EOFY
I can't figure out how to read the pin for the new pre-paid credit
card that I bought. It's a funny little puzzle - I was told to...
Nope wait, I figured it out. Finally, I've been working on that for
almost a month. Ho hum...
Well I don't know how this relates to other countries, but here in
Aus we've entered into bold new financial year. Soon I'll be again
be stumbling my way through filling out a tax return, while stuck
in that particular moody mix of confusion, frustration, and
depression. Fact is that my bookkeeping is terrible - because I
never find the time to do it except at tax time. Always I'm chasing
some long overdue project, desperate to get it done and making
money. Then I finish it, just how I want it, and it makes
absolutely nothing, because nobody's interested, besides me, or
maybe including me if I was making it specifically to target some
other people who I thought I understood, but didn't. So after I've
run my scripts, and built my spreadsheets, and matched up some
figures on a notepad, I can see all the money that I spent on
developing these things that found somewhere between zero and one
customers. At the same time though, my few minor successes mean
that I somehow keep making more year-on-year, at the same time as
spending _most_ of my time developing new ideas that only cost me
money. That's confusing - I'd have made more money if I spent most
of my days on the couch watching TV instead of really trying to
increase profits?
There's a certain anger that builds in me at this time of year. A
sort of anger against society that is undoubtably common in the
population, though deeply taboo due to the violence that it can
lead to. If I couldn't see the flaws in other proposed models of
society I can imagine directing it to some political organisation.
Finding a new life "fighting" for a different world in which to
live.
Of course I know it's me who'se to blame for my own failure to
succeed within society. Upon realising this the anger turns to a
new determination to improve, to find a new path, work harder at
it, believe in it. Except that's what I've been doing all these
years anyway. Gah...
Every year the same old thing, round and round, out here in my
little house in the middle of grassy paddocks while the birds chirp
and the kangaroos hop past blissfully unaware of the quandries
seizing up the mind of that human sitting by the window grumbling
at his computer monitor. Seeing this I flip it around, I remember
that I've got food to eat, electricity to cook and entertain
myself, fuel in the car to take me wherever I want to go, who gives
a fuck how or why? Plus I disagree with all sorts of things that
are popular in society, don't really care for interacting with
other people beyond talking/typing monologues at them and indulging
desires towards the female ones. Odds are that if I'm that out of
touch, then things won't work out a lot of the time, and that's
just how it is if I'm going to make money doing something that I
enjoy.
But then do I enjoy it? Well actually I recently discovered the "Go
Beyond Phlog" via its recent inclusion in Bongusta, and the post
"The Things You Own End Up Owning You" digs pretty deep into my
problems here:
gopher://go-beyond.org:70/0/post/the-things-you-own-end-up-owning-you.txt
He's complaining about needing to be engaged daily with running his
online business, feeling "tied down" to it. The thing is: he's
actually living my current utopian vision for success. Assuming he
makes some sort of above-poverty-line income, which I certainly
don't, his purely online operation is what I've aspired to with my
more recent surges of determination for success. You see, he
complains about needing to be online at least once every 24 hours.
I need to be online once every 24 hours dealing with customers
(especially the endless cases of things getting lost in the post),
and at home with my stock once every 48 hours (72 hours spanning
over the weekend if I pre-plan and take a little risk of
complaints). With some effort I could take everything offline and
put up notices saying when I'll be back, but I never have. Mainly
because I don't make enough money, so I don't want to waste
opportinities to make more, and I also don't consider that I
deserve (or can afford) to go on a big trip (defined as anything
requiring paid accomodation) until I've been more successful. The
irony is, I'll only make more money by selling more things, which
will take more of my time and make me worry more about the
consequences of taking it all offline like that.
The ideal then, that I've put a lot of work into already, is
getting into a more fully-digital business. I've got various ideas
for this, one of which is very slowly coming together, but so
slowly that I've been going off onto other things due to
above-mentioned spurts of determination to achieve quicker success.
Another is quite ambitious, aiming for a website that really
targets the general public (as well as business) with a new online
service that might fit in alongside Google, Wikipedia etc., and a
business plan that I don't think is evil.
But this guy is living in my ideal world of a purely digital
business, and HE is complaining about being trapped by it! I guess
then my only hope is to achieve great success with that grand plan
for a BIG website, so that I could employ other people to run it,
or sell it (the choice he was pondering). But based on performance
of my previous products, it probably won't appeal to other people.
Yet it would take a lot more time to develop, and money to set up.
So I go back to my easier ideas, but they don't work either, so I
keep going round and round. Ho hum...
- The Free Thinker
