A long introduction and inner contradiction.

stompybot — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 22:12:07 GMT

I have a dilemma.

I am seeking logical and philosophical advice from what I consider to be a peer group of like-minded individuals.

My life until now: When I was about nine and a half years old, I was awed and inspired by computers and how they worked. I picked up my Father's "Programming in C" book and my path through life had thus been determined. By age 14, I was leaving school every day to go to my afternoon programming job. By 16, I used some savings from that work and a newfound entrepreneurial streak and programmed and marketed an educational CD-ROM product that would eventually pay my way through college and later be sold off to a more interested distributor. Throughout my high school life, I had picked up other books I found interesting, such as all those by Ayn Rand, and I already considered myself "Libertarian," but I was only as much interested in economics, politics, or philosophy in general to the degree that I would defend and debate smaller governments in my social studies classes with my (non-classical) liberal teachers. Only the continued attainment of wealth interested me, so I ended up majoring in Business Finance and Information Systems in college. College ended up being a useless and expensive endeavor and I did not learn anything of value that I had not already gained independently in the "real world." However diligently I ran my business though, by the end of college, all of my savings and wealth from my entrepreneurial activities had been depleted by my immature spending habits on cars, women, and "stuff." Upon leaving college, I pimped my programming ability out to one company after another, from city to city, state to state year after year, earning more and more, spending more and more, living better and better: but never being fulfilled.

A couple years ago, I started examining this lack of fulfillment and found that it was all rooted in my disgust of how the economic, societal, and political system works. So I went back to reading. This time, I found books by Tom Woods, read articles on sites like LewRockwell.com, through which found The Mises Institute, where I downloaded and was engrossed in every piece of audio, video, and every word I could download. "The Ethics of Liberty," with its logic and consistent detail, was more thought-provoking and stimulating than anything I had ever read. I attended one of the Mises Circle Events in Colorado Springs where I purchased and read "Human Action" (with a dictionary nearby).

Again, this kind of logic and philosophy was what I was missing in life. If I could do it over, I would have replaced "Programming in C" in my nine-year-old hands with "Human Action" and see what my life would be now. There was one thing that stuck in my mind after that Mises event in Colorado Springs though. Tom Woods ended with "So, what can we do?" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czcUmnsprQI To paraphrase badly, he said, he was good at writing, so he writes, and asked his audience to find what they're good at, and do it to further our cause, to actually quote some: "each of us have a role to play...[do] everything we [can]...we spread the truth...spread the message through our own efforts."

I may have taken it more literally than he meant it, as he may have just meant, "rich people here today, please be sure to donate to us on your way out, because that's how we make money." But I wanted to help and I do believe I have a role to play.

Later that day, a fellow programmer (who also attended the event) and I talked it over and started a project that was intended to bring any consumer together with any service, with added features of a rating system, open interview phase, open bidding process, testimonials, optional escrow, etc. But designed in such a way that not only was it a totally price and consumer-centered market, but it was not currency specific, i.e. somebody could exchange a sliver of silver for lawn mowing if they wanted after establishing that the lawn mower was reputable, but not necessarily "state-licensed" in lawn mowing. Ooo, an Internet site subverting the government, that was our big master plan! We realized too late (when we were done), that we had only created a better craigslist, or an ebay-craigslist hybrid, except we had no money left to market it after the time it took to create, and no chance to compete with those giants.

When it came time to face reality again and pay the bills, we both ended up going back to the job market.

I regret that after that I made the worst mistake yet: I ended up at one of the only places hiring in Colorado Springs, a government contractor, a deal with Evil at a rate only a counterfeiter could pay.

Needless to say, my hypocrisy and nagging guilt got the best of me after about few months and I literally went a bit crazy, left at lunch time and drove back to "mommy" in California without stopping to get any of my stuff and ended up where I am now: living in the unique welfare state that is called Mom's House back in California...at age 27.

I guess you'd just call it a major depressive episode, but at no point was I really suicidal, just extremely apathetic, extremely "done" with "it" all.

