Have you ever worked in industry?
Do you know what it takes to put it all together??
First you gotta figure out how to invest, then you gotta invest, then you’re stuck with it and have to somehow make sure that the profit actually fruitions.
Have you ever tried to get all the pieces to line up? To get all the parts synced up into something that actually works? That provides a worthy service that people understand as worthy and pay for as worthy? Have you ever even tried to get anything done?
It’s very hard.
And then you got all these self-righteous regulators standing over your shoulder, poking the butts of their yellow pencils–which they pretend to suppose have all their erasers, but which in fact have no more eraser at all and so jab with the sharp metal rims fully exposed–into your back, shoulderblades, shoulders, neck: sometimes even your ears!!
It’s beyond infuriating!
I’m beyond infuriated!
I can’t get anything done under these circumstances.
And I’m a doer; I’m a go-getter; I’m a get ‘er done-er (that final self-compliment refers affectionately to Gale, manager at the now-defunct Mac’s Craft World, who said one fine [summer-sunny outside but nice and stale dusty inside the backroom storage area], and I quote: “I’m going to call you ‘Rock N Roll’, ’cause you get ‘er done!”)!
And we all know that I’ve not even mentioned that other killjoy; I mean: The Taxman! That guy! Or nowadays gal! Oh my god! You figure it all out, you weave through the mishmash of terrains real and artificial that constitute a marketplace, you manage to extract a few take-home bucks to show for your efforts, and wham!: “Um, actually, sir, you’ll have to give that to us; you see we’re paying for the roads and the social safety nets, and, of course, the regulations!” I can’t even stand it.
Don’t get me wrong.
I’m no anarchist. I don’t think disorder is livable or that order magically appears. I don’t suppose free markets automatically tend towards the Good. I believe wholeheartedly in a little vigorously-honest and -cautious bureaucratic oversight, and some gentle redistribution of wealth (since, after all, we’re all in this together).
But!
I mean, take my case:
Bartleby Willard, just as much a fictional man as any other nonexistent personages, working 24/7 52/1 100/Century 100/Millennium VeryVeryMany/Aeon VeryVeryMany/Universe,
thinking, analyzing, organizing, considering, discussing, researching, thinking …
and finally investing
in a few dozen acres of Pure Love Factory
A giant wondrous factory: ancient, but smooth and bright light-gray stone buildings on green campus with pleasant cobbled lanes winding all through; healthy, well-fed, well-rested, well-entertained men and women in high quality grey or blue cotton/polyester-blend button-up first-name-in-an-oval floppy-collared workshirts (long-sleeved in the winter; short, if one so chooses, in the summer), matching slacks and solid yellow-tan leather worker boots or sturdy, black, thick-soled stand-all-day worker sneakers, working diligently for eight-hours with a thirty minute lunchtime gap and two fifteen minute paid breaks, chatting a bit here and again but not so much as to interfere with production or violate any safety standards; and don’t even get me started on the college-educated office workers with their #1 Best _____ coffee mugs, full nerdpacks in broad-collared button-ups, and polyester dress-slacks!!!
Is this all free?
Do Pure Love factories grow on trees?
No! One must one invest in land, in raw materials, in people, in ideas, in lobbyists and campaign contributions, in energy, in marketing, in everything!
It’s a lot. A real lot.
I was busy busy busy, flying from one end of the campus to another in my hunter-green flying-chariot, barking out orders, pausing only for the occasional contemplative stroll by the wide glassy-green creek that runs just beyond the factory underneath the very Main Street that pipes our eager and well-respected workforce into the plant each weekday morning. I had reams and reams of important details to attend to. I had all kinds of edges to soften, egos to cajole, handshakes to deliver.
And then what happens?
Author: Bartleby Willard
Editor: Amble Whistletown
Copyright: AM Watson
We’re keeping track of all these posts here: The Logbook. Maybe it can be a words-only comic strip of our Pure Love moguling.
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