Exit Strategy

A Facebook friend quipped the other day, “Giving money and power to the government is like giving whiskey and car keys to a teenager…total disaster!”

Well, I thought about that for a minute, and could not help but respond back: “Since the ride is in progress, perhaps we should be thinking about an exit strategy.”

This comment was like a little cherry on top of a very sad cake that has been in the making for quite some time, and I just can’t keep my thoughts on the matter to myself anymore, so at the risk of sounding like Harold Camping, might I suggest that the end – while perhaps not “at hand” on any given predicted day – is in sight. The end of what, you might ask? Let me borrow the phrase from my survivalist friends: TEOTWAWKI: The End of The World As We Know It.

Let me just bring a few things to light, and issue a few disclaimers about my own sanity and rationality.

If you know me personally, you are probably aware that I recently closed my business – a little store on the edge of town in a community of about 35,000 people. It was a liquidation store, where I would buy all the leftover goods from the major chain stores by the truckload, and resell them to the fine people of this town at about half of what Wal-Mart sells them for. I also had a section of the store dedicated to what has become known as “Dent and Bent” groceries. These are what your supermarket throws away daily, as we highly educated people snub the box of cereal or crackers because there is a magic date at the top that suggests the food is no good any more. Or because the box got bent, or a can got dented, and since we are paying such top dollar for our food, we reject these. The fact that we are so gullible about the “quality” of our food, and treat the “Best if used by date” as if it were the date upon which food becomes poisonous, and is suddenly a national   health hazard is another topic for another blog – but suffice to say, we have the safest, most sanitized food in the world, and if you have one of these stores near you, you would do well to take advantage of it.

In any event, when I opened that store in 2007, we did a booming business. Who doesn’t like a deal? We expanded in 2008, and floated happily through 2009, and celebrated what looked like it would be a successful 2010.  However, life does not always go as expected.

Oh, the store did fine – provided someone was there at the wheel. And when my son’s diagnosis of Duchenne muscular dystrophy informed us that his health was on a down-turn, headed toward what is, for all intents and purposes, a quadriplegic state, my time at the store became less and less. Mark did a lot of the work – and my one hired employee was absolutely amazing in keeping our little ship afloat. But the hard cold fact was that I could not keep up with the demands in both camps. By the time September rolled around, and my son needed spinal fusion from his neck to his butt, it looked like we might be headed toward the end of the line.

I put the store up for sale, but the few people who were feeling like the actually wanted to start a business in this gloomy economy took one look at all the work that it takes to keep a store with over 10,000 items at any given time well stocked and open…when they realized that running your own business is a 24/7 kind of thing, to which you are indeed married, well, it didn’t sell. By the time January rolled around, we knew it was time, and we implemented what was lurking there in the business plan since 2007: Our exit strategy.

First rule of any business venture is to have a plan, and part of that plan is the part you would rather not contemplate, but if you have a business brain in your head you will put aside your sentimentality, and realize that business is business – and things do not always go as planned. For me it was family health issues. For some, it’s poor financial management. For some, it’s the economy, or the competition, but whatever it is, you need to have in your lead suitcase a little map that tells you when you need to leave so that your finances remain intact. A little magic number, perhaps, that says when we reach this, we will have to pull up stakes. To save that which remains, to salvage what is left, to sell out….whatever it may be for your particular endeavor – it’s time to close the chapter, cut your losses, and move on. Can ANYONE tell me this is NOT prudent?

My little business had a modest 5-figure line of credit. I had decided that if I could not pay anything on the principal after a number of months, then I would have to bail. At no time did I ever consider not paying principle AND interest on my bigger 5-figure note. It would never occur to me to borrow money to pay my employee. If we could not afford to pay her – and she was worth her weight in gold! – then I would have to take over those duties myself – and that would require my stunt double, who is as booked as I am.

And so, we restructured.  We closed up shop and brought the business home, and now run it completely on-line, with a whole new business plan, including a new, improved exit strategy.

But now – if you would, indulge me in what might have happened if I ran my business the way our government is running OUR country. I would keep spending – and keep borrowing. I would have hired a slew of employees that I could not afford, and would borrow money to pay them. If my store only brought in $10,000 in a month, and I paid out $15,000 in bills, there should be some serious discussion about where we could cut back, don’t you think? But no – in this case, I just keep going back to the bank and getting my credit limit raised, and pay nothing on the principle, and borrow more money to pay my initial note. If the banker balks, I tap into my retirement account. I max out every credit card I’ve got, and pay nothing but interest on what I have borrowed, because the hard, cold fact is I am not making enough money to pay even the basic overhead of inventory, rent, utilities, and employees, much less to pay interest on the ever increasing debt.  So, at $10,000 a month income – and now $100,000 a month out-go in interest alone…what kind of business person am I? Let’s try on SUCCINT FAILURE for starters.

Now, for the Gazillion Dollar question: What are the odds I will EVER – I mean EVER – get out of debt and pay this all back AND (we can dream, can’t we) turn a profit? Come on, surely there is a financial wizard out there who is still in touch with reality who can cook my books to make it happen, can’t they?

