the black card.

Today I was thinking about a customer I had at LEGO last year. He paid with the infamous 'black card.' At the time he told me only 5000 of them have been issued ever. I think I believe him. You need to spend at least $250k/year and pay an annual fee of $2500. The card was indeed made of titanium. Anyways, it was a pretty rare occasion for me. Rare enough to write about it. It is rumored to have no credit limit, but most sources claim it does and is based on personal financial history. Anyways, its kind of an enigma.

pie in the sky.

okay, baker's square has all you can eat pie from 8pm to close for 6 bucks... its nuts. i've never just ate pie like that before, it was something else. good times. its been a pretty good week. anyways gonna go to bed now.

...

Classes are going well, though I am a bit lazy lately. I just don't have any real motivation to do anything. I look back at the things I thought I wanted 3 or 4 years ago--finish up school, my own place (or with a good room mate), a manageable/decent job, the opportunity to acquire various things (i.e. furniture... think Jack from Fight Club... maybe not a yin-yang table but you get the picture), go out on weekends, start a hobby, get a routine down, go to shows, party, etc.

I don't want any of those things now... at all. I don't want my car. I want to live in a studio apartment within walking/transit distance of a menial $18k/yr job and thats it. Thats all I want. I don't want to go do anything exciting, I don't want to impress anybody or acquire useless things. I want to get rid of my cell phone, get a land line w/voicemail and broadband internet. But it seems I can't have that now. I'll have $15k-23k of debt by the time I'm finished with school. I have a debt to financial institutions and social obligation to make use of myself because of my education. I don't want to do that.

I want to disappear from everyone's address book, I don't want people to even know I exist. I'll visit my dad and sister on the holidays, go drink coffee by myself with a book in a nice coffee shop. Hang out at the library on weekends and if I'm still in Minneapolis go visit the Walker on Thursday nights once a month.

I want to avoid large crowds and loud people. I don't want recognition, except a basic amount at work. I want to diminish all expectations of other people. I want to be stoic. I don't want to care one way or the other. I want to achieve ataraxia. I don't want to want a girlfriend or anything of that sourt. I don't want one night stands or random encounters. I don't want risk. I don't want reward. I want maybe 2 or 3 close friends at most that don't bother to call because they assume I'm fine and I can achieve the minimal reassurance I need by their trust that I have become a stable individual. I don't want to go to concerts or shows. I don't want to drink unless I am with one of my 2 or 3 close friends and having a nice but not-too-often meal together, perhaps once a month. I don't want to know my coworkers outside of work. I don't want to involve myself with politics, or get riled up about things beyond my realm or sphere of influence. I want to do crosswords, maybe crochet, read, draw and be left for the most part alone. I want to walk outside on an damp late autumn day at 11 pm and hear the rustle of leafs and bask in the orange glow of high pressure sodium lamps dotting the streets. Thats all I want.

Brew coffee in the morning, eat cereal, maybe have a bagel or make sandwiches from the deli, cook noodles from a box, eat salads from a bag. I don't want to make spaghetti, or chili, or omelets. I want to wash dishes in a double sink while listening to jazz. I don't want a TV, maybe a flat-panel display for dvd's/movies, but thats it. I don't want people to come over. I don't want posters on my wall or art in my living room. Perhaps I want a natural light emulation box, whatever fixtures are part of my apartment and thats it.

I don't want to get married or have kids or leave any trace of myself on this planet aside from whats beyond my control--i.e. having to play 'the game' and thus inherently destroying this planet by virtue of social convention. Riding the bus/train and recycling, not having too many electronics or excessive energy use... maybe join a co-op and make my own salads? Thats my part in this grand scheme. I don't want to vote or be patriotic, I don't want to have explain my stance on one issue or the other because I don't care. I can be objectively informed by distanced medias about event half way around the world, and perhaps after enough I will have some sort of passion or desire? That's it. I don't want an opinion on anything. I don't want to run for soil/water board or be on a committee. I don't want to volunteer. I don't want excess.

The only power I want is that which is attainable within my realm, I don't want to manage or tell anybody what to do our mettle in their business--there are people who want that, and I will leave it to them to make those decisions. The only sense of power I crave is that of achieving the most basic of survival methods in society, to know I can conquer the day by getting up, eating, going to work, coming home safe to live another day. I want to internalize my purpose on this planet as necessary by the function of my mere existence and nothing more. I am here because here I am. When I cease to be here, its because I am no longer here. Its tough to argue with that tautology and more often than not is sufficient to satisfy my needs for a reason to keep breathing.

I am simultaneously intrigued and repulsed by various theories and philosophies. Indian atomism, transcendentalism, etc. The simplicities and complexities of arguments sustaining various philosophical debates have run their course with me, I am utterly bored and don't care who thinks they are right, because no one has provided any argument that even begins to pluck some sort of string with me--aside from various Marxist viewpoints which at my age, pace and position seem all but infallible, but I know in a decade or two I will more than likely reverse my course on adhering to such beliefs about 'society' and 'nature'--one might argue by acknowledging a probable flux of shift of opinion that I have negated such belief, to these people I must remind them they are not living even one second in the future--but right now. So I guess if thats a philosophical standpoint, that now is absolutely now and not some other time, I will also subscribe to that, because that seems fundamental to me. Analogously I will cross bridges when I come to them and not burn them while I am crossing and won't experience the other side until I have arrived. Of course 'time' and 'distance' here are flexible and relative with various measurements that one might argue can not have a 'constant.' So if someone can successfully argue that they do indeed live a mere one second in the future, I would be so far beyond impressed, I might just have found some sort of passion or philosophy worthy of further inquiry. But I digress, these are the people I am exactly trying to avoid... intellectuals, pseudo-intellectuals (such as myself) and those with the keen ability to embellish, reconstruct and create 'truths' for others to painlessly find evident. Yes, perhaps I crave reclusion because I am sick of these snake oil peddlers... I am weary of rhetoric and consistently fail to see any utility in historicizing the various marginal people. Thats how cynical I have become. I can be entertained by stories of dead indians, slaves and pirates, but no amount of brilliant work has allowed me to part with the years of institutional indoctrination from both public and private facilities, my own family beliefs and those of my friends and their parents. Perhaps that is the definition of white privilege? Whatever. I just want to sleep and forget everything I learned in the past 4 years. I want to start an abnormal school... a place to unlearn. Ha.

On a completely ironic note, I went to an open mic at a coffee shop down town last Thursday and read some stuff. I sort of got a kick out of it, I want to continue that... for now at least.