"For smart n####s it's hard to do nothing"

(Quote: Wale, Video: Nietszche-3 Metamorpheses)

I made a very heavy decision today. Plan B to graduate school was some sort of international escapade. The Mookfish came out here briefly and I was enchanted with the idea of losing myself out in the world. I wanted, and have wanted, and still do want craziness; seeing things so few from my square have seen; obliterate my language and perspective; believe in all new dogmas for just long enough to understand and discard them; see from many sides this addled machine we've created, the world. But, I've had goals for this year ahead of me, and I've slept over them long lonely nights, and saw them written out on the horizon from the peaks of equatorial volcanos, and wrote them on my whiteboard so long ago they can't be erased. And so . . .I'm staying in Boise. I'm staying in Boise and staying in my contemptuous job, because it is the best arrangement for me to write. Boise is the easiest place for me to conduct the research I need to really dig into my novel. It is now just scattered pages, missing some glowing factoid in the center that I can only erect by immersing myself in data for awhile. And Boise is the easiest place for me to finalize my short story collection and prepare for self-publication. And it is the easiest way for me to start a vigorous submission campaign to various journals and outlets. It is the easiest place for all of these things because it requires no energy from me. A move means up to two months lost time in preparation and unpacking and troubadouring and settling. And whatever I do I must work . . .here I can make a substantial amount of money with the monastic life I live and will only enforce more stringently. And that is part 2 of the new plan. Working part-time. THe absolute minimum required of me to recieve benefits, which works out to one fewer day of work each week. I will reapply to grad school, and this extended period of work will allow me to be unemployed for the entirety of next summer. This will be the least amount of time responsible to school or work that I have had since I was 15 years old.

So . . .this isn't a decision that I am intoxicated with. But I feel free now. The decision made. The course set. And all of it, finally, arranged to maximize my time at the keyboard.

I posted the above video because its logic has been long interred in my subconscious. A conversation with my brother recently resurrected it, and in the hours since its been swirling. Reading Nietszche at an age where it could do more damage than drugs, I read these words and vaguely understood them. And then marched out into life thinking my short servitude was already over. Raging out at the mores lion-hearted. But, Nietsztche's point is not to lash out and destroy what's been built around you. Not until you are ready at least. First is the long apprenticeship with burden in the desert. The camel phase. The willingness to be oppressed by whatever systems and theses are in place. And only in that conditioning, that battering load, do you really become strong enough to carve out your own space. To destroy so that you can truly create. My ego had me convinced that I had put up with enough, that I was in a position to start making demands. I realize now that is not the case. I have no qualms with further suffering.