Post 235

In response to what's going on over in Thutopia right now:

My relationship with money has always been a bad one. Not to say that I'm a hoarder or a gambler or a thief or a con artist or anything like that; me and money, we just don't get along so well. It's never been a reality for me. Even as a kid, it was just too theoretical a construct for me to grasp.

I was a strange kid (and still am, I suppose, in many ways). I can remember being no more than 5 or 6 years old (judging by the house we were living in) and trying to wrap my head around the relativity of money because the older of my two sisters had tried to explain to me that, though $100 seemed like a lot of money to us kids, it wasn't a lot of money for our parents, who had to pay on a mortgage and pay bills and buy food for a family of 8. This notion of relativity really got to me and the realness of money started to fade. Consequently, I can remember being 8 or 9 or 10 and getting in an argument with my nearest-aged sibling because I maintained that money was nothing more than paper, that it had no value, that it wasn't real. I can also remember being about the same age and pressing my parents for answers about what money was for, why we had it, who made it up, how it worked, and isn't there a better way? I remember in my early and middle teens getting in arguments with my mom because (get this:) she wanted to give me an allowance! She had set up a merit system in which we kids would do our daily and weekly chores and mark a calendar to say which days we had done them, and then she would pay us at the end of every month according to how much we had done. The first few months, I refused the money, telling her that she needed it more than I did and that I was confident that she could put it to more productive use than I could, but she insisted that I take it. Finally, I got wise and did my chores but simply neglected to mark the calendar. I can distinctly remember her being irritated and telling me that she knew I did my chores and then giving me an allowance anyway. (Meanwhile, the other two kids at home were constantly saying things like, "I really did do my chores; I just forgot to mark the calendar!" to which my mom would respond, "Do you think I'd get paid if I forgot to fill out my time card?")

What a strange kid I was--what a strange man I've been! I just glanced over the posts on this blog under my "money" label, and my my my how quickly I've forgotten how passionately I bashed money less than three years ago. As a kid, I just didn't understand it; as a young adult, I actually hated it. Now, as I near my quarter-century mark, I feel something entirely different, which strangely enough hearkens back to something that predates the money-bashing posts of this blog.

The final few months of my mission sent me home thinking about money a lot. In my penultimate interview with my mission president, he told me to be a millionaire. That really caught me off guard. He was telling me how much potential he saw in me, how great he thought I could become, and then he said, "You could do anything--be anything. Be a millionaire, Elder Jepson. There's nothing wrong with financial success. Be a millionaire and give it all to the Church."

A few weeks before that, my companion and I had been teaching a lesson to a man named Mickey Traylor. He was telling us about the circumstances that caused him to move from Texas to a suburb of Boise, and it mostly had to do with the fact that he had been getting so caught up in his financial success that his relationship with his wife had started to suffer, so he called it quits and took her far away to a place where they could just relax and enjoy each other.

"Money'll change you," he said.

"Money wouldn't change me," my companion assured him.

"Only people who've never had money say that," Mickey said. "I used to say that, but then I got money, and it changed me."

At the time, I thought that conversation was the final nail in the coffin of my estimation of money, but then I had that interview with my mission president, and I got confused.

Then came the very last day of my mission. My zone leader arranged for a member to give me and a few other home-bound missionaries a ride to the mission office. This member was a very wealthy man, and his advice to me as a returning missionary was to go home and make as much money as possible. "The Lord can't use you if you're poor," he said.

That naturally offended me, but the rest of his conversation was even worse. He spent the drive telling us the way he had amassed his wealth, and it was unethical and perhaps illegal. I really didn't understand, but I'll try to explain: he said that right after he got married, he bought a little house. Before buying it, he got it appraised at well more than it was worth, and then got a loan for the amount of the appraisal. He then talked the seller into selling it for much less than the advertised price, used his enormous loan to buy the house, and used what was left from the loan to invest enough money that the interest paid for (or at least helped to pay for) his monthly mortgage payment. Once that house had paid itself off, he sold it and bought a bigger house in the same way, which he sold and bought an even bigger house. He finished by saying, "I now live in a two-million-dollar house that pays me to live in it."

This man, for whatever reason, could not go all the way to the mission office, so he dropped me and the other missionaries off at another man's house. Some other home-bound missionaries met us there, and then that man gave us a ride to the office. When I asked this second man what he did for a living, he said, "As little as possible," which did not impress me. When I asked him for more details (because he had a nice living situation for someone who was at home in his PJs halfway through a Wednesday morning), he said something like, "Basically, I convince people who have a lot of money that they should have meetings with other people who make a lot of money so that they can learn from each other how to make even more money, and then I convince them to pay me a lot of money to set the meeting up."

