On hypocrisy, goals and imaginary lovers

Because I'm forced by circumstance to live in this skin, no one is more aware of its imperfections and contradictions than I.

I write cheery little bits and pieces about refusing to be afraid and smiling if you love freedom - but then I go off the deep end and write frightening little rants about how we're descending into a police state. Strike that, yer honor, make that frightening little rants about how we have descended into a police state. It is hard to refuse to be afraid, when the person encouraging you to do so seems discouraged.

I write cheery little condemnations about wage slavery and the hazards of big bureaucracies, but I take timid little steps toward freedom from the wage managers while toiling away in what might be described as one of the larger bureaucracies the private sector has to offer.

You may not be thinkin' it, but I sure am: Why should you listen to that hypocrite Richardson? He hasn't even delivered on his promise to entertain you with a book that was due last Sept. 1!

I write cheery little essays intended to help you cope, and then I divert to self-centered little whines about how I don't always cope so well.

What's a mother to do?

Well, lesson No. 1 is that your freedom and your happiness are up to you, because even the most optimistic encouraging souls are going to let you down from time to time. Mine such nuggets as you can from my essays and try to ignore my pratfalls. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day, and while I have my ups and downs I do aspire to be more reliable than a stopped clock (although now that I mention it, a slow clock is right less frequently than a stopped clock, because time catches up - oh please, B.W., you're off on a tangent again!).

And I'm in the process of learning lesson No. 2 - if you aspire to get out of wage slavery, you must treat your self-imposed deadlines seriously. The reason Sept. 1 got away from me is that I didn't treat it as a "real" deadline. At the wage slave job, certain tasks have to be done by a certain time, and I reached my lofty place in the pecking order by being good at meeting those deadlines. But I didn't take my personal deadline as seriously as I take my master's deadlines. So, dear reader - and self, I hope you're paying attention here - one of the secrets of emerging from wage slavery is to set a deadline and take it seriously. "One of these days I'd better finish the novel" doesn't cut it.

There! I launched into a self-flaggelating moan and emerged with the things you can learn by my bad example. I hope you've picked up some valuable tips from this, class - even if it's "boy, I'm never going to be that whiny when I start my Web site ..."