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As I prepare Industrial Cat Food to go live, I have decided to post some writings from my previous archive that are still relevant today to help finalize the set-up – new blogs coming soon.

“People are frugal in guarding their personal property, but as soon as it comes to squandering time, they are most wasteful of the one thing in which it is right to be stingy.”

Seneca.

When I first moved to Prague back in my 20s, I had two college friends living there with me. After 12-18 months, both of them went back to the states to “start their lives” and both of them immediately went to grad school once they returned home. Despite having a deep respect for education, I argued at the time that we had already started our lives by staying in Prague and that our experience living abroad was the best type of post-college education we could get. I believed that by following our desire to stay in Europe, life would provide us with the opportunities that they were ironically going back to school to find. They saw things differently and we went our separate ways.

I was reminded of this last week when an American girl I know from Prague posted on Facebook that she is going back to school to get a masters in international marketing and entrepreneurship. The focus of her masters surprised me because this woman had been running her own business in Prague for the last couple years and I believe that endeavor must have provided a better education in “entrepreneurship” than any school could ever hope to. Even though I barely know this woman, I found myself troubled by the post.

It’s strange how easily people take themselves out of the real game of life to do things they believe will make them more prepared for the future, but in doing so, they’re just pressing a reset or taking a time-out and may miss the greatest opportunities that life has in store for them. For many pursuits, life is the best teacher. This applies to entrepreneurship and most business, but also to sales, creative writing/enterprise and many other disciplines. There are just many things that come from within and cannot be formally taught.

Live in the present. Don’t wait or delay dreams or ambitions until you feel more ready- go out and grab them by the throat if you have to. All of us are born with individuality, creativity and lofty dreams, but as life goes by, these passions and ideas dissipate and by the time many of us are in our 30s, they’re just tired echoes bouncing around in the deep recess of our minds. Society and culture have drowned them with a fear of failure and the idea that for success you need to have a career, get married and raise a family. The problem with this program is that for many it’s a grind and as you grind from day-to-day, week-to-week, year-to-year, you’re grinding away everything that makes you unique and gives you the chance to do something extraordinary and be truly happy. If the pursuit is worthy, it is totally ok to fail at it. Don’t let that fear hold you back and oftentimes, failure is the best teacher.

I’ve seen many people who had ambition in their youth to do something big or create something immortal change their tune as the grind wore them down and now they’re just trying to get through life. Getting through life is not a good or healthy dream, but many hold onto it nonetheless. Their ambition then passes to their children. The children become their one true accomplishment, but it’s clear when you talk to them that they’re not happy with their lives, their marriages, or their jobs. Their dreams have been written off as youthful exuberance replaced by being responsible adults, but what is responsible about grinding through life and abandoning your dreams?

Be wary of this. If you’re lucky enough to think differently about life and have ambition greater than just finding a stable career and someone to marry, hold onto it and force life to give it to you. Do not hide from it or wait until you feel ready. You will never be more prepared to chase your ambition than you are today. This is the path forward.

Seneca wrote about the shortness of life thousands of years ago and throughout his treatise on the subject, he continually drove in the idea that time is the most precious commodity we have and that we all waste it carelessly. Don’t waste the time that life has given you by waiting for tomorrow or staying in a bad situation. Don’t hide in school or the office or in an unhappy life because you find yourself at a crossroads and don’t know what to do. Live true to yourself and the right path will open up and show you the way. And you’ll be happier because of it.

“Whatever can happen at any time, can happen today.”

Seneca

As I prepare Industrial Cat Food to go live, I have decided to post some writings from my previous archive that are still relevant today to help finalize the set-up – new blogs coming soon.

“Things gained through unjust fraud are never secure.”

Sophocles

I didn’t think I’d write about politics again this week, but the subject remains on my mind. That’s largely because I’m visiting Kiev and almost every Ukrainian I know is asking me the same questions: “What do Americans think of Trump?” and “What’s going on with Trump and Putin?” When you consider that Ukraine is still engaged in a prolonged war with Russia, this isn’t surprising. What is surprising is how hard it is to answer. Does anyone really know where U.S. policy currently stands or if this Administration will let the Russians off the hook for their illegal annexation of Crimea and occupation of the Donbas region (not to mention tampering with our elections)?

