Sunday, October 12, 2003

I hope I never quite get used to clients paying invoices. By the time we bill, the work we've done is mostly long past, and by the time we receive payment, the invoice is out of my memory. So it seems like Christmas, even though, especially with the Zoo project, a true measure would show our work to date as money losers, were we actually paying ourselves market salaries. But that's starting a business, and starting it without any book debt, or booked investors - just sweat and spilled coffee for me, and undersold stock for Jans. 8:04:12 PM

I was thinking tonight about how ironic that I treasure all the books I've read, when so many were part of getting through something, finishing a class, getting the semester over, getting the degree at the time. I think I'm going to encourage my children to take some time off between high school and college - if indeed they go to college at all. I so wish I could go back and savor the opportunities I had back then, interacting with brilliant professors for hours and hours each week. I just didn't seep myself, and I think I understand why David Edwards recommended I take a year off from school, and, finally, his statement that I hit a lot of singles, but no homeruns - that I just did what it took to get by, without really slamming knowledge home the way I was capable. I/m trying to savor this new found revelation, rather than regret it, but I so want to take time off in my life to read and savor now, when that's what my entire four full-ride years should have been, rather than a waystation to something else somehow more important than that. I also realized today how much consumerism is like a drug. I feel some sense of control when I purchase a product, even if it's as simple as cup of coffee and a scone. And my self worth and security is tied, to some degree, to being able to be part of the consumer class - especially growing up with nothing. The problem is less the purchasing, were it just an exchange, but the biochemical reaction, the small thrill I feel at the exchange itself, rather than the enjoyment of the product - like some Keynesian esteem boost - the product could be anything. They generally fall within some social mileu I use to define my consumptive patterns, but they could be anything. RC Cola. NASCAR shirts. Rams tickets. A BMW. It doesn't really matter what. Just that I buy, keep from getting lost in the supermarket. Terry's mom called to invite me to a Cornell Alumni club meeting in St. Louis on Tuesday the 21st - it's about entrepreneurism and will be a bunch of venture capitalists. As much as I've been thinking of ramping this business endeavor up to the next level, this may be a good start to see how serious I am about exploring that possibility. 1:35:43 AM