Catering to Grifters

When you want to serve something for free, my laws of humankind dictate that you have to get something out of it. Then again, I don't grasp the modern connotation of selflessness, because the mere projection of that so-called trait is typically conjured in the most selfish of fashions that negate true value.

Returning to Sondheim here.

Those who know nothing.

Some people have good excuses for their mistakes. Good examples would be 1) children who have the benefit of learning many first lessons, and 2) the Illiterati, who let's just say are off the deep end and it may or may not really be their fault... and you may not want to take the risk of finding out for yourself.

Children get a free pass, most of the time.

The Illiterati are an interesting issue though. They're sometimes the most beautiful of people. They don't understand themselves.

They remind you on a sorry day that there is another way maybe -- that your lot in life was lucky, or that you found a way to learn from childhood. Or maybe discovering that one should just do a lot of hard drugs and live on the streets to appreciate our most base degenerative selves.

When I leave work every day, I pass by a guy who sits on the corner, hardcore dancing , singing his heart out. It's such a beautiful sight to see! Urban environments provide so much stimulus for a wallflower grey person like me.

There are people like this everywhere in life that people avoid even observing, without casual disdain. We're told that laughing at them (even to ourselves or close friends) is wrong. How many times I've said something that someone thinks back whispering "You shouldn't say that!" I mean, it wasn't that bad... and they were thinking that too? And this is a private thought or conversation. Well their anecdote is just to pretend it doesn't exist. Avoid the stimulus to avoid the reaction. Great recipe in life!

I'm saying something inappropriate and finding some sense of joy from my observation, and it's often misconstrued. I respect those individuals because they remind us of all of our options in life. They set the 3d plot points on the spectrum of being human.

Being around children opens this up. The questions they ask are intriguing. I don't have friends with children, so I stick to observing and even interacting with the Illiterati. As I write this, there is a glimmer in my eye for them, wishing I did this more. The consuming environment of judgmental peers and loved ones inhibits me from enjoying the nature of partaking in the Illitertium.

Those who know too little.

These are people who don't really have good excuses for being who they are. They embrace ignorance in a way that is not cute or endearing. They're willfully violent and adolescently adversarial.

What creates this person? Brainwashed denial? Tyrannical victimhood? Pure doltitude?  Fear?

Calling out these sort of expectations and behaviors are not actually fruitfully imparted lessons. Better to headfake and disorient them.  Plot methodical, incremental points so they eventually find themselves in another timezone on another continent and look back puzzled – how the heck did I get here?

These are the majority of people.

Those who know too much.

A place in the inner circle of Hell.

I always have been excited yet terrified at the prospect of death. It makes me want to get everything I desire in my one single life – my existence exists with an unknown endpoint. It keeps me moving in my own ratrace. It forces me to make tough choices, ally with those who I don't enjoy as long as it helps clear a more certain path to what I desire.

If I life very long, I better be rich. If I die young, well at least I got my piece of goal. "Get rich or die tryin'" is a more poetic way to describe it.

All people should eventually die in order to improve our species for the long term. No uploaded heavens or magical fountains of youth. Delaying the inevitable makes sense if it increases the probable endpoint – so you can achieve your goals in the ratrace.

I've heard our creativity peaks in our mid-20s. That's when the bold moves an artist makes are defined before our neural pathways establish as shortcuts. Risks are taken when we have less to lose. Our "identity" is still emerging from its ignorant adolescent cocoon.

At a point, old people stall progress and inhibit freedom of new thoughts and expressions. Many carry with them an imposing unprovoked virtue that, while may have some intriguing points of consideration through experience, may just be wet blankets.

This mindset may be due to fear, lack of education, or unintentional ignorance. It may be due to resentment in paths left avoided untrekked, jealousy. With this crowd, what they say is based on so much intricate history and personal experience that you have to either intimately know and trust this person (their life history, their failed engagements, career). Regardless, so much of their projected mindset rests on them knowing more than the other through the value of time. The value of time is something you can't have on them, so they overuse that position to state absolutes which carry no merit.

I seem to have lost where I was going with another diatribe on the thought triad. My original notes for this were the 3 points below. Perhaps I'll continue this later and find my original point.

1. The Patrons who visit your show.
2. The Friends who are outsiders.
3. The Relationships that wind and bind.