The Contradiction

I seem to have a strange sense of guilt. It hasn't been active for a while, since 2003 I bought out my sister's share of our inherited house, and bought a second house that I rent to a single mother friend with 3 kids, on section-8 housing, with rental income just about covering costs, at least excluding large repairs.

Since then I've put all my extra income into my home mortgage, and when I finish paying that off, I'll put the extra to the rental property mortgage. So with this goal, I've felt no guilt at my income. Before that I either worked less than fulltime, and when I took a regular job, I asked for a lower salary in exchange for my employer giving $X/quarter to charities of my choice. My primary purpose was to not become dependent upon a high income.

Now, thinking about a trip to Mexico, I'm going through great pangs of guilt - EVEN if I can afford this trip, EVEN if a singular trip isn't a lifestyle, I just think of all the others who can't afford the freedoms available to me. I think of all the unmet needs around me judgable as higher priority than my use. Not even knowing how many people foolishly make far more extravagant choices, greater debt, to support their "dreams", but I don't hold myself to the same standards as I hold others.

It is most strange since it seems to come from responsibility ONLY when I have a surplus resource, like money. BUT I don't see time the same way - I don't think about how little time I have left to GIVE to others. No my time is my own, even if I give some of it. Mostly I can live guilt free as selfish as I want AS LONG as I'm not spending a ton of money on myself.

I wonder where this comes from? I can build up an emotional argument that SPENDING MONEY ON ME is sinful if others are in greater need than me. Even spending money on kids has some degree of sin, given I see it as something that is beyond the reach of others - like traveling to another country.

I'm sure its a mistake on my part - to be taken in by my girlfriend's argument about expanding cultural experience. I mean go to the Cinco de Mayo festivals - check out the local Mexican/spanish population. Let them do an exchange program in college - but how is a week in Mexico going to change everything? What else could be done with $5000? What about the next car repair? What about energy efficient windows? What about a hundred good uses that can multiple to greater effect than a single experience.

I feel like saying (to myself), a gift I don't plan to ever repeat, but I don't really mean it. I just mean I HATE having to make a choice I don't believe it has sufficient value to justify the cost. Travel just makes no sense.

I've taken 3 airflights in my life - to Hawaii in 1990 for 10 days with a college geology class, Washington DC in 2000 for 10 days for a protest and lobby effort, and Florida in 2002 for 7 days because a relative offered to share his time-sharing deal. All low-budget trips, all combined under $2500 cost. Hawaii was pretty - great to see the southern stars and mountains. History in DC cool, and oceans in Florida amazing, but nothing life-changing. A 10-day trip driving to Colorado with my cousin in 1992 was most amazing - because I've not seen mountains before, and at driving speed, I got lots of reading time, and stopped at many cool places, another cheap trip, we camped out every night.

Okay, I'll give travel SOME value, and certainly even when our fossil fuel age is over, we'll still have travel. I mean you can walk across the country if you're patient.

More I think I just feel time-contrained. Wouldn't it be better to spend a month before the trip and exploring maps and books, learn about the culture, practice the language, and then I'd really perhaps be able to benefit from the costs.

I suppose that's it in a nutshell. I don't like the rushed life. I don't like seeing vacation as something to "get away" or "see pretty things". I want time to learn and explore. I mean that's perhaps my biggest modern petpeave - what's the use of power and opportunity if there's no time to appreciate it.

I'd rather live off the $5000 for a year, not working, I mean if my mortgage was paid, and I shared living expenses a bit more. So much to learn, and a lifestyle dependent upon a high income is an insult to my dreams.

Okay, so I get to help 3 kids experience another culture. I don't need to depend solely on my appreciation. I just don't want this responsibility - to DEFEND value vs cost. I deny the world that says you need to spend money to gain value. I'm WRONG, in part, but not fully.

So this is not my dream, but perhaps it'll still turn out okay. Can I stop worrying?!

A lightweight player in a heavy world

Sitting in a meeting at work today, with discussions of our consulting side, problems with proposals generated by a new branch office, overall reminds me how far I am from reality when I look at my little comfortable pond, programming user interfaces for complex engineering software.

Money flows and its easy to think "Hey, I'm a part of something wonderful - look at all this wealth." But ultimately I don't understand how it all happens, and if pushed, I'll just admit, "Well, we just take on niche applications in the vast flow of money in solving technical problems of keeping our unsustainable economy running for another year." Ultimately our success is dependent upon the ever expanding consumption of energy, and availability of sources to exploit.

From that perspective, I accept all success I know is running on borrowed time, and I'd better save my pennies if the well dries up and I have to do something else. Since I can live on maybe 1/4 of my net income, I can take my advantage now, pay down debt, and invest where ever I can for the future. It still feels like a game of "Musical chairs", and not knowing when its time to sit down versus running full speed to the opportunties available when the music is playing.