Well, sure! They are all working for your government – and they make fun appearances on the national news every now and again, assuring us that there is a rebound in our economy; that unemployment is falling, that if you all just take it easy, happy days will be here again in no time. Your President just told you that this whole scenario is just some “bumps in the road”.  My politically correct reaction is to clear my throat, swallow hard when I hear that and inquire, “Is that so?”  The real me steps back from the screen with an incredulous stare and asks, “Are you fucking kidding me?” My intelligence is insulted – and yours should be too.

Since we already four pages into this, let me just take the blunt route and ask you how do you think this will play out? How long do you think we can keep this going with no money? Seriously – stop and really, really THINK about it. Because if you choose not to – and I totally understand why you would NOT want to – you will probably die. Sound melodramatic? Then you have not truly thought about it. You are buying into the bullshit that they are feeding you on TV about how everything is really fine, under control, “bumps in the road” as it were…your money is safe, your borders are secure, your job is still there, the grocery stores are still full – despite gas prices on the rise, it’s business as usual and will continue to be that way for as long as you live, and your children live, and your children’s children. Happy, happy, happy!!

Have you learned nothing from history? There have been, throughout the history of the world, societies just as content and prosperous as we are who were cleared from the map in no time. Don’t think these were some primitive tribes, scuffling in the dirt. Do you think the Jewish population of Germany were a bunch of idiots? We see them now in black and white footage, naked and emaciated and being herded into camps – but did it ever occur to you that a short time prior to that they were dining as Bistros that rival our finest here? That they had beautiful belongings decorating lovely homes…that they were people at every stage of life – young families, middle aged parents, grandparents, with happy lives and enough to eat. In their case, it was a government gone wrong that brought them to the brink of genocide. But they were just as real as you and I. they had the same thoughts, feelings, emotions, loved, cried, laughed…and relied on a government to keep them safe and prosperous.

But that’s only one scenario. Anyone care to ask the survivors of the Japanese Tsunami or Missouri tornado what matters most? Talk about a reality check, courtesy of Mother Earth. And those are just two of the ways she has gently reminded us that we are NOT greater than nature – we are, in fact, a part of it. Remember? From dust we came, and to dust we shall return. Every molecule in your being has its origin in her, and she can reclaim it pretty much any time, and does not require your permission to do so.

Then there is the threat of other governments upon whom we depend. You think gas is pricey now? If the folks in the Middle East get in a pissing match – with or without US poking that bear with a stick – watch them soar off the charts and out of the stratosphere. Think that might affect your budget?

There’s the little fact of the dollar being the world reserve currency. But have you noticed that your dollar is becoming worth slightly less these days? You THINK food prices are rising. Nope – and egg is still and egg, and a gallon of milk is still a gallon of milk. But in reality it is your dollar that is getting smaller, and smaller, so it takes a lot more of them to buy the stuff you need to keep food on your table. A relative of mine went to Australia recently, and traded their dollars for the Aussie variety on the way in for $1.03. A week later, they traded them back for $1.15. That’s a fairly big drop in just a week. And it fluctuates daily, like a flag in the breeze. There was a time here – yes, on our own soil – when certain money became totally and completely worthless overnight. Ask anyone who was the inheritor of a chest full of confederate bills. If you think it can’t happen again in some way, you are in denial. And it will be to your own hurt.

There you have the three scenarios that can level the world playing field, and take you and yours with it. And to be honest, who can know which will take center stage as the years go by? Who cares? The hard and cold fact is that something WILL happen – if not in your lifetime, your children’s – or your grandchildren’s…and my question to you is what are we teaching them today that will see them through what promises to be a very, very difficult time?

The school in my town needed to cut the budget – so what did the axe? Home Ec. Again – whose brilliance was on display in THAT move? I came to the realization recently that my own daughters do not know how to properly measure flour, or even make a decent batch of cookies without a recipe. They did not know what leavening was, what kinds there were, or the purpose they serve. They have no clue how to plant or tend a garden, and sadder still, no desire to do so, and no reason to even contemplate the necessity of it.

And lest we think of Home Economics as merely cooking brownies and cookies – it should actually include a home budget. My graduate this year has no clue how to figure out interest rates on a car purchase, much less real estate. Auto insurance is seen as nothing more than a bill that needs to be paid. They do not know what a deductible is. They have almost zero comprehension of what a credit report is, how to get one, maintain one, and the importance of having one in today’s economy. Do you? Do yours? I say this to MY shame – because I have been relying on an educational system to teach them all these survival skills in addition to reading and writing – while I pursue the struggle for the legal tender needed to pay for their food, shelter and clothing.

 I see the graduates today, and I’m sorry, but I’m not feeling like standing up and applauding an accomplishment. They haven’t learned anything that will truly help them in a world that is crumbling under their feet. They just stuck it out for the required 12 years. Whoop-de-do…like they had a choice with the truancy laws being what they are. So, I’ll celebrate with my “graduate” this year much like you would celebrate the end of an incarceration. Good for you…back to the real world now, where you will no doubt find that your recent education has netted you nothing. In some cases, they cannot even spell properly, or read anything heavier than the lyrics to a song on YouTube. They don’t want to. They want to be entertained. I honestly can’t say when education stopped actually educating – but with my 2.25 years of high school, I came out WAY ahead of where the four-year grads are today – thanks in part to one fantastic teacher who encouraged me to actually think as I learned.

