Yifei's Rough Drafts

a collection of ideas — some good, some bad

On Politics (and Getting What You Want)

If you wanted to make $1000, you could collect and recycle aluminum cans. $0.05 a pop. Several shopping carts a day. It would add up in the long run.

But you wouldn’t.

You’re not particularly excited by the prospect of dumpster diving. It’d be vastly more interesting to make money some other way.

***

If you wanted better coffee at your neighborhood Starbucks, you could petition the company to carry your favorite roast. With enough tenacity, you just might succeed.

But you wouldn’t.

You don’t care enough about the problem to dedicate months of your life to it. It’d be vastly easier to find a cafe with better coffee.

***

If your goal is to change the laws and policies that govern your world, you could educate yourself on the issues and campaign/protest for your viewpoint. With enough tenacity and patience, you just might succeed.

The question is, would you?

 

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Metaphor

The boy’s hands bleed
Into the splintered wooden oars
Attached to the waterlogged raft
On which his brothers and sisters sleep
As he rows through the darkness
Over rough and uncharted waters
Watching the waves on the horizon

Threaten to wash away everything and everyone he’s fought dearly to protect.

“Self-discipline is not self-suppression. Suppression is when you resist and fight against your desires, keeping them as buried and unexpressed as possible. Self-discipline is when your highest desires rule your lesser desires.”

– David Deida, The Way of the Superior Man

The Golden Ticket

I tell you the difference between me and them
They tryin’ to get they ones, I’m tryin’ to get them M’s
One million, two million, three million, four
In just five years, forty million more

A deep psychological riff separates you from the homeless bum on the street. You might think it obvious that any able person can work a job and make a living. If the bum believed that, would he be a bum for very long?

The same psychological distance separates the middle class from the deca-millionaires and billionaires. In their world, owning and commanding immense resources is no big deal. They have a clearer mental map of how money is made, and more importantly, they know from experience that it’s possible.

If you had the mindset of the wealthy elite, would you be middle class for very long?