To my way of thinking I live as an apostate in a devoutly religious world, a material world, a world beholding to the omnipresent God of Things.
In the past week five people, including a scientist, two business owners who bill over a million dollars per year each, and most tellingly my boss, have expressed envy of my ability to live on 10 to 12 K per year and ‘do what I want’, namely write. Recently a school teacher—who, like all of these other four has more raw wattage in her brain than I—said, “It must be nice to have the luxury of living on 12 K a year, a luxury that it seems increasing numbers of people will be blessed with in the future.”
Yes, that fairly dripped with sarcasm. I took this statement as a message in the bottle insane from the material world to some old kook who is of an unfortunate enough mind to try and dust off a complex of old transcendental notions.
Not everyone in my life shares this envious frame of mind. Most of the members of my family consider me a crazed traitor to them, their sacred life way, and this great nation. I shall write another article for them. The following is addressed to those who seem to envy my materially impoverished way of life.
Living in the World You Oppose
I must eat, must have a dry place with electric and running water to read and write, must live in vermin free conditions in order to concentrate on my work. I need a certain level of disposable income to be able to purchase copies of my own writing, and to be able to buy drinks for myself and my interview subjects on a weekly basis. The fact that I have these things puts me easily in the top 1% of the most wealthy 1% of all people to ever walk the face of this earth. To me, it does not seem like poverty.
I sit here now as I write, listening to the best blues guitarist who ever lived, wail away on his guitar. A thousand years ago I would have had to buy this guy from an Arab, with horseflesh and silver I took from a village of screaming peasants who died under the hooves of my warhorses, one of the riders of which would even now be plotting my violent downfall. But even then, with all the gold of Rum in my purse, I would not be able to resurrect the dead minstrel to ease my overtaxed mind with his song.
The raw expenses are monthly: $400 rent, $80 food, $40 transportation. That only comes to $6,240 per year, leaving me significant disposable income. My entire existence costs about as much as a typical middle class person’s transportation.
When I told a fellow writer today that the school teacher described my life of material minimalism as ‘luxurious’ he said, “No, you live a life of sacrifice. All of the things that me and her can’t do without, all of our comforts and cozy shit, you have rejected. When I’m done what I have to do, I see me living like you.”
I disagree with both of them. I am not sacrificing material bliss, for it has never held meaning or comfort for me. I somehow never got the message. I spent 30 years slaving away to raise and support a wife and two sons. For 15 of those years, we ate on an adjusted $60 a week for 3-4 people, and rarely had money for a pizza on pay day. In 1982 our weekly food budget for 3 was $18, which is like $50 now.
For 4 years I made thrice the income that I have typically made and was able to buy cars for girl friends, hire a dancer to bring her show to my private lair, put my youngest through college, and regularly spent $500 per week on meals for myself and family.
I have lived austerely and wastefully. I prefer austerity. My current life is not a luxury or a sacrifice. It is made possible morally by the fact that I financed a family for 30 years, and made certain they were all three on their feet before I retreated from the sick world to finally do that which I have always yearned to, investigate its workings in the observant role, to balance my 47 years of exploring the bowels of the world as a striving protagonist. I may now write from a place of balance, without a gnawing agenda, the tinge of bitterness, or the despair of defeat.
I am not, contrary to my colorful claims, a recluse.
Engaging the Material Matrix
My work night from Monday evening through Tuesday morning, I think, serves as a clear example of how one writer keeps his distance without living off of others. Three women have offered to support me as a fulltime writer so long as I cohabitate with them, and observe the attendant stipulations, irrigate their various cavities both material and spiritual, and so on.
No!
One of the many obstacles to writing that this would entail would be my hostess’ insistence that I write to sell, for that is what the material world has taught them. None of the women in or out of my family who I have met in my lifetime and come to know would, I think, place a fraction of the ethical value on the 47 books I have thus far completed than they would on a single bestselling pornography thriller. As a writer living as a domestic man whore would be the death of me even if the man in me could stomach it.
