july 15, 2022

July 15, 2022 - aka, last Friday. Man, oh man! I lament how I didn't write this on the actual July 15, 2022! I lament! Lo lamento! (It's a fun one to say.) 

We (Erin and I) were on a plane to Cincinnati, OH. My mind was on a plane to elsewhere: some euphoria beyond Cincinnati, OH, a place that transcends the chili parlor that had been opened since 1940 only to close a week before we showed up. Google seemed unaware that this institution of Cincinnati cuisine had died. I have agreed to not disclose what put me on that path to transcendence. I can only say two things. First, it was not the chili that put me on the path. Second, it must suffice that you know that my whole world is in a reorientation mode. Everything is being re-calibrated to match the aim of the unexpected decision that produced the euphoria. 

Even with a week's passage of time the vividness of the revelation that brought about the (overly aforementioned and somehow still underrated) euphoria - it would be much easier to reveal it. I wouldn't have to speak metaphorically. No? OK. No. The build up won't render the 07/15/2022 anti-climatic. I fear it will taint the date with a hint of bitterness. Bitterness or not, I am steeling myself for the work needed to grab the prize at the end of the S.M.A.R.T. goal. A week is a short time when measuring vividness of dreams and hopes. There is always time to hope, until of course, there is not. 

As a yo-yo like rollercoaster of emotions, trying to measure the swings in a week is a particularly daunting task. Do you measure peak periods? Do you graph them and take the mean, focusing on the outliers that are skewing the average? Just thinking about it is daunting. Doing it would be akin to being tasked with measuring infinitude with a plastic ruler, long parted from its trapper keeper home. The ruler, the task and I are all doomed to a lingering melancholy as we undertake this exercise in Quixoticism. This is the micro-climate into which July 15th crowned.

The macro-climate offers us no less a difficult or neurotic picture. We (You and I) are sitting on the precipice of economic disaster. I don't know about you but I find myself to be in a reflective mood. The January 6th commission, part folly, part farce, part necessary, part a complete waste - all tragedy - dominates the airwaves and my thoughts. If this event, as it really happened, internet meme warriors and all, nearly toppled our vaunted democracy then I have no fear that the next useful idiot, if he can overcome his idiocy for just a few days, will have no problem in dispensing with this haggard old democratic shell we so worship. Whether it is my current melancholy or something else, I feel haunted by the follow up question. Does it matter? 

In the end, most useful idiots outlast their utility. They descend into blathering, bitter and sad caricatures of themselves. Given that useful idiots begin their journey from the already grotesque (or at the very least, on the way to being grotesque) the descent is rapid and the caricature extremely low. I must confess, there is a sick pleasure to be had in reigning down righteous anger at the idiots beneath me. It might not be productive, but it helps me to ignore the big picture stuff that gets in the way of the dreamscapes and other escapism tools I rely on to get me through daily life. 

If all the raindrops were lemondrops and gumdrops, o what a rain that would be! The sickening sweetness would do nothing but make us long for the fresh, cool, good ol' fashioned air that comes right after the summer storm - what a relief that would be! A bottle of pepto would be needed for the lemondrop and gumdrop nonsense that certain weatherman are calling for these days. The negative nancy's on the other side (they flip-flop, re-orientate every four years or so) offer such spicy forecasts that they require tums. Is it any wonder we feel so terrible when one side gives us stuff that requires pepto and the other side gives us crap that necessitates tums? Is it any wonder that I'm sick of it all?

Even in the midst of such macro conditions the feelings around July 15th remain strong. They have attached to my core being, mystically becoming my core. Still, macro conditions being what they are, cutbacks loom on the horizon - even for feelings. Everything in me is realigning itself to serve those new core feelings just as the time of pruning is upon us. Much will be lost. More shall be gained. This is what mysticism teaches me. This is escapism at its most primitive form.

Cut back the nonsense. Cut back the excess. Return to the core principals. Return to the primitive. That is how you survive in times such as these. Nothing superfluous. Just the basics. Without February 24th, there could be no July 15th. Could there be anything more obvious? 

Without February 24th there could have been no July 15th. If there wasn't a February 24th that would mean then that the world ended on February 23rd. February 24th was the day that I moved to Minnesota. It was this very move that made the potential for the July 15th revelation possible. Yet, February 24th makes the goal associated with July 15th much harder to reach. Irony - a flesh wound. February 24 was also the day Russia invaded Ukraine. Perhaps February 23rd really was the end of the world? There is this interesting theory that the Mayan calendar doomsday of 2012 - you know the one that was as dangerous to us as Y2k? The theory states that in spite of the obvious evidence to the contrary, the apocalypse did actually occur. The past decade happened, proponents of this theory state, only it happened in hell because we've all been dead for ten years. It isn't a pleasant theory, but it kind of explains some of current circumstances... 

