Adam Shrugs

In the illustrious history of the Razor, there have been many, many times where I started a post, deleted it, re-wrote it, re-deleted, until I finally got it right. Long time readers might posit that there have been many posts that I should've deleted and I rarely "got it right". They are encouraged to keep their thoughts to themselves. With that said, there has never been a more troublesome post than the one I've been trying to write about my experience in Belize with an Ayn Rand novel. In most cases when I can't write something the way it needs to be written I just move on, but this topic has been bedeviling me since the summer to the point that I'm just going to throw it up as is and wash my hands of the matter.

A couple years ago I took a mini-vacation to Belize all by myself. I flew down there, rented a little cabana in the Jungle, and chilled out. It was quiet, it was beautiful, and it was very relaxing. One day I went repelling over a cliff, but beyond that I just laid around and read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. It was very nearly a spiritual experience. The book clocks in at over 1000 pages and is sort of a Libertarian manifesto. I loved it.

When I reminisce about that trip, I recall how good the food was, how much I liked the country, how much fun I had repelling, but more than anything I enjoyed laying in a hammock outside by cabana and reading that book. At night I retreated into by cabana, lit the kerosene lamp and read until I fell asleep. Surrounded by the sounds of the jungle, no cellphone service, no schedule, it was the height of relaxation. In my mind, it was the perfect environment to read about the dangers of Government intervention in the economy and the problems caused by the mentality of "fairness".

Reading that book, in that setting, cemented my belief that each man is responsible for his own success or failure. I should depend only on myself for food, shelter, and happiness, and if I depend upon some outside entity to provide for me, I risk losing everything if they fail. I'm not being cynical with those thoughts (I hope!). I depend upon my friends and family for love and companionship. I depend upon other people for various things, but ultimately I depend only on myself to ensure that I am happy and have a good life.

And if I was dependent on the government to provide for my well-being, I would be working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to become self sufficient. The government will always over promise and under deliver. It will never exceed expectations. Generally, the Government's inpact on my life is either neutral or adversarial, but very rarely positive. I do not fault those dependent on Government, but I also do not envy them.

Getting on to the point of this post, whenever I think of Belize and that trip, I think of Ayn Rand's book and her philosophy. So I was quite amused when I read this quote:

"I would give the greatest sunset in the world for one sight of
New York's skyline. Particularly when one can't see the details.
Just the shapes. The shapes and the thought that made them.
The sky over New York and the will of man made visible. What
other religion do we need? And then people tell me about
pilgrimages to some dank pesthole in a jungle where they go to
do homage to a crumbling temple, to a leering stone monster
with a pot belly, created by some leprous savage. Is it beauty
and genius they want to see? Do they seek a sense of the
sublime? Let them come to New York, stand on the shore of the
Hudson, look and kneel. When I see the city from my window -
no, I don't feel how small I am - but I feel that if a war came to
threaten this, I would throw myself into space, over the city, and
protect these buildings with my body." Ayn Rand

Ironic? Her idea was that the ultimate achievement of mankind is embodied in our ability to progress, to innovate, and to always move civilization forward and that the ultimate illustration of our advancement is shown in the skyline of modern cities. I'm not so sure I disagree with her on that point, but I find it funny that I had to "take a pilgrimage to some dank pesthole in a jungle where they go to do homage to a crumbling temple, to a leering stone monster with a pot belly, created by some leprous savage" to finally have time to read her book.

Thanks you for your time. I appreciate that this post might be interesting only to me, but it has been eating at my soul for months now and I feel a great burden has been lifted as I finally put the matter to bed. Tune in next time when I resume telling you how I embarrassed myself in a unique way or handled a situation quite poorly.

One Angry Bird

This story has already circulated around quite a bit, but I thought I would tell my version in an attempt to clarify a couple of the finer points and to explain that I'm not always an anti-social misfit, but I have my moments...

2011 National Peanut Festival

For those of you not from the Wiregrass Area, the Peanut Festival is much like any other County Fair, except it is harder to tell the attendees from the carnys...

On opening night of this years Festival, I was hanging out on the midway watching kids ride rides and hapless morons burn through money playing various carnival games. My attention was drawn to a game where you must stand up a bottle with a ring attached to the end of a fishing pole. I watched the game for 30 minutes and no customers were able to do it, but the carny never failed.

I figured if he could do it, so could I. Further, that particular game gathers a lot of spectators so I decided that if I could conquer it, people would admire my advanced skills. So I developed a rigorous training schedule designed to bring glory to myself and extra-large stuffed animals to my special lady.

Here is the setup I used at home:

Perhaps you've seen the game. Slanted board, bottle, string, stick, and ring...

While still at the fair, I noticed that the red ring at the end of the string was exactly like the red rings that they get you to throw at upright bottles, attempting to land one around the neck, thus winning a prize. So I bought a bucket of rings, and while various kids were throwing the rings at the bottles, I jammed a couple of them in my pocket. As if to prove there is no such thing as karma in carnival games, after I'd stolen a few of the rings, I joined the kids in throwing them at bottles. Sure enough, I won.

