Praxeology

I have been plagued of late with fears over what sort of family I' ll be leaving behind should I eventually succumb to my various conditions. What sort of a collection of humans will I be thrusting upon the world, will they be able to look after themselves or become a burden to society at large? Conditions here at home do not paint an attractive picture.

I have done my best, as did my parents with my sister and me, to provide a good example, hoping, of course, that my family would follow suit and do things as I would have done. That has been far from the case. More often than not, rather than adapting a practice of "do as I do," they have taken a position more akin to "oh--Dad will take care of it for us." It seems that the more example I provide, the less likely they are, in fact, to exhibit similar behavior.

In the past six weeks, I have taken on additional and extended shifts at work, not only to help out my understaffed store, but also to try and dig us out of the tomb of debt in which we seem to be interred from basic life expenses, i.e. rent, utilities, food, etc. I now work on average fifty-three to fifty-five hours per week, anywhere from one to three shifts of which can be eleven-hour shifts or longer. I've given up some so-called luxuries (so called because many others would consider them necessities), made some adaptations to our basic supply purchases to accommodate family wants and needs and my medical conditions, and done without in a great many areas, occasionally in areas wherein I truly cannot do without, yet make due with substandard substitutions. We're surviving rather than thriving.

The level of sacrifice and contribution from the rest of the household has been far from equal, and less than encouraging.

I've lost track of how many times I've walked home following an extremely long shifting, looking forward to getting out of my uniform, only to keep it on so that I don't soil my own clothes doing the three or four days worth pof dishes that were left for me. (Incidentally, for those who may truly be unaware, the need to use vessels and utensils for purposes other than those intended by their design is a certain sign that you need to clean something--like boiling water kn a frying pan or eating cereal out of a wet measuring cup.) I can't relate how many times I've washed the same load of children's clothes because) it was easier for them to dump the basket upon the floor to select their daily attire rather than put everything in their drawers.

The worst culprit is a tie between the morbidly obese family 'friend's that lives with us and my oldest son. She contributes virtually no effort to household upkeep, pays us only $300 each month towards the nearly $1700 in monthly household expenses, puts her own prescription needs above everyone else's, and never hesitates to consume food from her private stash kn front of my children when our communal food stores run out. And, for the sake of clarity, her morbid obesity i wholly the product of lifestyle choice, a choice she clearly imagines I should subsidize. He, meanwhile, has dropped out of school in spite of all my efforts and encouragement, managed to get fired from his part-time job for mouthing off to his supervisor, and complains when any small chore request pulls him from his ten daily hours of Xbox Live, which I'm also funding. He's well on his way to developing a career as a full-time bum, without the upward mobility of a hobo due to the (apparently) overwhelming effort of getting off his ass. These two may well be the death of me, long before my kidneys decide to call it quits. I fear things will degenerate to a point at which either they have to leave the household, or I will.

I once sought advice from various sources, such as counselling circles, chat groups, and parenting messaging boards. There was never any advice to be had. Ample blame to lay at my feet, complete inability to justify or explain that blame, but no advice, no hint of direction towards solution or resolution. I find myself thinking that, in order to render them all self sufficient and prevent another family of societal leeches becoming everyone else's burden, I may have to resort to some form of 'tough love' and leave then to their own devices, lest this be my legacy.

The Trouble With Centrism

I'm point in life when I thought certain things would be solidly decided.

I thought I'd be in the career in which I would remain for the rest of my life; I certainly don't think that any longer. Far from it. I can think of nothing more horrible or frightening than to last out my days in retail or customer service. I thought I'd be settled in the town I'd live in for the rest of my life, even in the neighborhood in that town; if the past several years are any indicator, I've got a few more moves ahead, especially as I change occupations to stay ahead of austerity and poverty. I thought I'd be a homeowner; that's not even a priority any longer. But I think what still surprises me most is that certain key core values, even personality traits are still in flux.

I find myself in the midst of a personal ideological conflict regarding my own political direction. When I was much younger, I most closely aligned with fascism, largely due to a gross misinterpretation of ethnic pride. That position caused me a great deal of trouble when I attended university when I was confronted by a large populace that was both extremely liberal and diametrically opposed to my way of thinking. Opposed, but just as fervent in it's views. While this opposition helped me to see the errors in my way of thinking, it also served to illustrate the errors in their ways. Knowing you're wrong is one thing, but engaging in blind apologetics does NOT correct the situation; it exacerbates it. It is perhaps this crash of extremes that caused me to redefine my views in equally extreme terms and led me to identify with the extreme left-wing of the political spectrum and sympathize with Marxism. I've backed off to pro-socialism, especially since becoming a Buddhist and avoiding violence. Now, however, I'm far less than certain where my loyalties lie.

We are, as I write this, in the middle of a federal government shutdown caused by Tea Party opposition to the Affordable Care Act. I don't pretend to understand the opposition, beyond that opposition being an expression of total bourgeois selfishness. It's not enough that the "haves" have what they have---the "have nots" must remain have nots with no hope of improving their situation, including health. It's not enough that so few have so much more than enough; the remaining few have to have nothing at all or those at the top are incapable of enjoying any intrinsic worth of their benefits. At the same time, I grow increasingly tired of constantly working so hard while others who seem to not work at all benefit from my efforts. My family has tries several times in the past to obtain assistance in the form of both food benefits and utility assistance; we haven't qualified for utility assistance in nearly a decade based on our level of income, and while we could receive some food benefits, the laughably low level of assistance for which we qualify does not justify the routine intrusive certification procedure and questionnaire. Yet we have first- hand knowledge of others who work far less and receive far more, and to an extent such that they profit more from benefits than we do from work, and from the very fruits of our laborious, no less.

The end result is that I'm wholly uncertain "what" that makes me. Depressingly, I find it far easier to define myself in negative terms, i.e. as what I am not rather than as what I am. I know I am not a capitalist; I can't support a system that, more often than not, punishes hard work and rewards conniving and exploitation disguised as hard work. But, I'm no longer certain I'm a socialist, especially if being a socialist implies that I must blindly support the welfare state. I believe the current minimum wage is criminally low, and yet I've experienced workers whose work ethic don't justify remuneration even that high. And I have a real problem supporting minimum wage increase without the guarantee that my own wage would increase by an equal rate, regardless of how selfish that reveals me to be.

I suppose that, for the time being, I'm a centrist, but I truly miss belonging to something rather than opposing everything.