cellini's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Wages of War A few minutes ago Ida and I watched 'Stand By Me.' She's a mature 7 years old and it was time for her to watch it. She liked it. She is too young to realize that what she has is very unique. I am with her far more than most fathers are with their children, owing to the type of work that I do. She has been raised learning how to hunt, fish, shoot, make fire, butcher, cook, find edible plants, make a fort in the woods, win a fight, and fix a small engine. At the age of seven she has her own rifle, knives, fishing rod, tool box and savings account. The rifle and knives mean more than the savings account does. I mean for her to be completely capable and self-determined in any situation. This shit with running for Congress. Fuck. I really don't want to do it. I mean, I am totally comfortable in terms of serving the office and doing the job. But the intensity that my candidacy would or will require for the next 18 months or so? Jesus. This is a huge district. And the time it would take away from my career as a writer. And what if I don't win? Where is my writing career and what do I do after that? Running for Congress would turn me into a partisan figure and slice my potential book sales neatly in half. Not good. For the record, I think that the odds are 60/40 in my favor. Here is the other issue: I need to get laid. Sweet holy fuck I need sex. And I'm not getting it at home. This marriage is definitely going to be a sexless one for the duration. We can make this work in theory, in terms of staying together and raising children together. But in the long run I desperately need to get laid and that will have to involve other women, with her permission (which I have). And an unconventional arrangement such as this would not look good in a political campaign. The song in my head as I write this is thus: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4gsTkrm4To I only want to do good. I want to do whatever good I can for the world and to leave some mark of goodness on the world. My struggle has been to find what place in the world I can create for myself in which I can accomplish the greatest good. If elected to the Congress, can I do that? It is not an easy question, as evidenced by what has happened these last two weeks. I can make great changes on my own. I can change the world and feed hungry people just by doing what I have been doing. Perhaps that work will mean more in the long run than two or four or six years as a Congressman would produce. I will talk to my friend Jim about this in the next week or so. Jim is a United ST@ates Senator. I helped him get elected 5 years ago and he will give me as straight an answer about this as I could ask for. Now I listen to this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_BpDTA4zw8&NR=1 Understand that I know everything that one must know to do this job, and more. I spent years reading the classical and modern economists purely for the purpose of preparing myself for this job. I also read everything for a firm grounding in defense issues. I read 'Foreign Policy' magazine for years; 'Jane's Intelligence', and various other trade journals. I wrote about defense issues for years and became a regular columnist for a major Taiwanese newspaper on defense issues. I would enter the Congress better prepared for work on defense and economic issues than most members. And yet after ten years of intense preparation I find myself looking for a way out. Can I adequately explain the preparation that went into this? I cribbed my economics reading lists from MIT's economics classes, which were available online with lectures and homework assignments. I wrote the papers and did the reading, even without actually being there or enrolled in the classes. I nudged myself into the world of butting and rebutting foreign policy and defense experts by writing about Taiwanese defense acquisition issues, and I held my own. As time went by, I advised great men. Congressmen and Senators. I wrote 'white papers' about what American policy in Iraq ought to be. My ideas became proposals that mattered. I saw my proposals adopted by serious candidates for President. The language manipulation that I formulated became part of everyday discourse. It all felt very important. And then in the wake of all of that I found other things to do. I built a career as a hunting guide and teacher. I became an icon of the local food movement. I received fan mail from around the world. Total strangers began to write to me about how things I said had changed their lives. And now here I am. The wages of my old life have come to pay up. The inmostlight. They want me as their nominee for Congress, above all of the hundreds of thousands of other people in this district, they want me. And now, after all of the work and all of the preparation I am not sure that this is quite what I want any longer. What I really want is simply to stop being alone. And how did I win this crown of provisional laurels? By fighting tooth and nail. By kicking and punching my way forward through the party system. By proving my mettle through one campaign after another, writing speeches and campaign slogans and pitching media strategies. It was a bitter fight. If I choose to accept this and to take the mantle I will find myself staffed with people who also think that they have fought their way through this system. They can think what they like. I don't give a fuck. I earned my wings a long time ago, fighting for gay rights and an end to the Iraq war when nobody gave a shit. I did what I did and I am what I am. And lets not forget what I am: a desperate and coldblooded killer. I have suffered through poverty and physical and emotional suffering far beyond what any civilized American should ever have to face. I have literally killed to survive. I have fought for week after week in the freezing cold just to keep a house warm enough through the night so that my children could live a little longer. 1:09 a.m. - 2011-06-27 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
||||||
|
||||||