. It provided a satisfying clacking while working. It makes me wonder how much of the allure went away when technology made the typewriter obsolete.

It’s just one more way I’m a man out of place in time, I guess.