Growing up I never had much faith in the BeeJesus, The Government or Television.  I had no faith in them because even as a little kid I knew those things would never actually be there to catch me if I fell.  I do have parents and family who would be there if I needed them, but sometimes they pushed me.  And other than them, every one else has their own problems to deal with.  So I figured I could only fairly expect to count on me to figure things out and solve my problems.  I guess I have always felt that if you want to stand on solid ground you have to find your way to it.  The world isn't vicious and it isn't organized, it is unfair, unbalanced and rude.  It interrupts and scrambles your best laid plans across your best laid carpets and you can do nothing except cry and replace the carpet.

And hey buddy, all the institutions all around us have tried to convince you and me that they are in control and that they have it all figured out.  But all those promises seem a lot like exaggerations to me.  Those people manning the helm are just more regular people, except that they want us to believe they are in charge.  I couldn't help but get the feeling that my teachers, my leaders and my guardians were all pretty much bluffing; and that they were also secretly hoping that if everything collapsed it happened on someone else's shift at the watch.  Which is probably why I never took those serious things very seriously.  Go to university?  Sure, why not, its fuckin easy.  Every class I've taken and every job I had I never took seriously, I just didn't have it in me.  I just saw it as part of playing their game.  

But like it or not, unless I plan on learning to hunt deer and grow my own rice and deer and food, I have to play their game.  Whatever I may want to believe about my ability to fend for myself I am not a one man army, or a one armed Manny.  I need this stupid society ... dammit.  This is something I am figuring out as I get older.  Sure its true that pretty often the game seems stupid, but you know what?  I seem stupid pretty often too.  So anyway.

I have learned a few of the basic rules of the game, like; 

• Never buy any bargain if part of the sales pitch includes the phrase "What do you have to lose?"  Because that means that whatever it is you are paying in exchange for that bargain is precisely what you are absolutely guaranteed to lose.
• Never join any scheme that involves suckering the newest and inexperienced people who join it.  This applies to many different things like poker games or pyramid schemes.  The reason why its a bad idea is actually pretty obvious.  If they want you to join it is because you are undoubtedly the sucker everyone else was counting on.
• Never assume that just because someone smiles and agrees with something you just said that they either like you or agree with what you just said.

And there are more rules.  And there are also Laws, which I am sure you've heard about on Judging Amy or Celebrity Justice.  I've also noticed that it seems like the rules keep changing, but it is just that our civilization is making them up as we go along.  That helps to explain why so many rules seem to contradict so many others.  So even the rules aren't a really clear guide to what to do.

So people start making up their own rules, which is probably okay if you're a thoughtful and nice person, but thoughtful and nice people usually follow the rules and don't need to make up their own.  So the people who are out there making up their own rules are usually people like me who are probably doing to benefit themselves, and unless society coincidentally also benefits, the rules they make up probably only benefit themselves.  Acting that way makes sense if you're a nihilist, but it doesn't make sense if you aren't and actually want to be a useful human being whose presence in the world isn't a total drain.

This may seem like a strange attitude from the person who just wrote that our social institutions and stuff don't actually know what they're doing.  And I recognize the apparent inconsistency, but here's how I see it.  As much as they bungle the fuckin job we need somebody trying to do it.  We're all in this together and we better try and make it work.

I know its a lot more fun if you just reject it all as bullshit.  Its a lot easier, then you don't have to care.  You can say screw everybody! they're all idiots! and do whatever you feel like because you are way smarter than the morons who keep trying to boss you around.  Since you're not one of the stupid suckers trying to make it work it suits you either way if it society crumbles all around you.  Unless of course it actually happened.  Now, if you do try to make it work that is when it gets the hardest.  Because then it matters to you one way or the other.  Then you have to care.  And that doesn't sound like the ultra cool rebel way to live.  It sounds like a mortgage.  I guess this is growing up.

So here's the notion I am working with presently.  When you think you might want to make up your own rules about something, which more than likely means ignoring and breaking the present rules about it, think first about whether or not that rule you're about to break is good or bad for society.  Then think about whether you will need society for anything in the future(probably).  Then decide if you are going to break it.

There are also some rules for writing, probably a big one is that a piece of writing needs a clear thesis.  Or any thesis.  That of course is a stupid rule made up by uptight know-nothings.  That attitude dovetails neatly with my next thought.

Now as for me, I am the exception to every rule.  Which is why I can still do whatever I feel like.

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