Originally, I wanted to finish my last post with what actually turned out to be better-fitting with this post, anyway, so some would say all worked out providentally, and some conicidentally, and so on. I really don’t care. I have things to type, and you can listen if you want, or not.
This morning I jumped on the Max and rode to Saturday Market. I bought a henna kit for my brother. I rode back to Gateway and drove to Vancouver to spend the day with my family. Now, I’ll admit I set up my wardobe antagonistically. I dawned my Obama ‘08 shirt. But I was going through Saturday market, which is the most social exposure I put myself to, so that was a good logical reason, anyway. I don’t think most hippies are ready to vote McCain, anyway, or even vote at all, but just in case they somehow decide to fill out their mail-in ballots on some hazy, dredlock/hemp filled night, I figure having the word “Obama” passed in front of their eyes enough might just help a little. But I think Portland might vote for Obama more than Texas voted for GW.
Oh, so I was being antagonistic. I know this because my grandfather, my maternal grandfrather, has previously commented to my mother about how he believe that Obama is a Muslim and a terrorist, or is at least tied to terrorism. Well, here are the things my 73-year-old grandfather believes about Barack Obama: That he is a professing Muslim. That he attended a Muslim school (that’d be like kids in Saudi Arabia telling people that if they attending an American public school, they’d be attending a Christian school… and he was at that school for two years?). That he has obvious ties to terrorism.
I never thought the New Yorker caricature would be founded so shallow in my bloodline.
There was no use attempting to straighten out my grandfather’s viewpoint of the junior senator from Illinois. To give him a detailed biography, spiritual and otherwise, of Obama would have been useless and discredited. Luckily, the awkwardness that I really intentionally created was very shortlived.
I love my grandpa, but this is seriously the first time I’ve felt he was violently ignorant of something that should be both important and obvious.
And then I took a trip into Portland with my great aunt and great uncle, my grandma’s sister and her husband, where we found ourselves on the Max riding home. My aunt decided then that she wanted to ask if I was voting for the guy on my shirt. I said yes, that he was the best candidate that I could see for the position. And then she scared me much worse with her presumptions. She thought he was sworn into the US Senate with his hand on the Koran (Qur’ran? You know, either way). Not that I care if he was, because I honestly think that the person should be judged not by the book their hand touches, but by the merit of their actions and words. Plenty of awful WASP shit has sworn with their hand on a Bible and done every damnable thing possible… Anyway, she had confused Obama with representative Keith Ellison from Minnesota, who was the first Muslim to swear into Congress while placing his hand on the Quran (spell as you wish). Well, let me rephrase this. She didn’t confuse the two separate stories. Somebody intentionally did so, and then disseminated the information as fact. She also thought that he hadn’t spent enough time in the country to be considered a citizen or be elligable for the presidency (he’s spent at least the last 14 years here… I’d say it looks to be more like twice that, if not more…). We would have discussed further if my uncle didn’t let us know that it wasn’t a good thing to discuss on the Max, since we were surrounded by a half-dozen black ladies, I assume. I wonder if they were Muslim, too! Ah, frick. If Obama is a Muslim, then you’d better point me to Mecca ’cause I am too.
Originally last night I wanted to discuss something my grandpa likes to say, and has said to me on numerous occasions: You only have your labor to sell; sell to the highest bidder. He told me that when he retired from truck driving more than fifteen years ago, he made an hourly wage nearly 4 times what I make now. Factor in inflation, and I bet you’d get quite a nice little number side-by-side my salary (wage, whatever). I really wondered what all this money did. My aunt told me about how renting is “throwing your money away”, and I admit I wouldn’t mind being in my own house, but really, I think renting is a bit more realistic. Just in terms of what life really is. Ownership is great, but it gives this false sense of permanence. You should be investing your money, not throwing it away. Well, if that’s the case, everybody should be investing in farms and agricultural living, because otherwise every time you eat, you’re just throwing your money away. Invest in car factories and oil refineries, because think of that money just disappearing. Dam up every river because think of all that water that’s just pouring uselessly into the ocean.
My only point is, you’re gonna get to the end of your life with or without a million dollars in the bank. The money might help put food in your stomach (and sometimes too much), and it will help put a roof over your head (and then a roof over 6000 square feet of house that you have no need or real use for), and it will buy a car (that will one day quit running, no matter how good you keep it working… even if you’re not around to see that day) and the gas to keep it running (we need to be done with gas as it is, and I’m glad Mr. Pickins is trying to do something about it), but you’ll get done with this life and the next moment won’t have any concern with the money you spent or saved. But I do think that a lot of money in your pockets in that last moment makes you so fat you can’t push your way through the door of the needle factory. How much land does a man need? Good call, Leo.
Maybe instead of wanting more and more money for bigger houses and fancier cars and nice clothes and restaurant meals (my curse) and vacations… maybe if everybody would be satisfied with what they’ve got, maybe it wouldn’t cost so much to live. Instead of the endless upward spiral to make everything more expensive in order that we can give a few people fat paychecks while everyone else struggles, we could maybe just spiral the other way - take less and demand less. Spiral downward. Spiral downward until our offspring laugh at the idea that people ever worked for money, and they’ll cry confused tears because some people were healthy and safe and others were not because of money, some where educated and others weren’t. We could go on and on. So we’ll go inverted:
Do I want more money? After all this talk, I’d love to say no, but if I was offered a raise tomorrow, I’d take it. I don’t know many people that wouldn’t. But do I think that my life is only going to get better with more money? No. Hesse pointed out quite deftly that money just gets inbetween a person and the world. It’s a chasm that grows larger as you have more money to fill it. Value is numerical, not spiritual and rational. If I die without a cent to my name, that’s fine. If somebody needs to trick me out of my economic blessing, give me my soup and send me away in ignorance. There’s too many other important things in this world to let money run the show.
I know those important things. I got two of them today in the form of a hug and a thank you card. It’s amazing that my niece can write me a thank you card before she can even clearly say a single word, but she is amazing. She wanted to thank me for her birthday presents, which were so cheap they would seem shameful to anyone looking through the money-green glasses. And the hug today, the hug that I got when I kneeled down to say goodbye to Ms. 1-year-1-month old… You can’t even see those things with the green glasses on.
Sorry about my soapy feet and my broken glass house. It’s a dangerous thing when you start thinking and talking and writing, sometimes one far ahead of the others.