Why are conservatives upset with the whole Gruber thing? I mean, clearly the people he thought were stupid were the ones he convinced to support Obamacare. Democrats should be mad as hell at him. Conservatives should rightfully be pointing, laughing, and saying, “We told you so,” I would think.

Turns out I have not been able to finish the second novel yet. There’s a reason, mind you, and it’s that I had to move to start a new job. Yes, regrettably, my writing has yet to make me fantastically wealthy. The fact is that video games pay a lot better, and pretty much finance any writing I am able to do. I’ll be on a much reduced schedule, so it may be March before I am done. It’s coming though.

I’ve just begun final editing on “The Will of Ilaweh”. I hope that will last only a few weeks, which means it should be ready by Christmas.

My novella “Soothsayer” will be free for downloading on cyber Monday if you haven’t read it. I could really use some reviews, if anyone has the time.

My first novel, “The Dead God’s Due“, is now available on Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing. You can find this and my other work here.

I finally decided to take the plunge and put some of my stuff out on Amazon’s Kindle Digital Publishing. You can find links and descriptions of my published work here.

Matt’s first law of programing: you are an idiot.

Not exactly flattering, eh? It certainly doesn’t make the old ego stand at attention, and yet there is a reason it’s the First Law: it is true, and embracing it is the solution to most bugs. The vast majority of problems one encounters are due to mistakes he has made, either from commission or omission. You want certain things to happen, and so you have a certain mindset that they are in fact happening. Obviously, they are not, or you would get the results you seek, and yet it is devilishly difficult at times to see one’s own mistakes because of limited perspective. It is only by embracing the idea that you likely did something wrong that you can alter that skewed perspective and find bugs.

Obvious, isn’t it? But why, then, do we go out of our way to avoid such an obvious approach to problems in other areas of our lives?

I admit to suffering from it, though less so as I grow older and wiser. I try to practice such things in life, but I certainly have my moments of failure. I notice that they go hand in hand with the times I am feeling particularly self-righteous.

One incident stands out in my mind. I was late for work, and in a hurry. I was also driving an expensive sports car, which likely added to my egotistical mood, less in a penis-waving way, and more in a ‘my shit is really fast and slow bitches should get the fuck out” kind of mindset.

There was a large moving van in front of me. I saw that the next lane was open, and that we were in a lane marked by a solid white line. Now, for some strange reason, this did not register in my mind as ‘We are not allowed to change lanes.” It registered as “He is not allowed to change lanes.”

Isn’t that the very essence of arrogance and self absorbed thinking?

Naturally, then, I swerved into the other lane, intending to roar past the truck, when, to my dismay, the truck also changed lanes. I barely avoided a collision, and I was hopping mad.

I pulled alongside the van, cursing the driver and flipping him off. The driver, a young black man, rolled down the window and offered a conciliatory look. “Hey, man,” he said, “Don’t be so angry. Let’s talk about this like reasonable people.”

But I was angry, and self righteous to boot. “You stupid fuck!” I shouted. “You almost killed me! You weren’t supposed to change lanes!”

The man looked at me strangely. “Just listen to me for a minute, man, let me talk to you,” he pleaded. “Yes, I wasn’t supposed to change lanes. But you did it too! I thought you wouldn’t be changing lanes. We both made a mistake.”

Had I been a sensible person at the time, I would have accepted this. It was, after all, nothing but plain truth. We had  both made the same mistake. How could I be angry at him? And yet I was, very much so, enough that his very reasonable and non-hostile attempt to defuse the situation had little effect on my mood.

My answer? I just shouted, “No!” at him, rolled up my window, and sped off. As my anger faded, I kept seeing his face in my mind as I shouted my stupid answer to his sensible words. He was not angry. He looked, if anything, sad, disappointed that his attempt at reason had been rebuffed with stupidity and anger.

I have seen that face in my memory often over the years. There was a lesson, there, one I try to bear in mind as I make my way in life. I am a smart guy, but I have always been a little on the passionate side. I try a little harder these days to actually hear what people are saying before I make a judgment. I don’t always succeed.

But I do my best to never again shout “No!” and run away when someone is trying to reason out a conflict.

I am sorry, Mr. Truck Driver. You were right. I did it too.

You were the better man that day.

Hrm, at 43, I am still behaving a little too much like 23, still justifying bad behavior with the notion that I have worked hard and therefore deserve it. While I suppose that is occasionally true, it is more often than not an excuse to cheat whatever plan I have in place I am trying to follow: financial, dietary, productivity, etc. Perhaps it is simply the curse of the creative that we are able to find so many excuses, but in the end, it’s all a case of fooling one’s self. Math and physics are implacable: you can’t talk your way out of the consequences any more than you can beat a wall at tennis.

Here’s the truth: I have certain goals, and I need to do better at achieving them. Step one for me has always been writing them down. There is a certain magic in the act. I can plan things better when I do.

And more to the point, I follow the plan I have better when I know I will have to confess any failings.

Money, health, and creation. Those are the goals. Now for a roadmap.