I had a problem though, in July 2010, having resigned and given away my remaining money, as to how to go about making a material living without whoring out my mind and sapping my contemplative and creative energy. I thought, still being one of the most physically productive clerks in the retail food business [owning all known productivity records] that managers would jump to have me as a grunt.
I applied for 9 grunt jobs and came away with 4 vacant stares and 5 offers of middle management positions. No manager believed that I would walk away from what they had clawed their way to, unless I had committed a crime, suffered an emotional breakdown, or secretly harbored ambitions for their position. One guy even offered to get me a store director job for 2 different companies just so I would not be on his ship, eyeing his nervous hand on the tiller with managerial avarice.
I eventually went all the way across town to a store I had worked at in the early 90s, which was now being run by a man who had once run the company I worked at for 15 years. These men offered me various management jobs and, as I declined, eventually decided that I had gone crazy, but was harmless, and could be quietly put out to pasture.
My entry into the staff at the very bottom, having just left through the top of a similar 100 person company, intimidated my coworkers, as I filled two fulltime slots recently established and intended for 2 young men. What 2 men were expected to do in 60 hours per week, I do in 24 hours, and do it far better than required.
The lesson here is that low level excellence, and a negotiated engagement with an employer that is in the position that you once occupied, is a reasonable reverse-retirement strategy. It is as if I was once a colonel in the military, who now works as a grunt level contractor. During this time I have done 2 consulting gigs for other independent retail food operators, and finally sent out a message that everyone in the business believes; that I am not interested in any full time position. I turned down two very cushy and mentally stimulating jobs offered by wholesalers that I interacted with on store sets. When I turned down the job that every retail manger fantasizes about, they finally appreciated that I was not a threat to their chunk of the material world, but a beneficial outsider.
What follows is an example of how I have managed to negotiate and aid the material world without being sucked into and consumed by it, while extracting enough material value from it to continue to live on its fringe.
A Day in the Life of a Material Apostate
First for my position: 4 years ago, as I was working as the worst cashier on planet earth and Mister John was trying to weasel me into management as his point man. I heard that Big Joe in frozen and Old Dave in Dairy were being switched to night crew from day turn after 20 years! Their new helpers, at 30 hours a piece, would assist them each. These guys were in tears, angry tears. I saw my opening.
The deliveries were being switched to night, so there had to be a nighttime presence. I presented my plan to Mister John, his assistant Larry, and Joe and Dave. “I’ll come in at night, sort both orders, work half of each, and have things set up for Joe and Dave when they come in to polish the work off in the morning. The company saves money and no one gets screwed.”
The only objection was the consensus that I could not do the work of 2 young men. I was given a chance, aced the work, and immediately became indispensable to those 4 men. That was 4 years ago. Let’s see how this evolved by taking a look at a bad night, a night where I screwed up after staying up writing until 7:45, and overslept, not waking until 10:17 as the last cross town bus pulled off to the east, and I dragged on my work pants, in which the emaciated wallet had $30 less than that required to hire a cab to work. I could make it there on foot in 3 hours, but the veins in my right leg are starting to explode again, so I decide on the old man’s solution and bussed it down and out of town.
10: 35 p.m.
I nap on the #19 after being hassled by not a single low life at the ghetto bus stop where Mary was recently mugged.
11:25 p.m.
I get off on Baltimore Street and walk past a cop on foot. He steps left around the sleeping pile of homeless humanity on the steam grate and I step right. The major transfer point is across from the police precinct so I walk buy the pimps, scumbags, drug dealers, bouncers, and strip club barkers to sit at the stop and sleep on the bench as rats run back and forth across Baltimore Street from the gutter at my feet to the police parking garage.
11:40 p.m.
The pretty white girl who is afraid to sit next to me and the young black guy who just got off of work begin to board the #20, but an offloading passenger tells them to get back. He is a tall older black fellow with sweat pants and a wind breaker. He calls out safety advice and thanks his customers on the bus for their patronage as he heaves cases of gummy bears and cheese crackers down to the sidewalk.