Again, the educational failure is another blog also – but for my purposes here today, it is sufficient to say that should us Boomers be so lucky as to never see another war, famine, disease, or natural disaster in our lifetime, our children most likely will – and they are in no way equipped to handle it. And if we are not so lucky – an honest appraisal of our own lives will reveal in neon letters: Neither are we.

I don’t spill all this today as someone who has some answer to this dilemma – and it IS a dilemma. I am throwing this out there as a question to my fellow man: Hey…realistically, there is some very nasty shit that is certainly going to hit the fan, and more likely sooner than later. What are YOU gonna do about it? Because I have been giving it a lot of thought, and I’m coming up with a big fat question mark. Maybe we could pool some thoughts here?

Not that I am uneducated in survival to a small degree. I’ve spent my time obsessing over it in time past, when the Christian platform I was standing on demanded that we prepare for TEOTWAWKI. We moved to the country – because we could afford to. We banded together with a few good people, and raised our own food. We had a years worth of food and paper products stored up, a house wired for generator power, an acre garden, a barnful of critters for eggs, milk and meat. Thousands of canning jars, a library full of How-To books and an impressive armory. But unfortunately, when you attach TEOTWAWKI to a religion, one size does not fit all, and my personal population explosion taxed me to the –nth degree. Homeschooling five, three in diapers, one on the way, and heart cries that went unheard lead me to a Kamikaze move that ended it all, and I moved back to the city with no regrets.

I’ve subsequently lived a life-time or two – and the world situation does not need a religious interpretation. In fact, I’m looking at it right now strictly from a financial perspective – which includes all kinds of irrefutable facts. No guess work, here. Our house of cards is shaking in the wind, and although I happen to be on the bottom of it, it’s causing some serious soul-searching.

Ignoring it – which I have done for a number of years – is not making it go away. It is not getting better. Let me just say it for the record: ALL IS NOT WELL.

If you have the mistaken idea that this political leader or that one can fix this, you are not grounded in reality. Check-mate is check mate.

And it’s not that I don’t have a spiritual perspective – but that is mine, and you need to have your own. I will say, however, that if you are relying on a Third Party Abstract to save you should things get ugly, you have a rude awakening coming. Ask the recent victims of nature’s wrath. We cannot “blame” God as we understand it – we can only seek solace from our position in the rubble. God as I understand it is not going to deliver us from “evil” we have brought upon ourselves. In my opinion, we have simply forgotten who we are, and what we are. Our spirits have an origin in the spirit realm – but the bodies that host us are dependent upon the Earth from which we came, and to which we shall return. We are also dependent upon the other people in the sphere of our influence, their attitudes and actions. Every spiritual system and religion as far as I know it has some creedo which encourages us to live lives of peace, goodness, and kindness, and in harmony with the earth we live upon.

Being a voracious reader with an intense love of learning, I’ve become a bit of an anthropology buff these days. I’ve enjoyed reading how we began – both here in my America, as well as the rest of the globe. It seems to me, that our far-off ancestors found all that they needed to survive within the provisions of the planet. They had a view that we were, in fact, a PART of nature – and not somehow above it. All religions had their basis in this at one point or another. “Subduing” the earth had nothing to do with beating into submission to our “superior” knowledge. It had everything to do with organizing the elements so that they benefited us without harm to either.

Thomas E. Mails, chief contributor to the information regarding Native Americans for the movie “Dances with Wolves” has written several books about this very subject, and had a very interesting point. In his book regarding the Hopi Prophecies, “The HOPI Survival Kit”, he states, “Even though we know that there were at least twenty million natives in South and Middle America, and ten million in North America – surely enough to make a mess somewhere – when the first explorers arrived here they marveled at how pristine everything was. This was due to the Native attitude regarding the rest of creation. They saw themselves as a part of it, as blended with it, and not something separate and superior. Under these circumstances one does not wantonly litter or destroy. Europeans had, and still have, trouble coming to grips with this kind of behavior. …where conquests are concerned, we have not been able to identify ourselves with a people who would by nature treat nature as an equal.”

There was a time when we understood this, and in fact, movies like Dances with Wolves and Native American culture appeal to a very broad audience because I believe that somewhere inside of us we miss this. We miss the fact that living simply WAS life. We had cultures of people that consisted of tribes, clans, and families. We knew where we belonged within such, and as a result had no significant problems with displace, depressed, or discarded people. Their religious ceremonies were designed to keep them in touch with the earth; planting, and harvest, and thanksgiving and a period of rest and contemplation. This was LIFE. And it was good.

Somewhere along the line, we drifted. We foisted upon the natives beliefs and ideas that were not theirs. To offer a differing belief system would have been one thing – but we insisted they discard theirs for ours – at gun-point. Yes – being currently immersed in Native American studies, this is at the front and center of my brain – but this current line of research is my feeble attempt at making some sense out of all that is sitting in front of me today.

Look at how this has worked out for us here, in the long run. We replaced our involvement with the land, and put ourselves in a position of having to now purchase everything that we used to be able to provide for ourselves and our families and villages. Those us who still enjoy digging in the dirt now do so as a hobby relegated to the weekend, when we are not at “work”, earning money so that we can pay for our food, our clothes, our shelter, our heat, our electricity, our water. Our upwardly mobile progress has not only put us out of a job – it has put us out of our very life.