“It’s shocking and depressing, but I have no idea what’s going on,” Is all I can tell them, “I think it’s clear that the Russians have a lot of compromat on Trump, but while our system is supposed to be able to deal with this type of thing, the Republicans in power are refusing to maintain checks and balances on the presidency and my country is failing because of it.” I usually add, “It’ll all come down to the elections in November, if the Democrats manage to take back the House and the Senate, things will be ok, but if people don’t show up to vote and the Republicans maintain control, I have no idea what’s going to happen, except that it will not be good for the U.S. or world.”

The responses I’m getting to this sad testimonial are usually silence and disbelief. I’ve just confirmed their worst fears. How can this be the America that people have looked to throughout history as a moral bulwark against global tyranny and oppression? How is it even possible? Sometimes, they say something along these lines and I can only shrug, as I too am asking these questions as daily political headlines continue to assault my world ideology.

By a strange twist of fate, my return back to the States after decades living abroad coincided with the 2016 election campaign and Trump’s victory. I feel how Hamlet must have felt upon his return home. My state of mind is lost in a mild, but tragic despair. Something is indeed rotten in the United States, as it was in Denmark for returning prince.

Hamlet is a good parallel. When I studied the play, we spent a lot of time learning about Elizabethan society and culture to have a thorough understanding of the tragedy’s backdrop. We then compared it to ancient Greece to better understand Hamlet’s psychological downfall. Many similar immoral and unethical acts took place in classical Greek tragedy, but those protagonists never struggled with the angst and despair that possessed Shakespeare’s troubled heroes. The only significant difference is that Christian thought didn’t exist in classical Greece and as such, neither did the notion of moral guilt. While it cannot be found anywhere in Greek tragedy, it’s everywhere in Shakespearian tragedy.

Hamlet’s immense struggle to right his world is tied to this notion. His world ideology collapsed when his uncle murdered his father and married his mother and since he couldn’t rationalize these immoral atrocities, his convictions were lost and his sanity was pushed to its limit. Christian values are still deeply entrenched in the Western mind. With the rise of a completely immoral and unethical man to the most powerful political office that symbolized moral rectitude and decency, our ideology is also collapsing. I believe this is the base source of the angst and confusion so many are experiencing and this has led many Republicans to lose their convictions.

“Excessive fear is always powerless.”

Aeschylus

Republican leaders continue to go along with the President because they cannot properly rationalize what’s happening. They can only focus on the immediate fear losing power and support from Trump’s rabid base. They’re blind to the forest and only see the trees directly in front of them. This loss of ideology has led to an ineffectual government where corruption (of mind and legislation) is undermining our very foundations while also pushing many to their mental limits. Some politicians are taking the easy way out and leaving public office, but their current and recent actions will leave us in ruin. Many others are relying on stale, rote slogans of support for the President that do not make any sense.

Trump has started a fire. It smoldered at first, but now burns out of control. Will we allow this fire to reach the magnitude of destruction that it did in Rome under Nero (who also typified moral degradation, great corruption and extravagance)? It was Nero who in AD 64 lit his capital on fire for political purposes, but the fire grew out of control and destroyed the vast majority of the city. He then blamed it on a new “cult” called Christianity and used it launch the Empire’s first persecution of the Christians. That disaster finally pushed Roman leaders to start working to have him removed, but many historians believe that Nero’s emperorship pushed the Roman Empire onto a new path that ultimately led to its complete collapse.

“Fortune cannot aid those who do nothing.”

Sophocles

Is Trump our Nero and will U.S. voters overcome this challenge that has befallen other civilizations before us and put out the fire that is starting to rage, or will the masses remain in this ideological daze long enough to allow him to take down the civilized world before snapping out of it?

I don’t know the answer, but I’m hopeful and thus, will continue advocating for as many firemen as possible to show up at the polls this November to extinguish this threat to our democracy and provide us with a new birth of moral decency, so that government of the people, by the people and for the people, shall not perish from this earth.