Comments on: Of mice and men http://headthegong.com/blog/of-mice-and-men/ The life and times of Isaac Dust Mon, 30 Jan 2012 21:08:42 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: shawn http://headthegong.com/blog/of-mice-and-men/comment-page-1/#comment-34807 shawn Wed, 07 Oct 2009 15:21:58 +0000 http://headthegong.com/blog/of-mice-and-men/#comment-34807 Hey! I just got the latest Vanity fair in the mail this morning and was only able to read the very beginning before work but what I read is kinda facinating as far as the Life According to Plan theme. This guy didn't commit suicide, but he certainly got off track in a Bernie Maddoff way, but what is interesting is that hw opens up to how his life got so crazy. Like in the case of BM, he coulda pretty much had it all without the stress of deceit or the fear of discovery had he played it straight. Had it all as in: nice place to live in the NY area, send his kids to Ivy colleges, go to shows. Eat in fancy restruants -- he just couldn't compete with the big high society folks -- but that is just a high level game anyway with out any real goal. The opening up is what makes it interesting: http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2009/11/marc-dreier200911 Hey! I just got the latest Vanity fair in the mail this morning and was only able to read the very beginning before work but what I read is kinda facinating as far as the Life According to Plan theme. This guy didn’t commit suicide, but he certainly got off track in a Bernie Maddoff way, but what is interesting is that hw opens up to how his life got so crazy. Like in the case of BM, he coulda pretty much had it all without the stress of deceit or the fear of discovery had he played it straight. Had it all as in: nice place to live in the NY area, send his kids to Ivy colleges, go to shows. Eat in fancy restruants — he just couldn’t compete with the big high society folks — but that is just a high level game anyway with out any real goal. The opening up is what makes it interesting: http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2009/11/marc-dreier200911

]]> By: Bob http://headthegong.com/blog/of-mice-and-men/comment-page-1/#comment-34789 Bob Tue, 06 Oct 2009 12:32:46 +0000 http://headthegong.com/blog/of-mice-and-men/#comment-34789 Lexington struck me as very... ordinary. It has the whole horse thing going for it, but if you have zero interest in that (like me) then it's kind of vanilla. It certainly was a nice place to live for four years -- safe, nice people, pretty surroundings. Not much diversity though, for a college town. It has a lot more of a "southern" feel compared to Chapel Hill, where I am now. The music scene is too country-ish and blue-grassy for my tastes, and the downtown isn't very interesting. Not a place I would choose to live, but overall it was a good experience. Lexington struck me as very… ordinary. It has the whole horse thing going for it, but if you have zero interest in that (like me) then it’s kind of vanilla. It certainly was a nice place to live for four years — safe, nice people, pretty surroundings. Not much diversity though, for a college town. It has a lot more of a “southern” feel compared to Chapel Hill, where I am now. The music scene is too country-ish and blue-grassy for my tastes, and the downtown isn’t very interesting. Not a place I would choose to live, but overall it was a good experience.

]]> By: Shawn http://headthegong.com/blog/of-mice-and-men/comment-page-1/#comment-34783 Shawn Mon, 05 Oct 2009 20:36:47 +0000 http://headthegong.com/blog/of-mice-and-men/#comment-34783 PS what was Lexington like? I've never stopped, but my wife and I were enchaned by downtown Frankfort, except it seemed maybe a little to sleepy, and remote. PS what was Lexington like? I’ve never stopped, but my wife and I were enchaned by downtown Frankfort, except it seemed maybe a little to sleepy, and remote.