Funny how we tell people who squander time in what we deem frivolous ways to “get a life”. None us have the life that we were granted by our Creator. If I don’t come up with enough money – my water gets shut off. If I don’t have enough money from whatever my “job” is that replaced my own self sufficiency, I’m screwed. No heat, no lights, no food, no gas…the list goes on indefinitely, until you have what we see in the cities all around us: People who have become totally dependent on the government for their subsistence. They can’t even have a garden, or chickens, or a milk cow. They are quite simply, fucked.

How did we allow this to happen? Did we not see that we have done to the initial human unit? Humans lived, as I said, since time began, in groups. Tribes, clans, villages, families. Everyone had a part – a purpose – and that was to the good and benefit of the whole. Each one knew their place – and learned a skill or skills to contribute to the good of the whole. We shared. We cared. We respected our elders, and taught the children to do so also. We accomplished this together – we worked together, played together, prayed together, laughed together, mourned together. But with the advent of “new and better things”, we separated ourselves out. In America, we English saw the Native population, and spurned them for their primitiveness. And while they had their own unique sets of tribal problems, none of them involved “progress”, or destroying water sources or other natural resources. There was enough for everyone. If we simply look within the tribal life, we saw people living a life that actually worked – for centuries. But with more, and better, and stronger, and mechanized, and faster, we did away with not only a great deal of difficult laborious work – but we did away with the need for other people.

I find it interesting that the Christian religion and it’s political spokespersons today will freak out about gay marriage, or “living in sin”, touting that the Man-Woman-Child family is the epitome of the human unit of measure. But look back a bit further, will you? It used to be families, within clans, within villages, within tribes, within races. What happened to the unity of race? The existence of tribes? The cohesiveness and community of villages? The interdependence and support of a clan? You mean to say all we have left is family? No wonder they are geeking out over the loss of that! Apparently they have noticed – finally – that we have essentially eliminated that, too, and we are down to individual people, where it’s every man for himself. Take a look around you! People are so lonely – depressed – sad. We are isolated from one another to such a high degree…and it’s been that way long enough for us to consider this the norm.

And we are teaching this to our children.

In fact, when we moved out to the country, and lived in community, we were considered very, very strange by most. A cult, to be sure. But for those who hung out with us long enough to know us, despite a faulty base, we had a lot of fun, a lot of unity, a lot of abundance, a lot of support. We also had a lot of work, but each one did their part, and at the end of a day we shared an abundant home-grown meal together, prepared by the women while the men worked outside. It was a small sample of days, eras, people groups – long gone.  And today, when I look back on it, I realize how blessed I was to have a taste or raising a family in true community.

It has dawned on me in the course of my studies, that this is not a “problem” – for by its nature, a problem is something that has a solution. It is clearly a dilemma – something for which there is no “right” answer.   

To be continued...

America and the Tractor Pull

It’s a cold, rainy spring morning, and in an effort to wake up and get some kind of motivation, I am thinking about the local fair, and the tractor pull. Don’t ask me why…maybe because a tractor rolled by the house here this morning and made it rumble like thunder. Kind of like the tractor pull.

Marian Dolan, 1931

You see, I’m a farm girl at heart. I was raised in the city, but my Grandma was the 4-H Queen of her day, and that’s apparently where my genetics come from. I ran our own little hobby farm for nearly ten years. Had lots of help, but it was getting as close to self-sufficient as you can be if you still have bills to pay.  When my marriage ended, working on a dairy farm that included housing was the best way to deal with raising 8 kids single handedly. By far the most fulfilling job I’ve ever had, working with the animals and the land was as grueling as it was beautiful. Immersed in life and the earth every day – does wonders for your constitution and outlook on life!

But the most impressive part of farming is the machinery! It’s huge, and strong and unyielding and impenetrable. It’s cold and unforgiving. It is raw power. I remember the first time I sat on the fender of a small John Deere tractor pulling a plow. I watched as the teeth sunk into the earth and as we were pulled forward by the power of this machine, the blades turned over the earth like black butter, folding the grass under and making the familiar furrows in the landscape. It was awe inspiring at the time, and over the course of the next few years it never ceased to amaze me, although becoming commonplace in the spring.

And going to the fair became something you did not just for the rides and the midway and funnel cakes. First of all, it was a day off!  It was for the farm machinery on display. It was for the vendors showing off the latest, greatest dairy chemicals. And in the evening, it was for the tractor pull!

Now, if you’ve never been to a tractor pull, think of it as a drag race for transformers weighed down by megaliths. It’s somewhat surreal, the noise, the roar, the smoke, and the visual power pulling a stone boat down the track until its front tires lift into the air, and the gears are whining. And then the front end drops to the ground, the engine slows and the back wheels stop churning up the sandy track. The track hands run out and check the official measure, unhitch the stone boat and the tractor drives away to the cheers of the crowd.

And in the case of the unmodified tractors, after the festivities, they are loaded back up and taken back to the farm where they will once again spread manure, rip up soil, rake it smooth, pull the planters and the harvest equipment…just like always.

