Contemplate 2

Facts

Contemplating the Facts

The entirety of these posts is meant for the reader to acquire a solid understanding of not only how the world works but how to carve out your place in it.

The bottom line to this is simple: you are the most important person in the world. And yet, I’m the most important person in the world.

There is nothing contradicting or confusing here. My (your) goal is to make sure I (you) make solid decisions based on experience and information. And, last but not least, by example.

By example is obvious because it’s in the news often: people making bad decisions. And worse, previous decisions that also resulted in disaster for someone that keeps going around in a circle.

If you read the first post, I said, “...if everyone that jumps off a cliff dies, it’s a good example of what not to do.”

In part, many people make poor decisions because the ego gets in the way. In part, because they lack the correct information. And, in great part, because they let their guard down.

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Because my childhood and teen years are made up of scattered memories, I can’t zero in on any particular year and remember where I was or what I was doing. There are a few exceptions: very few.

But there are times when a thing jogs my memory.

Value: self-worth.

We see this in comment sections constantly. Many people reveal their self-centered attitude when they make threats and work to assure everyone they can carry them out. Or they know for a fact violence will follow, and vaguely (or bluntly) suggesting they will be a party. And they often will provide reasons or their version of statistics to back up their conclusion of current events.

One of the most obvious is someone boasting about the guns they own and the bad results that will follow should someone attempt to do them harm.

(I own several guns. If you feel duly impressed, please indicate so in the comment section.)

During most of my teen years, I worked various jobs that amounted to nothing more than earning a few dollars.

One year I worked at the fairgrounds. How I came by that job is not known. What I remember is I worked at the go-kart track. My job was to monitor the far end of the track and be ready to untangle any karts that jammed together.

Searching my mind tells me this: my job was one of great importance. My demeanor was as a stoic-faced person with a heavy responsibility. I waved my arms around as I worked to inform the kids riding the karts about their potentially reckless driving. I may have glared menacingly on occasion.

Self-worth often requires one to go above and beyond. Otherwise, you’re drowning in a sea of nothingness.

It’s a sad fact that many people, for reasons that can’t always be known, drown in a sea of nothingness.

Many of these people are uneducated. Worse, some of those make little to no effort to educate themselves.

I have no intention of living a pointless, empty, insignificant life.

That statement does not mean I care about being famous or important to any degree. It means that working hard and dancing an endless circle that never breaks, brings a dull drudgery of impotence.

Everything: coming up.

But first, this: there are words and situations that can be categorized as, everything. Making solid plans to accomplish a goal will fall under this definition.

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Everything

Or Nothing

I don’t know when I first contemplated myself as a person. That means all the different aspects of who I am. And why.

Best estimate: in my late thirties

I can say I did contemplate different things in my twenties. That would be paying bills on time. Repairs and projects. Something to do with my life that I needed to give thought to.

Repairs and projects require that one recognizes the need for information. That information is methods, materials, skills, and tools needed.

If someone asked me to define myself as a person, I could not have done that until my mid to late forties. If someone had given me a word choice to study, I might have defined myself at a much earlier age.

I am, for all intents and purposes, an objective person.

I can elaborate on that. I am a logical person. Facts matter. I double check, and often enough, triple check my research results. In my earlier years I would not have called research, ‘doing my due diligence’.

(More on that later.)

Right now, you need something you can get a grasp on. On 7/29/16, and having nothing to do on that day, I wrote a document concerning my childhood. That doc is 5,641 words. That doc has been expanded on several times. However, the original is available. There are also additional docs of various descriptions that address and expand on the original to some degree.

Summary: Act One. Empty Spaces.

At the age of 7 (thereabout) I made the observation I was at home alone: that is to say, wake up in the morning and no parents. Get home from school, no parents. Go to bed, no parents.

This, two, three, four days at a time. On and on…

When both parents were home, no violence, but loud voices, and occasionally bad language.

At thirteen, I packed an old suitcase and left. No one came looking for me.

No siblings and years of sitting at home by myself.

At a young age, I was making observations that allowed me to survive and observations about adults in general.

I’m an objective person. My subjective side is normally restrained to matters that only involve me: e.g., I like vanilla ice-cream, but I’m not saying anyone else should. I’m not badmouthing anyone who thinks vanilla ice-cream is awful.

English: I’m self-taught. Any subject I have knowledge of, I’m self-taught.

If someone asks me a question and I have an answer that has value to them, I’m suddenly their best friend. Otherwise, often I’m irrelevant.

My parents, relatives, do-gooder groups, the school system, government agencies… Where was everyone?

I did not grow up to be a bank robber, mugger, or some type of criminal. I didn’t grow up to become an illiterate bum sucking up resources.

Being rude or unfriendly in any manner doesn’t cross my mind. Unfortunately, I have to deal with a lot of subjective people who get their feelings hurt if the wind blows in the wrong direction.

I’m making an observation and I live in a world with a significant number of people who can’t deal with it.

(I’m reasonably sure I can rewrite this and give it a good coat of butter.)

A few quotes from Act One:

“Everyone involved had a choice. Now, you might task me with being something I may not be able to be.”

Afterword: in this case, a few observations.

There are a few things worth repeating. Here’s one put another way.

“As a child, I learned for a fact that adults lie. That adults are very deceptive. That adults are mean. As a child, being ignorant in the subtle ways adults manipulate for their own personal satisfaction, I could not frame those actions in my mind. Still, I knew those actions were not right.”

“Any arguments that differ will not sway me.”

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As facts go, as an adult, I’ve met honest, thoughtful people. People that can be counted on.

Unfortunately, people who treated me badly as a child, also treated other adults the same way. It never occurred to me as a child that this was the way of the world.

Manipulating, mean, deceptive, liars: you can’t get away from them.

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Lessons are Difficult to Learn

Here’s one:

On the Christmas weekend in 1978, the shop I was working in was broken into and the thieves stole everything they could get their hands on. That includes all my tools.

The following week when a tool truck stopped by, I bought a top box (upper toolbox) and a variety of tools. I ended up spending a little over 2k. That didn’t come close to what I actually needed.

It also was pointless because the shop owner shut the shop down.

Not having enough tools to actually go to another shop and work as an auto-body-repairman, I went home and within another week or so, started a one-man shop.

I had a decent number of tools at home, but a noticeable number were mechanics tools. I also had a nice compressor. Nice for a home shop, but not for making a living.

Looking my finances over, it was clear I did not have the finances to purchase a nice compressor; after shopping around for a few days, a nice compressor turned out to be an Ingersoll T-30: $1100.00.

Looking at monthly bills, and calculating monies I would need to buy materials, I was $300.00 short.

I asked one of my three best friends (Connie B) if I could borrow that from her, saying I would pay her back $50.00 a month until it was paid back.

I got a lecture on loaning money to friends. A lecture, not a beatdown. Connie came from a Catholic family and was well educated and her justification was well delivered.

In the end, she loaned me the money. Five months later it was paid back.

The lesson: I did not listen to what she said about loaning money to friends. It’s a judgment call and if it’s one you can’t accurately make, do not loan any money.

I came to regret that. It’s a lesson more than a few people have learned.

Oh, yeah. You want to be there for your friends. You want to support them. This is a calculated risk: an estimate that will not deliver solid proof of the end results.

There’s more to come. Please be here.

Adieu, y’all.