Re: The despair of 25%. Every so often you say something that so perfectly mirrors my feelings it resonates in my mind and resolves a problem for me. Yesterday, after the Matt Bai interview, you mentioned that you feel the glass is not half-full but, perhaps, 25% full and that was a step in the right direction. There was still a sense of ennui in the statement that made it resonate with me. First, my problem: I’m writing a book that is approximately 25% completed, in the actual writing of the book, with the remaining subjects and chapters outlined. Even as excited as I am about the work remaining to be done, I have had, for the last week or so, the most difficult time turning my attention to the book and have spent a larger portion of that time writing letters to you. This has led to a level of dissatisfaction with myself for my lack of focus.
After you made the despairing statement last night, I looked again at my book to see if I was perceiving it correctly. What I realized is, while the new content is still (only) 25% completed, I’d been forgetting about the work I’d already completed, for the “Artifice and Anecdote” appendix which will be roughly equal in size to the entire new content, so I’m really, physically, 75% completed. I had also, in the last week settled on a title, “The Stoic”, as well as the underlying focus of the entire work. Realizing that so much was already in place cheered me up a great deal. I’m really almost done and I fully expect to hit my “artificially” imposed deadline.
As to your concerns, I thought a lot about those as well and I hope you find these helpful. The likelihood of a united presidency and Congress is high, though the party is uncertain, so we’ll have at least 6 months of good, solid legislation before they start running again. As you are fond of observing, with economic recovery, a full one-third to two-fifths of the deficit disappears with increasing tax revenues. Couple that with a disappearance of the Keynesian counter-cyclical spending currently in the government’s modus operandi (just admit extended unemployment and increased food-stamp participation is Keynesian: just admit it and get on with your lives, Republicans) and we are suddenly near parity with the budget and revenues. After the SCOTUS blows up the intrinsically flawed healthcare bill, the Congress WILL have to create another one (reality will not be ignored) and this one might have cost-containment in the form of a single-payer format which should resolve many of the concerns about Medicare going forward. That should resolve virtually all our yearly budget shortfalls, which just leaves the accumulated debt to pay-off, the vast majority of which will be inflated away by the Fed when the economy is more tolerant, and the balance by government downsizing, again, when the economy can tolerate the dislocated workers. We haven’t even talked about military cuts, yet. So we’re not really in that bad a shape we just have to let things play-out. And, worst-case scenario, even if it can’t be resolved, the eventual collapse of the monetary system can be put-off for decades, decades, to the point at which we will all be dead anyway, making the sweet release of death all the more welcome and poignant.
So there’s always that to look forward to…
Cheer up (I guess), you still get prettier every day, so that bodes well.
One of the topics of my book is that what we perceive in the world stems largely from our spiritual balance, in the relationship of our subjective selves with the objective world around us, and the importance of the strengthening of the spirit to withstand the daily assault on our selves by the circumstances we find ourselves in, which I refer to with Hegel’s term, stoicism. I, now, realize that if my book was completed perhaps this letter would have been unnecessary…
But things happen the way they’re supposed to happen, I’ve found.
All the Best, TVA.
Ps. I read the majority of Matt Bai’s article from the link you provided and it seemed all too familiar, which I suppose good modern history should. Thanks for the information to both of you.
Pps. My goodness, you’re high-maintenance: everything’s got to be just so or you’re sad, so sad, so very sad. (Hey, me too!) Okay, I gots work to do now…
Ppps. If you hit the lottery tonight, you’re gonna hook me up, right?
Pppps. It’s been my experience that walking up to a strange woman and saying “I couldn’t help noticing your ennui from across the room. I just wanted you to know we can all see it.” will get me slapped about 99% of the time but a lot of that’s in how I say it.
After you made the despairing statement last night, I looked again at my book to see if I was perceiving it correctly. What I realized is, while the new content is still (only) 25% completed, I’d been forgetting about the work I’d already completed, for the “Artifice and Anecdote” appendix which will be roughly equal in size to the entire new content, so I’m really, physically, 75% completed. I had also, in the last week settled on a title, “The Stoic”, as well as the underlying focus of the entire work. Realizing that so much was already in place cheered me up a great deal. I’m really almost done and I fully expect to hit my “artificially” imposed deadline.
As to your concerns, I thought a lot about those as well and I hope you find these helpful. The likelihood of a united presidency and Congress is high, though the party is uncertain, so we’ll have at least 6 months of good, solid legislation before they start running again. As you are fond of observing, with economic recovery, a full one-third to two-fifths of the deficit disappears with increasing tax revenues. Couple that with a disappearance of the Keynesian counter-cyclical spending currently in the government’s modus operandi (just admit extended unemployment and increased food-stamp participation is Keynesian: just admit it and get on with your lives, Republicans) and we are suddenly near parity with the budget and revenues. After the SCOTUS blows up the intrinsically flawed healthcare bill, the Congress WILL have to create another one (reality will not be ignored) and this one might have cost-containment in the form of a single-payer format which should resolve many of the concerns about Medicare going forward. That should resolve virtually all our yearly budget shortfalls, which just leaves the accumulated debt to pay-off, the vast majority of which will be inflated away by the Fed when the economy is more tolerant, and the balance by government downsizing, again, when the economy can tolerate the dislocated workers. We haven’t even talked about military cuts, yet. So we’re not really in that bad a shape we just have to let things play-out. And, worst-case scenario, even if it can’t be resolved, the eventual collapse of the monetary system can be put-off for decades, decades, to the point at which we will all be dead anyway, making the sweet release of death all the more welcome and poignant.
So there’s always that to look forward to…
Cheer up (I guess), you still get prettier every day, so that bodes well.
One of the topics of my book is that what we perceive in the world stems largely from our spiritual balance, in the relationship of our subjective selves with the objective world around us, and the importance of the strengthening of the spirit to withstand the daily assault on our selves by the circumstances we find ourselves in, which I refer to with Hegel’s term, stoicism. I, now, realize that if my book was completed perhaps this letter would have been unnecessary…
But things happen the way they’re supposed to happen, I’ve found.
All the Best, TVA.
Ps. I read the majority of Matt Bai’s article from the link you provided and it seemed all too familiar, which I suppose good modern history should. Thanks for the information to both of you.
Pps. My goodness, you’re high-maintenance: everything’s got to be just so or you’re sad, so sad, so very sad. (Hey, me too!) Okay, I gots work to do now…
Ppps. If you hit the lottery tonight, you’re gonna hook me up, right?
Pppps. It’s been my experience that walking up to a strange woman and saying “I couldn’t help noticing your ennui from across the room. I just wanted you to know we can all see it.” will get me slapped about 99% of the time but a lot of that’s in how I say it.