I mean this trip to Mexico, how nice I can afford it, but will I regret the loss of $5000 if things turn sour later? That's 6 months income at minimum wage, and no evidence I ought to depend on alternative income to equal what I have now.

It is easy to see the flow of money and feel like I'm "someone", but the reality is I don't play like a big player. I play defensively, trying to keep risks low.

Do I want to invest in more company stock? Well, no actually - I'm not an engineer. However good the dividends, there's no evidence the company value equals the stock value, if things were liquidated. Most of our value is in the experience of our employees, and their specialization and our incremental growth of our software. If you dry up our income, the transition to something else won't allow our salary to continue as we've known.

If I can't well imagine investing in a debt-free small company, how much less is my willingness to invest in the wider economy?

The reality of my life is that I don't have the INNER FIRE to fight to keep what I have. If I was debt free and lost my job, I'd as well take a low wage job and have spare time over high income. My future just can't expect what I have to continue. So how much can I afford to throw away now? I don't know.

I think there's many sorts of power in the world. Currently power is derived from those clever enough to most cheaply exploit energy resources and material resources. It's a poor economy, poor in wisdom, but power wins by brute success.

It's impossible for me to believe a more sensible economy could produce 1/4 as much wealth as we know now. So things must crash in my mind, although the heavyweights willing to take a risk will continue as they can, with or without my participation.

We're like a forestfire, blazing everything in sight, too much smoke to see the edges of the forest, or what we'll consume when its gone.

I feel big for seeing doom, but no where else.

Uncertainty

I'm still on an internal debate, whether I accept funding a trip to Mexico with my girlfriend and her three kids. Educational, cultural experience, living with a host family, all great stuff, but but but...

My financial position is comfortable, able to make sizable extra principle payments to my mortgage, enough to pay off a 30 year mortgage in 9 years with luck, and I've made it to year 4 so far. Biggest uncertainty is how much my ATM-5/30 will go up next fall, but I basically know the worst case, can increase by up to 2% every six months and capped at 10.75%. Even worst case (assuming I can continue paying it down as planned) I'll be paying less interest/month than when I started, spefically $937 the first month, and $578 now, could jum to $691 next summer, then to $823 after another year at a potential 10.75% peak.

It is amazing, whether I pay a low rate or high, my final payment barely changes by 2 months. Of course those two months are all extra interest, but "fast-tracking" mortgage payments may save money, but not time.

It is interesting also to consider interest costs. Basically for every $1 now that I spend, I add $0.31 to the end of my mortage. So a $5000 trip to Mexico now adds $1550 in interest payments, so the actual trip will cost $6550. Perhaps even that comparison is flawed, give money is worth less in 5 years. If inflation is 4%, then something like 17% inflation is "lost", and my $0.31 cost is really only $0.14. AND since I expect inflation and fuel prices to keep going up, perhaps this'll be a "dirt cheap" trip compared to future costs.

Silly extravagent thoughts by someone well off by any good measure. I mean it burns me up to imagine all the money wasted by so many people because they are not in a position (or inclination) to save first, spend second.

I have the LUXURY to worry about the economy simply because I have hope that I can strengthen my position against future hardship - NOT that I feel strong, but I figure there's no downside to SAVE-NOW (paying down debt=savings) and whatever shall be, shall be. Ultimately we all have to have some "blind faith" that our work now will be rewarded later, that the system is set up to reward savings.

I suppose I DO THINK that high inflation must be in our future, so perhaps dollars under the mattress (or a 0.5% savings account) isn't going to hold value to my work, but a house that I own debt free means my future cost of living will be lower.

And yet now I'm struggling to ask what money is worth. My girlfriend's kids will be largely grown by 2012. For myself, I hold little value in travel. There's too many in unmet needs around me to seriously entertain the idea that I can just throw money away for the privledge of owing another month's mortgage in 2012.

YET - 80% of the U.S. households make such decisions times TEN - spending now for promises later. Why do I hold debt in such contempt? It is curious since when I've loaned money to family or friends, I find myself feeling in LESS control than I do now BEING in debt. I mean a person in debt to me, if they know me at all, will know that I have no will power to enforce repayment, or very little while I feel strong financially. Mostly I feel like any money I might loan, if it takes more than a year to repay, that it might as well be a gift.

On a different side I do think about investments that may take longer to get payback on. AND investing in children is certainly a longer term investment, and one that is more of a gift, never expecting a direct payback, only an indirect one, hoping for an adult who will be capable in doing their own good for the world. Now THAT is real uncertainty, not that most kids don't succeed, but just to ask WHAT SORT of investments make sense. Is airtravel extravant or consciousness-expanding? Probably both, but are there cheaper ways to get the same result?