For the modifieds, well…these are the spoiled brats of tractors. They will just go back into the shop to be fine-tuned with very expensive parts and be primed for the next competition. They are tractors, all right – but they have never turned a wheel in the earth. They are a caricature of a tractor. The show and tell of all the flattering parts of a tractor: The power, the size, the weight, the roar, the tires…like a body building competition for machines. They don’t really DO anything but look pretty and show off.

Now my morning musings of fairs and tractor pulls is rudely interrupted by the news. Yes – it’s my fault for turning on my computer and reading my e-mail, but I clicked on the news link to read of the Presidents unintended “on-mic harsh words of criticism”  toward his Republican opponents.  If it weren’t so tragic I would have smiled, since in my opinion, I wished they would talk that way all the time, because then we would really know what they think, instead of cloaking everything in bullshit. I’m a writer, and I know how to do that, too.

But the part of me who is not bound by this planet; the part of me that will live on long after my body decides it’s all funned out, looks at this and all of the other world headlines and just  shakes its head. Silly people. What have you done? What are you doing? There are so many of you – and your leaders have made such foolish errors.

You are like a stone boat, being pulled along by the motor and muscle of a machine. Oh, you started out strong! You charged into the American landscape, roaring and growling, racing at speeds that gave that old stone boat quite a thrill ride. It’s not accustomed to going so fast! But the weights are shifting. The hydraulics are tilting, and the weight is getting heavier, and heavier. And instead of realizing we are near the end of the run, you step on the gas, pop the clutch again, stress every moving part in the engine. Ugly sounds emanate from the inside. Smoke begins to pour from crevices that are not supposed to smoke. The American Stone Boat has now hooked itself up to weights that are not ours – pulling the wars of other countries onto our weight stack. Our engine whines and groans, and we proudly sit in the cab and slam back the throttle once again. And the stones look about…have we stopped? There is a lot of noise coming from the front, but we don’t seem to be moving anymore.

What happens next?

You tell me, America.

Nobody’s happy anymore. The money is gone. All we do it bitch and whine at each other, divided into more than two parties politically, there is an animosity that precludes debate, because the problems in this nation have all become personal. And a debate is about issues – not the person defending an issue. We are full up with laws because we live in fear – of EVERYTHING! We fear each other, we fear our government, we fear our food for pete’s sake! I’m not sure why, because any one of the offending parties can be sued now and you could possible reap a tidy sum. We insure our insurance. The only solution we have to anything anymore is money, and we don’t have any.

No one wants to give up any of their comforts, but the hard cold fact is we can’t even afford our comforts anymore. I could go on, but suffice it to say it’s out of control and it cannot be fixed. That’s wishful thinking. It doesn’t matter if we have Republicans or Democrats in any office, it will just be a different way to screw it up some more. Somebody is going to get hurt no matter what. No one will be happy.

At some point, however, the show will be over. It will have to end. Time goes on, the world still turns, the sun will continue to rise and set – on this we can depend. But in another analogy, one could say we have reached terminal velocity. We’ve reached the end of the rainbow, and yes, it’s just a prismatic illusion. How will it end? No…the globe we ride on is plenty stable. Unless cosmic forces start lobbing stones at her, or she implodes from the inside, she’s a lot more stable than the inhabitants who are nobly trying to “save” her. She doesn’t need saving. Doubt that? Ask the residents of Louisiana, Japan or Australia if Mother Nature seems to be fatiguing with age or in need of our nursing services.

I’ve read with interest many different ideas on how the show will conclude, but none of them strike me as “the answer”. As if we could actually know. Hypotheses – that’s all they are. No matter what happens, it’s a death – an ending – and those tend to be painful.  I’ve had to ask myself, “How then shall we live?” 

What are people to do when the world they know disappears from underneath them? A part of Japan is understanding this in what is, globally speaking, a small way. How can I call that much devastation “small”? Because it’s not even in the news daily anymore. It’s been trumped by Libya’s problems and the American political process. It’s old news – yesterday’s newspaper in the bottom of the birdcage. The thrill is gone. The shock and awe is over. We are used to all major issues taking no longer to solve than the two-hour Hollywood version. My goodness, we tackled a global killer asteroid already in under two hours – what’s a little earthquake and Tsunami? Nope. We are like the rubber-neckers at a traffic accident. “Move along, people, there’s nothing to see here…”, as we get our glimpse of twisted metal and maybe even a blood-spattered car or limp body, and shake our head as we face the road again and head home. “Bummer, man.”

I like my denial as much as the next person, though. I sit here at my computer today, taking full advantage of things like weekend relaxing time, electricity, gasoline, the internet, my coffee maker, my cigarettes, the heat pouring out of the vent on my feet while the cold rain pelts the window. I’m looking forward to my warm shower, with store-bought soaps and shampoos and lotions. Warm food will be served when everyone awakens, and we will no doubt enjoy a movie sometime this weekend with our feet up on the ottoman and our butts comfy on the couch. I worked hard all week, and I’m tired, and I’m takin’ it easy today. This is my reality, and I’d certainly rather no one fuck with that.