As we (all of us) sit on the precipice of economic disaster, I find myself still in a reflective mood. It wasn't that long ago that we (all of us, generally; an overpaid university employee and myself, specifically) sat on the precipice of financial collapse. It was pre-2012, but not by much. The Mayans were gearing up for their colossal hoax; or, masterpiece. The bankers were getting their collection plates out. The politicians were begrudglingly opening their wallets, complaining that this operation usually worked in the other order. I was in the guidance counselor's office. 

It was well lit. Furnished as you would expect: leather chairs, bookcases crammed with books, fancily framed diplomas on the wall. It was surprisingly spacious. An enormous desk sat in the middle of the room. A tiny man sat in an equally oversized leather chair behind the desk. Proportionally speaking, the balance was completely off. The office was well insulated. Outside, it was freezing. The economy was on the brink of utter collapse. You could feel none of that from inside its four walls. Let me give you $120,000 worth of free advice.

If you find yourself in one of these well insulated, well decorated rooms, sitting in an expensive and comfortable leather chair, across from a guidance counselor - I use this word, "guidance" here in the most generous and forgiving of manners. If you find yourself such, and the guidance counselor offers you this guidance,: "obtain your MBA. It will allow you to wait out the job market as it tears itself to pieces over the next few years. It will give you a couple more years of loan deferment. It will place you in the pole position for when the recovery comes."

His guidance will fail to mention that it would equip one to retroactively understand how fraudulently limited this line of thinking is, how it catastrophically fails to see the obviously inevitability: a jobless recovery on the other side of the market crash. If you find yourself nodding along to his promises, sit back in your chair for a moment. Take a deep breath. Stand up from the leather chair and punch him in the throat. Walk out of his office quickly. Don't look back. Head to the library or the Barnes & Noble holding up the carcass of your local mall. All the knowledge and experience of the MBA is obtainable there. The $120K piece of paper that adds three letters to the end of your name simply doesn't deliver the ROI it promises.

The MBA obsession that took shape in the 80s and reached its fevered apex right before the whole world's economy went to pot (the last time, not this time) pushed tons of people like me into a degree that isn't worth the prestigious price tag. Tons of people like me, recent graduates, fairly intelligent, extremely bored and still naive enough to look for guidance in corrupt, albeit well-maintained academic halls, obtained MBAs. Our very possession of the prestigious three letters behind our names tarnish the prestige of the MBA. The debt that came along with this diminished status symbol - I treat this as a blessing in disguise. It is the only escapism that works.

Perhaps, it is me who is obsessed with an MBA. If this is the case then it only proves my point. I am the living embodiment of things that took shape in the 80s and reached a fevered apex right before the whole world's economy went to pot (the last time). I am convinced this is a blessing because it is through these visible chains that we can see all the invisible ones. The MBA has a "ooooh" factor to it. It's an advanced degrees. Advanced degrees inspire confidence among those who don't have them. This is a misplaced confidence, I can assure you. I really did obtain my MBA. 

We imbued a magical, authoritative quality to the MBA. Imbued, people with MBAs set about putting the education they obtained to use. They built the new economic system that we are living in, which as broken as we might like to claim it is, actually works perfectly fine. It was designed by MBA's to achieve MBA's ends. The politicians do well in this system too. That shouldn't surprise us. The useful idiot needs to feel important in order to be useful, especially when they are in fact, so unimportant. American consumerism became a cultish worship, its ceremonies and rituals surrounding the depraved minds of the absolute monopolists (all of whom hold MBA's, prestigious ones to boot!) In that transformation, capitalism became a grotesque figure. 

The protesters who rail against all her evils shout and scream at a lifeless corpse, dressed up like it's Weekend at Bernie's. The defenders of capitalism, the duped devotees of the absolute monopolist's religion of selfishness fight against the lefties and the commies who hate this country. They defend the corpse, lovingly caressing the dead in a perverted remake of Weekend at Bernie's. It's even worse than Weekend at Bernie's II. There are certain movies that just don't need sequels. Still, I have to give credit where credit is due. Do we really think that a Hollywood Studio would make a movie out of a Jorge Amado story nowadays? No MBA would sign off on that. The risk-reward calculus would be off. Even if an MBA signed off on it, the lawyers would stop it. Oh God! Don't get me started on the lawyers! I've got enough difficulty with the MBAs.

