Debt

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Debts. How come Oprah Winfrey feels the need to educate the American population about how evil debts are? Why does she tell everyone that they are evil to begin with? Is it such a shame that you still have 3k riding on your VISA card, or that you have a mortgage higher than Oprah’s cholesterol level? I’ve got debt, and I don’t lose any bit of sleep over it. Most countries have debt, and they don’t lose any sleep over it. All multi-national corporations – supposedly run by very intelligent individuals – are in debt, and don’t lose any sleep over it. Why should we?

Admittedly, I wouldn’t mind paying off my debt, but only so I can go out and create more debt. I am liquid, so the bank, and my credit card company, know that the chance that I’ll pay them back is fairly high. I pay them a nice interest rate in order to be in debt, to have access to their money for a little while, so it’s all good. Of course, you’ll have to be careful not to go overboard and create so much debt that you can’t cough up the monthly payments any longer, but if you don’t, then I don’t see the problem.

My father once told me; “When I die, make sure you don’t accept the inheritance because I’m not leaving you anything but debt. You better believe I’m going to spend all my hard-earned money before I die. And son,…if you find out that you’ve still got money in the bank the moment you’re on your death bed, then you are a moron and you’ve worked too hard and spent too little. You haven’t enjoyed your hard-earned money to the fullest.”

I love my father.

Online Communities

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I had a nice, refreshing, long phone-conversation with Eva last night, and suddenly I found myself confronted by a story that some people from the Bulldrek Online Community, people that I’ve met on occassion, had a very negative view of me. Aparently, when this came out, Eva lost her temper and defended me by saying that my online persona should not be taken as an indicator of how I am in real life. And that the brief moments of real-world interaction with me should not be taken as anything more than just a short snap-shot of reality.

When I heard this, I was a little shocked. Some of the people involved are people I considered to be on a friendly level with. I never considered them friends, however. I don’t know them well enough for that. Incidences like this reitterate the fact that these people are not my friends.

It’s like having loose contacts with a person you see on the bus every day, or a co-worker. You talk to them, you discuss things, but you can bet your ass they’ll sell you out if needs be. They’ll talk behind your back, they’ll stab the knife. But there’s one difference; distance. It’s easier to distance yourself from someone you don’t have to look in the eye the next day on the bus.

We live and learn.

A Magnificent Car Moment

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Today I met a woman on the highway. She was beautiful, young and driving an Alfa Romeo 156 3.0 litre V6. She was probably around 25 or 26 years old, and she had an arrogant streak that I enjoyed. For the last 20 minutes of my journey to work I was speeding pretty heavily, and so was she.

At a certain point I found her matching my speed, probably about 160 kph, and she was driving behind me, smiling. We were zooming in and out of traffic, switching lanes, having fun, and we kept sporadic eye contact. She kept pushing me to go faster and faster. My car maxed out at around 185 kph because I drive on an LPG tank, she kept matching me, trying to get me to go faster.

I had a lot of fun going to work, too bad I lost her when I had to take the exit ramp.

Pain is Temporary

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I’m in pain.

This morning, I had four cavities filled. It’s my own fault, I hadn’t been taking good enough care of my teeth for a while, and something had to be done about it.

The dentist I go to is very good at what he does. At least, he makes me feel comfortable enough to keep coming back, which is something that, from what I hear from others, isn’t always the case with most dentists. He doens’t have much of a sense of humour, but then again, that’s not what he’s paid for. He does his work well.

Today, after 45 minutes of drillin’-n-fillin’ he told me that I was a good patient. I accept that I have to go through a procedure that is widely regarded as painful, and I do it without bitching, moaning, threatening or becoming violent, which aparently is a novelty in the world of dental care.

I can understand someone becoming violent or threatening the dentist, though. I mean, I have a fairly high pain tolerance level and I always keep in mind that the pain is only temporary, and that my being there and undergoing that, is an investment. But sometimes it’s a really uncomfortable feeling, one that invokes really primal aggressive feelings. Certain people come in and tell the dentist “Hurt me and I’ll break your fucking legs.” which I can again understand, on a very basic level, but if you are going through the procedure, let the man do his job and accept the consequences of your decision.

One of the things I cannot stand is when pain seems to be a permanent thing. I don’t have permanent pain, but at times certain things have seemed like they would never go away, and when I feel that, then I’m inconsolable. I have always been able to trust my body, and I’m very happy with it, it has hardly ever let me down. I say hardly because I have some failures, like my cluster-headaches. But God forbid I should ever get permanent back problems or something similarly inescapable.

I once saw a documentary about a radical new treatment of back problems where a small sliver of metal would be implanted close to a nerve-point near the spine and manipulated using magnets. The sliver would press up against, and thereby cancelling out, certain nerve-points and thus relieving the pain. There was a man that went in for the new treatment who was successful in business, had a wife and two children that loved him, was in good shape, but he said that if this treatment didn’t work for him, that he would commit suicide because he simply couldn’t live with the permanent pain.

Permanent pain. No relief.

I’m in pain…but the pain is termporary.