Normal Rockwell - "Freedom from Fear"

But there is another parallel reality going on all around you. And it’s not nearly as rosy, but it’s just as real. And today I’m thinking about it. What to do? Now, I’m no fear monger – in fact, I would hope that anything that comes out of me would be the polar opposite of fear – because that’s what is killing us as I mentioned earlier. And fear is a global killer if ever there was one. Fear is what holds people hostage. It is freedom that I seek, and not the “American” kind of freedom, but the freedom of empowerment that I would seek to spread. The fact that we have the ability to reframe anything life throws at us in a different light.

Like the more humble – but still powerful –farm tractor, we could unhitch from the boat, and make our way back to the farm, and begin to do that which we were built to do: Cooperate with the land to bring forth that which sustains our families. Back to basics. One day, we may just find ourselves there – stripped of modern convenience, with money devoid of value. It has happened before. What do people do? They turn their eyes toward home. Suddenly, their family is all that matters. Their people. Their companions. Their pets. Their food and water and shelter and clothing. And that’s pretty much it.

But I’m afraid this time around, we are being pulled by a modified tractor. It just doesn’t know when to quit. It’s never spent a day in the hot sun, or the blowing snow, or the driving rain. It actually has no job at all but to look good at show time, and demonstrate for the crowd it’s oodles of useless and rather impractical power. It’s reminiscent of Buzz Lightyear before he realized he was just a toy. The flag has been waved, and the pull is over, but how long will it be before the big rig even notices? Once it realizes the show is over, where does it go? What does it do? It gets put in the shop for some very, very expensive repairs, in hopes of pulling again.

But I remember the first tractor pull I ever attended. It was just a little local affair in our small Wisconsin town, June Dairy Days to be precise. The local farmers each brought in their biggest toy, and hooked them up to a literal stone boat – not some hydraulic contraption. This was just a concrete drag, upon which the men of the town would hop on, one by one, as the tractor dragged it down the street. Pretty soon, there were more men than the Massey could pull. The men would laugh and shake hands and head back to their place lining the street for the neighbors Ford. This was the beginning of the Tractor Pulls.

For you see people, the show is over. Despite the rumblings and smoke coming from the front, we are now standing still. In the true spirit of the tractor pull, the power, though being manifest through the volume and roar of the tractors, actually lies within the men on the boat. Because while the tractor has the power to pull a stone boat just so far – it’s the men that ultimately stop it. And stopped it, we have.

Our lives will soon change, one way or the other; either we will be imprisoned on the stone boat, hostages to the crisis of who wants to fix the tractor here and now, who will pay for it and you “stones” aren’t going anywhere, because we need you for our redemption! Or we will hop off the boat.

Now that we are stopped, it would be a good time to dismount, shake hands and head back home to our families and our neighbors, risking a return to more primitive living conditions, with a chance for a government do-over of some sort. The Goliath in the street will be trailered up and shipped off for an overhaul – if anyone even finds it to be worth it.

I suppose the choice will be ours.

The Facebook Diaries

No doubt, the advent of Facebook has brought many previously unheard of  issues to the forefront. From being just a “Hi, howdy-do” site, to the virtual reality of some people, it has also opened up whole cans of legal worms here and there. Yes, perhaps most of the folks in my age group who frequent Facebook use it as just what it was meant to be: A social network. In worlds that are filled with kids and jobs and the stresses of keeping it together in a faltering world economy, few of us have time for the real deal of friendship and camaraderie unless we work together. And those of us with unique situations have found support groups in the flesh to be too much to include – so we put together Groups on Facebook and get a wealth of friendships, information, advice and support all without having to travel away from our computer screens. Plain and simple, in this capacity…it works.

And then there are those who take social networking to a higher level and utilize it as a place to vent their spleen, to cry the blues, to boast of what their children did in school and to share what they are having for dinner. This is to say nothing of the pictures that are posted! We are treated to everything from our friends’ vacation photos, to their tattoos, to their weddings and funerals, and just plain old silly pictures. We have gamers who want us to play with them, and poets who want to share music and videos. Facebook seems to be  the one place where it's okay to talk about religion and politics, posting and forwarding articles that reflect our opinions on candidates and issues, and join Groups that feel the same way. And while this approach can be a turn-off to those who keep their personal lives personal, for those who are more...well, social in this capacity, it works. 

Or does it? I have seen no less than five articles in the last week or so that have warned – if even briefly – about the “dangers” of Facebook. Identity theft. Cyber stalking. Cyber bullying. Pedophiles on the hunt. Job discrimination and loss as a result of less than flattering things posted on Facebook. Can you be fired from your job for grumbling about it on Facebook – or is it protected speech? What happens if you don’t name names? What happens if you do? Can a prospective employer not hire you based upon the video you posted when you were drunk at your cousins wedding? (Technically, no…but I’m sure they’ll find something about your resume to pan you for.)

I’ve got a whole bunch of kids that introduced me to Facebook, and it’s become something of a friend to me, and I have had to step back and take a good, hard look at what this new dynamic, this “Social Network” has done and is doing to our new and improved human society. 

Like ANY technology today, it is not good or evil in and of itself. It’s kind of like Tofu – not real meat – takes on the flavor of whatever you mix it with. So for me and a host of others, it tastes just like our plain-chicken lives. For the teenagers, however, it’s a smorgasbord of everything from hot and spicy, to exotic, to just plain awful. And for kids in particular, they have not been taught cyber etiquette – if there even is such a thing. 

