Considering a Howard Hughes existence...

We did some landscaping work for this really rich couple, today...they own Aberdeens...the big apartment complexes here in Lawrence...the woman who lived there had a little of "rich woman's entitlement complex" going on...but, overall...she was fairly nice...nicer than one of my supervisors who was kind of dick to me in the morning (when is this new?:):)...

And I thought...while I was there...

Maybe this is what I need to do...just give up this whole teaching and writing thing...it's pretty clear to me, now, that people don't like to change...they prefer the inertia...it feels more comfortable...it's easier to predict the self-fulfilling prophecy that nothing will ever get better only to watch nothing get better...than to do the hard work of making improvements in the world...

So maybe I'll just make a bunch of money...in some venture...can't be that hard, really...I'm smart...I work my ass off...I'm tough as nails...and nicer than your grandma...

So maybe I should just make a bunch of money...get really rich...and lead some really eccentric, reclusive life...like Howard Hughes...not hate people...just ignore and avoid them as much as possible...and let them hurt and destroy themselves and each other as much as they want...get out of their way...and just lead a life that I love...

Buy a bi-plane...learn how to fly...and spend a lot of time above it all...

The girl at work definitely seems interested at this point...she seems really sweet...which is my number one quality, at this point in the game (smart is great...but smart and bitchy is pretty useless for a mate or anything else, really)...

She seems to have a drug history...which is a red flag to me, these days...it usually means that someone has put off living responsibly...and has used drugs as a way to numb all kinds of bitterness that drug-users generally hold onto...drug abuse, for most of my friends, is one long place-holder for the answer to the question, "Why aren't I doing something really valuable with my life?"...

But hope springs eternal...she seems sweet enough...really sweet, sometimes:):)...we'll see...we'll hang out...and get to know one another...

It's funny...in these three years out of school...I've had a lot of time to consider all kinds of life choices...

Military service...getting rich...all kinds of options...

And it's pretty clear to me, now, that I had pretty good instincts when I originally wanted to be a thinker...and writer...and teacher...

I can't think of a better life than emulating the examples of folks like Joseph Campbell...or Albert Einstein...or Roald Dahl...or other folks like them...

If it weren't for all the various folks with so little imagination and desire to have much beyond their own self-centered pursuits in the world...that I guess I'll have to deal with whether I teach or write or not...then this would be a no-brainer...

But it's the ever-presence of more small-minded folks...that leaves me considering a more reclusive life:):)...

But its only really the thinkers of the world that do much of real substantial, long-lasting significance in this world...

Others do important jobs...and serve important purposes...

But the most important work is done by thinkers...who imagine how the world can be better in a million different ways...

And it is the one group in the world who readily welcomes change...because they aren't busy hiding from all the various problems that the world has to offer...as most people do...and especially in those professions and areas of life whose structures seem to breed inertia and stagnation...

I am clear, today, that the only person whose opinion that really counts for me is my own...

I just don't trust most people to really think enough to have an opinion that is worth taking seriously...when they do...that's a different story...but most people don't...too satisfied with a life that is safer...when you're just looking at everyone else to find out how you think about whatever...I can't think of a more cowardly, pathetic life...and it's not the life for me, that's for sure...

And people who live their lives to be tough...range from the foolish to the psychopathic...definitely can't think of a more mindless way to live your life:):)...the military and law enforcement and firefighting and other such folks that I've always respected the most are always the thinkers...and even then they either prove their mettle as thinkers...or not...the late, great Stephen Ambrose comes to mind, here...an Army man...and a brilliant military historian if you ever get a chance to read his stuff (Ambrose's undenying optimism that that the Allies would always have won World War II...that the important question was why and where...a thesis I very much agree with...has always impressed me most in him as a military historian:):)...

And as I look out into this big, bad world...after some time in it, now...outside the academe walls...

One thing seems to impress itself on me, most...

Too many opinions...not enough thinking...

It's the most serious deficit in America and the world today...a deficit of imagination...and serious, rigorous thought...

And none other is more important in this age and probably any and every age...

Thinking...and courage...

And love...

Though the best of all three of these necessarily involves the other...it's inescapable...

So maybe I won't be a recluse...I've always wondered what J.D. Salinger is so scared of:):)...now I think I know:):)...

People are a major pain in the ass...that is for sure...

But they're the only folks around...unfortunately...and it's boring playing bridge alone:):):)...

But I have to say...that at this point in my life:):)...

Time alone is definitely some of the most coveted time I have in my life:):)...

I'd like that to change:):)...

But I just haven't met the right girl, yet:):)...

I want to meet a girl...who makes me want to die inside when she leaves me...by natural causes or otherwise...every other way of loving just seems too much a waste of time:)...

Have a great day, everyone:):)...

Love,
Ben