Crazy.

Over the past few weeks, I've been working really hard to get situated in this van experiment. I've rented a place, although it looks like as a result of the tumultuous economic times, I will be looking for a new one... the property owners are selling the house (and driveway). It's no big deal for me. There are always Walmarts and dark alleys and friends' houses. It's just funny how the trickle down effect seems to pour down or flash flood down when it's negative, but when it's positive, there seems to be a great levee in place to keep it all contained higher up.

Over a week ago, I visited my friend Todd, and we talked briefly about the crisis. Todd lives off the grid. He has a modest cabin with solar power, well water, a septic system, and a garden. He lives 15 miles from the closest town, a modest city of 6,000 people. In his words, this economic crisis is a big game that people are tying to convince us we're losing but that he (as well as I) do not play. He's not invested. I'm only marginally invested. He and I aren't taking the hits that others are. He and I didn't buy the house that we should have known we couldn't afford. We didn't make the mistakes that people all over the economic scale, rich and poor, have made and are now suffering for.

But yet people are still suffering. I could be insensitive and purely to-each-their-own and say that everyone who is now paying for this deserves to be. However, I think that a majority of the people losing houses are simply uneducated. That's not completely their fault. It's crappy that the people going through this trauma are the ones who haven't been taught how to balance a checkbook, haven't been raised to appreciate hard work.

More thoughts to come... (I'm on a break at work.)