I was raised in a world where there were things you did and did not talk about, and you found out the difference fairly early in life, when you were soundly scolded for spilling family secrets, exposing dirty laundry, or swearing (at home or in public). The things you could not or did not say out loud, you confined to the pages of your diary. Here, you could cuss out the unfair teacher, rip your enemies to ribbons, say whatever you pleased, and close the cover and put it back between your mattresses, vented and satisfied that you had recorded this colossal event in your diary, to be immortalized forever. No one ever knew how much you hated this or that; no one knew how happy or depressed you were – just your “Dear Diary”. 

Not so much anymore. It has come to my attention in large ways lately how powerful Facebook has become, and how scary many people, especially parents, perceive it to be. If you read the list of done-me-wrongs above, yes – I guess I get that. I’ve been dismayed on more than one occasion when a child of mine has cyber-vomited up some computer phlegm all over their status and wall. More than one post was aimed right at me!! How dare they!

I came to most of my decisions about the use of Facebook in my teenage-dominated home by default, playing it as we go. (Is there any other way to parent??) All of my kids have a Facebook account and all but one use it daily. We have come to some understandings about our family’s personal etiquette. First, if you live at home, I have access to your wall. You block me, I block your computer. Second – I don’t hang out on your page, lurk on your wall or snoop. Fair is fair. If I think you are suicidal, I’m going to come looking at what’s going on there – but I have a real respect for the right to privacy, and for the establishment of trust. So far, so good. Also, you are not required to be friends with your siblings – and in fact, this has become a real barometer of relationships – but you do have to be a part of our personal family page, so notices that go out there are subject only to family, and have become a means of family communication over everything from new babies, to career changes, to clean-the-house day notices. The family page also has served as a place to have that argument without the volume and the knee-jerk hurtful comments that might happen if someone didn’t have the chance to think and write out their ire before hitting the “send” button. 

So over the past year or so that Facebook has risen up the priority list of peoples’ lives, I have heard on so many occasions what has become the official beginning and end of many relationships. “I’ve been deleted as so-and-so’s friend.”  “I’ve blocked him from my wall.”  “I had to delete her, she’s such a pain,” etc. etc. etc.  Statuses of relationship declarations have become the plumb line of all romances: “It’s Facebook Official!” “Oh dear…she’s single again?” “But WHO is he in a relationship with?” Even saw a cute version of Mary and Joseph and their Facebook relationship, premarital pregnancy and all! 

So, in the case of Facebook Appropriate, what’s the deal with all of this? Is it okay for teens and young adults to post anything and everything on their walls and statuses? Should some of it be kept private? What should you be shouting from the Facebook housetop, and what should you just keep confined to the pages of a private diary? 

I’ve come to the conclusion that there is no wrong answer to that. It depends on YOU. What do you want the world to know? Or in the case of the teenage angst, do they even care who knows? In the midst of their myopic world, the heat of anger and emotion seems to far outweigh the self-consciousness and apparently prevents them from pressing delete instead of send. But after reading yet another disturbing post from a child that got them deleted from several adult friend lists, I had to wonder about it all. What is okay to post, and what is not? I sat down and talked with the currently offended child, and came to still more conclusions. 

After hashing out the issue, I sat down and perused her wall. And while I was mildly shocked, somewhat dismayed, partially bored, and feeling like I had nothing in common with this giant group of “friends”, I realized that I was, in fact, just reading a great big collective diary. I took a moment to head back to my teen years and visit with some of the shit I went through when I was there. It was a long time ago, and it took some doing to generate the feelings of love, lust, betrayal, loyalty, fun and games, war and peace of that era. Times have changed, but people really have not. Just the frame the picture sits in is now digital. 

I was hardly thrilled with some of the comments that were there – but the fact that they exist at all is not such a bad thing. Diaries and journals have always been therapeutic. The written word is a powerful cathartic for that which ails you. We just used to hide it under the bed and hope our brother didn’t read it. But now we not only want him to read it, we want him to know that he’s the reason we are pissed off! 

I’ve seen that Facebook has a feature that will compile all your statuses for a year, so you can read all that you wrote. In other words, they will publish a copy of your Facebook diary for you to read. Yes – that’s all it really is: A diary of your thoughts and feelings, which you deemed important enough to want to share, even if it’s behind the façade of Facebook. It’s actually a safe place to do so. You are in control of your friend list, and even then, it’s very impersonal. The most you will ever get from a Facebook friend is a {{HUG}}, and the worst you can be punished with is a nasty comment that can easily be deleted, or deleted from someone’s friend list altogether. (Of course I realize that the love of drama keeps even the ugliest of “friendships” alive on here, but that just might be the nature of the beast these days. If I delete you, I won’t know if you spread any more trash talk about me to my other friends!) 

But in the face of all this, what you are getting is reality. When you read some of the posts, you don’t find yourself asking, “Tell me how you REALLY feel…”. No…it’s plain enough! So, I had to ask myself, do I want my kids posting things that curl your hair? What is the alternative? Keep it to themselves? Hide who they are, what they think, what they do? Surely there is the ever-present TMI (too much information), which you certainly won’t find on my page, but if you look back through the journals I kept through that time in my life, it reads much the same. It just wasn’t open to commentary. And I’ve kept these journals for posterity – and I know that when I walk the next world at least some of my kids will be glad to know the childhood version of their mother they never met. 

