Rand Paul stopped by the Late Show with David Letterman on the 24th of February to promote some book that only like 10 people will actually read. During the interview, Dave took his usual dumb stance as interviewer in order to fish out positions from his guest. In this case it was the Tea Party and Republican stance on public funding of institutions and how to handle dis-functioning systems. While the interview has now ‘a-ha’ moment that can be pointed to, what you see in the interview is a public official exposing himself to his true interests in service.

Letterman, states quite bluntly of the embarrassment of the public school system without addressing a specific reason. (Personally, I feel it’s the automatic tenure teachers receive as opposed the teachers unions as a whole) Rand Paul believes that while that is might be important, it is in his better interest to cut funding for these public servants in the interest of tax relief for people that have time to worry about an effective tax rate. He stated as much, pointing out that the top 1% pay for the largest portion of tax revenues in the country and they should. From a mathematical point of view someone making $10 million a year will send more money to the government than someone making $40,000. However it is misleading to say they are contributing more than their share because the percentage of earning that actual dollar amount is calculated on is so much larger. It’s like saying there was a 200% rise in the enrollment of the NJ KKK, but in actual number terms it means the group went from 1 person to 3 people. The static, on its own is impressive, but the utility of the number is missing so there is no reference for the statistic.

Do not be mislead by a number that Rand Paul or other wealthy conservative individuals point out. They are speaking from their own self interest and to the parties that they represent without consideration for the larger community. Kudos to Messier Letterman for being able to flesh this out of a slick politician and to the rest of us, please consider your self-interest and the communities issues when thinking about voting for people like this. They are a wolf in sheep’s clothing looking to ravage the things we have put together for their own with no interest in consequences.

The lifecycle of electronics ; hard to upgrade, easy to break, and impracticable to repair.

Vitamins; sugar coated sour gummy bears. Only in America…

I’m going to start here. This point was chosen for no particular reason other than it seems appropriate. Notice I did not say, ” So how should I start?” It bugs me when essays are started out with a question. Like we are meant to ponder something before we are given a point of view. Now I am not trying to belittle the literary tool, because there are times when it is effective.  However, it is being used far to easily and to me sends up a red warning flag about the contents to follow.

We are currently a month away from heading out on the road for a trip of discovery. That is to discover how long we can be enclosed in one space together before we start broadcasting absurd accusations at each other.  I am especially looking forward to what the birds have to say, because for my money they have been holding out on us in telling us whats REALLY on their minds. This really has been a process for all involved and that is how I would like to recall the story.  With one point of view telling  about what we have been through to get to this point and one point of view telling us about the moment that we are currently dealing with.

So that’s a really quick post ladies and gentlemen. And I hope that it starts to set a framework for something.  If you’ll look at the sign above my head you’ll notice it says…Apple sauce.   No, I’m kidding it says, “Applause”

So lets go ahead and flick that switch and get this going.

::APPLAUSE::

Here is a rough (well not so rough anymore) sketch of the route we will be taking on our roadtrip.  There might me minor tweaks, but I think we have settled on our main attractions.  We are so excited.

I was just sent an article on a new show that premiers tonight, called “the Fabulous Beekman Boys”.  The reality series documents the “mid-life crisis” impulse buy of a NYC gay couple; a farm in upstate NY. Both of the guys were exec’s in NYC. One moves upstate full time, while the other commutes to the farm during the weekends.

One of the exchanges highlighted in the article;

Josh: Why are we cleaning so much? It’s not just all the work that we’re doing, I don’t see you. I’m in the city for five days a week and then I come out here, and I only see you for 48 hours. And then the whole 48 hours all we do is clean or nag. I miss you.

Brent: Well, I don’t know how you want me to respond to that, because in my mind, I’ve already convinced myself that we have to make sacrifices this year.

Josh: I want you to respond like a human!

Brent: Yes, I miss you too, but if we want to get to the point where this farm is self-sufficient, we have to work towards that. Having a country place was your dream, and I feel like I’m the one making sacrifices.

Josh: No, this is what happened. Like everything else, yes, it was my dream, I wanted a nice little country place, but I have a dream and then you take it, and you turn it into this whole production.

Brent: Somewhere along the line you decided you wanted to be up here full-time, and I’m working to try to figure out a way to make that come true.

Josh: No, somewhere along the line you decided to make an empire out of this place.

Brent: How else do you think we’re going to afford it?

