Guest Wednesday

Things I Wish I’d Known: The Final Installment

By J.S. Watts

When I started writing this series of guest blog posts, back in the distant mists of 2019, I wish I’d known how many posts I was going to write. Maybe I’d have structured things better, but I didn’t, so I didn’t. I just put pen to paper (yes, I write first drafts longhand. Is that an issue?) and kept on writing.

About what has subsequently turned out to be half way through, I developed a fixation on getting to seven posts. I have a memory of seven being the magic number for U.S. TV series, as in a show got syndicated after seven series. Does that still happen? But what the syndication rights of television programmes have to do with an indefinite series of blog posts, I still don’t know.

Then the publication of my next novel, Old Light, was unavoidably and unexpectedly delayed (see the sixth post in this series: Getting Published Can Take a Long, Long Time) until about the time of the seventh post and I felt I shouldn’t end things just as the book was coming out because it would look as if I had planned it that way as a marketing ploy (no planning was involved in the writing of this series, let me reassure you, and even less marketing – see the seventh post for that). So, I kept on writing and this is the result: the final post in a solid, eight post series.

However, it is starting to feel like it is time to put my pen down on these posts and rest my weary left hand (yes, not only do I write longhand, but I’m also left handed. You didn’t know I was so quirky, did you?).

There are still things I wish I’d known when I started writing, like: you can’t please all the people all the time; not everyone is going to like your writing, however good you think it is and maybe it actually is (I mean, I still don’t like Wordsworth and yet he continues to be venerated in literary circles – go figure); you’ll never really know how good your writing actually is; and writing is a life choice, not a fortune-generating career. Despite my continuing ignorance and the potential for further posts that highlight it, I feel it is time to bow out before I run out of steam and you become bored with reading this. One of the things I do know is to quit while I’m ahead. At least, I hope I’m still ahead, but I guess that’s just another thing I don’t really know.

Anyway, thank you for reading.

J.S.Watts

Old Light, the second novel in the Witchlight Series by J.S.Watts, is published by Vagabondage Press (2020). ISBN: 978-1-946050-20-5

Meaningful Monday

.

There’s This Joke

As with all jokes, it’s not really funny if there isn’t a grain of truth in the underlying assumptions. So here goes:

There’s a guy sitting on his porch watching a city crew working at the far end of the block. One worker in an orange vest jumps out of the truck and digs a hole in the boulevard strip, then jumps back in.

A minute passes, and another guy in an orange vest jumps out of the other side of the truck and fills in the hole, then jumps back in. The driver pulls ahead a hundred feet and the process repeats.

When the truck reaches the man’s house he calls out, “Hey, why are you digging the hole and filling it in?”

The guy in the orange vest says, “The guy who puts the tree in the hole is off today.”

The joke, which you’ve probably heard before (in one form or another), is meant to show how government works - or doesn’t, in the case of that joke. It’s why people ended up taking their shoes off at the airport. One guy tries to hide a bomb in his shoe and everyone else has to take their shoes off before they’re cleared to board.

But you have to ask yourself why we aren’t asked to take off our underwear after the guy tried to use his underwear as a bomb.

This may seem like a digression, but it pertains:

My paternal grandparents grew up in the Great Depression. They never threw anything away. (There’s another joke about an old lady who died. Her granddaughter found an envelope with bits of string. Written on the envelope was, “Bits of string too short to save.” But they were saved.) My dad pretty much inherited that philosophy. “You never know when you’ll need that.” He saved everything.

So I’m wondering what the effect of the national lockdown will have on those growing up now. Will the teens of today always have a stockpile of toilet paper and bottled water?

Guessing things like that can be fun, but not really fruitful.

Probably a more likely effect will be what the government is doing now: stimulus after stimulus is going through Congress. We’ll probably end up with this generation’s equivalent of the WPA, the CCC, and more.

Some people say the New Deal saved this nation. Others say it prolonged a normal economic downturn into that Great Depression. I’m not going to promote either side of that issue.

Probably the best thing for America in this COVID-19 era is for individuals to help other individuals. Making sweeping changes is inevitable, but people helping people will accomplish more than any government program.

The thing is, the poor know how to be poor. They know how best to help another poor person. And they’re more willing to do it. Taking money from people who don’t want to give it up will only exacerbate the economic resentment in America. Poor people will hate the greedy rich, the wealthy will resent those too lazy to go out and get a job. And neither side will end up really helping the other.

Sure, there are those on both sides of the economic divide who fit the stereotype put forth by the other. That doesn’t mean the majority fit into the mold.

My suggestion is to give to charity what you can afford to give. Non-profits are a lot more able to means-test than the government. Here’s why:

The government has to be fair, so they set up rules. If you qualify (by the rules) for assistance, you get assistance. There are always going to be people like the lottery winner (couple million dollars, if memory serves) getting SNAP benefits. The government cannot deny that assistance because the lottery winner hasn’t worked for a couple of years - unemployed, no income, etc.

But a non-profit can take a look at the lottery winner and laugh. “No way, Mr. Millionaire. You have too much money so you don’t get free cheese.” That means the money and food donated to the Food Pantry goes to help people who really need it, instead of being handed out according to rules that cannot cover every contingency.

Yes, that example is simplistic, but serves as a caution to having the government take care of things best left to charitable organizations. We don’t need to send cash to every man, woman, and child. What we need is for people to turn to other people and help. Hoarding for your own use only makes the situation worse, forces the government to step in, and waste more taxpayer money on programs with a lower success rate than charities.

God created mankind in His own image. Honor Him by helping those He created instead of building barns to hold your TP stash.