indiana weather is depressing

it’s rarely pleasant to have to forego one event in order to attend another, and it’s even less so when both events are funerals for people you really liked; people who had tremendous vigor for life and were taken far before their time. people the world could’ve used more of. I wonder anymore if, as the saying goes, the good really do die young, or if the rest of us just grow bitter and old. let us hope the spirit they brought with them will stay above ground and live on with those who knew them. RIP John & Tex.

 

I try to look at the positive side of any situation, which is occasionally difficult when so many negatives seem to be apparent. being all but broke seems to fit into that category.

Not that I am criticizing any companies/individuals (okay I am), but if you come to a point where you aren’t in the financial position you’d like to be, the right course of action is not to sit back and hope someone comes along and bails you out. even if it takes futile efforts (as it turns out, most sit-down restaurants in the greater Lafayette area are, while cheerfully accepting applications, not interested in hiring) or drastic measures (anyone wanting to buy a laptop?) or, as I’m hoping to be the case, a kick-in-the-ass towards proving some caliber of knowledge in the skills I’m theoretically learning.  Ideas about freelance graphics works, running my own design firm/website, programming a video game, etc, have always been mulling about in the back of my mind. they stayed there, though, because why bother if you don’t have the need?

okay, so let’s take this personal experience and expand it to take some actual message out of it, possibly applying it to the American youth I’ve apparently been representing over the last few years. let’s say American children just don’t have the financial need in order to truly innovate, and that’s why in the long run the foreigners will develop skills faster and be better motivated. would I have ever seriously started looking into doing freelance graphics work online had I not been in a not-so-great financial position? perhaps after college, or somewhere else down the road. now I see that the majority of the competitors in all of these freelance fields – graphics, coding, writing (even English), etc – all foreign workers, willing to work quickly and cheaply.

 

so is it a good thing that the rest of America is also going broke? depends on the timeline. people aren’t going to be happy about it anytime soon, and I certainly wish I could buy a nicer coat. the global economy will enter into a lasting recession, and though the stimulus will provide jobs, they won’t be at the same level as those they are replacing. major companies across every industry are laying off mass numbers of businessmen and women, technicians and IT professionals, 6-figure white collar and blue collar and any other collar. Now we’ll ask them to go put on some orange vest and rebuild infrastructure. It’s like the end of Office Space, only not so much out of choice.

in the long run, I see this as positive. but I’m not sure how many people allow themselves to look in the long run anymore. the short-run problems, such as the large amount of homework I have due in less than 12 hours, always seem to get in our way.