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RE: 55 - The Banning of Anonymous Cryptocurrencies
Well, I reckoned 10 was enough, but demonstrated in my own childhood, as well as observed at every hand, that not all offspring work out as intended. I figured when I got old and toothless taxing my kids 10% each of their income would deliver me 100% of their average income, which was likely to be more than I ever earned during my own productive life. So, I better have a couple extra, because some of them were sure to turn out to be drug addicts I'd have to support until they were 26 (that didn't happen because they had to work if they wanted, say, heat, splitting firewood living with me. They all had heard of wonders like hot and cold indoor plumbing from their friends and jumped ship as soon as they were legally competent).
I have had to learn everything the hard way. I thought having kids would be about tossing the ball back and forth in the back yard, going fishing together, answering their questions about girls, and etc. I hadn't read the fine print in the Daddy contract. What really happens is that fathers have to crush their kids' hopes and dreams (No, you can't grab the red hot stove. No, you can't jump my truck with a motorcycle. No you can't go on tour with your band at fourteen, etc.) until they're old enough to escape. Turns out none of them are going to replace Social Security for the old asshole they finally managed to get away from, so I'm going to die with a hammer in my hand, preferably falling off a ladder onto my head without extended suffering.
I attended public school which created a terrible aversion to institutions and formal education I had to overcome. My kids were homeschooled and were earning wages on construction jobs by the age of 10. Because extracurricular programs don't require participants to be public school students, my kids were Vice President of everything and champions of debate, band(s), sports teams, and so on. My eldest was Captain of the football team (comprised of kids from several small towns) and took them to the State competition for the championship for the first time in 47 years. His younger brother was in a metal band that would get ~1M downloads of their songs and had groupies when he was 14. His younger brother was reading at 2. They were black belt competence in Tae Kwon Do (I didn't get them the actual belt because it is better to keep such martial expertise on the down low) and all of them were >6"taller than me after they went through puberty, better looking, and a lot smarter. I think kids got awards for breathing successfully in public schools, while I showed my kids that if they started buying $1k/month of shares (of companies like Coca Cola that sell them directly, instead of paying brokerage fees) when they were 15, they'd have >$3M by the time they were in their late 20's and they could live off dividends for the rest of their lives. I let them build their own computers so I could kick their asses at Duke Nukem on our home network, and buy 4x4's they could drive around the 'roads' I punched through the forest on our compound innawoods, but they had to repair them when they crashed (at <10 miles an hour, because the roads were so shitty). I taught them biology by having them come along with me to take genetic samples and track the data at hatcheries when I was working as a marine biologist for a state agency. They knew the best things in life were theirs to create and they themselves were the only thing between them and whatever they wanted.
Headhunters from elite Ivy League schools were offering them full ride scholarships, and paid corporate positions in the fields of their choice by their majority. I was still living on a boat and logging 6 days a week at 18. How the hell could I compete with them?
I found this man's channel and it sorta reminded me of you...in fact i found his DON'T SMOKE ANYTHING video and after watching the vid i just smoked some more.
I like his videos. It hurts me that i can never fully trust good people like this, if they've taken the jabs, even a placebo. Just the action of doing so alone doesn't sit well with me.
Anyway, thanks for sharing your thoughts regarding parenthood.
I had decided from a very early age that i did not want a family. Being constantly surrounded by artificial family-environments allowed me to see how cheap it all is. I am not saying that starting a family is a shallow endeavour nor cheap, but i was a man who was never a boy even at a young age, and i grew up psychologically and spiritually too soon.
This is just a reflection of my personal observations, with it's own bias and selective cognitive dissonance. I recognise it. I don't want to change it.
I have been contemplating Fatherhood and what it must have been like for my Dad, in his early-mid 20s, coming to England in the mid 80s with my Mother, and with two hands each and a dream in the heart they looked to England for freedom, only to be crushed by the realities of life, which they took in stride and enthusiasm. Over the course of the next decade, three children were downloaded into the world from the Mother's womb (me being the third...my Mother didn't know my Father had another woman, our half family until i was 7/8) and my Father became very very angry with life.
He would always say to me "Son I gave you the best clothes, the best food, whilst i and your mother starved and worked 16 hours at work, every day to feed you lot. Son you are a Horse, I am an Ox. Do you know the old adage?" (In Hong Kong we have a proverb..."Ox tils the land whilst the Horse enjoys the grain; Father makes money, the Son enjoys the fame!")
My Father worked at the Wok station managing 3-6 heavy big woks at the same time being the main cook/chef at Takeaways and Restaurants...paid extremely low wages, sleeping with my Mother on the takeaway counters or restaurant toilet floors.
I oftentimes think, or try to put myself inside my Father shoes...well the 35 year old version of him and the 34th, 33rd, etc etc. No matter what they did to me, i still admire my Parents greatly for their strength and...from them i realized ugly things of this world can become beautiful things...twisted love....can still become or attain a semblance of...love.
It brings tears to my eyes often when thinking of my Parents (i speak of them as if they're dead), we've come to a point of utter no return, because i say so. In choosing to be a man i have had to destroy my fetters, that to my Parents were boundaries erected out of love and protection against the white man's world.
If only it were some other way...those words we could never say. The ache in my heartbeat quivers, and the ventricular septal defect scar hums often as i work, i feel the 8 inch scar on my chest often, this ugly, ugly thing that alludes to the unhealed hole in my physical heart-muscle. It aches because in me resides my Father's anger against the world...anger for needing to give up his personal dreams for 7 fuckwits, two women and three labradors. Thats a lot of gobs to feed! And heads to smack!
I like the 10% taxation idea...it's actually a very oriental thing...well modern Hong Kong thinking...have kids, good investment, shine brightly on the clan name, good reputation, a pillar of society, respected, people bow down to ya, free meals at HK cafes etc etc.
I often watch other family's in my pipe-smoking moments. Either leant against a railing at a park, or just outside the basketball court, or what not. It confounds me why these people are not fighting with each other. I guess i have not believed in love since 2003.
Hearing your thoughts regarding your family, your sons and my brief glimpse into what happened between you lot, how you raised your children and what you instilled in them, and the absolute fuckery of not being able to tax the shit out of them speaks deeply to my HK haggling side...don't get me started i can haggle too lol. Oh the money would have been GOOD man trust me.
Alas, these are good memories to have. I prefer to remember me Mother and Father, in my current knowledge, of them actually being able to sit at a table...without my Mother pissing herself wondering when the next rice bowl will fly in her direction...or when my Father would suddenly grab her by the neck and....you know...
...that my Father has found love and peace in the Covid-Era. Doesn't matter if they had to throw me under the bus to get there, i just want them to apologise to my eldest sister and my middle sister, and my 2nd Mother. She has been alone for 20 years, raising my elder half-brother (who is a Snake Zodiac, very sharp, very handsome, very good with money, very good with women, he works at JP Morgan) and younger half-brother (he lived in Dubai for a year selling Wine....wtf bro how you not gonna hook jin up with this gig i can sell more than wine to these Dubyebye people bro have you seen people shit gold, i can make that happen trust me).
I hope you can find some love someday my elder-friend.
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