And thus my conflict began. My mission president had exhorted me to become a millionaire, yet the wealthy people I met didn't make me want to join them. Very early on in my mission, I had had dinner with an anesthesiologist and his family. They lived in an enormous brick house with lots of land, but the kids of the family didn't think they had anything. From their conversation, I gathered that each child (I think there were four of them) had their own private room and bathroom and that for Christmas they had each gotten their own ATV, yet they were completely dissatisfied and asked their parents over and over, "When are we going to move into that big house we looked at?" I had at the time an awful sort of lurking pride regarding my middle-class (arguably lower middle-class) upbringing, and I was disgusted by those children.

When I first moved to Provo, I quickly became overly fond of this quote by Brigham Young:

The worst fear that I have about this people is that they will get rich in this country, forget God and his people, wax fat, and kick themselves out of the Church and go to hell. This people will stand mobbing, robbing, poverty and all manner of persecution, and be true. My greater fear for them is that they cannot stand wealth; and yet they have to be tried with riches, for they will become the richest people on this earth.

I guess I mostly lacked faith in myself. I assumed that if I ever became wealthy I would subsequently become petty, greedy, snobbish, and unaffectionate.

I've changed now. I've recently come out of a phase in which I was seriously considering pursuing a career in law. I think my highest desire right now--and this is certainly resultant from my recent wedding--is to become an excellent breadwinner. I still don't aspire to wealth, but I do hope for some material comforts. I never hope to have an expensive car or a mansion on a hill or a private jet, and I hope that if I'm ever in a financial situation to see such things as viable options that I'll find a better use for my money.

After that interview with my mission president, I decided that perhaps the most admirable thing to be is a middle-class millionaire, and in the past couple years I've discovered that our nation has quite a few of those--in fact, all the best financial advice these days is to live poor so you can retire well. I struggle with that idea because my immediate response to such advice is always, "What's the point of having all that money if you don't do anything with it?" I don't hope to have a Ferrari, but I do hope to have good, reliable transportation. I don't hope for a mansion, but I want a house that holds out the rain. I'm quite fixed on the idea that my kids will share bedrooms and bathrooms, but I don't want to shove them into bed-sized closets when I tell them good-night.

I guess what I'm saying is that I do want money, but I want happiness more. If I ever have money, I hope to use it well.

Be a millionaire, Elder Jepson--just don't be stupid about it.

Post 191

The Daily Show is not my favorite thing: Jon Stewart is often crude and rarely funny; when I catch a snippet here and there, I find myself giggling at his facial expressions and then chagrined as soon as he opens his mouth. Nevertheless, Mr. Stewart may be the most no-nonsense interviewer of this generation, and I always love to see him tearing holes in the deserving. So I give you Jon Stewart's interview with Jim Cramer--because it's pretty great.

One thing I'll say for Cramer: he had serious gumption to go up against the world's toughest interviewer and mediadom's most amazing team of footage collectors in front of a crowd that would only boo and hiss his every utterance. It took balls--balls I'm pretty sure he doesn't have any more.

Here's the unedited interview in three parts:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Jim Cramer Unedited Interview Pt. 1
comedycentral.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Jim Cramer Unedited Interview Pt. 2
comedycentral.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	M - Th 11p / 10c
Jim Cramer Unedited Interview Pt. 3
comedycentral.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Economic Crisis Political Humor

Post 79

People are so dumb!

I'm taking a class called American Heritage. It isn't an American history class per se, rather it seeks to examine the guiding principles of America and see how they apply to humanity in a general sense--so it appears to be nothing but a history class, but the focus is slightly different (meaning that there's purpose in the study as opposed to studying history for the sake of knowing history).

My professor is really a fantastic lecturer, very engaging. Today, for example, he was teaching us the principles of a Market Economy. To exemplify Free Exchange, he held up a box of one dozen Krispy Kreme donuts and basically started an auction.

"One dollar!" someone shouted.

"Two dollars!" shouted someone else.

"Ten!" shouted a girl in the front row.

$10 for a box of Krispy Kremes‽ What kind of a moron would--

"Twelve dollars!" shouted a boy in the back.

Are you daffy‽ What could possibly posses you to--

"Twelve fifty," the girl said with some hesitation.

"Thirteen," said the boy.

"Thirteen fifty," said the girl.

"Fifteen dollars!" shouted the boy, and the donuts were sold.

The professor asked the boy some questions as the transaction was executed:

"How high would you have gone?" the professor asked.

"Sixteen," the boy said "because that's all I have."

YOU WOULD GIVE ALL OF YOUR MONEY TO BUY DONUTS AT MORE THAN TWICE THEIR VALUE???????????????

