Five years

I have to say that there is SO much stuff going on in my head that it seems as if it would be an exercise in meditation (of sorts) simply to empty out everything that is in my brain; the good, the bad, the ugly, and the self-pitying.

I am positive that there is much that I can write that people will find useful or illuminating; indeed, it seems as if it's the only thing that people genuinely like about me (and, in fact, in back of a lot of the reasons why I haven't written is the fear of failure and the fear of not being liked.)

I have a long way to go, though. I need practice, practice, practice.

And reading a lot of David Foster Wallace won't really help...I mean, he really was a boy wonder. i am not. Or was not. I'm getting more jealous simply reading about him.

Need to remember...

I am alive.

I am sober.

I still have my mind and my dreams and my "potential" (although I kinda sorta loathe that word).

You will be all right but you must do your work, Kevin.

Long Time, No see...Here's What's Up

Called into work today at the factory in suburban Chicago. Said that I was sick which really isn't far from the truth at all.

The truth is that I am tired.

I don't want to work there.

This blog work is the work that I need to be doing.

That's all for this...right now.

What I'm reading and will write about

Among so many of the financial books that I am reading for one of my now monthly Daily Kos, I've been reading Counterculture Through the Ages: From Abraham to Acid House by Ken Goffman...the title speaks for itself.

The book begins with a discussion of the Prometheus myth. So I've decided to read and write Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound and write about...whatever comes to me.

"...and as always in parting, we wish you love, peace and soul!"

Don Cornelius (September 27, 1936 – February 1, 2012)

R.I.P.

Some Jottings on What I'm Reading

I've been reading Wall Street financial analyst Mike Mayo's new book Exile on Wall Street for a review of fiancial books that I want to do at Daily Kos.

Mayo comes off as too much of a moral scold for my tastes, personally, but there is this:

I think the meaning of life is to find something that you're good at, something you love and work to make that situation just a little bit better than it would have been without you. There's a phrase in Judaism, tikkum olam, which means "repairing the world." The concept is that people shouldn't do something simply because the religion requires it but rather because it makes things-- something, anything--a little bit better.

Now that, I do believe in. I have always resented the notion of simply being a worker bee simply to survive; which is what I learned and despised as I saw it growing up.

It's a big tension in my life as I've been going through this unemployment phase.

I also browsed through The Devil's Derivatives: The Untold Story of the Slick Traders and Hapless Regulators Who Almost Blew Up Wall Street . . . and Are Ready to Do It Again by Nicolas Dunbar. The entire notion of those who were taking the huge risks on Wall Street and in London...is a way that I have envisioned myself and which I would haved loved to emulate.

More on that later. But the tension between the two states; risk taking and tikkun olam stiil would fit a useful description of me.

What was the New York Times REALLY trying to say?

I was reading this story in the Old Grey Lady yesterday about a black pastor buying some property that used to be owned by a racist Klansman and I couldn't help but notice this:

Mr. Burden adopted the doctrine of white supremacy enthusiastically. He became a grand dragon in the South Carolina branch of the Klan and developed a deep relationship with Mr. Howard that went beyond convert, according to his former wife, Judith Burden, and others in Laurens who know him.

Mr. Burden, a man with a court-documented history of substance abuse and a prison record for grand larceny and burglary, still lives nearby but could not be reached for an interview.

Beyond converting the young man to being a Klansman, what else could the Times-or Ms. Burden- mean?