Phaysis – Page 2 – A Frozen State of Change

Pluck

When, in a society, you have developed the methods to turn a profit when the market goes up, and you have developed the methods to earn a profit when the market goes down, then you can fully expect that the market will not remain stable for long. Eventually someone will pluck the string.

Then, in those oscillations, they will accrue profits at the expense of the universe. Molecular friction. It all turns into heat. We all lose energy during the return to the stable state.

Keep this in mind when the market gets destabilized by sudden policy changes. Tariffs? Someone’s profiting. And it’s not us.

Meter and Terse

I used to write poetry,
But seldom had love to read it.
That squarely makes me
a two-faced, goddamned hypocrite.

I wrote a bolus of verse,
Asked my cafe friend to read it.
He said it was shit, asked me who I read.
Told him I didn't need it.

Offended, I asked why
His opinion wasn't so inviting,
Without a pause he asked
By what right do I have writing?

Vidi Non

I think I need to come to terms with the fact that I’m no longer a movie guy. Looking at my media server, there are 130 movies out of the entire collection that are unwatched after years, despite my best intentions. I’m never home long enough to watch anything longer than 30 minutes before passing out.

My life isn’t as small and focused as it was when I was a young adult grabbing at every VHS and DVD to watch in my hovel, clamoring for a bite, a taste, of the big life out there. I wanted experiences and dreams and loves, and it was as easy as pressing Play.

I still have those desires. But the thing I desire the absolute least is to be in my hovel. I’ve seen the outside, and there are people and random dice rolls out there. I want to be somewhere else. So I’m out here, typing at a cafe and not watching movies.

Some days, I really need to rest, to recover, to find myself again, but there’s something underneath that’s unanswered, something still hungry, and so it’s Go Go Go. Home is just where I store my shit. Everything else is in the bindle over my shoulder.

Twenty-Five In Five-One-Two

Today marks the 25th anniversary of moving to Austin on July 28, 2000. Twenty-Five years. A quarter century.

That thumbheaded kid who pulled into town on a bleary, humid Friday morning with a job and a carload of hope is still somehow here. But he’s not a hopeful kid anymore — he’s grizzled. The dotcom he moved for no longer exists, and neither does his optimism.

This morning, that dumbfounded adult drove out to the edge of town on a bleary, humid Monday morning with a career and a carload of concerns. He’s somehow finally making the grade. Somehow.