About Writing

Block style, unjustified and on a free page are the form and place where my thoughts are presented to a nearly non-existent readership. And who can question why there are few readers? They are haphazard wanderers of the Internet frontier or those who I have solicited to read, for feedback purposes only is what I present to them. But I know I need some justification, a sense of purpose, however small.

I don't write much, or well enough for broad publication, because I can't focus on a purpose, or a method, and I am unpolished. Who writes? Many of us, to different purposes; mine is to prove that I can do something better than the balance of people. I have ideas I want to share, and if I could translate exactly what was in my head and rely on it to be there at my request whenever I need it I wouldn't have to write this odd thing.

My job is not fulfilling. I hold this job because in the past I didn't apply myself to anything, because I didn't care much about anything for whatever reason you can imagine. I just didn't get why things were important in an apparently godless and circumstantial world, and so my commitment to any challenge, career or relationship was nearly nil. My job is very easy; I joke that with a bag of peanuts I could train a monkey to do it just as well - outsourcing.

At some point I realized the real importance of free will, and hope, and the manifestation of a positive stance in an often tough and challenging world. I can't explain exactly how this all came about but I know I was sick of the wallowing and the self-flagellation that comes with depression and I decided to defeat that. I found strength within myself, though its full depth is untested.

And maybe that's the nature of fear: What if we reach the limits of our strength and are defeated? What if we FAIL at something we really try, with all our faculties, to do? It must lead to despair, but so does doing nothing, and repeated failure molds success, with the variables being willingness to work, and the willingness to overcome the fear of failure.

I have many questions. I was reading a New York Times article about charity - the writer highlighted stories which were presented in the paper previously and reported on readers who responded with charitable acts, such as the purchasing of a computer for an artist with a scholarship but no money for equipment. Another reader paid rent for a gentleman who was injured at work and couldn't manage on his own.

But there was one instance in which I believe a young college student couldn't afford books for some reason that I can't remember, and a major book chain provided a $500 gift certificate. I thought it was interesting that the individuals who contributed to these strangers' lives in their various ways paid for those strangers' needs in full, in amounts which, in every case, surpassed in value the $500 that this well-off company provided. The book chain's charity is appreciated I'm sure, but is also surpassed in fact by the charity of each individual in response to his or her heart.

I read somewhere that when we receive tax cuts in this country on whatever level of income we direct more of our money toward charity. There is something reflected in the citizenry of this country that maintains the integrity of our ideals outside of any reason, and surpasses the same notions of any for-profit organization, although those organizations are certainly necessary. I find this interesting. I wonder why this is? And that is why I'm a very raw writer/idea person - I don't know. I think maybe the absence of any bureaucratic function fosters the ability to give specifically, unfettered by committee decision making in a profit-based environment. It's a lesson in purity.

So that's one thing I'm thinking about. The stellar performance of the president so far is another, the jaw-dropping lack of value in any cable television package is another. It's very random. Can it be interesting? Hard work, more writing, more focused thought can possibly make it so. I'll be thinking, reading, posting, and focusing on providing substance. The really is no telling what's going to happen with any of it, but it's worth an effort although I can't say exactly why. It's a lesson in faith.

Why Does The Tax Code Favor The Married?

Tax season has arrived with snowstorms and the dreaded Sunday drivers sent by dark forces to navigate the frozen streets, making me happy that I'm a pedestrian and a passenger. A vehicle-free life opens a person to sights and sounds and smells which the windowed carriage cannot provide. Driving is a dehumanizing experience, and sometimes the gas pedal gets stuck and the brakes fail.

Walking and riding the bus is meditative, and during this joyous season of filing and obtuse tax code gymnastics I have had time to think about a certain tax policy that seems unfair to me: Why do married people get tax breaks for simply finding another taxpayer to spend their lives with, and why does each child a person has enrich the pot?

Sometimes unfair policy is so ingrained that we seem to take it for granted, and this is a fine example of such a policy. People just accept these tax breaks, especially the married and aggressively child-bearing, for obvious financial reasons. The great tax god smiles upon the committed monogamist and the prolific.

My small voice in the darkness screams this: Why don't I, a single gentleman with no children, get some tax break for keeping future Social Security recipients at bay with an aggressive use of prophylactics whenever I have that certain twinkle in my eye? After all, I'm not affecting the bloated entitlement system in a negative way; my lack of enthusiasm for seeing my own offspring to fruition is keeping the population at bay in some small way. You, taxpayer, will never have to pay for children who don't exist, subsidizing lives that were brought about through no choice of your own.

One can understand how a single mother may benefit from tax breaks for her children, and what's left of our understanding of the social contract may lead us to accept this policy without question. However, I had a conversation recently with a single mother, five weeks after her second child was born, outside of the affordable and excellent sushi joint named Dancing Wasabi (I caught a ride). She mentioned a $10,000 tax refund based on the simple existence of her children. She mentioned a new Jeep. She mentioned the new and exciting Apple invention known as IPad. She did not mention the extensive training her children would be receiving to operate these complicated devices.

The point is, are people really using these bloated tax refunds to support their children? I'm sure some are, meanwhile others are wallowing in the manure laid by the great cash cow. I've heard many tales of child custody acrobatics performed to maximize the flow of tax money from my single, childless pockets to their surely healthy and happy families. I object to this, but this argument presented to said single mother could lead much shrieking and gnashing of teeth, so I just sighed and smoked and looked around the square while waiting to be let inside to eat raw fish that I could have more easily afforded with a robust refund.

The tax code may always provide for these children then, but what of a tax incentive for simply becoming married? It is basically unreasonable on principle alone, not to mention the fact that because most marriages end in divorce, marriage itself is simply another on the long list of failed government programs.

Sometimes there is something to be said for being a non-participant. I don't dump children into a society which is then billed for my meandering child's transgressions, lack of spirit, or embarrassingly long rap sheet. I don't disappoint my family by appearing a drunken waste in a chapel to hitch to the blurry figure to my right. I don't even drive, and yet I get nothing in return for leaving virtually no carbon footprint. My life as it relates to society is a study in the virtues of addition by subtraction, and for this all I ask is the following: Let's give the kid a break.