“Bukowski would want to know: when does one equal zero?”

Let’s pretend we are the patient and we have access to a therapist who is nurturing and supportive.

The therapist begins today’s session by asking the question, “When does one equal zero?”

We don’t have to care about the answer because we believe the therapist is probably guiding us so we can think about something familiar in a new way—this, we assume, is sort of what therapy is all about.

“No idea,” could be our sincere reply.

The therapist might continue, “We know nowhere in Nature does one equal zero.”

“Okay,” we murmur.

“But, emotionally speaking,” the therapist proceeds, “we often act as if ‘nothing’ is the same as ‘something’. If we believe a problem is big, taking small steps to resolve it may be considered futile; we may very likely conclude that our strategy shall be—‘do nothing’—even as we continue to worry about the big problem or large goal.”

We mutter expectantly, “Okay”.

The therapist reminds us:  “last time we met you told me you wanted to buy a house.  Houses are really expensive (even today).  It will take long time to save for this goal. I understand you went out and purchased a home entertainment system with deferred payments and zero interest for six months, is this correct?”

“It is,” comes our admission.

“Does this demonstrate that people are lazy or silly?” asks the therapist, rhetorically, of course.

“Probably”, follows our wimpy reply. 

“No.  It may suggest, however, that our decision-making process leading to self-discovery (our plan to save to meet the goal) is not linear.” 

“Engineers draw straight lines—the mind does not.  The mind imagines and associates cursively, and by so doing, it creates a dynamic sense of self (who we are).  The mind behaves more like a dream—full of content not always accessible to the waking self.”

The therapist pauses, and then closes with: “We might wonder, are we more like Legos or finger painting?”

We are left to ponder something important.

Meanwhile, the therapist changes from soothing nurturer to squawking maven—“don’t forget to leave your check for the session as you leave—oh, and next month my rates will be increasing…” The session must be over.  Were we ever on the therapist’s mind?

After we leave the session we are going to buy some comfort food, return to the apartment, and download a movie on the new entertainment center.

We will never save up for the house.  Now we know why.

If the patient in this post were Charles Bukowski—there would be no entertainment center.  Instead there would be pinched and smoked cigarette butts and empty scotch and wine bottles. Buk (as in puke) might leave the session fuming some choice words in the direction of the therapist as he heads to the nearest package store to buy inexpensive Napa wine en route to the track to bet on the last two races of the day; so he can wake up to an alarm clock the next morning and, for another day, return to a dingy post office somewhere in Los Angeles to sort mail. 

But before losing consciousness he won’t forget to write one more poem. 

Buk lived as if he knew that one is never equal to zero.  This is why, even as a chain-smoking, horse betting, compulsive alcohol imbibing, raving mail sorter, he created a remarkable and lasting body of work.  His mind touched the sun---even as its light sent stabs of pain through his nicotine and alcohol fired brain.

It can be done. 

Nowhere in Nature does one equal zero, especially, not in our dreams.  Living our dreams, therefore, must have everything to do with letting one equal one. 

A Bukowski-style meditation to change the world: consider rinsing an empty can, an empty can of beer, dog food or beans, it does not matter, and place it on a windowsill. Scribble “1 = 1” on the can with a marker.

Start adding to the can.  Each coin becomes its own meditation.  Do not worry what to do with the coins.  This question will answer itself and it will feel like a gift—because a universe that reliably demonstrates that 1 = 1 is no hell, but a remarkable prize.  Each of us, no exceptions, may thereby add to its legacy.

The op-ed material for the Avarice Fellowship blog is provided by the Share-Capital Foundation, www.share-capital.com.

We bid you peace.  

"Okay, Godzilla, meet Cinderella"

We open today’s post with a quote from the home page of www.share-capital.com:  “…power will not take the grassroots voice of individuals seriously until they demonstrate some fluency with the idiom of capital.”

What is the “idiom of capital”?    A simple way to think of the term “idiom” is “language”.   Languages have dialects.  Understanding the “idiom” of a special language requires a level of fluency.  Fluency is most often acquired by immersion—spending time with a given dialect.

