Come Get Me

Do I win you over with a delusion? a lie? or...

do I get you with the truth?

Come Get Me

Do you ever wonder what wins you over? I mean... do you remember the last time you were won over by, say, logic...?

We're both single. gainfully employed and in agreeable health. why not take a leap of faith on the basis of, oh, cognitive evaluation? Why not save on essential expenses we would share. to live a little better than we could otherwise materially afford?

All the evidence advises this choice as the one... that's smart. Right?

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I mean... do you remember the last time you were won over by, say, reason...?

A house is an investment. in our wealth, future, and security. so. let's move on and move in after appraising data points and statistical trends! Buying a home can be emotionally fraught but data is, well, unimpeachable ground. 

A house can be fixed up, over, and sideways but data... cannot be fixed. Sure.

*

I mean... do you remember the last time you were won over by, say, common sense...?

The future is coming for us and relying on handouts as octogenarians isn't a plan for a comfortable long goodbye. The writing on the wall says: save aggressively and live frugally until our time's up, as of yesterday.

It is our responsibility to afford... our old age. No?

* 

Needless to say, that is not exactly the way we are... is it? I mean... we talk about logic and reason and common sense but we don't live by words that strip us of our messiness.

Without apology. we tell ourselves stories. about our cogency. our absence of bias or malice. and our rigorous contemplation of all the facts.

As if every decision. from the sounds that alert us to wake to the tools that purge us of waste. is as considered as rendering verdicts of utmost stakes.

Even as what defines our decisions. momentous and mundane. are flaws. emotions. and human.

*

Which brings me back to: do you ever wonder what wins you over? Because every one of us. living with ourselves and each other. have been won over. by

something.

When has it ever been a decision. to reject beliefs untethered by reality? because common sense won. or to ignore how we feel? because cold rationality won. or to accept frailty and fallibility? because it would be illogical not to.

After all... that is not the story we tell ourselves. about: why we choose each other. why we strive for places to call ours. why we live to never say goodbye.   

*

In the end: it's not the truth that owns us

because it's not the truth we live with.

Epilogue

We belong to what gets us. You see,

a delusion. a lie. gets us. the way the truth can't. fictions. myths. win us over. the way the truth won't. because what we live with is our choices. 

not logic. or reason. or common sense. because our decisions. momentous and mundane. are flawed. emotional. and human.

*

Still, the truth keeps being true. Though it 'wins over' no one. Though it 'gets' no one. Because 'getting' and 'winning' are neither the means nor the ends. Instead:

'being true' is the means and the ends and. all. that's. real. 

Which is to say in other words: 

if 'owning' you is, say, the why of delusions, lies,

do you ever wonder what the why of the truth is?

M

Free Milk

People who don't pay for... what they benefit from... rarely give much thought to the actual price of 'free milk'.

Free Milk

Geez there's a lot of 'free milk'...

I.

The first... is breast milk. 

I wager that that is not where your mind travelled from 'free milk', but here we are. Nourishment for every animal in the order Mammalia. A condition of living required of mammals born. Because life is more than 'the moment' of conception and 'the moment' of birth. Life is

what is necessary for living.

II.

The second... is the proverbial 'cow'.

The reducing of a relationship or 'situationship' to a corporeal course without the ostensibly limiting boundaries of defined conditions of union and disunion. As if a hypothetical cow's milk 'given freely' as is oft sawed, simultaneously diminishes such milk's preciousness and

disdains such cow's self-determination.

III.

The third... is a portion of a 'free school lunch'.

For expressly sustaining persons, a 'free milk' is an element of a 'free lunch'. Not because it is essential; mammalian milk is not essential beyond infancy. But rather because supplying students based on income eligibility

'free milk' for a payday is how livings are made.

IV.

The fourth... is the fruit of 'milking'.

Which is not a thing, though, right? Because milkers being entitled to the proceeds of milking, is inconceivable. No milker is owed

'free milk' from nursing breasts or 'free milk' from mythical cows or 'free milk' from 'free school lunches';

because the take from milking should be paid for. Like lunches that aren't free.

V.

'Free milk' makes the world a little better and 'free milk' makes the world a little worse. Free milk is how mammals sustain their young through early dependency, after all.

But milking points for rewards. Milking opportunities for gain. Milking fear for power. Milking people because the juice is worth the squeeze. This, here, isn't

free. Like rides that aren't free.

More

There's so much to say about free milk, the 'fruit' of milking. For some of you: it's something you cannot now unsee, because this, here, is making the world go 'round.

*

It's adding fee upon fee to purchase after purchase. Not for the sake of receipt transparency. But for a ruse of justification. As if greed isn't baked into a nickel here and a dime there and a dollar passed on to foot the bill of 'the costs of doing business'.  

It's employer after employer expecting more and more of employees. Not to advance decency. But for a bottom line that reads like an excuse to retain masochists: 'do more with less'. As if no condition of employment cannot be borne by a stalwart soldier.

It's hats in hands outstretched from yesterday to tomorrow for charitable gifts upon gifts. Not to save the whales or cure myalgic encephalomyelitis or solve homelessness. But for a pretense of philanthropy. As if backpacks for backpack drives and raffles for prize drawings and toys for toy drives are acts of humanitarian selflessness.

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It's why cynicism feels 'reasonable'. It's why nihilism feels 'sensible'. It's why milking is a narcissist's squeeze of choice. Because the juice is

'free milk'.

M

*

Annotation

When you do not pay for what you benefit from, how many beats are you likely to take to calculate the real cost of what's 'free'? 

From milk to power... I wager that the number of beats is none.

*

(i) The nearsightedness of beliefs on 'entitlements' is that few people who benefit from 'free gifts' for example, acknowledge

that their sense of entitlement is not dissimilar to the sense of entitlement of demanders of 'free lunches' and 'free rides'.

(ii) As to what is 'said' about 'cows' and their 'free milk',

while many 'cows' are advised to protect the pricelessness of their 'milk', many recipients of 'milk gifts' are advised to take what's 'given' without self-recrimination. Why pay

for what can be had for 'free', no? As if 'milk taking' is unobjectionable but 'milk giving' is shameless.

(iii)  It's one thing to insist on 'no free lunch' for anybody. It's another to insist on eligibility criteria and policy restrictions

to deny nourishing students. Else a sense of entitlement to a 'free lunch' be encouraged rather than quelled, of course.

(iv, v) Speaking of double standards (see (ii) above), though some material gains amassed through some criminal enterprising may be recoverable,

the take from milking fear for example, is unlikely to be seized or forfeited. Because being anything but human is obviously impossible and... it's only human to squeeze for juice

and power.

(vi) 'fee upon fee to purchase after purchase', 'employer after employer expecting more and more of employees', and 'hats in hands outstretched from yesterday to tomorrow for charitable gifts upon gifts' are illustrative of milking and by no means exhaustive.

Needless to say, the world is a little better when milk is 'given freely' per self-determined will... but such take from milking is not 'free'.

(vii) To be sure, it is not surprising that main character energy and narcissism are having a moment. Nor is it surprising that cynicism and nihilism are having a moment

Nevertheless, what feels 'reasonable' and what feels 'sensible' does not dictate what is reasonable and what is sensible. So long as you cannot now unsee this, here -

a ruse of justification will never pass for receipt transparency; an excuse will never pass for decency; and a pretense of philanthropy will never pass for saving the world.

etc.

M