importance of metrics

Americans – and, by extension, peoples in all parts of the world who are yearning for Liberty – appear to have lost sight of the more important things in life. Bombarded by constant advertisements telling us we need this new thing and that new service, this new skirt and that new car, we long ago gave in, affording these things by burying ourselves under mountains of personal and high-interest debt. Furthermore, we have come to define ourselves primarily by our current occupations; we have come to accept monikers such as Blue Collar, Middle Class, Working Poor, and the like, without batting an eye, without a single question, without the slightest outcry, without even taking a moment to see how such narrow definitions are deflating our once-buoyant and once-vibrant individual souls.

To accept such monikers, or to strive to be seen by others as belonging to one specific class or the other, is to step willingly into the artificial world that advertisers and their corporate slave-masters try so hard to craft for us (in order to get our money); to talk constantly about What We Do For A Living – to start every single fucking conversation with that exact question – is to declare that our lives are primarily boring, devoid of personal development, lacking in spiritual humility, focused mostly on grabbing and taking instead of offering and giving. When trying to remember when was the last time I spoke with someone about my recent efforts to increase my own Liberty or that of another person, my mind draws a blank; when trying to talk to the average Someone about the use of negative space within an artistic composition, or the importance of cadence in prose, they immediately change subjects and want to discuss the upcoming release of the blue-ray diskette of the fourth season of some worthless fucking TV show about super-models-turned-moms who run secret subterranean cabbage farms.

I am beginning to suspect that I am largely alone in my conscious rejection of modern consumerist culture, that my efforts to cultivate a shred of individuality – not by hoarding cash or working 70 hours a week but by reading books on a dozen different topics and trying to reawaken my artistic abilities – that my efforts to make myself a slightly better and more interesting person are being matched by few, if any, of my peers. Please understand that I am not trying to say that I am cooler or more valuable to society for rejecting its more knee-jerk and pitiful aspects, merely that I feel largely alone, a poor sob adrift on a sea of self-banishment that is fed by my own tears, a snake for whom the once-familiar tones have lost their charming edge. My disappointment with society is likely the reason why few people bother to read these blogs, anymore – my bleating has turned sour; my whining, incessant; and my holier-than-thou attitude has become so stale that even I am bored with it. Perhaps I too should just give in, work a nine-to-five, worry above all else about my choice of cable-TV provider, and gain 75 pounds of pure belly-fat. Probably not, though, because I've given up on so many other things in my life that I could hardly live with giving up on becoming the best person I can possibly be. (If The Best Person I Can Possibly Be is not a metric of its own, a tiny little box into which I am trying to force my bursting and exuberant soul, then I have no idea what a metric is, anymore.) To my knowledge, though, few Americans self-identify with artificial names and metrics dreamed up by content-hungry newscasters, and this judgmental thunder-and-brimstone that I compose is just wasting space on a perfectly good server farm, somewhere. Oh well; mahalo.

場黑麥 mentiri factorem fecit

on America's legal numbers racket

Attention lottery-loving citizens of America: stop playing the lottery. Before the federal and state governments confiscated the system from organized crime, the lottery was called the numbers racket; then, as now, it is a crooked game run by crooked scum that hoodwink financially destitute, money-obsessed, weak-willed people into forking over their hard-earned cash for a return of roughly ten cents on the dollar.

If you play this state-run racket thinking that you are doing the right thing, if you participate in this legalized crime hoping to strike it fabulously rich, then you shall lose more than just money – you shall lose the last, fraying shreds of your dignity. If you are hoping for wealth, all you shall get is sadness. If you think that maybe, just this once, it will be you announcing to the world how fantastically wealthy you are, then you shall be terribly mistaken. The states that run lotteries are quick to claim that proceeds from their lotteries benefit the infirm, the sick, or the elderly. In truth, however, the very people who can least afford to play the lottery – people on food stamps, Welfare, or fixed incomes, and those who work low-paying jobs – these are the people who grow poorer with each purchase of a lottery ticket. It is upon these people that the state-run numbers racket preys, in part through ludicrous and vile advertising campaigns that tells the lower classes: Today could be your lucky day, so just buy a ticket already – you never know!

Today can be your lucky day, as can tomorrow, because every day spent not obsessing over money is a lucky day, and because true fortune comes by expressing your natural abilities through diligent, focused, and honest labor. Do not play the lottery, because if you do, you will allow an external, fickle, and dishonest source to dictate your Happiness, you will engage in state-sanctioned criminal behavior, you will prove your bovine-like docility by doing anything that the crowd does, and you will show that you are a slave to the shifting winds of chance. Do not be a slave: be a self-reliant, self-respecting citizen. Live simply, live frugally, and steer clear of the crooked numbers rackets.

場黑麥 ioanni elymucampus fecit