Homestead mailing list

["clanSkeen" <sgian AT planetc.com>]

> Tvo once pronounced James to be eloquent, but I don't see it.  Somehow 
> even his posts on homesteading manage to alienate people.

They don't alienate people, Bill, they only alienate those with serious 
self-doubts.

> Of all the people on this list, perhaps I understand best what he's trying 
> to say (I think), but even I end up feeling belittled.

It's a one car accident, that, Bill.  You alone are responsible for how you 
feel.

> It all comes out sounding like "y'all better git yer butts a-scythin' if 
> ye want to be as good as I".

When actually it's "Y'all better git yer butts a-scythin' if ye want the 
benefits of scythin'"  Why it is taken otherwise by the ilk of yourself  is 
easily explained:  There's been much talk here on what sort of investment or 
business would best ensure a supply of homestead money.  I discovered long 
ago a product that people will buy at any cost at any time, well, not all 
people, just people like yourself and the ones (alas, not in evidence) to 
whom you allude.  The product is SEF (Someone Else's Fault) marketed under 
various names but refered to generically as Non-Mea-Culpa.  I never had the 
stomach to deal in it, although it is perfectly legal and most consider it 
to be "respectable".   But I could have made a lot of money with it.  Since 
you don't seem to have a problem with it, Bill, I give the whole business to 
you and you could become quite wealthy with this.

SEF is the markenting of anything that allows people to believe that the 
troubles in their lives are not their fault, there is nothing they could 
have done.  People will pay anything to get SEF and do anything, even harm 
themselves and harm their children.  The motivation is that high and the 
market is infinite.  I first encountered SEF working in schools where a 
parent who just about abandoned their child to daycare, social obligations, 
put their own problems before their child, and then faced the fact that 
their child was having academic and social problems.  They wanted 
desperately to believe it wasn't their fault, there was nothing they could 
have done differently that would have made any difference.  You saw the same 
look in their eyes when they were handed a diagnosis of LD or OCD or some 
such as you see in the eyes of a junkie who has just gotten his next fix. 
Not my fault!

SEF extends to all sorts of things: people who ruin themselves financially, 
make disasterous personal decisions, wreck their health ... etc.  People pay 
the most of their income and most of their life's strength just for one good 
dose of SEF ... tell me it wasn't my fault!

That's why people like you bubble over with hatred for people like me who do 
NOT blame other people or circumstances or luck for our failures.  Like 
Billy Bones (in Treasure Island) when he saw Pew coming to talk with him and 
the author says, "the rum went out of him".   Just like that, those seeking 
to blame all their problems on someone or something else, and having spent 
so much time and resources on that illusion, do NOT want to be reminded that 
by and large, in the main, their lot is their own making.  We who do not 
look outside ourselves to find the source of the fault within our lives and 
our undertakings are an ugly and unpleasant reminder that the SEF does not 
bear scutiny.  That's why the vehemence and hatred.  That;s why every 
reference to a self-reliant way of conducting one's affairs is seen as 
"telling people what to do" or "belittling people."

I do not take it upon myself to timidly tiptoe around earnest homestead 
topics because you, Bill, are prone to having the rum go out of you when you 
are faced with reminders that we all determine our destinies through our 
choices.

I don't peddle SEF anymore.


James