Who Actually Pays for Things

Much of the time, all over our planet, it feels unbearable -- life.

I'm not talking about my life, exactly, or the lives of those I know, but rather the human condition. Compared to the majority of humans on the planet I am a lucky one, even though these days, it never feels that way.

But here is what lucky means here in the USA near the end of the first decade of the 21st Century.

My ability to get through the day is controlled by Orwellian bureaucracies. I have no real access to health care or health insurance. Unless I am persistent and polite (two qualities I possess, luckily), I cannot count on maintaining my high-speed Internet connection, my land line phone service, or my Cable TV, which is mainly here for the benefit of my kids.

I'm 62 years old, and somewhere in one if my closets are at least half that many awards, some of them quite prestigious (others quite gratuitous) given on behalf of the work I have been doing since I turned 19, which is actually nothing more than trying to craft words into some sort of form that resonates with others, and maybe makes their struggles a little bit easier for them to bear -- at least for a moment.

Another goal of my work is more selfish -- it has been to support my lovely children (and my ex-wives and girlfriends) as they navigate their own crooked paths through this strange American economic landscape, which is a place that shows up on no maps, and appears in no travel guides, but makes our travel bones ache just as much as the potholes, bad mattresses, and evil pickpockets who exist simply to torture us as we try to get through our days and our ways.

Truth is, as I tried to explain to my 13-year-old son today as we bought a used video game he wanted to replace for one that has become unplayable due to a scratch, is that the MARKET views the likes of us as nothing more than consumers.

In my line of business, the "media," he and I are nothing more than eyeballs with dollars (or more likely, plastic) in our pockets. We are reduced to spenders. But we are so much more, he and I, as are you, dear reader.

Those who advertise, market, or attempt to manipulate us are the true creeps in this society. They don't fool us, with all of their moves. We see through them as if they were invisible ghosts, which with any luck, they soon will be.

They are nothing more than assholes, creeps, scumbags.

If the product is something he or I want, we buy it, and we have the power to do so, because we are of the hard-scrabbled, working classes, debt-less, and extremely conservative with our money.

Really, this is about him, then. He never lets me buy him a game unless he can reimburse me from his own funds.

I'm not saying I'm a great Dad.

But compared to many Americans, I am saying that I have great kids. Never over-indulged, they know it is their duty to come up with the cash.

So it should always be.

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