In retrospect, I can define what happened more slowly as: I didn't see a point in working 1/3 of the hours of my life for a company I was so morally against, so I stopped going to my $85k job. Didn't see a point in sleeping 1/3 of the hours of my life, so I didn't sleep for days. Didn't much see a point in having stuff anymore, so I wasn't sorry I left it all in a different state. I didn't see a point to friends or relationships, so I canceled facebook, okcupid, twitter, and my cell phone.

When I got to California my mom eventually arranged for some of the "stuff" to get back here, donated the rest, and paid off some of my debts and bills from my savings. She tried to organize that shit I wrought, but I didn't see a point to speaking much or letting her "help", so it was a bit futile for her at first, but in retrospect, she cared when I didn't.

I'm doing better now, in some ways. The first month or so I was a zombie. My car, my savings, and most of my stuff were all casualties of the war in my head. Now "they" have me on enough meds that I can start my own pharmacy if I wanted. I am still apathetic about a lot of the same things, and I vow to never work again for anybody else--I just can't have somebody else telling me what to do, because, not only the defense contractor, but everybody I've ever worked for I haven't respected or felt I could do a better job. Given the nature of my unique and voluntary welfare state, where food and shelter are provided by the will of my Mother, I naturally spend more and more time researching and absorbing more philosophy, and less time on goals that would make me independent again.

I know logically that I do need money for stuff, and would like to get a car. And I still have a talent for business and software that I won't let be managed by anybody else so I decided and was motivated at some point to start another business and write some software that'll hopefully get me "independent" again, if not wealthy again. www.Onficient.com

But freedomain radio and Austrian Economics is an addiction. I cannot stop. It has become an obsession more intense than my need for independence because my little prison is the perfect place and break from the stresses of life to gain a handle on the contradictions I see around me with the society that brought me down.

I read more Mises, Rothbard, Stossel, Adam Smith. I listened to all the lectures of the 2009 Mises University. Through facebook, I "befriended" Tom Woods, Walter Block, Lawrence Reed, and some less notable, but logical, athiest, anarchist, and economic bloggers. The access to directly communicating with these economists and philosophers was awesome at first, but then I realized how hypocritical most of them were in that they all listed a religion. And then I saw a friend that most had in common: Molyneux, and I remembered a like-minded friend mentioning him at least a few times. I wikipedia'd him, saw that people were worried his freedomain radio was a cult, and my interest grew, only because I knew he must be doing something right to piss off so many people and I feel immune to that very "Appeal to Authority" that I've mocked the Randians for having.

I started with a few of his recent podcasts and videos: awesome. His youtube series on the "Meaning of Life" was spot on and explained a lot of the reason I was "done" with it all a few months ago. Then I went back and listened to his first few podcasts. Then, I read or listened to ALL of his books. When his voice got annoying at the 2x speed that I listen to audiobooks at, I switch to reading the free pdfs, when reading got tedious, I switched to back to his audio. He is long-winded just insofar as I probably see the logic to the points he is making before his average reader probably does, and I prefer the clear academic writing style of Rothbard and Mises, but nobody else covers the real roots in of the problems in such gleefully unrestrained logical brilliance like Stefan does. I have not disagreed with a single word he has posited.

The problem is, I see no end to my obsession's monopoly over my time. I can see myself trying to catch up with every one of the over 81 days of (his) audio podcasts, (Mises) lectures, and books I have queued up, not to mention my thousands of unread items on google reader. After reading "How (not) to Achieve Freedom" I realized I had fallen prey to my need to "make a difference" or "feel accepted" by befriending all those I don't know personally on facebook and cleaned house a little.

I see no moral objection to taking my mother's food and room while she is getting more than I am out of the deal from her inner-need to "finally" take care of me.

But I am now getting little or no work done and am getting comfortable in my glass cage see no end in sight to my self-inflicted self-gratifying imprisonment where I get to learn all day. Where is the logical contradiction that I am missing? Where and when will my motivation to stop "learning" and start "producing" emerge in the path that I am currently on?

More than any of the medications that were thrown at me, freedomain radio and other similar voices are my drugs of choice. They are the only things that illuminate the inconsistencies I see all around me and brings me closer to understanding. Learning is my crutch in logic the way statists have a crutch in patriotism, religious have a crutch in "faith."

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A long introduction and inner contradiction.