Greek Sailor

So imagine you are a young Greek man. You have been working on your fathers farm your whole life. Sowing seeds, tilling the field under the hot Mediterranean sun.

You don’t love your life, but it’s familiar. Then on your eighteenth birthday you take your horse into town and register to be conscripted. The officer in charge shows you to your assignment.

The bustling dock is a hectic place compared to your quaint mountain home. The large ship in front of you has a singular cloth mast. It whips slowly in the mild breeze coming of the ocean.

The captain introduces you to the other two hundred sailors, and shows you your small bunk. You and the other young men gather on the deck near the mast. The captain announced the first sortie. Pirate hunting off the cost of Crete.

You are woken by a bunk-mate. It is still dark and the air is cold. You climb the ladder to the upper deck. The other sailors file into thier benches and grab their oars.

At the head of the ship sits the captain facing the galley, and to his right is the drummer who sets the pace. He strikes the cow skin head. The rhythm is slow at first.

As we leave the calm waters of the harbor, the drummer increases the pace. The waves swell and spray over the planks. My hair is moist and I can taste the sea on my lips.

I escape the labor by memory of my life on land. I remember working with my horses and ploughing the fields. I imagine the golden wheat between my fingers, and the soft fur of my horse. The glimmer of the sun off the plough.

A large wave smashes the bow and wakes me from my day dream. Those days of farming were hard but did not tear and stretch my muscles like rowing.

I begin to tire. Only a few hours in and I cannot fathom a life of toil on the sea. I glance over to my right. My comrade looks tired as I do. But then I watch his oar.

His arms do not tremble when the oar hits the water. He does not heave his body forward when he lifts to recover. His breath is not exasperated like mine. He is holding back.

He is not putting his entire body into this effort. His mind and soul are somewhere else. I will have to makeup his slack, and that boils my heart. We have hundreds of miles left in this journey, and I will be carrying his dead weight.

It would be better to throw him into the sea and save the rest of us his weight. I could also eat his ration. His scrawny frame was not made for the navy.

If that captured your attention, good. If not, let me know. But the point is humanity, society, or nation is like a boat. We are all rowers.

If one of us slacks off, we all suffer. This is why you have contempt for the homeless. You hate them because they are free. They are not lifting the heavy load of work and family. Their struggle is not your struggle.

I got to feeling like this while overhearing a couple bullshit their older parents. They were droning on about how they were living it up and life was great. Meanwhile the parents were struggling to make money or just exist.

And the grand-parents were so wrapped up in loving the child, and the parents were monotone and pandering. I just hate when people use emotional connection to take advantage of others in any way.

Lastly I know society supports parents no matter if they have a job or not. And that is outrageous. It is rewarding reckless behavior and not diligence. I should have had a kid so me and my wife could collect a welfare check.

 

 

 

Multi-Level Bulsh!tting

I really hate multilevel marketing. Not because I was suckered into it. But the predatory nature of the friendships that are required for it to operate.

So lets talk about the pitch. MLMs are sold as a way to get residual income. You sell 500 contracts and you get a percentage of the revenue. So in theory, if you quit tomorrow, you would still get a check for years.

First off they rig the system to prevent that. And 2nd that is essentially just earning interest on money you have saved up. Just get a fcking job, and save your money!

The way they rig the system is you cant just sell 500 contracts and get a percentage of that. You also have to have 5 people directly under you all selling 500 contracts in order for you to qualify for that 1% commission.

This is how they cripple your chances of being independent, and force you to rope others into the system. The signup fee is about $400. I would argue this is how the MLM makes most of its money. Really pathetic.

Also their products are sh!t. I mean if you  have a good product it sells itself. If you product is mediocre you have to get people to push it on others.

And we come to the most despicable part of the MLM. You are always targets for someone craftier than you. I am sitting next to a MLM group and let me explain the dynamics of these people.

The leader is a very attractive middle aged woman. The three other new members are older single women. And its not just the beauty and age power dynamic. These older women are telling the leader about their day and talking to her as if they are friends. Or she is a shoulder to cry on.

I feel their pain. They need friends, not a new endeavor to throw money at.  And now this younger woman is bragging about how her and her HUSBAND had all this fun at the national sales conference. And the others are lapping it up. They are thinking “I cant wait to sell 500 units so i can pay another $500 for the pleasure of hearing the CEO blather on about how successful our company is.

I hate people who use social power to take advantage of others. I wish I could break up the meeting and tell them to go back to the mainland, live with your son. Take care of your siblings. Don’t get sucked into this word of false accomplishment. These people are leeches!

Whew… Sorry for the stream of consciousness writing style.