If you play an instrument well, you demonstrate this concept:  music is a language and musicians speak this language as idiom. If one shares an interest in the subject of sound, lyric, rhythm and harmony—taking steps to learn the idiom feels quite natural.

Simple terms like, “iPod”, have become symbolic of a powerful idiom—personal music accessed by way of the download.  We invent new language to describe what we really care about.

Capital can be experienced similarly--as both a culture and an idiom.  “Wall Street” is actually the public name for this special culture.  Some of us may have friends who work on “Wall Street”.  In other words, “Wall Street” is about people and their dialect for thinking about resources.  Without knowing its idiom, however—Wall Street is a latter day Godzilla (big and awkward with seemingly unusual powers). 

Big Oil, Big Pharma and Big Agribusiness, as industries, also possess unusual influence--the type of influence that goes with size combined with a perceived power for social dominance (more Godzilla).

But big, by itself, is not the key idea. Something else has to be at work.  There are very big businesses, for example, deploying huge sums of capital in the pursuit of making candy, who do not define the social agenda.  As an industry, the technical term for businesses engaged in candy making is “Confection”.  

Do you recall a cable news program or newspaper talking about “Big Candy” or "Big Confection"?  We could--the Hershey and Mars companies, for example, are as dominant in this world as Exxon and Pfizer are in theirs.  Maybe some day we will think of candy as an idiom or culture.  Before this will occur, however, the industry will first have to be perceived as strategic (not simply pleasant or important) to the culture of men and women everywhere.

As an industry becomes important to society, we begin to sense its power—this often coincides when it begins to foster its own idiom or language, viz. Big Oil or Wall Street.

How else do we think of institutional power today?  Money.  Resources and their control. The State. 

How do we think of grassroots power?  People.  Lots of them.  In this story, grassroots power is Cinderella—one who overcomes (peacefully) the influence exerted by the few.

History teaches us that power always and only consolidates itself among the few (the mean step-sisters-- who wanna be friends with Godzilla).  It has always been so. 

Authorities with the power to tax (the State) and revolutions (grassroots) are the only two ways resources, and their control, are pushed in new directions across history.  In each instance re-pointing the flow of consolidation is difficult, sometimes, even bloody.  Politics alone cannot get it done.

The Share-Capital Foundation is a student of the idioms of big power: grassroots power or people as Cinderella and Godzilla as the power exerted by big capital (viz., Wall Street, Big Oil, Big Pharma and Big Agribusiness and Government).

What Share-Capital would have us consider is this: let’s become familiar with the idiom (language) of capital.  Let’s take steps as individuals (as Cinderella) to participate in capital markets—not as holders of IRA or 401(k) accounts—but as grassroots investors who take positions in public companies in strategic industries: doing so assures that Cinderella will meet Godzilla.

The Share-Capital Foundation is seeking to connect with a whole new culture of people who sense deeply that government is complex, and capital is complex—and the revolution ahead does not have to be bloody. These same folks also sense that neither government nor capital markets will figure it out peacefully, or soon. On a deep level it is also possible to sense that the revolution ahead will take place in the boardroom and with browsers—not on the streets or with petitions. 

The boardroom is a place where one is welcome as an “owner”.   The new grassroots frontier is about ownership, not the American Dream as code for “debt”—but ownership of capital “as equity” with social power. 

The first step to learning about “capital markets” as an idiom, therefore, is about owning—not voting or protesting.  As “people” (citizens) we are learning unless we own shares, we don’t own the profits of companies.  We are also learning, evidently, we do own the downside—with or without shares. An excellent challenge. 

It is time to say, simply—“Okay, Godzilla, meet Cinderella.  Let’s talk.”

You can learn more about the mission of Share-Capital at www.share-captial.com.  Enter a comment or question in the Guestbook if you like to step into the circle. 

The op-ed material for the Avarice Fellowship blog is provided by the Share-Capital Foundation.