This gay couple’s plight has resonated with us. We were the typical, young Manhattanite; spending our entire paycheck on rent and restaurants and booze.  We had our mid-life crisis, and bought the land. But we are still in the process of saving the money to build our farm on our land in North Carolina, and already the banter sounds familiar. I am the self-employed dreamer who wants to jump right in and get going; Adam is the realist, noting that we won’t get very far without any money. So here we are, still stuck in NJ, ready to bicker about who’s turn it is to get out of bed at 6 am and feed the chickens.

Will the show flop? Will the couple succeed? Who knows.

One thing I do know is that this short article summarizing the plight of this urban farmer has quickly brought on the need for a reality check in our book. I’m beginning to think about removing my rose colored glasses.

Meh – Let me wear them a bit longer, before I change my mind about all this.

Media we love like.

• Arrested Development
• Flight of the Concords
• Trailer Park Boys
• Tenacious D
• Science / history shows

Adam comments to Lauren re: above list;

I don’t want it to be a statement, these things can change. Everything should be subject to our …lens? So, ya , we basically create ‘craigslist’. We write what we like. … Are you writing down what I’m saying?!

No one gives a shit. This stuff should be more useful. More inspirational.  Hows that? Woah….Woah…!

I’m trying to think of the best way to start this.

The best way seems to include a bit of background information for a frame of reference and a construct of what we hope to achieve here. So instead of being redundant, let’s get things rolling.

I am a thirty-something banking analyst, married to the most beautiful girl in the world. We live in a small seaside community that has been rebuilding itself since it’s incorporation and have three (at the moment) parrots with which we bounce off our ideas to get limited feedback.

So now we are ready to let go.

It has become very apparent to the two of us that we are unsatisfied with the life experience that seemed planned out and easy for us. The secure job in an industry that is willing to overpay for limited expertise. The three bedroom house in a suburban development where changes to anything must be approved by a homeowners association in fear of upsetting the balance of overly manicured lawns. The grumbling about taxes and politics and rising prices in our ever expanding and shrinking universe. I’m not sure that I need to continue to paint this picture, hopefully you get the idea.

I can personally say, that I bought that ideal hook line and sinker as I exited my higher education. I rushed to a job at an investment bank, wasting a great deal of time becoming an expert on screwing people over with complex math and stabbing co-workers in the back in order to increase a paycheck that only seemed to allow me take on even greater debt.  My wife likes to say that I was responsible for the economic collapse, but we both know that I was on the sidelines watching the whole thing crumble down along with everyone else.  I suppose I had the added benefit of being able to understand why it was all crumbling around us, but is that really something you would want to have prior experience with.

These thoughts of letting go started long before the world learned about complex cashflow modeling in credit default swaps or pricing strategies for highly illiquid investment grade asset backed securities. Truthfully, I still have nightmares about reading through prospectuses with lawyer double speak and formulas based on esoteric indexes. But that might be a story for another post.

What I am really talking about and hope to expand on is a journey of self realization and the wherewithal to stand up and not be a passive observer in life. There are quotes from all over that could be placed here to illustrate this.  From something simple like Ferris Bueller telling us that, “Life moves pretty fast and if you don’t stop to look around once in a while you might miss it.” To something more meaty as in the Waking Life where we are told, “To say yes to one instant, is to say yes to all of existence.”

So where does that leave us? Well, we have coined a term to describe how we are looking to live our life going forward. I say going forward because with all existential living we are always going to be in a constant state of becoming. We have dubbed ourselves Post-Modern Hippies.

I do not want to fully expand on the term at the moment, but I have come up with four edicts that can summarize our world-view.

A Post-Modern Hippie:

1. Does not have boundaries
2. Will use reason
3. Respects technology
4. Does no harm

So chew on those for a while.

I develop websites and blog for a living, so finding time and motivation to write MORE content is like begging for more work on a Friday afternoon. But this is the first topic I’ve really felt passionate enough about for me to go the extra mile and develop and write an entire website’s worth of content on.

So , what is “this”? It’s what we’re calling ourselves ; postmodern hippies. It’s not the perfect term, but it pretty much describes ourselves, and the people we aspire to be. We want to quit our jobs and be farmers. We want to raise kids in a world where they don’t know what McDonald’s tastes like. We want to have time to travel and enjoy ourselves, and not live our lives spending 80% of our day commuting and working jobs we hate, and living pay check to paycheck in order to keep up with the Jones’. We give up; the Jones’ win. Little do they know…in the end, the Jones’ will start living life when they retire and we start living life NOW.