I suppose my biggest moral dilemma says this: Whatever benefits I WANT in life, I ought to believe others also have equal opportunities.

I might say I don't own a car myself BECAUSE I don't believe in the indefinite future that an average human being in the world can afford an automobile. But my reasoning isn't quite that nice. More I just don't feel overly empowered by a car, while a bike does empower, and buses too - It's nice to NOT OWN a vehicle myself, to not have to depend on strangers to tell me how many thousands of dollars the next repair bill will cost me and have no idea if I'm being exploited or not. Of course I COULD LEARN, but it pisses me off to think I should waste my time learning about things I don't want to depend on in the first place. I don't take cabs either - think they're sort of a ripoff, but at least they're small, and I'm glad for them as a last resort.

Mostly I will give in to spending money for someone else, letting my girlfriend take the responsibility on deciding value, and figure my only job is to adjust my budgeting for it. I mean there's nothing special ultimately about 2012. I mean perhaps I will lose my job that year and be glad for my debt-free house, but if my budget said I could pay by 2015, well, that'd be just as good a goal for all I know.

Truthfully, I don't expect I'll make it by 2012 as planned, or to the month at least. There'll always be more expenses than I like to admit. It's just good I have the flexibility. Paying down debt is savings, and unexpected expenses mean saving slower for a while. It's a good racket while it works. Well I'd better keep my job.

Of course others in weaker positions than me will make millions on their investments, while I'm just content to pay down an honest debt with honest work. My life is unfairly simple, but its as close to a guarantee as I could hope for.

Corruption of the heart

The most difficult problem I see in modern life is the vast sea of opportunities we have in front of us ALONG with the vast inequality of opportunity between peoples depending on where they live and their connections.

Money makes the world go around, and more and more each year, until it doesn't - when TSHTF and we all have to go scrambling back to reality of our excesses.

I've been offered an opportunity to FUND a week or so trip to Mexico City, to broaden my horizons into a different culture, and help my girlfriend's 3 kids gain the same, with ages 11-16, they're old enough to appreciate the trip, and the youngest two have been going to a Spanish immersion school for 5 years and would have a chance to use their bilingualism.

It is easy to justify anything if you spin things the right way. I can spin things that 90% of the world's population doesn't have the money to fly to other countries. I never traveled by airplane before I was nearly 22, with a college geology trip to Hawaii with two professors.

I see "life as debt" as slavery and hope to escape someday, by 2012 if I'm lucky, although I don't know what I'll do if somehow I still have excess money when I'm 5 years older. There's always good places to invest money, ways that INVEST in future prosperity.

I can argue that fossil fuels are being needlessly squandered. (I don't even own a car myself!) I can say there is NO fair way to judge opportunity when you're living unsustainably. I can say that whatever hardships are coming (as energy resources dwindle) I'm still better off saving resources now and if tomorrow comes, and I don't need what I have, I have more to give away.

But my girlfriend, as a parent, sees her kids in a precious point in time, sees an opportunity that won't come as easily in the future. She doesn't have the luxury of worrying about the future because if she did honestly worry, she'd have to admit the state of her weakness, and imprudence of spending needed resources on a singular week trip.

In some part, it comes down to personal risk. Will the future be filled with difficulty that will benefit from prudence now? Will some new experiences, however brief, change people's view of the world and their place in it to a degree that future costs and sacrafice are worth the trade off. I don't easily bet in favor of either arguments - I figure staying close to home is the safer bet, and look for opportunity where I am, taking a path of least resistance.

It seems to be two sides of human nature - the side that takes risks into the unknown, and the side that digs in to defend a safe center against future uncertainty. The fable of the industrious Ant and the fun-loving Grasshopper might support one side of this, although I'd like to defend the grasshopper's view too. If you're going to die anyway, what's worth doing? No one promised that we can all live through the winter!

I'm still terribly upset to see a world that seems clueless to the difficult winter that must be coming in the next 20 years, as offered in Kunster's "The Long Emergency."

Should we look at this danger from the prudence of someone who wants to live through to the other side, or forget about an uncertain future and TAKE everything we can now, however unsustainable, dishonest, and ultimately destructive origins, and deal with the consequences later, when circumstances finally make us face reality.

I have no answers, or no great vision of defended castle walls in my future. If I'm the Ant, I don't really work that hard, beside being lucky to scavange more than I need close to home. Anyway, I'm corrupted myself. I just think we're all fools.

I don't care about a trip to Mexico, fully outside my values, but I believe sometimes experiences change us, and life is short, so I can perhaps justify extravagence sometimes, especially if someone else wants to say it is important.