They board after he gets off and he begins ferrying his cases of freight over to the bench and chats with me, “Say brother, its getting’ hard on a hustler out here. They should have a dolly or hand cart at the stop so I can haul my merchandise—gots five dolla case fo gummy bears or cheese crackers.”
I nodded ‘no’ and he asked me if I could use some change for a dollar bill and we made change. He then went up to The Big Top porno store carrying his stack of 8 cases like a cartoon character. He began selling outside the porn store as my bus rolled up.
11:54 p.m.
I board the #23 and sit in the middle of the back bench seat next to a dude who is laying down in a fetal position massaging his genitalia with his left hand and speaking to a lady on his smart phone. Here is one snippet of his conversation, “Naw baby, I a different breed a nigga! Dis is a whole new kinda nigga! Any ole nigga can throw dick. But dis nigga ain’ about jus’ dat. I about the entire aspire!...Shit, yo cain’ speak no English…naw, naw, that facebook picture, that was da old me. I got rid a dat gut las year—trainin’ evaray day baby…” or so he says as he takes his hand off of his dick and pats his giggly pot belly and the bus rocks on to his life story and I sleep until we hit Middle River and get off and walk a mile and a half to work.
12:57 a.m.
I clock in and bust my ass until 4 when Dave shows.
4:00 a.m.
I brief Dave, and tell him I’ll be back with him to finish up as soon as I’m done helping Joe. Dave just wants to be sure that he does not have to do any more work than normal. He and most employees do the same low level of work all month, even now when food stamp money is flooding us with business. I, on the other hand, will receive grace for coming in late, because John and Larry know that I up production with increased sales and will come in when called for an emergency which only happens twice a year. In fact, when I come in late, they save money as I shorten my shift to avoid getting in the way of customers.
5:00 a.m.
Big Joe comes in and I assure him that I will stay as long as need be. As we break down his freight together he confides in me that he wants to confront Larry about something and that he is sick of John’s shit, and that Dave needs to wake the hell up, and…
…After speaking with me as we tear apart four pallets of freight Big Joe no longer wants to confront Larry, has agreed to put up with John, feels better about Dave, and no longer wants to quit. This guy’s such a workhorse in this slacker environment that he does not need my physical help. I’m his anger management therapist.
6:00 a.m.
I apologize for running behind to Larry, brief him on the things that Big Joe won’t tell him out of mistrust, and those things Old Dave has already forgotten. He thanks me for cutting in the new items, which is his job, and asks me if I’m alright [which means between him and I that he wants to make sure that I have had enough time to complete my weekly writing tasks].
8:00 a.m.
John walks by me with a huge ‘Good morning Sir,’ glad to see me slaving away while business is booming while the rest of the staff other than Big Joe and Larry are drinking coffee in the stockroom and smoking cigarettes on the sidewalk.
9:30 a.m.
It is an hour after I am normally gone, and I have completed more work than normal in 2 hours less time than usual, saving John payroll points toward his annual cruise and making things easy on my leads and my supervisor. They soak up the credit when the owners walk in as I drag my trash through the stockroom, and 4 different job slackers say, “You are still here?”
These people live in dread that my work ethic will be pointed to as an example to follow but can only muster this amount of harassment. I remind them, “You know that I am just a figment of your over active imagination,” and continue on my way as they shake their heads.
9:59 a.m.
I punch out without waiting for the clock to turn over so I can get another quarter hour’s worth of pay. The other employees look at me with shocked amazement and Larry says, “James, you are appreciated, as is your work.”
I counter, “Larry, I appreciate you and John giving me the easiest job I ever had so that I have enough energy to write.” I said this as I held up the three iced tea receipts I sketched the heading of this article and two other yet to be written pieces in between stocking cases of yogurt.
As I walked off and headed for the bus stop and an appointment with this writing device Larry said, “I’m just glad to be able to help someone who got out. You made it James. I just pray you get rich on one of those books so I can tell some poor schlep that I know a guy who really dragged himself out of Hell.”
