Tao of Scott

Hi Nichole,

I have nothing to do.

I almost always have nothing to do. Maybe two hours of things to do in a typical day which I stretch to its most absurd limits, so maybe four hours of stuff to do. I was sitting on the sofa on the front porch (this sofa is actually our finest piece of furniture so we figured it could best hold up out on the porch, in the weather, with mice living in it) when it dawned on me “ I know what, I could get a jar of water”. So now I have something to do. I started to think about the fact that you cannot do nothing. Humans must do something. So for the next hour or so I thought about the ramifications of our inability to do nothing which kept me busy for an hour or so.

Kathy came home from work. It was Sunday afternoon. Kathy doesn’t get concerned about what to do when she has nothing to do because she always has something to do. I mean actually something that needs doing. Having something to do means doing something that needs doing or your life will go, to one degree or another, to shit. When I am around Kathy people sometimes say that they can’t see me very well because I, due to my utter lack of consequential input into what ever is going on, have tendency to fade a little. The impact of my presence being so miniscule that the fact of my very existence becomes suspect. So, you know, there’s that about Kathy and me.

I was very excited to have Kathy home because I had run out of things to do and, though quite proud of the results of my hour or so of thinking, I was kinda tired of, you know,…thinking. So I chased after her on her way into her office, all atwitter like a three year old, and breathlessly blurted out the details of my findings. “ This planet wouldn’t be such a shit hole if people could have just been content with the beating of the heart, the breathing of the lung, the shitting of the ass instead of fiddle fucking around with shit and harnessing the power of fire which could be transported to far away places in vehicles made viable by the advent of the wheel where, upon arrival at these far away places, the fire could then be attached to recently developed arrows which could be sent by powerful bows (the obvious companion invention to the arrow) screaming into the homes and bodies of the human inhabitants of said far way place to which the hapless recipients of the burning arrows had previously laid claim. If people could have been satisfied simply by sitting under a tree somewhere in central Africa, getting beaned on the head by a breadfruit or some such shit, eating the fruit so graciously and freely given by the tree, and then just said “bitchin” instead of interring the burning ruins of the defeated far away place , kicking through the charred remains of its inhabitants, noticing that they were in the early stages of developing agriculture , carefully studying the required concepts and technologies, adopting these concepts and technologies, taking them back to their village, applying their new found knowledge and thereby inventing urbanization, localized specialization and the resultant need for trade with other cultures, trade which in turn requires continuous growth and ever expanding markets which must be developed and maintained at all costs finally leaving humans in a continious state of competition and conflict, unsustainable population growth and global environmental degradation” I said basking in my own perceived genius.

Kathy replied “ I heard all that shit before“.

“Shit” I said.

Love, dad

How did this happen?

For twenty three years I have practiced my profession in the banking industry. Over the past four years I have been in the throws of insidious mission creep as far as my duties, responsibilities, and the very definition of my job is concerned while no additional pay has been forthcoming nor would it ever. Finally I was working seven days a week and making about the same amount of money as I was in 1995 for five days work. In addition, as the financial markets started teetering, heading for collapse, I commenced to developing a rather nasty anxiety disorder finally adversely impacting both my emotional and physical health. I came to regard the world in which I was employed to be headed up by cave dwelling slime snakes devoid of color and with closed over eyes. A cabal of pirates populated the nations money universe from the government through the upper management ivory towers of the entire financial architecture of the country, and yes, the globe itself. All of this facilitated by the very foundation of the human condition, GREED. Greed is predictable and therefore easily manipulated in certain people because it is born in our survival instinct. In Oliver Stones’ prophetic film “Wall Street” the most popular character was Michael Douglas in the role of the evil, greedy, amoral, monster Gordon Gekko. This came as quite a surprise to Oliver Stone. You think you know people.

Anyway we were plowing along, my immediate co-workers and I, trying to do the best job we could. Most people are good folks trying to do the best they can. Problem was the monster had slipped its leash. So anyway we’re plowing along and one day my supervisor, a wonderful person working with both hands tied behind her back, called and asked “how many of these additional reports can you put out per day?”

“On top of all this other shit I got lying around?” I asked.

“Uh, yes” she responded

I opened my mouth and out came these words like a wild, out of control cattle stampede. “I can do none per day. In fact I think I’m resigning.”

A couple of weeks go by and it becomes clear that not only did I quit working for that particular organization, I had thoroughly quit the industry. Come to find out I had hit full on, flat assed, face in the mud burnout. To go back in would be like voluntarily returning my hand to the blazing fire from which I had just removed it. I just can’t do it!

So I got my first personal computer (referred to as “the machine” from here on out) in March of 2009. I sent the first e-mail in my life, at the age of fifty six, in the first week of March 2009.

So this is how I found myself with nothing to do.

Welcome to the new world old man.