This is the primary problem with the MBA. The system that the MBAs put into place are wildly successful for the limited few, the MBAs and their useful idiots. The MBAs (and their useful idiots) pushed the system too hard. They blew the bubble and then burst it. But, being MBAs they looked for the opportunity in the danger and found a lucrative business model. Guidance Counselors, Provosts and University Presidents suddenly became useful idiots. Inflating someone's sense of importance is a particularly effective tool in converting an idiot into a useful one. The MBA was packaged as the ticket to the next wrung of the social ladder - some might even climb multiples through motivation, grit and smarts. 

It was not mentioned that much of this social upward thrust had more to do with connections than motivation, grit and smarts. I should have read the fine print, I know. I know. The MBA business model has a tendency to produce bubbles. Bubbles have a tendency to pop. The post-2008 disaster zone limped into the jobless recovery of the Mayan apocalypse. The job market was awash saturated with seekers with new, online MBAs and no connections. The useful idiots inside the halls of academia retain their utility. The seekers with $120,000 pieces of paper retained their idiocy. Laugh all you'd like, Guidance Counselors, Provosts and University Presidents, even presidents use their utility.

A major positive to this soul-crushing financial imprisonment is the emergence of the support group MBAnonymous. It's a group of idiots that meets twice a month to talk about all of our regrets. We talk about the positives too - but that is very rare these days, what with the financial cliff and all. It's a bit of a trigger for us. Just the other day I was looking up Graduate Degrees in Literature and Philosophy. We talk about all kinds of things, sharing our unique circumstances and shared sense of being sold. It is a decentralized organization with no real structure or defined aim. This fact, along with the seething, burning rage that is palpable in the meeting rooms, makes it difficult to outline the general feelings of the group. I think, though, it would be safe to describe the general consensus amongst us in this manner.

The various MBA programs from where we all got that expensive piece of paper that sits in framed form somewhere in attics, basements and closets all provided some value. They taught us great deals of common sense. They gave us critical thinking tools and models through which we can measure and weigh the world with. Having been given the prestigious diploma with its attendant debt right as the bubble burst we were painfully made aware that the prestigious diploma, its attendant debt and the lack of connections made through the online coursework provided us none of the advantages that sold us on the course in the first place. We all have this mystified feeling now that we see the picture so clearly. Having had the business and political world demystified for us through our overpriced education we have dispelled with the naive notion that business leaders and their attending political tools are special because of letters attached to their end of their names. It was an expensive lesson, but I think we are all better for it having paid the price. 

Here is where the consensus breaks down a little. Having arrived at the self-evident and indisputable truth that those in power only work to enshrine their own power us members of MBAnonymous split off into one of two camps. There is the camp that often ends the meeting by weeping in the corner. Then, there is the cynical camp where the beauty of the system that trapped us is actively admired. The beauty of the trap lies in the simplicity of the details. The cultish monopolists made a mint in taking over education through the commodification process. They marketed it and sold it to easy marks: the seekers, wanderers and the desperately aspirational. We took on the debt in good faith that the degree they packaged would lead to good paying, upwardly mobile and most importantly, meaningful careers. They sold the debt in bad faith, knowing that the model they were using was going to crash and burn. They had just learned that it was unstable by crashing the housing market. The model was not flawed; it was designed to crash. 

Economics 101. The Basics. Supply and Demand. The MBAs intentionally oversupplied the market with fresh MBAs, devaluing the very MBA that they were selling so aggressively. The beauty of the design comes out when the reality becomes clear. The workforce now has glut of highly educated workers to do the monopolists bidding at a lower price. Have you ever wondered why there seems to be a plethora of entry level jobs on indeed with three pages of delineated duties, a starting pay of less than a third of the MBA degree that is required to apply and is probably just a way of capturing your data to be sold to a big tech firm? This might not be a consensus of our weekly meetings, but the question is being asked with enough regularity for me to include it here. The cold hard fact is that a decade into whatever hellish age the Mayan's called post-2012 is one where we are no closer to breaking off the visible chains of the last financial melt down. The plan was as devastating as it was beautiful.

The meaningless of the debt forces us to search for meaning in other ways. Chained to the system as I am for the foreseeable future, I am going to seek my sanity in the glow of that flight to Cincinnati. I am going to bask in the irony that no one in the halls of power or the boardrooms on 5th Avenue can take from me. My possession of the prestigious diploma diminishes the MBA every day it doesn't lead me to the promised land. I am going to bask in this irony because no one in the halls of power or the boardrooms on 5th Avenue care about this diminishing. They've already made their money off of me.

The problem with the world designed by MBAs (and lawyers) we live in is obvious. When everything is subject to commodification everything trades its intrinsic value to one that is assigned and then fluctuates based on market conditions. Happiness has no value at all if it is stripped of its intrinsic meaningfulness. Happiness has no place in this system. That alone should be enough to have every one marching in the streets, dragging our visible and invisible chains to use in the ultimate battle for freedom. This is the only way to bring down the curtain on this nightmarish Mayan doomsday we are living through. We won't do this, of course. We know that. They know that. Instead, we will rise up until we are distracted by some form of entertainment. 

