Many Kinds of Wealth
I’m very pleased to report that my brother and half of the parental collective took the opportunity to visit. Two Tuesdays ago I picked up the parents at the airport (took advantage of the brandy-new cell lot), and brought them by to see my art and have a cup of tea and a sit-down. My sister picked them up thence, and they stayed with her. I can’t remember what happened Wednesday, and would rather have written this sooner.
Thursday I took off from work for an all-day family visit. Despite how close I am to downtown Decatur, sister and parents picked me up and we drove over. Wandered through a few stores looking for local crafts for Christmas presents, went to Sweet Melissa’s for breakfast. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten there before, but it was quite tasty, and we had a nice time chatting. Thence we headed to North DeKalb Mall to watch “Lincoln”, which I found moving and funny (rarely at the same time). We checked a few stores in the mall for this and that, and I ended up getting (surprisingly silky) pants two inches smaller than the pair I was wearing - seems encouraging. From there we went to the Atlanta Botanical Garden, and it was literally spectacular - a small train panorama, the canopy walk (I hadn’t seen before), and everything lit up beautifully. Small downsides with discordant music when you were on the edges of hearing music from two different sections, and how obviously commercial certain parts were like hot cocoa and ornaments for sale. We went to George’s for dinner, which was pretty tasty, but nothing could have prepared us for the blitz. We heard a sudden tattoo outside, and someone opened the door, and the Seed and Feed Marching Abominable marched in and started playing. At the last song, I recognized “Sing, Sing, Sing”, and saw someone bopping with the music, and asked for a dance. Simultaneously, dad stood up and started directing the band. All in all, a fantastic day.
Friday my brother dropped by briefly to slow down my D&D game with jokes, and I got a chance to try out a gravelly “gargoyle” voice.
Saturday I sauteed beans (chopped smaller, as sentientjello suggested), brother showed back up, sister picked us up, and we headed to “The Lake House”. Nice time, somehow simultaneously whirlwind and low-key. Caught up with extended family, ate tasty things, got to tell the story about tangoing at work. I think there was a nap at this point. Went to “The Play of Herod”, a curious change after having served cookies and cider over the course of the previous 15 or so years and thereby only hearing the show rather than seeing it. Rather enjoyable, but a bit off-tempo in places.
Sunday we put our name in at Flying Biscuit, marveled at the fun weirdness of a nearby art store, and went back in for brunch. Then we exchanged presents for the first day of Hanukkah. Much to my frustration, people had bought things without telling me, leading to duplicate presents, and then asked me to return my copy. Regardless, I was very pleased with both getting what people wanted and what I received, and it was nice to have a familial touchstone after the chaos of everyone moving. I hadn’t really planned the evening after my brother left, since I had assumed there was more family stuff, but there wasn’t. I ended up taking a cat nap and going out dancing again.
Monday was the last visit, we joined the parents’ other hosts for a birthday dinner for one of their children. Nice people, different circles, rarely see them. I used to babysit their eldest, who is now smart as a whip and taking joint-enrollment courses... which is what I was doing around the same time I babysat.If hard work and importance to society were the cornerstones of wealth, farm workers would be millionaires. Prosperity is dependent on luck. The only way to actively improve one’s resources is through exploitation. Even exchange isn’t even enough, thanks to entropy; you can’t keep it all the same, as every exchange depletes resources.
It is worth pausing here to clarify that by “exploitation”, I do not necessarily mean conning, debasement, or slavery (even though those are obviously popular forms). Exploitation in this case refers to a process by which one is able to retrieve more resources than one puts forth. It takes less energy to dig up petroleum than the amount of energy produced (although that is obviously changing). Creating a windmill takes an investment, but in the end produces more energy than it did to create. Stocks are “played” on the expectation that they will produce more money than … anywho, you get the idea. Pay less, get more. Clever gamers will find and exploit systems in their favorite games to create the advantages they need to win, leading to things like rules changes or banned cards in cases where the creators want the game to be balanced.
There’s some question of the ethics of getting more than put forth, but as I mentioned above, standing still is not an option unless decay is the goal. As it is, the only way to get money is to convince people to give you money, which only has a theoretical connection to the value produced during such convincing. I would posit that exploitation in the victimizing sense is bad, but finding improvements not so much.
Luck! Why luck? Because not everyone has access to the same opportunities or resources. In addition, the realization of said opportunities and resources is not given to every person. And it’s a continuous system, too; giving the same things to everyone isn’t a long-term solution because the second anyone gains, loses, or trades something, everyone’s on unequal ground. It’s also important to note that while everyone wants similar abstract goals, we don’t want the same THINGS. (Especially if you’re allergic to chocolate.)