]]> By: Shawn http://headthegong.com/blog/of-mice-and-men/comment-page-1/#comment-34777 Shawn Mon, 05 Oct 2009 17:08:54 +0000 http://headthegong.com/blog/of-mice-and-men/#comment-34777 First off, my life hasn't gone entirely according to plan. Second off, I have been interested in the phenom of suicide for a long time. Not the run of the mill teenage suicides (which are certainly the most tragic) but rather the species of adult suicide that either comes as a complete surprise to one's fellows, or the suicide of the person who has everything, and now is losing some or all of it. Many people's lives are going according to plan, at least it seems on the outside, yet some Victor Franklish agenda has not been realized and, .... a year later that person's life looks VERY different. Also, there was that guy with who ran one of Bernie Maddof's feeder funds with the fancy aristocratic name who was found dead with a suicide note after his clients funds had evaporated -- perhaps he was going to lose a little perhaps a lot -- I don't know.... but a lot of people who apparently have everything are so psychologically brittle that even the mere thought of living an upper-middle-class life-style is enough to break them. If so, how much can they be truely enjoying life? When I was in my early twenties working in residential care facilities for the severely disabled, there was a guy named 'Ed' from Uganda who was at the bottom of the totem pole and it was my job to supervise without having any power to fire or promote. One thing I noticed almost immediately about him was that in addition to being an above-average worker, he had an amazingly good attitude about work and was generally pleasant to be around. I had a good attitude too, but my attitude was mostly from being an ideological convert to a more conservative philosophy and also from ambition, but this guy seemed to actually ENJOY working, even though he was doing nothing but drudge-work. It wasn't long before I asked him something like "Ed, I notice you are happy all the time, why are you so goddamned happy all the time." He told me that in Uganda, there is likely someone riding his bike home from work that evening. The way is unlit and there are ruts in the road he can't see because he has no light --- but he's smiling because he's got that bike and most people he knows don't have a bike. I found this rather fascinating, because, well, I had an baccalaureate and was not really happy with my station in life, but made sure I got my job done and done well so I would be able to move up in some way, meanwhile, many of the workers there, especially ones of african descent (but certainly not all, and not counting the Caribbean workers, who were as dilligent and punctual as the whites) barely deserved to be paid at all, meanwhile, this very dark-skinned man from africa was at least as good a worker as myself, and likely had more work-stamina due to his attitude even though he was in his early thirties and still pushing brooms and certainly had the right to be bitter because Idi Amin's crowd had murdered his father, an owner of a small paint store. Anyhoo, our ATTITUDE seems to have a great deal of impact on how we experience the here and now, and we all are going to end up in the same place, more or less, when it is all over. As a fellow chiropractor said to me at a seminar yesterday, you never hear about a guy who on his death-bed his biggest regret was not having made more money... First off, my life hasn’t gone entirely according to plan. Second off, I have been interested in the phenom of suicide for a long time. Not the run of the mill teenage suicides (which are certainly the most tragic) but rather the species of adult suicide that either comes as a complete surprise to one’s fellows, or the suicide of the person who has everything, and now is losing some or all of it. Many people’s lives are going according to plan, at least it seems on the outside, yet some Victor Franklish agenda has not been realized and, …. a year later that person’s life looks VERY different. Also, there was that guy with who ran one of Bernie Maddof’s feeder funds with the fancy aristocratic name who was found dead with a suicide note after his clients funds had evaporated — perhaps he was going to lose a little perhaps a lot — I don’t know…. but a lot of people who apparently have everything are so psychologically brittle that even the mere thought of living an upper-middle-class life-style is enough to break them. If so, how much can they be truely enjoying life?

When I was in my early twenties working in residential care facilities for the severely disabled, there was a guy named ‘Ed’ from Uganda who was at the bottom of the totem pole and it was my job to supervise without having any power to fire or promote. One thing I noticed almost immediately about him was that in addition to being an above-average worker, he had an amazingly good attitude about work and was generally pleasant to be around. I had a good attitude too, but my attitude was mostly from being an ideological convert to a more conservative philosophy and also from ambition, but this guy seemed to actually ENJOY working, even though he was doing nothing but drudge-work. It wasn’t long before I asked him something like “Ed, I notice you are happy all the time, why are you so goddamned happy all the time.” He told me that in Uganda, there is likely someone riding his bike home from work that evening. The way is unlit and there are ruts in the road he can’t see because he has no light — but he’s smiling because he’s got that bike and most people he knows don’t have a bike. I found this rather fascinating, because, well, I had an baccalaureate and was not really happy with my station in life, but made sure I got my job done and done well so I would be able to move up in some way, meanwhile, many of the workers there, especially ones of african descent (but certainly not all, and not counting the Caribbean workers, who were as dilligent and punctual as the whites) barely deserved to be paid at all, meanwhile, this very dark-skinned man from africa was at least as good a worker as myself, and likely had more work-stamina due to his attitude even though he was in his early thirties and still pushing brooms and certainly had the right to be bitter because Idi Amin’s crowd had murdered his father, an owner of a small paint store. Anyhoo, our ATTITUDE seems to have a great deal of impact on how we experience the here and now, and we all are going to end up in the same place, more or less, when it is all over. As a fellow chiropractor said to me at a seminar yesterday, you never hear about a guy who on his death-bed his biggest regret was not having made more money…

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