This is not the first time my classmates have driven me to the desire to yank out fistfuls of hair; a couple weeks ago, the professor did an experiment to demonstrate self interest: he set up three stools and placed a pile of 10 quarters on each, then he called up six volunteers to play the Self Interest Game. To play the game, the professor put the six students into three pairs and assigned each pair to a stool; one at a time, he we to each pair and arbitrarily chose one of the students to divide the money between the two. The rules were 1) the student who divides the quarters gets to decide who gets which pile, 2) after that student has divided the quarters, the other student decides whether to accept the division, 3) if the second student accepts the division, each student gets to keep his or her pile, 4) if the second student rejects the division, the professor gets to keep all ten quarters.

The game played out in a most frustrating way. The first pair divided the quarters evenly and each left with $1.25 in quarters. In the second pair, the quarters were divided 8 and 2, which the second student rejected, so both left empty handed. In the final pair, the division was 6 and 4, which was also rejected, so they, too, left empty handed.

Morons! Given the choice of being given a dollar--or even 50 cents!--you either have to take 50 cents or walk away empty handed, why the heck do you chose to leave with nothing? Oh, it was so frustrating to me! Selfish pricks. You'd rather have nothing than see someone get more than you? I take it back--you aren't selfish, just stupid and prideful--so stupid and prideful that you hate selflessly, aiming to prevent anyone from getting ahead of you at all costs--even if it does cost!

Again, the professor interviewed the students to ask why they did what they did--why they would reject free money--and they said they rejected it because "it wasn't fair" that the money be divided unequally.

Now let me just say here that I am unequivocally opposed to the philosophy of getting something for nothing; it strikes me as immoral. Frankly, I feel a little guilty for the interest that my ING savings account accrues--and the not-even 4% interest on my measly savings isn't a whole lot. Nevertheless, I think I'd accept a 50-cent donation to my laundry fund--quarters are hard to come by for a debit-card toting student like myself!

Today my professor made the comment that money is "[o]ne of the great social inventions, one of the most important social inventions right up there with the wheel...." In my deliberations over the morality of money, I've decided that I'm glad money exists because the bartering system would get pretty messy for an English teacher (which is what I intend to be); trying to find a grocer that would exchange potatoes for a lecture on the writings of Poe or the rules governing the use of commas just might be impossible--no more potatoes for der schmetterling. No, I don't really hate money, I guess; mostly I just hate what people do for money and also what they turn around and do with that money.

I guess that's what Holiday (the movie that started my rantings on money a month ago) really portrays, the way money can rob people of their humanity. What I really love about that movie is that it shows how depraved the wealthy can be even when they aren't corrupt--the Setons are a bad group, really; they just have a crappy, crappy familial and social relationships because their lives revolve around money instead of living.

Anyway, there some ranting about the stupidity of money--meaning the stupidity of people that money seems to cause. But if money is the cause (or at least a catalyst) of the disease of stupidity, this may be one case in which the cure would be worse than the disease. I suppose, then, the best thing to do is look for Jesus to come take over the world--I assume He can come up with a better system, and I trust He will.

Post 69

Big news!

Okay, so, in the last several posts, I've been doing a lot of exploring of morals &c, babbling endlessly, and reaching conclusions rarely and vaguely. This is all part of a phase that I've been going through recently that I think is now (thankfully) winding down. The year 2007 was an interesting one for me; I don't regret much of what I did with it, but looking back, I see I basically went through adolescence between the ages of 21 and 22 instead of the normal ages of 13 and 19. See, I never rebelled as a teenager because I never felt any reason to rebel. All that stuff about teenagers searching for identity was never something that I felt inclined to do as a teenager, but suddenly, as a young adult, I started doing all those teenagery things like listening to loud music, running away from home, pressing the limits of goodness in my media choices, and so forth; I would often look at the way I was living and think, "These really aren't the sorts of things that I am normally wont to do, so why am I being so dumb?" And then I'd shrug and think, "Oh, well. Not hurting anybody. Can't be too bad."

Well, now I'm done rebelling. I have a lot of theories as to why I was rebelling and what I was rebelling against, but I shan't be boring you with such things in this post, nevertheless I should like to share with you some of the conclusions that I have come to. These are intended to be answers to questions that I've raised in previous posts, but they are only answers for me; I hope they give you somethings to think about, but I also hope (more passionately, even) that you think about them a lot more than you accept them as your own--because they aren't your own; they're mine, and you can't have them! Unless, of course, you really want them, then, okay, whatever, it's your life; so long as you aren't hurting anyone, do whatever the heck you feel like.

(NOTE: each of the following resolutions will be hyperlinked to the post in which I initially explored the morals involved for convenience's sake; don't feel obligated to follow any of those links unless you wish to review my confused rantings.)