Larry, John, Big Joe, Old Dave, and the young men I work with who have already listened to the dirt shoveled atop the grave of their hopes are not obstacles or antagonists representing a material world against which I strive spiritually as a writer, but the very tortured inmates of that material realm that reel beneath its mind sodomy and provide me with the means to appreciate and avoid their plight.
Clearly the key to a successful life is doing what you love. That is evident in your prodigious work and writing. Many would and should be jealous of you. To a degree I am as well. One can learn a lot from this story. I did! AMEN!
I am honored, that the master of multitasking time compression, who sleeps on the stationary bike, approves of my use of our most fleeting resource.
“The most important thing in life is to be free to do things. There are only two ways to insure that freedom — you can be rich or you can you reduce your needs to zero.”
-John Boyd
Maxwell Smart: “You were once a highly respected scientist working on the side of good. What happened?!”
KAOS Scientist: “It just didn’t pay well enough.”
Congratulations James, you found your Shangri-La. Yet I’m sure some people, particularly your immediate family, deplore your choices and your associations and cannot understand how you can possibly be content living as you do. But that’s life. Even in the original story about Shangri-La, “Lost Horizon”, some of the protagonists found a contentment in Shangri-La and the Valley of the Blue Moon that they had searched for all their lives and never wanted to lose, while others were bored shitless and wanted to leave the place as soon as they could. Likewise when I first expressed a desire to join the Army many were quick to tell me they thought I was crazy. Indeed I was; no one with any sense joins the military. It’s all “do this, don’t do that, can’t you read the sign”? Nevertheless, it worked for me. Now, among other considerations, I’m free to do what I want, in ways that many people are not.
Your description of how befuddled your associates are by your willingness to give a days’ work for a day’s pay, especially at manual labor, illustrates to me one of the profound ways in which American Society has changed in the past 40 to 50 years. In the days of my youth I would often overhear working men boasting to their fellows about how hard they worked, how much they could get done in a day and how ever willing they were to do more work. Now when I hear working men conversing it is much more likely that I will hear them boast about how much work they avoided doing on the job. I’m certain then that what has your colleagues supremely puzzled is that while you are clearly a counter-culture, non-conformist, “march to the beat of your own drum” type, you are unwilling to “stick it to The Man” (or “The Woman”) by slacking off on the job and padding your time card. This makes no sense at all to your associates. After all, it is currently accepted doctrine that anyone who feels himself oppressed or exploited is supposed to spare no opportunity to rip off the Establishment (i.e. they pretend to pay us and we pretend to work). Surely then this makes you the consummate non-conformist, for you even have the other non-conformists bewildered. Sort of like Lana Del Ray.
John Boyd and Maxwell Smart?
You crushed it Jeremy.
The work ethic slide is astounding in the retail food business. The only guy in the building with the same work ethic that his slot demonstrated in 1981 will be the manager. The average clerk has gone from freighting 4 pallets of freight [the record being 17] in a shift to a half pallet of freight. Now I can't even make change without a computer, but I think that means the oppressed grunt of today is 1 8th the man his granddaddy was! I can't imagine being content with doing 1 17th of known human potential, even in my first line of work, which was digging ditches, a job I was advised to strike from my resume by an economics professor on the grounds that even doing it as a young man reflected poorly upon my decision making skills and potential as an employee and might actually bring into question my mental stability!
If this rot ever creeps into your line of work we'll be speaking Arabic.
“The young man who does not have what it takes to perform military service is not likely to have what it takes to make a living. Today’s military rejects include tomorrow’s hard-core unemployed.”
President John Fitzgerald Kennedy
"An army is of little value in the field unless wise counsel prevails at home."
Marcus Tullius Cicero
Roman Statesman
106-43 B.C.
Sabah il Kerr! May your day be blessed James!...Just kidding! No need to worry about the capabilities of our Armed Forces personnel. Given that our population exceeds 300 million now, even the Army, as the largest service, can afford to be extremely choosy in who it recruits. There is a large pool to select from, even though the majority of young Americans are currently deemed unfit for military service for one reason or another.
