Friday, April 30, 2004
The Cheez-Whiz Kids
Girls are always asking me, why is it Cheez-Whiz? Actually, guys ask me this too, but I don't pay much attention to them. When the girls ask me, I tell them, 'Just let me get my pants on.' And then I get my pants on. And then I tell them.
It all started in WWII. In WWII there was this group of youngsters, well young adults, who were in charge of determining statistical probabilities for the war. Now you might legimately raise the question with regard to Iraq - why don't they do that sort of thing these days? But you'd be missing the point, because morality is not strategical. But I'll leave that for another time.
These young adults were known as the Whiz kids.
After the war, many of the Whiz kids went to be leaders of the western world. They were business leaders, government leaders, military leaders. Robert Mcnamara, the epitomy of technocracy, was a Whiz kid.
It could be argued that these were just the sort of individuals that brought us to where we are today.
The Cheez-Whiz kids are in reference to their predecessors. They have similar potential to what their predecessors once had. They would be the heirs to the throne. They have one important difference. The Cheez-Whiz kids don't want any part of it. They have made the choice to remain nameless and faceless and menial, rather then contribute to a world that they do not want. The Cheez-Whiz kids have chosen not to care.
Through their lack of participation, the Cheez-Whiz kids will change the world.
I'm just not sure whether it will be for the better.
Tuesday, April 27, 2004
On DYN
If I did not have this damned insomnia, I don't know when I'd write. So I guess the insomnia isn't so damned after all.
Anyways, what should I write about...
I could write about real life I suppose. I suppose. Actually, its suprising how often I do. But most of the time its not in any legible form. But its real life. Just twisted around a little.
But maybe I should write about real, real life. Yes, that's what I'll do. Real, real life. here it goes.
This morning I woke up from a fitful sleep in which I dreamt that my treasured investment had multiplied significantly. Strangely enough I wasn't that happy about it.
In the dream I was tormented by my new found riches. Not by the riches themselves though. I need to explain. I'll get specific. My investment is a stock. A single stock. I own many stocks, but one particular stock makes up a massive percentage of my total. Its probably over 50% of everything I own.
Now you don't have to tell me about the dangers of not diversifying. And you don't have to tell me I'm gambling quite big. I am well aware of all that.
But this the only way I can think of to gain my position. And I need a position so I can quit this silly day job and not have to write in the dead of night when I can't sleep.
So I've chosen to bet the farm. If I win, I retire before I'm 30. If I lose, I'm in it for the long haul.
And don't think that I'm gambling blind. I have done a lot of research. I have done exhaustive research. I'm constantly reevaluating. I'm as sure as I can be. Unfortunately its the market, where certainty doesn't mean a hill of beans. So I could still lose.
But such is life. The single beauty of the stock market lies in this uncertainty and the fine, maybe even arbitrary, line between right and wrong.
But back to the dream. In my dream I wasn't happy. The stock had gone up; I think it was worth about 3x as much as it is now, which would have meant I was well on my way. But not there yet. And in those two statements is the reason I wasn't happy. I wasn't happy because I was fretting. I was fretting about what to do.
Its easy right now. I don't have enough money to make the decision difficult. I don't have much to lose. The only thing that will make me sell right now is if I see something is going on with the company that I don't like. But later on, as its stock moves up, gradually I will have more to lose. I'll have more of my entire worth tied up in that one stock. And the decision will increase in weight.
Its the burden of actually being right.
Now I don't know if I'll get to that point. After all, I have to be right first to get there. I've been right so far, but that's no ticket for the future. The stock needs to triple or something thereabouts. And after it triples, for this decision to arise, there still has to be good reason to hold on. Otherwise, the reasonable decision is to just get out. Don't be piggish. But if it does triple and everything is still on track, it will be interesting to see how I react. And whether I will succumb to the urge to protect the gains, to take some money off the table, or whether I will hold onto it still, even with so much more to lose.
Hopefully I'll get to find out.
Sunday, April 25, 2004
Rupe
Held tight - the rail - grasped firm to life
A cozy, mirrored stream
But gaze below - the crashing tide
Chaotic flow - Amid a raft, a sake
Hold tight or plunge - that wooden rail -
To chance the bow below
So close to certain - so far to fail
If fingers lift from fate
If notion fails - the boat-
To catch - A slippery slide at waters depths
To drown - an unmarked wake
But slide - though splinters warn the skin
While pain - distract by sky, by bird
By passerby - Can neither win?
When right is but a distant friend
That finds her way too late
A choice! A blistered, callous choice
No solace in the vague
except the mark to choose the craft
The rail or the gate
Thursday, April 22, 2004
What to write, what to write...
Take your left hand. No not yet. First go to somewhere where there is a mirror. No not yet. First finish reading this. Otherwise it won't be much of an experience.
Now take your left hand and put it up to the mirror. Notice that there is a hand that you can see in the mirror. It appears identical to your left hand in every feature.
There's dirt under your pointer finger from an hour ago when you checked to see if the plant needed watering. And there's dirt under the pointer finger of the hand in the mirror.
The nail of your thumb is torn off from where you chewed it too far when you were anxious about that meeting at work. The same as the thumb in the mirror.
In every feature, the hand in the mirror is identical to the one on your arm.
Now pay close attention because this is a little subtle.
Try to describe how the hand in the mirror is different then the one on your arm. Because it is different. Obviously. If you could take that hand out of the mirror and place it over the hand in your arm it wouldn't work. It would be the opposite.
But try to describe that difference. Did you see what you had to do? To describe the difference you had to reference something else. Left. Right. North. The towel rack. The other hand. You can't describe the difference between the hand on your arm and the one on the mirror without referencing something else.
