JeremiahTolbert.com: SF Writer Web Designer Photographer

Why So Silent?

Filed Under: My Writing, Podcast, SF Business, personal

You may have noticed that I don’t blog much anymore except to share the occasional picture or pile of links.  When I do blog, it’s typically a very short entry about some other project I’ve done.  If you look back at my old blog, you’ll find a very different blogger.  What changed?

When I built this site, I built it with the intention of being a professional.  I was going to conduct myself in the most professional way possible, trying not to ever complain, and intending for my entries to be something of substance, rather than fluff.  The truth is that there are a million interesting bloggers out there.  I got tired of just adding to the noise with my inane babbling.  I decided that I wouldn’t say anything if I didn’t feel that it was something truly interesting.

I’ve done this before in my fiction writing too.  I resolved to only write the best things I could. In both situations, the real result has been that I don’t write much of anything at all.

There are two ways I could choose to look at this.  One is that I simply don’t have anything profound or interesting to say.  I imagine a few of my friends would agree to this if pressed on it.  The other way is that when you put pressure on yourself to only do great things, then you stifle yourself so much that you don’t do anything at all.  Rather than attempting to do the best you can, you set the expectation of doing better than you can, which doesn’t just happen.  You do better than you usually can by doing lots and lots and sometimes having a breakthrough.

I’m going through a rather early mid-life crisis right now.  Probably an accurately mid-life given the average lifespan of men in my family.  I’ve been laid off from two jobs in the last year.  The last one was a job I thought I could do for a very long time.  It gave me precisely the freedoms I wanted from an employer, and while the stress was at times rather high, I didn’t feel trapped in the position, which was a welcome change after some of the jobs I’ve worked.

I’ve toyed with trying to go freelance writer/designer/photographer, given that my wife provides our insurance now.  Again, I have to set these goals aside because it falls upon me to provide our insurance benefits so that Sarah can go to school full time to receive her teaching degree.  This will provide her with great benefits and a fulfilling career.  I’m in full support of it.  It just means that ultimately, I _have_ to get another job. Which I have been looking for, of course, but the pressure wasn’t on then like it is now.

The health system in this country is primarily responsible for killing my entrepreneurial spirit.  If you go ANY period of time without health insurance in the U.S., all of your medical conditions become labeled “prexisting” which means that when you DO get health insurance, they won’t cover anything they think you were sick from before you got coverage.  And even if you have insurance, and apply for private insurance, you get turned down.  Why?  Because you have prexisting conditions and they would actually have to spend money on your health. The only people who qualify for medical coverage are those who are so healthy they don’t need it.

No middle class American can afford basic medical necessities like prescriptions without health insurance.  I have to take a couple of medications every day.  For instance, I take an acid reflux medication.  Without it, I become rather violently ill.  Imagine throwing up in you mouth.  Now imagine doing that all day long, for your entire life.  That’s my acid reflux.  There’s no cure.  All I can do is take little pills the rest of my life so my stomach acids don’t boil over and give me throat cancer.

Me and the stomach don’t get along very well thanks to this.

With insurance, these pills cost me $20 a month.  Reasonable.  It probably costs the manufacturer 25 cents to make a month’s worth.  However, should I go without health insurance, that same prescription becomes around $300 a month.

I take a generic, which shall remain nameless.  It’s $10 a month on a health insurance plan.  Without insurance, it’s $150 a month.

To put this in perspective, I lived in the ground floor of a small house with two very cramped bedrooms and a living room which can barely take a couch and a TV at the same time.  My rent is $1000 a month.  If I were to not have health insurance, two of my prescriptions would be equal to nearly half my rent.

And that’s not even taking consideration of Sarah’s medications for asthma.

Even without the risk of catastrophic health issues that could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to be treated, just basic health maintenance stuff, the stuff that makes me not vomit blood all day and makes sure that Sarah can breathe would put us on the street.  We’re two intelligent, college educated adults, and we’d be forced to choose between paying the rent and paying for our medications.  And because I don’t like the taste of stomach acid, I would probably choose homelessness.

Good quality of health should be a fundamental right.  I would gladly pay more in taxes if they burned our medical system to the ground and replaced it with one that didn’t have outrageous rules of prexisting conditions.  I’ll PAY for insurance.  Do you hear me, you conservative libertarian assholes?   But the system is flawed, and it’s keeping me from building amazing things.  Countless others are chained to jobs they hate, filled to the brim with ideas for ways to change the world, businesses to launch, but they can’t leave their employer for fear of  tripping and breaking a toe and receiving a $5000 emergency room bill.

Our system cripples us financially.  It’s either be crippled physically or give up everything to pay the bills.

If you don’t believe in universal healthcare, if you think all people don’t deserve it, then fuck you.  Fuck you, fuck you, FUCK YOU.  I hope you lose your job and then have a health problem and your COBRA insurance is more than half your unemployment payments so you can’t afford it.  I hope your child develops a cough late at night that won’t go away, and you lie awake in your bed listening to it, doing the math over and over again about how you can pay for a doctor’s visit and still feed the family.  FUCK YOU.  You have no humanity and I hope you contract leprosy.

So to answer the title in my post above?  Why so silent?  Because I’m so angry, when I start to write, this is what comes out.  I’m so angry with the world right now, all I want to do is scream with rage at everyone around me.  Capitalism has failed us and the country is crumbling all around us and some asshole on TV is whipping up fury directed at people who got raped by unethical bankers who might get some help so they don’t have to live in a fucking cardboard box.  That man is a populist piece of shit.  Many of us are angry right now, so angry that I worry about what happens when someone comes along and finds a way to tap into that anger for power.  Power derived from the anger of the people is too dangerous for even good men and women to wield.  It backfires every time.  It ends with streets slick with blood and heads in baskets.  With people lined up with gun barrels to the backs of their skulls.   I don’t want that in my future.

I just want to set out on my own and innovate and create a business without having the taste of stomach acid in my mouth from dawn to dusk.  That’s all I want.

I’m done being “professional” here.  I’ll create a new professional persona elsewhere.   Because if I don’t find an outlet for my frustration, I will burn up like a microwaved potato in tin foil.  I’m not going to be quiet anymore.  If that keeps you from hiring me for a job, then I didn’t want to work for you anyway.

The Angry Bastard is back.

TAGS: anger, blogging, economics, health care, the collapse

POSTED: 9:48 am Sat February 21 2009 |