There are these business conferences that take place in small towns from, "Tulsa to Tippecanoe." Nearly two decades ago, I went to one in Muncie, IN by the name of Yo, it's Tony. He told us fledgling catechists all the great things that come out of the monopolists' religion. The evening's focus at Yo, it's Tony focused on the act of stepping back and taking stock. I'm piling on now, but my wrath has a good frothiness to it that I'd like to see to its natural conclusion. Everything in Yo, it's Tony's world (the world that Tony was unsuccessfully trying to be allowed into) was commodity-centric. Tony went on and on about stepping back and taking stock. He had seven points - none of which I remember. What I do remember is thinking that this guy has totally turned the art of procrastination into a money making endeavor. This bullshit cost me $25.

This rant is the confluence of the micro and macro climates in which I am working to reposition myself. What was once the art of procrastination is now the business model of Yo, it's Tony. It is a sad world we live in, but we must live. It is time for me to paint for you the picture of my procrastination. It is time for me to be like Tony, take a step back and take stock. Where are you looking to go, Tony asks? How will you get anywhere if you don't know where you are going? A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. But, which direction should you step? Tony was probably my age now in 2003 when I attended his conference for extra credit in my Accounting course. I desperately needed the extra credit. I desperately want to do anything that keeps me off the Tulsa to Tippecanoe circuit. Desperate enough to finally try and get some ROI on that $25 bucks.

There exists a S.M.A.R.T. goal associated with July 15th. To write it out would give it away and be a breach of my promise. These are the tools I have to achieve the unspoken S.M.A.R.T. goal: a typewriter, a filing cabinet and this blog. Though the essay you are reading may argue otherwise, that last sentence was written without mordancy. I guess there wouldn't be any harm in sharing the "T" part. T-minus three years and counting. 

Priority A 

These are the points of emphasis, the projects that will get us to specifics of July 15: note, assume the sale.

Project #1 - The collage as literature take on Charles Dickens' masterpiece, A Tale of Two Cities. My Dickensian deconstruction, literary collage at its most literal. (Unstarted as of yet)

Project #2 - The Hercules Project (Untitled as of yet)

Project #3 - Minnesota Facts, Folks & Happenings (The Real Magic of Magical Realism, working title)

Project #4 - Les Parisiens (Les Sketches) 

Priority B

Every once in a while something in my head is going to rattle around and demand my attention. These are the things I hope won't push my timeline back.

Project #5 - A Cornish Mess (Needs Overhauled, less than half-done)

Project #6 - Arrivederci, Signore (Really early, barely there)

Project #7 - Joseph Flanagan. Joseph Flanagan is the project that is probably closest to a "finished" point. The problem is that it exists in a sealed manila envelope within my filing cabinet. Inside the manila envelope are all kinds of works that revolve around Joseph Flanagan. I don't have an irrational fear of manila envelopes, but Joseph Flanagan is an old project, roughly 2008-2012. It will take a singular focus to put me back into the world of Joseph Flanagan. I'm simply not ready for the commitment. 

Project #8 - Bedlam at the El Rio Grande. Minnesota Folks, Facts & Happenings turned out to be a per-requisite for writing Bedlam. I haven't mastered the art of chopping and changing my own timeline yet.

Project #9 - Jeffersonville, IN. I can't remember what Jeffersonville, IN is supposed to be about. This is an even older unfinished project than Joseph Flanagan. It has something to do with Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, OH. Beyond that I have no recollection and no motivation for opening up its manila envelope. This project is likely dead, but for now it can hang out with Schrodinger's cat.

Project #10 - Urtsiul. A syncretic myth. It will be interesting one day to open this up from one of the terrifying envelopes in my filing cabinet to see my early forays into myth making. With recession on the way that day is not scheduled to happen in the next three years. Perhaps I do have an irrational fear of manila envelopes.

The Diversions

Artwork with Typewriters, Collage as Literature, Encyclopedia Christanica, Journal Entries, Poems and Reviews. These are the things that will serve as escapes from the ultimate escape. These are the building blocks of procrastination itself! Yo, it's Tony would never end his spiel with a piece of self-deprecating humor. Therefore, neither will I. Yo, it's Tony would tie it all together in ridiculous fashion. He would ask, are diversions really diversions? Then he would solve this paradox through gratuitous usage of buzz words. No, he would say. Diversions are the daily acts of typing: the masonry of the mansion you are building. Now, grind, baby. Grind.