When each hand is described in and of itself, as an entity distinct and independent of all else, they are identical.
Described in the world, the world in which we all live and breathe, they are different.
Don't ever think that its all not connected. That's what makes it beautiful.
And that's my favorite thing about Kant.
Thursday, April 15, 2004
Take that Ayn Rand
The young man was still in a daze when he went to work that morning. He spent the first few hours reading the emails he had missed, surfing the internet randomly, looking over baseball statistics that he already knew by heart. He paid very little attention to what he was doing, his mind was elsewhere, still thinking over the events of the past weeks, of the thoughts that were now rushing to his head and swirling uncontrollably. He went for a cup of tea at the kitchen, wandered past the cubicles in his aimless daze, oblivious to his co-workers passing him by.
He stopped outside his managers office and went inside. He suddenly felt compelled to talk to someone about what he was feeling. His manager, 46 years old, shared his dislike for the corporate game. He worked because he needed money, and not because he enjoyed it. He would leave in a second if he could, he had experienced life in his youth and had found that there was much more than what presented itself between thin cubicle walls.
'Is it still as busy as it been? Have things calmed down at all?', the young man asked, knowing full well that they hadn't but wanting to lead the conversation in a direction that he might be able to burst free his rage.
His manager's eyes had sagged noticably in the past few weeks. The recent work had taken its toll on him, the late nights in meetings and the heavy burden of responsibility. As our hero stared at the older gentleman he wondered if the burden of that responsibility was made even heavier by the knowledge of its pointlessness. One perhaps can take solace in a responsibility that has meaning, for it might give the drive to carry out above and beyond what might be done under a usual circumstance. His manager, while older, was not that different from the younger workers. He had no children for whom he was responsible for, he was not married. There was no firm ground from which to derive strength from. Strength must come from purpose, in this particular case from the knowledge that what one is doing needs to be done. In the corporate world of greed and selfish individuality, and in the absense of loyalty, finding root for this strength is difficult.
He stared off at the wall for a moment before answering. He often did so.
'No, no they haven't. They're still on our backs. They don't stop pushing. They work a lot of hours themselves, they are willing to put in 14-16 hour days, and they expect the same out of us. It doesn't leave us with much of a choice. If they're all working those hours... But how long can this go on?'
It was the young man's turn to stare at the wall for a moment. Not blankly, mind you. Trying to grasp something that didn't make sense.
'I don't understand why they are willing to put the effort in that they do. What is the point of all this work? They must realise that, in the end, they are going to retire and move on, and that when they do all of the work they do will be forgotten. I understand a job, certain responsibilities come with that job, and that you have an obligation to those responsibilities, but it seems to me to go far beyond any reasonable expectation. What is the point of sacrificing your life for a job? If the sacrifice had an importance in the end, then maybe. If it saved lives, or had some real, positive value. I could understand it if it was my own business, if there was a pride that I could associate to in growing and achieving something that is mine. But this, what we do, what everyone does, has none of those characteristics, at least by the standards I would measure them by. We make products for consumption, and if that does have a positive effect, and I think you could easily argue that there are as many ill gains as good ones. If there is some good, it certainly would be small, not something worth sacrificing ones life over. We are wage labourers. Sure, we're technical and educated, this makes the branch between us and what you associate with wage labourers a little more fuzzy, but really we aren't any different. We have little to gain from working hard. We own a few stock options, a small piece of the company, and so some might argue that our success hinges on the work we perform - but to believe that somehow our efforts are somehow directly tied to the companies success in anything more than an anecdotal sense is delusional. The companies we work for are large enough that success and failure doesn't come from us lower ranks, unless the hiring policies are so atrocious that the lower ranks are completely incompetent. When it comes right down to it, there just isn't even room for ingenuity. We work for machines that will keep rolling with or without us, so to think that we are a vital cog that is irreplacable is an egotistical and, I think, an almost laughable idea. I certainly do not think that the correlation is strong enough to warrant 16 hour days. I would think that if you desire 16 hour days you would be best putting your efforts towards a business of your own, one where the success is narrowly enough focused that your efforts really do strongly correlate with it. Sigh... I don't understand what these people think they are accomplishing. It seems delsusional to me.'
The manager shrugged. And our hero went back to his cubicle, and back to work.
Sunday, April 04, 2004
Ernie Borderman - A Pointless Novel, Page 2
When the meat had first begun to accumulate, Ernie stored the it in his freezer. It was his peculiar nature that he could not bear to see good food go to waste, even as revolting as it was to him. This went well for the first few months, but before long his freezer became full to the brim with cuts of beef, breasts of chicken, pot roasts and the like.
To remedy the situation, Ernie decided to go to his local appliance distributor and purchase a large freezer. It was an effort to bring the freezer up to his small apartment for he was forced to do the task alone, as he dared not ask for the help of his coworkers, who might become suspicious of his intentions and learn of his ungrateful hoard. But after the struggle of its transport, the freezer worked well to solve the problem for a time. But alas it too eventually became full.
Ernie returned to the distributor, intent on ordering a second freezer. The owner eyed him suspiciously, wary of a customer with so great a need for freezing capacity. But in the end he let his suspicions rest and accepted the sale, his fears somewhat put to rest by Ernie's insistence that the freezer be delivered for him to his apartment regardless of the charge. Still, Ernie could not help but notice that when the second freezer was brought up to his apartment the owner came along with the delivery men, and that he showed great interest in his previous sale, going so far as to inspect the contents of the existing freezer with some curiousity.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