The real problem is that our political leadership lacks the will to win. It loses heart at the least little setback and appears ever confused about what it wants to accomplish. Consequently America has a military that cannot be beaten and yet cannot win. It's gotten to the point that the powers-that-be may as well send all the troops home (except for the ones needed to hold the President's umbrella, of course). To paraphrase Bismarck, it's not like it's worth the bones of a single Midwestern National Guardsman to defend political correctness either.
By the by, if digging ditches as a young a man reflects badly on one's decision making skills and mental stability, who exactly does the ditch digging in Maryland these days? Unpaid "interns"? Well like Harry Truman said, give me a one-armed economist.
Mexicans do the ditch digging of course!
I don't think that reflects poorly on their decision making, having escaped hell to dig ditches in purgatory.
It is interesting to note your comment on the military, and our unfit leaders in light of quotes from two vastly different times in which the men who ruled the greatest nations were expected to have a military background. It occurs to me that the less military experience one of our presidents has the more it seems he uses the military.
The Mexicans! Si, como no? But of course! So the Mexicans are doing the work that Marylanders must NOT do, for fear that it will reflect badly on their judgment and mental stability, eh? No doubt everyone else in town thinks manual labor is the President of Mexico. Naturally this begs the question of who will dig the ditches once the Mexicans decide that they too are much too important to engage in such demeaning chores? I suppose the powers-that-be expect to have ditch-digging robots by the time that eventuality comes to pass. Or perhaps some other third world population on tap to relocate.
Regarding the military experience of our Presidents, as Frederick the Great observed military experience is valuable only if the right lessons are learned from it. Some of our most effective wartime presidents leaders had little to no military experience. James K. Polk, Abraham Lincoln and FDR come to mind. Their effectiveness was a matter of having a clear vision of what they wanted to accomplish, putting effective military leaders in charge of fighting the war and then letting them win it. Mobilizing resources to support the forces in the field is something America generally does better than anyone else as well. The problem we have now is that so many of the people running our government, from the school board to the White House, are Leftist Progressives (it's not your grandpa's Democrat Party anymore). These people are on a holy mission to remake the world and are pursuing agenda's that have nothing to do with maintaining the prosperity, security and independence of America. At national policy level this invariably leads to very confused and unproductive use of the military. It's often symbolism over substance, as the Leftist are wont to promote. What's going on is certainly no longer about protecting America or preserving the freedom and independence of America's citizens. But the Leftists don't care much for the military and certainly don't care what the jingoistic myrmidons who serve in the military think and feel about things or even what fate befalls them. If they had any sense they would have stayed out of the military all together after all.
salon.com/2014/11/09/you_dont_protect_my_freedom_our_childish_insistence_on_calling_soldiers_heroes_deadens_real_democracy
At the same time there is obviously a "purge" going on to replace "unreliable" military leaders with leaders who are down with the struggle for social justice and political correctness. Leaders who can be counted on to advance the Leftist transformative agenda without having to be told what to do or how to do it.
"Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe."
-Abraham Lincoln
Oh Master of the Quote.
Floor cleaning in Baltimore was passed down from group to group from 1981 to the present like so: whites, blacks, Eastern Europeans, Peruvians, Mexicans, Salvadorans, Brazilians.
Thank you for grabbing that leftist ball and stuffing it into the gutless net where it belongs. The current use of military force out of D.C. reeks of Orwell's 1984.
Ok so who’s next after the Brazilians? The Guatemalans, Arabs, Africans, Nepalese, Uyghurs? How many different ethnic groups will have to be imported to clean Baltimore’s floors before human sweepers are entirely replaced by robots do you suppose? It is amazing how quickly these new immigrant groups move on from floor cleaning to either more remunerative jobs, or to becoming permanent welfare clients. What’s really interesting is that the Mexicans and Central Americans will do both, work and collect welfare benefits. They see no contradiction or dishonesty in this behavior. At some point will the powers-that-be have to reset the duty roster to the beginning and assign white people to clean the floors once again? And which white people will be made to do the floor sweeping? Convicts? Conscripts performing community service? Volunteers? Of course this is the dilemma radical egalitarian societies have faced from the beginning: once everyone is “equal”, who will shovel the shit?