Resolution 1: I Am Morally Opposed to Profanity, but--

I am morally opposed to profanity, but I recognize its place in literature. I am one of those who believes that literature ought to be (and, of necessity, is) a reflection of the human condition; authors can try to whatever they will to write something that is totally irrelevant to humanity, but on some fundamental level, they have to draw from their own experiences sometime and cannot, therefore, ever fully detach themselves from the human condition. I believe that fiction, to really do its job, has to be believable, and to be believable, it must be realistic in at least some degree. Therefore, I have decided that I am okay with fiction having profanity in it and that I will feel no guilt should I ever make a creative work that employs profanity as a device.

That said, I am morally opposed to profanity in real life; I do not appreciate when those around me swear in any way, and I myself am through with swearing (Post 67 was a landmark in that it was the first time I myself have ever sworn; it is also decidedly the last such occasion). I am not going to be so uptight as to whine when others swear around me, but I am also going to cease my encouragement of colorful language (I have been very encouraging of it lately whenever I find myself in the company of those more brash than I).


Resolution 2: I Am Morally Opposed to Vulgarity, but--

My stance on vulgarity is almost identical to my stance on profanity except that I am not as accepting of it in fiction. I understand that vulgar things really do occur in the real world, but I believe that the portrayal of evil in art is best done by allusion and implication--off-screen action, so to speak, is not only less offensive, it is generally more artistic and can often be more poignant (as I watched Sweeny Todd, for example, I was struck with the realization that everybody knows that a razor across the throat will produce a lot of blood and that every regular movie-goer knows that modern cinema has the capability to make such a thing look very real--so where's the art in a gorefest? I believe that the whole movie could have been far more artistic and even a bit more intense had Tim Burton employed silhouettes and off-screen action; beyond making it cleaner, it would have made it higher quality).

Resolution 3: Generally, R-rated Movies Aren't Worth Admission Costs.

Upon deciding that I had no moral obligation to abstain from r-rated movies, I began searching for ones that I could watch. I wanted to have a list of movies that I could hold up as a sort of token of courage to all my namby-pamby Mormon peers to help them understand the truth about movies--it was part of this belated teenaged rebellion I was going through. Having searched around, I've decided that it isn't worth the effort. I still believe that the sweeping generalization that "All r-rated movies are bad" is unfair, but I now also believe that I would lose more in seeking good r-rated movies than I would lose in rejecting all r-rated movies. If someone says, "Here's this movie I really like; I think you should watch it," and it's rated R, I'll seriously consider watching the movie, but I'm not going to go out of my way to see The Passion of Christ or The Last of the Mahicans or Schindler's List or any of the other r-rated movies that are surely worth my time. I understand that certain parts of life--and especially historical facts--can only be rendered honestly in r-rated ways, and I don't believe that that makes watching them necessarily wrong, but as I am not especially interested in seeing any such movies right now, I'm not going to suffer through them for the sake of proving a point.

Resolution 4: Money Is--(sigh)--a Necessary Evil.

I still don't like money; I still don't desire it; I still fear it; I still think it is unfair, inconsistent, stupid, and ridiculous, but I'm not going to go shouting about how much I hate it because I don't have a better system to suggest.

This is certainly the most painful resolution, therefore it is also the shortest, therefore I am done.

Post 67

I just watched Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn in Holiday. I have no words to express the passionate way I love that movie, but I have the words to tell you why--it's because I feel just like Johnny Case in regards to society and wealth. Unlike Johnny, I have no reckless dreams of running away to find myself, but I do have a loathing hatred for money. I have spent the last five months living on my own, working only when necessary, earning as little money as possible, keeping jobs only long enough to pay rent and buy food--sometime not even that long. I have missed meals and gone in debt, but I have never worried about finances. Every dollar I get fills me with an awful mixture hatred and fear. I don't want money; I detest the fact that I am required to have it. I don't mind working--I love to serve the people around--but I hate that I can't just live and work but that I must instead spend my time to earn money to enable me to get an education. I love to learn, but I hate that I'm going to school so I can get a job to make enough money to raise a family--WHAT THE HELL DOES MONEY HAVE TO DO WITH FAMILY!

I HATE the way our society runs....

I am going to school so I can become a teacher. My discipline will be English, but I intend to teach Life--I wanna work in high schools, catch the kids just before they go off to be inculcated with nonsense about money making the world go round and teach them to think and feel, to be human, to live; I want to somehow convey to them what really matters in life--love and beauty, action and honor, friendship and compassion.

Tell me, my friends, am I crazy? Sometimes I feel all alone in this world of greed and lust because I despise money and I don't long for beautiful women. I just want some simple girl with a beautiful mind and a deep soul, who doesn't mind living a simple life free of fluff and luxury--just a simple, easy life free from all the bondage that is Society. All I want is a house with some land where I can see the stars at night and a woman who will gaze up and appreciate the endlessness of the heavens, the majesty of nature, the goodness of God, and the power of love. Oh, if this is madness, let me be mad; lock me up someplace where society can't get to me to inflict me with its wretched poison, and let me die a man.