Over the next week, I spent about 2 to 3 hours per day, practicing and watching youtube videos on how to stand the bottle up. The first night I couldn't do it at all, by Wednesday I could do it every now and then, and by Saturday I had my technique dialed in. My only concern was that the combined distraction of flashing lights and crowd noise might add a level of difficulty that I couldn't adequately prepare for at home. To simulate Fair-like conditions as best I could, I turned my surround system up to about 125 decibels and decorated my library with Christmas lights. The inside of my house pretty much already smells like a carnival so no adjustments were required in that department.

As an aside, please do not judge me for putting so much time and effort into such a trivial pursuit. I have designed my life to have inordinate amounts of free time, which I use however I please.

So on the final night of the fair, Christena and I headed out to see if my hours of preparation had paid off. As we walked from the parking lot down to the midway I was really trying to get my mind focused. By the time we arrived at the game stall, I could barely even remember that I was a human. Rather, I was a bottle lifting machine whose sole purpose was to carry garbage bags full of stuffed animals out to my vehicle. Perhaps my mental state helps explain what happened next.

They were running a special where each attempt (every time the bottle falls completely off the board, that counts as 1 attempt) cost the participant $1. I went ahead and gave the carny a $5 bill and selected my pole. I had a little trouble getting the ring around the bottle at first but I was eventually able to get the bottle lifted to about a 30 degree angle. Then it rolled left. An amateur would've panicked, but I'd run into this problem a few thousand times before. I quickly returned the bottle to its resting position and tried it again. Once again, as soon as I lifted the bottle it tried to roll to the side. I casually replaced it and took a deep breath. Finally I got the bottle to 45 degrees and it was still steady. With a final flourish I snatched it to an upright position. BOOM!

1 attempt, 1 extra large stuffed animal, but I'm still in the zone.

While Christena is selecting her stuffed animal, I'm trying to remain calm. Was I jacked up that I defeated that game in 1 try? Big time. But could I let anything distract me from my ultimate goal? Heck no.

Next, an attractive girl approaches me and says, "You made that look easy. Do you have any tips for me?" It was as if she didn't even exist. I said, "Yeah, keep watching me because I'm gonna do it 4 more times!" Incidentally, this is an excellent thing to say to women if you want them to think you are a jerk.

So Christena has her stuffed animal and I prepare for my 2nd attempt. Out of no where the carny says, "You can't play anymore, you're only allowed to win 1 prize."

Umm, I didn't spend 25 hours practicing this game to win 1 stuffed animal. Further, I'd already paid for 4 more attempts. Compound my frustration with the fact that I was so zoned in on the game that I was exhibiting anti-social behaviour and perhaps you'll forgive me for what happened next.

First, I insisted that since they'd accepted my $5, they were obligated to allow me to play out my 5 attempts. The carny, just as emphatically, insisted that their policy was that no one could win more than once. In an attempt to be reasonable, I allowed that I would be willing to not play anymore, and required only the refund of my $4 unused dollars. Being unreasonable, the carny said they didn't give refunds.

With a combination of rage and frustration coursing through my veins, the conversation took a dramatic turn for the worse. I screamed at the dude, "Either let me play or give me back my money!". He reaffirmed that they don't give refunds but I was welcome to let my girlfriend use my next 4 attempts.

There were 2 reasons that this option wasn't going to work. First of all, Christena hadn't practiced the game at all and had a 0.0% chance of winning. Second, and more importantly, she was no where to be found. I'd had visions of how proud she would be carrying huge stuffed animals around that I'd won for her. I thought of how envious the other women at the fair would be. Sadly, Christena, like most women, doesn't want to be associated with a psychotic person who screams at carnival workers. So she had casually eased away from me and was doing a good job of pretending that she didn't know me.

It was at this point that I realized that, while I had lost the respect of the crowd, I was holding most of the cards. I knew he wasn't going to let me play anymore, but having a dissatisfied customer yelling at you is bad for business. So I just kept yelling "I want my money!" over and over. In a final desperate attempt to retain my $4, the carny accused me of running a con! Apparently, playing a game you know how to win is considered a con at the fair. I was a little shocked that somehow I was being portrayed as the villain and the guy who stole my money was pretending to be the victim so I decided to drop any remainder of civility and went for the knock out punch:

SIR, BEING CALLED A CON-ARTIST BY A CARNIVAL WORKER MIGHT VERY WELL BE ROCK BOTTOM FOR ME!

That was all it took. In a fit of rage the carny gave me back my $4. As the crowd dissipated and the dust settled, Christena finally wandered back over to me and took this photo:

So what should have been a fun event was marred by an ugly scene. In hindsight, I wish I'd just had fun with it. In the scheme of things the $4 was insignificant, but as the time I didn't feel like I should let them keep my money if they weren't going to let me play.