Babel Babble

Today I heard a story about an acquaintance who is taking a fall off a pretty impregnable perch. Third such story this month. In a string of similar months. One of the folks is a close friend and a really good person who got out on the ledge and the jury is still out on whether they can put humpty dumpty back together again. Cross collateralized and the wheels are off the coach. One of the other tales is a story of a great empire that is now running on fumes and life support.  Names aren't important. Everybody knows somebody who had a great fall.

These stories unnerve me because I have lived them. My family was in the real estate development business.  My father worked hard his whole life, came to this country an immigrant who didn't speak the language, and ended up living the american dream with a slight pause for service in World War II. He built a very successful business, something that took decades, and a charlatan and a thief stole it all in a second in a deft predacious swoop. Twelve million dollars gone in a puff of smoke.

My dad always said not to do business with someone you couldn't afford to sue but he got weak and forgot his own advice. We won a unanimous jury trial but you can't fight a billionaire. May he rot in hell.  So everything vanished. No one made out but the devil and the lawyers.

I thought I was retired in my late thirties. And guess what, John Lennon was right. About life and making other plans. Larceny, cancer, divorce, bankruptcy, there's no man or woman who can't be reduced to rubble in the blink of an eye. I know. Went through all of it. Penthouse to the outhouse in five seconds. Thank god I found a woman who said she would stick with me if we had to live in a cardboard box on the street.  And has, through all the bullshit. And we clawed our way back, with little outside help and got a second chance. Reborn if you will.

I wonder if there is a lesson in all of this pain Americans and others are experiencing? I know the pain firsthand, having experienced a total financial collapse after my bank, Home Federal, was taken over in the middle of my last construction project. I twisted in the wind and was left for dead. Thank you, Ronald Reagan. That S&L deregulation thing worked brilliantly. What I took from my experience after a painful convalescence, is that it is good to imagine that the wolves are always nipping at your ankles.  I stopped financially exposing myself so much. Never bought the nice car. Or the new house. God, I would kill for a vacation to Kauai right about now but I will probably have to wait a few more years.

When I did fall, I had several people come up and tell me that they couldn't stand me when I was an arrogant high flyer and that financial ruin may have brought out the best in me. Go figure. But you certainly find out who your friends are and the importance of family when the shit hits the fan.

I think I despised the entitled at an early age and then got slightly co-opted and then maybe suspended judgement somewhat. You know, the people who were born on third base and all thought they hit triples. It's all a matter of what is important to you. There is a line in a once popular song that goes "put your gold money where your love is, baby." The people I met in this life who were the most financially successful were certainly not the smartest or even the luckiest. They have always been the most driven. And there is always a trade off.  We have all met the people who stepped on toes and clawed their way to the top and then wondered why no one wanted to play with them because they were such innately soulless pieces of shit. 


So maybe we all learn something as a people during dark economic times, here's hoping that things are truly on the rebound.  That whatever goes up must come down and that things don't ascend forever. And they don't stay bad forever either. Things will get better. That the only things truly important are the health of your loved one's. And that we can do okay when we have to do without.  Except paintings. You need paintings.

 The lake rises above the trees:
 The image of PREPONDERANCE OF THE GREAT.
 Thus the superior man, when he stands alone,
 Is unconcerned,
 And if he has to renounce the world,
 He is undaunted.

I Ching