I don’t actually have a good conclusion for this one, and will have to ruminate further.Have found a focus group to help with the aforementioned goal-setting difficulties.
Thursday I took off from work for an all-day family visit. Despite how close I am to downtown Decatur, sister and parents picked me up and we drove over. Wandered through a few stores looking for local crafts for Christmas presents, went to Sweet Melissa’s for breakfast. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten there before, but it was quite tasty, and we had a nice time chatting. Thence we headed to North DeKalb Mall to watch “Lincoln”, which I found moving and funny (rarely at the same time). We checked a few stores in the mall for this and that, and I ended up getting (surprisingly silky) pants two inches smaller than the pair I was wearing - seems encouraging. From there we went to the Atlanta Botanical Garden, and it was literally spectacular - a small train panorama, the canopy walk (I hadn’t seen before), and everything lit up beautifully. Small downsides with discordant music when you were on the edges of hearing music from two different sections, and how obviously commercial certain parts were like hot cocoa and ornaments for sale. We went to George’s for dinner, which was pretty tasty, but nothing could have prepared us for the blitz. We heard a sudden tattoo outside, and someone opened the door, and the Seed and Feed Marching Abominable marched in and started playing. At the last song, I recognized “Sing, Sing, Sing”, and saw someone bopping with the music, and asked for a dance. Simultaneously, dad stood up and started directing the band. All in all, a fantastic day.
Friday my brother dropped by briefly to slow down my D&D game with jokes, and I got a chance to try out a gravelly “gargoyle” voice.
Saturday I sauteed beans (chopped smaller, as sentientjello suggested), brother showed back up, sister picked us up, and we headed to “The Lake House”. Nice time, somehow simultaneously whirlwind and low-key. Caught up with extended family, ate tasty things, got to tell the story about tangoing at work. I think there was a nap at this point. Went to “The Play of Herod”, a curious change after having served cookies and cider over the course of the previous 15 or so years and thereby only hearing the show rather than seeing it. Rather enjoyable, but a bit off-tempo in places.
Sunday we put our name in at Flying Biscuit, marveled at the fun weirdness of a nearby art store, and went back in for brunch. Then we exchanged presents for the first day of Hanukkah. Much to my frustration, people had bought things without telling me, leading to duplicate presents, and then asked me to return my copy. Regardless, I was very pleased with both getting what people wanted and what I received, and it was nice to have a familial touchstone after the chaos of everyone moving. I hadn’t really planned the evening after my brother left, since I had assumed there was more family stuff, but there wasn’t. I ended up taking a cat nap and going out dancing again.
Monday was the last visit, we joined the parents’ other hosts for a birthday dinner for one of their children. Nice people, different circles, rarely see them. I used to babysit their eldest, who is now smart as a whip and taking joint-enrollment courses... which is what I was doing around the same time I babysat.If hard work and importance to society were the cornerstones of wealth, farm workers would be millionaires. Prosperity is dependent on luck. The only way to actively improve one’s resources is through exploitation. Even exchange isn’t even enough, thanks to entropy; you can’t keep it all the same, as every exchange depletes resources.
It is worth pausing here to clarify that by “exploitation”, I do not necessarily mean conning, debasement, or slavery (even though those are obviously popular forms). Exploitation in this case refers to a process by which one is able to retrieve more resources than one puts forth. It takes less energy to dig up petroleum than the amount of energy produced (although that is obviously changing). Creating a windmill takes an investment, but in the end produces more energy than it did to create. Stocks are “played” on the expectation that they will produce more money than … anywho, you get the idea. Pay less, get more. Clever gamers will find and exploit systems in their favorite games to create the advantages they need to win, leading to things like rules changes or banned cards in cases where the creators want the game to be balanced.
There’s some question of the ethics of getting more than put forth, but as I mentioned above, standing still is not an option unless decay is the goal. As it is, the only way to get money is to convince people to give you money, which only has a theoretical connection to the value produced during such convincing. I would posit that exploitation in the victimizing sense is bad, but finding improvements not so much.
Luck! Why luck? Because not everyone has access to the same opportunities or resources. In addition, the realization of said opportunities and resources is not given to every person. And it’s a continuous system, too; giving the same things to everyone isn’t a long-term solution because the second anyone gains, loses, or trades something, everyone’s on unequal ground. It’s also important to note that while everyone wants similar abstract goals, we don’t want the same THINGS. (Especially if you’re allergic to chocolate.)
I don’t actually have a good conclusion for this one, and will have to ruminate further.Have found a focus group to help with the aforementioned goal-setting difficulties.