a lack of crisis
Jul. 22nd, 2002 06:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gurdonarkLast night I mowed the lawn. I have been particularly pleased with myself ever since I realized that the choke wiring is no longer connected to the little "rabbit" and "turtle" control knobs on the top of the mower handle. For some indefinable time, I was pulling the little slide which was supposed to be the control, disconnected though it was, in essence controlling nothing but my imagination. I do not recall wondering that no matter how much I "choked down", the mower seemed to run at about the same speed. I loved that little "light going on" feeling when I finally noticed that the choke wire no longer ran all the way up to the handle. Now I use the actual choke wire as if I were a seasoned pro, and eschew the illusory pleasures of the turtle and rabbit.
I completed four postcardx cards and one nervousness.org exchange poem. The nervousness.org exchanger edited my usual "poem for poem" offer to offer nothing for a poem. I find this form of barter capitalism enchanting. "Send me something of no value but some words, and I'll send you nothing at all". Her actual offer was send me "a poem and I'll spend you =================". Maybe what seemed to be a large blank was actually some symbolism that wholly eluded me.
I'm interested to see where the stock market is going today. I am particularly fascinated to see how the company who owns Teflon is doing. I'm curious about this, because I cannot imagine how a president whose pre-crisis budget essentially froze funding for the Securities and Exchange Commission can now come out as an anti-fraud crusader without something sticking to him. There is a tide in human affairs, when taken at the full, that still makes most elected officials seem like a bunch of folks stuck in the wading pool. Investor confidence will require somebody to jump in and really swim, but I'm not sure it's going to happen.
I have a very busy work week ahead. I've got a great deal of document and pleading drafting to do. This is the perpetual feeling one gets from a profession that is very due date oriented--that feeling that the time I spent on Saturday and Sunday playing is time I could have spent working. But there was a point in my life when I spent most of my time working. Although when I am in trial or swamped with things to do, I "vacation" in that life, I do not wish for that life again on a full time basis. I like to work hard, but there must be more than mere work stress in life. When I am working really hard, though, I notice that comedy movies are funnier, drama movies more poignant and late night frozen yogurt tastes better. Now I work to find a balance, in which client needs are more than fully met and yet my own life has rest and exercise.
I did the pro bono legal clinic at the Salvation Army last Thursday night. Anyone tempted to feel that they face challenges in life should do a few of these sessions with folks confronting the issues which these folks confront. It's sobering, really, how the patterns and difficulties and challenges folks face really magnify when one removes all money from the situation. So many times I come away feeling that all my crises lack crisis.
I completed four postcardx cards and one nervousness.org exchange poem. The nervousness.org exchanger edited my usual "poem for poem" offer to offer nothing for a poem. I find this form of barter capitalism enchanting. "Send me something of no value but some words, and I'll send you nothing at all". Her actual offer was send me "a poem and I'll spend you =================". Maybe what seemed to be a large blank was actually some symbolism that wholly eluded me.
I'm interested to see where the stock market is going today. I am particularly fascinated to see how the company who owns Teflon is doing. I'm curious about this, because I cannot imagine how a president whose pre-crisis budget essentially froze funding for the Securities and Exchange Commission can now come out as an anti-fraud crusader without something sticking to him. There is a tide in human affairs, when taken at the full, that still makes most elected officials seem like a bunch of folks stuck in the wading pool. Investor confidence will require somebody to jump in and really swim, but I'm not sure it's going to happen.
I have a very busy work week ahead. I've got a great deal of document and pleading drafting to do. This is the perpetual feeling one gets from a profession that is very due date oriented--that feeling that the time I spent on Saturday and Sunday playing is time I could have spent working. But there was a point in my life when I spent most of my time working. Although when I am in trial or swamped with things to do, I "vacation" in that life, I do not wish for that life again on a full time basis. I like to work hard, but there must be more than mere work stress in life. When I am working really hard, though, I notice that comedy movies are funnier, drama movies more poignant and late night frozen yogurt tastes better. Now I work to find a balance, in which client needs are more than fully met and yet my own life has rest and exercise.
I did the pro bono legal clinic at the Salvation Army last Thursday night. Anyone tempted to feel that they face challenges in life should do a few of these sessions with folks confronting the issues which these folks confront. It's sobering, really, how the patterns and difficulties and challenges folks face really magnify when one removes all money from the situation. So many times I come away feeling that all my crises lack crisis.
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no subject
Date: 2002-07-22 05:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-07-22 05:25 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2002-07-22 05:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-07-22 07:27 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2002-07-22 07:53 am (UTC)crises lacking crisis
Date: 2002-07-22 05:58 am (UTC)But...
It's sobering, really, how the patterns and difficulties and challenges folks face really magnify when one removes all money from the situation. So many times I come away feeling that all my crises lack crisis.
I really need to keep this in mind. Thanks for the reminder.
Re: crises lacking crisis
Date: 2002-07-22 07:30 am (UTC)A weedeater, for example, really does trim weeds with such rapidity that it seems to "eat through" them. I grew up around a lot of talk of "bush-hogs", which are huge mowing apparati which literally could "chomp" a bush-sized plant.
no subject
Date: 2002-07-22 07:57 am (UTC)Thanks for your pro-bono work. I live on the 'poor' side of town and see what people go through every day, due to real practical need, not just existential issues....
no subject
Date: 2002-07-22 08:56 am (UTC)I think that there's a twin evil at work here. On the one hand, securities markets, which benefit from anti-fraud regulation,
were treated as being a sort of "wild wild west". The laissez faire assumption that the market punishes evil is proving to have a truth to it, but a truth much more unsettling for the powers that be than anyone foresaw. Good regulation in the first place would have been a much simpler way to handle this than a roller-coaster securities market, which is of course why we got the SEC to begin with (oh yeah, plus that little bit about a Great Depression being fueled in large measure by corporate fraud).
The other evil troubles me as well, though. While fighting regulation of our air, water and safe investments, these same folks want to regulate our privacy and our personal choices.
It's funny how freedom from government only applies to corporations, and freedom from government never applies to ordinary folks.
no subject
Date: 2002-07-22 09:44 am (UTC)I am glad that the internet helps to balance, somewhat, the news monopoly.
no subject
Date: 2002-07-22 01:50 pm (UTC)Out of the boardroom and into the bedroom.
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no subject
Date: 2002-07-22 11:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-07-22 11:17 am (UTC)