And I think about my journals of old, and know that my mother never knew a thing about them. She did not know when I was so mad at her I risked the displeasure of God himself by announcing in one entry that I would spit on her grave! (She had our dog put to sleep, for reasons I did not understand at the time.) She did not know when I smoked my first cigarette, started taking drugs, or lost my virginity. She had no idea how much I hated myself, and how much validation I was seeking. She was clueless to my suicidal thoughts. She would never know just how infatuated I was with my first boyfriend, or how devastated I was when we broke up. My quiet sullenness was a mystery, which only my diary had the answers to. And this was hidden in the depths of my room, smoldering between my mattresses – everything that made me tick. And that’s just the way it was. 

But it’s not like that anymore. I want to know why my kids are quiet – why they are crying. Why they slammed the door, why they don’t want to come home, and why they don’t want to leave home. I would much rather know where they were all weekend and what they were doing, and know that they were safe in their choices – poor or otherwise. And if they weren’t – I want to know that, too. I can’t address what I don’t know. And I have decided that I don’t want the sanitized version, either. I don’t want them to have to lie to me. I realize what "the experts" mean when they say you can’t be your childrens friend – but one surely needs to define “friend”. Because looking at my older kids, I’m glad that I am their friend – it’s all we can hope for at the end of the parent/child relationship road; to go from loving, guiding parent to trusted friend and adviser. I will always be able to pull rank, if necessary – but if you have no idea who this person you have raised really is, how will you effectively do that? 

I have found that I can take every “questionable” comment and picture that they post and use it to my parental advantage. Yes, even the proverbial drunk wedding videos. However inappropriate they may seem, there are a few things to remember. Number one is the DELETE option. Oh, I realize the well-meaning-ness of “once on-line, forever viewable” warning – but that’s not necessarily the case. Go ahead and try to find the picture you deleted of yourself with the lampshade on your head at the party. You can’t find the adorable one of your granddaughter that you accidentally deleted, either. You are going to have to REALLY want them to actually find them. And yes – if your boss sees a compromising picture of you on Facebook, your job might be at risk – but the boss might as well know who he hired, too. If he can’t see that Conservative Connie only breaks out of her business suit once a year on Christmas and forgive her – well, here comes the lawsuit. On the other hand, if seeing Harry the Hippie doing bongs every time he boots up his page, he should have the option of letting him go, or at least drug testing him one more time. The beauty of it is that it’s up to Connie and Harry – the individual who “owns” the page – to decide what they choose to share, and what they choose to keep private. 

And what a great opportunity to talk to my kids about relationships – and the drama – and the bad apples – and the keepers. Parenting at the coming-of-age is, in my life, primarily a spectator sport. I sit in the stands and watch – and I cheer, and I grimace, and I wince, and I shout…but it’s not my game anymore. It’s theirs. I get to come out on the field at half-time and mop up the blood, bandage the boo-boo, and replace their mouth guard before I head back to the stands and watch them continue on in their lives. I shout out the potential consequences of that move – flail my arms and shout when they are headed for a wall at full speed, but realize that few things on the field are fatal. The older they get, the less and less I get to be in the huddle as they develop their own team. But I do hope to maintain my position on the sidelines as the special teams coach – and the trust that has been built or destroyed will have everything to do with whether or not they want me as part of their adult team. 

When I look at some of the immaturity on display, I can’t help but re-frame my dismay by realizing that at that age I was doing the same, if not worse – and that in 18 months I had pulled my head out of my ass and become a responsible, married young mother. I’ve come to see that growing up – maturing – does not have to mean we no longer have fun, or do crazy things, or become silent, stoic, and stuffy. I am who I am – I have grown through every experience I’ve ever had to live a crazy, wonderful life. And so will they – if they are allowed. 

So, like the judge in the courtroom, testimony has come up that the prosecution objects to…but in my case, I’ll allow it. It’s part of a world we 40+ aged people did not have. We had our own version of immaturity and growing up – and our children have theirs. We are all just part of the grand anthropological experiment called being human – “The comparative study of human societies and cultures and their development.”  For all its components, the world of Facebook is, in fact, the world they live in – and I’d rather have the full version – not the Cliff notes. 

In our “hurry-up” world, I am choosing to look at Facebook as more of a Reality show, where the players are my own kids, and I am reading their diaries, live on the news feed, rather than waiting for a day where I pine for their presence, and read their diary only to find myself face to face with a child I never knew. I’d much rather talk about the good and bad in life with them now, while there is still a sporting chance to capitalize on the good and evade the consequences of the bad. 

Each kid who plasters all that they are on Facebook today is simply writing their biography – to be read now, in the present, and not saved for a day when there is nothing we can do about it but look back wistfully on what was. In a world where kids are lacking purpose and validation, despite a school system that has leveled the playing field and taught Even-Stevenism for all, they stand with their fists in the air and bodies on display, crying “SEE ME!!” And I want them to know I see them – I acknowledge them – I value them – I love them. They are, indeed, my friends.