"We are at war with Eurasia; we have always been at war with Eurasia. Eastasia is our friend; Eastasia has always been our friend."
Now that you mention it James, Our foreign policy and military operations portend to become even more Orwellian, so long as the same Leftist Progressives are in charge of our nation’s affairs. If we get into another shooting war it will be because our rulers deemed it necessary out of a sense of “internationalist duty” as “citizens of world” (which is what our President and his minions consider themselves to be, first and foremost). That duty is to promote the Leftist Progressive vison of “social justice” in other countries. To the Leftist way of thinking America should be willing to sacrifice its blood and treasure to help other countries, but never to advance its own security or interests. That is a central tenant of political correctness. So current and future military interventions will likely leave us scratching our heads wondering what it‘s all about, and what the objectives are. There may be no objectives, at least none that will make any sense to us. It may serve largely as a distraction from domestic affairs. So it may not matter whether America wins or loses the conflict (we’ll just pack up and go back across the ocean). But since there is no draft, no one will be forced to participate who doesn’t want to go. So who really cares? The “anti-war protesters”, who were so vocal and visible during the previous Administration, have been conspicuous by their absence from the public scene for the past six years. They will remain so.
“The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.”
- George Orwell
Oh Lord of Quotes, would you believe Chinese designed robots assembled in Panama, with batteries installed in Bangladesh, and wheels mounted in North Korea?
It would appear we are headed up the collective meat chute Jeremy.
The funny thing is that the floors don't really get cleaned. They are only polished, and a fine patina of liquefied wax and filth is deposited on shelving and food, including those items on the salad and olive bar!
Very little actual cleaning happens in food markets as clean does not sell, shinny does. That, to me, is more of a societal compass then the fact that there is some force at work that seems to compel local American employers to look to ever new immigrant workers. These are not the lowest paying jobs in the retail industry by far. A Mexican floor tech usually makes twice what an American food clerk or cashier does.
I actually think that the retail manager paying thousands per week to have his filthy floors polished but never ever dropping a dime on dairy case mold prevention or general cleaning is indicative of the superficial gullibility of the American consumer, who is also the voter. If some food store operator can play to the bling fixation of his 20,000 customers by hiring one third world peasant to push a buffer across the floor imagine what a politician with first world lobbyists and a compliant liberal press could accomplish with the electorate?
“It is the willingness of people to give of themselves over and above the demands of the job that distinguishes the great from the merely adequate organization.”
Peter Drucker
Interesting! Unfortunately, such revelations certainly inspire one NOT to grocery shop in Harm City. If I ever visit there again I’ll bring a couple cases of MREs and bottled water with me. Not to mention giant economy size bottles of Kaopectate and hand sanitizer. We import more and more people from backwards, dysfunctional third world cultures and then we wonder why our own country starts to look more and more like a backwards, dysfunctional third world country. And just when we got Appalachia half-way cleaned up and looking presentable. This practice of doing just enough to keep up appearances is a hallmark of third world countries, where appearance trumps substance every time. Just paint the side of the house facing the highway. Even our native-born citizens are becoming infected with this culture of failure more and more each day. Hey, who are we trying to impress? The people across the street with the car up on blocks in the front yard and the washing machine on the front porch? Of course the peasant worker just does what he’s told, just as he did in the old country. The American Leftists in particular like this about them, which is why they changed the laws starting in 1965 to allow more immigrants from the Third Word into the country. Now the laws don’t matter… just come on down…mi Patria, su Patria…my country is your country, we’re all citizens of the world after all. Yes James, clearly we are living in a dying country. The only question is how much time do we have left to enjoy a normal, civilized life before the collapse occurs? On the bright side, at least we have you and Victor Davis Hanson to keep a record of events for the benefit of future generations. pjmedia.com/victordavishanson/california-the-road-warrior-is-here
J.B. you used me and Victor Davis Hanson in the same sentence! I love his stuff-have read 4 of his books.
I am sending an uplifting e-book to you sir, thanking you gaudily in true third world fashion! I'm told it is a masterpiece...