Sunday, Jan. 11, 2004 - 12:09 p.m.

Why I Screwed Everything Up

Mood:

It’s existential crisis time. I’m shedding copious tears.

It’s giving me humility. A lot of humility. I was getting a little too smug.

I think I figured out why I never got around to diversifying my investments, leading to my present state of financial ruin. Strangely, or not so strangely, it ties in with why I failed out of my god damn Ivy League college. It comes down to me feeling tired and wanting some rest and relaxation. I can only sacrifice for so long before some part of me starts demanding satisfaction of my suppressed desire. In college, I had so much reading assigned that I figured out that I could only do it by pulling two all-nighters every week. At the time, I was too callow to believe such a strategy to be unsustainable. While I struggled on, nailing myself to the cross of higher education (after hammering the first nail, I didn’t know how to get the second nail in), my subconscious said, “fuck that shit,” and went on strike, refusing to write any papers until I had my fill of intrinsically enjoyable activity. With the Internet investment gag, I worked really hard on it for countless hours a week. The investments themselves required virtually no work; you just put in your money and count the interest that comes back. But I was trying to claw my way out of poverty by referring others in order to get referral fees. That involved making a website, updating my website, and then trying to learn the wacky world of Internet marketing, which involves getting marketed to a lot in the process. It was eating up all my time. After several months of this, I began to wonder that if I was doing this in order to get the leisure to do what I love, when was I going to get around to the latter. I decided to lighten up and take more leisure right now, even though I hadn’t “made it” yet. I figured that if I could get hit by a bus any day, and I’d hate to think I had deferred my dreams in favor of non-stop money grubbing. After all, I didn’t even really want the money. My wildest dreams of what I could buy with lots of money were usually just a few hundred dollars worth of electronics; I didn’t want to rock ‘n’ roll all night and party every day; I just wanted time, time to make music and cartoons and to foment a revolution of everyday life. So I did less with the investments, and spent more time reading, and started making cartoons. I even took some time out to meditate, which I hadn’t done in ages. While beginning to live my dream a little, I negligently ignored a precarious situation I had created.

The other reason is simple gambler’s ruin. I had a goal of making double my subsistence income of $600/month, so that I could live off half while compounding the other half to keep the process going, perhaps getting rich as a result. I didn’t start with enough capital to do that, so I was anxiously waited for the day my money would multiply up to that point. I was a little too willing to take silly risks to hasten the coming of that day. I rationalized that I’d play it safe after that point.

I wanted life on my terms. Was that too much to ask? I’m suffering due to attachment, duh. But the ironic thing is that I realized that I’m all attached to a lifestyle that isn’t even working for me.

Granted, several aspects were working for me. I didn’t have to work some alienating job. I didn’t have to violate my personal code of ethics, such as calling people who had no wish to be called.

And presently, several aspects still are working. I live in one of the least nationalistic places in the United States, and I really appreciate not seeing flags plastered everywhere. The summers are all blue skies and sunshine, and no mosquitoes. I have food, shelter, peace and quiet, ample intellectual stimulation from books and the Internet, and occasionally in person such as at ProtoTista and the anarchist study group.

But the isolation is really getting to me. That, and I’m tired of working in isolation. I have no sense of teamwork. I prosper or perish by myself. I then run with that fact and construct a miserable fable for myself, that no one cares if I live or die, which of course is not true. The team feeling is something I miss from the commune. My friends do care, but I have to explain the situation first, since the field I’m working in is so foreign to them. Speaking of which, I think I only have two friends in Eugene. Maybe I’m forgetting someone, and I don’t want to accidentally hurt anyone’s feelings, so I won’t name them. I in no way wish to blame my friends for my loneliness. I create it myself by getting absorbed in what I’m doing and forgetting to call anyone for long periods of time. Twin Oaks spoiled me; I used to just show up at the Fun Table, and there would be people there. Now, I have to arrange appointments, or go to structured activities to get any human contact. If someone’s not available, or if the activity is cancelled, I’m up shit’s creek.

Let’s say the money was still coming to me, or let’s say that within the next month and a half I can find sources of income to make up for what I’ve lost. Would I be happy?

But if not this, what?

I keep thinking, in my distress, that maybe I ought to give up on this whole Eugene thing and go move in to my father’s house in Rhode Island. There’s nothing there for me, though, except the house itself, and occasional visits from my father. The house stands empty most of the time because my father spends most of his time living with his girlfriend in Long Island. I’d have all the isolation I have now, but more so. But I’d have a real house. I mean, right now, I live in a friggin’ shed. An expensive shed, mind you, but a drafty, ant-infested shed with a toilet that freezes, nonetheless.

This could be the best thing that’s happened to me, if it forces me to find a solution to these other deficiencies in my life.

What the hell am I supposed to do? I mean, in the broadest sense?

How am I supposed to live?

I wanna contribute the best I’ve got to this world, so why am I continually thwarted in my attempts, especially thwarted by yours truly?

Why am I here, and for how long?

If you’re so smart, explain this, Clarissa.

I recognize that part of why this hurts is because deep down, I presume there ought to be answers. As in a path provided for me by someone or something besides myself. Probably goes back to the way I was raised, being told what to do by people who projected an air of knowing everything.

My father recommended I follow his path and get a job doing income tax preparation. He has suggested this before, but I recoiled at the notion of helping funnel blood money to Uncle Sam.

This time, however, my father told me that the majority of his tax clients were employees who had already had taxes withheld from their wages and salaries. That makes a tax preparer akin to Robin Hood, snatching money back from the Empire to give to the poor. My dad estimates that his intervention prevented the IRS from getting around $3 million from his clients that they otherwise would have gotten. I’m seriously considering getting a job preparing taxes, if I can get a job like that in Eugene’s awful job market. Maybe I can refuse to take clients who are self-employed and haven’t already had part of their earnings withheld.

Postscript:

I just read this forum that makes a case that that investment company is still going, but just having problems with it’s website due to a DDOS attack. They say the site will be back up in a few days. I’ll believe it when I’m able to make withdrawals. Maybe I got so upset over nothing. Another life lesson, perhaps. We’ll see.

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